Undead

Chapter 50

In late February, the southern regions started to warm up, and the ice on the river began to break. The car drove through desolate and uninhabited villages, parting the fields covered in lingering snow, speeding south.

In front of an abandoned gas station on the outskirts of a town, the road was deserted, and weeds, dust, and garbage danced in the cold wind. Zhou Rong stopped the car, gesturing for Si Nan to stay in the warm car, and then he went to pick up a diesel nozzle.

Si Nan unfolded a national highway map and saw a small convenience store ahead, surprisingly without clear signs of looting. He opened the car door and asked, "Do you want cigarettes?"

Zhou Rong replied politely, "No, for the sake of my partner's health, I decided to quit smoking... Go back! Get back in!"

While Zhou Rong was filling the tank, he braced the car door, but Si Nan pushed the door outward forcefully, saying, "Don't make this kind of sacrifice, Rong-ge. I'm very democratic; you can smoke as much as you want. I'll go get them... Let go! We finally found a store; let me go!"

The two of them tugged at the door for a while until Si Nan's gaze suddenly sharpened, and he said, "Quick, come up, there are zombies!"

Zhou Rong subconsciously turned around, but there was nothing on the road behind him.

Like a lightning bolt, Si Nan ran out from the other side of the car, holding his snack box. An emaciated zombie with an elongated arm stumbled out of the store, following closely behind him.

Zhou Rong's expression changed immediately. He rushed forward, but then he saw Si Nan turn around and leap onto the zombie's shoulders with a dazzling acrobatic move, breaking the zombie's neck with a twist of his knees.

The zombie howled and fell down, and Si Nan landed gracefully, not even bothering to look at it, walking towards Zhou Rong with a lollipop in his mouth.

"...," Zhou Rong looked down at Si Nan's calm and innocent face from above and asked, "...What about the cigarettes?"

"I forgot," Si Nan suddenly realized.

He stuffed the snack box into Zhou Rong's arms, turned around, and went back to the store to grab a few packs of cigarettes. Zhou Rong rummaged through the boxes in the car door, feeling both amused and melancholic.

"When we were dating, you would sneak out at night to eat sweets and even remembered to bring me cigarettes. But as soon as we got married, the treatment went downhill, and you don't even care about me anymore. It turns out I'm not worth much to you now..."

Worthless Zhou-ge patted Si Nan's head, peeled off the candy wrapper, and put a piece of candy into his mouth.

Si Nan ate the candy and an Alpenliebe apple-flavored lollipop at the same time. He sat cross-legged on the passenger seat, occasionally frowning as he looked at the map.

"It's a bit strange," he said.

"Right," Zhou Rong, cigarette in hand, casually said, "I told you we were on the wrong road. You insisted on following the map..."

Si Nan said, "I meant the candy tastes strange. Is it expired?"

Zhou Rong immediately stopped the car, retrieved the wrapper from the miscellaneous compartment in the car door, and carefully examined it. He found that the expiration date was still a year away, which relieved him.

Si Nan was not entirely satisfied. "Why does it taste so different from what I remember?"

Zhou Rong couldn't explain to the mixed-blood why the cheap milk candies sold at the gas station's small shop in the township didn't taste like milk. He had to comfort him, "I'll take you to Inner Mongolia in the future, find a grassland, and live in a tent specifically for you to raise dairy cows."