LIGHTNOVELWORLD Chapter 17 - Zoo.
When Yu Qing woke up, he found himself surrounded by darkness, wrapped in a small, confined space. He reached upwards, but his arm hit the ceiling before it was fully extended. Feeling along the top edge, it seemed to be oval-shaped.
The outer surface was tough and felt rough to the touch. He took a deep breath, feeling short of breath. He sensed Song Xinqi’s position and decided to stay still, waiting for him to rescue him.
Suddenly, he felt something soft under his feet. Looking down, he could barely make out a faint outline in the darkness. After careful observation, he recognized the cactus-like horn on the edge and realized it was the mutated goat that had been dragged away by vines earlier.
So, he was now inside the stomach of some mutated plant.
The goat had only recently died, its body covered in thick mucus, making it slippery. The mucus seemed to be spreading upwards. His breath caught, and he stood still on the goat’s bulging back, afraid to move.
He struggled to climb upwards, but the ceiling was too low. He couldn’t distance himself from the mucus. After a while, he looked down again; the mucus had already covered the goat’s mouth and was about to engulf him.
Goosebumps erupted all over him. It looked like it would be very painful, and he did not want to be dissolved by the mucus.
Song Xinqi followed the sensed direction, encountering numerous plants trying to block him along the way. He cut down all the branches and suddenly felt his heart pounding rapidly, so he quickened his pace.
Yu Qing felt the air in the small space diminishing, his head dizzy and seeing white flashes. He woke up abruptly, slapping his face to stay alert. Looking down, the mucus was nearly touching his shoes!
Just then, he felt a tremor beneath his feet and heard the sound of branches thrashing outside. His spirits lifted, and he pounded on the tree wall, “Song Xinqi, I’m here!”
Song Xinqi dodged two branches attacking from the sides and heard Yu Qing’s faint cry for help amidst the dense rain. Countless branches kept swinging from that direction, looking aggressive.
Having pinpointed the location, he agilely avoided all the attacking branches, not wasting time entangling with them, and charged directly in that direction, slashing forward.
The severed vines twitched on the ground, splashing water everywhere. He stepped over them without looking, tearing off all the obstructing branches to reveal another open space inside.
In the center of the clearing was a crooked willow tree whose species was indistinguishable. Its long vines connected with the surrounding trees and could stretch very far, but its main body was small, only about as tall as a person. Its trunk was thick and round, like a swollen belly.
“Song Xinqi, hurry and save me.”
Yu Qing’s voice was closer now. Song Xinqi’s gaze locked onto the crooked willow’s trunk. The tree swayed its numerous long branches, striking at him, with three of them wrapping around his machete, trying to seize the weapon.
With a twist of the handle, the sharp blade cut through the entangling vines. Swinging outward, he severed several more vines. The branches couldn’t stop him.
As he advanced, the willow tree proved difficult to deal with, but once he found its main body, it became much easier. He got closer to it, which seemed to sense the threat. All its branches lunged towards him.
With a calm expression, he dodged the densest area of attacks, stepping on a thick vine from the side to leap into the air and strike down on the tree’s top.
The willow tree lost half its branches with the blow, causing numerous twigs to crash into the puddles below.
It grew furious. Its remaining branches lashed out like iron rods, but they abruptly stopped a meter above Song Xinqi’s head.
The branches seemed to be in conflict, tangling with each other, and several defeated branches fell off. The crooked willow tree twisted, soon shedding all its branches, leaving only a bare trunk.
A slight pain in his temples made Song Xinqi’s face darken like black water, his gaze on the willow tree becoming more oppressive. The now weaponless tree trembled but could only watch as he walked towards it step by step.
In the darkness, Yu Qing felt the world spinning and the noise outside was loud. After an unknown amount of time, the noise stopped. Then, a crack appeared in the sturdy tree trunk in front of him, letting in a beam of light.
He looked up to see Song Xinqi’s sharp and handsome face backlit by the light, appearing like a divine warrior descending from the heavens.
He froze for a moment, then said, “See, I told you it would be easy for you to find me.”
Song Xinqi pulled him out and placed him on the ground, which was slippery with broken willow branches everywhere.
He glanced at Yu Qing’s face, red from lack of oxygen. “Are you feeling unwell anywhere?”
Yu Qing showed him his arm, scratched by branches during the escape. The sleeve was torn, revealing a moderate scratch underneath.
“Don’t bother telling me about small injuries like this.”
Yu Qing pouted, lowered his arm, and turned to see the disemboweled, lifeless crooked willow tree, commenting, “The experience inside was mediocre.”
Song Xinqi gave a cold smile, “Next time, try to choose a more comfortable one.”
“This place turned out to be a zoo,” Yu Qing realized after Song Xinqi’s explanation. “No wonder we saw a goat. What else is in the zoo, pandas? Alpacas? Peacocks? Are there lions and tigers too? If we encounter a mutated tiger, what do we do? The mutated goat was so big, how big would a mutated tiger be? Oh! And mutated elephants, mutated giraffes! How big would they be?”
“Song Xinqi.”
“What do you want?” He responded coldly.
Yu Qing, not bothered by the tone, excitedly asked, “Does the zoo have whales?”
Song Xinqi looked at him as if he were a fool. “How could a zoo have whales? Even aquariums only have whales if they are large enough. Don’t you have any common sense?”
Yu Qing: “I’ve never been, so how would I know?”
“You’ve never been to a zoo in your entire life?”
Song Xinqi remained skeptical.
Yu Qing nodded vigorously, “Yes!”
Song Xinqi looked down at his righteous eyes. His golden pupils were clear, all emotions plainly written on his face, as if he were a newborn untouched by the world, pure and curious about this new world.
He suddenly felt a desire to understand Yu Qing’s past. What kind of environment could produce such a naïve person?
The crooked willow tree seemed to be the leader of the zoo’s plants. After dealing with it, they encountered no more aggressive mutated plants. Instead, the plants actively avoided them before they even noticed their presence.
The previously unseen paths were cleared, revealing more of the zoo’s original appearance. They encountered many animals, some mutated and some not. They were in the herbivore section, where the animals were generally docile and didn’t attack.
Both the plants and animals were much smarter than zombies. Early in the apocalypse, they knew very little about what caused this.
Song Xinqi speculated that there were no zombies in the zoo because the native inhabitants had cleaned them out, creating a unique ecosystem.
As they walked, he suddenly stopped. “What are you doing?”
Yu Qing was oblivious, “What did I do?”
Song Xinqi pulled his arm out of Yu Qing’s grasp. “Don’t stick so close to me.”
Before, he could tolerate it, but now he was pressing his whole body against him, which was too much.
“If I don’t hold tight, what if I get grabbed again?”
Song Xinqi responded, “Do you think I’m dead?”
Yu Qing reluctantly settled for holding onto a small part of his sleeve. If he couldn’t hug him, he’d hold onto something. What a miser.
The rain had stopped, but their clothes were still wet, so they needed a place to dry off. Without plants causing trouble, they easily followed the signs to the employee dormitory.
They found the nearest room with an open door. Inside, it was a chaotic mess. Song Xinqi heard a faint sound, looked up, and saw a regular monkey on the beam, tilting its head and watching them with a half-rotten banana in its hand.
Sensing danger, the monkey swiftly fled outside.
He found two sets of dark blue employee uniforms in the closet, and they changed into dry clothes.
Yu Qing checked himself in the mirror, swinging the long sleeves. “This shirt is so big.”
Song Xinqi replied coldly, “What, do you want me to use a sewing machine to tailor it for you?”
But the uniform was indeed too big. It looked like he was wearing an adult’s clothes, with sleeves dragging to his knees. Even with all the buttons done up, it exposed a lot of his pale, delicate skin. As he bent down to roll up his trousers, the loose clothing revealed everything inside.
Song Xinqi averted his gaze, no longer looking in that direction.
After rolling up his sleeves and trouser legs, Yu Qing tucked in the shirt and found a belt to secure it, finally satisfied. He then threw himself onto the bed against the wardrobe, rolling around. “Wow, a bed, so comfortable!”
The bed was soft and comfortable.
On the table to the left of the bed, there was a desktop computer. After some searching, Song Xinqi found a backup power supply and plugged it in. The employee’s computer had no password and he logged in smoothly.
After rolling around on the bed for a while, Yu Qing sat up and looked at the computer screen. Song Xinqi was browsing the City A official website.
The homepage displayed all known information about the national zombie crisis, most of which they had heard on the radio. He skimmed through and found one new piece of useful information.
Plants and animals, like humans, had also divided into zombies and mutants. The former, like human zombies, would indiscriminately attack all living things around them, felt no pain, and never tired.
Mutant plants and animals, on the other hand, experienced a significant increase in strength. Mutant plants became mobile, and animals grew larger and more aggressive, with a certain degree of intelligence.
The cause of these changes was still unclear. However, they discovered a hopeful piece of news: unlike humans, mutant plants and animals were not susceptible to infection. Perhaps humans could explore the reasons behind this to solve the crisis.
But conducting proper research would take a long time. The immediate priority was survival.
The website also provided information about the area surrounding City A. The latest update, from three days ago, mentioned the giant tree they had encountered earlier.
It was a massive mutant locust tree that had killed and absorbed many survivors trying to reach City A, causing it to grow rapidly.The tree in the photo was not as large as it was now, indicating it had killed many more people since that update.
After all, few refugees had internet access, and even if they had phones, they were likely out of battery by now.
After checking everything, Song Xinqi looked up a map to understand their current location. They were in Lutong Wildlife Park, less than twenty kilometers from City A’s safe zone. Walking there would take nearly six hours. It seemed better to stay here for a while and set off the next morning.
With that decided, they had more time. He suggested that Yu Qing look around the zoo for useful items. However, when he turned around, he was already sprawled out on the bed, sound asleep.
Yu Qing really had the biggest heart he’d ever seen.