Chapter 4

Chapter 4

In the middle of the night, Lin Ran fell asleep leaning against me.

I carefully adjusted her into a more comfortable position.

Then I stood up.

In the darkness, Jiang Shu’s assessing gaze met mine head-on.

He walked toward me.

He suspected me.

I stood where I was, expressionless, as my mental power condensed into a blade of light and gathered in my palm.

The next second-

A piercing alarm siren tore through the night!

“Not good! It’s a zombie horde!”

The factory doors, which had been blocked off with cars, were forced open.

A dense mass of zombies surged inside.

Everyone in the squad woke at once and began using their abilities to fight.

There were six ability users in this squad.

Aside from Jiang Shu, who had an intermediate metal-type ability, the others’ abilities were all only at the beginner level.

Soon, their mental power was depleted.

The once airtight defense line collapsed.

Several zombies lunged, claws bared and teeth snapping, toward Jiang Lan and Lin Ran.

“Brother!”

“Jiang Shu!”

Amid Jiang Lan’s shrill cry, Jiang Shu did not hesitate. The metal spike in his hand pierced through the zombie pouncing at her.

Then he seemed to realize that Lin Ran had also been calling for help just now.

He whipped his head toward us.

Just in time to see-

Squelch.

The steel rebar in my hand stabbed through the brains of two zombies in a row.

They swayed, then collapsed.

Lin Ran clutched the corner of my clothes, her face deathly pale.

“Zhaozhao, are you okay? Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine.”

I casually wiped the filthy blood that had splattered onto my face.

Then I realized even more zombies were surrounding us.

“Get in the car. I’ll cover the rear!”

Jiang Shu gritted his teeth and said, “We need to go! Drive out of here!”

Lin Ran was quiet the whole way.

After daybreak, we finally escaped the zombie horde’s pursuit.

We found an unoccupied house nearby and stopped there to rest.

I observed the fluctuations in Lin Ran’s mental power and felt that she was probably in a bad mood.

So I gently held her hand.

Then I said seriously, “I’ll protect you.”

Lin Ran looked up at me.

What had happened in the factory had been obvious.

When Lin Ran and Jiang Lan both needed protection at the same time, Jiang Shu chose his sister.

“All our supplies are in Jiang Lan’s space, so of course she’s the priority to protect. It’s not that I don’t understand. I just… I just…”

Lin Ran sobbed as she asked me, “Zhaozhao, am I a very selfish person?”

I shook my head.

“You’re very good.”

In my heart, Lin Ran was the best person in the world.

When I was four, my biological parents abandoned me at the entrance of an orphanage.

Because they discovered I couldn’t speak.

They took me to the hospital for an examination and only then learned that I had autism.

After the orphanage took me in, the older children bullied me.

It was Lin Ran, who was three years older than me, who raised a brick and chased them all over the place like a little storm.

“You can’t bully her! I won’t let you bully her!”

When I was nine.

One night.

The director told me to go to his office. He said he had called a doctor over to give me a physical examination.

I went.

There were two strange middle-aged men in the room. They told me to take off my dress so they could examine me.

The director smiled beside them. “She can’t talk. It’s perfectly safe.”

It was at that moment-

The door to the director’s office was smashed open.

Lin Ran charged in, waving the large shovel from the orphanage’s septic tank, swinging wildly at the director and the two men.

“Aaaah! Stay away from my Zhaozhao! I’ll hit you!”

Amid their screams, the shovel cracked their heads open.

The incident blew up.

The director and those two men were all taken away.

In the darkness, Lin Ran held my hand tightly.

She kept stroking my messy hair.

She said, “Don’t be scared, Zhaozhao. When you’re in danger, just call my name!”

…

Somewhat clumsily, I imitated her tone from back then and said, “Don’t be scared, Lin Ran.”

“When you’re in danger… just call my name.”

She stared at me blankly.

Her lips began to tremble.

“Zhaozhao…”

Lin Ran had only gotten those two words out when the light before us suddenly dimmed.

I raised my head.

I saw Jiang Shu standing there with several ability users, surrounding us.

Once again.

Almost by instinct, Lin Ran shielded me behind her and asked, “What’s wrong?”

Jiang Lan said, “Ran-jie, I know you’re willing to trust your friend, but haven’t you noticed anything strange?”

Lin Ran frowned. “What do you mean, strange?”

Jiang Lan looked hesitantly toward Jiang Shu beside her.

Jiang Shu said nothing.

He simply used his ability to condense a metal spike and held it in his hand.

A shifty-looking man beside him said, “Ran-jie, think about it. There are zombies everywhere now. Even finding a little bit of supplies is harder than climbing to heaven. Yet this friend of yours was carrying a whole bag full of chocolates, and she managed to survive alone in a pile of zombies for two whole months.”

“And she claims she’s just an ordinary person with no ability. How is that possible?”

Lin Ran gripped my hand even tighter.

“So what exactly are you trying to say?”

Jiang Shu took a step forward.

In a low voice, he said, “Ran Ran, I know she’s a very important friend to you, but these are special times. We have to be cautious.”

“Our squad has been traveling for almost a month, specifically choosing routes with fewer people. We’ve hardly run into many zombies at all.”

“But yesterday, right after your friend joined us, we encountered a zombie horde in the middle of the night.”

“The wireless radio broadcast also mentioned a couple of days ago that zombies have been constantly evolving over the past two months. There are already high-level zombies that are almost no different from humans, as well as a Zombie King capable of commanding an entire army of zombies.”

He slowly raised the metal spike in his hand and aimed it at my eyes.

“I suspect your friend is the legendary Zombie King.”