Chapter 10

The leather bag was repeatedly picked up and then discarded again. The zombies were only interested in fresh flesh, not like the most picky women who would use a meticulous and experienced eye to carefully examine whether the briefcase was made of real leather or artificial leather.

These hungry creatures devoured everything, leaving the three bodies as nothing but a pile of disconnected bones, with jagged tooth marks all over them. Even the tendons and slightly softer parts were fought over. The zombies then began to focus on the blood left on the ground and inside the car. The briefcase, which was still covered with bits of flesh and blood, once again became the target of the zombie horde—they were clearly starving. At least hundreds of zombies, who had smelled the blood but failed to squeeze into the food circle to taste the meat, looked like hungry ghosts crawling out of hell, licking the blood on the ground and gnawing at the unchewable hard bones. As for the briefcase... it was passed around among the zombies. Those who picked it up or found it would always search it more carefully. They licked it very thoroughly, not even letting the blood clots that had seeped into the seams of the bag escape.

It felt like a half-dry, half-wet sponge being sucked by a series of hungry mouths. After half an hour, the briefcase was torn beyond recognition, revealing an inner layer made of high-strength Kevlar material.

It was a useless discard, constantly picked up and then casually thrown away by countless zombies. With the jeep's engine off, the entire square had become a dining hall for thousands of zombies. The clothes, bones, and flesh of the dead were scattered from the center of the zombie horde. The zombies outside wanted to squeeze in, but those inside firmly occupied the best feeding positions. Every object related to food would spark intense curiosity among the outer zombies, only to be discarded again... In this monotonous repetition, the tattered briefcase gradually moved away from the chaotic scene. A zombie lingering at the edge of the square picked it up, determined it had no food value, and angrily howled, throwing it behind him with all his might.

It was thrown very high and landed precisely on another zombie's head. The torn edge of the briefcase got caught in the zombie's hair, and under the force of gravity and inertia, the two became increasingly tightly connected. The briefcase could no longer fall off and swung back and forth on the zombie's head. From a distance, it looked like a very special, oversized new bow.

Su Hao slowly narrowed his eyes, watching the zombie, which was unaware of the subtle change in its appearance, turn around and walk down another street on the side of the square.

"So, this is the truth..."

According to the data from the future world, the military dispatched an entire reinforced company to escort the journey from the base to the airport. A massive horde of zombies overwhelmed all the escort forces. Just a few minutes before the incident, the officer protecting the prototype drug sent a distress signal, and the base sent all the reinforcements it could. However, no one expected that the briefcase containing the drug would be taken away by the zombies in such a bizarre way and lost.

The GPS tracker attached to the handcuffs had long been torn off, and the briefcase was unrecognizable. The zombie that obtained the briefcase would not attract anyone's attention. If not for witnessing the entire process while hiding nearby, Su Hao would have found it hard to imagine that the thing hanging from the zombie's head, covered in dirt and mud and looking like a piece of discarded rag, was actually the precious treasure that countless people in the future world were searching for, and for which the military offered a substantial reward.

This city was vast, and no one knew where the zombie was heading. The old civilization had completely collapsed, and even if several fully equipped infantry divisions were deployed, the military could not search a city infested with millions of zombies. Moreover, the computer records mentioned that at this time, the base could only send out over two hundred armed personnel as reinforcements. They could not break through the zombie horde in a short time, let alone reach this place.

Watching the zombie gradually move away, Su Hao felt his heart rate accelerating, his mind filled with excitement and fervor, and his palms were drenched in cold, slippery sweat, making him very uncomfortable.

"This is my chance. I have been waiting for a whole century, returning from the future to the present, expending a huge amount of energy to get this opportunity..."

He muttered, using his slightly trembling hands to open his backpack and take out a package of prepared zombie decay fluid and entrails. He tore open the seal and poured it over his shoulders, letting it flow down his body.

During the early stages of the virus outbreak, zombies were very low in consciousness and perception. Their understanding of the outside world came entirely from their sense of smell and hearing, and their blurry vision could barely distinguish between day and night. As long as one reduced their breathing rate, avoided vigorous movement, controlled sweat secretion, and coated their body with foul-smelling pus and decayed flesh, they could deceive the zombies to some extent, making them mistake you for one of their own.

This simple disguise method would gradually become ineffective as the zombies and the virus evolved. When they evolved to "—2" or higher levels, their visual and tactile abilities were enhanced, making it increasingly difficult to continue deceiving them.

At least five thousand zombies were gathered in the square, and more were coming from nearby streets. Although Su Hao's bones and nerves had been modified, he could not handle such a large horde. To obtain the prototype drug, he had to choose this extremely dangerous but currently the only feasible method.

After all, he was not yet a true enhanced human.

...

Su Hao opened a box of military-grade camouflage paint and began to apply it to his face on the window glass. He then put his assault rifle in the backpack, covered it with a dirty, unrecognizable cloth, and poured rotten pus over it. He then jumped out of the window, clung to the drainpipe on the wall, and slid down to the ground.

He hunched his back, pulled his neck back, and the effect of the disguise made him look like a short, hunched person. Of course, no one but Su Hao knew that it was actually a backpack that had been modified in shape.

All around were zombies.

They tilted their heads, bared their teeth, and shuffled their feet, like a group of patients with polio in the recovery stage. Any abnormal sound would attract the attention of the zombies, and even flies and ants would make them spend a lot of time chasing and observing. Their mouths, emitting a foul and bloody odor, seemed to be constantly moving. Their exposed bodies were covered in broken skin, with rotten muscles and fat bulging out, exposing blood vessels and tendons. These once water-rich body parts were gradually drying out, turning black at the edges, becoming brittle, and hardening.

Su Hao carefully moved among the horde. His steps were light and soft, but his movements appeared clumsy and slow. If not for close attention, it would be hard to notice that his speed was actually faster than the zombies. The thick cover and the foul-smelling pus covering his body prevented his smell and body temperature from leaking out. He tried to hold his breath and avoid rapid blood flow. These cautious actions made it difficult for the surrounding terrifying creatures to detect his presence. Only occasionally, as a zombie passed by, it would sniff hard, trying to find the source of the suspicious smell.

His eyes followed the zombie carrying the briefcase, which was unaware of its significance. It had left the square and entered a street lined with sycamore trees.

Suddenly, the deafening roar of an engine came from the sky.

Su Hao's gaze froze, and he immediately sped up, passing through a group of zombies and approaching the edge of the square.

Without looking back, he knew it was a military helicopter—no one would let the prototype drug be lost, and the military would definitely investigate the entire incident. The records showed that investigators searched the area around the square for months. The military intelligence department tried to reconstruct the scene but had to stop due to the extensive destruction of traces and time and resource constraints.

The piercing whine of the engine instantly enveloped the entire square. The rapidly rotating helicopter blades stirred up a cloud of dust, forming expanding rings of dust in the center of the square. The horde of zombies, attracted by the clearly non-zombie sound, looked up, raised their hands, and gathered in the area closest to the helicopter.

Su Hao turned his body and glanced at the helicopter hanging in the air through the gaps in the horde. He could see the open cabin doors with machine guns on both sides, and an officer shouting angrily at the zombies. Another soldier was holding a camera, slowly scanning the horde. This further agitated the densely packed zombies in the square, making their howls louder and more frenzied. To get closer to the helicopter, the zombies began to use objects on the ground. They climbed onto the jeep, even piling on top of each other. Their dry, rotten gray hands stretched out, but they still couldn't touch the helicopter's landing gear.

The officer's roar grew louder, and the engine's roar completely drowned out his voice. The helicopter began to descend, about ten meters from the ground. Su Hao, who had already left the square, turned around and saw the heavy machine guns on both sides of the cabin adjusting their positions, the black muzzles aiming at the horde. The soldier in charge of firing had a look of intense anger and eagerly pulled the trigger, the muzzles spewing out thick tongues of fire.

"Rat-tat-tat-tat—"

A shower of blood immediately erupted from the horde, with the zombies on top of the jeep being the first targets. They fell from the highest point, and more zombies fearlessly continued to climb. Su Hao didn't know if he had become a target, but he was sure the helicopter hadn't followed him, and the bullets hadn't been aimed at him. They seemed to only want to disperse the zombies in the square and get the bloodstained jeep.

Entering the street lined with sycamore trees, Su Hao immediately sprinted along the edge of the sidewalk.

This angle was very hidden. He was unsure when the reinforcements would arrive or if the helicopter would fly near the street entrance to search the surrounding area.

He ran very fast, and there were few zombies on the street. With their senses of smell and sight conflicting, the zombies needed time to process the information they were receiving. Su Hao wasted not a second, and in the blink of an eye, he had run nearly a hundred meters, approaching his target at an incredible speed. Along the way, a few zombies instinctively turned to follow his movement, hesitating to determine whether it was a fellow zombie or food.

Su Hao moved as if he were one with the wind, rapidly approaching the target zombie. He drew a dagger from his waist, and the sharp blade glided along the zombie's scalp, cutting off the hair and the briefcase in one swift motion.

This series of actions was so fast that the zombie's blurry vision couldn't catch it. The intense smell of decay clouded their normal thinking. Even the target zombie didn't realize what had happened. It only felt something pass behind it, and its head felt lighter. The strange wind carried a fresh human scent, but it was instantly masked by the familiar smell of decay.

The running figure made a trackless turn at the street corner and quickly disappeared into the depths of the concrete jungle.

...

Su Hao ran like a cat.

He avoided the areas most likely to be searched by the reinforcements, moving around the buildings and along the edges of walls. His modified bones and nervous system provided a continuous supply of energy, and his lung capacity, several times that of an ordinary person, minimized the frequency of oxygen exchange. He suddenly accelerated but paid attention to the thickness of the dust on the ground, choosing dry and hard surfaces to leave no traces. Although he ran in an irregular pattern, his speed was still heart-stopping. About fifteen minutes later, he was over two kilometers away from the square, with no one following him and no zombies around.

Su Hao darted into a residential building, choosing an empty room with a slightly open door, no zombies, and an unknown owner, and entered.

The room was messy, emitting a musty smell from long neglect. Su Hao walked straight through the living room, forcefully broke off a pipe from the kitchen wall, and used it as a door bolt to seal the room. He observed the still quiet street outside the window, sat down on the sofa, regulated his breathing, and calmed his rapidly beating heart. Once everything was calm, he took out the briefcase and placed it on the coffee table in front of him.

Su Hao ignored the tattered outer layer, tore open the zipper, and took out a heavy metal box from the briefcase, opening it.

In the center of the shock-absorbing foam, a spiral rubber tube with an injection needle lay quietly. It contained about thirty milliliters of liquid, which, under the sunlight streaming through the window, emitted a crystalline, dazzling blue glow.

"Is this the prototype drug?"

Su Hao silently gazed at the blue liquid, suddenly feeling an indescribable flutter in his heart. He couldn't explain why—was it disgust? Or anticipation? Or perhaps the lack of the expected joy after expending so much effort to finally obtain it?

He rolled up his left sleeve, took a tourniquet from his backpack, tied it around his upper arm, and inserted the needle directly into his vein, calmly watching the blue liquid being injected into his body.

There was no dramatic scene of intense cellular activity as he had expected. Everything was very calm. Perhaps because his bones and nervous system had been enhanced, Su Hao felt no pain or stimulation. It was like injecting a bottle of ordinary saline solution, quietly merging, quickly being absorbed, and immediately becoming part of his body.

A look of confusion appeared on Su Hao's face—In the future world, he had seen many people inject gene drugs, evolving from ordinary people to first-level enhanced humans. The process was very painful, with the foreign hormones causing a rapid increase in red blood cells, and the blood vessels and muscle fibers expanding by thirty percent in half an hour. The sudden strengthening of the bones made the person grow taller and larger, with the skin breaking and exposing the muscles and new skin membranes. Many people's attitudes toward gene drugs were influenced by the intense pain of the enhancement process. Some even couldn't withstand the intense stimulation, leading to the collapse of their nervous system and death.

Lifting his left hand, his skin was still smooth, and the veins near his wrist were faintly blue, as if nothing had happened.

Su Hao suddenly felt a sense of fear—He had traveled through time to return to the present and had expended a great deal of effort for this mysterious prototype drug. If it didn't work, if it didn't have the expected powerful effect... What should he do?

The muscles on his jaw began to twitch, and sweat appeared on his forehead. Su Hao's face turned extremely pale. He was very lost, and his mind was suddenly filled with unprecedented despair.

He couldn't feel the strength—Every enhanced person's muscles would expand several times, the most obvious sign of rapid cell division, and the most visible difference between enhanced people and ordinary people. Now, his body was very calm, and the injection of the blue drug seemed like a small stone thrown into a deep pond, not even causing a ripple.

"No... No! This, this isn't real... This isn't real—"

Su Hao's eyes showed a look of utter horror. He didn't know how to describe his current feelings. It was like a treasure hunter finding an empty tomb, or a chemist's experiments yielding no results after spending all his money. His heart plummeted from the top of the clouds... empty and cold like a stone.

...

The sun gradually set, and darkness once again covered the earth.

Su Hao, sitting on the sofa, remained motionless. He seemed to have turned into a statue, without thought or life.

"Why is it like this... Why?"

(As usual, please give me your recommendations. I really need them. Don't keep them, throw them all to me!)

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