The World Turned into Zombies, So I Went Back to the Countryside to Farm 8

Chapter 8: The Eve

Jiang Zao burst through the door like a gust of wind, threw her bicycle to the ground, and rushed into the kitchen to pour a glass of water.

“Aiyo, didn’t you go to get medicine? How did your clothes get so dirty?”

Jiang Zao gulped down a large mug of cold boiled water before she felt better. “I didn’t get the medicine. I fell and came back early.”

Jiang Wuni immediately started chopping vegetables on the board with a thunderous noise.

“I was wondering why you came back so early. You can’t even get a simple medicine. I might as well have gone myself.”

Jiang Zao didn’t say anything, sitting in the courtyard and disinfecting her scraped ankle with iodophor.

Seeing her like that, Jiang Wuni grew angrier the more she thought about it.

“No, the clinic is right there. How could you not get it? And you got yourself into this mess. You have a perfectly good car, you should just throw away that broken bicycle of yours!”

“There were too many people in line at the hospital, and something happened, so I left.”

Jiang Zao’s reply was perfunctory, but Jiang Wuni was relentless. “What could happen at a hospital? You probably just found it troublesome and were too lazy to wait. I know you.”

Her snide remarks ignited a fire in Jiang Zao’s heart. She threw the cotton swab in her hand and raised her voice.

“I told you there were too many people, are you annoying or not?! Can’t I just go and get the medicine for you another day?!”

Jiang Wuni finally quieted down, muttering, “Forget it, I can still take it for a few more days. By the way, tomorrow is the village chief’s grandson’s first birthday banquet. Do you want to go with me? They just came to invite us.”

Jiang Zao said irritably, “No, and you’re not allowed to go either.”

“Hey, you child, you won’t even go to a banquet. Why are you so unsociable now? No wonder you can’t get married!”

Jiang Wuni grumbled a few words and threw the bamboo basket heavily onto the stone table in front of her.

“Feed that corn to the chickens.”

A few kernels of corn bounced out and landed on her head.

Jiang Zao’s hand, which was applying a bandage, froze. She slowly raised her head, stared at her grandmother’s face, and then at the chickens clucking and pecking all over the courtyard.

She suddenly flung her hand and overturned the entire basket.

“Oh, you’re just going to sprinkle it a little at a time…”

Jiang Wuni was still complaining when Jiang Zao rushed into the kitchen, grabbed a wood-chopping knife, and walked out quickly.

“It’s their last meal, they should eat more.”

Seeing that something was wrong, Jiang Wuni threw down the vegetables in her hand and chased after her. “Hey, hey, hey, what are you doing?”

Jiang Zao casually grabbed a chicken.

“I’m killing all these chickens.”

Jiang Wuni stomped her feet in anxiety.

“Why are you killing the chickens?! I just bought these chicks this spring! They’re for laying eggs and hatching more chicks! If you want to eat chicken, I’ll go to the market and buy some for you!”

“How many eggs can they lay? They still need to be fed with grain. We don’t have enough for ourselves. I have to kill these chickens today.”

“Oh my heavens, have you been possessed?! Why are you talking nonsense all day? What do you mean we don’t have enough grain? Don’t we still have a few hundred pounds of rice at home?! It’s enough to feed you to death, you damn wretch! You’re just doing this to spite me, aren’t you? Just because I scolded you a few times, you want to kill my chickens… you damn wretch!”

Amidst Jiang Wuni’s continuous curses, Jiang Zao’s knife had already fallen. The chicken’s head rolled off, and the entire courtyard erupted in chaos.

Seeing that she was about to grab another one, Jiang Wuni rushed over and grabbed her wrist, which was holding the knife.

“What have I done to deserve this?! What kind of creature did I raise?! You haven’t been home for over ten years, and the first thing you do when you come back is kill chickens and ducks! I just bought these chicks this spring, thinking I could raise them and sell them! If you’re going to kill them all, you might as well kill me too!”

Jiang Zao only meant to push her away, but she didn’t expect that with just a gentle push, Jiang Wuni would stumble and fall to the ground.

She remembered once when she was a child, she had forgotten to cut grass for the pigs after school. The pigs went hungry for a day. When Jiang Wuni came back from the fields that night and saw the empty pigsty, she had slapped her hard.

That slap had made her head buzz. When she came to, she was already on the ground, having lost a baby tooth.

Was she, at that moment, looking at herself with the same shock, disappointment, and confusion as Jiang Wuni was now?

Jiang Zao turned her head away.

“No matter what you say today, I’m killing all these chickens. Keeping them is not only a waste of food, but also a disaster waiting to happen.”

Hens could lay eggs, and they could be eaten, but grain was more precious. Roosters crowed at dawn and dusk every day, which was tantamount to telling zombies and ill-intentioned people that someone lived here.

One day, Jiang Wuni would understand that everything she was doing now was so that they could live better.

Jiang Zao grabbed the chicken’s wings and pressed it onto the sink next to the well. The image of the monsters that had viciously torn her apart flashed in her mind, and the wood-chopping knife in her hand fell without hesitation.

Jiang Wuni sat on the ground, as if the knife had also struck her. She let out a wail, flailing her arms and legs, and kept crying out, “Oh my heavens! Oh my heavens!”

It wasn’t until the moon was high in the western sky.

Jiang Zao had finally finished killing and processing the last chicken. A faint smell of blood lingered in the entire courtyard.

Under the moonlight, she washed the bloodstains off her hands. The water, mixed with faint traces of blood, flowed into the vegetable patch next to her.

Jiang Wuni had cried for a while, then, finding it pointless, went inside without making dinner.

“Greatly merciful and compassionate Guanyin Bodhisattva who saves all from suffering, Zao’er has always been an obedient and good child. I don’t know how she became like this! Don’t tell me she’s been possessed by something!”

She knelt before the statue of Guanyin in the main hall, kowtowing and begging for mercy. “For the sake of my sincere worship for so many years, please show your power and drive away the evil spirits and disasters, drive away the evil spirits and disasters…”

The candlelight in the hall flickered, and the image of Guanyin was solemn and dignified.

***

It was late at night.

A few dogs barked in the village.

The sound of a car could be faintly heard on the road in front of the house.

Aunt Zhao opened the door and saw that it was her son’s car. She immediately greeted him with a smile. “Why are you back at this hour?”

The man entered the house, took off his hat, and collapsed on the sofa.

“Don’t mention it. I went to the hospital on a call today. I’m exhausted.”

“Are you hungry? I’ll make you some noodles.”

“And some meat too, I’m craving it.”

“Why are you always like a starving ghost every time you come back from work?”

Aunt Zhao rolled her eyes at him and chatted idly while washing vegetables.

“I was watching TV today. It said there’s some… some Panlado virus that’s really bad lately. Linhai City is even under lockdown. I heard that if you get infected, you’ll eat people! Do you think it will spread here?”

“It’s Pandora! What Panlado! You pretend to know what you’re talking about all day. Forget it, forget it, I’m not eating. I’m going to take a shower and go to bed!”

The man stood up impatiently, a hint of panic in his expression. As he stood up, he pulled his cuffs down hard.

“Didn’t you say you were hungry? Are you eating or not?!”

The only answer she got was the sound of a slamming door.

“Quiet down! Don’t wake your father up!”

In the bathroom.

The man slowly took off his shirt, revealing two deep rows of teeth marks on his wrist, still oozing blood.

During the day, he and his teammates had gone to the clinic on a call. By the time they arrived, the patient had already bitten several people.

They took riot forks and shields from the security office and charged in. It took four strong men a great deal of effort to handcuff the person.

The captain stood up to answer a call.

“What? We have to send him to the city’s infectious disease hospital for quarantine? And everyone he bit has to go too?! Why? We only have a few people in our station, we can’t spare anyone…”

“If you can’t spare anyone, then you come yourself! Stop asking so many questions! The Health Commission has given the order, just do as you’re told!”

He was pressing down on the sick man’s shoulder. In that moment of distraction, the man suddenly turned his head at an extremely twisted angle and bit him.

He jumped up, still shaken, and panting heavily.

The captain turned around to look at him.

“What’s wrong?”

“No… nothing.”

“Is everyone okay?”

“No, no.”

The team members all shook their heads.

He pulled his sleeve down and also shook his head.

“That’s good. It would be trouble if you got bitten. Old Wang, Old Zhao, come with me to the city to drop off a few people.”

“I… I don’t think I’ll go. My mom hasn’t been feeling well these past few days, she told me to come home early.”

“Look at you, so spineless!”

The man turned on the shower and scrubbed his wrist frantically with his thumb, trying to wash away the bite marks. But even after the skin was raw and broken, it was no use. Worst of all, he couldn’t feel any pain.

..

After a long time, he finally gave up and buried his head in his hands, sobbing.

“Here, eat.”

Jiang Zao finished cooking and brought a bowl into the room.

Jiang Wuni sat up in bed.

“What is it?”

“Braised chicken with potatoes.”

Jiang Wuni lay back down, her back to her.

Jiang Zao put down the bowl. “Eat it or don’t.”

The moment she stepped out, the sound of a bowl shattering came from inside.

Jiang Zao ate her dinner in the courtyard, enjoying the cool air.

“Quite a temper. You won’t be able to eat this in the future, even if you want to.”

..

“Time to eat.”

Aunt Zhao called out several times in the courtyard with no response. She looked at the dark room and muttered.

“Why isn’t the light on? Don’t tell me he’s asleep.” She was about to go back to the kitchen, but on second thought, she decided to bring the food to her son just in case.

Aunt Zhao lifted the bedroom door curtain and fumbled for the light switch on the wall. “Get up, get up, eat before you sleep. You don’t want your stomach problems to get better, do you…”

Before she could finish, she touched something cold and clammy, like a person’s arm. No, it was a dead person’s arm.

Moonlight streamed in through the window.

A shadow fell in front of her.

She slowly raised her head.

And met a pair of gray, cloudy eyes.

She tentatively called out, “Son?”

A beast-like roar came from deep within the man’s throat.

With a crash, the bowl in Aunt Zhao’s hand fell to the ground.

A line of blood spurted out.

A noise came from the other room. “Old woman, what time is it? Why aren’t you asleep? Is our son back?”