After agreeing to Suo Tian, I grew more alert as we got closer to the town.
Having stayed deep in the mountains for so many days, suddenly seeing so many houses made me feel extremely dazed, as if my thoughts couldn’t keep up with the pace of reality.
We climbed in from behind a building that looked like a school, leaping over the schoolyard and directly entering the town’s streets.
The school gate was tightly shut, and not a single walker was inside the schoolyard.
I didn’t know if it was just my imagination, but while passing the playground in front of the teaching building, I kept feeling that there were quite a few people hiding somewhere in the school.
Suo Tian’s pace was fast.
We still needed to quickly find Big Beard and the others in this town, so we didn’t dare delay.
I hurried after him and leapt out from the school’s main gate.
The school sat at the corner of two intersecting streets.
Once outside the gate, we could see the situation along both streets.
Anyone who lives in a small town knows that streets are usually designed to be straightforward—either straight lines that intersect or loops shaped like squares, or a tic-tac-toe pattern where the four roads connect.
After scanning both directions, Suo Tian turned sharply left and ran.
I followed closely.
There were walkers wandering in groups along the street, and occasionally, from houses with open doors, more walkers would stagger out after hearing our noise.
The town was small, and the streets narrow.
There was simply no way for us to avoid these walkers.
We had no choice but to cut our way through as we advanced, which slowed us down considerably.
Even though the street wasn’t long, it still took the two of us ten to twenty minutes to get through it.
After turning onto another road, we saw from afar that several vehicles were parked in front of a relatively modern-looking restaurant.
“We’re here.” After giving me a glance and signaling me to keep up, Suo Tian ran toward the restaurant.
After taking down two walkers that had wandered out from a side path, we quickly reached the front of the restaurant.
Only then did I notice that the restaurant sat inside a sizable courtyard, with a corridor on the outside and an iron gate that was currently locked tight.
Suo Tian stepped up, unlocked the gate, and we silently entered.
The courtyard was square-shaped, with buildings on three sides.
Only one side was a wall, and in the corner next to the wall, quite a few vegetables were planted.
Judging by the freshly turned soil, they had clearly been planted not long ago.
I glanced at Suo Tian, puzzled.
Were there survivors living here?
Before I could ask, a door on the left suddenly opened, and Shen Feng’s excited voice rang out:
“Chen Yang! Suo Tian!”
Hearing this, both of us turned to look.
Shen Feng was there, with Xu Shu, Yangyang, and Han Xue behind him.
The four of them stared blankly at us for a few seconds.
Then they finally reacted, joy exploding across their faces.
They rushed out of the room, and without saying a word, surrounded us and pulled us into a tight embrace.
Probably to avoid attracting walkers outside, no one made a sound.
Because of that, the scene looked rather strange.
I pushed away Han Xue and Yangyang, who were clinging to me, and laughed:
“Let’s go inside first. Hugging and clinging in the courtyard looks ridiculous.”
Once inside, I realized this was a banquet hall of some sort, likely meant for hosting weddings or events.
Three tables and many chairs were piled to the side, probably pushed away to make room for resting.
Big Beard and the middle-aged man, upon seeing Suo Tian, immediately went aside with him and began discussing something with serious expressions.
As for me, the others surrounded me, bombarding me with questions.
After roughly explaining how Suo Tian and I had been living in the forest, the moment they heard that Suo Tian had been injured, Song Meijing—who had been sitting quietly with Wang Jun and the others—turned to look at Suo Tian, seeming a bit worried.
Yangyang and the others also asked about Suo Tian’s injury.
After hearing that it was nothing serious, they all eagerly waited for me to continue telling them what happened next.
Looking at their faces—filled with excitement and curiosity—my mouth twitched again.
These people were treating the week that Suo Tian and I spent struggling to survive as some kind of storytelling session.
After roughly recounting everything, while everyone was sighing in shock, I looked around and realized… Rongrong wasn’t here.
Shen Feng was observant.
Noticing my searching gaze, he looked around at the others and said hesitantly, “She didn’t come out with us.”
I turned to him. “What do you mean?”
He cleared his throat and said, “After Rongrong bit Suo Tian, we left her in the mountains. We didn’t bring her with us.”
Even though I had already guessed that Rongrong’s fate probably wouldn’t be good, hearing Shen Feng say it out loud still made it hard to accept for a moment.
I stared at him for a long time.
Only when Yangyang signaled Xiao Hu to climb into my arms did I snap out of it.
Hugging Xiao Hu, I tried to force a smile at everyone, but no matter what, I couldn’t smile.
The muscles in my face were stiff and uncontrollable.
After a long pause, I finally managed to steady my voice: “Mm… that’s… fine too.”
Lili, who was sitting with Xu Shu, glanced at me and softly said, “We were all really upset too, but…”
She didn’t finish the rest.
I knew she wanted to comfort me.
Rongrong kept biting people—Zhao Qiuting was bitten the second time and was killed directly by Suo Tian.
And although Suo Tian always tried to protect Rongrong, she had caused too much trouble.
After her second incident, and with Suo Tian falling into the river with me after being injured, leaving her behind alone rather than putting her down on the spot was already mercy.
Unlike Zhao Qiuting, Rongrong had stayed in Cabin No. 2 for a long time and was treated for a long time, but still relapsed at any moment.
Keeping her alive simply wasn’t an option anymore.
Thinking of this, a dull ache settled in my chest.
A mentally unstable little girl left alone in that desolate mountain… her outcome was obvious, even without thinking about it.
I originally thought Suo Tian would say something when he heard this, or at least show some emotion.
But he didn’t.
When Big Beard told him the news, he simply responded calmly and said nothing more, his face completely expressionless.
It turned out there were indeed survivors living in this courtyard—a family of five: the grandparents, their son and daughter-in-law, and a thirteen-year-old grandson.
At dinner, the whole family practically emptied out everything they had to prepare a hearty meal for us.
The vegetable patch in the courtyard was flourishing, and they told us the crops were enough for them to live on.
There were also planting boxes on the roof of the second floor.
The daughter-in-law was very talkative.
After dinner, when we helped clean up the tables, she quickly grew familiar with us, chatting nonstop.
By nighttime, she even dragged me, Xu Shu, Han Xue, and Lili to an empty room upstairs to sleep with her, insisting that we tell her stories about what we had seen on the road.
Xu Shu asked her with a smile, a bit puzzled, “Aren’t you all afraid of the walkers?”
Upon hearing that, Sister He (that’s what we ended up calling her) slapped her thigh and nearly jumped off the bed.
“Who wouldn’t be afraid? Scared to death! Ay, what a sin… Look at them, each one turning into something awful. I can’t even look. I see them and I get the chills, get nauseous.”
“Then… don’t you ever have to go outside? And when you do, how do you deal with them?” Han Xue asked.
Sister He instantly put on a proud expression. “My husband goes out with my Da Hu! Those two really make me proud. Not a useless bone in either of them!”
“Da Hu…” The name was so similar to Xiao Hu’s that I couldn’t help smiling before asking, “He’s just a kid, isn’t he? You’re not afraid to let him go out there?”
“What do you mean ‘afraid to let him’? That child is the apple of my eye, of course I want nothing more than for him to be safe. But the world is already ruined. What’s the use of having him hide safely forever? He’s grown now, he understands things. Our whole family is struggling just to survive—he has to grow together with his father.”
When Sister He said this, her tone carried both heavy helplessness and firm resolve.
“Sister He, you’re absolutely right. If we want to survive now, we can’t afford to be useless. We have to become strong,” Han Xue said approvingly.
Noticing that Lili hadn’t said a word the whole time, I looked up at her and asked softly, “What is it? What are you thinking about?”
Lili, who had been lost in thought, was startled by my question.
She forced a smile and shook her head. “I was thinking about what Sister He said… reflecting on myself a bit. It feels like I’ve always been the most useless, the most pathetic one. I honestly don’t even know how I survived until now.”
By the end, she let out two bitter laughs.
“What nonsense is that?” Sister He immediately cut her off.
“Girl, I don’t like hearing you talk like that. When I saw you earlier—wasn’t that man carrying the baby your husband? And that baby looks like he’s only a few days old. You all came over the mountains, right? That alone takes several days of walking. You climbed mountains and crossed forests right after giving birth. Even before all this, tell me—how many women in the world could do what you did? That’s amazing.”
“Exactly. Sister Lili, don’t think too much. Useless? If what you said is true, then shouldn’t I have died ages ago too?” Han Xue said, patting Lili’s shoulder to comfort her.
Lili only smiled a little and didn’t respond.
After chatting a bit more, the five of us turned over and lay down, facing different directions as we prepared to sleep.
Thankfully, the bed was big enough, or it really wouldn’t have fit all five of us.
……
After spending two nights in the forest sleeping on tree branches—where I barely slept at all—lying on an actual bed now felt like heaven.
I fell into such a deep sleep it felt like I could have slept forever.
— The end of the Chapter–
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