It looked like a beauty salon with a large area, and there was a circle of sofas in the anteroom. There was a stone stove built with bricks in the place that was supposed to be the coffee table. The fire in the stove was the source of the fire that Shen Shian had seen before. There seemed like a wider area in the back but it was pitch-black and they couldn’t see clearly.

Shen Shian looked at the teenager, “Are you the only one here?”

The teenager admitted very simply, “Yes, you can rest assured. This place is safe and zombies can’t enter.” His looks were beautiful and faintly shy, but his eyes were very fierce when he looked at the three of them, “Are you thirsty? Do you want to drink water or eat something first?”

There was too little information. Shen Shian was a little uncertain about what situation he was facing. Even if the teenager looked gentle and harmless, he wasn’t relaxed at all. However if they couldn’t do anything to prevent it, they might as well enjoy it. Unless he could find obvious anomalies, he couldn’t do anything to a person who offered a helping hand. He looked at the soaked child next to him and asked the teenager, “Is there any clean clothes or towel? I worry about the child catching a cold and want to change his wet clothes.”

“Oh,” the teenager looked very guilty. “Sorry, sorry, I was negligent and forgot that you were wet under the rain and have to dry using towels and clothes. By the way, do you want to take a hot bath?”

“Hot bath.”

Chen Nan heard a word that he had almost forgotten the meaning of. Because he was so surprised, he almost asked back shouting.

The teenager nodded and smiled a little shyly, “You should also see it, This is a beauty salon. The most important thing is hot water and there are five solar panels installed on the top of the building to ensure that there was no shortage of it. There are showers upstairs and downstairs, and there is a medicinal bath in the back compartment. Oh right, do you prefer roses or camellias?”

On a rainy night, they were cold, tired, and soaked in the rain. What kind of experience was it to take off their wet clothes and take a steaming hot bath

It was a heavenly feeling.

It seemed as if the whole person was alive again.

Shen Shian stood under the shower head for half an hour. He rubbed his body from head to toe three times until his skin was reddish with hot water. Then he turned off the water, wiped himself dry and put on his bathrobe. Then he came out from the shower.

The child was swimming in the round bathtub in the middle of the compartment. He was having fun spreading the petals in the water, and even invited Shen Shian to take a bath together, “An An, come here and take a bath together, this bath can make bubbles.”

Shen Shian refused amicably, and then simply washed their clothes. He dried his clothes over the stove, and took out new clothes from the space, but other than undergarments, it was not convenient to take them out.

Chen Nan’s bath was even more self-evident. When he finally came out of the bathroom, his skin was already reddish like prawns that had been cooked, and even his walking was fluttering. “The hot bath was so comfortable.” It was after being reminded by Shen Shian that he remembered that his left foot was injured, and he frowned again and showed a painful expression.

There were no children’s bathrobes in the beauty salon, so Shen Shian could only wrap up the children with a large towel and sit back with Chen Nan on the sofa in the anteroom. The three people’s backpacks, crystal nuclei, and weapons were all placed within easy reach of the sofa.

The teenager named Liu Fangzhou brought over a tray with not only hot tea, but also a large pile of food such as bread, biscuits, dry noodles, ham sausage, eight-treasure congee, and canned meat and approached the three of them, “You must be hungry, eat fast, if you want to eat more, don’t be polite.”

Even Chen Nan felt that the teenager was overly enthusiastic. Not to mention the precious materials in the last days. Even before the last days, few people would invite strangers to their homes unprepared, and treat them.

The firewood crackled and no one moved for a while.

Liu Fangzhou seemed to have guessed their concerns, with his hand holding his other hand, his face was slightly red, “Oh, did I scare you?” He poured himself a cup of tea and sipped it, and then opened a ham sausage and took a bite. “I don’t have any ill intentions, I’m just so happy to finally see a living person, you are the first group of survivors I have met.”

Shen Shian looked at Shen Xun, Shen Xun sniffed, then nodded to him to eat. Then he picked up a bag of bread and a cup of eight-treasure porridge from the tray, gestured to Chen Nan with his eyes, and said to the teenager, “Thank you. You just said that we are the first survivors you met. Is there no other survivors in this county?”

“Even if there are, there should be not much left, they have to choose to either leave here, or hide at home like me and dare not go out.” Liu Fangzhou was very cooperative, knowing everything, “However, hiding at home will not last long, because food will run out. I’m lucky that next door is a small supermarket. I closed the iron gate of the supermarket and made a hole in the wall. I can drill in to get food at any time, so you really don’t need to be polite with me, it’s okay to eat to your heart’s content.” As he said, he fixed his fiery eyes on the three men.

Although the hospitality of the teenager was impeccable, his look made Shen Shian inexplicably feel a little uncomfortable, as if they were regarded as something extremely rare to watch. However, this time they were lodging under the person’s roof, it was not nice to demand more. From another angle, the other party’s enthusiasm was also a good thing. It was precisely through this opportunity he could inquire about the information he wanted to know, “As we walked along the way, we found that the number of zombies in the county is particularly large, even far exceeding the resident population here. Do you know why?’

“It’s not because of the food festival.” The teenager sighed, and poured a cup of tea to each of the three, and his tone suddenly felt sad. “You must have come from another place for you to not know the food festival. The food festival is a big event in Lin’an County. It has been here since I was born. It has been held for 18 sessions so far, starting on April 1st each year. Last week, because of the large scale of its reputation, residents in several surrounding towns or foreign tourists will come here. No one expected that this year’s food festival was only halfway through and the zombie virus broke out when the number of people was the most busy.”

“On the day of the food festival, there were crowds of people on the square, and some people suddenly became zombies, and the confusion caused was conceivable. The people who got infected with the virus or scratched by a zombie were actually only a small part, the worst part was the people who got trampled because of this. The victims that got trampled lost their mobility and were bitten by the zombies and became more zombies. It caused more panic and trampling, thus forming a vicious circle.” A whole few thousands of people were immediately gone. “The teenager’s eyelids were lowered and he looked so distressed. “My mother went out that morning, and she never came back.”

The pain of losing a loved one, Chen Nan feeling that they were similar, subconsciously asked, “What about your father?”

The weakness and sorrow in the boy disappeared instantly, and a pair of glazed eyes glowed coldly. “He ran away with his mistress. I hope he was killed by the zombie alive.”

Chen Nan didn’t know how to answer that. He turned around and found that Shen Shian seemed to be in deep contemplation. He could not help shouting, “Brother Shen.”

Shen Shian looked at the teenager, “According to your statement, after the virus broke out, the food festival was held in the plaza and within a day there were several thousands of zombies.”

Liu Fangzhou said, “It doesn’t take a day. At that time, the virus infection rate could be faster, and they would mutate within a few seconds after being scratched or bitten by a zombie. This is how many guests in our store died. Everyone in the plaza wanted to run but they couldn’t because it was too crowded.”

Chen Nan had stayed with Shen Shian for so long that occasionally he could keep up with his thinking and considered the problem, “Brother Shen, do you think that the reason why the proportion of zombies mutated on the square was so high is related to the number of zombies gathered?”

Shen Shian nodded. Not only that, in the county, the zombie virus outbreak sounded no different from other places, there was no reason for the zombie evolution to be faster than other places, and for the power zombie to even appear. He had always thought that mutated zombies mostly appear in the places where zombies gather because of chance. The small number of mutated zombies were definitely easier to find in places with more zombies. But what if for some reason, the group of zombies gathered together was what made it more likely to spawn mutated zombies?

This way, the abnormal situation in the county town could have a perfect explanation that the food festival attracted a large number of people. These people quickly turned into zombies and gathered together after the virus broke out. The huge zombies group produced some unknown effect, accelerating the evolution speed of the zombies, and so the proportion of mutated zombies was much higher than other places. After all, throughout the history of human evolution, social grouping was also one of the necessary conditions for evolution.

If this assumption was correct, then for Shen Shian and his party, there was good news and bad news. The good news was that the county was a special case. As long as they walked away from the gathering place of zombies, the degree of danger would be greatly reduced. The bad news was that they could not avoid the county forever. The closer to the capital, the population density would be higher, and there would be a greater number of zombies. It was conceivable that the difficulty level would inevitably increase if they decided to continue their journey.

After listening to this speculation, Liu Fangzhou immediately agreed, and at the same time he was relieved. “Turns out that there are not so many mutated zombies in other places, and there were no power zombies. I thought it was the same as here. A zombie king that could control several thousands of zombies, really terrible.”

Shen Shian’s eyes flashed and he gave Chen Nan a glance. Chen Nan didn’t understand what he meant this time, until Shen Shian asked the teenager, “Since the outbreak of the virus, you have stayed here and haven’t been out, right?” and the teenager nodded. “Yeah, there are too many zombies in the county, and I’m weak. I have a lot of food so I don’t dare to go out and take risks. It’s you that is so powerful, able to go here from the plaza.” It was then that he suddenly realized that if Liu Fangzhou had never been out since the virus broke out, how would he know that there are mutated zombies, and how would he know that there is a power zombie in the plaza?

Startled in his heart, he looked at the teenager for a moment and became vigilant. Why did he lie and opened the door to let them in? What was the purpose of this? Is it a trap? But for what? They didn’t drive the off-road vehicle, and they had nothing on them. Unless

Chen Nan looked at the three bags full of crystal nuclei beside the sofa. The bag was tied tightly, and he couldn’t see anything from the outside, but if he had already seen them when they picked up the crystal nuclei in the plaza, are there other people hiding? Does he want to grab the crystal nuclei directly? Crystal nuclei were only useful for abilities, do the teenager also have abilities?

He became more anxious and panicked. Until he looked at Shen Shian then he slowly relaxed. It was okay, there is brother Shen. Brother Shen will be okay even if there are more people hiding.

No matter if his heart was currently beating so fast, at least on the surface, he still appeared to be calm. Several people gathered around the campfire for tea and chat. The child could not bear the heat. He took off the towel and exposed the pink-blue flower patterned pants with puppies and bones printed on it.

An electronic clock was hung on the wall, still working normally. At about half past ten, Liu Fangzhou got up from the sofa, “It’s already late. Do you want to rest here? There is a bed in this beauty salon, and a bedroom upstairs. The one on the left side is the one I sleep in. The rest of you can sleep anywhere else.” He took out a lot of scented candles from the cabinet. “The firewood will be extinguished at night. If you want to use light, you can use this. The brightness is similar to ordinary candles. It has all kinds of flavors, I recommend the orange flavor. It smells good. For your convenience, I will take a bath upstairs first.”

When Liu Fangzhou’s footsteps drifted away on the stairs, Chen Nan immediately went to Shen Shian and lowered his voice “Brother Shen, what should we do?”

Shen Shian asked Shen Xun, “Do you smell something?”

The dog nodded, pointing to the dark back room, “Inside.”

Shen Shian carried a sword on his back. Chen Nan originally planned to help take the Tang sword, but he didn’t expect it to be so heavy and he staggered forward, almost falling over. Shen Xun snorted. After putting on his clothes, he took the handle of the sword and easily carried it on his shoulder. He accidentally nearly knocked off a vase. Shen Shian took the sword back and carried it on the other side. “Don’t act cool, hurry, lead the way.”

The three of them held a scented candle and followed the dog. They turned and turned, and came to the end and hit a wall. After studying the wall for a long time, they found that there was a dark door that was connected to the basement.

Shen Xun’s eyes widened in excitement and he opened the door.

Shen Shian picked up the child, and he held the candle and the sword handle with his other hand. Chen Nan crossed the door and walked down the stairs. The light of the candle was limited, but after turning around the corner of the stairs, the scene in the basement was clearly displayed in front of the three people.

-gore warning?-

In the center there was a zombie on a long table. The limbs of the zombie were fixed at the four corners of the long table. There was almost no decay, but at first glance it was difficult to tell whether it was a man or a woman because its chest was ripped, the ribs were opened and twisted, the muscle layer was rolled out, and the internal organs were placed on the plate beside the long table. On the white cloth, there were all stains of blood in red and black. Even if this one looked like it was already dead, the zombie whose head is intact was still not dead, and when it smelled the living, it raised its head desperately and made a hoarse howl with a terrible face.

-gore end?-

Chen Nan had never seen this kind of scene. His face turned white and he turned away and started retching.

Shen Shian’s eyebrows were furrowed and loosened quickly. He was about to walk over to look carefully when there was a “click” on the stairs, and someone locked the door from the inside.

Liu Fangzhou walked down the stairs and stopped halfway, half of his face shone under the candlelight and half of his face was hidden in the darkness.

“Oh,” he whispered, unable to tell whether he was a little more frightened or a little more excited, “You found out.”