Chapter 8

Lin Tantan had no idea her crush was watching her through the monitors some twenty-odd kilometers away, so she didn't feel embarrassed about the imperfect landing, only a slight ache in her left ankle.
Just four or five meters beyond the railing were hordes of zombies, stirred into a frenzy by her appearance. She glanced under the villa's streetlamp, saw no others with climbing ability, and didn't look further.
She came up to the crawling zombie, picked up a small stick and poked at the lid of its head; she hit something hard. She pulled it out, wiped it in the grass, then wrapped it in a tissue before picking it up.
The color... it looked like wood-type, but maybe not?
She wiped the grime off the crystal core, held it up to the streetlamp and examined it along the beam, and finally confirmed: it wasn't green, it was blue-green.
A wind-element crystal core.
A wind-type zombie, no wonder it could climb walls so early, and climb so fast.
She couldn't use the crystal, but her crush could. Except he wasn't here, and with his skill, he probably wouldn't be short a first-tier crystal core anyway.
She thought that, unaware that her crush was sitting in front of the screen, watching the object in her hand with a puzzled look.
"What's that?" The question didn't come from Ye Xiao, but from the teammates who had gathered behind him and voiced the same curiosity.
These people had been eating, sleeping, or merely standing around; now, except for the one who was showering inside, they'd all come over and were pointing at the gray screen, only the object in Lin Tantan's hand glowed with a blue-green light.
"Looks like it was pulled out of the brain."
"Is there something inside a zombie's brain? Meimei, did you notice before?"
"Who would kill that thing and then rummage through its brain? Besides, we don't have the time."
"Didn't you blow its head off earlier? Didn't anything fly out?"
Ye Xiao, annoyed at their bickering, said, "There are plenty of zombie corpses outside; you can go take a look."
"Don't." Mei Baisheng, the liveliest of the bunch, picked at the gunk in his eye and grinned. "They're not going anywhere. Let's watch what this girl is going to do first. I mean, she's got guts, not even afraid of zombies on the other side of a railing."
"That's because you didn't see how she killed that zombie," said Jiang Xiaotian, who had just walked behind the sofa and witnessed the whole thing. His shout had been what drew the others.
"How did she do it?"
"She was incredible, I'm telling you..."
Elsewhere, Lin Tantan, a little regretful and disappointed, put away the wind-type crystal core and went to the wall. She tried to pull the axe out of the wall, she grabbed it and tried to yank it free, but it wouldn't budge.
She turned to look: the whole axe was embedded in the wall. It wasn't surprising, she had infused the blade with a metal-aligned power, making it razor-sharp; cutting a Class I zombie was like slicing tofu. Of course concrete couldn't withstand it; the axe looked as if it had grown into the wall.
She pulled harder, but it still wouldn't move. She rolled up her sleeves, put both hands to it, even used her feet, kicking against the wall with all her might, switching feet when one tired, heaving and grunting as she tried to pull it free.
Her efforts, broadcast over the surveillance feed, came off as inexplicably comical.
Jiang Xiaotian, about to boast about how formidable Lin Tantan was, found himself speechless: "..." He couldn't really continue bragging.
Ye Xiao, who'd been staring at the screen the whole time, "..." The tension in his shoulders eased a little, and the pair of eyes that always seemed to be smiling actually showed a hint of amusement.
The others, who had been genuinely worried for the girl, "..."
How to put it? How could she be so fearless? With so many zombies reaching through the railings to grab at her, even though the pillars were wide and the railings spaced just enough that the zombies couldn't actually reach her, the sight still made people break into a sweat.
In truth, Lin Tantan was anxious too. The zombies seemed provoked and were surging toward her, but she didn't want to give up the fire axe, where on short notice would she find such a perfect weapon?
But as the horde grew, she had no choice but to retreat back into the room.
Seeing the person on the screen retreat, everyone here breathed easier. Ye Xiao picked up the phone to contact the villa, but for some reason the call wouldn't connect.
Jiang Xiaotian said it was nothing new, the signal had been patchy since the incident began. It's still good that most of the time they can make contact; it will probably get worse.
Ye Xiao looked at the zombies on the screen and told the others, "Go get some rest. We'll set the route and head out."
Mei Baisheng asked, "We're going to this place?"
"Yeah."
"Then count me in, this girl's interesting."
Bai Cheng glanced at Ye Xiao. "I'll work the route. You eat something and get some rest too." Their leader was the busiest; others could take shifts, but he took part in every operation, he'd surely be leading personally later.
Ye Xiao didn't refuse, but he didn't rest or eat; he stood, grabbed some tools, and went out.
Because they feared the corpses might undergo a second mutation, they'd stored the zombies they'd killed in a room on each floor and locked the doors. When Ye Xiao opened this room on the second floor, a wave of rot hit him.
He showed no change in expression as he switched on the light, took in the oddly positioned bodies, pulled a dagger from his boot, crouched, and set to work on the nearest corpse.
Soon he did find something. He rinsed it clean with water: it was a clear, jade-green, translucent object, like a beautiful gem.
He examined it carefully but couldn't make anything of it, put it into a bowl beside him, and went on to the next.
Footsteps came down the corridor; the others arrived and joined in the search.
Black, red, blue, none, none, purple...
Finally Ye Xiao unearthed a cyan one; he felt a stir, an indistinct sensation toward it. It was then that the lab downstairs reported they'd found something in zombie skulls: an object containing a strange kind of energy.
Ye Xiao went down to check.
The two scientists excitedly told him their findings, but essentially all they'd determined was that the energy was very unusual, unlike anything seen before, they couldn't explain what it actually was. After all, it was far outside their expertise, and their equipment was incomplete.
"We've already reported it up the chain. It turns out the Academy has started researching it too, but unfortunately we can't be of help," Professor Zheng said.
Ye Xiao listened, glanced at them.
Had he not seen the surveillance, he might have told the two of them about his abilities to get to the bottom of how they worked, and cooperated with experiments.
But now he decided not to. He simply collected the other-colored cores for them and left them to tinker.
At two in the morning, Bai Cheng finally identified the optimal route,
Ye Xiao set out immediately with a team of four: himself, Mei Baisheng, Xu Li, and Zhong Xiong. The four strongest went together to save time.
Twenty kilometers on foot would normally take a while, but they moved quickly. Still, no matter how carefully a route was planned, it couldn't be free of obstacles, and by the time they finally reached their destination, dawn was breaking.
Lin Tantan was worrying about how to get away from the villa.
Zombies still swarmed around the villa, but that didn’t trap her, she could jump to the neighboring house and run. The only question was whether to leap to the building on the left or the one on the right.
"Child, you're really leaving?" Grandma Xu asked, clearly worried about Lin Tantan.
"I really have to go, Grandma Xu. I'm sorry, I'm in a hurry. I'll try to lure some of the zombies away when I leave. Didn't they say rescue would arrive today? Hold on one more day and you'll be saved."
Lin Tantan did worry for the old and the young, but she couldn't stay to protect them. Everyone was in the same desperate situation, she had to look out for herself. She couldn't promise she'd make it safely to Beida University.
On this trip, she was literally risking her life.
Grandma Xu sighed and tucked a little more food into Lin Tantan's pack. Lin Tantan noticed the others' expressions shift, especially the middle-aged woman with a little girl and the elderly grandparents of the other two children. Their eyes were fixed on the food.
After all, food in the villa was scarce; what Grandma Xu had packed were all ready-to-eat items.
"You don't have to give me so much, Grandma Xu." Lin Tantan pulled some out and left herself only enough for three meals that day.
Seeing how things were, she didn't intend to search for a weapon, she didn't want to impose, and there wasn't anything in the villa she liked anyway.
She slung on her pack and climbed up to the roof. Dawn was still pale and the wind up there was fierce. She scanned the villa district while the terrain sketch Grandpa Xu had drawn in her hand flapped and snapped in the wind.
Alright, from there, then.
Lin Tantan fixed on a direction, sent out a wooden tether to hook the nearest villa that way, took a few running steps on the roof, and, whoosh, bang!
She landed on the little red roof opposite. She'd gotten used to rough landings, but this roof was steep; she slid down a bit and had to use hands and feet to steady herself.
Once she was up, she thought: since she'd promised to draw some zombies away, should she shout a few times, or toss something down to grab their attention?
As she turned, she nearly jumped out of her skin. A great many of the zombies that had surrounded the villa had turned and were coming toward her, as if her presence outdrew that entire houseful of living people.
"Oh my god!" Was that any way to be so enthusiastic? Lin Tantan sprinted across the roofs, leaping one to the next, as the zombies below pursued relentlessly. At last she saw the villa gate; she jumped down and bolted for the exit.
Luckily the street beyond was quiet. She ran hard, cut a corner by jumping into a planting strip, and knocked over a trash can in the process.
As the trash can clattered away, Lin Tantan had to slam on the brakes.
She nearly ran straight into a small group of people.
They were men, several of them armed. Because she burst out so fast, they immediately leveled their weapons, and Lin Tantan found several cold muzzles trained on her.
Her heart almost leapt into her throat.
A gunshot from so near would be lethal now, one hit and she'd be done for.
"Don't shoot, I'm human!" Lin Tantan immediately raised her hands, afraid someone might get overexcited and fire.
If she bought herself a moment, who knew who would end up shooting whom.
While shouting, she gathered power in her hands, wood energy in her left, ready to tangle and impede, metal in her right, ready to strike.
Fortunately, after her shout they didn't fire; instead the weapons were lowered. The man at the front, presumably their leader, asked, "How did you get out? Did something happen in the villa?"
"Huh?" Lin Tantan was baffled. Wait, big brother, you've got the wrong person, right? Without thinking she blurted, "Who are you?"
Only then did she have the chance to look at his face. Dawn was still dim, and they were backlit; she could make out only a rough outline and a pair of faintly bright eyes. Her first impression was that his features looked vaguely familiar.
Then the man answered calmly, "My name is Ye Xiao. I'm here to pick up the Xu family. You were at the Xu villa last night, weren't you?"
Ye Xiao sized her up; though the surveillance footage had been distant and blurry, a person's general build and bearing are hard to mistake. He likely hadn't misidentified her.
Lin Tantan: "..." Her soul felt ready to fly out of her body. Hearing "Ye Xiao" made her head explode with static.
Who am I? Where am I? What did I just hear? No, this can't be real, it must be a dream!