Book 1 Chapter 4:Mutagenic Flesh
A glare no matter how vicious could not killanyone, therefore Ye Chen ignored it, he indifferently approached her body,after confirming her death, he crouched down and used the knife to slice openher torso.
The girl"s skin was pasty, with a slight tingeof green, upon cutting open the skin, blood gushed out from the incision likeflowing water, darkly glistening like ink, followed by a rancid metallicstench. A normal person would have been deterred by that rancorous glare, notdaring to even approach the corpse much less come into contact with it,however, Ye Chen has long since gotten used to this and is no longer mindful ofsuch things.
"Hmm?"
Ye Chen"s eyes immediately lit up, "It"smutagenic flesh!"
There upon, within the girl"s chest cavity,right beside her pitch black heart, was a white piece of tender flesh the sizeof a fingertip, appearing similar to a lump of lamb fat, completely unblemishedby the surrounding black blood.
With a plastic bag covering his hand, Ye Chencarefully harvested the white piece of flesh, after which, he gave it a whiff,it didn"t give off any unpleasant odours, instead it had a distinct anddelicate fragrance.
"I never thought that after taking down twoadult zombies without any sign of mutagenic flesh, would I find some on thislittle zombie." Shaking his head with a smile, Ye Chen headed to the bathroomand gave the white piece of flesh a rinse, after which he popped it into hismouth and chewed carefully.
Mutagenic flesh!
Containing miraculous effects, consuming itstrengthened one"s body and health, it could occasionally be found within thebodies of zombies.
The reason human turned into zombies, wasbecause their bodies couldn"t handle the rapid changes brought by the viralinfection, causing their DNA strands to collapse and their skin to fester, itwas akin to pushing a bicycle to perform as well as an automobile, with itsinherent st.u.r.diness lacking, doing so only proved harmful to itself.
What then was the forte of humans?
It was undoubtedly their intellect!
Stripped from their intellect andtechnologically advanced weaponry, humans were considered weak in the eyes ofthe many wild beasts of nature. Losing against the bold ferocity of a lion, thespeed of a cheetah, the flight capabilities of a falcon, the tenacious vitalityof a c.o.c.kroach….
The intention behind why scientist researchedsuch a virus, was to use it in order to stimulate human cells into evolving further,surpa.s.sing the innate strengths of wild beasts, tragically, while the virus wasstill in development, an explosion occurred causing this chain of unprecedenteddisasters….
The majority of humankind was infected, andunder the violent influence of the virus, they were transformed into zombies. Howevera portion of these zombies had what the team of scientists who developed thevirus coveted, "mutagenic flesh"!
According to their deductions, the perfectedvirus would transform a human"s fleshly body into something similar tomutagenic flesh, vastly improving their vitality as well as giving themridiculous levels of bodily strength, giving birth to the "new" human race!
Yet today….
To Ye Chen, mutagenic flesh was something thatbolstered his physical prowess!
The tender white flesh gave off a faint aromaas he chewed it, after which, Ye Chen rested for an interval, giving time todigest the mutagenic flesh, gradually allowing it to affect his body.
Ye Chen gripped his hand into a fist, he couldvaguely feel that his current strength has improved by around a quarter. Thispiece of mutagenic flesh was simply too small, if it were the size of a fist,it would have raised his strength by more than a hundred pounds.
Ye Chen circled around the room once moreconfirming that there were no other zombies, other than that, he found three boxesof canned vegetables, he also found some frozen fish in the fridge which hasalready decayed due to contamination of the virus. Upon the decayed fish werenumerous maggots, having been baptized by the virus, they would eventuallystart mutating.
Ye Chen then opened a can of vegetables, uponinspection; they appear to be in pristine condition, unaffected by the virus,he then placed the three boxes on the counter, ready for him to retrieve whenhe was done hunting zombies.
Clenching the watermelon knife, Ye Chen took adeep breath before opening the door and once again ventured out.
The corridor remained vacant, exuding an eeriesilence. Ye Chen carefully approached the next room, it was locked, he did notattempt to force it open, if there were any zombies within, it would be wise tolet them be, as they were incapable of opening doors, what awaited them wasonly death by starvation….
The following rooms were also locked; this cameas no surprise, after all, the apocalypse struck at 7:00 in the evening, mostpeople would already be in their rooms, and n.o.body would intentionally leavetheir rooms unlocked when staying at a hotel.
Ye Chen scouted out the entire floor makingsure that there were no stray zombies roaming about before heading to theelevator, preparing to venture to the other floors.
"Thirteenth floor!" the number displayed thecurrent location of the elevator, with a press of a b.u.t.ton, Ye Chen summonedfor the elevator to ascend. He waited in silence as he observed the risingnumbers, for some reason, a gripping sense of unease started to take hold ofhim….
"Fourteenth!"
"Fifteenth!"
Along with the rising elevator, Ye Chen"s senseof unease too, began to worsen. Unable to withstand it further, Ye Chen dashedtowards the stairs nearby without waiting for the elevator to arrive. He hidbehind the firefighting cabinet, within seconds, the elevator doors began toopen, peering from the dead silent stairway; it seemed to have an air ofeeriness.
Before Ye Chen could breathe as sigh of relief,from within the elevator, came a few staggering figures….
Ye Chen could feel his eyelid twitch; hehurriedly covered his breathing, seemingly on the verge of stopping his ownheartbeat, not making even the slightest of sounds. The staggering figuresappear to consist of two men and a woman, dressed in casual clothes. A solidestimation suggests that these people were here for a vacation, when theapocalypse struck, they were still within the elevator, all three of themtransformed into zombies.
The woman zombie was wearing a white t-shirt,upon it were cute teddy bear motifs, yet it was smeared thoroughly in blood,perhaps one of their friends or family managed to resist the virus"s effects,yet was tragically torn apart by the three….
The woman"s hair was in disarray and her nails ghastly,though her skin did not fester; her eyes were milky green, with teethprotruding into grisly fangs and dried blood caking her lips, altogether, heroriginally delicate countenance has been morphed into something hideous andsinister.
As for the other two men, their current stateswere more or less similar to the woman. Upon exiting the elevator they begancircling around the immediately vicinity, sniffing about as though they justcaught the scent of warm blood….
Ye Chen was slightly nervous, it was fortunatethat he got away from the elevator in time, if he had just stood there when theelevator doors opened, it would have been the end for him.
Zombies had a surprisingly adept sense ofsmell, even if you were to jump into a body of water, they could probably stillsniff you out. Ye Chen decided to no longer stay put, keeping still only led toeventually being found, he suppressed his breathing and slowly backed away,making sure to keep as quiet as possible.
It"s a good thing Ye Chen usually prefers towear sneakers, had he been wearing dress shoes or something cleated, it wouldhave resounded with every step he took, with sneakers, pacing gently shouldreduce the audibility of his footsteps greatly.
One step, and another….
Every step seemed to take an eternity; it tookhim ten steps to reach the opposite corner of the stairs. Just then, azombified youth from the floor below came, lured by the scent of warm blood, itimmediately spotted Ye Chen in the midst of climbing the steps, its eyesimmediately sparked with bloodl.u.s.t, with a greed filled growl, it raced towardsYe Chen.
This growl immediately alerted the pack of threezombies, causing them to rush over, upon spotting Ye Chen, their eyes filledwith wildness and vigorously dashed to shorten their distance.
Ye Chen knew he was in trouble, yet he did notrun to the stairs below knowing that it would only lead to attracting morezombies. If he were to do so, it would end with him exhausted after a prolongedchase and ultimately being torn apart by the zombies. Though he could feel howsweaty his hand grasping the watermelon knife had become, he did not lose hiscool, within the seconds it took for the zombies to close in; he took in hissurroundings, memorizing every detail.
"Rrrargh!" the first zombie rushed over fromthe top of the stairs, as it was heading downwards, its momentum greatlyincreased, with claws held high, it swiped towards Ye Chen"s shouldersintending to lock him in place while biting into his neck.
How could Ye Chen allow this zombie to do as itwished? He sidestepped the zombie as it lunged at him while kicking it at thewaist at it pa.s.sed him by, if he were to kick it head on, with the strength ofa zombie plus its downwards momentum, it would have sent himself flyinginstead.
With a kick to its waist from the side, thezombie lost its footing, being on the stairs, this caused it to tumblehelplessly to the bottom, thoroughly disoriented.
Ye Chen could not relax just yet, with threemore zombies incoming, he hadn"t the time to take out and ignite the bottle ofgasoline. He lowered himself and did a sweeping kick, tripping the next malezombie that came running.
Due to its own forward momentum while dashingdown the stairs, it didn"t took much effort to send this zombie tumbling aswell, it rolled down the stairs and went crashing into the zombified youth downbelow. This sudden obstruction caused the woman zombie to leap over.
With his life in imminent peril, Ye Chenmanaged to roll to the side from his crouching position at the last moment, hegot up and ruthlessly kneed her in the chest while simultaneously hacking thewatermelon knife with all his might, with a crack, the knife sliced into morethan half of the woman zombie"s neck, causing her head to drop and dangle, heldon by mere sc.r.a.ps of skin and tendons, the sight was truly revolting.
Ye Chen paid her no further heed, as he noticedthe zombies down below getting up, he hurriedly dashed to the top of thestairs, whilst dashing, he unstrapped the bottle of gasoline with one hand and simultaneouslyretrieved the box of matched with the other. With frighteningly deft handmovements, he fluidly pulled a matchstick from the box and lighted it!
This agile series of movements would have dazedany onlookers, if it were an average person; he would have panicked and fumbledat the sight of the zombies down below rushing towards him.
"It"s over…."
Ye Chen stood at the top of the stairs, with alit match in one hand. He indifferently glanced over the two zombies rushingtowards him, as well as another zombie obstructed by the half-dead womanzombie, he popped open the bottle of gasoline and tossed it towards theincoming two zombies, spewing its contents upon them like flowing water,simultaneously, he flicked the lit match into the air, with a beautiful arc, itlanded right where he spilled the gasoline.
Boom!!
A violent explosion took place right in themiddle of the stairs, lighting up the surroundings, the loud noise drowned outthe pathetic screams of the two zombies. When the fires faded, only a pair ofcharred corpses remained, even the zombie that finally untangled itself off thewoman zombie crumpled on the floor due to the force of the explosion, twitchingslightly.
Translator Notes:
The author uses specifically catty which is atraditional Chinese unit of ma.s.s weighing at five hundred grams; I took theliberty of converting it to pounds as it was the closest in weight and I felt itwas more understandable that way. However, know that pounds are still slightlylighter than catties; therefore I will supplement adjectives that suggest ahigher number.