ACIFITFDB – Chapter 16

Chapter 16: Cyber Zombies!

After helping the young girl find a safe place to hide, Qin Xian and Huang Quxie crawled back into the ditch.

Huang Quxie looked serious and asked Qin Xian for advice, “Friend, what do we do next? You seem to know more about this situation.”

Qin Xian no longer avoided the question and replied, “We have to go back to the vicinity of the two rows of temporary housing we just passed. More people are suffering there, possibly even dead, and there are likely grotesque beings lurking.”

Huang Quxie nodded, “Okay, I’ll listen to you.”

Spring hadn’t yet brought much rain, so the bottom of the ditch was just a layer of soft sand and soil, seemingly safe and clean. The light from the streetlamps outside occasionally filtered through the gaps, making illumination unnecessary.

However, after crawling only a short distance, the streetlamp ahead lost its light. The ditch ahead plunged into complete darkness, and a faint stench emanated from within. The further they crawled, the more pronounced the smell became.

Qin Xian frowned and stopped, whispering to Huang Quxie, “Something’s not right. Let’s get out first…”

As he spoke, his hand touched something sticky and incredibly disgusting, which seemed to be wriggling.

Qin Xian startled and immediately pulled out the small knife tied to his leg and stabbed it.

“Puchi.”

It felt like the knife had pierced something soft and rotten, but there was a metallic clang within the mud.

“Holy shit! There’s something!” Huang Quxie suddenly shrieked from behind. Qin Xian was startled and immediately knocked open the cover above them, standing up with Huang Quxie.

In the dim light, they discovered that a horde of monsters had crawled into the ditch from both ends. They had the decaying torsos of humans, but wires sprouted from various parts of their bodies, and their necks gleamed with metallic luster. Upon closer inspection, they were actually several metal rods.

Huang Quxie desperately tried to climb out of the ditch, but something wrapped around his leg. He swallowed and looked back to see wires coiled several times around his leg, the ends connected to a monster.

Seeing they had been discovered, the monsters suddenly stood up and clawed at them with appendages made of bone and rebar.

Qin Xian immediately dodged the attack, and the monsters leaned forward, their claws scraping against the ground with a piercing metallic screech.

A second monster immediately charged, its head almost brushing Qin Xian’s face.

Using the faint light, the two of them clearly saw the monsters’ appearance. Below their heads, they had human bodies, but one half of their heads was a decaying human face, while the other half was a tablet computer, as if the tablet had grown out of their brains and split the skin.

Huang Quxie, terrified, kicked frantically at the wires on his leg and yelled in despair, “What kind of zombie meets cyberpunk?! How did this happen? Humans and electronics hybridizing!?”

Seeing that he couldn’t break the wires, his veins bulged, and he punched the monster’s face. The sound of shattering screens was crisp, and his hand was immediately cut by sharp screen fragments.

The monster tilted its head and fell. Huang Quxie seized the opportunity, using his military knife to cut through the thick wires on his leg.

Qin Xian, on the other hand, picked up a very handy weapon from the roadside – a three-pronged rake used by farmers for loosening soil. He raised it high and brought it down on a cyber zombie.

However, the commotion they were making quickly attracted the attention of the villagers. It seemed someone was charging towards them, holding flashlights and weapons. As they approached, they realized those weren’t flashlights; the flashlights were their heads. It was another type of monster.

Among the monsters, there were also some normal-looking humans holding machetes. These people treated the surrounding monsters as normal companions, as if they saw nothing unusual. Their blood-red eyes were fixed solely on Qin Xian and Huang Quxie.

“Catch them!” a villager roared, charging forward with a machete.

With his rake, Qin Xian directly knocked the machete out of his hand. With a flick of his toe, he sent the machete flying upwards into the villager’s hand.

He directly handed the knife to Huang Quxie.

Huang Quxie quickly took it and stood back-to-back with Qin Xian, pointing his long knife at the surrounding villagers and monsters.

Huang Quxie panted and asked, “Are these monsters alive?”

Qin Xian replied, “If their appearance hasn’t changed much, they’re alive. If their heads have changed, they’re dead.”

“Understood.” Huang Quxie raised his machete with both hands and struck a normal-looking villager with the flat of the blade. The villager, completely inexperienced in combat, was immediately knocked to the ground and fainted.

Qin Xian chuckled, “As expected of a people’s policeman.”

With that, he used his rake to smash the head of a flashlight-headed monster. The glass cover on its head shattered, and it swayed and fell to the ground with a thud.

A human villager nearby was startled but, mustering some courage to attack, was kicked in the stomach by Qin Xian and curled up on the ground, vomiting.

Qin Xian glanced at the huddled figures on the ground and looked up, preparing to counterattack, when a blinding light shot directly into his eyes.

His vision turned completely white, and he couldn’t see anything.

“Tsk, Huang Quxie, get down!” Qin Xian roared, then gripped the handle of the three-pronged rake with both hands and spun around on the spot.

Huang Quxie, seeing the sharp teeth charging towards him, let out a terrified “Holy shit!” and ducked just in time. The rake grazed his scalp and swept through the enemies, eliciting screams.

Huang Quxie clutched his head, sweating profusely, and dared not move for a moment. If he had been a fraction slower, Qin Xian would have split his head open. He even began to doubt if following Qin Xian had been a good idea.

Huang Quxie transformed into a mushroom, crouching on the ground. The surrounding monsters and villagers were forced back two meters by the spinning rake, and nothing dared to approach.

Qin Xian blinked hard, trying to regain his vision, and shouted to Huang Quxie, “Go! Charge out!”

Saying that, he raised his blood-stained rake towards the nearest villager. In the darkness, his unnaturally cold eyes and the blood splattered on his face were visible.

The villager let out a hoarse “Aow!” and turned to run. The other timid villagers scattered like birds.

“Wait for me!” Huang Quxie quickly stood up, holding his knife, and rushed out after Qin Xian.

However, as soon as they broke free from the encirclement, his scalp tingled as he realized dark figures were swaying and emerging from all over the village road, field ridges, and houses, approaching them with their strangely shaped heads.

Huang Quxie ran, struggling to keep up with Qin Xian, marveling at Qin Xian’s agile movements as he easily leaped over various obstacles, debris, and ditches.

“No way, man… Are you a former triathlete?! Wait for me…”

Qin Xian dodged a monster and replied, “Talk less, or you won’t keep up.”

Looking at the endless stream of monsters, Huang Quxie couldn’t help but wail, “Why are there so many! Brother Qin, do they have any weaknesses?”

“How should I know?” Qin Xian replied while kicking over a monster. Suddenly, his gaze shifted, and he spotted something. He then said, “But we can try.”

“Try what?” Huang Quxie was confused. He then saw Qin Xian run towards a house. Outside the house, near the wall, there was an exposed faucet connected to a long hose.

Huang Quxie exclaimed with joy, “That’s right! Electronics are afraid of water!”

Qin Xian rushed forward, picked up the hose, and turned the faucet to maximum. A stream of water gushed out from the nozzle. Qin Xian deliberately pinched the hose, making the water stream finer and more forceful, shooting out three to four meters.

The stream hit a flashlight-headed monster, which let out a crackle and mechanically stopped moving, falling over.

“It works! Increase the water pressure!!” Huang Quxie clenched his fist and cheered.

Qin Xian moved the hose, sweeping the water out. Flashlight heads and camera heads fell one after another. However, the monsters with mobile phone heads and tablet heads only paused for a moment before charging forward again, baring their teeth.

Huang Quxie blinked and exclaimed in exasperation, “Damn it!! These iPads are waterproof!!”

Qin Xian: “…”

He decisively aimed the water jet precisely at the non-waterproof targets, slightly reducing their numbers. Before they could catch their breath, the ground suddenly vibrated, and a black metallic claw erupted from the earth.

Qin Xian’s brow furrowed as he watched the soil bulge and a giant monster at least three meters tall emerged. Its head was a huge camera. As soon as it appeared, the lens pointed at Qin Xian and Huang Quxie, and with a click, an extremely blinding white light flashed, causing both of them to feel intense eye pain and their bodies to stiffen, unable to move.

This thing actually had such a powerful control effect.

Qin Xian closed his eyes and tried hard to move his limbs, but his entire body felt like stone, unmoving.

At the same time, he heard the sound of the ground cracking. His feet seemed to split open completely, and a strong sense of weightlessness washed over him. Qin Xian felt himself falling several meters like a sculpture, landing on the ground with a “bang.”

However, due to his stiff body, the landing caused no injuries.

When his eyes recovered from the glare, Qin Xian saw several knives pressed against his neck. Three human villagers, grinning menacingly, held him down on the ground.

He glanced at Huang Quxie; he was receiving the exact same treatment. In fact, because he looked sturdier, four people were holding him down. His face was pressed into the ground, and he couldn’t struggle at all.

“Get up!”

The villagers roughly pulled Qin Xian up from the ground, the blades pressing closer, slicing a small cut on his neck.

Qin Xian tilted his head back slightly, not resisting.

A villager behind him laughed, “Don’t move! Move and your head will be gone! Hmph, finally caught you two. It’s the first time we’ve encountered people so hard to catch.”

Another villager replied, “They’re probably not ordinary people. This one has a gun, possibly a police officer.”

“A police officer!? Then he’s probably not alone, right? Are the police coming to our village to arrest people en masse?”

“He’s alone, and do we fear the police now? Heh. Even if the police come, they’ll all be wiped out… Speaking of which, didn’t we catch another policeman looking for someone a few days ago? I wonder if he’s dead yet.”

Qin Xian saw Huang Quxie’s expression darken.

It seemed this one had also come to rescue someone. He just didn’t know why he had come alone, and where were the other police officers?

The villagers’ conversation continued.

“He’s definitely not dead. He has a good physique and looks good. Some rich women in the live stream liked him and sent him to the ‘borderline’ group. Speaking of which, isn’t there someone even better-looking here now? This face is valuable…”

The villager chuckled and reached out to pinch Qin Xian’s face. But Qin Xian turned his head and bit down. As his teeth clamped down, he shook his head.

“Ahhhhhh!!! My hand, my hand!!!!” The villager screamed and rolled on the ground. Qin Xian, smiling, held half a severed finger in his mouth, spat it out in disgust, and dropped it on the ground.

Author’s note:

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So cold, so cold! Of course, all my angel investors can rest assured, no matter how cold it gets, my updates won’t freeze. I just love to write, I can’t help it [pitiful].

Of course, encouragement is even better, hahaha. I’ll interact with the comments later!

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