Chapter 139: The Zombie Emperor

Xie Shili lowered his head, looking at the two crystal stones handed to him, and fell into silence.

He looked up at the high-level zombie in front of him.

The other was still expressionless, but those pale gray eyes flashed inexplicably, as if expressing —Is it good now?

Xie Shili: “…”

He pushed two nuclei back with a complicated expression.

Ge Xiu lowered his eyes in disappointment and stared at the two crystals that were pushed back in front of him.

He started a new round of conflict between uprightness and desires in his heart.

Although his own reserve rations obviously refused his transaction, but, logically speaking, he all belonged to him, what does it matter if he ate a little bloody gauze to relieve his cravings?

However, Ge Xiu considered himself a zombie with principles, and it didn’t seem so good to force a transaction as such.

He raised his head and fixedly stared at the human who was close at hand, exuding a mouthwatering smell, and felt that his saliva was beginning to overflow again.

Already so close in front of him, how about… taking a bite?

Just a small bite.

Ge Xiu swallowed.

But… as long as he bites down, the other would cease to be human and turn into an ordinary zombie.

——The flesh of zombies couldn’t be eaten, and he had grown tired of eating the gray nuclei from ordinary zombies’ brains.

Ge Xiu’s mood instantly wilted.

Xie Shili watched blankly as the ferocious high-level zombie in front of him became depressed. He proceeded to loosen his blue-white fingers with sadness and watch the gauze stained with half-dried blood fall to the ground with great reluctance.

He didn’t know what to say for a moment.

He actually thought a zombie was kind of cute.

My brain really seemed to have burned.

Thought Xie Shili.

Xie Shili let go of his fingers holding the opponent’s wrist and then fell back on the hospital bed drowsily. The dizziness caused by the blood loss and the high fever caused by the body fighting against infection swept over again, and the overly tense nerves suddenly relaxed, causing him to fall back asleep almost instantly.

Next time Xie Shili opened his eyes, what was in front of him was no longer the filthy and dirty ceiling of the hospital, but the night sky dotted with stars.

Xie Shili: “…”

So, what happened while he was unconscious?

He got up with some difficulty, the wounds on his body were aching due to his movements, and the bandages wrapped around his shoulders and abdomen were soaked through by blood.

But Xie Shili didn’t even frown as if he didn’t feel it.

He found himself lying on the grass.

The four zombies quite obviously listening to orders to the high-level zombie stood beside him, staring at him with dirty eyes full of hunger, but they seemed to be afraid of someone, not daring to approach half a step.

With this grass as the center, the surrounding area further than ten meters was covered by layers of zombie corpses.

All of them perished tragically, the heads of each cracked open, black and foul-smelling mucus flowing out of the shattered skulls. The high-level zombie was squatting by the middle of the pile of zombies, smashing open one of them with his bare hands skillfully. Then he put his fingers in the open skull and after searching for a while, took out a misty dark gray nuclei and stuffed it into his pocket.

Ge Xiu finally got rid of the last zombie attracted by Xie Shili’s smell of blood.

He was very satisfied with his reserves’ efficiency in attracting zombies.

Once the zombies smelled the breath of a living person, they would lose all the sense of reason remaining, even if he stood right next to the human, they would still rush forward regardless.

This was much better than using sound to attract zombies.

Ge Xiu stood up contentedly, turned back and walked towards the middle of the lawn.

He unexpectedly discovered that the human who was being protected by One, Two, Three and Four when zombies were attacking had woken up at some point.

Reserve food was a big contributor.

Ge Xiu was in a good mood, so he took out the nuclei from his pocket and distributed three to each of the four zombies, but when it was Xie Shili’s turn, his movements stopped.

He remembered that the other didn’t seem to be very interested in nuclei?

Ge Xiu tilted his head and thought for a while, suddenly thought of something, and his eyes brightened up slightly.

He turned around and walked towards Number Two, stretched his hand to take off the shopping bag hanging around its neck, and handed the full shopping bag to Xie Shili.

Xie Shili looked down at the shopping bag beside him.

He originally thought that after he had been through so much, his acceptance was strong enough, but every time this high-level zombie would challenge his psychological endurance anew.

Xie Shili reached out to open the plastic bag and took one glance inside.

The variety of things inside was very confusing, its contents ranging from bread, milk, canned mineral water, to towels, wet wipes, notebooks, razors, and even a bag full of assorted things——he even saw two packs of sanitary napkins in the corner of the shopping bag.

Xie Shili raised his head and looked at the zombie standing in front of him.

The other stared back at him with an unchanging expression, a pair of inhuman, inorganic gray eyes with no light nor shadow, but there seemed to be inexplicable sense of expectation inside them.

“…” Xie Shili was silent for two seconds, then said:

“…Many thanks.”

After speaking, he paid no attention to the scenery full of corpses around him, but unpacked the food bag right away and began to devour it.

After all, Xie Shili hadn’t eaten nor drank water for three days, he had been consuming a lot of physical strength and energy. Although he never opened his mouth, he had actually been tortured by hunger for a long time.

If one wanted to survive in the uncertain future, replenishing energy was a must.

Ge Xiu lovingly watched his reserve rations eat quickly, his heart feeling lighter and happier with each bite of his.

Eat more, eat more to gain weight.

Ge Xiu involuntarily swallowed a mouthful of saliva.

In order to curb his growing appetite, he had to take out two mutant nuclei from his pocket and stuff them into his mouth to satisfy his hunger.

Xie Shili filled his stomach with the fastest speed.

In such a grim world, all the survived humans lived like this — they had to devour the food they get into their stomachs as fast as they can, not only for fear of being robbed, but also because they did not know if they would be alive tomorrow.

For power users, eating as quickly as possible could shorten the rest time, improve efficiency and reduce the probability of being attacked.

Not only by zombies, but more often by the same kind.

After eating, Xie Shili felt that his physical strength had recovered a little, and even the powers that had been exhausted showed signs of gradually recovering.

He clenched his fist lightly, and a golden-red flame burst out of his palm, but it had extinguished just as quickly.

He hadn’t returned to his peak form yet.

Xie Shili was very clear about his state, it was still too early to face against the high-level zombie now.

Plus…

Xie Shili raised his head and looked at the high-level zombies that was stuffing nuclei into his mouth one by one, and his heart was occupied by dense doubts.

He didn’t know exactly what the other was planning.

Xie Shili’s eyes darkened, he opened his mouth tentatively, his voice was slightly hoarse due to the high fever, making it sound low and broken:

“Can you…can you understand me?”

The high-level zombie stopped putting crystals into his mouth and looked at Xie Shili.

It thought for a while, then nodded slowly.

Xie Shili was secretly shocked.

The ability of the other party to hear and recognize human language was many levels higher than ordinary simple intelligence. It’s been less than a year since beginning of the apocalypse, and such a high-level zombie had already appeared… Was this a single occurrence? Or maybe…?

He calmed down: “What’s your purpose?”

Ge Xiu thought for a while.

If he said he was raising the human as reserve rations, would this human be scared away?

However, if he runs away, he can just catch him back.

He opened his mouth, and there was only a hoarse, meaningless monosyllable in his throat.

Ge Xiu: “…”

His thinking just now was completely superfluous.

Since the vocal cords had not been used for a long time, he had long forgotten how to make specific sounds sound, let alone a saying complete sentence, he can’t even say a single word.

Xie Shili thought he didn’t understand.

He changed the way of questioning: “Why didn’t you eat me?”

The pronunciation of the word caused a wave of pleasure to splash in Ge Xiu’s mind.

His eyes lit up, he rolled up his stiff and cold tongue, pressed it against the upper jaw, imitated the other person’s appearance, and squeezed out breathy sound from his throat:

“…at”

Xie Shili frowned slightly, trying to distinguish carefully what the other was saying.

But after thinking hard, the high-level zombie in front of him finally reluctantly and difficultly issued a simple sound:

“…Eat?”

Xie Shili shook his head and repeated his previous question patiently and slowly: “You, why, no, eat, me?”

Ge Xiu’s eyes were shining:

“Eat!”

Xie Shili: “…”

He felt that the two of them were not on the same channel at all.

He sighed mockingly: “Forget it.”

Ge Xiu stuffed the two spar nuclei into his mouth and chewed them, feeling very distressed.

He felt that his reserve rations did not understand what he was saying.

He stuffed two more crystal stones into his mouth.

After eating about a dozen crystals, Ge Xiu suddenly thought of a very perfect way—since the food reserves didn’t understand his words, then he should demonstrate it.

He imitated the other and sat down, then stretched out his hand and grabbed the other’s hand.

The blue and white fingers were particularly cold, like touch from death itself.

Xie Shili narrowed his eyes slightly, but did not move.

The zombie in front of him with a pale face and handsome features lowered his head, opened his mouth, and put his index finger in his mouth.

No human being had ever had such an experience.

Putting one’s hand in the mouth of a zombie was tantamount to crazy suicide.

Xie Shili used all of his self-control to force himself not to use his abilities to counterattack in the process.

The young man held his fingers and looked up at him, his gray eyes were hazy.

Xie Shili was frozen in place.

His fingertips flicked subconsciously due to the approaching danger, but what he touched was the man’s restrained hard teeth and soft but cold tongue.

Ge Xiu thought he was very witty.

Demonstrating personally the meaning of the word “eat”.

Now this human should understand what he meant, right?

Xie Shili lowered his eyes, the dark eyes gradually deepened, and some kind of complicated emotions stirred up in those dark eyes. He stared at the zombies who just sucked on his fingers harmlessly, but not really biting.

“Do you mean… you’re not going to eat me?”

Ge Xiu: “…”

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The author has something to say:

Cross-frequency communication is the most deadly