Chapter 155: Rendezvous

Xueman's ice blade struck the zombies as they walked across the filthy ground stained with blood and torn fabric.

Ling Lan's head buzzed as she forced herself to examine the remains on the ground, hoping to rule out the possibility that her younger brother had fallen victim.

After walking a short distance, her heart sank.

She spotted the bright yellow jacket Ling Zhe had been wearing today, draped over a seat soaked in blood. Amidst the sea of gray, black, and crimson, that flashy yellow was blindingly conspicuous!

A wave of grief washed over Ling Lan, a lump rising in her throat as she prepared to burst into tears. Suddenly, she heard someone calling out.

"Sis! Why are you guys here?" Ling Zhe poked his head out from the end of the carriage, looking through the half-open partition door connecting the two cars.

Ling Lan stood there with her mouth open, dumbfounded. Her brother was fine!

"What's wrong?" Ling Zhe noticed his older sister's strange expression.

"If I don't teach you a lesson today, you little brat, my name isn't Ling!" Ling Lan rolled up her sleeves and charged forward angrily.

Ling Zhe had his ear grabbed, yet he still foolishly cried out, "Ouch, ouch! You're my real sister—if I'm a little brat, what does that make you?"

Xueman burst out laughing, two deep dimples appearing on her cheeks. Although Ling Zhe had indeed given everyone a scare, for an ordinary person to evade so many zombies, it took far more than just good luck.

Once her temper subsided, Ling Lan belatedly noticed that Ling Zhe was drenched in gasoline, reeking of a pungent odor.

"What is this...?"

"To mask my human scent, I poured a barrel of gasoline over myself," Ling Zhe explained briefly. Understanding zombies and possessing a quick wit, he knew how to protect himself in a critical moment.

He then excitedly told everyone that the subsequent carriages were all filled with supplies: one car contained various consumables, another held food and vegetables, and a third was stocked with winter clothing and bedding.

Previously, because of that mother and child, the civilians and guards had engaged in a fierce physical conflict. Several people were shot, and the situation descended into chaos.

However, a sudden plot twist occurred. No one expected that the sick child had already turned into a zombie. Caught completely off guard, he had scratched and bitten a large group of people, and on the spot, the situation spiraled entirely out of control.

Ling Zhe, who had been watching the spectacle from a vantage point, hesitated for a few seconds before deciding to investigate the secrets of the last two or three carriages.

Unlike the people in the inner city who were sheltered in a greenhouse, he was naturally bold. Having survived several months of the apocalypse, he had faced zombies head-on multiple times, so this situation was not enough to make him lose his head in panic.

Opportunities must be seized, for they rarely knock twice. The guards had been taken out, and the door had already been pried halfway open by someone else. Having come this far, walking away empty-handed would be a terrible waste!

The little zombie was indiscriminately attacking living people. Although its movement trajectory was hard to track due to its agility, it was undoubtedly plunging right into the crowds.

Ling Zhe was just one person, making him far less attractive than a large group. Taking advantage of the fact that no more zombies had appeared, he hugged the edge of the corridor, squeezed toward the rear carriage, and opened the door with lightning speed, slipping inside.

Then he found a barrel of gasoline and poured it over himself without a second thought. The method proved effective indeed; when the zombies appeared in hordes, they completely ignored this carriage and headed toward the densely populated areas instead. Ling Zhe's gamble had paid off!

"Do you have any idea how much trouble you've caused everyone?" Ling Lan's eyes were red.

On one hand, she was worried about Ling Zhe's safety. If anything happened to her younger brother, she truly didn't know how she would go on living. On the other hand, everyone had risked their lives to look for him, and if something had gone wrong, she would never have been able to face them.

"Sis, I promise this will never happen again," Ling Zhe immediately admitted his mistake.

"Bah! I've heard you say those exact words at least a hundred times since we were kids." Ling Lan spat, her expression softening slightly.

As long as everyone was safe, especially since this trip had uncovered so many supplies on the train, the risk had finally yielded rewards.

"Let's head back the way we came. The zombies are waiting for us ahead, so we need to figure out a way past them and regroup with the others..." Ling Lan was in the midst of speaking when she noticed the expressions on everyone else's faces suddenly change.

She turned her head and saw Yichen standing not far away, unmoving.

He was holding a sword, and the tip was still dripping with black-and-red zombie blood.

"...Are you here to rescue us?" Seeing his bloodshot eyes and the overwhelming murderous aura surrounding him—so different from usual—Ling Lan mustered her courage and asked cautiously.

Yichen did not answer and simply turned to walk away. Having confirmed that his companions were safe, he seemed to have settled a heavy burden on his mind.

Bai歌 and Liang Bing also arrived on the scene. After meeting up and briefly confirming the situation, they followed closely behind Yichen as he walked back.

"So you're saying the zombies are all under control now?" Ling Zhe could hardly believe his ears. As expected of Yichen—so awesome, so reliable!

"Yeah, people from Xijing will come for a rescue in a few hours... What is his current state, anyway?" Bai Ge whispered, pointing at Yichen's back.

"It should be the corpse-transformation state," Ling Lan pondered for a few seconds before speaking. In this state, Yichen likely retained no human consciousness, yet he seemed able to understand their words.

Yichen had undergone corpse transformation a few times during battles, which was always caused by repeated viral infections.

Whether they were infected or ordinary zombies, the viral load capacity in their bodies was limited. Exceeding that upper limit generally meant certain death.

Yichen was not bound by this rule. He was an exception among the infected; his body possessed pathways and methods to release the overloaded virus, and he could even evolve as a result, pushing his physical attributes to a higher level.

Although he lacked the flashy gimmicks and dazzling superpower techniques of other infected individuals, his ability to continuously level up was what made him truly defy the heavens!

Liang Bing had been previously scratched by a lynx and lapsed into a coma for several days, during which her superpower had also improved. However, Ling Lan believed that to be a coincidental event, infused with a fair bit of luck. If she ever encountered such a situation again, the young girl would certainly not survive.

"Today in the old factory district, he completely transformed into a corpse once. I don't know if he turned because of injuries and viral overload at the time... But judging by his current state, I can state with certainty—this time, his corpse transformation has nothing to do with the virus!" Ling Lan frowned.

The boundary between a living human and a zombie was becoming increasingly blurred in Yichen.

"This might not necessarily be a bad thing. If he can maintain human consciousness while fully unleashing that viral power, wouldn't he become even more formidable?" Bai Ge said. Yichen was already capable of utilizing the viral power in parts of his body to manifest his potential; things were not as dire as Ling Lan imagined.

As they spoke, the group had already passed through rows of statue-like zombie legions and returned to their exclusive carriage, not a single living person in sight along the way.

The train attendants had already followed instructions to herd all nearby living people into the front section and sealed off the passageways. The middle and rear sections of this train were now left entirely to them and the zombies.

Bai Ge let out a cold snort. After helping those people so tremendously—essentially granting them a debt of life—their wariness and the faint implication of casting aside the bridge after crossing the river were truly disheartening.