CHAPTER 12
For Tang Yu, knowing that she was a criminal was somewhat easier to bear than not knowing who she was. Having an unknown origin always gave her a sense of floating emptiness.
This identity provided her with an anchor, making the details of what she had done less important.
Tang Yu pulled up another vine, and luckily, this sweet potato was even bigger than the one Jin Ye found. Tang Yu smiled widely, showing her teeth. Seeing Jin Ye standing still without moving, she asked, "If I'm a criminal, are you afraid of me?"
"Not really," Jin Ye replied. "My big brother next door in my neighborhood was caught and imprisoned for eating too much. Interstellar laws can be quite severe."
Tang Yu responded, "... I pray that I wasn't imprisoned for eating too much."
Jin Ye paused for a moment and chuckled silently.
Tang Yu must have committed a serious crime, otherwise, they wouldn't execute her.
However, during the time they spent together, Tang Yu showed loyalty, respect for her companions, and had a lively and optimistic personality. She didn't seem like a dark murderer. Although Jin Ye felt a twinge of unease, that feeling quickly disappeared.
The three of them searched through the fields, turning over the nearby abandoned plots of land.
They were fortunate to find three or five sweet potatoes, a few small potatoes, and some ripe tomatoes.
Holding onto these hard-earned food items, they walked into the village.
First, they circled around the village and found a relatively clean well. Then, they casually cut three bamboo sections from a household's fence.
After confirming that there were no people or zombies in the village, they found a relatively intact earthen house and prepared to make a fire for cooking.
There was a ready-made earthen stove in the house, but its opening was large, and Jin Ye's portable small pot was not suitable for it. So, they set up a makeshift stove in the yard.
Tang Yu brought broken tables, chairs, and stools from the house, then used her knife to chop them into pieces and threw them into the stove. Unfortunately, her precious knife was now being used to split firewood.
The lighter that Tang Yu had obtained earlier came in handy now. Jin Ye skillfully ignited the easily flammable dry grass, and then set up the pot.
On the other side, Xiaoli had already prepared the potatoes and tomatoes, cutting them into pieces with the small knife wrapped by Jin Ye.
Since they didn't have any meat and couldn't cook oil, Xiaoli added water to stew the potatoes and tomatoes. The sweet potatoes were reserved as emergency rations and stuffed into the backpack.
Tang Yu noticed that Xiaoli was skilled in cooking. She rummaged through Jin Ye's bag and found some seasoning bottles they had scavenged from a store. She added an appropriate amount of salt and pepper based on her instinct.
This is the composure that only someone who cooks regularly possesses. Tang Yu pondered for a moment. If she were to season the food herself, she would probably want to measure the spices down to the exact amount before daring to put them in the dish.
The rising cooking smoke dissipated with a gust of wind, but Tang Yu and Jin Ye still kept their eyes and ears open. After all, cooking outdoors with fire was a dangerous task, but they didn't want to deprive themselves.
The tomato stewed potatoes they made had a beautiful color. Although they were simple vegetarian dishes, the ripe tomatoes produced a rich broth that made one's mouth water.
Tang Yu and Jin Ye were zombies with a natural preference for red food. They quickly used bamboo sections to hold the soup and made chopsticks out of wooden sticks, savoring the taste.
"It feels so good." Tang Yu said with satisfaction, squinting her eyes. "I never thought that as a zombie, I could eat something warm."
Jin Ye didn't forget to compliment the cook while eating, "Xiaoli's cooking is extraordinary. Even ordinary wild vegetables become exquisite in her hands."
Xiaoli couldn't understand their conversation, but she could tell from their expressions that these two zombies were enjoying their meal. She leisurely served herself and savored it slowly.
Having had a good meal, they wanted an even better one. Tang Yu had a bright idea, "Have the animals in this game mutated?"
Jin Ye answered, "Some of them have mutated, but they're easy to distinguish."
Satisfied with the answer she wanted, Tang Yu became excited. "I want to eat meat. Let's catch some meat next time."
"That's possible. Xiaoli is skilled at handling meat."
The two agreed instantly. Tang Yu looked eagerly at Xiaoli. From now on, she would rely on Xiaoli for cooking, and she and Jin Ye would protect this precious little girl together.
After eating their fill, Tang Yu washed the bamboo tube they used for eating and neatly put it in the backpack.
As a result, their only backpack was already bulging. The urgent task was to find two more backpacks.
Backpacks were rarely used in the village, but Tang Yu had seen quite a few canvas bags. However, they weren't very convenient for fighting.
Coincidentally, they were planning to go to City Y next, where there would be more useful supplies. It was a perfect opportunity to replenish their resources.
After finishing their meal, Tang Yu suddenly remembered that when they rescued Xiaoli, Zhou Zhou was injecting something into the captives.
Tang Yu's gaze shifted to Xiaoli's wrist. Because of cooking, Xiaoli had rolled up her sleeves, revealing a dark red scar on her fair skin.
She pointed at Xiaoli's scar, her face full of confusion.
Xiaoli understood and replied, "Before you arrived, that female researcher put something inside my body. I don't know what it is, but it seems to be an electronic chip. However, when I press it now, there's no hard object."
Tang Yu looked at Jin Ye and asked, "Is it some kind of tracker?"
"Not ruling it out, Jian Wu said they were planning to send Xiaoli to lure and capture the Zombie King. It could be a tracker or some kind of weapon." Jin Ye's eyebrows furrowed.
"But that's not right. If it were a tracker, Shen Xu would have captured us by now." Tang Yu reached out and pressed Xiaoli's wrist, but she didn't feel any metallic object.
She was surprised and said, "Could it have fused into the body? Should we cut it open and take a look?"
Jin Ye hesitated. Cutting through flesh would be painful, and Xiaoli's constitution might not be able to withstand it.
But Xiaoli seemed to understand their concern. She took a small knife used for chopping vegetables and lightly slashed along the scar.
Fresh blood quickly welled up, and Tang Yu and Jin Ye ignored the smell of blood that filled their noses. They carefully examined the wound but didn't see any objects.
"It fused into the body." Xiaoli herself noticed this point, and everyone's faces grew heavy. The origin of this thing was unknown, and having it fused into the body could potentially lead to disaster.
"It's alright. Soldiers block the enemy, and water covers the earth." Xiaoli was quite optimistic. "This lady won't die."
Tang Yu glanced at Jin Ye with a disgruntled look. "This little girl is pretty brave. It seems like she doesn't need your protection that much."
Without lifting her eyelids, Jin Ye replied, "She does. She cries when she encounters bugs."
Tang Yu silently thought to herself: Well, whatever you say.
They quickly tidied up, and Jin Ye picked up the submachine gun and examined it. It was a low-level weapon with 40 rounds, and reloading took 10 seconds.
It was better to have something than nothing. She slung the weapon on her back and followed Tang Yu's footsteps.
Tang Yu wasn't sure where City Y was, and there was no map in the game. However, Jin Ye had survived in the game for a year and knew the general direction.
They walked along the winding mountain path. Just like in human society, animals often created easily passable paths in places they frequented. Tang Yu and the others crossed almost three mountain peaks along the path before they faintly saw the city buildings nestled in the lowlands, surrounded by mountains.
Because they were on foot, it took them nearly three days to make this journey. During these three days, they caught a wild rabbit and found some edible wild vegetables like yin chen and chicken bone grass, picking a large bunch of them. Xiaoli said they could make porridge with this one and soup with that one. Before they knew it, their food supplies had become quite abundant.
Without backpacks, Tang Yu carried the ingredients in her hands.
Rather than going to the city to find zombies, they seemed more like going into the city to sell vegetables.
Standing at a high point, they determined the rough location of the city center and had a simple meal before venturing into the city.
The city was different from the wilderness. There were more zombies and human players. From the moment they set foot in the city, they were constantly facing unknown threats.
The Zombie King has a kill score of 500 points. killing. Tang Yu speculated that a large number of players had already gathered in City Y, and Shen Xu and Song Lengzhu would definitely come here. They planned to proceed cautiously, observe secretly, and if they were lucky, they might even catch the Zombie King off guard.
After entering the outskirts of the city, Tang Yu randomly found a house to search for the supplies she needed.
Backpacks were easy to find since most households had them. They found two large-capacity backpacks, one for each person, and divided the supplies. Xiaoli even went to the kitchen and grabbed a kitchen knife for self-defense.
In the city, standing out was not a good thing, so they chose black-colored backpacks. Jin Ye took out a set of spare assault suits from the supplies and handed it to Tang Yu. When they were at the camp, Song Lengzhu had stripped Tang Yu of her clothes.
Now, all three of them were wearing black assault suits, looking very low-key. Tang Yu even found a few hats.
With their disguises in place, they looked like ordinary survival players. Their faces were covered by the brims of their hats, hiding most of the features that resembled zombies. Plus, having a genuine human among them, hardly anyone could recognize them as zombies at first glance.
Except for Song Lengzhu.
Tang Yu also thought of this point. They had concealed themselves so well at the camp, but Song Lengzhu still found them. Tang Yu naturally suspected the factor of scent. She had suffered from it before, and zombie groups also relied on scent to identify their own kind.
However, at the moment, there was no better way to conceal it. They couldn't even find a bottle of mosquito repellent, let alone luxury items like perfume.
They could only rely on who could run faster.
Moving through the city, walking on the brightly lit main roads was definitely not an option. Tang Yu chose a small path and followed the neighborhood alleys toward the city center.
Despite that, they still encountered a large number of zombies. Faced with Tang Yu and Jin Ye, the zombies didn't show obvious aggression, but Xiaoli's human scent was too noticeable. Several groups of zombies wandering the streets surrounded them.
Humans had to hide, and zombies had to hide too. Tang Yu felt trapped between a rock and a hard place.
They had no choice but to fight and eliminate the approaching zombies.
It was a thankless task. Accumulating points in the game was of utmost importance, and they hardly gained any benefits from killing zombies, yet it was still very laborious.
After killing a few zombies, Tang Yu had a sudden realization and said to Jin Ye, "Let's ignore the zombies on the roadside. If there are zombies that want to attack us, you and I will be responsible for holding them off while Xiaoli takes the final kill. The points will be credited to Xiaoli. That way, it won't be wasted."
Jin Ye was somewhat surprised. This was clearly a generous act, and she rarely encountered such generosity in the game.
"Are you sure? You won't gain anything from it."
"I'm sure. Since we're going to kill them anyway, it's better to give the points to an ally than to waste them." Tang Yu shrugged.
In reality, Tang Yu wasn't some kind-hearted person. On the contrary, she was very shrewd and understood that a team could only unite people's hearts through sincerity. Besides, she would need Jin Ye and Xiaoli's help in the future, which was much more valuable than a few points.
Jin Ye quickly realized this as well and couldn't help but smile. What a clever person. She enjoyed dealing with intelligent people.
The two of them conveyed their thoughts to Xiaoli through gestures, and Xiaoli didn't hesitate. She picked up the kitchen knife and stabbed each zombie accurately.
The three of them intermittently dealt with about ten zombies and managed to leave the outskirts of the neighborhood.
Ahead of them was a small single-story supermarket.
Tang Yu could already see a group of zombies blocking the entrance of the mall. There were around fifty of them. Faint gunshots and people shouting could be heard from the midst of the zombie crowd.
They had encountered other players.
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