Chapter 258 - 224: She Is a Mutated Zombie, Part 2

Chapter 258: Chapter 224: She Is a Mutated Zombie, Part 2

"I don’t know the specifics... but I heard the bosses mention something." The young man’s eyes glinted sharply the instant Lin Fan’s back was turned, his view blocked as he checked the trunk.

Maintaining his meek tone, he stealthily moved the right hand he’d kept hidden in his sleeve, slowly reaching for the inner pocket of his coat. "They said... that little girl isn’t human... She’s a Mutated Zombie..."

He deliberately stressed the words "Mutated Zombie," trying to use this shocking piece of intelligence to elicit even a second of shock or hesitation from Lin Fan. Inside his coat, the cold metal canister was now within his grasp.

"Hm!" Lin Fan neither turned around nor showed any shock. He just looked at the empty trunk and nodded heavily. ’What a pity...’

"Huh?" The young man’s movements froze. He hadn’t expected the other man to have zero reaction to the bombshell that the little girl was a Mutated Zombie, and even to utter such a baffling remark.

Stunned, he subconsciously looked up and met Lin Fan’s gaze as he turned around. Bewildered, he asked, "What’s a pity...?"

"I still had more questions to ask..."

"Don’t—"

Before he could get the word "kill" out, the young man’s pupils instantly dilated. A dark gray, tri-edged spear materialized from the void without warning, like a black bolt of lightning, and pierced through his chest and heart in an instant.

BZZZT—!

Lin Fan flicked his wrist, and the spear’s shaft vibrated violently. In a flash, the young man’s heart, lungs, and even his spine were obliterated by the terrifying concussive force, disintegrating into a gruesome mist of blood that exploded out with the rain!

The corpse instantly lost all support. His legs fell backward from the momentum, but his head and arms collapsed limply into the muddy water like a puppet with its strings cut. His eyes remained wide open, staring fixedly at the gray sky, filled with indignation and bewilderment. And clutched tightly in his right hand, even in death, was a black cylinder.

’What’s this?’

Lin Fan bent down and pried the object from the still-twitching hand.

He rinsed the blood off with rainwater and examined it closely. Based on his meager military knowledge and experience from video games, he guessed it was probably some kind of flashbang...

’That’s why I said it was a pity. He was quick-witted and fast on the draw, just unlucky.’

Lin Fan pocketed the suspected flashbang, its pin still in place.

’Why is all the talent on the other side?’

He straightened up, his gaze turning in the direction where the armored car had disappeared.

Ye Qingniao had taken two rifle rounds, which worried him. But his glimpse of her at the alley’s entrance and his rational mind told him that with a potion on hand, plus the tenacious life force of an Awakened One, she wouldn’t die.

But that’s all—she just wouldn’t die.

Getting cocky just because you can bully zombies with your high HP is a sure way to get a harsh lesson from modern weaponry.

It was good for her to take a hit. It would save her from getting killed for some stupid reason in the future.

It was like the old saying: words are useless. Only broken bones can teach a person a lesson.

As for the piece of intelligence the young man had tried to trade his life for—that "the little girl is a Mutated Zombie."

Lin Fan scoffed.

He’d heard something similar from that "live captive," but he only trusted his own eyes.

A yellow health bar with a border, and a blue mana bar. She was definitely an Awakened One.

"AHH—!"

Just as he was thinking, a bloodcurdling scream suddenly erupted from behind him, drowning out the sound of the rain.

Lin Fan turned to see that of the two "bodies" that had been dragged along like dead dogs, one of them had, at some point, truly become a corpse...

Right now, this newborn zombie was on top of the burly man who had dragged it. Its hands and feet were bound tightly with thick iron wire, rendering it immobile. Even its mouth was cinched shut by coils of wire, digging so deeply into its cheeks that its gums were exposed.

But even so, driven by an extreme craving for flesh and blood, it had squirmed like a maggot until it was next to the unconscious man’s face. It couldn’t open its mouth, but with teeth warped by the wire, it painstakingly "ground" open the man’s throat through the gaps!

The man was jolted from unconsciousness by the searing pain, but he only had time to let out that one short, piercing scream. The next second, hot blood flooded his windpipe, drowning out any further cries for help in a gurgling of bubbles.

He convulsed violently in the muddy water a few times, then went still.

He wasn’t getting back up.

Lin Fan, however, had no interest in giving them a quick end. ’You play the game, you pay the price.’

In this wretched world, karma always came around especially fast. The moment they took that iron wire and cinched it into their "companion’s" mouth, they should have been prepared to be eaten alive by that same "companion."

Lin Fan withdrew his gaze and walked over to the black sedan parked on the side of the road. He stood on the street, right where Ye Qingniao had been standing before.

He didn’t think Ye Qingniao had been careless and failed to watch a little girl younger than herself. But the girl had indeed vanished...

Unless... she never opened the car door.

’The doors are closed, the windows aren’t broken, but she’s gone...’ Lin Fan’s gaze slowly moved downward, finally settling on the darkness shrouded in shadow beneath the car’s chassis. He then recalled how the little girl had crawled out from under a car like a zombie when he first met her...

Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how absurd, must be the truth.

He crouched down, gripped the hard cross-member of the subframe, equipped his strength crystal, and heaved with all his might!

"Up!"

CREAK—

With a few soft noises, the electric sedan, weighing nearly two tons, let out a metallic groan that set one’s teeth on edge. The suspension stretched to its limit, and then the tires, with the sticky suction of the muddy water, slowly lifted off the ground!

Under Lin Fan’s terrifying, monstrous strength, the vehicle began to tilt and flip over.

THUD!

A heavy, muffled crash!

The entire sedan was flipped completely over, its four wheels pointing to the sky, and slammed down onto the sidewalk. As it happened, the car’s A-pillar acted like a hydraulic press, crushing the young gunman’s mutilated corpse underneath it with a SQUELCH. Red and white matter instantly splattered, mixing with the rainwater and flowing across the ground, adding a splash of gore to the violent scene.

But that wasn’t the point.

Lin Fan’s attention wasn’t on the flattened corpse. His gaze was locked onto the spot directly beneath where the car had been parked.

There, embedded in the flat asphalt road, was the square iron outline of a cover.

It was a double manhole cover. A tightly sealed, double-door manhole cover with the words "Power/Telecom" written on it.

"Hiss..."

Lin Fan sucked in a breath of damp air.

’So there really is one.’

He rather enjoyed this feeling of having guessed correctly.

Just now, he had merely recalled how the little girl had crawled out from under a car when he first met her, and his mind had wandered to the idea of her "earth-tunneling"... He never thought this seemingly absurd guess would turn out to be the truth.

But how did she get out?

’What the hell is this little girl’s Superpower? Teleportation?’

Hesitantly, Lin Fan hooked his fingers under the edge and pulled hard. One half of the heavy, double-layered manhole cover slid open, revealing a dark tunnel below, filled with bundles of what looked like electrical wires or communication cables.

The tunnel wasn’t deep, but it was extremely narrow, a little over a meter in diameter at most.

An adult would probably have to crawl through it, but for the little girl, it should be just wide enough...

But he definitely wasn’t going in. Even if he could fit, he had no intention of crawling through it.

So, he carefully closed the manhole cover, sealing it shut. He equipped his stealth crystal, picked up the rifle, replaced the magazine from his vest with a fresh one, and chambered a round.

Without a backward glance, he took the main road and started running toward the "Chilled Fresh Meat Plant No. 2" that he hadn’t yet entered.

’Anyway, the little girl is going to save her mother. She can run, but her objective can’t.’

Instead of navigating a maze of sewers, it was better to go and tear down the "temple" directly.

Besides...

This crew set up a roadblock, fed living people to zombies, and went to all this trouble, and what was the result? So far, all that had dropped for him were five cans of fruit?

’The return on investment is a total ripoff.’

’This score isn’t settled yet.’