AFTCKCTCKATD - Chapter 16
Chapter 16
He Seemed To Be Afraid That If He Let Go Of Ji Yanqing, Ji Yanqing Would Disappear.
Just as he was about to be bitten, the creature stopped abruptly, motionless. Ji Yanqing was momentarily stunned, but he quickly regained his senses and swiftly took a step back.
He didn’t have the time to figure out what was going on. Swinging the axe in his hand, he struck the creature, caving in its chest with one blow, and sending it hurtling backwards.
Ji Yanqing didn’t look back; with a run-up, he vaulted over the wall, grabbed Ji An who was still on the ground, and in an instant, the two covered a considerable distance.
Seeing this, the others quickly followed suit.
The howling wind rose, making the heartbeat thud in their ears, almost deafeningly loud. Blood coursed through their veins at breakneck speed, their hearts feeling as if they were about to burst. The people, gasping for breath, felt the knife-sharp cold wind scrape painfully deep within their nostrils and throats.
Hidden text Short Story: Little Wolf, pt 4:
Little Wolf watched them train, their movements swift and precise, their eyes sharp and alert. He wanted to be like them, strong and capable. He yearned to help them, to fight alongside them, to protect them from harm. He would learn their ways, learn to fight, learn to survive. He would be their wolf, their loyal companion, their protector.
Racing out of the village in one breath, they sped past the small forest a mile beyond the village limits, and the group headed straight for the farmlands in the distance.
That grove, in total, had only around a hundred trees; it simply couldn’t serve as a hiding place.
In the fields, crops were left unattended; some had withered away while others grew wildly. From a distance, it looked as though weeds were taking over the land.
They rushed into the farmland on the right, everyone crouching low to find a place to hide.
Hidden away, they suppressed their wildly pounding hearts and heavy breathing, as everyone looked towards the direction of the village.
On the road outside the village, a figure was approaching at an extremely swift pace, moving toward the outskirts. This person crawled forward, their emaciated and lanky limbs moving in an awkward yet remarkably quick manner, creating an eerily sinister presence in the darkness.
As the creature drew nearer, everyone covered their mouths and noses, striving to make not even the slightest sound.
The figure, after running through the woods to the vicinity of the farmland, gradually slowed down, eventually stopping at a place only two to three hundred meters away from them.
Losing her target, she let out a roar akin to that of a wild beast from her throat, before diving headfirst into the vegetable garden on her left, which was half the height of a person.
The night was pitch dark, devoid of even the slightest moonlight, causing her figure to quickly vanish into the darkness. This left Ji Yanqing barely able to determine her position by relying on the sound of her movements.
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The sound faded from loud to faint, gradually disappearing into the distance.
Once they were sure the sound had faded into the distance, Ji Yanqing and the few others exchanged glances in the dark, all of them having held their breath to the point of chest pain.
As they were about to lower their hands covering their mouths and noses, a laugh filled with excitement and malice suddenly erupted from behind the crowd, “Ha ha…”
In that instant, those lying on the ground felt their limbs turn as cold as if placed in an ice cellar, their hearts as though they were being tightly gripped and squeezed painfully by someone.
The voice sounded from less than three meters behind them.
Ji Yanqing instinctively swung the axe in his hand with ease.
After suffering a setback once, that woman retreated before Ji Yanqing even made a move. She looked at Ji Yanqing with an excitement and malice in her eyes that sent shivers down one’s spine.
“Run!”
Panicking, they scrambled up from the ground and, once again, turned to flee.
While running, everyone turned their heads back to look.
Ji Yanqing didn’t run away immediately. His muscles tensed as he held onto the axe, locking eyes with the woman until the others had run nearly a hundred meters before he finally turned to follow them.
After running for a distance, Ji Yanqing glanced back. The woman was just staring at them faintly, showing no intention of catching up.
A chill surged into Ji Yanqing’s heart.
After running non-stop for over ten minutes, they finally left the village behind and reached the foothills of a mountain range behind the village. There, the group once again found a spot to stop and hide.
In a hollow within the forest, the darkness was filled with the sound of panting. If it were a leisurely jog, they could keep going for a few hours, but under extreme conditions, twenty minutes was already their limit.
“She’s doing it on purpose,” Ji Yanqing said softly.
“What...”
“She relishes the thrill of the hunt,” Ji Yanqing said softly.
Awakened zombies are beings that are nearly invulnerable to swords and guns. If what Ji Yanqing said is true, then they are undoubtedly doomed.
Despair spread like a thick fog in the hearts of the crowd.
A muffled boom emanated from the mountain range behind them, causing everyone to turn their attention in that direction.
The sound was so distant from them, almost imperceptibly faint.
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***
“Don’t shoot, are you out of your mind?” A man, bearing wounds, scowled as he stopped another beside him. In this situation, firing a gun would be blatantly announcing their presence to the beast out there, wouldn’t it?
Blocked, the other man snapped back to consciousness, his face deathly pale from excessive blood loss.
“Tsk...” The injured man glanced around. “Let’s go, we can’t stay here any longer.”
In the darkness, a group of over twenty people swiftly made their way toward the mountains that lay far from the city.
He ran for more than ten minutes at a stretch and reached the mountainside. The man who had fired the gun earlier looked back and did not see the huge beast behind him. He gasped and said, “Do you think that monster is looking for those two little devils who died earlier...”
Panic flooded the eyes of the two little faces that flashed through the injured man’s mind. A sharp pang jolted through him, bringing a flicker of unease. “How is that possible?”
“But that beast has taken all the children in the team—”
“Quit your blabbering, that’s a monster, what would a monster want with two human brats?” The injured man cursed loudly, “Damn it, this is bad luck!”
As soon as he finished speaking, he did not wait for the other person to say anything, and turned to the hill, and intended to cross the mountain to get away from the city.
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***
In the darkness, Xia Shen Shu said, “Does that sound like gunfire?”
No one spoke, for the voice was too indistinct, far less than the pounding of their hearts in their chests, their heartbeats deafening.
“Now what d-” Before the bald man could finish his sentence, a snap echoed in the darkness.
It was Shia Labeouf!
Everyone’s heart instantly leapt to their throats as they turned their heads in unison towards the direction of the sound, which resembled that of someone stepping on a tree branch.
Holding their breaths in anticipation, they did not hear the anticipated laugh filled with excitement and cruelty in the darkness. As everyone let out a sigh of relief, their foreheads were covered in cold sweat.
“She—” the bald man prepared to speak again.
“You left...Xian...you left...”
The faint and pained cries of a woman echoed behind them, as if weaving through the forested mountains.
“Haha... he left...”
The voice rose again, this time filled with excitement and cruelty, as if she was eagerly anticipating devouring their flesh and drinking their blood, gnawing at them bite by bite.
“...Gu... Xian...”
“Gu Xian...”[e/n: she’s been saying his name with different tones, ie same pinyin but different characters (先 vs 贤, and they sound slightly different, see here and click the audio button: mdbg.net]
The already high-strung group simultaneously turned to look at Zhang Guxian in their midst. They had initially thought that the woman was allowing them passage, but as the voice in the darkness drew progressively nearer, this time they finally made out what she was actually saying.
She wasn’t letting anyone pass; she was calling out the name Zhang Guxian.
A zombie, an awakened zombie, is calling out the name Zhang Guxian!
Xia Shen Shu was the first to react. He grabbed Zhang Guxian, who was right beside him, and pinned him to the ground. Pressing the muzzle of his gun firmly against Zhang Guxian’s chin, he demanded, “You’d better explain to me clearly what the hell is going on!”
At this moment, everyone else also realized what was happening and looked towards Zhang Guxian in disbelief.
“What in the world is going on?” Lan Zi’s voice trembled, her skin breaking out in goosebumps for what seemed like the umpteenth time.
“You’ve known there was something wrong with this village from the start? Why the hell didn’t you say anything sooner, are you trying to get us killed!?” Baldy charged forward, grabbing Zhang Guxian, ready to throw punches.
Under the intense gaze of the crowd, with Xia Shen Shu pressing a gun against his chin, and a bald man clutching at his clothes, Zhang Guxian lay on the ground without uttering a word, adopting an attitude of resigned defiance akin to a broken jar ready to be shattered further.
In the darkness, nobody could see the expression on his face.
“Playing dead, huh?” The bald man raised his hand and swung a punch towards Zhang Guxian’s stomach, thinking if he so wished for death, then he would grant it to him.
“Mmm...” Zhang Guxian groaned in pain, yet he still showed no intention of resisting.
Hidden text Short Story: Little Wolf, pt 5:
One day, they faced a horde of zombies. The battle was fierce and desperate. Ji Le was surrounded, his back against a crumbling wall. The zombies swarmed him, their eyes burning with hunger. Little Wolf, seeing the danger, leaped forward.
“You—” The bald man was so furious he could kill.
“We can’t escape her.” Ji Yanqing’s deliberately lowered voice still carried a hint of sweetness as it echoed in the darkness.
Everyone turned their gaze towards Ji Yanqing.
Ji Yanqing gently removed his backpack and tossed it onto the ground, then he half-knelt to look at Ji An and Ji Le beside him. The two little ones were quite frightened, sobbing as they clung tightly to the hem of Ji Yanqing’s clothes.
After lightly patting the heads of the two little ones, Ji Yanqing looked towards the others. With a cold tone, he spat out three words, “So kill her.”
His voice retained a hint of sweetness, yet the words that left his lips sent a chilling shiver down everyone’s spine, instantly calming the previously furious Baldy and Xia Shen Shu among others. Even their wildly racing hearts were stilled in that moment.
Led by Ji Yanqing, their journey was never about the aloof demeanor he tried hard to project. Perhaps beneath his protective goggles, his face was indeed too beautiful and adorable, but the soul residing within that shell was never cowardly or easily bullied.
The bald man’s Adam’s apple bobbed, “You’re crazy... That’s someone who’s awakened...”
“She won’t let us escape,” Ji Yanqing’s eyes, which should have been obscured by the darkness, were chilling to the bone. “Either we run until we’re utterly exhausted and then get killed by her, or we take a gamble.”
No one spoke in the darkness; it was utterly silent.
“Ha ha...” The faint sound of laughter drew closer and closer, as if that woman was gradually eroding their hope away, bit by bit. She reveled in seeing her prey’s desperate struggles in their dying moments; it excited her, drove her to madness.
She reveled in the excitement that borderlined on madness.
“Haha... Gu... Gu Xian...”
“How can we kill it?” Xia Shen Shu released Zhang Gu Xian, clutching the gun in his hand tightly.
Hidden text Short Story: Little Wolf, pt 6:
He was just a cub, but his heart was filled with courage. He bared his teeth, a small, sharp growl echoing in the air. His fur stood on end, and he charged into the horde. The zombies recoiled, confused and disoriented by this sudden, unexpected attack. The smell of his fear and his wildness, strange and powerful, momentarily paralyzed them. It was enough.
“You’ve gone mad too...” The bald man looked at Xia Shen Shu.
“Do you have any other solutions?” Xia Shen Shu retorted.
The bald man’s face changed colors repeatedly, and he fell silent.
“Find a way to draw her attention,” Ji Yanqing said, looking straight into Xia Shen Shu’s eyes.
With just a few of them, trying to kill that woman is nearly impossible. Sending Xia Shen Shu to attract the woman’s attention is tantamount to sending him to his death, but knowing the odds doesn’t put them any further from the certain death that standing there would bring.
Xia Shen Shu took a deep breath and agreed quite cheerfully, “Alright.”
Hearing that unhesitant word of affirmation, Ji Yanqing’s heart swelled with warmth and he let out a long sigh of relief.
Lan Zi saw this and grit her teeth. While she may not be as physically strong as Ji Yanqing or Xia Shen Shu, she had no desire to be a worthless being, cowering behind others and shrieking in terror. “What are your orders?”
Hearing this, the bald man, Qian Guoyun, and the others also gritted their teeth, took off their backpacks, and threw them into the pit. They had no other choice.‘Ji Yanqing glanced at Ji An and Ji Le, slowly prying their anxious hands off his clothes. “Stay put, I will cover you with a blanket shortly... If we haven’t returned by dawn, you must find a way to leave on your own.”
“Don’t...” Ji Le grasped Ji Yanqing’s hand.
He had long been crying to the point where he couldn’t catch his breath. Despite his best efforts to hold back, sobs and choked cries still spilled out, filling the pit they were in with his unease and heartache.
Hidden text Short Story: Little Wolf, end:
Ji Le, surprised by the cub’s bravery, used the opportunity to push back the zombies. The little wolf, exhausted but unharmed, retreated to his side. He had saved them. From that day on, Little Wolf was more than just their pet. He was their shield, their weapon, their family. He fought with them, learned their ways, and became a part of their survival. He was a wolf, yes, but he was also their brother. He was Little Wolf, and he would be their protector, their loyal friend, until the very end.
Ji An was the same, being only a few months older than Ji Le. He gripped Ji Yanqing’s hand so tightly that his knuckles turned white, as if he was terrified that the moment he let go, Ji Yanqing would vanish into thin air.
Although they were still young, they had already witnessed the brutality of this apocalyptic world. They understood what it meant for the zombies to awaken.
----
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