Li Yu had just answered the phone, still half-asleep when he suddenly woke up after hearing what Uncle had said. He thought to himself, "Could it have started earlier?"
Uncle, who was driving, didn't hear clearly what Li Yu had said, so he asked, "What did you say? I didn't hear you clearly.
You should leave now. Who knows what might happen the day after tomorrow!"
There was a noisy background, filled with the sound of police sirens.
Li Yu came back to his senses and said to his uncle, "Let Xiao Lu and Auntie prepare the luggage. I'll come over right now."
"Alright! I'm going to hang up now." Meanwhile, he seemed to say to a team member next to him, "Is the Anti-explosion Suit all ready?"
Li Yu quickly added, "Uncle, this matter seems unusual. Be careful, and come to my resort if anything happens."
"Okay!" Uncle said and then hung up the phone.
Li Yu quickly got out of bed, washed his face, and then woke up his younger brother, asking him to come out with him.
His younger brother was in deep sleep and was suddenly woken up, somewhat unwilling.
Li Yu didn't care whether he was willing or not, he dragged him up and ran outside.
"Wait, let me put on my shoes. Where are we going in the middle of the night..." Li Hang complained.
"I'll tell you later, go start a car. We'll take one each," Li Yu said as he waited for him to put on his shoes and then headed outside.
Halfway there, Li Yu seemed to remember something, went down to the warehouse, took two Mountain Blades with the keys, wrapped them in cloth randomly, and took them away.
When they got to the front gate, Li Yu and Li Hang each pushed one side of the eight-meter-long gate open. Initially, the family didn't understand why Li Yu wanted such a thick gate.
Though it looked very secure, it was extremely heavy and thus very difficult to open.
After pushing the gate open, Li Yu walked towards the car, telling Li Hang, "Uncle just called. There's a village in our county where something abnormal happened. Everyone in the village is infected with a virus. They are like zombies. Also, traffic control is likely to be enforced in a few days. We should go pick up Auntie and them."
Li Hang was stunned.
"Ah? What virus? Is it related to the strange weather these days?"
"I don't know, let's go. It's still a while to get there."
They started the car and drove off. They checked the time,
November 21st, 3:00 AM.
Driving on the national highway, the sky was pitch black without a trace of light, and there were very few cars on the road.
They could only sporadically see a few cars.
As they were approaching the county, more cars gradually appeared.
Suddenly, Li Yu heard a loud roaring sound.
Looking through the car glass, he saw two helicopters whizzing by.
What's happening? Helicopters are deployed here, in this small county?
Li Yu was startled, wondering if it had really started early?
No, he suddenly remembered, before his rebirth, he was in M City, and since he always stayed in the rented house, he had no idea what was happening outside.
That meant, it didn't happen early, nor it happened only on November 25th.
Zombies had appeared earlier; he just didn't know.
Only after the heavy rain on the 25th did the situation become completely uncontrollable, as zombies spread very rapidly. Once bitten, it only takes three minutes for transformation.
They sped along...
As they passed by a supermarket, its glass doors were shattered, with some blood on them. There seemed to be two bodies on the ground.
A police car was parked there, and some residents were gathered around the supermarket, discussing animatedly.
"Holy shit, what happened, how come there are dead people?"
"I heard that two people went to rob the supermarket and smashed the doors..."
"I heard it's the neighbor, Old Wang, who was caught cheating, and then her husband found out..."
...
"Moved, they moved, they are pretending to be dead!"
Just then, the bodies that were clearly lying on the ground slowly wriggled and then got up in an inhuman posture, their arms dangling as they slowly lifted a face.
What a face it was!
Blood covered the whole face, flesh blurred and mangled. The eyeballs seemed to have been yanked out, dangling in mid-air.
It looked as if a chunk of flesh was bitten off the arm, the body covered in black and white spotted patches.
Another nearby corpse also rose up.
The people around uniformly stepped back a few steps, the previously noisy chatter abruptly stopped.
"Scatter quickly, scatter now!" Three policemen just arrived disembarked from their police car.
As soon as the words fell, the two zombies suddenly charged into the crowd.
The crowd dispersed like a flock of startled animals.
But an old man, probably due to his age, ran slow and was caught up to by one of the zombies.
Crunch!
The zombie bit straight into the old man's neck.
Spurt—a gush of fresh blood sprayed out.
Those in front, running away while looking back, saw this horrifying scene and ran even faster.
The three policemen quickly chased after them, not even getting the chance to check on the old man before the zombies turned and charged at the policemen.
"Holy shit, what is this???" Li Hang witnessed the scene and shouted, his mind momentarily crashing.
Li Yu, who also saw the scene, rolled down the window and yelled to Li Hang across the street, "Hurry, let's go pick up aunt and the others."
Li Yu was also nervous, not sure if this was an isolated incident or a wide-scale outbreak; all he could do was speed up.
Hoping aunt and the others were alright.
So, he called his uncle, only to find there was only one signal bar.
Dialing...
It took almost until the time out before the call went through.
Li Yu quickly said to pack up because he was on his way...
He wanted to tell them to wait at home, not to go downstairs, but the call dropped.
Trying to call again, it did not connect. Checking his phone, the last signal bar vanished.
Li Yu felt a sinking feeling in his heart and immediately switched into high-speed driving mode.
Aunt's house was in an old town area, next to a kindergarten, just around the corner.
Realizing he was nearly there, Li Yu thought to himself:
"It must have broken out earlier, we need to hurry, or it'll be too late once it spreads."
The two reached aunt's building and didn't even stop the car. They saw from afar that aunt was waiting downstairs with Xiao Hang.
The two of them had at least a dozen bags.
Seeing Li Yu, aunt showed a delighted expression and waved from afar, "Li Yu, over here, over here!"
Seeing aunt and Xiao Hang safe and sound, Li Yu breathed a sigh of relief.
He stopped the car, without wasting words, started moving the things while speaking to aunt, "Let's hurry into the car!"
Aunt, seeing Li Yu's stern face and Li Hang in a daze as if he had seen something unbelievable,
wanted to ask what had happened but before she could speak, Li Yu quickly said, "Don't ask now, just move the things, I'll explain later."
"Xiao Hang, stop dazing! Hurry!" Seeing Li Hang still absorbed in the earlier scene after stopping the car, Li Yu shouted angrily.
"Oh, okay, right," Li Hang, jolted by Li Yu's shout, seemed to snap back to reality.
He quickly unloaded the luggage into the car.
It took less than 5 seconds.
"Aunt, Xiao Hang, get in my car," Li Yu looked worriedly at Li Hang.
Patting him, he said, "Hurry up, follow behind me, don't get distracted."
With that, he took out a knife which he had brought with him from the car, and handed it to Xiao Hang.