One person: Starting with the Snow Drinking Blade

The meeting room fell silent for a few seconds. Wang Zhenqiu placed the travel brochure into the inner pocket of his backpack, zipped it up, his movements quiet but decisive. Zhang Chulan stared at the area circled in red on the map, his Adam's apple bobbing slightly.

"We'll head into the mountains tonight." Nie Lingfeng memorized the general route on the map. "Two cars, get off at the fork in the road near the edge of the red circle, and hike in. No need for guides or large-scale escorts; fewer people are more effective."

Liu Jianguo glanced at him for a moment, then nodded: "I've had the equipment prepared. Six full sets of protective suits, an infrared scanner, an emergency medical kit, and a satellite communication terminal. I've already marked the frequency of the signal receiver Liu Yanyan was carrying on the equipment box. If you have the chance to get close to her trajectory, try to receive the faint pulse."

"good."

As dusk fell, the western sky over Linyi city transitioned from a gray-blue to a twilight tinged with orange and purple. Low-lying clouds piled up, making the sunset's light appear denser and more fleeting. Two SUVs turned onto the outer ring road in the city center. After passing the last checkpoint with roadblocks on the outskirts of the city, the number of vehicles on the road ahead decreased sharply, and the roadside buildings gradually changed from shops and residences to scattered factories and abandoned gas stations.

The air outside the car window was undergoing a subtle but continuous change. At first, it was just a damp, plant-like scent occasionally mixed with a faint, indescribable fishy smell. As the car continued towards the mountains, the fishy smell gradually intensified, like the stagnant mud at the bottom of a pool of water being stirred up and exposed to the air.

Zhang Chulan rolled up the car window halfway and covered his nose with his sleeve: "This smell... is different from the metallic smell I had on Kunlun Mountain a few days ago. This one is... thicker."

"The smell of fermenting humus." Wang Ye rolled up the car window completely, his movements unhurried. "There's probably a lot of organic matter decomposing under abnormal conditions down below. Considering the origins of those zombies—"

"You mean, these zombies themselves are the source of decomposition?" Lu Linglong frowned.

"Part of it. But judging from this concentration, there should be a more concentrated source deep inside."

The car drove on for about twenty minutes, and the road narrowed into a county road with only two lanes. The trees on both sides gradually changed from loosely spaced poplars to a denser mixed forest of cypress and pine, with the canopy closing in overhead to form a discontinuous, gray-green canopy, filtering the remaining sunlight into a thin, dark tone.

Nie Lingfeng parked the car at a relatively open fork in the road on the right and turned off the engine. He sat in the driver's seat and listened to the sounds outside for a few seconds. The sound of the wind whistling through the treetops was not mixed with footsteps or any unusual noises, but the smell became clearer when it rushed in through the crack in the open car door—it had a more specific meaning: a sweet, cloying smell, like the undertones of overripe fruit fermenting, with a layer of metallic rust on top.

"Start walking from here." He got out of the car, opened the equipment box in the back, and distributed protective suits and emergency kits one by one.

The protective suits are made of thin, double-layered fabric; the outer layer is waterproof and antibacterial, while the inner layer incorporates a small amount of cut-resistant fibers. Wearing them doesn't restrict movement, but the zippers and cuffs have double-layered tightening designs to ensure no skin is exposed. After changing into their gear, everyone checked their personal weapons, confirming there was no residual grease or rust on the blades and handguards. Then they turned off the headlights and stood still for a few seconds to allow their eyes to adjust to the deeper darkness.

The forest path was wider than marked on the map, but the ground, covered with fallen leaves, was soft and slippery. Each step went up to my ankles, and my boots made a slight, tearing sound as they left the mud. Moonlight filtered through the gaps in the canopy, casting scattered silvery-white spots on the path, their outlines blurred and unstable.

After walking for about two miles, Zhang Chulan stopped and listened for a few seconds.

"There's a sound ahead," he said in a low voice. "Very faint, a lot of it—like the rustling of twigs being snapped, but much more frequent."

Feng Baobao had already passed him by half a body length. Her katana was still sheathed, but the hand gripping it had shifted from a tiger's mouth position to a tighter grip. Her gaze locked onto the fork in the road ahead for a moment, then returned, and she gestured with her chin toward Lu Linglong behind her—the gesture meant "There are quite a few, spread out."

Lu Linglong moved three steps to the left and wedged herself into the gap between an old locust tree and some bushes.

The sounds ahead grew closer. First came the rustling of branches being parted, then the dull rustling of countless feet dragging through the fallen leaves, all blending together like a low-frequency, irregular, continuous noise. The moonlight illuminated the first figure emerging from around the bend—an old man in a worn blue cotton-padded coat, the cuffs frayed to reveal the greyish-white skin of his arms beneath. His eyes were completely obscured by a murky yellow, only two blurry dark spots remaining where his pupils should be, and a thick, almost drooping line of saliva hung from the corner of his mouth.

His steps were stiff and disjointed; his left leg dragged on the ground with each step, as if his knee had lost its bending function. But he was heading straight for the fork in the road where the group was hiding.

Behind him, a second, a third, and a fourth—those swaying figures emerged simultaneously from both sides of the forest path, as if activated by some unified command. Their scattered steps gradually became a staggering gait at the same frequency, and the breaths emanating from their throats changed from single hoarse sounds to mixed, low, and continuous, covering sounds.

"At least twenty," Wang Zhenqiu said steadily. "There are more to come."

Nie Lingfeng did not give the order to "fire". He stepped out.

The sound of the Snow Drinking Blade being drawn was exceptionally clear in the silent forest. A cold, white arc of light swept across the moonlight, then landed precisely on the side of the first zombie's neck. The blade pierced the gap between the second and third cervical vertebrae, offering minimal resistance. The moment the head separated from the torso produced a very short, muffled thud, like a wet cloth being torn. The body remained in a forward-leaning posture, taking two more steps before its knees buckled and it collapsed to the ground, its limbs twitching twice before coming to rest.

Zhang Chulan's lightning magic exploded behind him the second time. He didn't choose a wide-ranging lightning storm, but instead compressed the charge into thin, short finger-widths, each strike accurately hitting the top of a target's head or between their eye sockets. The zombies that were hit didn't even have a chance to struggle; the smell of charred, roasting meat created a brief, pungent crack in the rotten air.

Feng Baobao's style was different again. She didn't deliberately aim for headshots or severing the cervical vertebrae; she simply made the blade of her katana slice diagonally across the neck and shoulder blade junction of each approaching zombie at an extremely narrow angle. The movements weren't fast, but each cut had a definite result. The cuts either deprived the skull of its weight-bearing structure or completely severed the nerves controlling the shoulder and arm. The zombies fell in various postures, but none of them were able to get up again.

This was Lu Linglong's first time facing such an opponent, and she chose a long-range approach—the Wind God Leg technique whipped up fallen leaves and pebbles from the ground, sweeping out an arc-shaped barrier in front of her, forcing back several approaching zombies. Then, she used the opening to cut into the side and rear of a zombie; the sound of its spine breaking under the impact of her knee was clear and crisp. As the zombie collapsed, she was already preparing to turn around and deal with the next one.

Lu Lin stood guard on her flank, her palm strikes steady and powerful, the force generated by each push repelling the zombies that tried to approach from the side. Zhang Lingyu's Yin Five Thunder spread out as a low-lying black thunder energy, creeping along the ground like a slowly widening swamp; any zombie that stepped into its range would be stuck to its lower limbs and unable to move.

The entire process lasted less than five minutes. When the last zombie was struck on the head by Wang Zhenqiu and fell to the side, a layer of fallen leaves on the path had been turned up, revealing the crushed small plants and damp black soil underneath.

Zhang Chulan crouched down to examine the wrist of a zombie, using the tip of his knife to lift the sleeve and check the condition under the skin. The blood vessels under the skin had shrunk into dark gray linear marks, and the muscle tissue showed an abnormally atrophied but firm state—as if something had drained the moisture but compressed the remaining fibers.

"These aren't like the zombies in the movies." He stood up and rubbed his knife on the sole of his boot. "The ones in the movies rot very quickly, but these guys... seem to have been processed."

"It's like an empty shell filled with some kind of energy." Wang Ye walked over to another zombie, bent down to look at it, but didn't touch it. "Their muscle contractions are too uniform; natural decay wouldn't create such a uniform texture. Someone has arranged the residual pathways of Qi within their bodies in some way."

"Could this 'person' still be in the mountains?" Lu Linglong asked.

"They're most likely still there." Nie Lingfeng sheathed his Snow Drinking Blade, his gaze sweeping over the dark forest path stretching deeper into the woods. "These are just scattered on the outskirts. The further in you go, the different the situation becomes."

He took another step, his boots making a soft, compacting sound as they stepped on the fallen leaves.

"Ahead. Keep going."

The moonlight was briefly swallowed by the clouds before reappearing. The white scratches on the tree trunks along the forest path, made by the claws of zombies, were faintly visible in the dim light, like remnants of some old language. The sweet, pungent smell in the air slowly intensified, becoming undeniable, like a door being slowly pushed open, revealing a darker, ever-widening space behind the crack.

The group once again stretched into a flowing line on the narrow path, sliding deeper into the darkness of the Yimeng Mountains. Footsteps made a uniform rustling sound on the damp layer of fallen leaves, and occasionally someone would step on a protruding stone and make a soft "crunch," but this was quickly drowned out by the sound of the wind and the rustling of leaves in the distance.

No one looked back.