Strange Sounds

Wobu Zai was finally dead.

Ren Anhua had found a nail, hammered it into his heart with brute force, and then moved out of the healing range.

With every beat, his heart was pierced by the iron nail, then repaired by the residual healing energy Ren Anhua had left on him, only to be pierced again.

But the residual healing effect was finite.

Without replenishment from Ren Anhua herself, it was soon depleted.

Afterward, with his heart ruptured, Wobu Zai could no longer be healed and finally got his wish to die.

His expression was contorted from the repeated rupturing of his heart, yet it inexplicably held a hint of release.

He had no intact clothing left on his body; nearly all his tissues and organs were brand-new, regenerated by the healing, without a single scar.

He lay on the ground, motionless, all signs of life completely gone.

Yet even so, Ren Anhua still didn’t dare to approach him casually.

She was still terribly worried that if she walked over, the guy would suddenly leap up from the floor.

If you were to ask why, it was because such a thing had already happened twice.

This was the third time Wobu Zai had “died.”

This healing ability was, in a sense, truly overpowered.

But the stronger the ability, the more terrible Ren Anhua’s gameplay experience became.

Ren Anhua didn’t dare get near Wobu Zai again now.

She would probably only dare to pass by the “dead body” on the floor after waiting until the next morning to confirm he was thoroughly dead.

However, Wobu Zai’s death was not entirely meaningless.

Ren Anhua now had a general understanding of the healing ability she currently possessed.

She speculated that the ability likely used brain death as its criterion for determining death.

As long as the target still had neural activity, her healing ability would forcibly bring them back to life—whether they wanted it or not.

Wobu Zai was dead, and the slightly cluttered shopping street on the edge of the city returned to its tranquility.

Two months into the apocalypse, the starlight at night was much brighter.

The faint white light allowed one to see the streetscape through the suit shop’s floor-to-ceiling windows—a pile of dead zombies.

These zombies had likely been drawn by the commotion in the store.

However, Ren Anhua had been in the heat of the moment… furiously trying to kill Wobu Zai at the time, so she hadn’t noticed the disturbance.

So the monk had gone out and casually dealt with the wave of minions.

After all, there were no high-level zombies, making them quite easy to handle.

Ren Anhua turned her head and saw that the monk was already sitting cross-legged against the wall in meditation, seemingly planning to spend the night here.

This was normal.

After clearing out so many zombies in the vicinity, there was probably no safer place than the area around this shop.

Ren Anhua had originally planned to find more rations, but she was no longer in the mood.

Because she was currently covered in sticky blood.

Fortunately, she had taken off her hoodie beforehand to avoid getting it dirty.

Any blood that got on the bio-suit was automatically cleaned off, but the bloodstains on her skin were not so easy to deal with.

Ren Anhua tried the tap in the restroom and was pleasantly surprised to find that it still had running water.

This suit shop probably had its own reserve water tank.

Whether the water was clean or not didn’t really matter anymore.

There weren’t so many niceties in the apocalypse.

Ren Anhua hastily grabbed a suit jacket, wet it with the running water, and wiped herself clean.

After a short while of bustling about, she finally felt much fresher.

When she came out, she found the monk still meditating cross-legged against the wall, she couldn’t tell if he was asleep.

But since the monk wasn’t being overly cautious of her, Ren Anhua couldn’t be bothered to be picky and find another place to rest.

She decided to spend the night in this shop as well.

But Ren Anhua didn’t have the monk’s ability to enter a meditative state while sitting cross-legged.

So she pulled a pile of various suits together, fashioned a nest out of what was likely a hundred thousand yuan worth of clothing, and crawled inside to sleep.

Although this shop was on the outskirts of the city, the clothes it sold seemed to be of good quality.

At least, Ren Anhua felt quite comfortable sleeping in them.

It was no wonder that red-haired man had chosen this shop to pick out his clothes.

After killing Wobu Zai, Ren Anhua’s mood was a bit somber.

She didn’t say a word, but the monk himself was a man of few words, so the atmosphere actually felt quite natural.

Starlight spilling from the night sky filtered into the shop, illuminating the monk’s peaceful and serene face, Wobu Zai’s posture of restful release, a large and shocking pile of bloody flesh and body parts, and a conspicuous mound of suits—that was Ren Anhua’s little nest.

Although the scene looked somewhat bizarre, it exuded a subtle tranquility against the backdrop of the monk.

But this tranquility was broken not long after.

The conspicuous pile of suits shook violently a few times, and a small, pink-haired figure emerged.

For some reason, Ren Anhua’s face had grown a little tense.

She clutched her stomach and paced around for a bit.

Barefoot, her gait was a little strange.

As if she’d thought of something, she suddenly turned and walked toward the monk sitting by the wall.

“Monk… are you asleep?”

Ren Anhua had guessed correctly; the monk was indeed not asleep.

He was silently chanting the Great Compassion Mantra for Wobu Zai.

“This humble monk is not asleep, Patron Ren. What is it?”

“Well… have you heard any… you know, strange sounds.”

Ren Anhua’s voice began to tremble slightly.

She seemed very nervous, as if she was afraid of something, yet it didn’t seem to be fear.

Although the starlight at night was relatively bright, the interior of the shop was still quite dim, making it difficult to see people clearly.

The monk could vaguely make out that Ren Anhua’s little face seemed a bit flushed, but he couldn’t see her eyes, let alone her expression.

So the monk wasn’t sure of Ren Anhua’s current state.

However, her words made him a little concerned, so he listened intently, worried that some unusually dangerous creature was lurking in the shop without his knowledge.

But this action from the monk only made Ren Anhua seem more nervous.

“Wait, I didn’t mean for you to listen carefully. I was just asking, um… hey, you don’t have to listen so seriously… if there’s no noise, then just forget it.”

Rather than nervous, Ren Anhua’s state seemed more like panic.

“Patron Ren, this humble monk hears nothing. Did something happen?”

Although he was an Awakened, the monk’s five senses had not been specially enhanced.

Perhaps they were sharper than an ordinary person’s, but that was the extent of it.

So even after listening carefully, he still didn’t detect any strange sounds, but he remained concerned about some unknown danger lurking in the shop and decided to ask Ren Anhua directly.

“Uh… it’s nothing. I just heard some strange noises earlier, so I came to ask you,” Ren Anhua stammered.

“If you didn’t hear anything either, then forget it. Maybe I heard wrong. No, it must have been me hearing things. That’s it. I’m going to sleep. We can talk about anything else tomorrow.”

Ren Anhua ended the conversation rather abruptly, leaving no time for the monk to respond before she moved away from him.

She seemed to want to return to her little nest of suits to sleep, but after a moment’s thought, she appeared uneasy.

She gathered a pile of clothes and headed for the second floor.

“I’m going to sleep on the second floor. You stay down here, you don’t need to come up.”

Ren Anhua left this parting sentence and departed from the ground floor showroom.

“Oof!”

The clothes Ren Anhua was holding scattered all over the floor.

She stumbled and fell, despite there being nothing on the ground.

Her steps seemed somewhat unsteady, and the fall left her feeling quite embarrassed.

In the end, Ren Anhua didn’t carry anything.

She activated her anti-gravity field and floated up to the second floor.

Fortunately, this suit shop had plenty of clothes on the second floor as well, so making another nest wouldn’t take much time.

The monk was a bit curious about Ren Anhua’s strange behavior, but he didn’t ask any further.

Perhaps it was because monks are naturally more detached; he wouldn’t dwell too much on his curiosity.

So he continued to silently chant the Great Compassion Mantra in his heart.

The shop returned to its quiet state once more, but a faint stir came from outside.

The red-haired man had already found a new suit to wear.

He had a good figure, and after tidying himself up, he looked quite sharp.

At this moment, he was sitting on a balcony directly opposite the suit shop.

At night, his vision was far superior to that of an ordinary person, allowing him to clearly see many places obscured by darkness.

Thus, everything that had happened inside the shop had unfolded before his eyes.

He didn’t know why he felt the urge to observe this little pink-haired girl from the shadows.

Perhaps it was because she was the first person to acknowledge his human identity and even provide appropriate evidence.

The red-haired man’s mindset wasn’t one of gratitude.

It was just that in this post-apocalyptic world, he had no clear goals of his own.

He simply felt that perhaps by following this pink-haired girl in secret, he might encounter some interesting things, or… find more evidence of his own humanity?

Yes, he still believed himself to be a zombie.

What if that ability was actually effective on high-level zombies, but not on low-level corrupted creatures?

The red-haired man didn’t understand the characteristics of the ability Ren Anhua possessed, and combined with his own experiences, he still felt in his heart that he belonged on the side of the zombies.

A person who has been denied countless times will not change their mind because of a single affirmation.

What he needed now was more affirmation, more confirmation of his “human identity.”

The red-haired man felt that he might find this confirmation by following the pink-haired girl.

He couldn’t explain why.

If he had to give a reason, it was probably because this pink-haired girl was the first person to affirm him.

It was just that her vigilance seemed a bit too high.

He was only watching from here, doing nothing, yet he had still aroused her suspicion, causing her to move her nest to the second floor.

He really had no idea how she had discovered him.

Now, the red-haired man couldn’t see Ren Anhua’s figure at all.

However, he didn’t leave.

After all, this suit shop had only one exit: the front door.

Ren Anhua would have to come out from that location eventually.

The red-haired man decided to get some sleep first and look for her trail again tomorrow.