Chapter 269: City of the Dead (11)

Chapter 269: The City of the Undead (Eleven)

Ordinary people would run away from the most dangerous places, trying to find the weakest spots. But Zhu Ning insisted on diving headfirst into the most perilous area.

Zhu Ning didn't know where to look for clues; she just felt that she had to walk through the school again.

Pei Shu patrolled the sky in his flying car. From above, it seemed that the undead were moving in a certain direction, as if all the zombies in the city were running towards this place, a sea of dark, moving corpses.

Now Pei Shu was very puzzled. What could be attracting them in the school? Perhaps this wasn't just a random contaminated area.

The rain grew heavier, as if trying to knock the car out of the sky.

The flying car's cannon opened, and a bomb was dropped onto the roof of the teaching building. It exploded with a loud bang, creating a spectacular sight in the rainy night. Seventeen-year-old Zhu Ning watched the explosion up close for the first time, her heart pounding, thinking that even dying would be worth it. Whether it was a dream or not, it was too cool.

The explosion drew the attention of the zombies. On the rooftop of the laboratory building, they turned their heads simultaneously, their grotesque faces illuminated by the fire. Fearless, they tried to run directly from one rooftop to another.

The zombies moved clumsily, their bodies uncoordinated and brainless. One after another, they fell from the heights, making a crackling sound like ripe fruit hitting the ground.

Seizing the opportunity, Pei Shu opened the car door and pressed the automatic detachment button. Zhu Ning gripped the shoulder strap tightly, feeling her seat give way beneath her. Her head tilted back as she was suddenly ejected from the sky like a bomb.

This was far more thrilling than any roller coaster. Zhu Ning couldn't catch her breath as the new parachute opened, and she landed on the ground.

Seventeen-year-old Zhu Ning's first reaction was rather childish: if she ever returned to her old world, she would learn to skydive. Then she thought, maybe she wouldn't be able to return, as she seemed to have lost her memory, not traveled through time.

Bai Cheng followed Zhu Ning down, having made a deal with her to act as her mobile memory card. If Zhu Ning died, it wouldn't affect Bai Cheng.

After landing, Zhu Ning quickly removed her parachute and nimbly entered the teaching building, while Pei Shu drove the flying car to distract the zombies.

They regrouped and split up again. Lin Xiaofeng was with Pei Shu, Mechanical Bai Cheng with Pei Shu, and Gentle Bai Cheng with Zhu Ning. Both sides had a "memory storage card." Bai Cheng was momentarily stunned by this task allocation, not expecting someone to use her abilities in such a way.

Not focused on immortality, but on the separation of bodies.

After rushing into the teaching building, Zhu Ning stopped and immediately found an empty classroom to lock herself in. She was highly cautious, not daring to check the corridor for zombies, preferring to find a safe spot first. Bai Cheng always stayed in sync with Zhu Ning, which posed no difficulty for her.

After hiding, a zombie indeed dragged its lame leg past, glancing at the classroom as it passed, its shadow enveloping Zhu Ning's toes.

Zhu Ning stared at her feet, silently repeating, "Can't see me, can't see me," until the zombie was lured away by the explosions outside. Only then did Zhu Ning breathe a sigh of relief.

Bai Cheng thought it was interesting that Zhu Ning, without psychic abilities, was so young yet resourceful. After the zombie left, Zhu Ning whispered, "Who are you? Where am I?"

Bai Cheng: "..."

It seemed Zhu Ning had been acting on instinct due to her memory loss.

Bai Cheng gave a simple reminder: "Look at the helmet, you're searching for clues in the teaching building."

Zhu Ning glanced at her notebook. Her memory had shortened by two months, making her feel younger.

She held an investigation notebook filled with integrated notes, including Zhu Ning's own notes attached to Pei Shu's findings. At first glance, it looked like a collection of wrong answers.

One page contained information about Zhu Ning herself, including something she couldn't understand:

Mutation Panel: Devour activated.

What panel? Was she playing a game? The previous Zhu Ning who had lost her memory hadn't left any user manual.

However, one piece of information was crucial: her teammate Lin Xiaofeng was only ten years old and would regress to under five, losing control completely. If she regressed to infancy, it was uncertain if she could be saved.

If they couldn't escape, Lin Xiaofeng would be the first to fully turn into a zombie, followed by Zhu Ning and Pei Shu. Bai Cheng, who wouldn't lose her memory or die, would be responsible for cleaning up their remains.

They had to act fast.

With Bai Cheng's guidance, Zhu Ning quickly figured out that she had entered the First Teaching Building, which she had explored before. With Bai Cheng's help, she moved faster.

She pushed open classroom doors one by one, keeping an eye out for attacks. She had a gun on her hip, but she felt uneasy; she had never used such a gun before, and shooting zombies wasn't something she could easily do.

Pei Shu said there were limited bombs on the car, and time was running out. He gave Zhu Ning a countdown of twenty minutes.

Every second counted, the mechanical watch's hands ticking away. Zhu Ning felt more nervous than during a competition, her heart almost exploding.

She ran for a while, but this wasn't right. If she continued like this, she might explore the entire school within twenty minutes, which was unlikely.

Bai Cheng watched her without giving hints or helping, even ignoring the zombies. When Zhu Ning stopped to catch her breath, five minutes had already passed, and she had found nothing.

Searching blindly wouldn't work, but she had already visited key locations multiple times.

Her notebook listed the places she had visited: the laboratory building and the First Teaching Building, both of which Pei Shu had also checked. Was there something wrong here?

Regarding Class 3-1, Zhu Ning had inspected this classroom first, but found nothing inside.

While thinking, Zhu Ning suddenly saw a reflection in the window—a female student in a red uniform, half-hidden behind the door frame, with a straight fringe, staring at her eerily.

Zhu Ning felt a chill run down her spine. What was this? An unknown creature mentioned in the note? Such a vague description?

The notes were unreliable, and many sudden events might be forgotten once handled.

She didn't dare move, knowing that in horror movies, such moments often ended badly. She instinctively reached for her gun, thinking this ghostly figure might be problematic.

Zhu Ning took a deep breath and turned to draw her gun. In the moment it took to turn, she froze, her arm stiff like a wound-up doll's, her eyes vacant.

What had she been about to do? Zhu Ning asked herself this question for the umpteenth time. What was she supposed to do?

Zhu Ning asked, "Who are you? Where am I?"

Her memory had regressed to when she was fifteen, and all she saw was a woman with a pale, corpse-like face. So Zhu Ning could only ask her.

Bai Cheng, who hadn't seen what Zhu Ning saw, spoke softly, "You're inspecting the classroom."

Zhu Ning looked at the door again, but there was nothing there. What terrifying thing had she just seen? Why did the fear still linger?

Zhu Ning had no choice but to rub her goosebumps and started reading the notes on her helmet.

With Bai Cheng's hints, Zhu Ning quickly got back into the swing of things, as if her progress had been saved like in a video game. The notes briefly recorded the intervals of her memory loss—previously two months, but this time it had suddenly shortened to two years. Why had it accelerated?

Time to find clues. Zhu Ning remembered her task. She closed the notebook and started moving around the classroom, searching. Each memory loss made it feel like her first time exploring, giving her an odd sense of newness.

The classroom had two doors at the back—one was the rear exit, and the other was a narrow door to the storage room, used for brooms and trash bins.

When she opened the storage room door, it was just a pile of junk. The upside-down mop looked eerily like a long-haired female ghost, which startled Zhu Ning when she first opened the door—she had half-expected a ghost to leap out at her.

Perhaps her memory loss let her find things she couldn’t before. Frowning, Zhu Ning reached in and moved the upside-down mop.

Behind the mop was another door.

The barely visible seam, an inconspicuous keyhole—easy to overlook. Zhu Ning didn’t have a key. She fumbled around, wondering how to pry it open. Could she shoot the lock?

A mechanical voice chimed in her mind: *"Valid keyhole detected. Use universal key?"*

To Zhu Ning, this seemed exactly like a video game—completely unreal. But then again, this world itself was unreal. She chose *Yes*.

With a creak, the keyhole turned on its own, as if an invisible key had unlocked it. The narrow door swung open, revealing what looked like a passage straight out of a tomb-raiding adventure.

Zhu Ning stared at the door for a moment. Despite being right in front of it, she inexplicably hesitated. The clock's ticking reminded her that she wasn’t just losing memories—she was losing time.

Taking a deep breath, she ducked inside.

As she entered, she heard a faint rustling sound—probably Bai Cheng entering behind her.

Just inside was a small desk. There must have been a computer and a notebook for recording experiments, but now only a square dust imprint remained.

The space beyond was eerily vast. Zhu Ning gasped, and she nearly vomited at the sight before her. Bai Cheng, however, gave a faint smile, as if appreciating some twisted beauty.

A whole wall was covered with human heads—male and female, hundreds of them. Thin tubes extended from their skulls, their neck stumps eerily clean, wires and blood vessels tangled together. The heads floated in green liquid, their hair drifting up and down.

The heads appeared conscious. One male head, its eyes half-lidded, slowly blinked upon sensing their presence.

If they had attacked—lunging with gaping jaws—Zhu Ning could have treated them as monsters. But this was just a blink, as if a classmate had tapped his shoulder and called his name, prompting a natural, casual glance.

*Brains in a vat.*

Zhu Ning had seen this concept in movies—the idea that you might not truly exist, that you could just be a brain floating in a jar, living in a simulated or programmed world.

She had never understood the phrase so literally before. From every angle, these were actual human heads submerged in tanks.

Zhu Ning remembered the notes: the lead researcher was named Zhu Yao. The previous amnesiac version of herself had mused that someone shared her mother’s name—her mother, an ordinary cardiac surgeon, had nothing to do with mad scientists.

This experiment was downright deranged. Not one or two, but hundreds—possibly an entire grade of students—were preserved here. Standing before them, Zhu Ning felt insignificant. If this were a movie, she’d be too young to watch it.

What were these? Containers for the memories of the zombies outside?

Were the zombies running mindlessly toward the school to reclaim their memories?

Zhu Ning’s temple throbbed. Though her amnesia prevented her from connecting the dots, a deep unease settled in—not just from the horror of the scene, but something personal, like being handed exam answers without the questions. She couldn’t decipher what it meant.

Bai Cheng glanced around. *None of the Federation’s scientists have clean hands. They’re all drenched in blood.* After the creation of artificial humans, human experimentation had flourished—disposable test subjects.

This place might have been an abandoned lab, left to fester into a contaminated zone.

The researcher named Zhu Yao was no different from the rest.

Zhu Ning stared at the floating heads, their blinking out of sync. The longer she looked, the dizzier she felt, as if staring into a kaleidoscope.

Soon, her gaze fixed on one spot—an empty glass tank, filled only with eerie green liquid, like a moss-covered bathtub. A few disconnected tubes lay inside, long severed from their host.

Beneath the tank was a label identifying whose head had once been there: *An Shi*.

Zhu Ning pulled out the student ID from her pocket. The space for the photo was empty—just like the tank, missing a head. Below it were the same two words: *An Shi.*