The stench was overwhelming, a thick, putrid odour mingled with the metallic tang of blood and the sickeningly sweet, ammonia-like smell of flesh in advanced stages of decay, clinging stubbornly to the nasal passages. Each short, labored breath felt like forcing a ball of rotten cotton soaked in corpse fluid into the lungs. Chen Yan's throat felt like it was on fire, and every swallow pulled at his cracked lips, causing a sharp pain. He dragged his right leg, which had completely lost sensation and was barely connected to his calf by a thin layer of skin, across the cold, slippery cement pavement covered in sticky, dark brown grime. The broken bone fragments scraped against the ground, emitting a teeth-grinding 'crackling' sound, and every slight movement brought a wave of excruciating pain that nearly caused him to faint.
At the edge of his vision were swaying, twisted pant legs covered in mud and dark red bloodstains. Zombies. Many, many of them. They moved slowly, their joints creaking like rusty hinges, dragging their broken limbs, their throats rumbling with meaningless grunts, like a group of puppets manipulated by invisible threads, slowly closing in on him, the target emanating the scent of fresh flesh. A hand, now nothing but white bones, covered in rotting flesh and skin fragments, suddenly darted out from the side, its icy fingertips nearly brushing against his sweat-soaked, scorching neck!
Chen Yan jerked his neck back, his heart clenched by an icy hand. He mustered his last ounce of strength, using his still-functional left arm and intact left leg to drag himself forward another half metre, colliding with an overturned, rust-stained metal trash bin. Garbage and an unknown blackish-brown viscous substance splattered his face. He had no time to feel nauseated. Leaning against the cold metal wall of the bin, he gasped for breath, each inhalation accompanied by a rasping sound like a broken bellows.
He raised his head, his bloodshot eyes peering through the gaps in the slowly advancing horde of corpses, fixating on the relatively safe corner
Zhou Rui's clothes were still relatively clean, and there was hardly any sweat on his face. He held Chen Yan's modified HK416, with its polished barrel, steady in his hands—it was the treasure Chen Yan had found while looting an abandoned SWAT equipment warehouse, his most trusted weapon, which had saved both of their lives countless times in desperate situations. At that moment, the black muzzle was aimed precisely and without a single tremor at Chen Yan's forehead.
Zhou Rui's face showed no expression—no guilt for betrayal, no tension before killing—only a nearly cruel calmness. He looked at Chen Yan as if he were looking at a pile of rubbish about to be cleared away.
'Yan Ge,' Zhou Rui's voice cut through the muffled grunts of the zombie horde, clear and jarring, tinged with deliberate ease, 'Don't struggle. Save your strength. On the path to the underworld... travel in peace.'
Chen Yan's teeth ground together, a heavy metallic taste filling his mouth. He wanted to scream, to demand answers, but his throat felt like it had been sanded down, able to produce only hoarse whispers. He recalled a few hours earlier, when he had been ambushed by the 'Stealth' zombie lurking in the shadows while covering Zhou Rui's retreat. The creature had bitten through his calf muscle and then twisted his leg bone with its immense strength, breaking it. He remembered enduring the excruciating pain, stuffing the last half-pack of compressed biscuits and the last half-bottle of water into Zhou Rui's hands, telling him to run first while he stayed behind. He remembered the tears glistening in Zhou Rui's eyes and the tearful plea, 'Yan Ge, you have to hold on!'
It was all bullshit!
'Your supplies... you hid them well,' Zhou Rui's voice sounded again, tinged with a hint of greed, 'And that girl Lin Lu... hmm, she's so flexible. Don't worry, I'll take care of her for you, make sure she's... comfortable.' He curled his lips into a cruel smile, the gun barrel unmoving.
The groans of the zombie horde grew closer, and the putrid stench nearly overwhelmed Chen Yan. Several withered claws reached out simultaneously toward his back and chest. Despair, like icy seawater, instantly filled Chen Yan's chest. He stared intently at Zhou Rui's finger on the trigger, which was slowly tightening, the knuckles turning slightly white from the effort.
It was over. Damn it, it was over.
Just as the trigger was about to be fully pulled, and the firing pin was about to ignite the primer—
'Pop!'
A faint yet unusually clear sound, like a ripe berry being crushed.
The cruel, triumphant smile on Zhou Rui's face froze abruptly, replaced by an expression of utter, incomprehensible shock. His left eye, along with the surrounding flesh and bone, had been pierced from the back of his skull by a vine-like object as thick as a thumb, with a sharp, spear-like tip and an eerie deep green colour! A mixture of deep green viscous fluid and red and white tissue erupted instantly, splattering onto his own clean shirt and the cold gun barrel.
The vine, as if alive, twisted slightly in the air with an unsettling flexibility. The tip still clung to a small fragment of shattered eyeball tissue. Instantly, it retracted with lightning speed, 'whoosh,' from Zhou Rui's burst eye socket, dragging out a small stream of viscous fluid and flesh.
Zhou Rui's body fell backward like a puppet whose strings had been cut, the HK416 in his hand clattering to the cement ground. His remaining right eye was wide open, frozen in the disbelief of his final moment.
The change happened too quickly! Chen Yan's pupils contracted to the size of needles, his mind going blank. He even forgot about the rotting claws about to grab him from behind!
That deadly vine did not come from any known weapon or survivor. It came from... the zombie horde!
Chen Yan's gaze was drawn like a magnet, fixated on the rear of the zombie horde. A zombie of unusually large stature, with skin of an unhealthy grey-green hue, was slowly lowering its mutated right arm. That arm was no longer recognisable as a human limb. From the elbow down, the skin and muscle fibres had fused with a deep green, rough-textured vine-like tissue, extending several metres outward! The fatal blow had come from that terrifying vine arm! At that moment, the tip of the vine was still dripping a viscous liquid of deep green and red-white hues.
What... kind of monster is this?!
What sent Chen Yan's scalp tingling was that, at the feet of the vine zombie, on the body of an ordinary zombie recently trampled to death by its own kind, several ruptured wounds were oozing not dark red, viscous blood, but a... thick, deep green, plant-like viscous substance! In the dim light, the viscous green liquid seemed to contain extremely tiny, chlorophyll-like particles suspended within it!
Chlorophyll flowing through the zombies' veins?!
This mind-blowing discovery struck Chen Yan like a thunderclap, instantly overshadowing the excruciating pain of his severed leg and the fear of death!
'Ugh!'
The sharp blade of the dagger scraped harshly across the exposed leg bone, emitting a bone-chilling 'creak.' Chen Yan's entire body tensed like iron, his teeth clenched tightly around a pry bar wrapped in tape. Veins bulged on his forehead, and cold sweat the size of soybeans mixed with grime trickled down. A bestial growl forced its way from the depths of his throat, and his vision grew dark, nearly causing him to faint.
'Bear with it! It must be cleaned thoroughly!' Lin Lu's voice carried an urgent tone that brooked no argument, yet her hands moved with the steady precision of a rock. She knelt beside Chen Yan, her nurse's uniform—washed until it was bleached white and stained with unknown substances—no longer recognisable in its original colour. Dim light filtered through the cracks in the ventilation shaft of the abandoned subway tunnel, illuminating her sweat- and blood-stained profile and her eyes, focused to the point of cruelty.
The cloth strips, soaked in pus, blood, and flesh, were tossed aside. The tip of the dagger carefully scraped away the last remnants of blackened, necrotic tissue from between the bones. The air was thick with the pungent smell of blood, rot, and the sharp scent of disinfectant alcohol. Lin Lu quickly grabbed a nearly empty bottle of medical alcohol and poured it without hesitation onto the gruesome wound.
'Ssshh!' Chen Yan's body jerked violently, and the crowbar was bitten deeply into the wound. The intense burning sensation shot straight to his brain.
'Hold it!' Lin Lu barked, and a hand covered in calluses and thick knuckles immediately handed over two relatively straight iron tubes, both wrapped in adhesive tape. It was Lei Zhen. This taciturn veteran, with a gruesome scar on his face, used his knee to firmly pin Chen Yan's wildly struggling left leg, roughly yet precisely pressing the iron tubes against both sides of the broken bone. Lin Lu swiftly wrapped the remaining rolls of bandage tightly around the wound, securing them with knots. The entire process was as swift as treating a gunshot wound on the battlefield.
The excruciating pain subsided slowly like receding tides, leaving behind a numbness akin to exhaustion and a fatigue that penetrated to the bone. Chen Yan released the crowbar, gasping for breath like a fish out of water. Sweat soaked through his tattered clothes, clinging to his cold skin.
'For now... you won't die.' Lin Lu wiped the sweat from her forehead, her voice trembling slightly. She looked at Chen Yan's right leg, which was fixed in place by a crude iron pipe and bandages, resembling a bizarre mechanical contraption, her expression complex. 'But this leg... is ruined.' Her voice grew hoarse, tinged with the helplessness of a doctor.
Chen Yan leaned against the cold tunnel wall, closed his eyes, and said nothing. Ruined? Surviving to crawl here was already an unexpected outcome brought by Zhou Rui's bizarre vine and that 'vine-arm zombie.' The terrifying scene played repeatedly in his mind—the deep green vine piercing the skull, the deep green liquid flowing from the zombie's wound... and Zhou Rui's face, twisted in shock before he died.
'It's not... an ordinary zombie.' Chen Yan's voice was hoarse like sandpaper scraping, 'Something... is controlling them... like a plant...' He described the vine-armed zombie and the green liquid in broken sentences.
Lei Zhen's brows furrowed into a knot, his scars appearing even more grotesque in the dim light. "A plant? Fuck! I've been fighting wars my whole life, I've killed more people than I've seen trees, what the hell kind of world is this!" He fidgeted with his rough fingers, his eyes darting warily into the thick darkness at the end of the tunnel.
Lin Lu fell silent. She knelt down, carefully picking up a small piece of cloth stained with deep green viscous substance from Chen Yan's wound with tweezers, holding it close to her eyes for a closer look. Under the dim light, the viscous substance seemed to faintly emit an extremely weak, barely perceptible green hue.
"Symbiosis? Parasitism? Or… evolution?" she murmured, her delicate brows furrowed. "The blood composition has completely changed… This doesn't make sense…"
"Who cares if it makes sense!" Chen Yan suddenly opened his eyes, his gaze burning with the icy flame of survival and searing hatred. "That bastard Zhou Rui is dead, but the thing he coveted is still here!" He was referring to the supplies he had hidden in a secret underground cold storage facility on the other side of the city—the accumulation he had risked his life for over three years in the post-apocalyptic world, enough to sustain a small team for a long time. More importantly, there were medicines, tools, and his hope for survival! "My things, no one is allowed to touch them! Especially not in this way!" He clenched his teeth, each word like ice shards being forced out between his teeth.
Survive. Even with this crippled leg and this broken body, he must survive! Not to cling to life, but to uncover the truth, to settle the score with the traitors, and to... ensure that Zhou Rui's final, vile words about 'Lin Lu' rot forever in hell!
He looked at Lin Lu, who was worriedly staring at his twisted leg, then at Lei Zhen, the old soldier who cursed incessantly but whose eyes betrayed the calmness of one who had seen mountains of corpses and rivers of blood. A thought, like a match struck in the darkness, suddenly flashed in Chen Yan's mind, then burned into a raging inferno.
'Old Lei,' Chen Yan's voice carried an odd calmness, yet it held an undeniable strength, 'help me out.'
Lei Zhen lifted his head, his cloudy eyes meeting Chen Yan's.
'Find a vehicle that can drive, preferably a truck.' Chen Yan's gaze swept toward the depths of the tunnel, 'Then, go to the "Old Grain Warehouse".'
Lin Lu and Lei Zhen both froze. "The Old Grain Warehouse?" Lin Lu exclaimed, "That place is in the city centre! It's swarming with zombies! And those… monsters you mentioned! You're in this condition..."
'I know.' Chen Yan cut her off, his gaze sharp as a knife. 'That's why we need a vehicle and help.' He took a deep breath, enduring the excruciating pain in his legs, and tried to sit up. The movement tugged at his wounds, causing him to groan again, but he clenched his teeth and forced himself into a half-sitting position, his back straight as an arrow, despite the pain that had turned his face as pale as paper.
'Alone, I'm useless.' He gasped, his gaze fixed on the faint outline of the grey, dilapidated city beyond the tunnel. That was hell, but it was also where he had to go. 'But if we can bring out what's inside, if we can find a place to stand our ground... we can survive! Not like rats hiding in this sewer waiting to die!'
He looked at Lin Lu: 'Your medical skills can save more people.' Then he looked at Lei Zhen: 'Your gun and your experience can protect them.' Finally, his gaze fell back on his twisted leg, with a almost self-torturing ferocity: 'My life... still has some use. I know where it's safe, where to get good stuff, and how to deal with those damn things! As long as... you trust me once!'
The tunnel fell into silence, broken only by the faint, heart-stopping howls of the zombie horde echoing in the distance. Lin Lu looked at the almost blazing fire in Chen Yan's eyes, then at his horrifyingly severed leg. Her lips moved, but she ultimately said nothing. Lei Zhen silently rubbed the military knife in his hand, its blade polished to a shine. The eyes beneath his scars flickered with a complex light. Finally, he spat out a loud 'spit.'
'Damn it! You dragged my life out of that pile of corpses! Either way, I'm going to die, so screw it!' He suddenly stood up, brushing the dust off his buttocks. 'Find a vehicle! I know there's an abandoned construction vehicle yard at the end of this tunnel!'