A recorder followed Ning Shu around. Whenever Ning Shu said something, he would copy it and repeat it over and over again until it echoed in Ning Shu’s brain.
Why did she always end up encountering such strange people? And no matter what she did, the variant zombie would copy it.
The worst part was that she couldn’t kill him either! So she couldn’t do anything about him following her around all day. She felt so vexed that the hair the uncle had washed smooth had become all tangled again.
She really missed the uncle ah. She suddenly understood how the uncle felt towards her. He must have felt that she was so dumb he had to struggle against the impulse to throttle her to death.
However, one could only compare if there was a contrast present. Ning Shu felt that she was actually quite smart compared with this variant zombie. If it was the school doctor uncle facing this variant zombie, he definitely would’ve already pulled out his gun and destroyed this zombie.
“Dai-sy, my-name-is-dai-sy.” Ning Shu pointed at herself as she said this syllable by syllable.
“Ddd..ayy.” The variant zombie repeated.
“Ddd, ayyy, siii,” repeated Ning Shu.
Variant Zombie: “Ddd, eyy.”
Fine, perhaps this name was too complicated for the variant zombie. Ning Shu found it too much trouble to correct him and this was close enough anyways.
“Daayy, Daayy.” The variant zombie would continuously repeat every new term he learned almost like he was chanting a Band-tightening Spell.
>The Band-tightening Spell is from Journey to the West. The Monkey King, Sun Wukong, had a gold band around his forehead which would tighten and cause him intense pain whenever the priest chanted the Band-tightening Spell.
Sometimes, the variant zombie would run off, then come back a while later with a bloody heart in his hands for Ning Shu to eat.
Ning Shu: …
After explaining for a ridiculously long time to this idiot, she finally got him to understand that she didn’t eat hearts, so he finally stopped presenting bloody hearts to her.
When Ning Shu saw him like this, she couldn’t really feel resentment towards him anymore. This idiot probably didn’t even remember that he had once injured her. After all, there were countless humans that had died in his hands.
After this went on for a while, Ning Shu finally got serious about teaching him to speak so they were now able to hold simple conversations. For the sake of communication convenience, Ning Shu came up with a name for the zombie, which was Xiao Ming.
The zombie happily accepted this name. Afterwards, if he wasn’t chanting Day, he was chanting Xiao Ming.
After staying for quite a long time in the abandoned warehouse, Ning Shu felt pretty bored and decided to look for Phoenix again. She decided to first check the base where the senior commander was. Phoenix was probably still at that base.
“Xiao Ming, I’m leaving now, so don’t follow me anymore.” Ning Shu planned to wander around on her own. If she ended up encountering Phoenix, it’d naturally be good.
She felt that she’d definitely encounter Phoenix though. After all, Phoenix hated her so much, so the storyline would definitely give Phoenix an opportunity for revenge.
Xiao Ming looked at Ning Shu as he stammered out the word, “Wh…wherre.”
“I don’t know.” Ning Shu shrugged as she replied casually.
“I go,” said Xiao Ming.
“If you want to follow, then just follow.” For better or for worse, this guy had strong combat ability and most of all, he had the ability to command zombies.
She had been wondering for a while why she couldn’t summon zombies.
Following that, she spent her days wandering around blindly with a little tail following behind her. Whenever she felt like it, she would teach Xiao Ming how to speak so Xiao Ming was soon able to speak much more smoothly.
Ning Shu tried taking out a gene essence vial to see if Xiao Ming would snatch her gene essence, but it seemed that she was overthinking things. Xiao Ming didn’t seem to like drinking the gene essence. With the choices of the gene essence or a heart, Xiao Ming firmly chose the heart.
Ning Shu guessed that Xiao Ming had probably gotten used to that food source, so whenever she got hungry now, she would take out the gene essence without worry.
Despite having walked for several days, they didn’t encounter anyone. There were only zombies wandering around, so it almost felt like the human race had gone extinct.
Ning Shu said to Xiao Ming, “In the future, don’t kill humans as much, especially ability users.”
“Why?” Xiao Ming looked at Ning Shu with confusion. To Xiao Ming, humans were just food.
“Once you kill all the humans, what will you eat?” snapped Ning Shu. Human survival was very hard. Ordinary zombies were always tormented by hunger in a sort of life that was worse than death, but variant zombies were way too powerful.
Xiao Ming seemed to understand. His eyes whirled as he thought about this.
#comment: I also ship Xiao Ming!! I love innocent little brothers! It’s still cute even though he’s offering physical hearts instead of a figurative one.
Note on names: Daisy’s name is actually three characters – 花朵儿 (Hua Duoer) the character for ‘flower’ ‘a bud (of a flower)’ and ‘child.’ Xiao Ming only remembers the first and last character so he calls her ‘flower’ ‘child’ which is much cuter, I think, than Daisy’s actual name since Chinese people often use ‘er’ in an endearing way. In addition, this is just my feeling so I’m not 100% sure if this is actually the case in Chinese culture, but Hua Duoer sounds to me like a tackier name, that’s why I picked Daisy as the English translation. Not that I have anything against daisies, it was a close battle between Daisy and Flowey (from undertale). Also, Xiao Ming’s nickname for Daisy was very close to being Daze lol.
Then there’s Xiao Ming (小明) which is a common name in Chinese textbooks. It’s the xiao from little and ming from bright/intelligent. Parents usually give it to their children with the intention, meaning, and hope that their children will be intelligent. But~ it’s a textbook name.
In regards to “one could only compare if there was a contrast present”: Ning Shu, I feel like the zombie is way smarter than you. Had the school doctor been there to compare, he’d definitely be like, “You think you’re better than this zombie? *scoffs* You can’t compare in brains or brawns. After feeding you all that gene essence, you still can’t leave even a chink on this wild zombie? It learned to fly on its own, can command other zombies, and even knows to seek out more knowledge. Meanwhile you? All you do is eat and sleep. While this zombie’s learning how to speak the human language, it never occured to you to learn how to command other zombies? You’re hopeless, where do you get the confidence to be so smug? The only aspect both of you share is that you’re both filthy, now wash yourselves!”
—of course, that would only happen if the school doctor uncle spoke so much in the first place. The author says the uncle often criticizes Ning Shu from head to toe, but the dialogue is never there (which I’m pretty grateful for).