Long Ya's heart tightened.
Not human?
Instinctively, she looked at the armed men in the truck bed.
They all wore battered outdoor jackets, their exposed arms covered in scars and bulging veins. They looked no different from ordinary people.
But on closer inspection, their eyes seemed too bright.
Too bright to belong to the living.
"After the Blood Moon descended, the things that crawled out of hell wore human skin. They might once have been human, but they aren't anymore."
Yang Yong said, "That nurse you saw earlier had no pulse in her neck."
Long Ya whipped her head around to look at Zhu Yanzhi.
Zhu Yanzhi was leaning in a corner of the truck bed, seemingly asleep.
Her neck was tilted to one side, her collar slightly open, revealing a stretch of snow-white skin.
There was no pulse.
Cold sweat instantly seeped into Long Ya's gun-gripping palm.
"Then what do I do now?" she asked inwardly.
"Keep pretending."
Yang Yong's voice was terrifyingly cold. "The more frightened you are, the more excited they get."
"They like watching their prey struggle."
Long Ya took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down.
The truck bed suddenly jolted.
Zhu Yanzhi opened her eyes.
She looked at Long Ya, the corners of her mouth slowly curling into a smile.
"Don't be afraid."
Her voice was exceedingly gentle as she said, "We really are good people."
Long Ya smiled too.
That smile was like a blade slicing across ice, sharp and cold.
"I know," she said. "So am I."
Zhu Yanzhi's smile froze for an instant.
Just then, the convoy suddenly slowed.
A tall wall appeared ahead.
The wall was welded together from assorted scrap metal sheets and topped with barbed wire, which was hung with pieces of dried meat.
Those pieces