The Zombies Are Closing In on the Brains / The Sixth Lane Is Still Greedy

When Lin Yue looked up, he saw the white cloud that had originally been scattered across the horizon being swallowed from the edges inward by something. Gray-black clouds rolled over from the west, pressing down at more than twice the speed of ordinary rain clouds.

Faint flashes of lightning flickered along the cloud's edge, as if something hidden deep inside was breathing slowly.

The system notification exploded beside his ear, crisp and efficient, carrying an official, indifferent chill.

[Ding—the Weather Controller was used by Dr. Zomboss]

[Ding—Today's weather: Clear skies turning into torrential rain]

Lin Yue gaped as the roiling gray-black clouds overhead spread across the entire sky at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The sunlight squeezed out a final few rays through the gaps in the clouds, then went out completely, as if someone had pinched out a lamp wick.

The first raindrop struck the tip of his nose. It was cold, carrying a faint earthy scent from the dust kicked up by the rain.

"Seriously, bro..." He looked up at the sky, his voice filled with disbelief and helpless amusement. "Dr. Zomboss... You had an artifact like this and chose to use it on the last day of the Beginner Trial? What, did I eat your rice?"

"Boom..."

A muffled rumble of thunder rolled over from the horizon, making the ground beneath his feet tremble slightly.

The gray-black clouds seemed to have their valve wrenched open by the thunder. The fine drizzle instantly turned into fat raindrops that came pouring down.

The sound of rain striking the eaves, leaves, and brick walls merged into dense white noise. Visibility in the backyard began to fall before his eyes.

Gray-white mist rose from the ground and crawled upward along the tips of the grass. One grid, then two—it stopped when it reached the edge of Wall-nut, but the entire rear half of the backyard had already been swallowed by a damp gray-white haze.

Even if zombies appeared, there was no way to obtain their locations in advance anymore.

He could still barely make out Wall-nut's yellow-brown rounded top.

Fortunately, the plants behind it remained clearly visible, and plant attacks did not rely on sight.

The two newly arrived plants, Snap Pea and Toadstool, sensed the tense atmosphere and also braced themselves.

"...This is really going to be trouble." Lin Yue swept his drenched bangs up over his head. Rainwater streamed down along his jawline and dripped onto the front of his school uniform, spreading into dark wet patches.

He thought of the information Bai Qingfeng had delivered that morning.

Bai Qingfeng had been inside the house, holding a steaming enamel cup in her hands as she lowered her voice and said, "...The first wave of Football Zombies won't charge your yard. Their target is someone else. But your place is the final stop—once the others are breached, the remaining zombies will all flood toward you and me."

She had also said that by the time the Football Zombies appeared in the yard, they would already be at the end of their strength.

As long as Lin Yue held through the final wave, the defenses of the entire Happy Residential Community would have its rear secured.

Lin Yue believed he had the ability to do that.

As a strong person, he had to step forward and stand his ground.

Chapter 35: Zombies Are Closing In on Your Brain

As long as he held through the final wave, the defenses of the entire Happy Residential Community would have its rear secured.

At the time, he had relaxed after hearing that, feeling that he had prepared thoroughly enough.

Three devouring plants stood in a line, five Puff-shrooms stood side by side, Torchwood provided firepower suppression, and a single Cattail swept the entire field—however he looked at it, it was a solid fortress.

But he had not accounted for rain today.

Heavy rain.

Fortunately, his Torchwood had been strengthened in advance. Even in rainy weather, it could still barely imbue the Peashooters with fire, though it required burning wood.

And nowadays, wood was the basic material Lin Yue lacked the least.

The fog had risen.

Although he did not know which path the zombies would suddenly appear on, his plants did not rely on their eyes. No matter which path the zombies appeared on, the most important thing now was to trust these plants.

Lin Yue opened the system panel and swiped twice across the drenched screen before opening the chat group.

The Happy Residential Community channel had already exploded. Messages climbed one after another, scrolling so quickly that he had to scan them twice to read everything.

[Happy Residential Community Channel (10)—Level Three House Owners]

[Jiahao: Has it gotten foggy over there?]

Lin Yue had barely sent the message when someone replied. Thick resentment could be felt in the other person's words.

[Farmer: I'm done for. Three grids of fog. I'm getting ready to write my will. I can't even see the Wall-nut planted at the front of my backyard.]

He stared at the screen for a second.

Then he replied:

[Jiahao: You've got it worse than me. I only have two grids here.]

For some reason, the anxiety lodged in Lin Yue's throat suddenly eased a little.

Someone was worse off than he was. It sounded rather heartless, but it genuinely made him feel that his own situation was not so terrible after all.

[Farmer: Seriously? Is this targeted? What standard are they using to assign fog density? Is it based on how ugly your face is?]

[Farmer: Just watch me use my shovel-face to stab him to death.]

Sure enough, keeping things lively at the front line could instead dispel some of the tension.

[Tyrannosaurus Warrior: Brothers, let's all make it back alive.]

After that message appeared, the channel fell silent for two seconds.

Then messages surged upward like water.

[Jiahao: Definitely.]

[Farmer: +1.]

[My Dad Is a Congressman: Zombies have already shown up here.]

The moment Zhao Lei's message appeared, the entire channel froze for a full two seconds.

The scrolling text seemed to have been pinned to the screen by someone pressing pause. Then, in the next second, replies flooded in like a dam had been opened.

[Jiahao: You're the one who most needs to survive. Don't make me lose my bet.]

[Tyrannosaurus Warrior: You still haven't returned the plant you owe me. Don't you dare die, you bastard!]

[Farmer: You bet too?]

After Lin Yue watched the words "You bet too?" get sent, a whole crowd instantly followed suit.

Someone sent a crying-laughing emoji. Someone else sent a string of ellipses. Then the final message came from an ID he was not very familiar with. It was concise and forceful, accurately summing up the entire group's mood.

[Passerby A: You all bet?? Gamblers like you deserve to die!]

Lin Yue looked at that line on the screen and failed to suppress the smile at the corner of his lips. He laughed once amid the damp curtain of rain.

It seemed Zhao Lei had not only bet with him, but had also bet with everyone else.

He walked beneath the eaves and stood there, taking off his drenched coat and draping it over the railing. Rainwater streamed down from the corner of the roof in lines, striking the muddy ground beside his feet and making a row of tiny pits.

Leaning against the doorframe, he looked at the indistinct green silhouettes in the rain and calculated what he should do during the final few hours.

With the fog, all he could rely on was the plants' instincts. As long as the plants in the backyard sensed zombies approaching, they would attack on their own.

The sound of the rain grew louder and louder.

The entire backyard was shrouded in dense white mist. The plants' silhouettes swayed slowly within it, like a silent fortress that was breathing.

Standing beneath the eaves, Lin Yue picked up the small Wooden Mallet he had bought from Dave by the base of the wall and gripped it in his hand. This was an artifact.

At the limit, he could even land three strikes in one second and beat a Buckethead Zombie to death.

[Ding—Due to torrential rain, all plants have entered a listless state. You may consume 25 sun per plant to restore them to normal.]

Lin Yue wiped the rain from his face and rapidly tapped across the system panel with his fingertips. His sun reserves dropped by a small chunk from over two thousand. Under the cover of pale golden particles, the leaves that had been beaten down by the violent wind and rain straightened once more. The Peashooter's barrel lifted half an inch, a thin layer of frost condensed along the edges of the Snow Pea's leaves, and Chomper's purple petals suddenly opened and closed in the rain, as if shaking water droplets from its body.

"All right." Lin Yue put away the panel, rubbed his palm against his drenched trouser leg, and tightened his grip around the wooden handle of the shovel. "All that's left is for you to come."

The moment he finished speaking, the brick ground beneath his feet began to tremble with an extremely faint but sustained vibration.

It was not thunder. It was the rhythm of something heavy grinding over the ground, muffled beneath the rain, yet perfectly clear when it traveled through the soles of his shoes into his feet.

[Ding—A large group of zombies is approaching your brain. Prepare yourself.]

"Since you're here..." Lin Yue answered in a low voice, leaning forward slightly as he fixed his gaze on the depths of the gray-white rain mist.

The fog did not disperse in the torrential rain. Instead, it grew denser.

Something seemed to have appeared in the originally hazy fog. Heavy footsteps came with the sound of splashing water.

From the direction of the swimming pool.

The surface of the pool had originally been covered in dense ripples from the falling rain, but the patterns of those ripples had now been disrupted. Something had appeared and disturbed the calm of the entire surface.

"Swish—"

Cattail's tail spikes were faster than Lin Yue's gaze.

The first small red spike shot from the tip of Cattail's tail, pierced through the rain, and vanished into the fog. A soft "puff" came from within, as if it had pierced something.

Then came the second, third, and fourth—the firing rate of the needles doubled within the first three seconds. Their silver-thread-like trajectories flashed through the gray-white rain in a blurred afterimage.

Dense tapping sounds came from deep within the fog, like hail striking a wooden board, mixed with one or two wet, muffled impacts.

The Swimming Ring Zombie never managed to swim out of the area covered by the dense fog.

Its silhouette swayed twice in the mist. Its swimming movements slowed from smooth to sluggish, then stopped altogether. The ripples on the water expanded and contracted layer by layer before slowly returning to the fine circles created by the rain.

The gray-green arm floating above the water slowly sank. The orange of the life vest drifted around twice before being pierced by a needle that caught up from behind. It deflated and floated limply into the depths of the rain.

"That's it?" Lin Yue blurted out. The moment he finished speaking, Cattail's tail spikes abruptly veered forty degrees to the right and shot toward the second row.

The second row.

The direction of the Snow Pea.

Lin Yue's neck stiffened slightly, and he quickly shifted his gaze. At the boundary between the dense fog and the curtain of rain, three blurry silhouettes were slowly moving forward.

Their shoulders were a full circle wider than those of ordinary zombies. A slightly reflective curved edge appeared atop their heads—buckets.

Buckethead Zombies.

And there was more than one. Two Conehead Zombies followed behind it. The three heavy bodies trudged forward through the mud, their footprints instantly filling with rainwater.

The Snow Pea's barrel fired the first ice-blue pea. Wrapped in cold air, it pierced through the rain and struck the Buckethead Zombie's left shoulder with precision.

Pale-blue slowing frost patterns spread along the Buckethead Zombie's shoulder blade and across its entire body. Its steps visibly slowed by half a beat.

The second struck its right knee, and the third struck its chest. The slowing effect stacked layer upon layer, reducing the Buckethead Zombie's pace from normal to half speed. Every step became like pulling its legs from the mud.

Before long, the two Conehead Zombies overtook the Buckethead Zombie, but the slowing peas from the Snow Pea still awaited them.

They were soon overtaken by the Buckethead Zombie again.

Cattail's needles followed from the flank, raining down a dense, sharp barrage of strikes on top of the Buckethead Zombie's head.

A row of fine white dots appeared across the bucket's surface, but it did not break. The sound was crisp yet muffled.

"Boom—"

The firepower of the two plants temporarily held back the Buckethead Zombie's advance.

The two Conehead Zombies behind it fell slightly farther behind. One of their arms had already drooped, half its joint shattered by the Snow Pea, dangling and swaying limply.

But the other Conehead remained completely unharmed. It was circling around the side of its companion ahead, preparing to squeeze through from the edge.

And directly in front of them, at the second row and seventh column, Potato Mine crouched quietly in the mud. Its two large front teeth were exposed in the rain, and the smile on its face had not changed.

It did not explode.

Its judgment logic differed from the mines in the game. It would not immediately detonate the moment the first zombie stepped on it. Instead, it waited until all threats had entered the optimal killing range before launching a single, sweeping cleanup.

Lin Yue watched the three zombies slowly approach Potato Mine's position. His hand tightened around the shovel handle, then relaxed.

He trusted Potato Mine's judgment.

Over the past month, this fellow had proven itself countless times through its precise choice of timing.

Whenever the zombies were within the Snow Pea and Cattail's ability to handle, Potato Mine acted like a dud.

But once there were too many zombies and a threat emerged, Potato Mine would ignite on its own.

Chapter 36: The Sixth Lane Is Still Greedy