The zombies were evolving

After shooting the suspicious creature dead, Su Jin turned to Fu Hu and Cheng Du.

The two stood frozen, speechless.

After a second or two, they turned their stiff necks in unison to look at Su Jin.

The kid had still been crying... and he had walked up and killed him with one shot.

"Director! That was a child! Why did you kill him?" Fu Hu finally blurted out in shock.

"Yeah! Why?" Cheng Du's face was pale.

Su Jin knotted his brows and leaned toward them, eyes narrowed. "A child? What's wrong with you two? You couldn't spot such an obvious problem?!"

"Never mind whether that child was a potential infected. Three bodies and one child-where was the zombie? Without a target, zombies don't wander far unless something unusual happens."

"We checked upstairs and downstairs. Did you see any sign of a zombie? Are your brains stuffed with candle wax? You saw a child and just wanted to save him?"

The two blinked and exchanged a glance.

Cheng Du hesitantly raised a hand toward the pile of bodies. "But... isn't the zombie right there? One had its heart stabbed. The other two, a man and a woman, fought it to the death while the child hid. His parents died taking the zombie down, and then he came out."

"Yeah, that's what I thought too. Even if the kid might have been infected, he seemed fine for now. There was no need to shoot him right away."

"Huh?" Su Jin turned back, bewildered.

He took a closer look. They were right!

One body lay on the floor with a wound over its heart and blood all around its mouth.

Another had its throat bitten out, clearly by the first corpse.

The third lay facedown with long hair. It was obviously a woman.

Su Jin scratched his cheek, at a loss.

So I was the one who hadn't looked closely enough?

"Director, did you... kill him by mistake?" Cheng Du stammered.

"By mistake? What mistake? There was no mistake!" Su Jin's gaze changed as he looked at them. "We don't have the means to identify Disguised Infected! Remember this: whatever the circumstances, anyone you find alone is to be treated as a zombie by default!"

Without waiting for their reactions, Su Jin walked over to inspect the body.

He rolled the child's corpse over and sucked in a sharp breath.

"You two, get over here!" Su Jin raised his voice.

Fu Hu and Cheng Du hurried over.

"Look at this! What is it?"

They looked closely, and their expressions changed at once, a chill of belated fear running through them.

The child's mouth was full of sharp teeth, with scraps of flesh and fresh blood caught between them.

Clearly, he was the real man-eater.

"So this is a Disguised Infected?!"

"The body temperature's wrong. This is a zombie!" Su Jin pressed two fingers against its neck, his face grim. "The zombies are evolving. They're starting to develop brains."

Only a few days had passed since the Apocalypse began...

At this rate, it was almost certain that Disguised Infected and zombies would converge in the near future.

He had to bring this news back. They needed to establish a secure foothold faster.

He lowered his head and continued examining the scene.

Su Jin separated the three bodies.

"The woman's been dead longer. These two men probably died recently. Hmm... they came out for medicine. There must be a group sheltering together, with elderly people among them."

Staring at the two male corpses, Su Jin sighed and gently closed their staring eyes.

"The zombies tricked them. These two were willing to risk their lives for their group, so they might have been decent people. There'll be fewer and fewer people like that from now on..."

Fu Hu and Cheng Du felt the same pang.

"You two need to be more careful! Like I said, once we're outside the residential complex, treat every stranger as the highest-level threat!" Even after berating them, Su Jin still wasn't satisfied. He looked up at them. "Seriously... what kind of soldiers were you? Your risk awareness is worse than mine!"

"Well, of course..." Fu Hu muttered. "How could we compare to you, Director? You went on missions overseas. I served for two years, then got discharged after a fall during training gave me a slipped disc... You already knew that."

"What about you? You should be fine, right?" Su Jin looked at Cheng Du.

Cheng Du's expression stiffened. "I... I never saw combat either. Actually, I left halfway through my service too."

"Why?"

"Nothing much... I was asleep in the middle of the night when someone dragged me out of bed. The next day, they kicked me out."

Fu Hu leaned closer, puzzled. "Are you bullshitting me? They kicked you out just for sleeping?"

"That's what happened... My fellow soldier got kicked out too. Ah... maybe we had poor social skills and offended someone," Cheng Du said evasively.

"Enough! Quit talking and find the medicine. We're leaving right away!"

With the medicine secured, the three got back into the car and continued on.

Su Jin pointed ahead. "Dragon Mountain Middle School is just up ahead. There might be a horde. Watch for obstacles, and we'll speed through."

"Got it!" Fu Hu tightened his grip on the wheel and floored the accelerator.

Less than a kilometer later, they reached the area around Dragon Mountain Middle School.

At the sight ahead, all three felt their scalps prickle!

Zombies... far more zombies than they had expected.

There were over a hundred, people who had been stranded on the street during the torrential rain and turned.

Discarded umbrellas littered the ground.

Judging by their clothes, the zombies weren't students at all.

As the car appeared, the zombies ahead turned together and charged down the road toward it.

Fu Hu jerked the steering wheel, heading for a gap in the horde.

"Why were so many people out on the street in that downpour? Were they all parents picking up their kids?" Cheng Du gripped the grab handle, shocked and alarmed.

"Fuck! Just our luck!" Su Jin's face darkened. "Stay steady. We can get straight through."

"Isn't the sidewalk wide enough? Drive over it!"

"Okay." Gritting his teeth, Fu Hu swerved around the horde and onto the sidewalk.

Before long, they had left the horde dozens of meters behind.

Su Jin looked back, committing its distribution to memory.

The horde moved fast, running at roughly twenty kilometers an hour, but without outside stimuli, it wouldn't shift position much.

They would have to return along the same route later. Memorizing the zombies' locations now would let them plan their route.

Through the iron railings of the school beside them, they could make out a dense mass of zombies stirring inside.

"Watch out!" Cheng Du suddenly shouted.

A loud bang came from the front of the car.

A zombie in a school uniform, holding artificial flowers, was sprawled across the hood.

Judging by its outfit, it had been a student assigned to welcome visiting officials at the school. After turning, it had wandered out on its own.

"Holy shit, a welcoming zombie! Brake!" Su Jin yelled.

Fu Hu slammed on the brakes, throwing the student zombie several meters away.

"Quick! Get moving!"

The car started moving again, leaving the horde far behind.

Still shaken, Su Jin turned toward the deathly pale Fu Hu. "Fu, can you actually drive or not? There were barely any zombies ahead, and you still hit one?"

"That zombie was still some distance away from me..."

"That wasn't Fu's fault. That zombie ran too fast, much faster than the others. It was probably an athletics student before it died," Cheng Du cut in.

"How do you know it was an athletics student?" Su Jin turned back to ask.

"I could tell at a glance. Stop talking. Don't distract Fu."