Chapter 22

Chapter 22

As Wen Jiuzhe asked, his hand already brushed against the gun at his waist, while his other hand drew a short blade.

His eyes locked onto the tiger in the forest. With a flick of his hand, the short blade flew out and embedded itself into the trunk of a tree to the tiger's front left.

The golden shaded tiger didn’t attack. Instead, it turned and darted into the woods, disappearing quickly from sight.

Xue Ling finally loosened Wen Jiuzhe’s clothes.

Wen Jiuzhe looked at his now loose collar and the hem that had several holes torn into it by her grip, thinking to himself that her strength had indeed grown.

He walked over and pulled his short blade out of the tree trunk, sliding it back into its sheath.

"Let's go." He got into the car and started driving.

Xue Ling didn’t have time to be angry with him, still shaken as she grabbed a writing board and wrote: "Tiger!"

Wen Jiuzhe gave her a strange look. "What about the tiger? What's there to be afraid of?"

Tigers eat people! Xue Ling wrote.

Wen Jiuzhe: "There are man-eating zombies everywhere. Tigers are just rarer."

Xue Ling: "..."

There was a point to that, she had to admit.

Wen Jiuzhe rummaged through a pile of old and new maps he had collected and found a map of the nearby area. "Jia City Zoo... we need to cut through this road."

Xue Ling looked at him speechlessly. So he wasn’t just talking nonsense; he really intended to go?

But still!

"The tigers have escaped!" she wrote.

If all the large animals from the zoo were loose and wandering around, wouldn’t that be dangerous?

Wen Jiuzhe reassured her, "It’s fine. There are many animals in the zoo. If the tigers escaped, we can still check out the others. It’s not possible all of them got out, right?"

Xue Ling: Is that really what I’m worried about?!

In the end, they still went to the zoo.

The zoo was built on the outskirts of Jia City and covered a large area, much bigger than the Yu City Zoo Xue Ling had visited before. There weren’t many zombies here either.

Was it because there weren’t many tourists in the early days of the apocalypse, or was it for some other reason?

Whatever the case, it made their visit much smoother.

Xue Ling was worried that some large beast might leap out at any moment, walking behind Wen Jiuzhe and glancing left and right like a thief.

Wen Jiuzhe grabbed her hand and led her forward, teasing her, "Even if there were beasts, they wouldn’t want to eat you, so don’t be so tense."

As Xue Ling was held by Wen Jiuzhe, she suddenly paused.

Wen Jiuzhe hadn’t put on his leather gloves to protect himself from danger. He was holding her hand just like before, the warmth of his palm pressing against the back of her hand.

She was suddenly reminded of a few years ago, the first time they had held hands.

... Don’t misunderstand, it wasn’t some romantic memory.

It had been shortly after they had confirmed their relationship. They were still awkward with each other, Xue Ling being polite, and Wen Jiuzhe keeping his distance.

That day, Wen Jiuzhe had waited for her by the side gate of her school and suddenly reached out to her.

Before that, whenever they went out, Wen Jiuzhe would either walk ahead or beside her, his hands always in his pockets. Occasionally, if Xue Ling walked too close to the road or near a car, Wen Jiuzhe would reach out and pull her back. But they had never held hands.

So when he offered his hand, Xue Ling felt both confused and nervous.

She extended her hand, and he held it.

Feeling the warmth of his palm, the shyness and tension Xue Ling had felt began to fade, but then she noticed something damp in his hand?

Pulling her hand back, she saw that the spot where her hand had touched his was smeared with a grayish-white substance... bird poop? Bird poop!

Wen Jiuzhe held up that hand and grinned. "I accidentally touched bird poop on the railing while waiting for you."

"..."

It was probably from that moment that their interactions changed from awkward politeness to a pattern of one being mischievous and the other getting angry, evolving into playful fights.

Without realizing it, they started holding hands more often, though every time Xue Ling would carefully check if Wen Jiuzhe had anything in his hand before she would grip it.

Rather than feeling shy about holding hands with her boyfriend, she was more concerned with whether he was planning some mischief again.

Xue Ling snapped back to the present, not having noticed where Wen Jiuzhe had led her. She looked up and realized they were in the predator zone.

You really are one to head straight into danger, aren’t you?

Fortunately, the fence in the predator zone had a large hole in it, and all the beasts had escaped.

...Wasn’t that even scarier? What if they were still wandering nearby?!

"All of them escaped?"

Wen Jiuzhe raised an eyebrow and stepped toward the hole, intending to enter the area that was previously off-limits to visitors. Xue Ling yanked him back, causing him to stumble.

She practically dragged Wen Jiuzhe away from the area.

The areas for zebras, giraffes, ostriches, and elephants were all empty.

They walked to the aviary area, where a long row of large cage-like rooms stood. Signs indicating various parrot species still hung outside the cages, but the birds inside were gone.

In some rooms, they could see the skeletal remains of birds that had died, while others were completely empty.

Xue Ling was starting to feel uncomfortable, but Wen Jiuzhe motioned for her to look up. Two brightly feathered parrots were perched in the trees above them.

Xue Ling cheered up a bit and pointed at the parrots, letting out an "ao wu" sound.

The parrots in the trees looked down at the humans and the zombie, opened their beaks, and mimicked, "ao wu."

Wen Jiuzhe burst out laughing. "Haha, they imitate quite well."

A strange laugh echoed from the woods. "Ga ga ga ga ga, like!" It turned out there was another parrot in there.

Xue Ling and Wen Jiuzhe both went silent.

Compared to the birds locked in cages, the swans, mandarin ducks, and red-crowned cranes placed in waterside landscapes had survived in greater numbers.

Xue Ling even spotted a nest of eggs on the opposite bank of the lake, unsure which bird had laid them.

The peacock cage next door was empty, but the peacock was indeed fine, strolling on the path with its long tail dragging behind.

As it approached them, the peacock held its slender neck high, an arrogant and haughty expression in its eyes, and swaggered past without sparing them a glance.

Wen Jiuzhe's eyes followed the peacock. "I wonder if peacock tastes good."

Xue Ling hesitated but eventually pushed him forward. "Forget it, it's so beautiful, let's not eat it."

Ahead, small bridges spanned over flowing streams, and large and small lakes dotted the landscape. Schools of ornamental fish swam leisurely in connected ponds, their carefree demeanor unchanged from the pre-apocalypse days.

The prettier the ornamental fish, the less likely they were to taste good.

Xue Ling, anticipating Wen Jiuzhe's intentions, pointed at the fish school and shook her head, making a cross symbol to indicate they weren't good to eat.

Wen Jiuzhe also pointed at the fish pond, at its edge. Xue Ling took a closer look and saw several bloated zombies submerged, with a group of red and yellow fish gathered around them, pecking away.

— The fish didn't mind the zombies, but the zombies found the fish unappetizing.

Xue Ling thought anyone would lose their appetite seeing this scene.

In the past three years, Xue Ling had observed animals bitten by zombies usually died quickly without undergoing the same mutations as humans.

But what about these fish that had eaten zombies? Would they die too?

They crouched by the fish pond for a long while but couldn't figure anything out. Two zombies approached, and Wen Jiuzhe dispatched them into the fish pond to feed the fish.

However, with fresh zombies in the water, the fish swam away and didn't go near them.

"They won't eat fresh ones, only the bloated ones, maybe soaking makes them less toxic and edible?" Wen Jiuzhe speculated.

Xue Ling had a different opinion. "Maybe they can't bite through the unsoaked ones."

The longer a zombie remains, the harder its body becomes, its skin tough and resilient, making it sound like metal when struck with a blade. A poor-quality knife might even break. How could fish bite through that?

Xue Ling was also curious how Wen Jiuzhe managed to cut through zombie heads so effortlessly with a short blade.

The fish in the pond lived freely, but those in the aquariums weren't so lucky.

The water had turned murky from lack of maintenance, and the oxygen supply had long stopped. The water in the tanks had turned green, and unsurprisingly, all the pretty fish inside had died.

They glanced at it and moved on. Wen Jiuzhe led Xue Ling to an area built to resemble a rocky cave.

Xue Ling hadn't noticed the sign and was just wondering which area this was when she saw the large python behind the glass.

Xue Ling gasped.

Wen Jiuzhe heard the sound of his T-shirt tearing.

Fortunately, Xue Ling still had her wits about her and didn't scratch him, though she did tear his T-shirt.

The python behind the glass didn't move, its brightly colored patterns making Xue Ling cling to Wen Jiuzhe in fear.

She wanted to ask if it was alive or dead but feared Wen Jiuzhe would break the glass to find out.

She averted her eyes and used her fist to nudge Wen Jiuzhe's back, urging him to move along.

Xue Ling didn't dare to look closely at the other snakes, and when she spotted an empty nest, she feared the snake had escaped, constantly suspecting one might appear under her feet.

After passing through this area, they saw crocodiles behind the glass.

The motionless crocodile had its mouth open, looking like a statue.

Wen Jiuzhe crouched down for a closer look and knocked on the glass.

"Dead or alive?"

Xue Ling knew him well enough. When Wen Jiuzhe asked that, he was probably considering breaking the glass to check.

As he pounded on the glass, Xue Ling started pounding on him.

In the end, they didn't break the glass, leaving behind a pile of unanswered questions about whether the crocodiles were alive or dead.

Leaving the area, Wen Jiuzhe's T-shirt was nearly shredded by Xue Ling, close to ruined.

Wearing this tattered outfit, Wen Jiuzhe and Xue Ling continued to the next zone.

The next area was the monkey mountain.

Compared to other areas where the animals were either gone or had escaped, these monkeys had established themselves as kings of the place and expanded their group.

As they approached, monkeys were everywhere—on the artificial hill, in the nearby trees! There were at least several hundred of them at a glance.

As soon as they appeared, one monkey started calling, and soon the whole group joined in.

Just as Xue Ling began to feel uneasy, Wen Jiuzhe decisively put his arm around her and turned to run back.

"Run!" Wen Jiuzhe said.

A tough guy who wouldn’t flinch before a tiger had finally succumbed to the sight of several hundred monkeys.

Though she was in a sorry state herself, Xue Ling couldn’t help but feel a somewhat mischievous urge to laugh.

Cool guy, cool guy, you’ve finally met something you’re afraid of!

There were sounds of monkeys chasing after them from behind. They didn’t know what those monkeys had grabbed, but they were throwing things while screeching.

Clumps of dirt, small stones, and dried fruit pits rained down on them, hitting their bodies and bouncing to their feet like a downpour.

Wen Jiuzhe protected Xue Ling’s head, making sure she didn’t get hit, and half-dragged, half-carried her out of the monkey mountain area.

Once they stopped, she saw that he was covered in dirt marks, with dust and grime in his hair—he was a complete mess.

Xue Ling felt like laughing. But unable to produce a full laugh, she just bared her teeth slightly.

Wen Jiuzhe, understanding her, patted his own hair and said, "Happy now?"

No! Xue Ling immediately retracted her bared teeth.

Having taken a beating from the monkeys for no reason at the zoo, the two resumed their journey.