ACIFITFDB – Chapter 16

Chapter 16: Cyber Zombies!

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

Huang Quxie asked Qin Xian with a serious expression, “Friend, what should we do next? You seem to understand this situation better.”

Qin Xian no longer avoided the question and replied, “We have to go back to the vicinity of the two rows of temporary houses we just passed. More people were suffering there, some might have even died, and there’s a higher chance of an eldritch entity lurking.”

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

Spring hadn’t yet brought much rain, so the bottom of the ditch was only covered with soft sand, appearing safe and clean.

The light from the streetlamps outside occasionally filtered through the gaps, making illumination unnecessary.

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

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

As soon as he spoke, his hand touched something sticky and disgusting, which seemed to writhe.

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

“Pfft.”

He felt the knife sink into something soft and rotten, but amidst the mud, there was a metallic clang.

“Holy crap! There’s something!” Huang Quxie suddenly shrieked from behind. Qin Xian, alarmed, directly knocked open the cover above them and stood up.

In the dim light, they discovered a horde of monsters had crawled into the ditch from both ends.

They had decaying human torsos, but wires protruded from various parts of their bodies. Their necks gleamed with a metallic luster, and upon closer inspection, they were actually several metal rods.

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

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

Qin Xian immediately dodged the attack. The monster lunged forward, its claws scraping the ground with a piercing metallic screech.

The second monster charged forward, its head almost brushing Qin Xian’s face.

In the faint light, the two of them got a clear look at the monsters’ appearance. Below their heads, they had human bodies, but one half of their heads was a rotten human face, while the other half was a tablet computer, as if the tablet had grown out of their brains and stretched the skin.

Huang Quxie kicked frantically at the wires around his leg, shouting in despair, “What is this thing, a fusion of zombies and cyberpunk?! How did it form? Humans hybridized with electronics!?”

Seeing that he couldn’t break free from the wires, his veins bulged as he punched the monster’s face. The screen shattered with a crisp sound, and his hand was immediately cut by sharp screen fragments.

The monster staggered backward, and Huang Quxie seized the opportunity to use his military knife to cut the thick wires around his leg.

Qin Xian, meanwhile, found a very handy weapon by the roadside: a three-pronged rake used by farmers for loosening soil. He raised it high and swung it down, striking a cyber zombie.

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

Amidst these monsters, there were also some normal-looking humans holding machetes. These people treated the surrounding monsters as normal companions, as if oblivious to their abnormality. Their crimson eyes were fixed solely on Qin Xian and Huang Quxie.

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

Qin Xian used his rake to disarm the attacker, flicking the machete upwards with his toe and sending it back into the villager’s hand.

He immediately handed the sword to Huang Quxie.

Huang Quxie quickly caught it, and they stood back-to-back, holding their swords and pointing them at the encircling villagers and monsters.

Panting, Huang Quxie asked, “Are these monsters, are they 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 normally-looking villager with the flat of the blade. The villager, completely lacking combat experience, was knocked to the ground and fainted.

Qin Xian chuckled, “As expected of a People’s Police officer.”

With that, he used his rake to smash a flashlight-headed monster. The glass dome on its head shattered, and it toppled over with a “thud.”

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

Qin Xian glanced at the huddled figures on the ground and looked up to continue his counterattack when a blinding light directly struck his eyes.

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

“Tsk, Huang Quxie, get down!” Qin Xian roared, then gripped the handle of his rake with both hands and spun in a circle.

Huang Quxie, seeing the sharp, jagged teeth rushing towards him, yelped and ducked just in time. The rake grazed his scalp as it swept around, striking enemies and eliciting screams.

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

Huang Quxie, like a mushroom, crouched 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 rapidly to regain his vision and shouted to Huang Quxie, “Go! Break out!”

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

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

“Wait for me!” Huang Quxie quickly stood up and followed Qin Xian out, brandishing his sword.

However, as soon as they broke through the encirclement, he felt his scalp tingle as he saw shadowy figures swaying and emerging from the village roads, fields, and houses, approaching them with their strangely shaped heads.

Huang Quxie struggled to keep up with Qin Xian, marveling at his agile movements as he effortlessly leaped over obstacles, debris, and ditches.

“Dude… have you done triathlons before?! Wait up…”

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! Qin brother, do they have any weaknesses?”

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

“Try what?” Huang Quxie was confused when Qin Xian ran towards a house. At the base of the outer wall was an exposed faucet, even connected to a long water pipe.

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

Qin Xian rushed forward, grabbed the pipe, and turned the faucet on full blast. A stream of water gushed from the nozzle. Qin Xian deliberately pinched the pipe, narrowing the stream and making it more forceful, spraying several meters.

The water hit a flashlight head, which sputtered and mechanically stopped moving before toppling over.

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

Qin Xian moved the hose, spraying water everywhere. Flashlight heads and camera heads collapsed, but the monsters with mobile phone and tablet heads only paused briefly before charging at them again, baring their teeth.

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

Qin Xian: “…”

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

Qin Xian’s brow furrowed as he watched the soil heave and a colossal monster, at least three meters tall, emerge from the ground. A large camera sat atop its head, and as soon as it appeared, its lens focused on the two of them and clicked. An extremely blinding white light flashed, causing both of them 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 desperately 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 statue, landing on the ground with a “thump.”

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

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

He glanced at Huang Quxie, who was receiving the exact same treatment. Because he appeared more robust, four people were restraining him, his face pressed into the ground, unable to struggle.

“Get up!”

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

Qin Xian tilted his head back slightly, not resisting.

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

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

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

“He’s alone, and are we afraid of the police now? Heh. Even if the police come, they’ll all be wiped out… Speaking of which, didn’t we catch a police officer 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 person had also come to rescue someone. But he didn’t understand why he came alone, and where were the other police officers?

The villagers’ conversation continued.

“He’s definitely not dead. He’s got a good body and face, and rich women like him on their livestreams. He was sent to the Edge-pushing Group. Speaking of which, isn’t there someone with an even better face here now? That face is valuable…”

The villagers chuckled and reached out to pinch Qin Xian’s face. But Qin Xian turned his head and bit down hard. As his teeth clamped down, he whipped 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 with disgust, and let it fall to the ground.

Author’s Note:

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It’s so cold, so cold! Of course, to my dear angel investors, don’t worry, no matter how cold it gets, my updates won’t be cold. I just love writing, I can’t help it [pitiable].

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