Chrysalis

Chapter 53: Chapter53 – Hot Pursuit

Translator: Law Editor: Hitesh_

Zombies fed on human beings. Many survivors didn’t know yet that zombies could die without food, although their death would only happen slowly. The lower level zombies could live longer without eating than the higher level ones because they were sluggish and didn’t need much energy. They loitered slowly and lazily because they had nothing to eat.

The higher level zombies had intelligence, nimble bodies, and superpowers, but all these needed to be supported by energy. Without eating human beings, high-leveled zombies would gradually degenerate into low-leveled zombies, and then the zombie virus in their bodies would begin to lose activity. When the virus in their bodies was completely dead, these zombies would become ordinary corpses and rot.

As low-level zombies had great resistance to hunger, they could live for three to five years without food, but would become slower and slower. High-level zombies didn’t have such great resistance to starvation. Normally, a high-level zombie could only live for a year without food. Without eating human beings, they needed to find other energy resources, such as zombie nuclei.

However, zombie nuclei were merely temporary substitutes.

Among all human organs, the heart contained the nutrition which was the best for high-level zombies, and tasted much better than the other parts of human bodies. The blood in human hearts had a richer flavor than the blood from the other parts.

Therefore, high-level zombies would always eat the heart first, because that was their staple food.

The zombie leader finished two heads and two hearts, leaving the rest to the level-three zombies.

When they had almost finished, the zombie leader cast a roar for summoning them to continue chasing Lin Qiao. The three zombies seemed like swiftly running beasts as they darted in the direction which Lin Qiao was driving in.

After half an hour, Lin Qiao found that she had driven onto a bridge. The bridge wasn’t long, only about eighty meters; but the problem was… it had already collapsed.

She parked the car at the end of the road and then stuck her head out of the car window to get a clearer look at the front. Looking at the broken bridge, she sighed and turned back to glance at Xie Dong, finding some change in his face. His face seemed to be paler than before, but the lifeless bluish color was gone.

Xie Dong had seen the road condition too, and learned that they couldn’t proceed along this road.

At the moment, he was a lot calmer than before. He still felt very uncomfortable, but had been learning to endure it slowly.

Besides, his body had changed a little as well. He felt that he was nimbler, and his muscles were less stiff and senseless compared to before; moving had become much easier for him. He even felt that his control over his power that he had before turning into a zombie had started to come back.

He also had a faint feeling that his mind was much clearer than before. He had felt confused and unreal earlier on, but that feeling was gone now.

He looked at the front, then raised a hand to point behind, and then crooked his finger.

Lin Qiao knew what he meant. He wanted Lin Qiao to drive back because there was another road about ten kilometers away, and that detour was the only available path now.

Lin Qiao nodded, then started the car and turned it around, driving back.

However, she suddenly braked hard after a few kilometers. Xie Dong’s eyes were dazzled before he realized what was happening, and then he found that both he and the car were already in Lin Qiao’s space.

As for Lin Qiao, she was standing on the grassland outside the car at the moment.

Less than three seconds after Lin Qiao’s car disappeared on the highway, a figure darted to where it was.

“Roar!” The figure circled around, then suddenly raised its head to let out an angry roar which sounded like that of beasts.

In her space, Lin Qiao had her eyes closed to check the situation outside, and couldn’t help but frown.

This zombie leader had actually been chasing after her all this time. Lin Qiao assumed that this zombie had to absorb the nucleus in her head to vent its anger. How could it be so vengeful? It was such a misfortune for her to encounter this zombie.

Xie Dong opened the car door and got off the car with confusion. He had no idea why Lin Qiao suddenly bought both of them and the car into her space, but judging by her hasty look, she might have sensed some danger.

Lin Qiao opened her eyes when she heard the noise that Xie Dong made, then saw the confused look in his eyes. So, she took out the pen and a piece of paper, and started writing— ‘That level-five zombie has caught up.’

Having finished writing, the look in her eyes darkened, and fierceness surged in those black eyes.

She needed to figure out a way to take out that level-five zombie! But, she felt that she wasn’t strong enough to defeat it at the moment, not to mention that it had two level-three underlings.

As for Xie Dong, he looked like a level-three intelligent zombie; but in fact, his actual combat capacity wasn’t even as good as that of an ordinary level-two zombie. That was because he hadn’t eaten a human being, and hadn’t been getting energy from human flesh and blood.

The two level-three zombies had both eaten human beings, which was why they reached level-three. Undoubtedly, they were strong and brutal.

Therefore, Xie Dong couldn’t even rival one of them.

On the other hand, the pressure that Lin Qiao sensed from the level-five zombie seemed to be a little lighter than before. This meant that she had grown stronger than before, but she didn’t know how that happened. All she knew was that this improvement started since she was struck by Wu Chengyue’s lightning.

Thinking about that, Lin Qiao was confused a little. The other zombies needed to eat human flesh or absorb zombie nuclei to improve their strength. But for her, absorbing the energies contained in zombie nuclei and crystal nuclei were both ineffective, but being struck by lightning worked. Why was that?

What the hell was going on? Did she need to find that man and ask him to strike her with lighting when she wanted to improve her strength again?

Was this a joke?

Reading her note, Xie Dong paused slightly and then knitted his brows as well. He looked at Lin Qiao, his eyes asking a question.

Lin Qiao ran away every time she saw that level-five zombie, but to keep running wasn’t a solution. All this while, Xie Dong believed that she should be no weaker than that level-five zombie. As for why she ran away at the sight of that zombie every time, Xie Dong guessed that it might because she didn’t want to fight. After all, once a fight was started, both of them would suffer, and maybe pay a serious price.

Lin Qiao sensed his thoughts when looking him in the eyes, so she wrote on the paper—’I am no match for it. I’ll be the one defeated if we fight. I don’t want extra troubles for now.’

She didn’t want to fight the level-five zombie here, as the only thing she wanted was to find her family. After all, some unpredictable results could be caused if she started the fight. For example, if she lost the fight, or were disabled from moving, she would have to spend more time to recover.

She hadn’t heard a thing about her family yet. She didn’t even know if they were alive or not. So, she had, in fact, been quite anxious; but had rationally restrained her emotions so that she could calmly accept the fact that she was a zombie, then find the path to South.