"Isn't this the bodybuilder version of the squirting tortoise I gave to Jiayi? Why was it placed on the dining table..."
When he first entered Sun Jiayi's home, the blood stains on the wall were so conspicuous that Zhang Ning's attention was immediately drawn to it, and he ignored the things around him.
Now that he saw the funny squirting tortoise on the dining table, the previous terrifying and depressing atmosphere was dispelled a lot. Zhang Ning was finally able to calm down and start to carefully look at the situation at his girlfriend's home.
But it's okay if you don't look closely. Once you look carefully, Zhang Ning almost fainted again.
On the ground facing the door from the dining table, lay a shriveled corpse.
The internal muscles and bones of the corpse seemed to have been completely dissolved, leaving only a layer of skin lying softly on the floor. Looking from the doorway, one could barely judge the gender of the other person from his hairstyle and clothing.
"Uncle Sun..."
Although extremely reluctant, the horrified Zhang Ning identified the body.
It was Sun Jiayi's father, the Uncle Sun he called him!
The familiar elders in his past memories have now turned into shriveled skins. This had a severe impact on Zhang Ning.
Resisting the desire to escape from this place, he held the kitchen knife in front of him and moved towards the corpse step by step.
The air in the living room was filled with the stench of highly decomposed corpses, mixed with a bit of dried blood, which made Zhang Ning feel like he was entering hell step by step.
After finally reaching the center of the living room, Zhang Ning stretched out the kitchen knife in his hand and carefully touched the body on the ground.
He originally just wanted to confirm whether the elder would suddenly jump up and attack him. After all, Yao Peiqing's previous experience of attacking him was still fresh in his mind.
But as soon as the kitchen knife touched the body, the slightly thin body deflated quickly like a deflated rubber ball.
Only then did Zhang Ning discover that there was a small hole the size of a finger on the skin of the corpse's head and chest. However, it had been blocked by the filth in the corpse, so the gas was trapped inside the body.
Now when the corpse is touched by the kitchen knife, the filth blocking the holes falls off one after another, and a large amount of gas escapes from the corpse. Without support, the corpse naturally collapses completely and turns into a piece of human skin spread out on the ground. .
"Fuck... ugh..."
Without paying attention, Zhang Ning was sprayed in the face with turbid gas, and a nauseating breath came from his nose, causing his body to subconsciously react by vomiting.
But before he bent down to retching, his body seemed to suddenly adapt to the smell, and the nausea disappeared instantly, as if someone had simply turned off Zhang Ning's nausea switch.
This made Zhang Ning freeze on the spot. The nausea that suddenly disappeared made him a little dazed. It was as if he had already taken off his pants and was about to do something, but suddenly someone broke in and forced him to do something. Interruption, that feels very unsatisfactory...
He sniffed the air with his nose again. The stench that originally filled the air had completely disappeared, leaving only the faint smell of blood.
"Maybe you're getting used to it?"
Zhang Ning glanced at the human skin on the ground in confusion, and thought of a fairly reliable reason for himself.
In the blind spot of his sight, at the back of his neck, the dark blue tentacles had changed from the state of fleshy scales to the shape of petals at some point, in the center of the petals.
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Many scarlet silk threads stretched out from everywhere, like sea anemones undulating with the ocean currents on the seabed, dancing slightly with Zhang Ning's movements.
Small black particles are constantly moving outward along the scarlet silk thread. When the small particles move to the end of the silk thread, they will be thrown out and leave Zhang Ning's body forever.
Of course, all of this was done quietly. Zhang Ning, who was focused on what was in front of him, did not notice anything unusual about his neck.
After confirming that the corpse on the ground did not pose a threat to him, Zhang Ning shifted his attention to the dining table again and studied the funny-looking Squirtle toy.
"Hey, there's a note underneath this squirting bastard..."
Under Squirtle's exaggeratedly muscular right leg, there was a piece of light yellow note paper, which was carefully folded into a small square.
Putting the toys aside, Zhang Ning took the note from under the table.
The note was slowly unfolded, and Juanxiu's handwriting appeared in front of his eyes. With just one glance, Zhang Ning recognized the owner of the handwriting as none other than his girlfriend, Sun Jiayi.
Since the two were classmates in high school, and Zhang Ning was too lazy to do homework at the time, he often copied Sun Jiayi's homework. After going back and forth, he naturally became very familiar with each other's handwriting.
The appearance of the note calmed Zhang Ning's originally anxious mind. Since Sun Jiayi could leave a note for herself, it means that there is a high probability that her life is not in danger.
But when he saw the contents of the note clearly, he froze in place again.
There are only three words on the small note - live.
Beyond that, there's nothing else.
"Survive?"
Looking through the note in his hand repeatedly and muttering three words subconsciously, a series of questions appeared in Zhang Ning's mind.
However, the first thing that came up was why did his girlfriend write these three words on the note?
"Stay alive? Does Jiayi want me to live well in this apocalypse? But how does she know that I am still alive..."
According to Zhang Ning's memory, before the disaster, he and his girlfriend watched the movie "Bald9" together and took the bus home together. On the bus, their throats were bitten by an unidentified man in black.
Although he still doesn't understand why he was so unlucky to be the first man bitten when the zombie crisis broke out in movies and TV shows, the pain when the man in black bit him was still deeply engraved in his memory.
Heartbreaking pain came from his fragile neck. Death and fear were like the boundless deep sea, quickly wrapping him up, and blood spurted out of his body as if it was free.
Zhang Ning understood that in that state, he was definitely not a wounded person who looked like he could be saved. The lack of treatment for the injuries caused by the ruptured carotid artery in a short period of time almost declared his death.
This was also verified when he woke up in the morgue later. The tag hanging on his big toe was an identity tag unique to the corpse. Generally, corpses that could be hung with this kind of tag were confirmed to be dead by doctors.
But how did Sun Jiayi know that he was still alive?
"Think in someone else's shoes, think in someone else's shoes..."
Muttering in his mouth, Zhang Ning unconsciously entered a state of high concentration.
First of all, this note must have been left to him, there is no doubt about it.
If the person leaving the note is someone else
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Man, then his girlfriend doesn’t need to use this funny Squirtle toy as a paperweight. An ashtray on the table can serve the same purpose.
Obviously, the purpose of choosing this funny-looking Squirtle was to tell Zhang Ning that this note was left for him.
After confirming that the person leaving the note was him, Zhang Ning began to think about why his girlfriend wrote the words "live on."
Assuming that his girlfriend Sun Jiayi witnessed the whole process of the bus incident and sent him to the hospital as soon as possible, then his final appearance in the morgue means that his girlfriend has learned about his death, that is, No notes would be left for him at home.
However, the note on the dinner table contradicts the result of this hypothesis, so this hypothesis does not hold.
Going back to the original point, suppose that his girlfriend did not know that he was dead, but was forced to separate from him because the scene was too chaotic.
Then it becomes logical for the girlfriend to leave a note at home.
But if his girlfriend thought he was still alive, why not leave information for Zhang Ning to find.
According to normal logical thinking, in this apocalyptic world where order has collapsed, if two lovers who have a close relationship know that the other is still alive, they will definitely try their best to reunite with each other.
If Zhang Ning's girlfriend knows that Zhang Ning is still alive, she should leave an address or her whereabouts so that Zhang Ning can search for her purposefully, instead of leaving such an unclear "live on".
"Hiss, it seems that no matter what assumption you make, it seems wrong..."
Frowning his brows slightly, Zhang Ning had completely blocked out the messy environment around him and was fully immersed in reasoning.
"Is it possible that Jiayi is not sure whether I am alive, or that she thinks I am dead, but has not confirmed it with her own eyes, so she doesn't believe it..."
If the directions of the first two hypotheses are like the front and back sides of a coin, either life or death, then the next hypothesis is like the middle of the coin. Although it is mixed with a lot of uncertainty, it seems to be more realistic.
If Sun Jiayi was not sure that Zhang Ning was dead, but in her heart she had no hope that Zhang Ning would survive, she would inevitably leave such an ambiguous message on the table.
"Stay alive."
From this perspective, this message is more like a prayer, a hope born out of despair, rather than an attempt to convey some information to Zhang Ning.
Zhang Ning is not a person who is good at reasoning, but relying on his understanding of his girlfriend, he was able to restore the truth to some extent.
"Okay, okay, I will live well. After all, I am the protagonist..."
He put the note in his hand into his trouser pocket, thought about it, and reached out to take the funny Squirtle toy in his hand.
His girlfriend's home was in a mess, and the door was open when Zhang Ning first arrived, which shows that Sun Jiayi may have left after leaving the note, and there is no point in staying here.
"You didn't even leave me a message. At least it gives me a target to find. It's really nerve-wracking..."
Looking at the squirting tortoise with abnormally developed muscles in his hand, Zhang Ning showed a helpless smile. As long as Sun Jiayi is still alive, then he must find her!
The depressed mood is like the sky that is gradually clearing. For Zhang Ning, today is not a good day, but it is definitely not a bad day...
(End of chapter)
