Chapter 21: Girl
Girl
Zhang Xiao Qiang awoke to the cold morning air and strong river’s breeze. The fresh cold air of the winter didn’t have the putrid stench like the city. The mutated cat stone continued to provide heat to Zhang Xiao Qiang’s body. It was warm and Zhang Xiao Qiang didn’t want to open his eyes, quietly enjoying this moment of comfort.
A warm breath of brushed over his face, he opened his eyes. There were two massive dogs before his eyes. Their breath hitting him in the face. Zhang Xiao Qiang tightened up, afraid to move.
These two big dogs were the same soviet red dogs that were near his house a few days ago. Now they were even bigger, the bigger one was already almost 180cm, the smaller one was around 170cm.
Zhang Xiao Qiang didn’t dare make a single movement, staying in the sand pit whilst the two big dogs sniffed around him. The mutated cat from before had caused him a lot of suffering, now there are even stronger and bigger dogs. Moreover, there were 2 of them. Zhang Xiao Qiang had a bitter taste in his mouth: “Looks like i’ll be eaten by dogs, at least it’s a more creative way to die.” Zhang Xiao Qiang unconsciously thinking. his eyes looking around trying to secretly look at the 2 big dogs before him.
They had slender limbs, their claws were bigger than Zhang Xiao Qiang’s hand, their chest was as thin as their waist. The bigger one had white spots on its forehead. The smaller one had red hair at the tip of its tail.
Zhang Xiao Qiang was waiting for them to eat him, but they lost interest, going his backpack, pulling it around on the sand and pulling it to him and making a “wu wu” sound. “Could it be?” Zhang Xiao Qiang didn’t have much more time to think, he opened the backpack and pulling out one plastic bag.
The one with the red hair tip took the plastic bag from Zhang Xiao Qiang’s hands. It used its claws to rip it open, and started eating the cooked meat and sausages inside. Not long later the food split between the two big dogs were finished.
Zhang Xiao Qiang’s heart was beating quickly, “that was 7-8 pounds of cooked meat and over 10 sausages! there’s nothing left.” After the dog with the red hair top finished, it started jumping around the bigger dog. Then the bigger dog continued to sniff at him.
“Are they still hungry?” Zhang Xiao Qiang despaired.
The big dog sniffed Zhang Xiao Qiang’s chest but didn’t do anything else, leaving him helpless. “I don’t have milk!!” Zhang Xiao Qiang cried to the big dog.
The big dog continued to sniff, Zhang Xiao Qiang’s mind lit up, taking the cat stone from his chest and handed it over, “Could it be that it wanted that?”
The big dog sniffed the stone twice, took two steps back and snorted, without the stone, the big dog brought the smaller on along the river, playing as they went.
“huuu…” zhang xiao qiang let out a sigh.
Seeing these two big dogs playing in the water, Zhang Xiao Qiang exclaimed: “dogs are just stronger than cats, no wonder taking care of a cat is different with taking care of a dog.”
He ate something and carried his backpack, before beginning to embark on today’s trip.
Zhang Xiao Qiang walked onto the road, the two big dogs were far behind him. Zhang Xiao Qiang stopped moving to find that they weren’t coming closer. Zhang Xiao Qiang thought that the only mutation of the cat was its scarlet eyes, but the eyes of these dogs were clear. “Could it be that the mutated cat got rabies?” Zang Xiao Qiang was baffled.
This green belt is in a small square, by the side there were a few tape recorders. There were 70-80 zombies scattered on the square, one S type and two D types. “Definitely near a place where a bunch of aunties lived”, Zhang Xiao Qiang jumped to a conclusion.
Zhang Xiao Qiang put his binoculars away, trying to think of a way to go around, “ssoouu….”,as two figures rushed past from behind him, he quickly raised his binoculars to look at them.
The two big dogs were running circles around the zombies, biting off a zombie skull from time to time. The zombie’s claws were powerless against the sturdy thick fur of the dogs. This continued until all that could be seen were zombies lying on the ground, not a single standing zombie in the whole square.
Zhang Xiao Qiang walked ahead, seeing the two big dogs bite open a few evolved zombie skulls, licking the the yellow brains. After eating the brains, the dog tore at the flesh of the D zombie and started eating that. At the side were ordinary zombies and an S zombie, but they were ignored.
The two big dogs continued to eat more of the D zombie while licking their mouths. Zhang Xiao Qiang tightened the backpack onto his shoulder and continued to move forward.
Reaching closer to the place where the urban and rural areas meet, the two big dogs rushed towards Zhang Xiao Qiang “barking” before running off in a different direction. Watching the two dog’s figures gradually disappear, Zhang Xiao Qiang said “Unfortunate that I lost my two talismans”[TLN: I think he’s referring to the dogs as lucky charms? cause they helped him] as he continued to move ahead.
On one side of the Yangtze river, Zhang Xiao Qiang killed an ordinary zombie. As he pulled out the spear from the head, the zombie fell to the ground, and a rusty key fell out of the zombie’s pocket.
“Monster drop???” Zhang Xiao Qiang saw the key on the ground, and subconsciously looked around to find a legendary treasure chest.
There was no treasure chest, but he did find a bicycle in the vicinity. It had a basket which contained deteriorating lunch, a teacup, a portable water bottle. The back seat had a fish basket, filled with fishing equipment.
It appears that the owner was riding a bike to go fishing before he was infected, and became a zombie just after parking the bike. The tires didn’t have any air in them, they looked deflated. But Zhang Xiao Qiang found a portable foot pump in the fish basket. The owner was also a careful man.
The bike was in a good condition, the owner was parked at the bridge, escaping the corrosive rain. Zhang Xiao Qiang fully filled the air.
The end of the bridge leads into the suburbs. Zhang Xiao Qiang got on and rode it towards the suburbs.
Zhang Xiao Qiang was riding the bike on the cement path by the countryside, he was peddling quickly, he felt euphoric: “I basically own this bike!!”
Even though it was only a bicycle, and it was very different compared to a car, but it was still so much better than walking. On the road, from time to time, the scattered zombies would smell him. But Zhang Xiao Qiang just whizz past them riding his bike. Seeing the S zombie behind him getting further and further away, he happily wanted to start singing.
“There’s a situation!” Zhang Xiao Qiang stopped the bike, and lifted the binoculars that he hung around his neck to observe.
Both sides of the road was a row of fishponds, on one side there was a tin hut and the other side was a car. On the rusty hut there were several characters painted with white oil paint which vaguely made out the words “tobacco, snacks, fishing equipment rental”.
In front of the hut were 7-8 zombies together squatting on the ground, a clean white bone was thrown to the side, with a few of the remaining fingers clutching a bottle of mineral water.
“Bad luck!” seeing that debris Zhang Xiao Qiang was shaking his head. Initially he wanted to go round, but then he thought of how he was quickly running out of food. The 20 pounds of meat and sausages were eaten by the dogs, the 2 slices of bread left were only just enough to make 1 meal. There wasn’t much rice left, he didn’t have a fire so how could he just eat it raw?
so Zhang Xiao Qiang stopped by the hut, picking up his spear and going behind the zombie, it only cared about the flesh before it and ignored him.
It wasn’t even hard, it was just like when Zhang Xiao Qiang was killing frogs as a child. Stabbing the zombies one at a time to death. Going into the little shed, the goods were messily placed, and there wasn’t much. Zhang Xiao Qiang is afraid that zombies from far away will be attracted here, but he didn’t just randomly put things into his bag, he chose all kinds of foods and mineral water to fill it. He also shoved a few beers into his pocket before leaving.
Walking towards the bicycle he saw a honda, “How unfortunate! why didn’t i learn to drive?” Zhang Xiao Qiang complained. I didn’t learn to drive because of a fear of death in case of an accident. Just before he left, he decided to walk up and drive it.
Zhang Xiao Qiang looked through the car window, “Not bad, it’s not perfectly clear, but I can see a figure of a person”
Zhang Xiao Qiang went to the front of the honda, looking through the windshield. A person sitting in the passenger’s seat was looking at the small shop. A head with shoulder length hair and body was wearing dirty clothes, which were so dirty that he was unable to tell what the original colours were.
“It’s not a zombie!!!” Zhang Xiao Qiang thought, he had never seen a zombie so quiet. Zhang Xiao Qiang opened the door, and a foul smell escaped, even his nose that was used to a stench couldn’t take it.
Its face was pale and malnourished, and its face was pretty clean, but its eyes were a little cloudy. Zhang Xiao Qiang got excited: “IT WAS A GIRL! and, and she’s alive.”