Not long after, I paid the price for my belief that "human nature is inherently good."
After throwing the dagger to them, Shen Feng and Xu Shu pushed me behind them, leaving me empty-handed.
To make matters worse, the walkers that had first been gnawing away at the scraps of flesh were now getting back up one after another, abandoning what little remained and turning toward us with blood-stained, filth-smeared mouths gaping wide.
My sudden retreat from the formation made things even harder for Xu Shu and the others.
They had to protect the three of us, defend themselves, and still step forward to cut down the walkers pressing in nonstop.
It didn't take long before they began to panic, their formation falling apart.
Helpless, I steeled myself and forced my way back into the position I had just given up.
Before Shen Feng and the others could push me back again, I shouted, "I'll do the kicking, you guys keep slashing. Stay in formation, don't break ranks! We've still got so many lives hanging by a thread here!"
"You knew our lives were hanging by a thread, and you still tossed the dagger!" Xu Shu snapped back, but even as she retorted she shifted back into position, reforming our four-man formation.
"Who wants to die? Give them the dagger, give them a chance to live. Even ants struggle to survive—let alone people." I kicked one of the walkers to the ground.
Seeing that Shen Feng couldn't free his hands to finish it off, I dashed forward myself, lifted my leg, and stomped down hard on its skull.
With a sickening crunch, its head burst into a mess of pulp under my foot.
Xu Shu didn't reply this time, but instead rushed forward even faster.
Human potential really does only ignite under the pressure of desperation.
Just like last time in the water—I never imagined I could climb such a tall tree with my bare hands.
Now, as I crushed the skull of the third walker in a row, I couldn't quite believe I was actually fighting these grotesque monsters with nothing but my hands and feet.
In truth, we were incredibly lucky.
If the walkers on the floor had all risen at once instead of one by one, then with just a few daggers in our hands, even if we'd fought until collapse, there would have been no way to carve a path out of their encirclement.
Another stroke of fortune was that those who had been bitten managed to hold off a portion of the walkers, scattering their numbers without meaning to and giving us precious time to fight for survival.
The true terror of walkers lies in their endless waves.
Alone, they're weak—poor balance, slow speed.
As long as you're agile and ruthless, they aren't much of a threat.
But once they swarm, their strengths reveal themselves: tireless, unfeeling, unrelenting.
Their weaknesses vanish, buried beneath sheer numbers.
Without overwhelming firepower, a massive horde of walkers is practically invincible.
Finally, just as our legs were about to give out beneath us, every last walker in the room lay sprawled across the floor.
Panting heavily, I braced my hands against my knees and quickly scanned the room.
Most of the walkers lay collapsed around us, piled in heaps, limbs twisted every which way, packed together so densely it made my skin crawl.
In the corners of the room, several nearly skeletal, blood-red corpses were scattered about.
The whole place reeked with a nauseating stench, a mix of the foamy vomit they had spewed earlier and the stink of death.
On the other side, the two people stood frozen—one clutching a stool, the other holding my dagger—staring at each other in shock.
A warmth rose in my chest.
At least my gamble in giving them the dagger hadn't been for nothing.
Both sides leaned against the walls in silence for quite a while.
When the two of them finally came to their senses and started moving toward us, they suddenly seemed to think of something, hesitated, and stopped halfway.
After what we had just said, Uncle Gazi also held his tongue.
After all, those two were no longer in immediate danger—the rest of their fate was theirs to face.
I stared at them for a long moment, half-expecting them to collapse and turn just like the others had.
But even when I looked away, the grim scene I imagined never came to pass.
"Chen… Chen Yang… what do we do now?" Xu Shu, who had barely stopped fighting just moments ago, was utterly exhausted.
As she spoke, she gasped for air, but the foul stench in the room only made her look even more pained.
At her words, I waved my hand dismissively, then fixed my gaze on the bloodied corpses on the floor.
Taking the dagger back from Xu Shu, I walked toward them.
These people had all been bitten to death.
Their bodies were in tatters, but before long they'd rise again.
If we didn't want more trouble, we had to deal with them now.
The last thing we needed was a few bloody skeletons joining the walkers in this already horrific scene.
Just as I stabbed through the skull of the first corpse, a faint sound of crying suddenly drifted through the room…
Startled, I instinctively looked back at the two strangers, but their faces were just as baffled as mine.
Pausing, I turned to Xu Shu and the others.
They, too, wore puzzled expressions—everyone except Shen Feng, whose wary eyes swept the room.
Then, fixing his gaze on one spot, he called out to me: "Chen Yang, look—over there."
I froze, then straightened and followed his line of sight.
What I saw left me stunned on the spot.
Brother Qian's son, Qian Xiaohu, was pinned beneath the thigh of a walker.
His uninjured hand kept clawing at the limb, trying to free himself, but he couldn't.
His eyes were wide open, head tilted, lips trembling in a pout as he let out soft, pitiful whimpers.
…How was this possible?
Sister Qian, who'd been bitten on the arm, had already turned into a walker.
So how could Xiao Hu be fine?
I'd seen it with my own eyes—he was bitten!
I stared at Xiao Hu again.
His eyes were clear, his face panicked—everything about him screamed "living child."
And walkers didn't cry.
It took me a long while to gather myself from the shock.
I hesitated, about to step forward and lift him up, but when I saw his hand—nearly stripped of flesh, only raw muscle and bone remaining—I faltered again…
Maybe… his transformation is just delayed?
Maybe because he was bitten on the hand, the infection is spreading more slowly?
As I stood frozen in place, countless guesses flashed through my mind.
Xu Shu and Shen Feng came up beside me.
Shen Feng asked, "What's going on with this kid? He hasn't been infected?"
"Looks like he's definitely normal," Yangyang added, stepping closer.
At that, Shen Feng paused.
He stared at Xiao Hu for a long moment, deep in thought, before continuing, "If he's really normal… then why didn't those walkers bite him just now?"
His words made me turn sharply toward him, my brow furrowing tightly.
I hadn't thought about that before.
Leaving aside why Xiao Hu wasn't infected—the fact that he was lying there and the walkers didn't even try to bite him was already strange enough.
Uncle Gazi and Han Xue couldn't help but step forward too, peering at Xiao Hu.
Soon, all of us had formed a loose circle around him.
Xiao Hu kept whimpering softly, but seeing us surround him like this, his crying tapered off a little.
His eyes flicked across each of us until they landed on Uncle Gazi.
Then, with a quavering, tearful voice, he cried out: "Grandpa, my hand hurts… wu wu wu."
As people get older, their hearts often go one of two ways: either hardened and cold, or softened and kind.
Uncle Gazi clearly belonged to the latter.
Maybe Xiao Hu reminded him of Tingyun, because when he looked at the boy sprawled on the ground, his face was full of pity.
He wanted to step forward, but after glancing around at us, he hesitated.
In the end, he could only sigh and softly comfort Xiao Hu: "Good boy, don't move. Grandpa will find a doctor soon, then it won't hurt anymore."
Han Xue's face was also full of compassion.
She looked at us and said, "This child's injury looks very serious. If we don't treat it quickly, it's bound to get worse."
Then she leaned down and urged Xiao Hu gently: "Sweetheart, lift your hand up. Don't let it touch the blood and filth on the ground."
At those words, Shen Feng's expression suddenly shifted to something strange.
Based on our speculation, the likeliest cause of Xiao Xue's death had been that walker blood got rubbed into her wound…
The two people hiding in the corner listened to Han Xue's words.
One of them spoke up:
"This kid's strange. Don't worry—once the wound heals, he'll be fine. This isn't the first time he's been bitten."
We all froze.
It took me a while to react before I asked aloud, "What do you mean by that? Not the first time? He's been bitten before?"
The one holding the stool shook his head. "Not by a person—by a walker."
"That's impossible!" Yangyang exclaimed.
"No one can survive being bitten by a walker!"
"Why not? This kid's living proof. Everyone here knows about it—it's an open secret." Now that the room was free of walkers, the young man's tone was much more relaxed and fluent.
"Then why didn't we know?" Han Xue pressed.
"You lot came in with the others. How would Brother Qian and his wife dare to tell you? If they had, their boy would've been dragged off into Second Tier isolation for inspection as well. Wouldn't that have driven them both mad?"
At the mention of Brother Qian and his wife, my heart gave a small jolt.
My eyes quickly found their familiar corpses lying on the floor.
With a sigh, I suddenly realized there was something off about what he'd said earlier.
Thinking it through, I asked, "Dragged off as well? So someone else here was locked up in isolation before?"
"Of course. It was Xiao Hu's sister—she's about ten. The very day we entered the valley, she came down with a fever. Before long, they took her away. We haven't heard a word since. For days, Brother Qian and his wife waited outside the Second Tier gates, hoping for a chance to see her, but they were never allowed. We've all guessed in private that the girl must've had a problem."
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