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墨書 Inktalez
Li Nan led Mo Xiaohui as they started from the third floor and made their way up to the fifth floor. They checked every household, but without exception, they found nothing—not even a feather!
Li Nan was quite frustrated. "What is going on? Don't these families usually keep some food at home?"
At that moment, the parrot on Mo Xiaohui's shoulder also began to squawk loudly, making an unpleasant noise.
Upon hearing the parrot's ruckus, Li Nan instinctively became cautious. He immediately raised his Rebar Javelin in front of Mo Xiaohui and himself, but after looking around, he found no signs of danger.
Mo Xiaohui's parrot had a special ability to sense dangerous environments. If any zombies appeared, it would definitely squawk to alert them. This was why Li Nan was on high alert, but as he searched the area, he realized the hallway was completely safe—there was no danger at all.
Li Nan turned around and glared at the parrot. "Do you know what the punishment for false alarms is? If this were ancient times, you'd be executed! Do you understand?"
The parrot responded in a fitting manner, "I don't know! I don't know!"
This made both Mo Xiaohui and Li Dapeng laugh, while Li Nan remained indifferent. The most important thing now was to find some food to satisfy their hunger; they couldn't go far on empty stomachs!
The parrot flapped its wings and shouted, "Time to eat! Time to eat!"
Mo Xiaohui stroked the parrot's feathers and said, "It's hungry too!"
Li Nan replied with irritation, "What a noisy parrot! I wonder where it learned to mimic. If it keeps this up, I might just cook it for dinner!"
Mo Xiaohui didn't realize Li Nan was joking. "It caught that snake last night; how could it repay kindness with malice?"
Li Nan laughed, "Just kidding! Looking at that parrot, it probably has only half a pound of meat on it—barely enough to fill a gap between teeth!"
"Fill a gap! Fill a gap!"
Hearing the parrot squawking again made Li Nan smile wryly. "It really learns fast!"
The entire building yielded no food, which defied logic. It could be understandable if it were just one household without food, but for over a dozen households to have nothing to eat was certainly suspicious!
Li Nan turned to Mo Xiaohui and asked, "Do you usually keep some food at home?"
Mo Xiaohui didn't understand why Li Nan asked this and simply replied, "I live alone in an apartment, so I usually stock up on snacks and such. I don't eat at home much due to work, but the fridge is always packed with various items!"
Mo Xiaohui then countered, "Is there a problem?"
Li Nan shook his head. "I'm not sure, but as you said, a single person would keep some food at home. Since this building is occupied by families, there should be some food consumption. How could it be that not a single household has even a bit of rice stocked?"
Mo Xiaohui seemed to sense the issue as well. "Exactly! It's impossible for someone who often cooks at home not to have noodles!"
Li Nan suddenly realized, "Maybe we guessed wrong. These residents didn’t lack food; rather, they had stocked up, but it was taken by others before us!"
Mo Xiaohui was alarmed. "How could that be? The doors of these rooms are intact. If other Survivors had looted them, how could the doors and windows remain undamaged?"
Li Nan frowned. "I don't know either, but there are still Survivors nearby; that much is certain."
In fact, Mo Xiaohui didn't know much about Lei Dafu. She only knew that the hefty man had died at Li Nan's hands, and she could only speculate why Li Nan had killed him.
Instinctively, Mo Xiaohui grabbed Li Nan's arm. "If there are more Survivors, are they enemies or friends?"
Li Nan didn't know how to answer Mo Xiaohui's question. "Whether they are enemies or friends, we have to rely on ourselves to survive!"
Li Nan recalled that there was still a dead body in the room on the second floor; perhaps they could discover something from it. He grasped both Mo Xiaohui's and Li Dapeng's hands and said, "Let's go check out that corpse on the second floor!"
At the second-floor location, the security door was still wide open. After taking a few steps inside, they saw the body lying in the living room.
Mo Xiaohui covered her mouth but couldn't help but feel overwhelmed by the stench of death.
Several wriggling maggots crawled out from the nostrils of the fallen corpse, which had already gone limp, its decaying flesh sagging, and the ground beneath it was soaked with greasy bodily fluids, creating a truly nauseating sight.
Li Dapeng's mental fortitude was somewhat stronger, but he could not withstand the dual assault on his senses from the smell and sight. He immediately rushed out of the room, relieved that his stomach was empty; otherwise, he would have vomited everything out!
Li Nan, on the other hand, was unfazed. The innate sensitivity of a doctor made him overlook the disgusting scene before him. In his eyes, it was merely a corpse, a lifeless body that could be manipulated by the living.
The corpse displayed male characteristics, lying face up on the ground. Although its features were unrecognizable, Li Nan could determine from the teeth in its mouth that this person was around thirty-four years old, in the prime of life. However, the cause of death remained unknown.
Observing the size of the corpse and the greasy fluid oozing from beneath it, Li Nan concluded that this individual was definitely not a survivor hiding in a room; thus, he was certainly not a victim of starvation.
In this apocalyptic world, those who hid in rooms were mostly spared from zombie attacks. However, facing the tide of zombies outside, many of those who stayed indoors likely starved to death since few had the courage to venture into the outside world for survival. Therefore, their fate was mostly to perish from hunger within their own homes.
Li Nan examined the grease on the corpse; it appeared to have been well-fed during its lifetime.
There were no visible wounds on the front of the body, and Li Nan could not ascertain how this person had died.
Rolling up his sleeves, Li Nan grabbed a piece of cloth from inside the room—whether it was a towel or a rag he couldn't tell—and placed it over his hand before flipping the corpse over.
As he exerted force, the body suddenly fell apart, decayed flesh spilling onto the ground while large clusters of maggots dropped right at Li Nan's feet.
"Ugh!" Li Nan silently cursed as he found himself left holding only the head of the corpse. The cervical vertebrae were still attached to the spine and nearly caused him to dislocate this guy's bones!
Stepping on the cervical vertebrae with one foot, he heard a crack as a thick white liquid oozed out from between the bone gaps.
"The marrow is rotten!" Li Nan thought to himself as he examined the head in his hands. Despite its severe decay, he noticed a deep wound at the back of its skull.
"Someone did this!" Li Nan probed into the crack at the back of its head with two fingers and felt nothing inside; it seemed completely hollowed out. Suddenly, he felt a sharp pain at his fingertip!
Pulling his hand back revealed a milky-white maggot clinging to his middle finger, its jaws biting into his skin.
With a flick of his hand, the insect fell to the ground, and Li Nan immediately stepped on it, causing white juice to splatter everywhere.
"Damn it, you little bug, you're living better than I am!" Li Nan cursed under his breath. He then looked around and found that there was nothing in the room that matched the wounds on the corpse's head. This meant that the killing in this room was not a spur-of-the-moment act; it had clearly been premeditated, a lethal strike with no chance of survival.
Li Nan felt a chill run down his spine. "It seems that the Survivors around here are not friendly to strangers!"
Based on the level of decay of the corpse, Li Nan deduced that the person must have died five or six days ago. This meant that this building had been thoroughly scavenged by a group of people five or six days prior.
Feeling dejected, Li Nan walked out of the room, only to find a large and small person nearby who were both retching.
"What did you figure out?" Mo Xiaohui asked Li Nan.
"The person inside was killed by an accomplice, so I suspect that the Survivors around here are enemies, not friends!" Li Nan closed the security door and continued, "We need to leave here quickly. We know nothing about them, so it's best not to make contact!"
Mo Xiaohui nodded, "Okay!"
Li Nan turned to Li Dapeng and asked, "How are you holding up?"
Li Dapeng tightened his belt and replied, "Missing a meal or two is no problem!"
Li Nan sensed that the situation was changing, and he didn't want to take any more risks by staying here. He feared no Zombies, but he held a deep respect for life when it came to fighting against other Survivors. The Ogre and Lei Dafu were both killed out of necessity; having taken lives before made Li Nan acutely aware of humanity's darkness. Therefore, he had no desire to provoke other Survivors.
As Li Nan led Mo Xiaohui and Li Dapeng out of the corridor and was about to continue their escape, they suddenly heard the sound of a car engine nearby.
"Not good!" Li Nan thought to himself as he grabbed Li Dapeng's hand and jumped into a thicket below.
Seeing Li Nan's unusual behavior, Mo Xiaohui followed suit.
"Get down!" Li Nan whispered urgently as he coiled himself like a snake.
Mo Xiaohui and Li Dapeng exchanged glances and immediately hid in the bushes, making it difficult for others to notice them.
At that moment, an old Honda CR-V drove by on the road, its windows rolled down, revealing four people inside!
Due to the distance, Li Nan couldn't see the faces of the people in the car, but there was no doubt they were part of the group of Survivors from around here.
Suddenly, the Honda CR-V came to a stop by the roadside, and a man got out from the passenger seat, shivering as he said, "I'm about to burst!"
The man approached the side of the residential building and unbuckled his belt, relieving himself.
Before he finished, another person came over, also unbuckling his belt. He looked around and laughed, saying, "You're really in a hurry! Have you been busy these past few nights? Don't wear yourself out in there!"
The other man chuckled and replied, "Stop messing with me! I've only heard that B gets looser with use; where's this nonsense about getting shorter?"
The two burst into laughter, while Li Nan, hiding in the bushes, instinctively covered Mo Xiaohui's eyes. "This scene isn't suitable for you!"
Mo Xiaohui also reached out to cover Li Dapeng's eyes and gently said, "This scene isn't suitable for you either!"
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