"What?" Hou Xiaolin asked with a blank expression, "What is it?"

"Great runes. Song Xiaocheng repeated one side, but he didn't have much hope in his heart. It seems that the person in front of him is unlikely to know any useful information for him.

"Runes? What is that? Sounds like some kind of magic...... Little brother, how can you believe in these feudal superstitions at a young age?"

If this were a cartoon, Song Xiaocheng's face at this time would have been covered with black lines and huge question marks -- you yourself are a humanoid self-propelled feudal superstition propagandist! The earth is about to be drowned in feudal superstition!

But just when Song Xiaocheng was about to complain about him, Hou Xiaolin chattered casually again.

"Well, it doesn't matter. If that's what you're here to inquire about, then I don't have much to tell you. But I do know a person who specializes in these feudal superstitions. Go to him as long as you want. ”

If it had been placed a month ago, Song Xiaocheng would not have believed that the world he lived in would have become what he was looking like in front of him. And in the past half month, he has experienced too many things that can only exist in fantasies and dreams, which makes him much more receptive.

If the current zombie apocalypse is a troubled world that eats people, then Hou Xiaolin is probably a hidden master in the troubled times. Although sometimes he didn't like to speak well and looked like a stinky fart, he still allowed Song Xiaocheng and Lin Yu to stay in his room for one night, and made a bowl of instant noodles for one of them.

But even so, when Hou Xiaolin took him and Lin Yu to shuttle through the entire street unharmed, and at the same time, there were busy zombies passing by, Song Xiaocheng still felt that his cognition had been broken through again.

"What the hell are these zombies going on?"

"They died, but they came back to life. It has something to do with Hiratsuka Xie and those people, but I don't want to delve into it. What do you mean by 'what's going on?'" Hou Xiaolin said as he led the way.

"I mean, what the hell are they, where are they going, why are they so calm? like, it's like, it's ...... When I came from other towns, the zombies came at me like crazy, killing people everywhere, turning the living into their own kind, but these ......"

Hou Xiaolin sighed, seemingly feeling a little frustrated by Song Xiaocheng's problems.

"I thought you were smart. What's your name? Liu Xiaocheng?"

"Song Xiaocheng. ”

"Song Xiaocheng, no matter what your name is. The words you just asked sound like a seventeenth-century Western colonizer. When you ask those words, do you realize what you're talking about?"

Hou Xiaolin suddenly stopped, turned around, and looked at Song Xiaocheng levelly.

"Listen to your tone, it's as if the dead were all crazy. I thought that the young people of the post-90s generation should have a more advanced way of thinking, but I felt the smell of racism from your mouth. ”

"What? I ......"

"You think that's all you see. You think you've seen three or five hundred resurrected corpses in other places, and you've got a thorough understanding of the world of the dead. It's as if you read a few photos of bees and butterflies on the internet and think you know all the millions of insects on the planet. Song Xiaocheng, do you know how ignorant you were in what you said just now?"

Song Xiaocheng was dumbfounded for a while, Lin Yu glanced at him beside him, and also helped: "That's it." Song Xiaocheng, do you know how ignorant you are?"

"Some of these dead died in accidents, some died of illness, and some even died young. There are even some, like me, who died by suicide. They are nostalgic for this place, for the world of the living, but the living are never willing to share the beauty of the world with them, but are just blindly afraid of them. They also have their own lives - family, career, hobbies, and all kinds of emotions, but all this disappears with the end of their lives. Now—why, for whatever reason—they have another chance to come back into the world, to have all that they once had or longed for but failed to have, and to have people like you who only look at them with that prejudice and hatred. ”

"What do you mean? Wait...... Do you mean to say that these zombies ...... Are these people just living a normal life?"

"Look at them, young man, put away your arrogance and superiority, everyone is equal before death!"

Song Xiaocheng and Lin Yu followed Hou Xiaolin all the way, passing through the city they were originally familiar with. According to Song Xiaocheng's sense of direction, Hou Xiaolin took them all the way to the northeast, gradually moving away from the city's Third Central Hospital, which was also the opposite direction to the cemetery in Qinglongyuan.

Along the way, Song Xiaocheng only occasionally answered Lin Yu's curious questions, and did not take the initiative to speak. After all, now he is more interested in Hou Xiaolin, and in terms of the views of the zombie and the bald freak, the two obviously disagree. Song Xiaocheng felt that the bald freak was a damn monster that only brought killing and suffering, but Hou Xiaolin had a good impression of the monster named 'Hiratsuka Xie'. Song Xiaocheng thinks this may be a kind of Stockholm syndrome.

And Hou Xiaolin stopped from time to time to chat and say hello to the zombies on the side of the road, just like an old neighbor who had lived there for decades.

"Eh, Lao Zhang, have you eaten it? How have you been doing these two days?

Lao Zhang put his tongue into his rotten mouth and let out a series of clicking sounds and low hisses, which could be regarded as answering Hou Xiaolin's question.

"Well, yes. The first few cans were really bad, but this one should be better, right? I haven't seen centipedes again, have I?"

Lao Zhang let out another scream.

"Haha, that's good. Oh, these are my two friends, and I'm about to take them to Teacher Zeng's...... Phew!"

Hou Xiaolin spat and took Song Xiaocheng and them to continue walking.

After walking for more than half an hour, the three of them came to a crossroads, and Hou Xiaolin stopped.

"It's the building in front of you. See?" Hou Xiaolin pointed to a thick, low building from afar.

"Isn't that the Western Hotel?" Song Xiaocheng recognized that the building used to be a quasi-five-star hotel, and he had some work contacts with it.

"Do you know, I'm **, you said earlier, I won't go so far!" Hou Xiaolin said angrily, "After entering, find a person named Zeng Yiqiao in the hall and call him Teacher Zeng." He didn't like strangers very much, and I didn't get along with him, so I didn't go in. He might tell you about ...... Ahem – those feudal superstitions you want to know. ”

After speaking, Hou Xiaolin shook his head of woolen curly hair and turned to leave.

Song Xiaocheng took Lin Yu to carefully push aside the "crowd" and went around to the main entrance of the Western Hotel, but suddenly a female electronic radio voice came from the building-

"Warning! Intrusion detected! Lethal defenses will be activated!" followed by a click and a tearing sound, followed by a repeat of "warning" or something.

"Is this still a bilingual broadcast?" Song Xiaocheng complained, motioned for Lin Yu to hide behind him, and tentatively took another step towards the golden door of the Western Hotel.

"Bang-"

There was a loud bang, and something whistled past from a corner of the height, and Song Xiaocheng felt as if someone had punched him in the ribs, and it hurt so much that he couldn't do it. While grinning and rubbing his ribs with the palm of his hand, Song Xiaocheng saw a puddle of broken ice slag and melted water on the ground, and he didn't have time to care about Lin Yu, who was screaming in fright.

"Warning! Intrusion detected! will activate...... Ouch, these cultists really don't listen to persuasion!" the woman's electronic voice sighed impatiently.

"I**!" Song Xiaocheng pulled up his shirt and saw that his ribs had been punched with a fist-sized red swell.

"Bang-"

There was another loud bang, this time Song Xiaocheng was prepared, and Ignyi, who picked up his right hand, let out a burst of high temperature, and blocked a projectile with his palm - it was an ice bomb.

Before he could take a closer look, more ice bombs fired at him, and he had to hurriedly block them with both hands.

However, the fire of the "defense system" became more and more ferocious, and more and more ice bombs began to shoot at him. Song Xiaocheng, who couldn't resist it, was hit several times on his face and shoulder. Just when he felt that he might not be able to hold it out, and was about to turn around and explain the future to Lin Yu, the artillery attack suddenly stopped.

"Hey, you, kid, what are you doing?"

There was a figure standing in front of the glittering revolving gate, a little difficult to see in the harsh sunlight. But Song Xiaocheng felt that at least he had survived.

"I**...... I'm here to see Mr. Zeng! Mr. Zeng......"

Song Xiaocheng raised his head, and a large lump appeared on the left side of his face.

When a zombie and Lin Yu helped Song Xiaocheng into the lobby of the Western Hotel, he even wondered if he was in the right place.

In his impression, although it is not extremely luxurious, the quasi-five-star Western Hotel can be regarded as magnificent - reflective marble floors, golden crystal chandeliers, huge and exaggerated indoor statues, dried flowers and handicrafts everywhere, Song Xiaocheng remembers that there is a rather elaborate dry landscape landscape in the corner of the hall - but none of these appear in front of him.

Although it still looks like a quasi-five-star hotel lobby in terms of floor height and scale, the things placed and the overall atmosphere look like a machine factory. The corners are littered with wrenches and hammers, and all sorts of mechanical gadgets that look pretty powerful. There were about a dozen people in the room, all busy cleaning up their own things.

"Just leave him there...... Sit still, boy, Lily will take care of you. I can't believe that someone can survive the fire of the FB-3000 model, you are really a god!"

A little old man beckoned them through the door of the hotel and walked away again. After the tall zombie who helped Song Xiaocheng in and threw him in a leather sofa, a petite and delicate little guy walked around from behind the tall zombie. Although it looks like the skin is still intact, not much decayed, and even a little cute, it still can't hide the fact that zombies are present.

Song Xiaocheng felt as if he had been beaten by someone, his face and ribs hurt badly, and now he must have been bruised. I had to lie on a leather sofa and feel the pain on my body a little bit.

While looking at the zombie girl named Lily, smearing a lump of yellow-green slurry on the bruises on her body, Song Xiaocheng chatted with the people in the hall. Unfortunately, only the little old man in this room seems to be able to speak, and the others are zombies.

"What's wrong with the zombies? These zombies saved my life! Besides, do I need to remind you that they saved your life just now?"

As he spoke, the little old man turned around excitedly, and Song Xiaocheng saw that not only was the whole left hand a metallic prosthetic, but also the left half of his body had no flesh and skin at all, only bones with a metallic luster. Through the metal ribs, you can see the beating heart inside.

As he spoke, Mr. Zeng attached a whole piece of metal shell to his body, blocking it tightly in front of his exposed ribs, like a tailor-made part shell.

The little old man in front of him, who is full of a sense of science and technology, is the "Teacher Zeng" that Song Xiaocheng is looking for. According to his own account, he was originally a mechanic in the hotel computer room, and "some external force" caused his body to undergo a strange regrowth, and as a result, his intelligence was greatly improved.

"Since then, they have all called me 'Wise Sage'!" said the little old man smugly.

"Hmm, so you've had a drastic increase in brain volume right now?"

"No!uh...... You can say that, but that's not the point. Let's put it this way, every inch of skin, every bone, every drop of blood on my body now is an independent mind. ”

"Like ...... Octopus like that?"

"Yes, that's right!" Mr. Zeng suddenly turned around and said excitedly, as if he had found a soulmate, "I guess that at the moment when my body mutated and grew, there must have been a huge toxin explosion somewhere around here!"

"What...... What?"

"Toxin eruption, young man! Hey, don't talk about that. You two came to me, is there anything wrong?"

Teacher Zeng hit the metal shell on his body with a hammer, twisted his left arm again, put on his clothes and walked to Song Xiaocheng's side.

"Oh! I have a question for you. Have you ever heard of the 'Great Rune'?"

When they heard the words "Great Rune", the people in the entire hall stopped what they were doing one by one as if they had heard some ugly swear words, and looked back at Song Xiaocheng, and Teacher Zeng's face suddenly became gloomy.

Song Xiaocheng knew that he had come to the right place.