Su Nian's movements caught the scrawny young man's attention... Was there a ghost nearby? The young man's brows knitted together.
"Young man, I found a photo. Is it yours?" Basket-Carrying Granny's gentle voice sounded beside the scrawny young man's ear.
The scrawny young man took the photo instinctively. "This is a photo of my mom... But..."
He shook his head in a daze. He had just seen his mother smiling.
But when he looked closely, she wasn't.
"As long as it's yours," Basket-Carrying Granny said softly.
Then the young man noticed his hands aging before his eyes.
His smooth, plump skin became covered in the wrinkles of passing years and the livid patches of an aged corpse.
A terrified scream swept out with the icy wind.
The old woman and the two middle-aged women, who had been excitedly gathering supplies, turned around and met Basket-Carrying Granny's gray-white eyes.
Basket-Carrying Granny drifted toward them, her toes touching the ground.
Terrified screams echoed through the Family Portrait Supermarket. The gray-haired old woman fainted outright from fright, and Basket-Carrying Granny grabbed her body and sank her teeth into it.
A rapid succession of crunching, tearing sounds filled the air.
The two middle-aged women ran out of the supermarket, their eyes stretched wide, their entire faces consumed by terror.
As they ran, their bodies gradually shriveled. Their black hair turned white and fell out in great clumps.
Elsewhere, Su Nian pedaled his tricycle for dear life and escaped that street. His survival instincts urged him to leave Happiness County.
But he needed food, so he took another road-the one the two awakened men had taken.
He had thought following them would bring trouble, but now he couldn't afford to worry about that.
"Fuck, it shouldn't follow me here, right?"
Su Nian found another supermarket... The hardest part of gathering supplies wasn't finding them, but getting large quantities of them out.
A county town this large couldn't possibly be short on supplies.
Sunlight slanted into the shop, cutting away a third of the darkness. It looked safer than the previous supermarket.
Su Nian held open his woven plastic sack and grabbed whatever he saw. Lollipops, spicy strips, eggs, instant noodles, jelly, duck legs-he stuffed them all inside.
The sack quickly bulged, but Su Nian felt no joy, only fear. Until he got the supplies out, he wouldn't be happy.
Accidents could happen, but they shouldn't keep happening.
He dropped the full sack on the floor and moved on to his backpack. Erguotou liquor, cigarettes... He had no use for them himself, but he could trade them.
Carrying the supplies out of the supermarket, Su Nian suddenly felt reassured as he stepped back into the sunlight.
Just as he was about to leave, another accident happened.
Several terrified figures burst out of an alley along the road he had come from.
They were in a blind panic. Two even stumbled and fell to the ground.
A "creak-creak..." sounded through the air.
It sounded like a rope pulled taut under more weight than it could bear.
A chill swept over his head. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a rope covered in black blood hanging down, but when he looked straight at it, there was nothing.
The top of his head felt cold, as though chilled air were blowing over it.
The people who had fallen began laughing loudly, their laughter shrill and grief-stricken.
Su Nian turned around and fled deeper into the county town.
An inexplicable irritation and oppression weighed on him. He was furious. All he wanted was a little food, a chance to stay alive.
Behind Su Nian, the survivors walked beneath trees or streetlights, one after another. An invisible, illusory rope descended over each of their heads.
Creak!
The ropes tightened. Their breathing grew rapid, and rasping sounds rolled up from deep in their throats.
Su Nian pedaled his tricycle for dear life, beads of sweat dripping from his chin.
Two figures wearing burial shrouds emerged from a luxury goods resale shop on his right, their faces pitch-black.
A wave of warmth and familiarity washed over him, and his eyes suddenly lit up.
The next moment, a kindly voice rang out.
"Young man, look how thin you've gotten from hunger. Granny has food here."
As the voice sounded, Basket-Carrying Granny appeared a short distance ahead.
She was stooped and hunched, dressed in old gray-blue cloth clothes washed almost white. A bamboo basket hung from her right arm. A gap in the cloth covering its opening revealed a bloody heart, still beating eerily.
Faced with such a kindly smile, Su Nian felt as though ten enormous firecrackers were stuck fast to his palms, their fuses nearly burned down, and he couldn't throw them away.
Hao Ren and Gong Qing acted as though they hadn't seen her, trying to slip away unnoticed through the shadows.
With their burial shrouds, they could retreat completely unharmed.
There was an unidentified ghost behind him, but at least he knew how to deal with Basket-Carrying Granny ahead. He just had to ignore her completely.
Su Nian gathered his courage and pedaled onward, heading straight down the sunlit road.
[Ding. Spend 200 survival points to enhance physique (8 points → 9 points)?]
"Upgrade!"
[Physique: 9 points]
He no longer knew how to use those three hundred points wisely enough to stay alive.
He knew far too little about ghosts or this world.
The most direct solution was to drag those two awakened men into this mess.
But thinking about it another way, what if he were an awakened man who could escape safely, only to have a survivor drag him into danger?
Then, no matter what, he would slaughter that survivor first.
That wouldn't work!
Hao Ren and Gong Qing froze and exchanged a glance, shock showing in both their eyes. It was as though they had seen a child who couldn't even speak yet pick up a pen and solve a Math Olympiad problem.
Hao Ren said, "This guy's interesting. He isn't afraid when he sees a ghost."
Gong Qing said, "He seems to know the Void Frame Ghost's killing rules."
A sequence awakened! The same thought struck them both.
Then a "creak-creak..." sounded beside their ears.
The Hanged Ghost!
A tall ghost appeared in the shadows, his entire body wrapped in old, bloodstained white bandages like a mummy.
A deep ligature mark circled the Hanged Ghost's neck, and his head was permanently tilted to one side.
Gong Qing raised his hand and waved. A hospital room door opened in midair, with "Room 101" written above it.
The strips of cloth trailing behind the Hanged Ghost stopped writhing.
If not for the soot on Gong Qing's face, they would have seen it turn deathly pale.
"Go! I can't hold him for long."
Rather than fleeing back down the road, the two headed farther up it after Su Nian. One sequence transcendent was worth the lives of hundreds of ordinary survivors.
"Child, why won't you answer me...? I have a grandson about your age. Granny isn't a bad person."
Su Nian couldn't respond. He could only curse inwardly.
Your fucking grandson has no asshole. The grass on his grave has been cut several times already... Why do you have to keep following me? Does giving ghosts the silent treatment not work?
Please, go eat someone else, okay?
"Child, it's Grandpa." An incredibly familiar voice rang out.
"Grandpa made your favorite dumplings, pork and scallion. Let's go home!"
That voice was so familiar... Since his grandfather's death, he hadn't heard it even in his dreams for many years.
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