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Chapter 597: The Red Glow in the Darkness

If it weren’t for the layer of sticky mucus, it would be indistinguishable from the zombies he usually encountered.

But he quickly calmed himself down… If it were truly alive, wouldn’t it have pounced at the scent of humans by now?

Even so, the presence of a corpse within the mucus was eerie enough…

“Ling Mo, come take a look,” Shana called out, half-crouching as she inspected the figure.

Ling Mo moved with some difficulty towards her, frowning as he cast the beam of his flashlight upon the shadow.

Though still somewhat hazy, the scene within the mucus was becoming discernible.

The thin white mucus, akin to a colossal spider’s web, completely enveloped the silhouette.

The figure inside was posed with its upper body arched back, its neck straining forward, and its legs firmly fixed to the ground.

This posture was reminiscent of limb-impaired zombies preparing to pounce on their prey, similar to those Ling Mo had seen in the industrial district of City A.

The features of the figure were unclear, but a pair of blood-red eyes were distinctly visible, confirming without a doubt that it was a zombie.

The eyes were the most significant distinction between zombies and humans, making it easy to identify them.

But why would a perfectly good zombie appear in such a place?

Ling Mo stared in puzzlement for a while before suddenly passing the flashlight to the side, “Here, hold this for me, I’ll take a closer look.”

A slender, fair hand quickly grabbed the flashlight, and a cascade of long hair also fell into view.

Turning his head, Ling Mo saw Ye Lian helping to illuminate the figure while curiously peering at it.

“You’re not familiar with this kind of mucus, are you?” Ling Mo asked.

“Of course not, though the smell is somewhat familiar,” interjected Li Ya Lin.

Ling Mo nodded in understanding; when she mentioned “familiar,” she was probably referring to the presence of the virus…

Rolling up his sleeves, Ling Mo pulled a tactical knife from his leg, examined the figure from different angles, found an appropriate place to cut, and then began to slice.

It was only upon cutting that Ling Mo realized the mucus had formed into filaments that were not only sticky but also tough.

Fortunately, the tactical knife in Ling Mo’s hand was no ordinary tool, and after some effort, he managed to make an incision.

As soon as the gap appeared, a strange odor emerged, almost knocking Ling Mo out on the spot.

“Cough cough cough…”

No wonder there was no smell; it turned out to be sealed inside.

This kind of sealing could fool human noses, but not the powerful olfactory sense of zombies.

Of course, it mainly couldn’t fool leader level zombies; whether ordinary zombies could detect it was unknown to him…

“What in the world is that smell? It’s so pungent, it’s almost bringing tears to my eyes…”

Ling Mo covered his nose, enduring the sour sensation as he forced his eyes open and peered inside the slit.

Under the beam of the flashlight, the zombie that was sealed here was finally fully exposed to Ling Mo, coming face to face with him.

But just one glance almost made Ling Mo retch.

From the outside, the body didn’t look like a dried corpse at all; its skin seemed rather plump…

But now upon closer inspection, what seemed plump was actually filled to the brim.

The mucus had oozed out from its insides, and it seemed as though more was fermenting within the body.

The hot, moist breath was produced precisely because of this, yet the skin’s surface remained intact without any signs of decomposition, which surprised Ling Mo.

Could it be that the mucus also had a preservative function? Indeed, compared to the products of virus evolution, formalin seemed utterly weak…

Suppressing his disgust, Ling Mo sliced into the zombie’s body with his tactical knife.

“Pfft!”

A gush of cloudy white substance immediately spurted out, and the piece of skin rapidly deflated at a visible rate.

“What is going on here!”

Ling Mo had never seen this type of zombie, nor had he seen anything like this before.

It seemed that the more zombies evolved, the more bizarre they became. It was unclear whether this was some mutated zombie or perhaps a completely new mutated type.

“Hey, there’s another one over here.”

Not far away, Shana discovered another one and called out.

Following the staircase down, these peculiar zombies became more and more numerous, until eventually, the sides of the walls were almost filled with them.

At a glance, the sides of the staircase looked as if they were built with bodies, and these wax-figure-like silhouettes were trapped behind a white film.

This hazy appearance was even creepier, sending shivers down the spine with just one look.

Ling Mo realized that these zombies weren’t sealed in the mucus; rather, the mucus continuously flowing from their bodies had encased them.

Judging by the amount of mucus, it seemed to be the regenerating kind…

Just thinking about the fact that the staircase, the ceiling, and even the handrails were covered with this zombie fluid, Ling Mo wished he could just hang himself and swing across to avoid it.

But he didn’t have enough mental energy to waste so extravagantly, so no matter how sickening, he had to endure it…

Ye Lian and the others, however, didn’t seem to mind at all and appeared quite curious about the situation.

Had it been other girls, they probably would’ve been screaming by now.

Ling Mo suddenly felt a bit embarrassed; who would have thought that among the group, the most nervous one would be him, a man…

“It’s all these kinds of zombies… But what use is this?”

Shana looked up at the ceiling as if she were on a tour, even scraping it with the tip of her scythe, asking curiously.

“Hey… right!”

Shana’s question suddenly reminded Ling Mo that the appearance of these kinds of zombies, and the continuous secretion of mucus, couldn’t possibly be some group suicide event, right?

There had to be a more secretive situation behind this phenomenon.

Ignoring the evolutionary cause of these zombies and just considering the effect of the mucus, wasn’t it all about concealment?

Whether it was mental ability detection or smell, there was a certain shielding effect. Especially in terms of mental power shielding, the effect was downright fierce.

This surely wasn’t done to prevent people from discovering their corpses. Moreover, when checking the situation through Black Silk’s perspective, it wasn’t hard to notice that Yu Shiran and her group weren’t focused on these zombies at all, but rather on…

“Below.”

Ling Mo turned his head toward the bottom of the stairs. Considering the structure of this kind of mall, the lower level should probably be the parking lot…

Their path wasn’t necessarily the same as the one Yu Shiran took, which Ling Mo had already figured out.

But their objective should be down there…

“Let’s go!”

Ling Mo gestured with a wave of his hand.

No matter what was below, since Yu Shiran and her group were there, he had to go and find them.

Not to mention anything else, Xiao Bai and Black Silk were his Zombie Puppets!

As for that zombie loli…

“I’m going to pull out your other front tooth this time!” Ling Mo gritted his teeth and said with clenched jaws.

Picking up the pace, two minutes later, Ling Mo and his group had completely left the staircase behind and arrived at a corridor.

The situation on both sides of this corridor was the same as on the stairs. As the flashlight’s beam swept past, both sides were filled with densely packed, variously posed silhouettes.

The layer of mucus on the floor was even thicker. Ling Mo estimated roughly that it was at least five to six centimeters thick.

“This is really watery… might as well call them watery corpses,” Ling Mo said with a look of disgust as he lifted his foot to inspect it.

“That’s not accurate, it should be called murky corpses,” Li Ya Lin corrected earnestly.

“…Even if they look bizarre, they still have dignity, okay…” Ling Mo’s eye twitched at that moment.

After bypassing this section of the corridor, another iron door appeared in front of them.

When he placed his hand on the doorknob, the same palpitations he had experienced before suddenly intensified.

His heart couldn’t help but race, as if some monster was staring at him through the keyhole…

“Gulp…”

Ling Mo swallowed and took a deep breath, then forcefully pushed open the iron door.

Creak—

In the silence, the sound of the iron door slowly opening broke the deathly stillness, and as the door cracked open, a flash of red light suddenly streaked through…