Chapter 4: Deterioration
After being infected with the zombie virus, fever occurs as the body’s immune system fights against the virus. However, most of the people infected with the zombie virus that the protagonist, Mo Chu, witnessed in her previous life had very little immune resistance, with most turning into zombies within half an hour of infection. Some others either turned into zombies or died after a night of high fever. Only a few individuals were able to survive and awaken their abilities after being infected.
Mo Chu had seen many people infected with the virus, struggling to survive, including both ordinary people and powerful ability users. Despite witnessing so much, she had never felt as nervous as she did at this moment.
She stared at Li Chen, watching him struggle in pain with a peculiar grayish hue on his flushed face. Her heart clenched like it was suffering from ischemia.
She couldn’t help but wonder how Li Chen had managed to survive in her previous life without anyone saving him, enduring being bitten by zombies for so long. Was it possible that he had encountered some fortuitous encounter after being infected, which allowed him to survive and awaken his strong abilities? Did she ruin his chance this time by impulsively saving him without knowing anything about it, ultimately causing harm to him?
She knew that these thoughts were unlikely to be true, but she couldn’t help but entertain them.
Realizing that her thoughts were fruitless, her rationality took over. Mo Chu forced herself to stay busy. She found a bottle of high-concentration alcohol from the warehouse and soaked a clean towel in it to start physically cooling Li Chen.
She had no idea how long Li Chen would remain in this state, but she knew that, if left unchecked, his high fever could potentially burn him to death before he could overcome the virus.
Without much consideration, she directly unbuttoned his shirt, revealing Li Chen’s robust yet heavily injured body. After giving him a simple cleansing and removing debris and some unidentified rot from his wounds, she began to apply alcohol to his body.
Li Chen’s upper body was covered in wounds, and avoiding them while cleaning was almost impossible. Thus, Mo Chu used high-concentration alcohol directly on the wounds.
Mo Chu had experienced how painful it was to apply alcohol to wounds, but despite the excruciating pain from having his entire body’s wounds treated this way, Li Chen didn’t wake up. He only exhibited involuntary muscle tremors around the wounds, without any sign of additional pain.
The good news was that after wiping him down, Li Chen’s body temperature noticeably dropped.
Mo Chu breathed a sigh of relief and carefully supported his head, giving him two sips of water.
With limited resources and her weak abilities, this was all she could do.
You’re absolutely right, my apologies for the oversight. Here’s the revised version:
After finishing these tasks, she began to search the warehouse for clean and wearable clothes. She found a thick and sturdy black coat, a sports t-shirt, loose-fitting pants, and a pair of military-style high boots.
The pants were made of a material similar to the coat, thick and sturdy, which might not be comfortable to wear in this weather, but it would be lifesaving when facing the zombie’s bites.
She changed out of her long-sleeved shorts and sports shoes and put on the new clothes.
Then, she gathered two motorcycle helmets, one for men and one for women, planning to take them with her when she left.
Though rudimentary, with the helmets, she could consider herself fully armed. The thick clothes provided good protection against the zombies.
Afterward, she ate two bags of potato chips, and half a pack of biscuits, and chewed two pieces of candy to ensure she had enough energy and strength to deal with any unforeseen situations.
Then, she sat on the ground, looking at the unconscious Li Chen, lost in thought.
Outside, the sky had turned dark, and all was quiet. Occasionally, she could hear eerie chewing and growling sounds from the zombies. As she listened, she felt a sense of reality.
It was as if she had crossed into another world.
Not long ago, she had experienced the pain of death, and now everything told her that she had been given another chance.
This time, from the very beginning, she had chosen a different path.
She had saved Li Chen and left Chu Ming’s team.
Regarding leaving Chu Ming’s team, Mo Chu had no regrets. Her only regret was being too timid in her previous life and deciding to leave too late.
In her previous life, Chu Ming’s desire for her had never ceased. At first, he showed some restraint due to her identity as an ability user. But as his own power grew stronger and he found out she was a “useless ability user,” he became unrestrained. He started with insinuations, then clear statements, and finally direct threats.
He had never forced her directly, not because he had a noble character, but because he seemed to be holding his breath, wanting Mo Chu to surrender personally, to say it out loud, just like he had said before she left – he was waiting for her to beg him.
All the members of the same team chose to turn a blind eye.
After Mo Chu discovered that Qin Xue, who had become Chu Ming’s mistress, was trying to help him scheme against her, she finally made up her mind to leave.
Not long after leaving, she accidentally heard the news of Qin Xue being used by Chu Ming to block an attack.
For a “useless ability” to leave the team was equivalent to signing her own death warrant. That’s why she hesitated to leave for so long. However, after finally making the decision to leave, despite facing countless life-threatening situations, she never once regretted her choice. Her only regret was that she had left too late.
And as for Li Chen…
Looking at him, she couldn’t help but recall his words before her death, and her emotions became complex.
He saved her, and he liked her.
In her previous life, during the time between leaving Chu Ming’s group and finally finding stability, she had faced near-death experiences several times, but she miraculously survived every time.
Once, she encountered a fifth-level mutated zombie and was on the verge of being devoured by it. However, she inexplicably lost consciousness and woke up later with the zombie’s corpse lying beside her, while she remained unharmed.
She began to suspect that someone was saving her.
One time, when she couldn’t find drinkable water for two days, an elderly woman who had been coldly observing her suddenly gave her half a bottle of water after she woke up from a nap.
Gratefully, she accepted the water. Much later, as “Doctor Mo,” she used all means to find that elderly woman and offered her two second-level crystals in exchange for the truth about the water incident.
The woman said that after Mo Chu fell asleep, a man used the same two second-level crystals to buy her half a bottle of water and asked her to give it to her when she woke up.
The second-level crystals back then were nothing compared to the ones now.
Who was this person helping her?
She wondered about the identity of her savior many times.
Until the day she died, she found the answer.
Li Chen.
He even said that he liked her.
This was the most puzzling part for her.
She admitted that if she ever experienced the same ordeal as Li Chen did back then, she would never, under any circ*mstances, fall for someone who had been abandoned by both his accomplice and the murderer.
In fact, it was true; among the people who left with Chu Ming, apart from Mo Chu, no one lived past the second year.
After leaving, she heard the news that Chu Ming, the mastermind behind everything, suffered cruel revenge at the hands of Li Chen. Li Chen formed a special squad of over twenty people, and none of them survived after encountering him.
The Li Chen she knew was ruthless and far from being gentle. Thus, she couldn’t find a reason why he would like her or why he had silently saved her so many times. She preferred to believe that it was merely his kind lie to someone on the verge of death.
However, given Li Chen’s ruthless personality in her previous life, it was illogical for him to tell a “kind lie” for no reason. So, even if she found it impossible to believe, this matter was true – Li Chen in her previous life did indeed like her.
She looked at Li Chen with a complex expression.
In her past life, Li Chen was like a demon king, more feared than the ability users and zombies. Mentioning the name “Li Chen” could stop a crying child instantly.
He did things as he pleased, his temperament was unpredictable, and his methods were cruel. He cared even less about human life than the most infamous villains in the apocalypse. Most importantly, his strength was formidable.
Rumors said that he tortured Chu Ming for three days and three nights until the place was soaked in blood, and even zombies didn’t dare approach the scene after he left.
When he was in a good mood, he could spend several fourth-level crystals to buy a piece of stone, and when he was unhappy, he could turn half a city into ashes, turning terrifying zombies into lambs to be slaughtered.
He was almost like a different person compared to the one she remembered, the man who saved them from the climbing gym.
Mo Chu didn’t know if his personality had changed dramatically due to surviving in the pile of zombies after betrayal, and she didn’t know if it was right or wrong to save such a terrifying demon king this time.
Even if he saved her many times over, he was still a fearsome demon king who had killed countless people in the apocalypse, the nightmare of everyone.
But she knew that even if she could turn back time to the moment when he was pushed into the zombie pile, she would still choose to save him without hesitation.
She owed him more than just one life, and everyone else could abandon him, but she couldn’t.
In this life, he had done nothing, and if she continued to stand by and do nothing, she would be no different from those in her past life who had pushed him into the abyss.
Mo Chu sighed deeply.
She stood up and checked Li Chen’s condition again, only to find that not only did he not improve, but his body temperature, which had just gone down, was rising again.
Mo Chu used alcohol to lower his temperature once more.
At this point, the entire warehouse no longer smelled of blood but was filled with a strong scent of alcohol.
Throughout the night, Mo Chu repeatedly used alcohol to help lower Li Chen’s temperature, hardly getting any rest herself. However, Li Chen still showed no signs of waking up.
An ordinary person would likely have succ*mbed to such a fever after a night, but although Li Chen showed no intention of waking up, his pulse remained steady.
However, as dawn approached, Li Chen’s condition began to deteriorate.
Mo Chu had just finished wiping his body with alcohol when she saw a layer of gray spreading over all his wounds, which then quickly began to decay from the edges like those of a zombie.
Mo Chu was taken aback, and before she could react, she saw a sudden expression of pain on his face. Then, the decaying wounds slowly returned to their normal color, as if being deliberately suppressed.
But Li Chen’s expression became even more painful, and his muscles trembled slightly unconsciously.
This was not a good sign.
She reached out and touched his forehead, wanting to call his name, but suddenly heard a faint sound from outside the closed door.
“Crack.”
