V1C12

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——Let’s go to hell together!

In her resentment and unwillingness, the young girl made her final choice.

Song Hanzhang was the closest to her. When Zhou Yuxiu suddenly took out a fruit knife and lunged at him with the speed of the undead, he could scarcely avoid her strike and pushed her away with his knee.

Standing at the side, Lin Jue felt as if his heart had stopped. He pushed Song Hanzhang away without thinking before throwing away his pipe, pinning Zhou Yuxiu down onto the ground and landing a solid punch!

Subconsciously, he still believed that the girl in front of him was human, and so used his fist, rather than the killing blow of the pipe.

Zhou Yuxiu grunted, half of her face swelling up from the punch. She cocked her head, her bulging eyes lodged weirdly at the corners of her now-bleeding eye sockets. She stared sideways at Lin Jue, sending shivers up the spines of anyone who looked.

Zhou Yuxiu giggled, her hands suddenly grabbing onto Lin Jue’s arms, opening her mouth and lunging at his hand. The newly grown fangs were already stained with her own blood, as terrible as a demon’s!

Lin Jue attempted to retract his hand in terror, but the post-transformation Zhou Yuxiu was unbelievably strong. She was on the verge of landing a bite when Song Hanzhang picked up the pipe from the ground, knocked her over in one hit, and dragged Lin Jue up, running with him towards the emergency staircase.

The moment they arrived at the staircase, Lin Jue glanced back. Zhou Yuxiu had already picked up the fruit knife from the ground and was stumbling after them, not a trace of that pretty, timid girl able to be found in her despairing, mad eyes.

She had completely and fully turned into a monster.

The LED lights in the staircase were still on. They had almost arrived at level two, but looking down, there were many zombies wandering near the exit. It would be too dangerous to run through them.

“Hide here.” Song Hanzhang pulled Lin Jue over and the two hid behind a lecture-advertising billboard set up near the corner of the staircase. The billboard wasn’t big, but it could still, barely, fit two people behind it.

Not long after, staggered footsteps sounded from above. Zhou Yuxiu, holding onto the railing for support, chased after them, muttering “I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you both,” under her breath. The transformation had made her groggy and she ran straight past the two hidden behind the billboard, down to the second floor.

There was the sound of falling. Zhou Yuxiu had stumbled against a storage rack to the side, pushing the entire thing over, creating a huge racket in the silent night.

Attracted by the noise and scent, the zombies spread around level two slowly gathered around her. Zhou Yuxiu struggled in an attempt to get up, but she had lost the sudden burst of power from the scent of humans. She crawled weakly to the side, unable to stand.

As the zombies approached, Zhou Yuxiu clutched onto her left wrist. A white halo rose up from beneath her, covering her entire body. The surrounding zombies lost their target and started hovering in place.

Song Hanzhang walked out from behind the billboard and squinted his eyes to observe her actions.

“As expected… A power to temporarily hide your scent, is it? Such a shame…” Song Hanzhang breathed an almost inaudible sigh.

Zhou Yuxiu had also noticed him, an eerie smile crawling up the corner of her mutated mouth. She used her knife to make a few stabbing motions, her eyes filled with resentment.

The naked malice was like a parasite hidden underneath her skin, hatched by despair, squirming and slowly eating away at the bottom line of her morality, screaming to her about her desire to live.

Wind gushed in from level two, along with the reek of zombies and a faint scent of blood. Thanks to this, the zombies on level two didn’t smell the scent of the two downwind.

Without the sound and scent of a target, the surrounding zombies dispersed again. Zhou Yuxiu crawled up with difficulty, fangs protruding out of her bloody and bloated face.

It was just as Song Hanzhang had said: compared to a human, she was more like a zombie now.

From the outside down to her very soul, it was all the same.

The white light covering Zhou Yuxiu hadn’t dissipated yet and the zombies still hadn’t noticed her presence, allowing her to shakily walk towards the two. She walked lightly, not daring to make any sound, but her eyes were filled with the excitement of the hunt.

Saliva and blood dripped out of her mouth, staining the front of her shirt. She was starving like she was being burned alive and the only thing left was her stomach; she couldn’t wait to feast.

It was the cruelest scene Lin Jue had ever seen, even worse than the sight of zombies feasting on a live human.

Because what he was seeing was a normal, good person becoming a devil.

“She said that she didn’t want to become a monster, right?” Lin Jue murmured.

Song Hanzhang said nothing.

Lin Jue picked up a tin can that had been thrown outside the rubbish bin by some unknown person. It was so light, yet so heavy that his hands were shaking.

He thought back to the Zhou Yuxiu he had met outside the dormitories about an hour ago: timid, quiet.

She was just a normal girl, just another girl studying in this school; young, liking to dress up, a little bit selfish and a little bit kind. She was willing to give her shovel to Song Hanzhang who needed it more, and willing to run with them on an adventure barefoot.

She was supposed to have a better life. It wouldn’t have been perfect, but it shouldn’t have been this.

Goodbye.

Lin Jue closed his eyes, the can in his hand soaring through the air and landing with a clang next to Zhou Yuxiu. She paused, staring dazedly at the can on the ground. There was no horror in her empty eyes, only an endless void of confusion. She had even forgotten her flight instinct.

Zombies surged towards her.

She was yet to be fully transformed. She still smelled like a living person, the scent beloved by zombies.

Suddenly, she understood what was happening and took a few steps forward in terror, but was tripped by the fallen storage rack, once again creating an earth-shattering clang. More and more zombies surged towards her.

Song Hanzhang pulled on Lin Jue’s hand, who was standing dumbly still, and pulled him to the stairs going upwards.

From behind came the howls of excited zombies, and screams. An appalling scene, even without turning back.

Don’t look back, don’t look back, don’t look back.

Another voice in his heart mocked him. Do you think you can avoid it if you don’t look at it?

His legs moved mechanically as they ran up the stairs, through the long and quiet corridor, leaving behind all of their weaknesses.

Panels and panels of windows lined the corridor, each reflecting himself.

Cruelty and selfishness encased in a frail appearance.

He was only avoiding understanding his true self.

He would do anything to survive. Even kill.

They finally stopped and leaned against the wall to rest a little. Their thundering hearts eventually calmed, but their emotions were still in turmoil. Zhou Yuxiu’s final screams still echoed around Lin Jue’s ears, heartbreaking.

But Lin Jue didn’t regret his actions. He even thought that compared to becoming a zombie, in the end, to die as a human was a choice that Zhou Yuxiu would have made if her mind was still clear.

He seemed to have gone crazy as well. Lin Jue planted his face in his palm and laughed at himself. What right did he have to make the decision for her? He was just being selfish and scared, that was the only reason why he killed her.

Song Hanzhang returned the pipe to him and leaned against the wall, not speaking.

“What are you thinking about?” Lin Jue asked hoarsely.

Song Hanzhang looked at him, thoughtful. “I’m thinking that I don’t understand you at all. I had thought that I had seen through you already, but all of you is going beyond my expectations.”

Lin Jue forced a bitter smile and hugged his knees. “Before tonight, I didn’t know that I was this kind of person either.”

Yes, the previous peaceful and prosperous environment had never let him see himself as clearly as today. For the past twenty years, he had not even killed a fish, but in a short hour, he had killed zombies, even killed a human- or at least something that was once a human.

In this extreme environment, his morals were starting to twist, the cruel laws of the jungle replacing his previous knowledge. With every life he took, he felt like he was getting closer to the demon in his heart.

Maybe one day he would notice that he had turned into what he had once despised.

“You did what was right,” Song Hanzhang said lightly and plainly, judging objectively.

“But you didn’t do it. You wanted to let her go, otherwise you wouldn’t have pulled me away in the bathroom,” Lin Jue pointed out.

“I just didn’t want to care about someone who was about to die. She was a few minutes away from fully transforming. Not much of a threat,” Song Hanzhang said.

Lin Jue looked at him, disagreeing. “But she almost killed you!”

“I was careless, I didn’t think that she had a knife. She probably traded for it with the shovel.” Song Hanzhang took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose before putting them back on. “I suspect it’s the person that convinced her to come; it’s a shame I couldn’t get the name in time.”

Lin Jue didn’t want to talk any more about Zhou Yuxiu. The more he thought of it, the more tired he was, and it was all pointless anyways because she was dead.

The surroundings quieted down again, leaving only the moonlight flowing across the marbled floor, reflecting their shadows.

Quiet and gentle, just like any normal night, always able to make people reminisce and grow sentimental.

Lin Jue suddenly wanted to know more about the person next to him. He had always acted so calm, sometimes so brutally logical that he was cruel and offensive, but maybe Song Hanzhang was the only truthful person. He had simply understood his own heart, instead of discovering himself through each painful decision like Lin Jue.

“Why did you want to study medicine? Was it to save people?” Lin Jue asked.

“You could say that; it’s one of the reasons.” Song Hanzhang looked outside the window.

“Any other special reason?” Lin Jue asked again.

“…No.”

Song Hanzhang suddenly refuted his previous answer. He looked coldly at the moonlit floor and said, “Men are born sinful. I’m no exception, so I wish to do something good.”

Lin Jue didn’t quite understand. Everything about Song Hanzhang was shrouded in mystery. He had only met him for an hour and found out his name, but about his past, his ideals, his life… about any other thing about him, he was clueless. He couldn’t help but be curious; just what kind of environment would raise someone like him?

In some instances, Lin Jue felt that Song Hanzhang was a little too cold, but even though Zhou Yuxiu had threatened his very life, he didn’t kill her. On the contrary, he, who claimed to be a good person…

Lin Jue lowered his gaze onto his hands. They were a pair of clean hands without a single callus, but in this sinful night, he was tainted with blood that could never be washed away.

What right did he have to think of Song Hanzhang as heartless and cruel?

“You don’t like killing, right?” Lin Jue asked.

Underneath the moonlight, Song Hanzhang’s features were as cold as a painting. He nodded.

Of course. To have such dreams, to learn how to save others, it was probably even more unforgivable in his eyes to kill.

After a long silence, Lin Jue said to him, gently but firmly, “Then let me do it! When we have to kill to live, let me do it. It doesn’t matter what it is: fighting, killing, I’ll do it. Let’s live on together; I want to live, and I want you to live as well!”

Song Hanzhang startled a little, then stared searchingly into Lin Jue’s eyes.

Suddenly, he gave a small smile. “Mn, let’s live on together.”

***

Vera’s Notes:

I really liked this chapter, so I tried a little harder on making it sound nice before realizing I was… Is this an hour later than usual? I don’t have a precise time I upload these by, I just approximate in a half hour radius…

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