Global Game: I Have Portable Store

Jerky can count as a kind of substitute.

For ordinary Zombies, it’s a lousy knockoff—they’d rather eat rotten meat than touch this jerky—but for Su Changxing, it’s just right.

The Extraordinary Zombie was squatting there gnawing on the corpse, and the other ordinary Zombies around it very consciously stayed far away, not approaching.

When it had almost finished eating the two corpses on the ground, that Extraordinary Zombie finally stood up, looked around in all directions, then suddenly snapped its gaze toward Su Changxing’s position, its eyes shining in the dark like a cat’s.

Su Changxing was startled too; he pulled his gaze back, immediately stood up from the ground, and leaned against the wall.

He realized he might have neglected the Extraordinary Zombie’s beyond-ordinary Perception Ability—most likely because he’d been staring at it while it ate, it had picked up on something.

Su Changxing stole another glance outside; that Zombie had already vanished from where it had been, leaving only the mangled remains of the two corpses on the ground.

”No, it might be coming over.”

He realized he had to get out of here at once; his behavior might have piqued the interest of that Extraordinary Zombie this time.

It had just eaten its fill and drunk its fill; wanting to amuse itself a little wasn’t hard to understand—though what it means for a Zombie to ”amuse itself” was something Su Changxing really couldn’t wrap his head around.

At that Extraordinary Zombie’s Speed, if it ran over here, it would only take a few minutes.

Su Changxing wasn’t about to stupidly wait for it to come; he immediately ran downstairs. Staying in this building was definitely unsafe; that Extraordinary Zombie could sense that he was in this building and might come to check it out.

”Sorry about this, brothers.”

Su Changxing glanced at the few Zombies wandering in the corridor, muttering to himself as he brushed past them.

He went downstairs as fast as he could, occasionally peering out through the stairwell windows as his footsteps echoed again and again in the stairwell.

Out.

Standing in the street, he surveyed the surroundings.

He picked the spot where the Zombies were thickest and ran over, then slipped into the crowd, imitating the other Zombies by standing there vacantly, occasionally shuffling two steps forward, while continuously letting out a low, guttural roar.

Even though he himself was a Zombie, he was also a human soul and mind; inevitably, his behavioral logic differed from that of ordinary Zombies, so he had to put on an act.

Listening closely to these Zombies’ roaring, it actually had a rhythm to it, and every Zombie’s rhythm was a little different.

Su Changxing had only been mixed in with them for a few minutes when he saw that same Extraordinary Zombie charge straight out of the ruins, stop at the foot of the building, sweep its gaze over the street, find nothing unusual, then run upstairs.

Seeing this, he broke out in a cold sweat—if Zombies could sweat.

Just now he’d only been speculating, thinking that this Zombie might come over, and he’d run down to hide just to be safe. He hadn’t expected the thing to really follow the trail like a dog that smelled something.

From the looks of it, Extraordinary Zombies also had territorial instincts—whether because they’d evolved, or because the environment had changed, or something else.

Before this, he truly hadn’t noticed that.

Right after that.

There was commotion upstairs, like something slamming into walls. On what was probably the sixth impact, half of a Zombie’s body dropped out of a window, crashed heavily onto the street, splattering chunks of flesh.

”You go that hard on your own kind?”

Su Changxing couldn’t help silently griping in his heart; he also knew these Zombies felt no shred of sympathy, doing everything in strict accordance with the brutal Law of this place.

The fact that an Extraordinary Zombie would act this crazed probably also meant there was fierce competition among Extraordinary Zombies, maybe even mutual devouring and the like.

And once an Extraordinary Zombie suspected you, then you’d better genuinely be just an ordinary Zombie, because otherwise it would destroy you without mercy.

Thinking of this made Su Changxing feel a headache coming on; even as an ordinary Zombie, surviving here didn’t seem easy.

Everyone has their own kind of misery, apparently.

Before long, that Extraordinary Zombie slowly walked down from above, step by step, its bare soles leaving bloody prints on the stairs, smeared with dust, starkly visible.

It had sensed that the Zombies upstairs weren’t the same as the one from before, but it had still chosen to kill them all.

”Ah!!”

It had barely taken two steps out into the street when it let out an enraged roar, as if seething with frustration at having failed to catch Su Changxing.

It refused to allow another being like itself to exist in its territory; that was like a grain of sand in its eye.

Though it didn’t understand why eyes couldn’t tolerate sand, it simply felt that Su Changxing was that grain of sand.

Watching that Extraordinary Zombie walk off, Su Changxing still maintained his ”blended into the crowd” act, shambling slowly along the street in the opposite direction.

Sure enough.

Two minutes later, that Extraordinary Zombie appeared on this street again, scanning its surroundings, finding nothing out of place, then turning around and leaving once more.

Su Changxing was too exasperated to even complain; a Zombie seemed smarter than a person, knowing enough to circle back for a surprise check.

He now strongly suspected that this Zombie’s presence near the Mysterious Shop hadn’t been a coincidence at all, but that it had been squatting there nearby, waiting for people to show up.

Su Changxing drifted along the street with the other Zombies, always in ”blended into the crowd” mode, while watching his surroundings. He kept feeling that Extraordinary Zombie was still somewhere nearby.

Only after half an hour did he finally confirm he’d been playing mind games with thin air—the Extraordinary Zombie had already left.