Mu Yufeng instinctively took half a step back.
This was the first time she had witnessed Little Yezi fighting. During that earlier zombie ambush, Little Yezi had arrived already drenched in blood, unarmed, her legs too short even to walk steadily. After terrifying the surviving zombies into retreat, she had simply been scooped up into Mu Yufeng’s arms.
So this time, she was avenging the fact that she hadn’t wiped them all out before?
This time, the little monster hadn’t covered herself in gore. Only two specks of black blood had splattered across her cheek. Wiping them away, she looked up at Mu Yufeng, once again the picture of an innocent, clear-eyed child.
Mu Yufeng: “…”
“Big Sister?” Little Yezi cocked her head, puzzled by Mu Yufeng’s retreat.
Having just realized what kind of terrifying monster she had adopted, Mu Yufeng wore a completely blank expression. She clearly needed a moment to calm down.
Mu Yufeng walked forward mechanically, the little monster trailing quietly beside her. This time, Mu Yufeng didn’t foolishly tuck the knife back into her own belt. Clearly, tools belonged in the hands of those best equipped to use them.
“Little Yezi, can I ask you a question?” Mu Yufeng asked.
“Why… are you following me?”
Mu Yufeng saw the truth clearly now: every monster in this wasteland was nothing more than chopping fodder before her. Her supposed act of heroism—saving a shivering Little Yezi from the snow—had been nothing more than wishful thinking on her part.
Without her, Little Yezi could still be the undisputed master of every living thing out here.
All along, this child had chosen Mu Yufeng, not the other way around. Mu Yufeng still remembered how, back at the research institute, trapped in the lobby and unable to find the concealed side door, it had been Little Yezi tapping from outside to guide her to safety.
“Why are you protecting me?” Mu Yufeng asked.
The question seemed to exceed the little monster’s comprehension. Digging through her sparse vocabulary, she could only stammer out an inadequate answer: “Because you’re Big Sister.”
The title Big Sister was something she had only learned from Mu Yufeng two days ago.
A delicate pang of guilt welled up inside Mu Yufeng. She no longer doubted whether the little monster meant her harm, but she couldn’t understand why a chance encounter would lead a monster to treat her so well—so unconditionally kind from the very beginning. It made no sense.
It felt as though… she was exploiting the little creature’s feelings. Mu Yufeng refused to be so despicable.
With Little Yezi watching over her for the rest of the journey, Mu Yufeng was never harassed by zombies again. For a while, she even harbored the illusion that Little Yezi had wiped the entire map clean of mobs in one go.
By late afternoon, the light faded, and bitter winds rose once more. Looking up, Mu Yufeng saw snowflakes beginning to drift lazily from the sky. She weighed the choice between hunkering down for the night or pressing forward, and decisively chose the latter.
She didn’t know the terrain, and finding another base camp like Fatty’s was out of the question. The world was nothing like it had been before her hibernation; it was vast and desolate. The next sign of civilization would likely only be found at Shelter 061.
If Fatty’s map held up, she would arrive in a few hours at most.
“Are you hungry?” Mu Yufeng asked.
The little monster shook her head.
Monsters really are built different. Eating so little gave her super-extended battery life without an ounce of hunger. Mu Yufeng broke off a small piece of ration bar, popped it into her mouth, melted a handful of snow on her tongue, and after resting for a few minutes, continued on her way.
The snow thickened, darkness deepening as visibility plummeted. Using her crowbar as a walking stick, Mu Yufeng trudged ahead with her head down. Only when she was nearly upon it did the silhouette of the shelter’s massive gate loom through the blizzard.
Shelter 061—she had found it!
Mu Yufeng nearly wept with joy. Scooping up Little Yezi, she sprinted forward, banging on the gate with her crowbar while shouting at the top of her lungs. The shelter’s gate was remarkably solid; no matter how hard she struck it, she didn’t leave so much as a scratch.
It was a bunker-style structure, appearing no larger on the surface than Fatty’s hideout; the main facility was clearly underground. It was a sensible design: a small entrance that was easy to defend and hard to breach, with subterranean living retaining heat in this climate. The ventilation looked somewhat poor, but with a proper shelter, surely they didn’t burn firewood like cavemen for warmth.
On Mu Yufeng’s seventeenth strike, the gate before her groaned. Heavy steel ground against the floor, slowly parting to either side. Standing just inside was a tall woman clad in black overalls, flanked by a row of variously dressed figures behind her.
The woman held a submachine gun, its dark muzzle leveled straight at Mu Yufeng.
Oh, how touching. Firearms!
Mu Yufeng set Little Yezi down and slowly raised both hands. She looked straight into the woman’s eyes without flinching.
“I’m human,” Mu Yufeng said succinctly.
“Shelter 061. I’m in charge here. You can call me Meng Zhao.” The woman gave a slight nod, offering a brief introduction, but her gun never wavered.
“Anyone entering the shelter must be cleared of zombie bites. The Zombie Virus has an incubation period, and I won’t gamble with the lives of one hundred and sixty-seven people here,” Meng Zhao explained.
Her eyes quickly raked over Mu Yufeng. The dark zombie blood splattered on her clothes from the earlier fight made Meng Zhao extremely wary.
“You encountered zombies on your way here.” As Meng Zhao spoke, her sharp gaze locked onto the scabbed-over wound on Mu Yufeng’s finger.
Indeed, that was Mu Yufeng’s only injury.
“I can explain!” Mu Yufeng blurted out, anticipating Meng Zhao’s mounting suspicion.
“I did run into zombies, but I wiped them out.” Mu Yufeng gave her crowbar a small shake, then extended her finger toward Meng Zhao. “Look, this is a cut from a blade, not a bite! I wasn’t bitten!”
The cut on Mu Yufeng’s finger was clean and straight, clearly not the mark of teeth. Meng Zhao narrowed her eyes in inspection, then asked abruptly, “If it’s a knife wound, where is the knife?”
The knife… is in Little Yezi’s hand…
Mu Yufeng had deliberately muddied the waters when answering, hoping to draw attention away from Little Yezi. She was a monster, after all—who would accept a monster?
“Well? I asked you, where’s the knife?” Meng Zhao’s pitch rose, ratcheting up the tension.
“The knife… isn’t on me…” Mu Yufeng stammered, stalling for time while her brain worked into overdrive to fabricate a plausible story.
“Then is it on this kid next to you?” Before Meng Zhao’s voice even faded, a muscular man with a scar across his face stepped forward, marching toward Little Yezi.
“Let me see that knife,” the scarred man grunted. Crouching before Little Yezi, he yanked away the clothes bundling her neck and lower face.
“Stop!” Mu Yufeng cried.
It was too late.
The little monster’s unearthly appearance was laid bare before everyone. Her purplish-blue lips and the dark, winding patterns tracing along her jaw left no doubt that she was not human. A chorus of sharp clicks echoed as weapons were cocked. Mu Yufeng looked up to find every gun in the squad behind Meng Zhao trained directly on her and Little Yezi.
“Sorry, ma’am. Your child is infected. We have to eliminate her,” the scarred man said without a trace of emotion, his finger curling over the trigger.
“She’s not a zombie!” Mu Yufeng yelled, lunging toward Little Yezi, only to be tackled and pinned to the floor by Meng Zhao.
The instant the bullet fired, the little monster moved like a specter, slipping past the scarred man’s shot. Before he could react, she lunged right into his chest, seizing the scorching gun barrel in one hand and forcing the muzzle skyward.
It happened in the blink of an eye. Nobody could have imagined this towering, burly man would be neutralized by a tiny child. Her Bowie knife pressed against his windpipe, and like a fierce mother beast guarding her cub, she glared at Meng Zhao, hissing a chilling warning: “Let go of my sister.”
