AFTCKCTCKATD - Chapter 15
Chapter 15
He Said He Would Protect Ji Yanqing, He Said It!
Ji Yanqing gently removed his goggles, revealing the handsome eyebrows and eyes that had always been hidden, now brimming with gentleness. He rubbed the back of Ji Le’s little paw, which was tightly holding onto his fingers, with the pad of his finger.
Ji Le’s hands were small, yet they possessed a surprising strength.
Sometimes, the words of children touch our hearts more easily, because they speak with sincerity and purity.
“Sleep,” Ji Yanqing said softly.
Ji Le looked towards Ji Yanqing. Ji Yanqing’s eyes were gorgeous, his pupils appeared deep yet clear under the night sky, like jade, gentle and serene.
Hidden text Short Story: Little Wolf, pt 1:
The crisp mountain air whipped around the little wolf, carrying the scent of pine and damp earth. His fur, matted and tangled, was the color of the forest floor, speckled with the dust of countless journeys. He had been alone for so long, his memories a hazy blur of pain and hunger. The only warmth he knew was the fire that flickered in the eyes of the two young men who had found him, huddled in the shadow of a crumbling rock.
Ji Yanqing, do you not believe I can protect you either?
Ji Le withdrew his hand, feeling very wronged. He just wanted to protect Ji Yanqing well.
“I believe you,” Ji Yanqing said softly, his voice barely a whisper, “But you’re still so young. You need to grow taller before you can wield a sword...”
Ji Le poked his head out from under the blanket and reached out to grasp Ji Yanqing’s hand once more. He pulled Ji Yanqing’s hand beneath the blanket, placing it over his own heart. Ji Yanqing’s hand was ice cold, and Ji Le wanted to warm it up for him.
Ji Yanqing allowed his hand to be gently enveloped by a warm embrace.
No one spoke; in the darkness, only faint breathing sounds remained.
As time slipped into the deep of night, the world fell into silence. Along with the darkness and stillness came a chill, causing Ji Yanqing’s body to quickly grow cold, yet the hand hidden under the blanket remained warmly insulated.
Leaning against the wall, Ji Yanqing sat with his eyes gently closed in rest, yet his attention was sharply focused.
“......Xian......Gu......”
In the silence, a muffled voice suddenly emerged.
Ji Yanqing lightly opened his eyes, inside the house, several people wrapped in coats or blankets were all sleeping soundly.
Ji Yanqing gently tightened his grip on the axe that was lying by his side, holding his breath to listen attentively.
Three minutes passed, and all was silent in the darkness.
Five minutes had passed when Ji Yanqing felt a slight confusion. Had he heard it wrong?
After listening for a while without hearing any sound, Ji Yanqing gradually relaxed and leaned back against the wall.
The moment he leaned against the wall, a faint, almost imperceptible sound drifted in from the darkness outside the window. A chill suddenly raced up his spine, leaving his back pressed against the wall feeling entirely cold.
“......after......you first......”
That voice was stretched and fragmented by the darkness, eerily indescribable. Ji Yanqing attempted to discern it, but the voice vanished once more.
Ji Yanqing got up lightly, his movements causing the axe to scrape against the ground, sending out a sound.
Hearing a disturbance, someone not far away lifted their head and asked, “What’s going on?”
When Ji Yanqing looked over, he saw a bald head. The pain in his eyes made it difficult for him to sleep soundly.
Ji Yanqing asked casually, “It seems like someone is calling out for someone, a woman.”
Baldy propped himself up with one arm, half-sitting, and shivered, “Are you perhaps too nervous?”
Where did this woman come from in this godforsaken place?
Baldy maintained a posture of half-propping himself up, holding his breath and listening intently. The darkness was vast and still, devoid even of the sounds of insects or birds.
A couple of minutes passed and still, there was no sound. The bald man suggested, “How about I keep watch for you for a while?”
“No—” The words of Ji Yanqing’s soft refusal had just reached his lips when the familiar call came again.
With the experience from before, he listened more clearly this time; it was indeed a shout, the shout of a woman.
Hidden text Short Story: Little Wolf, pt 2:
He remembered their kindness, the gentle touch of their hands as they fed him warm milk and wrapped him in soft fabric. They called him 'Little Wolf', and he felt a strange, new feeling bloom in his chest. A feeling he’d never known before. He was not alone. He had a family.
She seemed to be calling out someone’s name, or perhaps speaking something. However, she was too far from them, her voice obscured by the night, becoming muffled and eerily haunting.
“...” This time, the bald man also heard it. He cursed and quickly woke the others up.
T0 m5ke m3 st0p putting these annoying ass phrases everywhere, read on https://rottentledits.blogspot.com/ ... hehehe, it's fun tho
Awakened, everyone’s first reaction was to scan their surroundings. A quick look around revealed no zombies in sight, and all eyes turned toward the bald man and Ji Yanqing.‘“Shh, listen,” Baldy quickly gestured for silence before anyone could ask questions.
Woken up unexpectedly, several people felt a bit displeased, but they quickly suppressed their dissatisfaction with reason. Still wearing traces of sleepiness on their faces, they all held their breath and listened intently.
In the darkness, there was complete silence. Not a chirp, not a tweet, not even the sound of the wind could be heard. The entire village seemed as if it had perished.
Hearing nothing at all, Xia Shen Shu turned to the bald man, wanting to ask what was happening. However, as his gaze shifted, he saw Ji Yanqing still intently listening by the window. The question he had ready at his lips was swallowed back.
Baldy might not be reliable, but Ji Yanqing most certainly is.
Xia Shen Shu once again focused his attention to listen quietly.
A minute, two minutes, five minutes passed, and just when the others were about to lose their patience and start stirring, a faint, barely existent shout once again emanated from the darkness.
“I’ve been... so hungry...”
The voice seemed to come from afar, yet it felt as though it was echoing right beside their ears, causing everyone’s skin to crawl with goosebumps and sending shivers down their spines.
Lan Zi swallowed nervously, “A living person?”
Xia Shen Shu retorted, “Would you really be shouting these things in such a haunted place in the dead of night if you were living?”
Zombies are extremely sensitive to sounds, even the slightest noise can provoke them into action, so moving through the apocalypse as quietly as possible is the primary rule for survival.
Unless someone is out of their mind, there’s no way anyone would be yelling in such a godforsaken place in the dead of night.
“Do you think she could possibly be...” Lan Zi was frightened by the thought that had just occurred to her.
“She seems to be calling us over, saying she’s hungry...” Before the apocalypse, Qian Guoyun worked in a physically demanding job, and his physique, built with strong sinews, appeared quite powerful. However, at this moment, his whole body trembled, and his voice clearly shook with it.
He is most afraid of these mysterious and supernatural things.
They could at least fight against the zombies, but when it comes to these mysterious and supernatural beings, they can’t just go up to them and throw punches.
“Don’t scare yourself,” Ji Yanqing said gently.
“We could go take a look,” Xia Shen Shu said.
Everyone turned their eyes towards Xia Shen Shu. Has he gone mad?
Xia Shen Shu said, “Even if we don’t go over, she might come to us.”
The room was deathly silent, and in the darkness, everyone felt a chilling coldness attack them, making not just their limbs but even the blood within their veins feel frozen.
Will that thing come over?
Xia Shen Shu added, “We could leave now, but we’ve run out of food.”
Ji Yanqing cast a glance outside the window, quickly making up his mind. He slung his backpack over his shoulder and headed downstairs.
Seeing this, Ji An and Ji Le hurriedly followed, both of them significantly frightened by the bizarre situation.
Xia Shen Shu and a few others followed as well.
Hidden text Short Story: Little Wolf, pt 3:
The young men, Ji Le and Ji An, were different from the other humans he had encountered. They were not afraid of him. They saw him, not as a beast, but as a child in need of care. They were both survivors in a world ravaged by the virus, a world where the only law was survival. They were fighting a desperate war against the zombie kings, who ruled with their legions of undead.
When the group descended to the living room on the ground floor, that shout echoed again in the darkness, clearer this time. The voice was coming from within the village.
Ji Yanqing didn’t head for the living room door, which may cause some noise when opened. Instead, he led the way by climbing out the window. At the end, he didn’t forget to pull both Ji An and Ji Le out after him.
T0 m5ke m3 st0p putting these annoying ass phrases everywhere, read on https://rottentledits.blogspot.com/ ... hehehe, it's fun tho
The house was surrounded by a wall with an iron gate. Before, they had thought the iron gate provided security and reliability. But now, as they prepared to leave, everyone broke into a cold sweat as the gate was precariously opened, weary of letting it make a single squeak.
After cracking open a sliver in the iron gate, a group of people squeezed through as cautiously as possible.
In the final moments, when Xia Shen Shu passed through the iron gate, that sound echoed once more.
This time, they stepped outside the house, where the voice was clearer than ever before; indeed, it was a woman speaking. She was calling out to someone, telling them she was hungry.
She seemed to have been hungry for a very long time, her voice feeble and weak, a hunger so profound it brought her immense pain.
They were in a deserted, strange village, amidst darkness so thick you couldn’t see your own hand in front of your face, combined with the sounds of obvious pain and weak cries, all of this together made Ji Yanqing’s forehead break out in sweat unintentionally.
Indeed, there were no zombies in the village. As everyone followed a path that cut through half the village without spotting a single soul, this not only made everyone breathe a sigh of relief but also heightened their caution. Could the disappearance of those zombies be related to that woman?
“It seems to be in that building ahead...” the bald man lowered his voice.
At the corner, the crowd turned their attention towards a solitary villa ahead.
The villa was quite new, adorned with bright red couplets on the door, wishing the newlyweds a lifetime of togetherness, “May you grow old together.” The owner of the house had just gotten married shortly before the outbreak of the virus.
The bright red couplets appeared especially eerie in the darkness, but what was even more bizarre was the living room door locked from the outside with chains, as if fearing something inside might escape…
Pss1... ar3 y0u 3nj0y1ng th1s c0nt3nt? H34d 0v3r t0 https://rottentledits.blogspot.com/ f0r th3 0r1g1n4l v3rs10n! 1t's wh3r3 th3 m4g1c h4pp3ns, w1th0ut 4ny p3sky 4ds. S33 y0u th3r3!
“You guys wait here.” Ji Yanqing quickly headed in that direction.
He didn’t bother opening the iron gate; instead, he sprinted more than ten steps along the path, then with a light kick-off against the wall, he effortlessly scaled it. Upon landing, he glanced around swiftly, resembling a spirit of the night, silently and quickly moving towards the large gate locked with chains.
The door was locked, but it wasn’t shut tightly.
Ji Yanqing slightly tilted his head to peer through the narrow crack, no wider than a finger. Beyond it, in the dark, chaotic hall, a thick scent of blood and decay lingered.
The ground was covered in a thick layer of blood, and everywhere you looked, there were carcasses gnawed down to the bones. A heavy iron chain, substantial enough to weigh three to four hundred pounds, threaded through a stone pillar and stretched from the stone to the window at the back of the hall.
The window, fortified with anti-theft iron bars, was forcibly torn open from the middle by something.
Ji Yanqing’s gaze disdainfully lingered on the chains lying on the ground. Regardless of what this room was meant to imprison, it had already escaped.
Ji Yanqing lightly stepped back, knowing he must relay this matter to others as soon as possible; they could no longer stay in this village.
Before he had the chance to turn around, the foul stench of blood assaulted his senses. The hair on his back stood on end in an instant, and his body reacted before his mind did, swinging the axe in his hand backward.
Ji Yanqing moved with incredible speed and tremendous force, his axe mercilessly striking something. That thing let out a whimper before being sent flying, crashing against an iron gate on the side.
“Zombies!” someone screamed out.
“Be careful!”
Ji Yanqing only managed to catch a glimpse of a gaunt, twisted silhouette before the four-legged creature lunged at him again with incredible speed.‘Ji Yanqing instinctively lifted his foot and kicked, sending that thing flying back into the yard.
“Take Ji An and run!” Almost at the same moment, Ji Yanqing charged towards the enemy, his axe aimed straight for the opponent’s neck.
He already understood what it was.
He couldn’t kill the opponent, so all he could do was to do his utmost to hold the other back.
“Hehe...” The figure in the darkness let out a laugh, their voice changing from its previous weakness to a sharp and excited tone.
Pss1... ar3 y0u 3nj0y1ng th1s c0nt3nt? H34d 0v3r t0 https://rottentledits.blogspot.com/ f0r th3 0r1g1n4l v3rs10n! 1t's wh3r3 th3 m4g1c h4pp3ns, w1th0ut 4ny p3sky 4ds. S33 y0u th3r3!
Hearing the smugness in that laughter, Xia Shen Shu and the others, with their hearts leaping to their throats, had their pupils suddenly contract, feeling as if they had been plunged into an icy lake.
“An Awakened zombie...” Lan Zi whispered in despair, her mind going blank.
Facing ordinary zombies, they might stand a chance to fight back, but when facing awakened zombies, even those just barely awakened, they are undoubtedly doomed to die.
Because for them, it wasn’t just their consciousness that awakened. They also gained formidable physical strength, power, speed, and regenerative abilities. They were practically invulnerable to weapons, essentially immortal.
“Bang! Bang! Bang!” The sound of gunfire erupted, deafening to the ear.
Xia Shen Shu fired three consecutive shots at the monster, but it was futile. The next moment, she still pounced toward Ji Yanqing.
Ji Yanqing, after several attacks, felt the web between his thumb and forefinger split open where he held the axe due to the vibrations. Fresh blood excited the fiend, making it even more ferocious and brutal. Not a mindless and slow zombie, she attacked like a famished lunatic, pouncing ceaselessly. The blood slicked Ji Yanqing’s grip, his defense broken momentarily.
Just as the madman was about to sink her teeth into Ji Yanqing’s shoulder, a young, piercing scream tore through the darkness, “No!”
Ji Le was crying and struggling, trying to escape from Xia Shen Shu’s grasp. His eyes, which should have been dark, were now showing a golden vertical pupil. He was staring intently at the monster, determined not to let it bite Ji Yanqing.
He couldn’t bear to abandon Ji Yanqing. He couldn’t stand the thought of Ji Yanqing dying. He just couldn’t!
The world seemed as if the pause button had been hit; the monster suddenly came to a halt.
----
Comments
Post a Comment