Before anyone could respond, Old Feng pushed the door open and made to leave.
Jing Lan followed him, asking, “Aren’t you taking the hunting rifle?”
“What if you scare them?”
“Are you so sure it’s only people out there?”
Old Feng paused, then turned back, saying, “Then you take it—can you even use it?”
Jing Lan grabbed the hunting rifle and stepped out, following him.
He secretly grumbled to himself, ‘Is Old Feng truly that warm-hearted?’
‘Just moments ago, he was emphatically stating that no one could be trusted except family, yet now his desire to help was so overwhelmingly strong.’
However, Jing Lan had another reason for following him out.
From their initial glance, a large truck had overturned on the road outside their gate.
Heaven only knew where this vehicle had come from, or why it had driven here at this precise moment.
Jing Lan’s concern, however, lay elsewhere: the overturned truck appeared to be blocking the road.
While there were, of course, many roads leading in and out of Mengshan County, the local terrain was complex, with roads that didn’t interconnect.
Once this particular road was blocked, driving towards Observation Post 115 and Mengli Town would become impossible.
Furthermore, to reach Mingshui City, the autonomous prefecture’s capital, one would first have to enter Mengshan County town and then choose an alternative route.
Under normal circumstances, a police tow truck would arrive within two hours to clear the overturned vehicle.
But now, they certainly couldn’t expect zombies to drive a tow truck to handle the accident.
The two men stepped out, flashlights in hand.
They hadn’t walked far when the commotion from the direction of the crash grew clearer.
Even Jing Lan, who had grown up in the city, could now distinctly identify the sound.
It was the squealing of pigs.
Numerous ‘Second Senior Brothers’ were howling quite pitifully.
(TL Note: ‘Second Senior Brother’ is a common nickname for pigs, referencing Zhu Bajie from Journey to the West.)
The large truck, laden with fat pigs, had overturned on the road.
Approximately four or five pigs had tumbled out from the vehicle’s top.
Two stood dazed by the roadside, while another two, apparently injured from the fall, lay on their backs, wailing.
“Whether the people inside are alive is hard to say,” Old Feng said, turning back with a grin.
“But these pigs have certainly solved our immediate problem!”
“If we get two of them, it’ll be enough to feed us for a month!”
Jing Lan gazed at the overturned truck about 50 meters ahead, feeling a faint sense of familiarity.
He suddenly recalled that yesterday, on their way here, when the four of them had accidentally run over Dao Ge’s dog, a truck had been heading towards Mengshan County.
That truck had later driven into Mengli Town because Mengshan County was sealed off and inaccessible.
Old Feng also let out an ‘Oh’ of sudden realization, pointing at the truck.
“I remember now!”
“Yesterday evening, this very truck made a U-turn at the repair ditch in front of my house.”
“It seemed the city was locked down, and he couldn’t get in.”
“What’s it doing here now?”
Jing Lan did not answer this unanswerable question.
He subtly sensed other unusual elements at play.
The section of road Old Feng’s house stood by had no significant slope or particularly sharp turns.
Moreover, the road was currently empty of other vehicles, presenting no difficulty for maneuvering.
To overturn a truck on such a road was, indeed, rather strange.
Considering that this truck was likely the one that had previously driven into Mengli Town, where a severe infection later occurred, and it was now back out again, one couldn’t rule out the possibility that the driver had fled in a panic, choosing any path to escape.
This could explain why the vehicle overturned on such a seemingly safe stretch of road.
However, the drive from Mengli Town to here was only about an hour.
Trouble had broken out there last night, yet the truck was only just arriving now.
The only plausible explanation was that the driver had been hiding in the town, and had only just found an opportunity to slip into their vehicle and leave.
If this were the case, then the potential risks associated with this truck could not be dismissed.
For instance, the driver might already be infected, having overturned the vehicle during their transformation into a zombie.
Alternatively, some of the fat pigs could be infected.
Jing Lan shared his thoughts with Old Feng, who frowned, appearing somewhat wary.
He then instructed, “Then you hold onto the gun.
‘If anything happens, just shoot.'”
The two men advanced a little further.
With a loud bang, the driver’s side door of the overturned truck, facing skyward, sprang open.
From within, a man’s pained groan of ‘Ouch’ could be heard.
Exchanging glances, both men let out a collective sigh of relief.
It seemed the person inside the vehicle was still human.
Old Feng then called out loudly, “Master, do you need any help?”
The man in the truck, likely injured, grunted twice, seemingly trying to say something.
The two approached closer, hoping to hear the driver’s voice more clearly.
A fat pig by the roadside grunted ‘loo-loo’ and trotted towards them.
Jing Lan aimed his gun at the pig, inspecting it carefully, confirming it wasn’t infected.
It was simply hungry, approaching people to beg for food.
“Master, what are you saying?” Old Feng moved a few more steps closer, trying to peer through the truck’s windshield to assess the cab’s condition.
At that moment, Jing Lan suddenly felt an unsettling aura subtly seeping out from their surroundings.
Scanning the area, he saw nothing overtly unusual.
The light from the small power bank with its built-in LED, which he held, swept across the roadside woods; bamboo stalks stood tall, shrubs lay still, and everything seemed asleep.
Another pig lay peacefully on the ground by the road.
The truck’s flickering headlights, alternately bright and dim, were indeed disorienting.
‘Was this the source of the eerie feeling?’
‘Am I being overly suspicious?’
Jing Lan’s finger, resting on the hunting rifle’s trigger, relaxed slightly, and he continued walking towards the front of the truck.
Just as the truck’s headlights flickered again, a fear as intense as an electric shock suddenly seized his heart.
Jing Lan had a close relationship with his university film appreciation professor.
This professor once told him, ‘You possess a unique talent: the shorter an object appears in a film shot, the more likely you are to notice it.’
‘Especially when it appears abnormal.’
In the fleeting moment the headlights flashed, the reflection on the road illuminated the outline of the overturned truck.
However, the edges of this outline were abnormal.
They strangely protruded.
One possibility was that the truck’s fuel tank had leaked, spilling oil onto the ground and creating a shadow.
Yet, there was no smell of oil in the air.
This was his last common-sense guess.
Dismissing it, Jing Lan immediately shouted, “Something’s wrong! Old Feng, run back!”
Old Feng was not foolish; he, too, seemed to possess a sense of vigilance.
At Jing Lan’s shout, he didn’t question it, but immediately turned and ran.
Only the thudding footsteps of the two men echoed in the air.
After running a dozen paces, Jing Lan’s thoughts wavered: ‘Could I be overthinking this?’
‘Have the events of the past two days made me paranoid?’
He wanted to look back, but just then, a rustling, low, almost itching sound, like heavy footsteps crushing leaves, emanated from the direction of the large truck.
As Jing Lan’s pace faltered slightly, that truly unsettling rustle rapidly drew nearer.
This was the very sound he had heard this morning while foraging for wild vegetables with Ling Yechen in the woods!
Later, Little Lamai had even speculated it might be the footsteps of a wild boar, and given that Old Feng had indeed brought a hunting rifle to hunt boars, the matter had almost been considered settled.
But now, with the sound so incredibly close, undisturbed by the daytime wind or bird calls, and on a concrete surface where a pig’s trotters couldn’t possibly create a leaf-crunching sound, Jing Lan understood this was a noise no ordinary creature could make.
Old Feng was still somewhat bewildered; he had just uttered a half-formed ‘Wh—’ when an incredibly tragic wail burst forth from the direction of the truck.
That sound was utterly different from the grunts of pigs injured in the fall; it was a violent, throat-ripping shriek, as if the pigs were trying to scream their souls out of their bodies.
Jing Lan turned around, illuminating the scene with the light from his power bank.
Given the distance, he couldn’t see very clearly.
However, the truck’s flickering headlights momentarily illuminated the scene in front of it with stark clarity.
He saw a black mass, seemingly covered in dense bristles, rolling across the road like hundreds of giant caterpillars moving in unison.
The fat pig by the roadside was instantly enveloped by this mass, and large patches of pig blood immediately gushed from its pink skin.
The usually lazy pig, eyes wide with terror, shrieked and leaped half a meter into the air.
But upon landing again, the black monstrosity engulfed it once more, and an even more horrific scream erupted from within the black fur.
Old Feng, who had lived in this locality for half a century, had never witnessed such a thing.
Yet, he suddenly recalled a legend he had heard years ago, and a chill of dread immediately ran down his spine.
The black mass advanced rapidly, surging towards the two running men.
Jing Lan, possessing excellent physical fitness and able to run 1000 meters in 3 minutes 20 seconds, could still maintain some distance from the black monster.
Old Feng, however, was on the verge of collapsing into the furry monstrosity at any moment.
When they were only thirty meters from home, Old Feng’s wife opened the door.
The indoor light illuminated the black furry monster, instantly making Old Feng’s wife tremble with fright.
Just then, Old Feng stumbled, falling onto the road surface.
The black furry monster swarmed over him, first coiling around his ankle.
With an agonizing jolt through his leg, a large chunk of flesh was instantly torn from Old Feng’s calf, exposing the stark white bone beneath.
Old Feng, despairing, cast a glance at Jing Lan, crying, “‘Kill me!'”
The black furry monster surged up Old Feng’s upper body, his abdomen instantly ripped open, and his intestines were on the verge of spilling out.
“Bang!” A gunshot rang out.
Jing Lan raised the hunting rifle and blew half of Old Feng’s head off.
He immediately turned and ran towards the house door.
Old Feng’s wife slammed the door shut, locking Jing Lan out.
Lui Si and Ling Yechen, who had witnessed everything, cried out in alarm and rushed to open the door, but Old Feng’s wife pushed them away.
Her face was a mask of terror, her lips trembling uncontrollably as if she had just eaten a handful of Sichuan peppercorns, and her eyelids twitched incessantly around her darting eyes.
“‘Get out! This door isn’t opening! I don’t want to die!'”
The woman screamed, repeatedly pushing away Lui Si and Ling Yechen as they tried to approach.
Finally, she simply turned, pulled out a key, inserted it into the keyhole, twisted it to lock, and then began to exert force, gradually bending the key—she intended to snap it off in the lock!
“‘Let him in, Auntie!'” Ling Yechen cried out.
Outside, Jing Lan’s frantic knocking was already audible.
No one noticed Lui Si, who had suddenly grown cold-faced, picking up a single-handled iron pot from a nearby table—the very pot the family had used earlier to make chicken soup.
She aimed the iron pot at Old Feng’s wife’s head and brought it down with brutal force.