Chapter 611 – Flames Engulf the Underground
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“Woo!”
The piercing alarm rang out, instantly filling the entire street.
All the zombies wandering the street halted almost simultaneously, craning their necks, turning their gaze in unison towards the same direction.
Their previously dull, blood-red eyes lit up as if sparked to life, their somewhat rigid bodies suddenly emitting a series of light crackling sounds from their bones.
It was as if monsters, crawling out from their graves upon catching the scent of the living, were slowly but surely awakening.
“Whoos.h.!.+”
The first zombie broke into a run, bursting out from the horde.
Following suit, the entire ma.s.s of undead stirred.
These zombies sprinted along the road, leaped over the tops of abandoned cars, or swung themselves forward, clutching onto lampposts…
The street, long silent, was suddenly seething with activity again.
The monsters’ frenzied rush, the m.u.f.fled, rapid footsteps, and the occasional crash of impact…
Amidst the chaos, a different kind of silence surrept.i.tiously took shape.
It was as if h.e.l.l was drawing near…
“The noise sure is something.”
Ling Mo had already made his way back into the underground mall by following the staircase, taking cover in a small corner not far from the exit.
From his vantage point, he could clearly see how the zombies pa.s.sed by.
Pairs of feet, covered in old bloodstains, dirty and b.l.o.o.d.y, whisked by less than twenty meters from where they were hidden.
“How did you do that?” Shana asked curiously. The alarm was still blaring at this point.
With the zombies’ keen hearing, she could tell where exactly the alarm was coming from.
It wasn’t here, nor was it at the entrance, but rather somewhere nearby.
What puzzled Shana the most was that she felt the sound was likely coming from mid-air.
“Heh, it’s actually just a little gadget called an anti-wolf alarm. This thing is surprisingly durable; it still works after all this time. Anyway, I used my mental power to send it up onto the power lines, and after triggering it, well, you see the result,” Ling Mo said, plugging his ears with a finger and laughing. “Gotta say, the volume is impressively loud for what it is…”
Shana gave him a long look, then nodded. “I see… But to be honest, I’m more curious about why you’ve been collecting anti-wolf devices…”
“Heh heh…”
“However, this sound will definitely draw those humans over here,” Shana said, folding her arms across her chest and peering outside.
“Of course,” Ling Mo replied with excitement, his eyes fixed on the slit.
…
“Be careful, everyone.”
Inside the underground computer mall, Xu Shuhan and the others were cautiously approaching with flashlights in hand.
Walking at the back, Xu Shuhan gripped her gun tightly, her neck twisting nervously as she peered into the pitch-black darkness ahead.
Looking back at the faint light from the elevator entrance only seemed to make the surrounding darkness even deeper.
The shadows seemed to loom and move in the gloom.
“Wait!”
A male voice suddenly came from up ahead.
“Ah!” Xu Shuhan, already on edge, let out an instinctive scream, the muzzle of her gun swinging wildly.
“Hey, hey, calm down…” Mu Chen, who had spoken, quickly raised his hands in alarm. “Why are you so jumpy today?”
Xu Shuhan took a deep breath and then, slightly embarra.s.sed and annoyed, said, “Then why did you suddenly shout? Don’t you know this kind of place can make people’s minds race?”
“Could you maybe control your wild imagination, please?” Mu Chen rolled his eyes helplessly before continuing, “I was just thinking, would Ling Mo and his group really come to a place like this? I mean… what would they be doing here? This place is nothing but junk.”
“But… we’ve searched everywhere, upstairs and downstairs. Unless they’ve already left this place,” Xu Shuhan replied, frowning.
Just then, Xia Zhi suddenly made a shus.h.i.+ng gesture to them.
“Hmm…”
“Did you guys hear…” Xu Shuhan nervously looked around, “something…?”
“It seems to be coming from above…” Mu Chen also p.r.i.c.ked up his ears and listened for a moment before saying with a mix of surprise and suspicion, “It looks like your ‘unless’ was spot on.”
The three exchanged glances, then immediately turned and ran upstairs.
The closer they got to the elevator entrance, the clearer the sound became.
After climbing up to the cell phone mall, Mu Chen’s expression had s.h.i.+fted from shock to bewilderment: “What the heck? An alarm sound?”
“This… It seems to be coming from that direction… and the zombies outside have disappeared.” Xu Shuhan had already sprinted to the floor-to-ceiling window, glanced outside, then turned back and said, “It has to be Ling Mo and his group, Team F wouldn’t do this.”
“That’s great!” Mu Chen forced a smile, then clenched his teeth and growled, “The problem is… how the h.e.l.l do we get over there?!”
Thinking of the countless zombies also converging in that direction, the expressions on both Xu Shuhan and Xia Zhi’s faces became quite something to behold.
It was indeed a problem…
However, what they didn’t know was that as they rushed out of the mall, a pair of red eyes also quietly appeared in the underground computer mall.
Accompanied by the fleeting flash of the red eyes, a streak of red light also appeared within the mall, and then it grew brighter and hotter…
“MeGu?”
Xiao Bai suddenly lifted its head, sniffed at its neck, then looked behind it.
Seeing this action, Yu s.h.i.+ran also quickly looked back and said, “It looks like there’s smoke…”
“Oh, it’s Senior Sister.” Ling Mo said with a smile.
Shana gave Ling Mo a thoughtful look, then as if realizing something, she exclaimed, “Ling Mo, could it be that you asked Senior Sister… to start a fire?”
“Yes, I asked her to burn that place down. Judging by the time, they should have gone down by now. I’m drawing their attention here, luring them out, while Senior Sister ignites the final blaze. It’s not hard to find something flammable in the parking lot,” Ling Mo nodded.
At their current location, they were still quite safe. It would take a significant amount of time for the fire and smoke to reach them.
Moreover, before making a decision, Ling Mo had already calculated that even if the fire completely destroyed these buildings without any hindrance, it would not affect the television station.
But in the coming days, they might face even more zombies and terrible weather…
“Oh, I see… But why?” Shana was still somewhat puzzled.
Ling Mo reached into his bag and pulled out a package wrapped in Plastic Wrap. On closer inspection, it was the Mucus: “This stuff is a nightmare for a mental ability user. I can’t let Niepan get their hands on it. What if they have the ability to research and replicate it?”
“That’s true… But now that you have the Mucus and the special organs from the little monster, maybe we can study something from them,” Shana said with antic.i.p.ation.
“I hope so, but unfortunately, this stuff smells too strong, so we can’t carry much of it. And if we carry too little, it won’t be very effective,” Ling Mo said, shaking his head in regret.
“But… what about us now…” Ye Lian suddenly interjected. The zombie girl looked even more confused than Shana. If Shana had only understood part of it, then she hadn’t understood anything at all.
“Well… Human relations.h.i.+ps can sometimes be very complex. Right now, it’s less about cooperation and more about having to use each other. I want to follow them to find Niepan, but that doesn’t mean they don’t want to lead me into a trap.
Many times, things are like this, risks and rewards exist side by side, and you never know the final outcome until you take the last step,” Ling Mo tried to explain in simpler terms.
Ye Lian stared at him with wide eyes for a while, pondered for a few seconds, and then, under his expectant gaze, silently shook her head.
“Alright, let me think about how to explain this…” Ling Mo sighed, resignedly saying.
“You never know what a baby will look like before it’s born,” Shana quickly said.
“Oh…” This time, Ye Lian understood and nodded vigorously, “So, Ling Mo, you guys… have that kind of relations.h.i.+p…”
“We have no such relations.h.i.+p at all!” Ling Mo exclaimed.
Judging by the time, Mu Chen and Senior Sister should have arrived.
The alarm was still desperately ringing, but it was only a matter of time before the zombies crushed it.
But the question was…
“Where is Senior Sister?”