The Creatures that We Are

After a moment of surprise, Gao Yang and the others went up to Can. Gao Yang pulled Can behind him, while Nine Frost pulled the curtain covering the bed aside, revealing a cowering woman under the bed on the left.

She looked to be in her thirties with long, wavy hair and a plump physique, wearing a pair of round glasses and a long white coat.

Holding her head with both hands, she trembled under the bed and broke down, “Ahh! Don’t kill me! Don’t kill me, please! Leave me…”

Gao Yang and Nine Frost exchanged a glance. This must be the school nurse.

Although she was a monster, the effect of the Rune Circuit’s total silence made her maintain her human form. Thus she was nothing but a survivor of the zombie outbreak, no different from Gao Yang and his companions.

“Should we deal with her?” Lithe Snake asked while raising his shortsword.

Only then did Gao Yang remember that at the Qilin Guild, there was no rule prohibiting the killing of wanderers.

It was obvious that Lithe Snake thought it wise to take out the wanderer and eliminate the potential risk given how difficult their situation was.

However, Gao Yang disagreed. He believed that the more difficult the situation was, the more they should exhaust all available resources.

“I’ll do it.” Gray Bear knelt down and dragged the woman from under the bed.

They hadn’t noticed until then that there was a wet patch on the woman’s pants. Gao Yang was surprised to find that even monsters wet themselves when they were petrified.

“Don’t kill me, please. I have a daughter. I can’t die…” The woman struggled and begged hysterically.

“Silence! Are you trying to draw the zombies here?” Gray Bear scolded in a low voice. And finally, the woman calmed down.

“What’s your name?”

“Li…Li Huafeng…”

“Miss Li, you better work with us for your own survival. Understand?”

“I do. I understand!” After a shudder, Li Huafeng nodded vehemently.

Gray Bear took out the pair of handcuffs he always carried with him and cuffed Li Huafeng to the bed rail. Then he gestured at her to stay silent.

He turned to walk up to the window.

Gao Yang and Nine Frost were standing there with the rest of the teams around them. Gao Yang parted the curtain to look down. Zombies roamed along the cement path outside the teaching building and in the nearby flower beds. He also saw wandering figures on the running track further away.

Every now and then, he spotted people fleeing for their lives like headless flies, but soon, they were tackled to the ground by zombies. And when the victims stood back up, they were already part of the living dead.

“Hells, it’s so surreal. It’s like a movie.” Can fearfully turned to Gao Yang. “You must have a solution, Captain.”

Why? I’m not God!

If Gao Yang had known what would happen, he would’ve brought more firearms for the mission, such as rifles, shotguns, or hand grenades. Then perhaps they could overcome this hurdle like a real-life version of Left 4 Dead[1].

Of course, Gao Yang couldn’t voice those thoughts.

“We must find Li Zhuanghu,” Nine Frost said in a low voice as he watched the roaming zombies on campus.

“Agreed.” Gao Yang nodded. That was what he thought as well.

“That’s right!” Xiran adjusted his glasses. “This must be the Rune Circuit’s doing, and it’s with Li Zhuanghu right now. He must have become the boss monster controlling the other zombies with the Rune Circuit.”

“They aren’t exactly zombies since the victims didn’t get infected by a virus, but fell under the control of the Rune Circuit.” Gao Yang decided to give the monsters a new name to avoid the instinctual fear tied to the term. “They are…rune corpses.”

“Rune corpses.” Gray Bear smiled. “That sounds a little less repulsive.”

“Wait,” Yellow Butterfly’s eyes glinted, “Does that mean we only have to kill Li Zhuanghu and grab the Rune Circuit, and the zom…the rune corpses will then stop moving?”

“I believe so,” Gao Yang said. “But there’s still the possibility that the rune corpses have become independent beings and won’t stop moving even after we take out Li Zhuanghu.”

Everyone fell silent for a few seconds.

“I think that’s unlikely to be the case,” said Nine Frost.

Gao Yang responded, “I agree.”

The others nodded.

In reality, they had to believe that wouldn’t be the case. After all, it would be impossible for them to kill all the rune corpses in the school given their limited power right now.

“How do we find, Li Zhuanghu?” asked Ronnie.

Black Sparrow said tensely, “The school is filled with rune corpses. Without our Talents, we can’t go anywhere.”

Gao Yang looked around and picked up a mug from the office table. Then he went back to the window and hurled it outside. Following a curved trajectory, the mug fell on the concrete path and shattered.

The rune corpses in the area paused for half a second before staggering to the mug. The dim moonlight made visible the red veins covering their skin, and within those veins, red energy quietly flowed.

Their empty eye sockets were deepset. Faintly, Gao Yang could make out a muddled, devilish red light.

“That’s what I thought,” said Gao Yang.

“What?” Can was befuddled. She set the low bar for intelligence among the two teams.

Nine Frost understood what Gao Yang was getting at. “The rune corpses can’t see. They depend on their hearing to chase down their prey.”

“That’s right.” Gao Yang nodded. “We can draw them away with sounds and sneak back to the construction site for our equipment and supplies. Then we’ll kill Li Zhuanghu. That’s the safer option.”

“I concur!” Gray Bear said approvingly, his arms crossed before his chest.

Nine Frost nodded too.

The others exchanged looks. None of them disagreed.

“Still,” Yellow Butterfly posed a question. “How are we gonna make noises to distract them?”

“Have you forgotten?” Gao Yang reminded them. “This is a school.”

“Bells! The school bells!” Can was surprisingly the first to catch on this time.

“Haha, it seems that fate has other plans for us today!” Gray Bear chuckled.

Gao Yang lowered his head and said as he pondered, “School bells are usually preset to ring at certain times. The first session of evening self-study should be coming to an end. The bell will ring for about twenty seconds. We’ll use the time to rush to the broadcasting room to play music so that we can grab the attention of all the rune corpses.”

Can impassionedly sang Gao Yang’s praises, “That’s smart! You’re the GOAT, Captain Seven Shadow!”

“We don’t know where the broadcast room is, and the door may be locked.” As the designated devil’s advocate, Lithe Snake played his part dutifully by asking all the questions. “Twenty seconds won’t be enough.”

“That’s right. Those are issues we have to address.”

The moment Gao Yang said that, he paused.

Then the others came to the same realization, and they all turned to Li Huafeng, who was cuffed to the bed.

She had calmed down quite a lot, and she was kneeling by the bed writing something sneakily with a pen and paper.

“What are you writing, Miss Li?” Gray Bear demanded.

“Ah!” Li Huafeng jumped and hid the piece of paper in her pocket. “No, nothing…”

“Don’t try anything funny, I’m warning you!”

Gray Bear stalked up to her and seized the piece of paper from her pocket.

1. A zombie-themed shooter game made by Valve. ☜

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