Chapter 18

: Intelligent Zombie
Translator: 
Law 
 Editor: 
Hitesh_
While looking at Wu Yueling, Lin Qiao chewed the strawberry unconsciously. The strawberry soon melted in her mouth and was swallowed directly. Sadly, she didn’t find it to be delicious, neither did she feel that her stomach was satisfied.
After that first bite, she didn’t want to continue eating the strawberry. Glancing at the strawberry in her hand once which now had a bite missing, she threw it onto the grass.
She looked at the grass dragonfly in Wu Yueling’s hands and gave it some thought, then raised her arm abruptly and waved at the latter, gesturing for her to come over.
However, Wu Yueling turned and ran immediately when she saw Lin Qiao wave at her.
Lin Qiao sighed.
‘Alright…’ 
Since the little one refused to come to her, she decided to have some fun by herself.
She glanced at where Wu Yueling had run to and saw that she had hidden in the grass. She wondered if the girl was afraid of bugs.
Lin Qiao turned around and walked to a thick patch of grass, picking up a few long grass blades. These grass blades were able to create thin gashes on human skin as they had burrs on the edges, and would harden when they matured. However, her hands couldn’t be harmed by these grass blades because she was a zombie!
After picking some grass blades, she wove and folded them to make a grass frog, a grass ball, a grass butterfly, and several other small trinkets…
She finished weaving and put these small trinkets into a clearing, then glanced at Wu Yueling, who had stuck her head out to peep at her from her hiding place. After that, she turned around and left the space.
She didn’t know where this space originated from. She had no idea if it was brought here or created by her own soul, or maybe had existed inside Lu Tianyu’s body and yet was never activated by her. She didn’t know the exact function of this space either, but she did know that storing and growing plants within it were possible.
As soon as she left the space, Lin Qiao made a spot to sit down, then looked at the sky that was brightening by now.
She realized that she didn’t need to sleep as she didn’t get tired. Did zombies really need no sleep? She looked at the zombies who had been wandering in this city in the middle of the night and felt that that might be true.
The strawberry field wasn’t far away from the city. Therefore, there must be zombies wandering nearby Yet, these zombies were scattered here and there, and not gathered in a mob.
She was thinking about how she could get to South Cloud Island Base faster.
‘That’s it! I should find a driveable vehicle.’ 
Somehow, she had forgotten about this plan from earlier on, and hadn’t thought about the car for a while. Perhaps it was because she had become too focused on finding food, and then began worrying about Wu Yueling.
It seemed that after filling up her stomach, she needed to find a car first.
There were many cars of every make and model abandoned in the SZ district, but she didn’t know whether they were still driveable or not. The gasoline in the gas stations might have been looted long ago, and it was questionable as to whether she would find any.
She touched her belly and felt that it was now full of bumps and hollows, leading to a very strange feeling. Back when she was an ordinary human, her physical perception of human bodies had been deeply ingrained since long ago. Now that she was in this state, if she were still a human being, she would have been tortured almost to death by the pain even if she remained alive.
Fortunately, she felt nothing in such a state. She thought that she was fortunate to have become a zombie, because the pain caused by all the traumas that this body had suffered would have surely killed her otherwise!
She raised her nose and sniffed around, but detected no aroma to arouse her appetite, nor did she detect anything that she wanted to eat.
She sighed and decided to look around her.
She wouldn’t starve to death even if she failed to find any food, but this constant hunger was very uncomfortable. Even finding another mouse to snack on would be nice at this point!
In passing, she could also try to find Wu Chengyue and his people, so that she could return the little one to them. After that, she wouldn’t have to worry about the child at least!
She stood up right away, then turned around and began walking.
After leaving the strawberry field, she walked into the city. However, she stopped soon afterward with her ears twitching slightly before she continued on.
She walked a while longer, then suddenly leaped to the side as she reached a factory area. After swiftly rolling on the ground, she knelt on one knee and lowered her body, supporting herself with her arms. Fully alert, she stared at a monster which had suddenly and silently pounced on her from the top of a two-story factory.
Even though it was a monster, it looked humanoid. Judging by its appearance, it should have been a high-level zombie. Its face had lost the original, identifiable human features. Its eyes were black without any white sclera, similar to Lin Qiao’s. Those pure black eyes also had a weird luster.
The original shape of its nose was still recognizable, but the mouth was cracked wide open, stretching from the left ear to the right. Once it opened that mouth, Lin Qiao could see its elongated teeth protruding from the rotten gums. A dark, dirty liquid was dripping from those teeth, emitting a rotten stench.
The zombie was standing on a pair of slightly bent legs. Its back was hunched, and its fists were held contortedly before its chest to form a claw. Its eyes sparkled with a vicious greed as it stared at Lin Qiao, facing her in a hunting posture while treating her as prey.
Lin Qiao could sense a strange vibe emanating from the zombie. It was like the vibes of humans, specifically those who were dominant and held positions of power.
Judging by its vibe, Lin Qiao guessed that it was a peak-level-three intelligent zombie.
Why would this kind of a zombie attack her? Lin Qiao had no answer to that question.
She searched through Lu Tianyu’s memories and found that even though that woman had done all kinds of evil things at her base, she hadn’t ever seen a high-level zombie herself.
Based on her memories, she only knew that high-level zombies would attack lower level zombies and then dig out their zombie nucleus to strengthen themselves.
Lin Qiao recalled that she had cut a zombie’s head earlier on when saving the unconscious man. After that, a crystal piece had fallen out of the zombie’s head and disappeared directly after being pinched by her.
Had she absorbed it? No wonder!
It seemed that this high-level zombie was seeing her as its prey. Was its intention to dig out the nucleus in her head?
Lin Qiao narrowed her eyes. She was on full alert, but her entire body had been locked on by this high-level zombie. She knew that the moment she moved, the zombie would burst up and fly at her.
She sneered silently. She was also an intelligent zombie, and even though her vibe was suppressed, she hadn’t experienced a strong sense of danger. Besides, even if she was unable to defeat this high-level zombie, couldn’t she just run? Even if she failed to run, she still had her space! Would this zombie be able to follow her into her space?
However, Lin Qiao didn’t know that she was only a basic-stage level-three zombie, while the one in front of her was already at the peak of level-three, and was preparing to step up to level-four.
It had set its sight on Lin Qiao because it wanted to use her zombie nucleus for its own evolution. It could easily absorb level-three zombie nuclei, but there was one disadvantage—for a level-three zombie, the energy contained in one level-three zombie nucleus might not be great enough to help it cross the bottleneck to enter level-four. If this level-three zombie had found a level-four superpowered nucleus, it would definitely be able to level up. However, a level-three zombie without a superpower had no qualification of casting its greedy eyes on level-four zombies.
Furthermore, finding a level-four zombie nucleus by the roadside was absolutely impossible.
Therefore, this level-three zombie had decided to go for the second best option, which was finding as many level-three zombie nuclei as possible. It had decided to choose quantity over quality, as the accumulation of energy might also lead to a breakthrough.
Besides, it had sensed that Lin Qiao was just a newly upgraded level-three zombie, and that her power didn’t seem to be stable yet.