vrcanaries Chapter 87: A Series of Twists and Turns
Chapter 87: A Series of Twists and Turns
The ferry crossing where Lu Yuan and the others got off was upstream of Y Town, which saved everyone's effort. The lifeboat floated downstream, and the four of them leaned against one side of the lifeboat, looking up at the sky.
It's the height of summer now. Although we've had two heavy snowfalls in the past few days that even the deepest winters in the south don't see, the sky is still dotted with stars today. No wonder Y Town and Lijiang are so popular. Every time and every angle offers an indescribably beautiful view.
"Should we find a place to land in Y Town?" Lu Yuan asked suddenly, gazing at the stars in the sky.
The service area on the highway they were originally on was only about 5 kilometers away from Y town, but now they were on the Lijiang River, and the river was winding and meandering, making it several kilometers farther than the highway.
Because they were relatively safe in the river, they did not turn on the lifeboat's motor. The lifeboat simply drifted with the current at a slow speed, and it would probably take more than half an hour to reach Y town.
"Now there are mountain banks on both sides, and there might be zombie monkeys like the one we just saw up there." Qin Yuan thought of the strength of the zombie monkey from before, and the tiger's mouth of his hand holding the knife was still slightly hot.
"It might not just be zombie monkeys; perhaps other animals will also become zombies." Gu Nanfeng calculated that quite a long time had passed since he first learned that primates could be infected with the zombie virus, and he really couldn't guarantee that other animals wouldn't also become zombies.
"So, maybe there are zombie fish in the river?" Lu Yuan turned his head to look at the river, but the water was not clear, and it was nighttime, so he could not see anything except darkness.
"Xiao Lu, don't scare me like that." Du Wenqing also glanced at the river. For some reason, he felt uneasy after Lu Yuan said those words.
"However, the transmission of the zombie virus between animals seems to be different from that between humans." Gu Nanfeng recalled the monkey troop on the shore before. There was only one zombie monkey in the troop, but monkeys are social animals. They lived together and would definitely fight occasionally, but the other monkeys did not turn into zombies.
"It's possible that animals can be infected with the zombie virus and turn into zombies, but they won't infect each other," Gu Nanfeng analyzed to himself. Of the four of them, Du Wenqing and Qin Yuan were the main fighters. Lu Yuan, while occasionally having some unique ideas, rarely communicated with them. This was due to his personality; he had changed, but he still rarely initiated conversations with others.
A hissing sound, neither too loud nor too soft, rang out on the quiet lifeboat.
"Old Du, that's not fair. You didn't even say a word before farting." Qin Yuan covered his nose with one hand while looking at Du Wenqing.
"Sizzle~ Sizzle~" Then two more sounds.
Suddenly, the bottom of the lifeboat was lifted up twice. Although they only had a small flashlight on the boat, they still noticed this subtle change.
"Something's not right!" Du Wenqing immediately realized something was wrong. "The boat has been punctured."
Qin Yuan immediately grabbed his small flashlight and looked into the river. He saw nothing on the left or right, so he rushed to the bow of the boat to look down. Sure enough, strings of small bubbles appeared in the river below the boat; something had punctured the lifeboat, and it was leaking air.
"Damn, what kind of luck is this? I really should buy a lottery ticket." Qin Yuan pulled himself back and clicked his tongue in annoyance. "Who's having a run of bad luck today? We got stopped here on the mountain road this morning, then we got beaten up by monkeys on the shore this afternoon, and now it's not even past 8 o'clock yet, and the lifeboat is leaking air!"
"Isn't the problem now what punctured the lifeboat?" Lu Yuan took out another lifeboat from his space. He was about to throw it into the water when he thought of this problem. If he didn't know why it was leaking air, then putting this new lifeboat down would be a waste.
Just as Lu Yuan asked the question, a whirlpool suddenly appeared in the river to the left of their lifeboat, as if a large fish was circling underwater.
Gu Nanfeng asked Lu Yuan to get a brighter flashlight. When the flashlight was turned on, the white beam of light shone on the water, and it was even a little dazzling.
Perhaps the bright light stimulated something underwater, for a giant fish nearly 2 meters long rolled over in the water, splashing up a large spray of water.
This startled Gu Nanfeng and Lu Yuan. They clearly saw that when the 2-meter-long giant fish rolled over, only the fish bones remained on one side of its belly. This was not only a giant fish, but also a zombie fish.
Their lifeboats were probably punctured by the sharp spines of this giant fish.
"What's going on? What did you see? A big fish scared you two?" Qin Yuan joked, not yet realizing what was moving underwater.
Because it was necessary to maintain the ship's balance, Lu Yuan and Gu Nanfeng were preparing to launch new lifeboats on one side, while Du Wenqing and Qin Yuan moved to their respective sides.
They only saw Lu Yuan and the others take out powerful flashlights and shine them on the river, but because the angle was wrong, they could only see the splashing water and guessed that they must be a big fish.
“It’s a zombie fish,” Gu Nanfeng said calmly.
"Zombie..." Qin Yuan was stunned as soon as he opened his mouth, "You mean zombie fish?"
It seemed that the giant zombie fish, which was originally on the left side of the lifeboat, swam to the right side of the lifeboat and floated to the surface again to flip its body.
Using the small flashlight in Qin Yuan's hand, he and Du Wenqing could see clearly that the zombie fish had half of its belly rotted and only its skeleton remained.
It's pointless to put another lifeboat in now. If that kind of fish wants to, it can just flip the lifeboat over twice in the water and you'll be shipwrecked and dead.
Lu Yuan began searching for ships in the space using keywords, but he was surprised to find that there were only three ships in the incredible space. One of them was a yacht, which looked quite sturdy in the thumbnail, but Lu Yuan felt that even the yacht would capsize in the face of this zombie fish. The other one was a bit exaggerated; its tonnage was too much to be deployed on the Lijiang River, especially since they were currently on a bend.
What astonished Lu Yuan the most was that the last ship was actually a spaceship! He checked the ship's name on the space panel again. His space contained many high-tech products that were ahead of this era, and he had gradually become accustomed to them, but he really couldn't believe that there was a spaceship in his space.
"Nothing suitable?" Gu Nanfeng looked at Lu Yuan, who was in a daze, and knew that he was probably looking at his space. However, in general, Lu Yuan would take things out of his space decisively in an emergency, but this time he did not react for a long time.
The giant zombie fish swam more and more merrily in the water, forcing their lifeboat to rock back and forth with the waves. Du Wenqing felt that the fish was just playing with them, a common behavior among many animals when hunting.
"Hey cutie up ahead~" A loudspeaker suddenly rang out from the river, but looking in the direction of the sound, the river was still pitch black. Apart from the two beams of their flashlights, the entire Lijiang River was dark.
"Hey cuties in front~~~ please turn off your high-powered flashlights~" The male voice from the loudspeaker had a slightly irritating tone, which annoyed Qin Yuan.
Gu Nanfeng obediently turned off the powerful flashlight, and the zombie fish in the water seemed to be less active than before. They held onto the gunwale to steady themselves, and Qin Yuan shone the small flashlight in the direction of the sound. There were several boats moored side by side on the Lijiang River.
Those boats were the typical sightseeing boats found in the Lijiang Scenic Area; they weren't very large, and it seemed they were deliberately moored side-by-side. With such a large zombie fish in the river, if there was only one boat, it probably wouldn't last long.
"Yo ho, see the cute me?" The smug voice on the boat rang out again. "If you are healthy survivors, please dock on our left. We will welcome you. If you are not healthy survivors, then be friends with that big fish in the water, haha."
Qin Yuan held back his anger and didn't yell at the annoying person on the boat. The main reason was that there was still some distance between them, and even if he yelled, the other side probably wouldn't hear him.
Du Wenqing remained calm. Their lifeboat had already been punctured. He silently calculated the distance to the other ships and, without hesitation, threw the other lifeboat that Lu Yuan had brought out into the water. The lifeboat inflated upon contact with water.
The group dimmed their flashlights further. The giant zombie fish beneath the boat seemed to have grown tired of playing, or perhaps they were curious to see what they would do next, and stopped stirring the river. Once the new lifeboat was inflated, the four quickly switched boats, started the engine, and headed downstream towards the row of boats.
"I didn't expect there to be survivors in Y Town?" Qin Yuan, who was shining a flashlight ahead, was somewhat surprised. They had come all the way from G City, passing through some densely populated cities and tourist attractions, but they had hardly encountered any other survivors.
The four-person lifeboat sped away suddenly, catching the giant zombie fish off guard. By the time it realized what was happening, they were already some distance away. The giant zombie fish immediately slapped its tail, splashing water everywhere. It accelerated in pursuit, crashing into the right rear of the lifeboat with a loud thud. If Gu Nanfeng hadn't reacted quickly, he would have nearly knocked Du Wenqing, who was steering the boat, into the water.
Although Du Wenqing was pulled back by Gu Nanfeng and didn't fall into the water, his head hit the hard, inflated side of the boat. The impact was so violent that he was still dizzy. Following Gu Nanfeng's instructions, Lu Yuan stabilized Du Wenqing and did his best to ensure that neither of them would be thrown out of the lifeboat.
"My little cuties, please come to the left, come to the left~" The annoying broadcast voice rang out again on the Lijiang River late at night.
Qin Yuan, who had just taken over the helm, was initially unwilling to cooperate, but Gu Nanfeng took the flashlight and looked in the direction of the sound. He seemed to have seen something and instructed Qin Yuan to cooperate with the announcement and turn the steering wheel to the left.
The change of direction was sudden. The giant zombie fish couldn't keep up and was completely exposed in front of the row of passenger ships. It seemed that it had fought with these ships more than once in the past few days and suffered many losses. When it realized this, it planned to dive to the bottom of the water.
But the zombie fish didn't have enough time. A huge rock flew from the direction of the passenger ship and hit it on the head with a "bang". The river surface was churned up again. Fortunately, after Qin Yuan and the others turned around, they sped away, and their lifeboat was not capsized by the waves.
"Holy shit!" Qin Yuan finally couldn't help but curse.
Five minutes later, their lifeboat stopped alongside the leftmost passenger boat in the row of boats. Although Qin Yuan was furious that the people on the boat were throwing boulders at the zombie fish regardless of their lives, he had to admit that if it weren't for that boulder, they might already be zombies in the water.