Chapter 23\nThe zombie gave a shrill cry, and with a swing of its arm, it swept Zhang Yingjie away!
Zhang Yingjie crashed onto the mess on the ground, unmoving.
The zombie was like a pile of clattering, rattling bones. Its skull almost completely broken, its scrambled brains exposed to the air, its eyes, ears, nose and mouth all squished together. It stood there, looking confusedly around its surrounding, seeming as though it could not find its target.
“You…” Si Nan stood up, his vision darkening, his pale face stained with blood. In that moment, he was like an uncannily savage monster. “You need to die—!”
Si Nan threw the dagger. It spun around midair, and pierced heavily right into the zombie’s brain!
With a splash, the brain fluids splattered around. The zombie finally twitched a couple of times, crumpling onto the ground.
***
The testing site was silent. Si Nan knelt onto the ground, falling as he looked up to the heavens.
There was a moment when he too felt that he was dead.
His eyelids had never felt this heavy before, as though once he shut his eyes, he would immediately fall into a peaceful sleep. Once he shut his eyes, he could immediately be free from the heart-rending pain, the weight of being parted by death, the devastated world.
The eyes covered with blood slowly fell shut.
Five minutes later, he coughed unexpectedly, and once again opened his eyes.
Enduring his pain, Si Nan flipped his body over. A pair of hands dripping with blood pressed upon the metal and glass shards on the ground, and he could feel some sort of thick, sticky liquid flowing past his fingers. At first, he thought that it was blood, but quickly discovered that it was not.
That was the red fluid in the test tubes that he had broken just now.
In that instant, the atmosphere thickened. Si Nan stared blankly at the three remaining test tubes made of metal. In his confusion, fractured images flashed through his mind.
The plane jolted about. Screams of terror sounded, and the seats were dyed with blood.
The door of the cockpit slammed shut, and the swarm of the living dead vanished behind the door. A blood red syringe fell out from the refrigerator…
Si Nan shivered, his brain suddenly blanked out, and an immense pain tore through his head!
“… Ahhh…”
Hugging his head, he curled his body. His memories seemed to appear as though rising up from the depths of the sea, but then, in a blink of an eye, they all disappeared into clean air!
“The serum,” He mumbled. “Serum, serum, serum…”
In the dim lighting, it was as though Si Nan was possessed. He picked up the test tubes, feeling out a syringe from the mess of instruments on the console. Crawling his way to Zhang Yingjie, he did not even check if he was breathing before he injected the entire serum into his jugular vein.
He then repeated his actions, stumbling over and kneeling by Yan Hao who was taking his last breaths, injecting his arm with another full vial of serum!
Minutes ticked by very very slowly, but it felt like seconds to Si Nan.
He knelt there, a wound on his forehead, blood drying on his chilled face. His arms, his legs, his stomach, they were all dyed red. The dried portions of his clothes were maroon, and the wet portions a bright, fresh red. Damp, they clung onto his body, looking like a red canvas of varying shades that were due to poor dyeing techniques.
Bundling up his jacket to press it against Yan Hao’s bleeding wound, he had never used so much strength in his life ever before — it was as if he was in a race with fate that hung invisible in the air, as if he was desperately, tightly, gripping the scythe of the grim reaper.
“… Ah… Ahhhhh… Ah…!”
Si Nan wrenched his head towards Zhang Yingjie.
The serum was reacting rapidly in Zhang Yingjie’s body, but it was the worst case scenario — all his blood vessels were bulging out, turning bruised. It was as though someone was strangling him, and his eyes were fixed looking up.
Next, under Si Nan’s hopeless gaze, Zhang Yingjie’s body bowed upwards, the last spurts of bloody foam escaping his mouth, and he collapsed back down, motionlessly.
— He was dead.
He was staring into the endless darkness, his eyes empty and void. However, his face was turned slightly towards Si Nan and Yan Hao, as though he wanted to see his comrades-in-arms for the last time.
Until the last moment when his life elapsed, Zhang Yingjie had maintained a human’s awareness and pain. There was no sign of him turning into a zombie.
Si Nan did not make a sound. He held the empty syringe he had just on Yan Hao tightly, his neck turning inch by inch with much difficulty—
Behind him, Yan Hao’s death struggles suddenly intensified, and became exceptionally distinct.