One person: Starting with the Snow Drinking Blade

The SUV sped along the Lianyungang-Horgos Expressway, its wheels making a steady, slightly muffled rhythm as they rolled over the road seams. Outside the windshield lay the unchanging winter landscape of the northern plains—gray-brown fields, bare poplar groves, and the occasional fleeting outline of a village, all receding behind with a monotonous calm.

Zhang Chulan leaned back in the passenger seat, a half-empty bottle of mineral water beside him. He had been staring at the white line on the road for a long time, his gaze somewhat unfocused, but he hadn't fallen asleep. After Nie Lingfeng hung up on Chairman Zhao, the car remained quiet for nearly ten minutes; he was waiting for someone to say something first.

"Zombies," Zhang Chulan finally spoke, his voice carrying a delicate balance between accepting reality and refusing to believe it. "Can we really create something like this in our real world? I thought it only existed in movies like Resident Evil."

"In the world of superhumans, anything is possible." Wang Zhenqiu was flipping through a travel brochure he'd brought from the guesthouse in the back row. He wasn't actually reading the contents; his fingers were just mechanically turning the pages. "The Northeast has octopus mutants, Nathan Island has talking old monsters, and what's a few zombies in Shandong?"

"You're being far too nonchalant," Zhang Chulan said, turning to look at him. "We're going to deal with thousands upon thousands of biting undead, and you're treating it like we're discussing what to have for dinner."

"What else could it be? Should I be so nervous that I'm shaking?"

"Shouldn't we at least have some sense of crisis?"

"A sense of crisis can't be worn as a bulletproof vest."

Lu Linglong sat in the middle of the back row, an old map of the Yimeng Mountains spread out on her lap. She slowly traced her finger along a dotted line marked "Abandoned Forest Road," then looked up at Nie Lingfeng: "Master, Chairman Zhao said Liu Yanyan has been out of contact for two days. With her abilities, if it were just a simple zombie siege, she shouldn't be unable to send out any messages."

"Unless she encountered something more difficult to deal with than zombies." Nie Lingfeng gripped the steering wheel, his gaze fixed on the road ahead, but his speech slowed. "Or perhaps there's something wrong with that area itself. Chairman Zhao said Erzhuang's signal penetration failed—the entire area was 'erased.' Methods that can block out the entire information layer are rare."

"Uncommon?" Wang Ye leaned back in the back seat by the window, his Zhenwu Sword resting horizontally on the seat cushion beside his legs. His eyes were half-closed, but his ears were perked up. "Based on this description, it would require at least some kind of large-scale Qi field barrier to achieve this. And it would also have to include information blocking capabilities—someone who can set up such a formation must have an understanding of Qi channels that is at least world-changing."

"Does the Yaoxing Society have such a person?" Zhang Chulan asked.

"Qu Tong herself could probably do it," Nie Lingfeng said, "but she won't easily get involved herself. She has more covert methods."

The carriage fell silent for a moment, with only the low rumble of the engine and the soft patter of tires on the road alternating between the sounds. The scenery outside the window had transitioned from plains to gently rolling hills, the lines of the field ridges becoming softer and more winding, and the distant mountain silhouettes emerging in a series of varying shades on the gray-blue horizon.

Two days later, the Dawn Squad arrived in Linyi City.

As the car turned off the highway, Zhang Chulan immediately sensed something was wrong. There were far fewer pedestrians than usual in the city; most shops had their shutters half-closed, and people waiting at bus stops were standing in small groups, spaced further apart than usual. Roadblocks were set up at several key intersections, with armed police in dark blue uniforms and company field personnel in black jackets mixed together, checking every passing vehicle. Next to the roadblocks were several large bags of sandbags, with the edges of half-rolled barbed wire peeking out from the gaps—it didn't look like something used for routine patrols; it seemed more like preparation for some kind of prolonged blockade.

"Something's not right." Wang Zhenqiu put away the travel brochure and rolled down the car window a crack. The air coming in from outside carried a subtle, indescribable smell—not rotten, nor burnt, but like something long hidden from the light of day had been unearthed from damp soil.

"The company has set up a temporary command center in Linyi." Nie Lingfeng turned the car onto a side road and parked in front of a four-story building covered with beige tiles. There were no signs on the outside of the building, but all the windows on the first floor were covered with frosted stickers, and the license plates of the cars parked in front of the door were all from the company's internal staff number range.

Liu Jianguo was waiting for them at the top of the stairs on the second floor.

He looked to be under fifty, with a square face, high and broad brow bones, and several old burn marks on the backs of his hands, as if from an early mission. He wore a thick gray jacket, the zipper pulled up to his throat, and his boots were stained with half-dried reddish-brown mud. When he saw Nie Lingfeng leading his team up, he quickly took two steps to greet them, his handshake firm and crisp.

"Captain Nie, we've finally been waiting for you. You must be tired from the journey, did it take any longer?"

"It took a little time on the way, but it didn't delay things." Nie Lingfeng shook hands with him. "Let's go straight to the conference room and talk as we walk."

The meeting room was located on the second floor, towards the back. On the wall to the left of the entrance hung a huge aerial photographic mosaic of the Yimeng Mountains. An irregular circle was drawn on the map in red marker, covering approximately seven natural villages and a forest farm. Small blue dots marked the locations of several road intersections at the edge of the circle—these were the last confirmed safe points by the company's reconnaissance team. Near the center of the red circle was a faded blue triangle, next to which were written in pencil, "Liu Yanyan—Last Coordinates."

Liu Jianguo briefly reviewed the situation. His account was clear and organized, and the key data was presented unambiguously. Three days ago, Qingquan Town, deep in the Yimeng Mountains, lost communication with the outside world. Eyewitness reports came from the nearest outlying village that "someone was behaving strangely." The company sent its first reconnaissance team into the mountains, but only two returned the next morning. They had spent the entire night traversing the mountain paths, and the information they brought back was brief and fragmented—the villagers had all changed; their skin was ashen, they didn't speak, and they would attack and bite any living creature they saw. Of the first group of six field scouts who went into the mountains, only two returned.

The second reconnaissance team, equipped with containment gear and protective suits, established a temporary outpost observation post at the edge of the red circle. Their records showed that the zombie density inside the red circle was approximately forty to sixty per square kilometer on average, mainly concentrated in village clusters and along forest roads leading to the forest farm. During the observation period, no obvious activity patterns were observed—they did not sleep, eat, or rest; they simply moved endlessly back and forth along a certain path, immediately switching to attack mode upon sensing the body temperature and scent of living beings.

"How fast does the infection from the bite turn into a diagnosis?" Wang also asked.

"The fastest case took less than thirty minutes," Liu Jianguo answered crisply. "From being scratched to completely losing consciousness, it takes no more than an hour. Therefore, all our frontline team members are equipped with sealed protective suits and emergency treatment kits. If caught, we must clean the wound and suppress the attack with our own Qi within fifteen seconds; anything more than two minutes is too late."

"Where is Liu Yanyan?" Nie Lingfeng asked.

Liu Jianguo walked to the map, his fingertip landing on the faded blue triangle: "She arrived at Qingshan Village four days ago—about ten kilometers deep within the red circle. At the time, she believed the source of the unusual energy might be deep within the mountain and volunteered to investigate further. Before leaving, she sent back a final voice message saying that there was something in the village…" He paused, as if repeating the original sentence, "'It doesn't seem like the changes a living thing should have; it's like someone pushed something out from below.' There's been no news since then."

"Have Erzhuang tried it?"

"We tried. Erzhuang used network surface capabilities to penetrate that area three times, and failed all three times. She said that the state of that area at the information layer was like—" Liu Jianguo repeated Erzhuang's words, "'like an entire area being dug out of the map by some tool, leaving not even a hole, just disappearing cleanly.'"