It was not the first time that the driver had led someone into the Dead City Forest, and judging from his calm expression, we didn't get lost, but I didn't recognize where I was. The van was filled with the musty smell of people's sweat, and the humid air made me feel like I was inhaling water mist in my lungs. Xie Tao and I sat in the last row, and the people in the first two rows were looking out the window and chatting quietly. In contrast, I had been silent for an hour since I left Wanxiang City.

The search for the Dead City Forest has progressed, and our destination this time is the location of what is believed to be the source of the virus; The team that found the clue to this location did not dare to enter rashly, so they had to wait for Liao Zhuojun in our team to confirm it. Long before this, Liao Zhuojun had basically demarcated the dense forest areas within the range of the Dead City Forest, but according to the information added later, the number of dense forest areas was far from the same, and many of them were unknown areas deep in the middle of the Dead City Forest. So they used a carpet search, based on vegetation cover density and sampling analysis to find the true source of the virus.

However, on the third day after the search began, someone captured a group of converts who believed in the crooked cult, and after some torture, they learned from him that a place they had enshrined as a temple was in a huge dense forest area, and it seemed that the original location was the original large square on the main road of Nanning, and an assembly hall next to the square was this so-called temple.

I heard others say that this area was originally a quarantine area for the isolation and management of virus-infected citizens, and later an accident occurred in the quarantine area, and the uncontrolled infected people spread from here. And it seems that a helicopter crashed into the General Assembly Hall at that time, causing a fire, and the commotion has been out of control ever since. It seems that from these clues, this place is likely to be the source of the virus we are looking for.

Because the greening of that area was relatively comprehensive at the beginning, it has now just become the basis for the growth of mutant plants, and a large area of green belt has become a cluster of mutant plants. The trees on both sides of the main road are shading the sky and the sun, the huge aerial root vines are intricately coiled, and the grass is uneven at waist height, if you walk along the main road, it is basically difficult to see the original low-rise buildings on the roadside, as for those high-rise buildings are crumbling in the wind, and the mottled outer walls are falling off one by one. Empty cities are drowning in green, and traces of humanity are being swallowed up by nature little by little.

"Did you bring this gun?" Xie Tao asked me without words.

"Hmm...... "I only brought a Type 92 police pistol, which Long Hao got for me, and the other is the Han sword that Wei Jiahui gave us, this sword was originally meant to be returned to Wei Hong, but he hoped that I could bring it, which can be regarded as a farewell gift." As for the original rifle, it is long unknown where it was lost. But then again, I don't really need weapons anymore, as mutants are basically no threat to me. This pistol, to be honest, is actually meant to deal with humans.

"You'll just have to follow me then." Xie Tao showed a simple smile as a young soldier, he always maintained his best condition when he was fully armed, although I am no longer just a student now, but his nature of protecting the people as a soldier may have been deeply rooted.

I nodded with a smile, and Xie Tao finally sighed reassuringly after seeing me smile, "Don't worry." Chen Mo and Huang Weizheng returned to the train station. ”

Xie Tao does understand the reason why I'm depressed right now, but it's also obvious. Before we leave today, my friends and I saw each other for the last time. At the same time as we leave Wanxiang, they will also follow the people of the river to the train station. It took the Jiangshang people three days to find a train that could leave Nanning, and not only that, but they also worked out a route to Beihai City, and fortunately, one of the Jiangshangren's fleet was once the conductor of a certain train. After making sure that nothing went wrong at the other end of the train station, Huang Weizheng and the others took the vaccine and finally got on the hope train.

Everyone was calm when they parted, only Chen Mo's eyes were red from crying. In addition to Xie Tao, friends who came all the way from Tianyang will leave Nanning together. This may really be the last goodbye in this life, the strange thing is that the simpler the goodbye is, the more sad it is, the tearful smile seems to have become the last freeze frame in the memory, and the turn after saying goodbye is so solemn. When I think about it now, I still seem to feel indescribable pain in my heart.

Unexpectedly, Xie Tao would stay with me to carry out this mission, he said that this was his mission, when he left Tianyang, Liu Licheng ordered him to find me and protect my safety, it seems that he is determined to carry out this mission to the end. In addition to Xie Tao, the driver of the car was Uncle Zhong, who narrowly escaped death in the fire in Qingshan last time, and I heard that it seems that he still found the safety zone of the hexagonal tower that Qingshan survived and re-established. It seems that he came to Wanxiang City with Liao Daiping a few days ago, but this is the third time he has entered the Dead City Forest; Actually, I don't know why he signed up for this mission, maybe there is no return. In addition, Liu Yanjiang was also in our car, but he participated in this mission as a representative of the Jiangshang people. According to him, this was the opportunity that Wei Jiahui gave him to return to Jiangshang again. Sitting next to Liao Zhuojun was the female soldier named Li Qin, who was responsible for keeping Yang Shanao's plant vaccines, and she was also silent and observed everyone around her with a sharp eye along the way, and I also heard her and Liao Zhuojun's simple greetings at the beginning.

A few of them were the only ones I could name in this car, and the others were scouts or scavengers from the old Castle Mountain, but fortunately they were all talking together now, and they all called each other brothers. Although the mouth is not very clean, it is better than being incompatible with each other.

Xie Tao was still looking at me innocently, as if he was still waiting for me to respond to what he just said. "I didn't worry about that, it wouldn't be much of a problem for them to get to the train station. It's just that after leaving Nanning, I don't know what trouble I will encounter. I deliberately turned my head to look out the window, because Xie Tao could tell my dulicitous heart based on my expression.

"Ha, don't worry about it, now we just think about how to live." Xie Tao said, and patted my shoulder with his strong big hand, almost dislocating my shoulder, "Don't worry, we will all live......"

Xie Tao said the second half of the sentence very quietly, as if he was saying it to himself. I'm not in the mood to comfort anyone at the moment, so it's better to just wait quietly for our car to reach its destination. No sooner had this thought crossed my mind than our driver suddenly hit the brakes. The entire carriage was pushed forward by inertia.

"What's going on!" Someone among our people complained, "Uncle Zhong, aren't you a veteran?" And hit the brakes like this! ”

"Don't talk nonsense, look ahead." Uncle Zhong's tone was different from before, serious mixed with more horror.

"God......" sat in front of me, and the middle-aged man who was still laughing just now trembled and opened the car door, and slowly walked out of the car with the others.

Xie Tao and I were both in the back seat of the car, and we didn't see anything unusual outside the window, but as soon as we got out of the car, we knew why the people in front of us couldn't speak. Liao Zhuojun couldn't help but vomit a big puddle next to me, not only her, but many guys who looked fierce and vicious were sick to their stomachs. Directly in front of us were seven or eight headless corpses hanging upside down. Their hands and heads were cut off, several carrion-eating birds were eating black, rancid rotten flesh, and flies were buzzing around the carcasses. Beneath these hangings was a corpse that had been dismantled in eight pieces, its limbs and head had been cut off, and all of them were stuck in sharpened wood, and stood on the ground around the torso, and the pieces of the other corpses' hands were also standing around the torso, as if the hands from hell were dragging it into hell.

Several seasoned teammates had recovered from the shock and looked around vigilantly with their weapons drawn. But there doesn't seem to be anyone else here but us. The corpse in front of us should be the companion who was supposed to meet us, and behind that was the dense forest. The blocks on the left and right were covered with thick branches and vines, and the long queue of cars spread crookedly to the end, this is the scene of a series of collisions between dozens of cars, and the people who were stuck in the cars have long since become mutants, unable to move, and can only scream when they see us. I can barely get to the other side of the block, but I don't think anyone will want to do that.

"It's our people." Our leader was a middle-aged man named Brother Kun, he covered his mouth with a scarf, leaned through the corpses, found an identifiable object in their clothing, and rummaged through the bag of the most brutally dismembered torso, "This should be the cultist of the Dead City Forest that we captured. ”

"And who did this? It can't be a zombie, right? ”

"Maybe it's the cultists, this may be the fate of their traitors." Brother Kun walked back to us, took out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, picked one up, pointed at me with his chin as he lit the cigarette, and asked, "Hey, little white face, what's the name of those people?" ”

"Converts ......"

"Converts,." Brother Kun took a puff of cigarette and looked around at a few of us, "How is it?" Do you want to go in? ”

"Brother Kun...... If they really did it, they were warning us not to go in. A guy who was already trembling said with a pale face, "I think, let's go back......"

"If they do, we're in the right place." Liao Zhuojun didn't know when she had gone to collect some plant samples with Liu Yanjiang, she was busy taking out her tools, and said to us while examining the samples on the hood of the van, "Give me some time......

Liao Zhuojun also muttered a few words, but I didn't hear it clearly, and I didn't pay much attention to it. Xie Tao blinked, lowered his head and thought carefully for a while, then raised his head and said, "I remember...... This dense forest area is a sacred place for converts, and they believe in the power of viruses to mutate plants, right? If so, it proves that there must be something strange about this so-called holy place. The more they didn't let us get closer, the more important that holy place became. ”

"Maybe that's where a bunch of crazy people gather, aren't we looking for death?" One of them was starting to retreat, and the sinister look they had before they came here was now like a frightened rat.

"It's not that they don't have any guys at hand, and they are all dead...... I don't want to ...... that."

"That's right, Brother Kun, go back and call for more manpower."

"People are teenagers who don't speak, why do you have the face to yell here?" Brother Kun puffed out a cigarette, squinted his eyes and asked me, "Little ghost, aren't you afraid?" ”

I shook my head, I wanted to say a few words, but the few people behind me who wanted to go back suddenly said: "This kid has eaten people, what else can he be afraid of?" ”

I stared coldly at the two trembling guys, wondering if they would be scared if I pretended to eat people at this point. However, I still ignored those few people who were as timid as mice, and simply suggested directly to Brother Kun: "Let's go our separate ways, if you are willing to continue to move forward, you can continue, and if you are unwilling, you can just go back and report to the mayor and ask for support." ”

"Well, let's do it." Brother Kun was still swallowing the clouds and spitting fog, and by the way, he counted a few people who couldn't wait to leave, "You guys, drive the car back too, we probably won't have a way to go." ”

Uncle Zhong unloaded some equipment from the car, put it on his back, and didn't seem to plan to drive the car back, he said to the people who had already gotten into the car: "Some of you also know the way, so just drive back by yourself." ”

"Uncle Zhong, won't you drive us back?" Someone in the car shouted.

"I've only been here, and I've seen so many brothers die here, I don't have the face to go back now." Uncle Zhong had a beer belly, his eyes were a little gloomy, and he was reluctant to explain more.

The few who wanted to go back couldn't help it, but they turned the car around as fast as they could, and I could only hear the sound of their hurried engines echoing through the empty urban forest.

Brother Kun dropped the cigarette butt, crushed it with his foot, weighed the rifle in his hand, turned around and swaggered towards the direction of the dense forest. "Let's go, I'm going to find a place to spend the night in this hellish place before it gets dark."

Although I don't know Brother Kun's real name, the way he acts is a bit like a dead old wolf. Like the old wolf, he is also a scavenger in Wanxiang, but he is not a mercenary like the old wolf, but a subordinate who used to be punished. It is said that the lightning-shaped scar on his lip was left by someone who was severely attacked when he protected Zhang Xing in the early days of establishing the Wanxiang City Security Zone.

Brother Kun is not tall, although he is an authentic Guangxi person, his skin is rough but not dark, and he can't see how big the city is in those small eyes, just straightforward indifference. He was carrying a frayed leather shoulder bag, and the old rifle in his hand looked like it had once been the equipment of the armed police.

Under the influence of returning to the southern sky, the entire forest was filled with gray mist, as if shrouded in white veil, and the sunlight could not penetrate the white fog at all, and could only shine a faint light helplessly. The foliage on both sides and the exterior walls of the occasional building were covered with large dew drops, and we were all sweating profusely. The humid air numbed my sense of smell and made me feel a little difficult to breathe, and I even began to wonder if the mist was poisonous or not.

The fog was getting heavier and heavier, and we could barely see the road in front of us. Brother Kun asked our team to stay close to each other and not too far away from each other, so as not to sneak attack. Every step of the way was terrifying, and every shadow hiding in the fog looked like a threat, a mutant, a convert, or some other madman we didn't know about, but none of the good guys I could think of that could pop up out of nowhere. The soft dead leaves and mud under the soles of the feet can never make people feel at ease with their feet on the ground. Over time, I felt as if there was no end in sight to this road.

"Are you sure we're going in the right direction?" I asked Brother Kun distractedly while paying attention to the situation around me.

He also seemed to be suspicious of the direction in which we were going, and the heaviness of the moment had been shaken; Brother Kun should be in his thirties, and he doesn't seem to be as calm as an old wolf, to put it bluntly, the prestige he currently maintains in the team is only earned by a fierce look.

"There should be no mistake, we should be walking near the main road." Brother Kun is actually not very sure about his words.

I looked at Xie Tao, I'm afraid he is more reliable at this time, but he just shrugged his shoulders, and it seems that there is no other way but to continue to move forward.

"Am I lost?" The moment Liu Yanjiang opened his mouth, the whole person suddenly fell down, feeling like he had suddenly fallen into a cliff in the fog. With his exclamation, all of us rushed forward to help. How can it be a good road...... We passed through the white fog and saw a large crater in which all dead people were lying.

The pit was dozens of meters long, right next to the sidewalk we were walking on. Most of the corpses inside were charred, and it was difficult to discern how many people had died here from the charred corpses, and the hideous limbs seemed to be the last frame of their struggle, even in the dead city forest full of mutated plants, this area was not a single grass.

Liu Yanjiang, who fell into the pile of dead people, shouted hysterically for us to pull him out of the pit. As soon as Xie Tao and I worked together to pull him up, we saw him take off his coat and shake it vigorously, scratching his hair as if he was dancing samba and shaking all over. We stood by stupidly, not knowing if he was overly frightened or for some other reason. It wasn't until I saw him shake off a lot of small white worms from his body that I realized that the corpses in the pit had long since grown maggots.

"It's okay." I stepped forward to ask Liu Yanjiang, who had gradually calmed down.

He nodded tremblingly, his face pale, and whispered that he was fine. Just when we thought the episode was about to end, one of our teammates suddenly screamed again. As soon as we all turned around, we realized that he was standing on the edge of the grass and was being gnawed and dragged into the grass by three or four mutants. All of us immediately took out our weapons and rushed over, Li Qin was the first to shoot and burst the head of a mutant, and Xie Tao and I worked together to cut off the skinny hands of the mutant who was holding on to his teammates, and Brother Kun then smashed the head of the last mutant with the butt of the gun, and Uncle Zhong took the opportunity to pull the bloody teammate back.

The man's left shoulder was almost torn off by the mutant, and there was also a bite on his right leg, and the Achilles tendon was presumably torn off. He was coughing up blood and looking at us helplessly with complaining eyes.

"Okay, it's okay......" Brother Kun whispered to comfort his dying teammate, and before he could breathe, he pulled out the dagger and plunged it firmly into the back of his head. The man gasped for his last breath of pleasure, and hurried away before he could close his eyes. Brother Kun lowered his head, and just as we were about to fall into silence, he suddenly burst out and scolded me: "Aren't you there? Why is this happening? ”

"I ...... I never promised to keep you safe from mutants! I knew this was going to happen, "You're too reliant on my abilities that even I'm not sure about." ”

"Hmph, what a fuck up." Brother Kun shook his hand and covered his face and walked aside, turned his back to us and sighed, "If this is the case, we may all die in this ......."

"Wait, Du Yuheng......" Xie Tao seemed to think of something, he grabbed my shoulders and frowned, "I remember, you told me...... You can't stop the mutants only when the 'fat man' appears, can't you? ”

That's right, if Xie Tao said so, there must be a sarcoma monster around here, and it means ...... "It's over, we have to get out of here quickly!" ”

"Do you sense something is wrong?" Uncle Zhong saw that Xie Tao and I had different faces, so he hurriedly asked.

As soon as he finished speaking, the wails and staggering footsteps of mutants could be heard in the thick fog. We looked around, unable to see which direction the mutants in the fog were coming from, their voices coming from all directions, not knowing if it was because of the echoes in the city or if we were really under siege.

"Let's go......" Brother Kun looked around, and seeing that we were all a little overwhelmed, he immediately shouted, "Hurry up, hurry up, go quickly!" ”

"Where are you going?"

"Keep going." Brother Kun was actually as clueless as Uncle Zhong, but he decided to take a gamble.

And as it turned out, he was right. There aren't many mutants in front of us, and we can barely handle it. For me in particular, even if I can't get the mutants to stop, I can still guarantee that I won't be harmed by them. So I simply took the lead, and the sword in my hand was also a good melee weapon. We worked together to fight our way out, but the mutants behind us still chased after us. Liao Zhuojun ran out of breath, and Liu Yanjiang had to keep pulling her to follow behind me.

"Don't look backwards!" Xie Tao shouted at us as he lit a can in his hand.

I was about to ask him what he was doing, when he threw his head back, and I quickly turned around, and then a white light flashed from behind us, and the screams of mutants were incessant. After running a distance, I glanced back and saw that there were fewer mutants behind me.

"Liu Yijing's homemade flashbang." Xie Tao bared his white teeth, and seemed to enjoy the feeling of running hysterically for his life and killing the mutant again.

I saw Liu Yijing use this flashbang when I first met her, and it was thanks to her that we were able to save a life. Although Xie Tao has a real military flashbang on his body, it seems that he prefers to try this local thing, just like a child likes to set off firecrackers during the Chinese New Year. In order to distance himself, Xie Tao threw another flashbang at the back, and by the time I looked back, I basically couldn't see many mutants.

Running wildly in the thick fog, we couldn't determine the direction, and as we ran, I suddenly noticed that five or six mutants appeared faintly in the fog in front of me. Brother Kun also discovered them, and just told us to prepare to deal with them, but when we got closer, we realized that these were not five or six mutants, but a group! The road ahead was blocked by abandoned cars, and it wasn't just us who couldn't move forward, there was a whole bunch of mutants. They all turned around and approached us when they realized our presence.

I pierced one of the "kind" in front of me and jumped on the hood of a small car, trying to see ahead. I saw the figures of mutants constantly emerging at the end of the white mist, and countless armies of the living dead approached us in this way.