Gazing at the precarious highway in the distance, Jing Lan’s mind cleared, if only slightly. He realized that reflecting on his recent actions, he had indeed been acting purely on emotion.
While saving someone was commendable, his behavior just now had clearly been an act of defiance against Ling Yechen.
It was as if Ling Yechen’s refusal of his help was a personal rejection—how utterly foolish of him.
‘Who do I think I am? What am I craving? Does it really feel good to be seen as his savior? It’s sickening!’
Now that he had calmed down, Jing Lan reviewed the situation, his heart swelling with even greater vexation.
‘There was no need for that just now. I could have left alone, left him upstairs where the zombies couldn’t reach, and then figured out a solution. I surely had three days, didn’t I? Whether it was driving a car to ram the zombies or finding more powerful weapons—why was I in such a rush? Was I desperate to prove something?’
In his agitation, he pulled out his phone and opened WeChat to check for replies, only to see his conversation with his mother, which suddenly filled him with a pang of shame.
There were no replies on WeChat. A despairing silence filled his message feed.
Lowering his phone, he gazed blankly at the perilous surroundings; serene sugarcane fields lined the roadside, and further beyond lay paddy fields where figures moved along the irrigation ridges—clearly not living beings.
Even with the excruciating pain from his wounds, he had no thought of stopping, knowing that zombies might be slowly converging from all directions.
For a fleeting moment, the thought, ‘Death would bring release,’ flashed through his mind. Fortunately, this longing for death did not expand.
Yet, to survive, he needed to possess even calmer and more prudent judgment.
Jing Lan wanted to tell Ling Yechen about his earlier impulsive behavior, but he couldn’t. Ling Yechen, once again feeling down due to his zombie-attracting constitution, repeatedly asked, “Why did you save me? Am I really that important?”
Perhaps he wasn’t that important? Jing Lan could easily grasp the necessity of abandoning a troublesome companion. Yet, the thought of this person’s disappearance felt utterly unacceptable to him. He couldn’t articulate any specific drawbacks, only that he found it impossible to imagine a world without this companion.
Thus, he continued to answer repeatedly, “Of course,” “You’re very important,” and “You’re the band’s drummer, good drummers are hard to find, you know?”
Even after two years of friendship, misunderstandings could still arise in their unspoken intentions.
Despite the unbearable pain in his foot, it did not amplify the sacred feeling of saving another. Jing Lan began to question his own rationale, suddenly imagining: if the situation were to become even more extreme, requiring him to kill a companion, would he be capable of doing so?
His repeated assurances to Ling Yechen that “you’re important” were not entirely without a hint of perfunctoriness.
Ling Yechen, however, interpreted it differently. Though he frequently asserted that continuing to travel with him would be dangerous, potentially leading to both their deaths, a deep desire still simmered within him, yearning for his protector to declare without hesitation: “It doesn’t matter, even if you bring trouble, I will protect you without question.” Of course, Jing Lan hadn’t said that. Yet, Ling Yechen, desperately craving a sense of security, gradually understood Jing Lan’s somewhat perfunctory “you’re important” as a solemn vow, and in his heart, a warm tide of gratitude swelled even further.
“I don’t really know what I can do,” he chuckled. “Senior saved me so many times, it would be enough if I could save Senior just once.”
“Just don’t cause any trouble,” Jing Lan said casually. However, Ling Yechen felt he had earned trust, and he quickly nodded, “Mhm!”
****
The two had reached the side of Highway 219.
The road was indeed jammed with traffic. Fortunately, however, not all lanes were completely blocked, and there were relatively few vehicles, especially in the direction leading away from Mengshan County.
If they could find an intact car, they might be able to leave immediately, heading directly towards Minghui City, the provincial capital. Should they then encounter a large survivor camp, it would be a blessing beyond measure; if not, continuing north would still be a viable option.
Yet, neither dared to step onto the highway immediately. They first climbed a small mound by the roadside, carefully observing the road conditions below.
Jing Lan noticed a rather unsettling phenomenon: all car doors were open, and the zombified drivers and passengers were shambling along the highway.
Why were there no zombies trapped inside the vehicles?
Unable to fathom it, he decided they should find a car as quickly as possible.
The two quickly spotted a van parked by the roadside—its doors were open, there were no zombies nearby, and it was relatively close to them.
Without a word, they sprinted towards it.
Jing Lan, unable to bear the pain in his leg, desperately wanted to sit down in a safe place immediately. This impulse made him neglect to observe their surroundings carefully.
Just as they stepped onto the road, preparing to run towards the van, a “Whoosh!” erupted from a dense clump of Siam weed by the roadside. A zombie, clad in a moving company uniform, leaped out and instantly tackled Jing Lan to the ground.
This zombie was likely the van’s driver.
Normally, Jing Lan, a practitioner of Earth Arts Boxing, wouldn’t fear such a tackling attack; a well-placed defensive move could use the assailant’s momentum to send them flying. Unfortunately, the impact caused his foot wound to chafe, and a surge of excruciating pain slowed his reaction, allowing the full weight of the zombie to press down upon him.
The zombie opened its gaping, bloody maw, aiming to bite down on Jing Lan’s neck.
Ling Yechen, standing nearby, let out a shout and kicked the zombie in the temple. The zombie’s movement was only momentarily disrupted before it lunged to bite again. In desperation, Ling Yechen also dove forward, wrapping his arms around the zombie’s neck to restrain it.
“Awooo?” The zombie’s eyes rolled back as it glared at Ling Yechen, then it suddenly went berserk, grabbing Ling Yechen’s arm and biting down fiercely.
Unlike his companion, Ling Yechen was not so tolerant of pain and immediately let out a pained shriek. Seizing the moment the zombie shifted its weight, Jing Lan broke free, drew his Night Goddess tactical knife, and with a sideward turn, plunged it directly into the zombie’s temple. The zombie’s jaw went slack, releasing its grip.
Pulling the wailing and sobbing Ling Yechen into the van, Jing Lan slammed the doors shut. Behind them, the horde of zombies, drawn by the screams, sprinted closer.
Ling Yechen slumped into the passenger seat, the intense pain in his arm twisting his face into a grimace. His bitten arm seemed to have been corrupted by a faulty code, his fingers twitching uncontrollably.
Jing Lan wiped his knife clean and pulled Ling Yechen’s arm towards him.
“Bear with it for a moment. I’m going to cut away the bitten flesh.”
As he spoke, the tip of the knife was already poised over the wound on Ling Yechen’s arm.
Ling Yechen shook his head, his other hand gently blocking the move.
“It’s too late, Senior,” he said with a bitter smile, tears welling in the corners of his eyes.
“I just did that myself—”
“It’s useless. I can feel it. That… thing, it’s already deep inside my body. I can’t describe it. But I think I’m already…”
Regardless of whether the zombie infection was viral, Ling Yechen could already feel a malevolent surge spreading through his body from his arm, like a phantom attempting to seize control.
“Don’t you dare say that!” Jing Lan’s eyes flashed with a fierce glint as he pulled Ling Yechen’s arm closer—it bore deep teeth marks, already bruised and swollen.
“If you want to live, you have to endure the pain.”
Ling Yechen, mustering all his strength, retorted, “If you want to live, you have to face reality!”
Jing Lan’s entire body trembled, his pupils quivering. He had never seen Ling Yechen like this.
“I’m already gone, Senior! Stab me to death with that knife! Hurry! I don’t want to turn into a zombie!” The injured boy cried out in agony, his gaze fearfully darting towards the knife in Jing Lan’s hand.
“Am I really supposed to kill you…?”
“I’m sorry!” Ling Yechen choked out, his crying almost making him gasp for breath. “I’m sorry, Senior, I’m useless, after being saved by you so many times, I still ended up like this… but please, for saving you just now, let me die, I beg you…”
Jing Lan’s hand, gripping the knife, tightened once more. Slowly, he raised the blade.
“Even at a time like this, you won’t cry…” Ling Yechen managed a trembling, bitter smile. “You truly are… truly dependable. Senior, kill me…”
Jing Lan’s trembling hand, gripping the sharp knife, aimed it at Ling Yechen’s chest.
Then, he tossed the knife aside.
The knife clattered to the floor with a clang, and immediately afterward, a pursuing zombie began to pound on the windowpane.
“I can’t stab you with a knife.”
Jing Lan extended both hands and clasped Ling Yechen’s neck.
“Let’s end it with carotid sinus massage. Living the rest of my life in regret for failing to protect you is terrifying enough. If there’s more blood, I’ll have nightmares every night on top of it.”
Ling Yechen offered a bitter, somewhat relieved smile. ‘Enough already,’ he thought, ‘usually so quiet, but now he’s being a smart-aleck.’
Jing Lan’s fingers abruptly applied pressure.
Ling Yechen understood what he was trying to do. Jing Lan’s fingers pressed against the carotid sinuses on either side of his neck; the carotid sinus, a part of the carotid artery that monitors blood pressure, rapidly lowers it when a spike is detected.
However, applying excessive external force to stimulate the carotid sinus would cause it to misinterpret the body as experiencing high blood pressure and still initiate blood pressure reduction—and if the body didn’t actually have high blood pressure, the result of this reduction would be—
Cardiac arrest.
A crude yet clean method.
A violent tingling sensation spread across his neck, and soon after, a silent, bell-like vibration resonated within his chest—the carotid sinus had begun its work, rapidly lowering his blood pressure, causing his heart to beat slower and slower.
Then, in a single moment, as if struck by a petrification spell, Ling Yechen felt himself transform into a stone statue.
His breath was brutally cut off. He could no longer move any part of his body, only stare fixedly at Jing Lan, who was about to end his life. The sensation in his chest became a burning pain, like acid corrosion.
Before his vision completely darkened, Ling Yechen saw tears finally welling from the corners of Jing Lan’s eyes.
“I’m sorry… Yechen, I’m sorry…”
‘Is he saying “I’m sorry”?’ As this thought crossed his mind, Ling Yechen’s vision failed, plunging him into complete darkness.
‘It’s alright, Senior, I forgive you. No, you don’t even need to say you’re sorry. It’s me who was useless. I should be thanking you.’
‘If there’s a next life, I want to be less fragile, so you won’t have to bother protecting me.’
‘Ideally… I could protect you too.’
‘Thank you for two years of care. Especially for this past week of protection.’
‘It was truly wonderful to be your friend.’
****
In a hazy space between consciousness and oblivion, Ling Yechen seemed to hear a continuous, desperate wail.
And then, everything dissolved into nothingness.
****
*Click*.
The dream ended there.
The young woman sat up in bed, her eyes squinting.
The curtains were drawn across the window. Pink curtains. The room was bathed in pink.
Her vision was blurry; she couldn’t make anything out clearly. Yet, it was quite warm. Only winter in the south could be this mild.
The young woman had dreamt that during a trip with her friends, a biochemical crisis had engulfed the world, and they were chased relentlessly by zombies.
In the end, only she and…
Hmm, was that boy her boyfriend?
The young woman didn’t ponder further. The comforter was too thick, the bed too warm; she wanted to get up and get some air.
Blurs, just blurs—her vision was nothing but blocks of color, making everything indistinct.
Losing her sight would have been terrifying, so the young woman fumbled around, trying to find a wall to lean on. Instead, her hand brushed against a pair of glasses on a cluttered-looking desk. ‘Are these mine?’ she wondered, placing them on her nose without further thought.
The lenses were incredibly thick, feeling as if they were over a thousand degrees. The prescription was far too strong, transforming her vision into a different kind of blur. Still, it seemed a little clearer now—this was likely a girl’s room. Though incredibly messy, it contained many pink items: a pink desk piled with books featuring warm-colored covers, appearing to be light novels, and a large stack of A4 papers, possibly documents.
In a corner of the cluttered desk, there appeared to be an old eyeglass case. Opening it, she found a pair of black half-rimmed glasses with seemingly thinner lenses.
After putting on these glasses, the world finally came into sharp focus.
The first thing she saw was a chaotic array of anime posters on the wall—a collection of handsome men. They appeared to be from otome and Boys’ Love works.
The young woman didn’t quite understand why some girls enjoyed seeing boys ‘stick together.’
In a corner of the room stood a mirror.
She walked to the mirror. Reflected back was a petite girl, barely 150 centimeters tall, with long, snowy-white hair, its ends always softly curled, giving her a sweetly languid and natural charm.
Behind the thick lenses, her eyes were gray-blue, mysterious yet not jarring, and for some reason, one glance assured you they weren’t colored contacts. However, her irises seemed to lack depth, almost a solid blue, making them appear almost like a blind person’s.
Though, without glasses, she felt pretty much blind herself.
Her features were well-defined, yet not to the point of rigidity.
The shape of her cheeks suggested a whimsical sculptor, who, while crafting a girl’s sweet countenance, had subtly, almost imperceptibly, added a hint of a boy’s angularity, giving her face a trace of an extremely hard-to-detect firmness. However, her snow-white skin also carried a faint, sickly pallor.
She wore a cute pink pajama top adorned with the female character Rin Tohsaka from the Fate series. It seemed the room’s owner wasn’t averse to mainstream works after all.
Her chest, though not particularly large, was pleasantly rounded. She squeezed it—it was real.
She wore only shorts on her lower body.
Her legs were slender but not stick-thin, possessing a subtle hint of fleshiness, perhaps enough to stir a ‘loli-con’s’ desire to pinch them.
‘How adorable,’ the young woman thought, marveling from the bottom of her heart.
‘If only I could get to know such a cute girl—’
Wait a moment, something felt off.
The young woman reached up to smooth her hair, and the girl in the mirror did the same.
‘Come to think of it,’ the young woman mused, ‘the French psychologist Lacan once proposed the “mirror stage” theory, suggesting that the key to human self-identity formation is the “mirror.” Senior was the one who told me about this—’
Like thunder exploding in her mind, the young woman’s scalp tingled. She covered her mouth with a hand, her legs turning to jelly, and sank to her knees before the mirror.
She scrutinized the girl in the mirror with doubtful eyes. The girl in the mirror returned her suspicious gaze. She felt the person in the mirror looked like a pitiful girl cowering on the floor, bullied—whoever it was, it certainly shouldn’t be her. But the mirror, faithfully reflecting reality, was denying this ‘it certainly shouldn’t be.’
She then touched the area between her legs.
As expected. Yet, unexpectedly.
Because she remembered the sensation of something being there, and now there was nothing, or rather, the ‘something’ had been replaced by a coin slot.
An abnormal emptiness then spread throughout her entire body.
Accompanying this abnormality was over a decade of accumulated life experience.
In a flash, these experiences connected all the young woman’s memories, including those from the dream. They indisputably proclaimed: that wasn’t a dream, that was reality.
The unimpeded flow of memories placed the name “Ling Yechen” onto the white-haired girl in the mirror, which then reflected into the eyes of the girl looking into the mirror.
As she fully confirmed her identity, an unparalleled sense of shame crept over the young woman’s entire body.
“Uwaaaah!!!!”
The white-haired girl clutched herself in horror.
“What have I become?!”