Chapter 32
by LhaoziChapter 32: It was the Child of the House
There were quite a few households in the village that owned private vegetable gardens.
Even the varieties of wild grass and wildflowers found along the village roads were far richer than down the mountain!
By the time they searched the sixth household, dusk had already settled over the sky.
The five stood outside the courtyard. Unlike the previous households, the main gate to this residence was locked shut.
Qin Song stepped forward and pushed against the gate, discovering it was locked from the inside. He turned back to look at the group:
“The gate is locked from the inside. The homeowners should still be here.”
Qin Xi nodded. Since the owners were around, they couldn’t enter; they couldn’t turn into actual robbers after all.
However, just as they turned around and prepared to leave, a sudden heavy thud echoed from behind the iron gate!
Everyone’s footsteps came to a simultaneous halt. Immediately following, a series of ragged growls of “gurgle-gurgle” sounded from behind the gate!
The zombies’ growls were intermittent, far from distinct amid the roaring rain.
Qin Xi turned to look over; through the tiny gap between the twin iron gates, she could see swaying shadows.
She creased her brows slightly:
“Looks like they were drawn over by the sound of our voices and the human scent on us!”
Qin Xi closed in a few steps, wanting to get a clear count of how many zombies were inside the gate.
Seeing this, Lin Xin immediately spoke up:
“I’ll climb up and check the situation inside the courtyard!”
With that, he took two steps back, sprinted toward the front courtyard wall, grabbed the top edge, and leaped with all his strength, scaling it in a couple of swift moves!
The zombie growls inside the courtyard instantly shifted over the moment Lin Xin reached the top of the wall!
Lin Xin observed the courtyard setup carefully before looking down at the people outside:
“There are two zombies in the yard. The door to the main house is open, but I can’t tell what’s going on inside.”
As his words fell, he reached out his hand toward Li Zekai:
“Pass me the hatchet. I’ll deal with them directly, then jump in to open the gate!”
Hearing this, Li Zekai hurriedly handed the blade up.
Lin Xin squatted on top of the wall, looking down at the two zombies beneath him.
The two zombies—one male, one female—were provoked by the human scent on the wall. With blood-black eyes wide and mouths agape, their raised fingers scratched deep, jagged gouges into the surface of the wall.
Lin Xin actually recognized these two people.
After all, they were all from the same village; when meeting in everyday life, he would usually greet them.
Unfortunately, everything had changed now!
He raised his hatchet, aimed squarely at the head of a zombie, and took a deep breath.
Consider it helping them end their agony!
He aimed at the zombie’s head and stabbed down viciously. Two seconds later, two consecutive heavy thuds sounded as the zombies collapsed to the ground.
Following that, he raised his head and surveyed the courtyard once more.
Everything was dead quiet with no new movement.
He turned back, nodded to Qin Xi and Qin Song, and said:
“I’m heading down to open the gate.”
He then turned, jumped off the wall, and walked briskly behind the main gate.
Before his hand could even touch the latch, however, the tightly shut gate panel was suddenly pushed open from the outside.
He froze, staring at Qin Song—who had stepped inside first from outside the gate—dazed for two seconds.
Qin Xi, following behind, looked at him with a smile:
“Thanks for your hard work!”
He blinked, then remembered in an instant that Qin Song possessed a metallic supernatural ability; he could directly control the metal gate latch from outside!
He couldn’t help scratching his head, letting out a silly chuckle at his own redundant effort before falling in behind.
The main courtyard gate was pulled shut once more.
Qin Xi scanned the layout of the courtyard.
Directly facing the main gate was the residence’s main house, fronted by a concrete platform, below which lay a red-brick ground.
On the east side of the courtyard stood a three-room side building, while a vegetable plot lay to the west; passages on both sides of the main house led to the backyard.
If there were no issues inside this house, they would stay here for the night.
Qin Xi pulled out a flashlight. As the beam shone indoors, it immediately revealed a massive pool of water by the doorway.
This was all rainwater that had blown inside; over the span of a full day and night, a considerable amount had accumulated.
In the water tracks, diluted red stains were mixed in.
As usual, Qin Xi and Qin Song paired up, while the other three formed a second team.
This family’s house occupied a larger area.
Although it followed the typical layout of bedrooms on both sides and a kitchen in the middle, the central kitchen space was partitioned into separate front and back areas.
Upon entering, the front section served as a living room, while the actual kitchen lay behind the partition.
Qin Xi and Qin Song inspected the kitchen first; it was obvious that the kitchen on the east side was used frequently.
Yet it was very clean.
The refrigerator still contained plenty of fresh vegetables, while the freezer compartment below held a large stash of meat and giant shrimp.
Rice, flour, and oil were also abundant, showing strong signs of everyday living.
The two didn’t touch the items inside the refrigerator, confirming the kitchen was safe before turning into the east bedroom.
The bedroom in this house followed a south-window, north-kang layout [1].
Stepping inside, the entire room was visible at a single glance—quiet and void of any objects.
Except…
Qin Xi and Qin Song’s eyes locked simultaneously onto the built-in cabinet on top of the kang.
The built-in cabinet was large, stretching the entire length of the kang.
Its four sliding doors were locked shut tight at the moment, with several messy, bloody handprints stamped across one of the doors.
Looking at those blood handprints, Qin Xi exchanged a glance with Qin Song.
Qin Song shook his head at her, then raised his long leg and stepped onto the kang.
A faint rustling sound came from behind the door. Qin Song stood before the built-in cabinet with his head lowered, raising his hand to yank one of the doors open with sudden force!
The flashlight in Qin Xi’s hand immediately swept over. Beneath the bright light, a pair of blood-red eyes suddenly flashed into view.
With an excited growl of “gurgle—“, Qin Song quickly dodged sideways, evading the zombie’s attack from inside the cabinet. Raising his hand, a bolt of blue-purple lightning struck down onto the top of the zombie’s head, leaving a charred little hole on its skull!
Once the zombie drew its final breath, Qin Song dragged it straight out of the built-in cabinet!
At this moment, several rushed footsteps sounded from outside. Lin Xin charged in first, asking Qin Xi and Qin Song with concern:
“What happened? Is there a zombie?”
As soon as his words fell, he spotted the zombie corpse Qin Song held in his hand and was struck instantly speechless.
It wasn’t until Qin Song carried the corpse out and returned empty-handed from outside that he shook his head somewhat sorrowfully:
“It was the child of the house.“
Hearing this, Qin Xi cast a glance at Lin Xin.
She had actually guessed this girl’s identity even before Lin Xin spoke up.
After all, if the male and female outside were the master and mistress of the house, then the child’s identity was naturally self-evident.
Looking at the bloody handprints on that sliding door, combined with the fact that the girl carried no bite wounds on her body…
She had likely been shoved hastily into the built-in cabinet by her mother or father after the other parent mutated at home.
Little did they expect that while she hadn’t been bitten, she turned into a zombie herself anyway!
Lin Xin pulled two quilts from the built-in cabinet, then went outside to drape them over the three corpses.
There was no one inside the kitchen and bedroom on the west side either.
However, a large pool of blood lay across the living room of the west wing.
Qin Xi and Qin Song walked over to take a look, discovering that this area should have been the girl’s bedroom; a fish tank sat atop a cabinet inside the room.
Inside the fish tank, over a dozen tropical ornamental fish of various species were being kept, all of which Qin Xi absorbed into her spatial dimension.
She also collected several manga books and novels from the writing desk to keep for killing time later.
Right at that moment, however, a sudden series of clattering noises—the sound of iron basins being bashed around—erupted from behind the back door of the west kitchen…
Notes & Vocabulary
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North-kang Layout (南窗北炕): A traditional northern Chinese architectural layout where windows face south to maximize sunlight exposure while the heated brick kang platform is built along the northern wall to block cold winter drafts.
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