Watching the two walk away without turning back, Tang Hao collapsed onto the ground.
His abdomen was still trembling slightly, but with this mere bit of strength, how could he escape the monsters behind the door…
“I originally planned to save it for the perfect moment… When did he figure it out…” Tang Hao trembled uncontrollably, his eyes bloodshot. “When they came in, I held back… When they got locked in, I still held back… Ling Mo was right, I was scared… But I was confident. Even if I missed those chances, I thought I could wait for a better one…”
This question was something Tang Hao couldn’t figure out… What he also failed to notice was the peculiar glint in the eyes of the panda watching him from the corner of its gaze-it seemed to hold an entirely different emotion…
“I don’t want to die… I can’t die!” Tang Hao roared in desperation, then began dragging himself towards the wall, struggling to prop himself up.
“No matter the circumstances, I will not die…” The words spilled out from his mouth as he fought to stand.
“That look in his eyes… Ling Mo, he won’t do anything reckless, right?”
As they ran, Xu Shuhan couldn’t help but glance back and ask.
“It’s fine.” Ling Mo retracted his gaze from the distance and replied calmly.
“But…” Xu Shuhan stared at Ling Mo’s profile. After a moment’s hesitation, she changed the subject. “How did you know I was there? I mean, when I closed the door… It was like you already knew something.”
“Why did you close the door?” Ling Mo countered, asking his own question.
“I saw you and Xiao Bai charging out-one in front, one behind-and those two were trailing you…” Xu Shuhan started to explain, but quickly returned to her inquiry. “You still haven’t answered me!”
“I had my psychic power locked on it…”
“Huh?”
“I mean… the door,” Ling Mo clarified.
Xu Shuhan was stunned for a moment before the realization dawned on her.
So even if she hadn’t shut the door, he had already been prepared…
“You’re too much!” Xu Shuhan huffed, subconsciously brushing her hand against her cheek before suddenly quickening her pace.
“Hey, hey, I can’t keep up!”
“Not my problem!”
Ling Mo looked exasperated… Even after turning into a Zombie, she was still this hard to understand! So, when it comes to matters involving women, does species even matter?! ŗАO͍𝖇Ěs̩
But soon, his gaze turned serious again. “The real issue is, how are these two buildings connected? Where’s Xia Na? How far has she gone? And the Zombie Puppet… it hasn’t reached its destination yet…”
Ahead, Xu Shuhan ran for a bit before gradually slowing down.
“Why am I even wasting my energy on arguing with this foolish human…”
But when she turned her head to check, she clenched her fists in frustration once again.
That jerk was really maintaining the same steady pace! And he had just been talking to her moments ago, but now he looked like he was in another world, lost in thought.
“Go slam into a wall, will you!” Xu Shuhan muttered under her breath, biting her lip.
…
“Clang!”
A soft noise was followed by Li Yalin’s voice up ahead: “Watch out, the ceiling gets lower here. Be careful not to hit the pipes.”
Controlling the Zombie Puppet, Ling Mo reached up to rub his forehead and glanced upward in irritation. “This tunnel was dug too sloppily.”
“Well, that might actually work to our advantage,” Li Yalin replied. “At least now we know more about their body size.”
“Maybe not their exact size, but we’ve learned a bit about their combat abilities. If things go smoothly, we should be able to see what they look like soon,” Ling Mo said.
Li Yalin let out a little “huh” and asked, “Did something happen?”
“Yeah.” Ling Mo nodded and then briefly recounted what had occurred with his main body. When he explained how two superhumans were killed and how the two buildings were somehow connected in a strange way, Li Yalin was so excited that she bumped into an iron pipe.
“That must mean their level of evolution is pretty advanced! Though… I could do something similar myself,” Li Yalin said with a cheeky laugh.
“That’s what I’m thinking too… Actually, while Xiao Bai was digging the tunnel earlier, I borrowed its sight for a moment, just once, to look down the tunnel. As soon as it broke through, the distant sounds of doors rattling and footsteps became so much clearer. But the moment I looked, I felt all the fur on Xiao Bai’s body stand on end. And all I managed to see… was a hand,” Ling Mo explained.
Curious, Li Yalin asked, “For Xiao Bai to be that on edge… it must have been a high-level Zombie or mutation beast, right? What kind of hand was it?”
“Very pale, very long… How do I put this? It looked like it had no bones. When I saw it, the hand was just extending out from some corner, as if something was plastered against the wall and getting ready to crawl out. Strangely enough, it was clearly a human hand, but there was absolutely nothing human-like about it. That’s the main difference from an ordinary Zombie,” Ling Mo said, recounting the details as they came back to him.
“I see… So, was the underground dug out by them?” Li Yalin suddenly grew excited again.
Ling Mo, on the other hand, honestly didn’t quite understand the source of Li Yalin’s excitement. All he could do was respond, “Probably. I get the feeling the entire area beneath that building might have been hollowed out. It’s possible it’s not just that building-even this whole street could be affected. It’s just that the building itself happened to be under renovation, which is how that group noticed something strange. If it were anywhere else, even if the ground below was hollow, you wouldn’t notice it from inside.”
“Maybe they only dug some tunnels,” Li Yalin said.
She seemed to catch on to Ling Mo’s cautious tone, which was likely why her voice sounded so upbeat-even tinged with a hint of excitement.
“Ugh. More mucus,” Li Yalin suddenly said, pausing briefly.
Ling Mo immediately became alert. The strange silhouette they had encountered earlier had already left a dark impression on him. The place where it had passed through was also smeared with an unsettling mucus.
“I think this mucus is affecting us,” Li Yalin remarked.
“That’s very possible…” Ling Mo glanced warily around, his distaste evident.
The idea of this tunnel being coated in layer after layer of mucus made his stomach churn.
“It feels so weird. What even are these things?” Li Yalin looked like she wanted to wipe her hands on something but eventually just pouted and gave up.
“Actually, I think we might be stuck in a flawed way of thinking,” Ling Mo said suddenly, staring at the ceiling above. “No matter what kind of creatures they are, in essence, they’re still affected by the virus, which triggered some sort of mutated evolution. So, instead of trying to imagine what they are, maybe it’s better to think of them in this way: fundamentally, they’re products of the same process. The difference between them and common zombies is probably due to their drastically different living environments…”
Clang.
At the sound of a faint noise, both Li Yalin and Ling Mo fell silent.
The next moment, they hurriedly picked up their pace, saying nothing as they raced toward the source of the sound…