Chapter 21

At this moment Lin Tantan felt a little regretful. She'd impulsively jumped out of the car and now had no idea where to look.
If she'd known, she would have been more careful and not broken that earpiece; she couldn't go back now, so she had to press on.
She took out her phone to check the map, only to find it out of battery.
Fine, she'd have to rely on herself.
Luckily the car hadn't turned much earlier; she still remembered the route. She ran hard and soon found herself back within the campus area.
The zombies here had reverted to wandering about aimlessly.
She returned to the spot where she had parted from Ye Xiao and for a while couldn't tell which direction he'd left in.
But Lin Tantan had her wits about her; she studied the zombie bodies scattered across the ground.
When they'd retreated from the campus, the zombies had chased from behind and, after being killed, mostly fallen toward the university.
But now quite a few of them were lying the other way.
She walked, scanning as she went, and then noticed fresh tire tracks stained with blood or having run over zombies. The direction the splattered viscous droplets pointed away from the campus, which meant that not long ago a vehicle had driven deeper into the university.
Lin Tantan immediately grew excited and followed the tracks.
She moved like a detective, following the clues to find them, occasionally fighting off a wave of zombies and having to veer off course. It made her furious; watching the sun sink toward the west, she grew increasingly anxious.
Meanwhile Ye Xiao had already taken Mei Baisheng to the Yang University cafeteria because Mei said he wanted to eat something before he died; he hadn't had a proper meal all day and didn't want to go hungry.
Ye Xiao naturally agreed.
The cafeteria was empty and the food had been looted, but there were frozen meats in the freezer, seasonings remained, and all the kitchenware was intact.
Ye Xiao pulled out frozen meat and picked the best slab of pork belly. The rock-hard chunk was easily sliced into small pieces with his wind blade, then he cranked up the heat and cooked a steaming bowl of red-braised pork.
He wasn't a great cook, but he could manage simple dishes. He brought a steaming, ruby-red bowl of braised pork to the table. Mei Baisheng smiled and reached for his chopsticks, but his entire right arm and half his body were stiff, so he had to use his left hand and ate in fits and starts.
He ate and slurred, “Finish eating... don’t, fuss about it, just give me... one shot. Make it quick.” His tongue wasn’t working properly; even talking while chewing was a struggle.
Ye Xiao secretly nursed a small hope: Mei Baisheng hadn’t turned into a zombie the instant he was infected, and the way his body was dying looked different from what they’d seen before, maybe, just maybe, he could pull through.
But when he saw the man’s skin go ashen and his eyes dim, Ye Xiao knew that hope was wishful thinking.
At that moment his earpiece chirped and Bai Cheng’s voice came through, “A Xiao, Xu Qin told me you and Meimei haven’t come back yet. What happened?”
“Have they arrived?”
“They’re almost there, went smoothly.”
Ye Xiao sighed and closed his eyes. “Come over here.”
...
Lin Tantan trudged along, panting, hungry and thirsty, and she couldn’t find anyone no matter how she doubled back. Tire tracks and signs of vehicles were multiplying on the ground, and her leads went cold.
She checked the gym, the main auditorium; no one. She even thought of using the campus radio to broadcast a call. Then, from the distance came a rushing noise: a red helicopter cut through the orange afterglow.
Lin Tantan’s eyes widened, is that the one she knew? It even had “120” painted on it; it had to be. So what was going on? She shouted, but the chopper didn’t see her and set down some distance away.
Understanding, she took off toward it.
As she ran, she saw zombies converging on the same spot, clearly drawn by the scent of people. But Lin Tantan apparently smelled better to them; they turned and swarmed toward her.
She swore under her breath, waved her hand, and a flash of golden light sent rotten heads flying.
She pushed herself to make time, flinging out her gold‑type ability like it cost nothing. If anyone could peer into her mind they’d see a cloudy mass with a golden core spinning madly, every scrap of metallic energy sparked to life, churning through her body like an engine.
The horde surrounded a cafeteria. Dusk had fallen; she glanced inside, no one on the first floor, so she vaulted to the second. There. Found them.
The cafeteria felt heavy and oppressive. Mei Baisheng chuckled hoarsely; one side of his face was frozen while the other still twitched, giving him a grotesque look. He slumped against the wall, limbs sprawled, staring at the line of comrades before him, though his sight was failing; to everyone else his eyes had already clouded over.
“I told you not to come, but you had to, die for appearances, all that pretension... I’ve seen it all, said what needed saying. Come on, stop your whining...” He glanced at Ye Xiao. “Boss, you can’t do it, Old Bai, you do it. Or, give me the gun, I’ll do it myself...”
No one moved. The whole squad, including Cheng Qinan, had come. Xu Li and Jiang Xiaotian’s eyes were rimmed in red; Zhong Xiong crouched on the floor, furious; Xu Qin leaned against the wall, swaying, toes kicking the ground; Cheng Qinan sat cross‑legged, murmuring, “There should be a break, why hasn’t it come? It should’ve...”
Bai Cheng spoke up suddenly, voice still soft, “We’ll avenge you. Cai Chengliang, and his grandfather too, none of them will get away.” He wasn’t raging like Zhong Xiong, but in that moment he added Cai’s grandfather to the list of those owed death, anyone who had indulged Cai Chengliang, who’d failed to teach him right, had become his enemy.
He looked like a man of calm and clear winds, but in truth he held grudges and was petty as anyone.
When he finished he raised the gun in his hands.
Mei Baisheng managed a smile, then suddenly began to convulse, his teeth chattered, his eyes rolled back, joints clicking. He barked, “Hurry!”
But Bai Cheng couldn’t bring himself to squeeze the trigger.
His hand trembled.
Ye Xiao suddenly took the gun from him and aimed it at Mei Baisheng’s head.
He was the captain, this was the thing he should do.
His jaw was clenched tight, molars grinding; in the dim light his expression was hard to read, only a sheen in his dark eyes betrayed him. In that instant he regretted coming to the university town.
If they hadn’t tried to help those people. If he’d seen Cai Chengliang’s intentions sooner...
He had doomed Meimei...
Bang! Crash!
Glass shattered, and five green streaks shot in, wrapping around Mei Baisheng’s limbs and neck.
The change came so fast that even quick‑reacting Ye Xiao couldn’t do anything.
A moment later, the convulsions slowed; his joints and limbs stopped twisting.
Everyone looked to the back. Beyond a broken window, in the dim light, someone stood, or rather sprawled, with five luminous green bands shining in the gloom, all issuing from her left hand, taut and lightly coiling.
She had one hand on the sill, upper body leaning in, hair in a tangle, ghostlike, her face so deathly it seemed twice as long.
She said in a low voice, “You could’ve told me you were coming, I nearly tore my legs running.”
She’d leapt out of the vehicle and sprinted back, frantically hunting for traces like a sleuth, running herself ragged, only to be beaten by the people who came later, the helicopter was there almost instantly.
Lin Tantan was a mixture of annoyance and self‑reproach, was she a bit stupid? Hmph. She would never admit she’d tore through the university district as if her pants were on fire. Thinking about it made her feel ridiculous.
She said that and tried to climb in. The stunned people came to their senses, and Ye Xiao looked at the five bands, stepped forward, caught Lin Tantan’s arm and helped her through the window. “What are you…”
Lin Tantan ignored him the first time and didn’t even feel thrilled at touching her crush; she was still in a sulk. She walked up beside Mei Baisheng, the five straps in her hand shortening with each step, taut the whole time.
She was continuously pumping life into Mei Baisheng, a stopgap, not a cure, but it would buy time. She turned his face for a closer look: ashen and gray, with ominous blotches creeping across it like corpse spots.
His pupils dilated and contracted erratically, his gums were streaked with blood, his teeth chattered, and worst of all his right arm looked little different from a zombie’s.
Troublesome, no, make that extremely troublesome.
But Lin Tantan had actually treated similar patients before.
Of course that was three hundred years in the future, when zombies were long gone and energy only manifested as the abilities of ability users.
Still, some people were remarkably self-destructive: they ignored proper cultivation, tinkered with all kinds of nonsense, and then suffered backlashes that ruined them.
Such cases were rare and required two conditions: reckless self-harm, and a flawed innate power foundation, a defect carried from the womb.
Lin Tantan had seen two such patients at eighteen and nineteen. The eighteen-year-old was too far gone: energy completely uncontrolled, cells across the body dying faster than Lin could stimulate growth, she couldn’t save him in the end.
The second patient was similar but less severe; Lin Tantan sustained him with wood-type abilities. He had metal-type power; because fire overcomes metal, she used her fire to restrain his metal energy. Since metal generates water, she also used her water to borrow and redirect his energy.
Suppressing while converting, and finally channeling the other’s energy entirely out of the body. It was an enormous, complex process, only a multi-ability user like her could carry out all those steps alone. Normally such patients required several powers users cooperating, which raised the risk even higher.
To Lin Tantan, a person undergoing zombification was similar to those cases: their bodies corroded by energy. The treatment was the same, repair the body with wood-type energy, then guide the destructive force out.
The difference was that zombie energy was far more dangerous.
When she probed now, she felt nothing but a gray, murky energy inside Mei Baisheng, viscous, chaotic, malevolent, full of invasive destructiveness. It was eating away at his life bit by bit and would eventually fill his body and seize control of his actions; then he would be a zombie.
But for now the brain, the heart, and other vital organs were still intact.
Lin Tantan breathed easier; though it was late, there was still hope.
Lin Tantan said, “He can probably still be saved.”
“What did you say?” several people asked in unison.
Lin Tantan snapped, “I said I can try to save him, but I’ll need a lot of these.” She emptied her bag and crystal cores clinked out, mostly green, a few gold. She pointed to the green ones: “These. A whole lot of these.”