I am the Zombie King of the Apocalyptic World
Chapter 959 - 955 The Third Explanation

Chapter 959: Chapter 955 The Third Explanation

Actually, Tang Ye’s fear of Li Qingtian wasn’t because of Li Qingtian himself, but rather because Li Henian mediated all of Li Qingtian’s feelings onto him. One could say this was a case of "love me, love my dog," and Tang Ye was unable to confront the memories of Li Henian in his mind. These were not his own familial affections, and he didn’t want to accept them.

Unable to confront the emotions in his mind that were not his own, when it came to meeting in person, he would rather choose to avoid it than to face it head-on.

Upon entering Peace Plaza, Tang Ye checked off the list of names on the table, signed his own, and immersed himself completely in his work, choosing not to think about that problem anymore.

Time flew by quickly, and before he knew it, another week had passed. On that day, the soldier who had been tasked by Tang Ye to form a scavenging team came back much later than expected. However, contrary to what everyone thought, the team returned empty-handed, yet they brought back a piece of news that was quite puzzling to Tang Ye.

In order for the survivors from the United District to be able to safely develop new lands outside without the interference of zombies, Tang Ye had confined all the zombies in Longyang City to the north. That area was designated as the zombies’ active zone, and normally, only bounty hunters would go there to hunt their targets. Of course, if someone died there, it also meant a slightly improved meal for the zombies.

When the scavenging team returned, however, they reported that the zombies in the north of Longyang City had moved en masse, defying the deterrence of Tang Ye’s high-level zombie will, and had come to the City Center. Some zombies even began hunting humans with specific intent. The scavenging team had set out with three hundred forty-five members, but only thirteen returned.

According to them, the zombies seemed to be able to detect their traps, avoiding them every time. At first, they thought it was a coincidence, but after it happened repeatedly, they realized it wasn’t just chance.

When they reached the City Center and saw swathes of zombies, they hadn’t been concerned since many members of the Peace Party had gone out to collect supplies as Tang Ye said, with the zombies not attacking them, treating them as their own, and even helping them carry items.

But this time they were wrong. The zombies gathered in the City Center didn’t treat them as their own, and the team didn’t realize until over three hundred members brazenly walked into the horde of zombies. The result was obvious; they were swarmed by millions of zombies!

After escaping the trap, only less than a hundred teammates survived. During the storytelling, they mentioned that one second before getting close to the horde, the zombies did not attack them and behaved as before. It was only after all of them entered the dense tide of zombies that they suddenly went berserk!

This point was highly suspicious. Speaking of traps, ordinary people always set them while clearing zombies, and the most common trap is the "gate."

The gate refers to an entrance that allows people to pass through, like a doorway, where people block half of the entrance with heavy objects that cannot be easily pushed over. Zombie bodies get stuck in this half-blocked door, and behind the gate, two people take responsibility—one pushes the heavy objects blocking the door, and the other uses a knife to slash the zombies.

This trap is very practical and a god-level trick for commoners to farm zombies. Even now, some people still use this method to hunt evolved zombies. To enable ordinary people to hunt high-level zombies, someone even invented a gate trap machine. It has many names, but many like to call this kind machine a "meat grinder."

The machine is similar to the ancient guillotine, except that where the guillotine drops a blade as wide as the board to behead the criminal from above, a meat grinder needs someone to push it from the side—there are also automatic ones—that kill the zombies even faster!

The impact board of the meat grinder is filled with spikes, and every time a zombie gets stuck and is hit, it’s inevitably shattered to pieces.

The force that can be unleashed is so strong that even Level 1 or Level 2 zombies might be killed instantly!

The scavenging team set up a gate amidst the rubble to resist and kill the zombies after realizing that the zombies were actually attacking them. Who would have expected that the zombies seemed to possess intelligence, knowing not to squeeze through the gate and instead choosing to bypass the gate to attack the people behind, the team members said up until then, not knowing what to say next, because what happened next was beyond what zombie intelligence could achieve.

Their words, in Tang Ye’s ears, could only be explained by one possibility, that there was a high-level zombie controlling the horde!

When Tang Ye looked at Xu Haishui, the latter spread his hands in confusion, indicating he had no idea what was going on. Regarding the high-level zombies in Longyang City, there was only the mastermind behind the last mysterious gathering of the horde, a Level 6 Evolved Zombie.

However, that zombie had already been completely controlled by Xu Haishui when he returned and had been brought back with him.

Logically, if there were other Level 6 or higher zombies in Longyang City District, none should have escaped Xu Haishui’s perception. If it was just Level 5 zombies in control, they should show fear and respect to those higher-level zombies rather than having no wisdom at all.

Having heard the news, Xu Haishui immediately went to Longyang City, returning only three days later, but when he found Tang Ye, he was just as clueless, clearly overwhelmed by the inexplicable horde of zombies that had gathered in the city.

"What’s the situation?"

In his new residence at Peace Plaza, Tang Ye asked Xu Haishui.

Without saying a word, Xu Haishui handed over a bag of files to Tang Ye, then said, "Chairman, take a look for yourself. I can’t make heads or tails of this. Now, the zombies in the City Center of Longyang are turning on each other, a large number are dying, but at the same time, many are evolving and becoming more advanced."

"You didn’t do anything?"

Tang Ye opened the file bag and asked casually. Inside the bag were just a few pages of data and some photographs, mostly snaps of zombies cannibalizing each other.

Tang Ye’s question left Xu Haishui silent for a long while before he finally replied, "Chairman, what if I told you that those zombies are not obeying me, and I can’t control them, would you believe me?"

"Hm?" Tang Ye was taken aback, slightly confused.

"Is it that you can’t control zombies or you can’t control the group of zombies at the City Center?"

"The latter."

"The latter? That leaves only two explanations, The first is that those zombies are of a different kind we aren’t familiar with, the second is that this group of zombies is being controlled by a higher-level zombie than you."

"Chairman, I think there is a third explanation."

"A third explanation?"

"Yes."