Chapter 54: Mother? Zombie?

The Survivor Alliance, the Fierce Tiger Squad—these names were so familiar to Zhao Qiang. Weren't they the very entities that he and his comrades had built with their own blood, sweat, and toil? Yet why was the homeland, for which everyone had strived even at the cost of their lives, spoken of with such contempt in the eyes of outsiders?

"Could there be some mistake?" Zhao Qiang clung to a shred of hope. He had personally participated in every rescue operation, never demanding any form of material or immaterial compensation from those rescued. Their goal had been crystal clear from the start: to let every survivor enjoy the benefits brought by the Alliance.

"No, there is no mistake!" The man shook his head, saying firmly, "Just last week, I finally scraped together enough quotas for two people to enter the Survivor Alliance. But those scumbags told me only after taking my belongings that your prices had gone up! Damn it! You actually raised the prices!" The more the man spoke, the more agitated he became, and fire seemed to shoot from his eyes.

"Then what happened?" Zhao Qiang suppressed his rising anger. Someone was actually running around under the banner of the Survivor Alliance, swindling people and amassing vast wealth by exploiting their psychological need for a safe haven. What made it even more infuriating was that the true Alliance knew nothing about this, and those swindlers hadn't even transferred a single survivor to the Alliance.

"What happened? Later, I begged them to send my son to you. As long as my son could escape this precarious, day-to-day existence, I was willing to accept it." The man slumped back dejectedly and said, "But those beasts not only refused, they also confiscated all my belongings and drove the two of us out."

"And you just let them get away with it?" Zhao Qiang asked coldly. This was the prelude to his murderous intent; any person or group daring to blacken the name of the Survivor Alliance had better be ready at any moment to receive the "greetings" of the authentic Fierce Tiger Squad.

"What else could I do? Fight them to the death?" The man said despondently, "Before dying, I'm confident I could drag a few down with me, but what would be the consequence of doing that? I'd be dead, and what would happen to my son?"

"By the way, where is your son?" Zhao Qiang asked. That child had not been seen for a while.

"He's with his mother." The man's expression dimmed to the utmost, wearing a look of hesitation.

"The child's mother?" Zhao Qiang was somewhat puzzled. The man had never mentioned the child's mother until now. Two travel quotas, a father and son depending on each other, yet the mother had always been a mystery.

The man sighed, as if having made a difficult decision, and said, "Forget it. Good or bad, what's coming cannot be avoided. Follow me." With that, he got up and walked toward the upper floor.

The higher they went, the dimmer the light became. By the time they reached the attic door, only a sliver of light filtered through the crack. The boy's milky, childish voice drifted out from behind the door panel, but no adult voice could be heard. The air was filled with a scent that made Zhao Qiang instantly alert.

The man gently pushed open the ajar door, made a gesture for silence, and then stepped aside to let Zhao Qiang into the room. The odor inside was much stronger. The little boy they had seen by the river earlier was sitting by the bed. The moment he saw the man enter, he immediately ran over and threw himself into his arms: "Daddy, when is Mommy going to get better?"

Zhao Qiang had already identified the source of that scent, but he did not move, nor could he move. The woman lying on the bed must be the boy's mother: grayish skin, withered muscles, and turbid eyes. Everything told Zhao Qiang that the person lying on the bed was an extremely dangerous zombie. Her limbs were securely fastened with heavy iron chains, and she even wore a metal muzzle on her head, lying quietly on the bed without a single movement.

The man gently stroked the boy's head and said, "Xiaojie, be a good boy and go downstairs to sleep, okay? Daddy and this uncle have things to talk about."

Watching Xiaojie disappear down the stairwell, the man spoke softly, "She is the child's mother, my wife." His eyes were full of love.

"She's a zombie," Zhao Qiang said flatly, the muscles all over his body relaxing.

"I know." The man pulled up the quilt, gently tucking it in for his wife as naturally as could be. "I told Xiaojie that Mommy is just sick, and as long as we take good care of her, one day she will wake up."

The man told Zhao Qiang that, in truth, he knew very well that once a person turned into a zombie, the soul left that vessel and would never return. The woman in front of him was merely a shell that looked like his wife; she no longer recognized him, nor her own flesh and blood. To everyone, she was an immense threat. Yet when he looked at his wife's familiar face, he knew he couldn't bring himself to do it. He didn't even know how to tell his son what had happened to his mother.

"So you just..." Zhao Qiang didn't continue. A deep wave of sorrow suddenly welled up in the bottom of his heart. He wondered if one day, should he encounter the same situation, he would still be able to act as usual, raise his gun, and aim at the person he loved deeply—or if he would selfishly keep the shell of his lover, leaving her soul unable to rest in peace.

"I know this sounds shocking, but I really can't do it." The man was equally distressed. "All I can do is this, to ensure she doesn't hurt anyone. I used to think I could take Xiaojie away from here and give him a completely new life, but now it's all gone. Everything has to start from scratch, and I don't even know if I can manage to get that many quotas alive."

On the bedside table sat a framed photograph of the woman and her son. In the picture, the woman was holding her son, her smile sweet and warm. One could imagine how happy a family this had been just half a year ago. Yet now, that kind and affectionate mother had turned into what she was right before their eyes—her eyes turbid and devoid of light, her grayish skin covered in corpse spots of various sizes, and her muscles beginning to atrophy and wither. If she hadn't been tightly bound by heavy iron chains, she probably would have torn her own flesh and blood to pieces without hesitation.

"Do you want to leave this place?" Zhao Qiang asked deliberately, even though he knew the answer. "Go to the Survivor Alliance, bring Xiaojie with you. At least one thing those scumbags didn't lie about: we provide sufficient food and supplies, and we guarantee the safety of every one of you."

...

"Can you do me a favor?" the man asked, leaning out from the car window.

"Go ahead!" Zhao Qiang and his team members were already geared up, ready to deliver some "greetings" to the scumbags who had smeared the name of the Survivor Alliance.

"Let her soul rest in peace, can you do that?" The man looked up toward the attic where his wife was.

Seeing Zhao Qiang nod, the man sat back in his seat. A hot tear fell and stained the ground, kicking up a puff of dust...