Chapter 43: The Tragedy That Drove One Mad

After venting his anger, Qin Zhong let out a deep sigh. Although the girl had recklessly run off without knowing the immensity of heaven and earth, he could not simply ignore her. After all, finding a trustworthy partner was no easy task.

Holding his camp lantern, Qin Zhong searched around the room and discovered that Xiao Yingyong’s crossbow, diving knife, backpack, and other items were all gone. She must have taken them with her.

However, the floodwaters on the streets had not yet receded. With the water standing at half a person's height, wading across would be extremely difficult. How on earth did this girl expect to reach the Grand Gateway Building?

At that moment, a thought suddenly crossed Qin Zhong's mind. He opened the door, walked down the corridor to a room near the back, and remembered that they had previously identified this space as a storage room.

It had been filled with various equipment discarded by the aquarium, including three kayaks. When Qin Zhong came over to check, sure enough, one of them was missing. It seemed to have been dragged away by that girl.

Without even pausing to eat, Qin Zhong grabbed his weapons and various supplies, dragged a kayak outside, and pushed off. Because of the torrential rains over the past few days, the streets had turned into a vast expanse of water. Countless zombies drifted up and down in the current, exposing only their withered heads.

Qin Zhong paddled the kayak across five or six streets, working up a heavy sweat. Ahead lay an intersection, and just past it, the Grand Gateway Building stood on the opposite corner.

However, when Qin Zhong paddled his way there, the sight before him came as a shock. This particular intersection was situated in a low-lying area, and the flowing water had carried numerous zombies here.

The floodwaters appeared even deeper here, reaching nearly the height of a man. At a single glance, Qin Zhong saw the intersection densely packed with countless floating zombie heads.

Although these zombies could not swim, cutting through the middle of them risked attracting their attention. If they swarmed him, they would undoubtedly capsize his tiny kayak.

After a brief consideration, Qin Zhong decided to detour. After all, safety came first.

Just then, Qin Zhong felt the stern of the kayak sink suddenly. He hurriedly looked back to find a small group of zombies drifting down with the current, now surrounding the boat.

Attracted perhaps by the scent of a living human, these zombies extended their withered, pale claws and grabbed the gunwale. Looking at those claws, Qin Zhong was inexplicably reminded of pickled chicken feet.

"Get lost!"

The situation was critical, and Qin Zhong dared not hesitate. He raised his paddle high and brought it down hard on a zombie's head, cracking its skull wide open.

Yet, Qin Zhong was only one man; he could defend the front but not the back. With their stiff limbs, the zombies struggled to exert force while submerged and could not climb aboard, but their relentless rocking abruptly flipped the small kayak over.

***

Fortunately, Qin Zhong had anticipated the danger. The moment he fell into the water, he simply held his breath without surfacing. Gripping his backpack, he dove and swam beneath the zombies' feet toward the nearest building.

Soon, Qin Zhong's hands brushed against a wall. Kicking upward, he broke the surface of the water. The water here was exceptionally deep, nearly reaching the bottom of the second-floor windows. Seizing the window sill, he hoisted himself inside the bedroom.

Once inside, a wave of irritation washed over him. Having lost the kayak, getting to the Grand Gateway Building was now completely out of the question.

...

"Hahaha!"

Just as Qin Zhong was feeling frustrated, a burst of loud laughter suddenly rang out from the direction of the living room, startling him profoundly. Although it was laughter, it sounded no different from weeping, carrying an intensely desolate and tragic tone within its cadence.

Qin Zhong had never heard a sound that was neither quite crying nor quite laughing. Although the sky outside was bright, hearing the sound so unexpectedly sent a chill rising from the soles of his feet, as if he had stepped directly into hell.

Even someone as bold as Qin Zhong trembled all over. With a swish, he drew the Miao saber from his back and turned his gaze toward the living room.

The bedroom door was left ajar. Peering through the crack, he could only see pitch blackness. Qin Zhong stepped closer to the door and shouted, "Who's there? Are you human or a ghost?"

At his shout, the person outside let out another round of howling laughter. "That's right, haha, I'm a ghost. You guessed right, I'm a ghost, haha, haha!"

Hearing the laughter grow louder, harsh and grating, Qin Zhong furrowed his brow, thinking to himself, "It sounds human enough. This person must have cracked mentally under the weight of reality."

With that thought, Qin Zhong wedged his Miao saber into the door crack and, maintaining high vigilance, slowly pushed the ajar door open.

The moment the door opened, a foul stench rushed into his nose. Qin Zhong instinctively covered his nose and took a step back. Utilizing the light filtering in, he saw a disheveled woman sitting on the living room floor, covered in filth, looking neither fully human nor ghost-like.

Although he had a vague premonition beforehand, seeing her state still caused Qin Zhong to frown deeply. Hesitating for a moment, he asked cautiously, "What happened to you? Are there any other people here?"

There were several dark, bruised patches on the woman's face, resembling dried bloodstains. She pointed toward another bedroom and said, "Haha, haha, and my husband... he's inside."

Hearing her words, Qin Zhong frowned slightly, feeling puzzled. If her husband was still around, why would he leave her sitting on the floor in such a state?

***

Seeing that the door to the other bedroom was wide open, Qin Zhong walked over to the threshold in a few strides. The scene inside the room churned his stomach, and he finally understood the source of the foul odor.

Qin Zhong quickly pulled the door shut, though he still couldn't stop himself from retching dryly for a moment. At that moment, the woman's ghost-like laughter rang out again. "He forced me to, haha, he forced me to! Haha, haha!"

"Can you stop laughing for a moment and talk properly?"

The woman's laughter was so spine-chilling that it drew an angry roar from Qin Zhong: "You killed him, didn't you?!"

Qin Zhong's angry shout caused the woman's body to shudder, as if she had regained a fleeting moment of clarity. But immediately her eyes clouded over with emptiness again as she muttered to herself, "It was me, I killed him, I killed him."

Combining the scene inside the room with the woman's rambling, Qin Zhong pieced together the basic truth of the matter. The two of them must have been survivors of the apocalypse who had been living here all along.

Perhaps the husband had gone out to scavenge for supplies, been bitten by a zombie, and realizing he was infected, forced his wife to tie him up and kill him so as not to drag her down with him.

After being forced to kill her own husband, the woman must have been consumed by terror and helplessness, leading to a complete mental breakdown—a textbook tragedy of someone driven mad by this damned end-of-days world.

Sighing, Qin Zhong looked at the woman and asked, "Have you seen a girl around twelve or thirteen years old?"

The woman's expression remained cold, her eyes staring straight ahead without focus, continuously muttering to herself and paying no heed to Qin Zhong's question whatsoever.

Seeing her condition, Qin Zhong knew asking was a waste of time. He turned around the room and drifted into the kitchen, where he noticed a few liquefied gas cylinders piled in the corner, presumably scavenged by her husband earlier.

Half a pot of rice porridge remained on the stove, suggesting that when the woman was in a lucid state, she knew how to care for herself; otherwise, she could not have survived until now.

However, the rice jar in the kitchen was scraping empty. In her current semi-psychotic mental state, she was incapable of venturing out to find food. Once this half-pot of porridge was gone, death would not be far behind for her.