Seeing that I didn't say anything, the wariness in Old Man Zheng's eyes grew stronger, to the point that the smile on his face stiffened and almost couldn't be maintained.
I stared at him for a while, wanting to say something to ease the awkward atmosphere so he wouldn't notice anything strange, but my mind felt completely stuck, unable to think of anything to say.
Whatever I came up with felt fake somehow.
Old Man Zheng's mouth twitched slightly.
After being silently stared at by me for a few seconds, he gradually withdrew his stiff smile.
"Girl, what are you thinking about?" His tone had clearly cooled compared to earlier.
He had probably noticed something was off—and honestly, it made sense.
I had suddenly shown up at his place, not said much, and just kept staring at him.
Even a fool would find that suspicious.
I forced a smile and, without thinking too much, pointed at the bare wooden board of his bed and said, "Old man, in this cold weather, you're still sleeping on bare wood? Don't you find it freezing? Besides, it's uncomfortable too."
Old Man Zheng was taken aback for a moment.
Then he looked down at the wooden board under him and slightly frowned before looking back at me.
His gaze was now filled with scrutiny and doubt—nothing else.
I kept my mouth stretched into a forced smile as I looked back at Old Man Zheng.
At this point, whether or not my expression looked natural didn't really matter.
Since he'd already sensed something was off, there was no way I could easily fool him now.
And with my poor acting skills, it was clear I wasn't convincing anyone—especially not someone like him, who had lived for decades and was likely hiding some unknown secret.
After a long moment, just as I was debating whether to come right out and ask him what was going on, a sudden, blood-curdling scream from the courtyard outside ripped both of us out of our silent, intense staring match.
The screaming continued.
I was so startled I snapped out of my thoughts and immediately jumped up from the chair.
Old Man Zheng seemed surprised too.
He glanced at me, his expression visibly tense, then got up from the bed.
Without saying another word to me, he turned and ran straight out the door.
I stood frozen for a couple of seconds, stunned by his surprisingly agile movements, then snapped out of it and followed after him.
Before I left, I gave the room one last quick sweep, hoping to spot something unusual—but it was such a rushed glance that I couldn't see anything meaningful.
The screaming had already gone on for a while.
By the time I ran out, Old Man Zheng was standing at the door, craning his neck to scan the courtyard.
When he noticed me behind him, he turned around and closed the security room door without saying a word, then ran straight toward the source of the noise in the courtyard, ignoring my puzzled expression.
The screams were from an unfamiliar male voice—someone I hadn't heard before.
It was probably one of the survivors living in the complex.
But what on earth had happened to make him let out such a piercing, desperate cry?
My first thought was that someone had been bitten by a walker—but then I remembered the tall perimeter walls and the number of soldiers stationed here.
How could a walker possibly be allowed to roam the courtyard and hurt people?
I was just about to dismiss the idea when Old Man Zheng and I had already drawn very close to where the sound was coming from.
The screams had weakened considerably.
When I heard that hoarse, shredded-throat kind of wailing, something tightened in my chest, and I quickened my pace in disbelief, running toward the source of the sound.
It was coming from a fairly large patch of shrubs between the small park and Building One.
Anyone who's lived in a residential complex knows that the trees and bushes in the parks are usually cold-resistant.
Even in winter, they stay green.
The shrubs ahead were like that—over the past few months, they'd gone untrimmed and had grown wild, completely messing up the sightlines.
The screaming had almost completely stopped.
At that point, all I could rely on to pinpoint their location were the familiar growls of a walker and the wet, sticky sounds of something being torn apart.
Honestly, as I moved closer to the bushes trying to locate exactly where it was happening, I was stunned.
How could there possibly be a walker here?
Before I could finish that thought, we rounded a particularly dense cluster of shrubs—and the sight that greeted us hit me like a slap of blood-red paint.
A young man lay sprawled on the ground, eyes wide open.
A massive patch of skin and flesh had been torn off his face, the wound stretching all the way up to expose half his scalp.
Squatting on his abdomen, back turned toward me and the just-arrived Old Man Zheng, was a female walker—covered head to toe in dried, blackened blood.
She was clutching a handful of reeking, blood-slick intestines and stuffing them into her mouth, chomping ravenously.
Not sure if the man had just eaten before he died, but when the female walker absentmindedly turned her head and shoved a handful of unidentifiable organs into her mouth, I saw something thick and yellow splatter out from her mouth—some of it even hung from her lips in sticky strands.
The sight was absolutely revolting.
I was completely nauseated.
A wave of disgust surged through every part of my body, and I instinctively clutched my mouth and stumbled back a couple of steps.
I was just about to bend over and retch when the walker—her mouth still full of entrails—noticed me and Old Man Zheng behind her.
She immediately bared her bloody teeth and twisted her grotesque face into a snarl, staggering toward us menacingly.
Greedy thing!
As she came at us, I fought back the urge to gag and quickly drew my dagger, glaring at this hideous creature who had just savagely killed a man.
Clenching my teeth, I charged forward and delivered a brutal kick with all my strength.
Her body was already rotting and barely holding together, with strips of decayed flesh hanging off her limbs.
When my kick sent her flying into a dense patch of shrubs, the impact literally scraped off a whole layer of her blackened skin.
I seized the opportunity to quickly check the man lying on the ground. H
e was definitely dead—and more importantly, I confirmed he wasn't anyone I knew.
That gave me a small sense of relief.
The female walker, now toppled in the brush, was snarling and struggling to stand.
I tightened my grip on the dagger and didn't wait for her to lunge—I marched straight over, grabbed a handful of her matted hair, and rammed the blade viciously into her wide-open mouth.
Thankfully, she wasn't that tall, so I had no trouble overpowering her.
I don't even know what I was thinking in that moment.
You can't kill a walker unless you damage the brain, and right now my blade had gone deep into her gaping mouth—so deep the tip poked out the back of her skull.
Watching her thrash and growl with my dagger jammed down her throat, her mouth and tongue being shredded with each movement, I felt a twisted sense of satisfaction—like I was getting revenge.
I gripped her hair even tighter, and I swear I felt her scalp loosening.
Just a bit more force, and I could probably rip it clean off.
Suddenly, the sound of rapid footsteps came from behind—someone was running straight toward the bush where Old Man Zheng and I were.
Before I could even react or turn around to look, a figure had already rushed to my side and, without hesitation, plunged a blade cleanly into the head of the hideous freak that was still trying to bite me with my dagger lodged in its mouth.
I instinctively turned to the side to avoid the splatter of foul, black brain matter—I had no desire to be covered in the stench of rotting brains.
Shoving aside the now limp corpse of the walker, I turned my head and saw Suo Tian standing next to me.
He didn't bother retrieving the dagger still embedded in the walker's skull.
His pitch-black eyes locked onto me for several long seconds.
His lips were tightly pressed together, and though his face showed no obvious emotion, I could tell he was clearly displeased.
"What were you doing?" Suo Tian's tone was as calm and indifferent as usual.
I turned my head to glance at the walker, now thoroughly dead, and opened my mouth to answer—but realized I had no idea what to say.
Because, truthfully, I didn't even know what had come over me.
I had always hated walkers with a passion, but when I fought them, it was always out of necessity—to protect myself and the people around me.
I had never, until today, indulged in such twisted brutality, deliberately tormenting their already rotting bodies.
Since I said nothing for a while, Suo Tian finally looked away, bent down, and pulled both his and my daggers from the walker's head.
Then he grabbed my arm without a word and started walking back.
Just as we turned around, I suddenly remembered Old Man Zheng was still standing nearby.
He had been watching us from a short distance away.
When he noticed me looking his way, his expression stiffened slightly, but he didn't say anything—he simply turned around and walked off in the other direction.
I followed Suo Tian, walking silently, feeling like I had forgotten something important.
But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't remember what it was.
So I just shook my head and trailed behind Suo Tian, heading back to Building 6.
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