Hearing that, Sister Qian shook her head with effort: "No… no… Xiao Hu—he really isn't like us… you don't understand… only his dad and I know…"
"What do you mean, 'not like us'?"
The room had become chaotic — people shouting about being locked in, someone blurted out that they were going to burn everyone in here, and the place immediately erupted.
People flew into a rage and shouted to rush the door.
I turned toward the noise and suddenly noticed a tall middle-aged man at the edge of the crowd.
While he was shouting with the others, he suddenly clutched his chest hard, and before anyone could react he collapsed with a thud to the floor.
I was the first to react and ran over.
The man on the ground immediately began convulsing and thrashing just like Brother Qian had, foaming at the mouth.
After what had happened with Brother Qian, nobody dared to rush in to help — everyone formed a ring and watched.
The room fell eerily quiet except for the sound of the man's head hitting the floor as he flailed.
I was about to spring forward to restrain him when Shen Feng, who had arrived unnoticed, grabbed my arm and pulled me back.
I looked at him in surprise; he only frowned and shook his head slightly.
I glanced again at the man flailing on the ground and bit my lip, staying where I was.
Whatever the reason, people's first instinct is to survive — anything that threatens life gets instinctively avoided.
It's not coldness or cruelty; it's just instinct.
The man on the floor eventually quieted down.
I guessed he'd banged his head so many times that he'd knocked himself out.
After a long silence someone stammered, "W-what do we do now?"
Before anyone could answer, thud — the middle-aged woman standing next to the speaker collapsed as well and immediately began convulsing.
We all stood stunned for a moment, then instinctively backed away.
The woman began foaming at the mouth, and everyone kept their distance, not wanting to come into contact with that foul fluid.
After that sequence, it became clear this wasn't a simple illness: something else was going on.
Given the way things were unfolding, the most likely possibility was… infection.
We'd always known walker bites could spread an infection, but reports long ago warned of body-fluid transmission too — which would make the routes of contagion far broader.
Now was not the time to speculate.
Shen Feng called over Xu Shu, Yangyang, Han Xue, and Uncle Gazi; the five of us drew in close together and discreetly put some distance between ourselves and the rest of the room.
I told Yangyang to keep a constant eye on Sister Qian and Xiao Hu — if either of them acted strangely, he was to alert Shen Feng, Xu Shu, or me immediately.
If there wasn't time, he should rush in and finish the infected one himself — don't hesitate.
Watching the woman on the floor finally quiet down, I felt a rising sense of dread.
Something told me this was far from simple.
"Chen Yang, what on earth is happening?" Xu Shu frowned, her face full of confusion.
"Don't worry about that now — stay alert. Something's wrong here." Shen Feng cut in, his tone grim.
Before we could say anything more, another person in the crowd suddenly collapsed.
Just like before, they fell to the ground and began convulsing violently, foaming white froth from the mouth as their eyes rolled back.
A wave of screams erupted, and several people who were standing close by didn't have time to dodge — the froth splattered across their bodies.
Within seconds, some of those who had been screaming fell to the floor too.
Over the next stretch of time, the few of us huddled together in the corner of the room, watching as the once half-filled room descended into chaos.
People desperately dodged the fallen, while more and more collapsed, each with the same horrifying symptoms.
It didn't take long before more than half the room was lying on the ground.
The ones left standing were scared out of their wits.
Some had wet stains spreading across their pants.
One of the oldest among them dropped to his knees, muttering prayers as he slammed his forehead against the floor with loud thuds, completely ignoring the foul, foaming bodies writhing beside him.
Within seconds, even that man stiffened, his eyes rolling back as he collapsed and began convulsing, thick white froth spewing violently from his mouth.
The stench in the room grew unbearable, choking us from all directions.
My mind went blank, my thoughts frozen.
I could only stare helplessly as one after another fell, as if Death itself had entered the room, swinging a great scythe and sending them to hell one by one.
No—perhaps not to hell.
Because… they weren't truly dead.
After yet another body dropped, the floor was nearly carpeted with them.
At that point, I didn't even know what to call them anymore — corpses, or people.
I couldn't tell if there was any life left in them.
That's when I caught sight of the first few who had collapsed.
They twitched.
At first I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me, but then—suddenly—their eyes snapped open.
Their murky pupils rolled about, and then one by one their mouths split open, letting out those terrible cries.
Cries we knew all too well.
The moment those things stood up from the floor, the dozen or so survivors who hadn't yet collapsed all shrank back together into the farthest corner of the room.
Their cries broke out in waves — calling for their parents, wailing for their lives — voices filled with nothing but despair and fear.
They had been hiding in this valley for too long, with no idea how to fight back.
The room was littered with bodies.
The cries drew the walkers' attention, and they staggered and lurched toward the sound, twisted figures dragging themselves closer.
For now, they hadn't noticed us.
The corpses scattered across the floor kept tripping them up, but even then, more of those "corpses" opened their eyes and began slowly rising to their feet.
Those terrified few in the corner were like natural loudspeakers, their screams pulling nearly every walker to their side.
At last, my blank mind managed to recover a sliver of thought.
I tightened my grip on my dagger, leaned my head slightly toward the others, and whispered, "Everyone still got your dagger on you?"
Yangyang answered at once: "We've all got ours. Uncle Gazi and Sister Han Xue didn't bring theirs."
I frowned hard, then said to Han Xue and Uncle Gazi, "Stay behind us no matter what."
My eyes flicked toward the walkers now pressing close to the terrified crowd, and I added grimly, "There's no avoiding a bloody fight tonight."
The words had barely left my mouth when screams tore through the air.
One of the trapped people went down, and in an instant the walkers swarmed over them.
The wet, tearing sounds of flesh and viscera followed.
I knew their stomach had just been ripped open.
The screaming stopped as abruptly as it had begun.
The few who had been spared huddled against the wall, stunned silent.
But survival is a ruthless instinct — after only a moment of shock, they snapped back, and desperate fear pushed them into action.
They spotted us, saw the daggers in our hands, and their eyes lit with frantic hope.
Without a second thought, they scrambled and stumbled toward us, rolling, crawling, doing whatever they could to get across the floor.
The ground was covered with corpses, and they trampled over them as they fled.
Two weren't so lucky — tripped by bodies that suddenly stirred, they were bitten before they could rise.
Their screams cut short as other walkers piled onto them.
The remaining three staggered on, weaving their way through the sea of groping hands and snapping jaws.
Their flight was so precarious it made me think of a story from my childhood — The Little Mermaid.
The mermaid princess had traded her voice for human legs, but every step she took was like walking on knives.
Looking at these three stumbling through the mass of walkers, their escape seemed even more perilous than that.
Against all odds, bloodied and trembling, they finally made it to our side.
Tears and snot streaked their faces, their expressions showing minds pushed to the edge of collapse.
As they ran up to our side, Shen Feng, Xu Shu, and I all raised our daggers and leveled them at the newcomers.
Xu Shu, her voice icy cold, pointed toward the relatively safer corner of the room and said flatly:
"If you want to live, go stay over there."
The few of them clearly didn't understand the situation at all.
Hearing Xu Shu's words, they all shook their heads furiously.
One of them, a younger boy, sobbed as he shouted at us:
"You have weapon! You came from outside! You can kill the walkers—please, save us, save us!"
"Get over there, now!" Xu Shu roared, rare anger breaking into her voice.
By this time, nearly half of those who had fallen earlier were already standing again.
I did a rough count — around twenty or so.
Some were still gnawing at the bodies of the unlucky ones, but the rest had all caught our scent.
With guttural roars, they charged straight at us.
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