462: Chapter 462 The Zombie's Strange Movement

Panshi Hub Base, third basement level, duty room.

Li Feng mechanically lifted his seventh cup of coffee. The cold liquid slid down his throat; he couldn't taste anything but bitterness.

To him, the only difference between this stuff and dishwater right now was that it had a nicer name.

In front of him were three screens placed side-by-side. The two on the left showed real-time surveillance footage of the zombie concentration camp, and the one on the right was a data analysis panel.

He had reviewed the data from the past week five times, and every time he looked, the hair on the back of his neck stood up.

He wasn't a coward.

He had been in this duty room since the Panshi Hub Base was built, and he had been watching the zombies eat, drink, sleep, and relieve themselves for nearly half a year.

What kind of scene hadn't he seen?

He had seen zombies gnawing on their companions' heads, seen them smash into electric fences until they started smoking, and he had even seen them howl at mechs until their vocal cords snapped.

But he had truly never seen the scenes before him now.

First anomalous video.

During feeding time, the base followed standard procedure and dropped a batch of processed meat chunks into the concentration camp.

What did it look like before?

A group of zombies would pounce, scrambling, tearing, biting; whoever was strongest ate the most, and the weak were trampled underfoot.

Pure Law of the jungle, much like feeding sharks at a zoo.

But in this video, the scene had changed.

After the meat was thrown down, the zombie horde didn't swarm forward.

Instead, they cleared a path.

Several of the largest zombies walked to the front; they ate first.

The other zombies stood behind, motionless.

Once the large, high-Rank zombies finished eating, those of medium size would edge forward.

Only then was it the small ones' turn.

The entire process was quiet—no fighting, no tearing, not even any shoving.

When Li Feng first saw this video, he thought the surveillance was malfunctioning. He checked the cameras from three other angles to confirm; the footage was exactly the same.

"Zombies queuing to eat."

His hands were shaking when he wrote those five words into his report.

This suggested that not just high-Rank zombies, but even low-Rank ones might have developed "intelligence."

The second anomalous video was even more sinister.

It was recorded by the thermal imaging of a night patrol mech; the timestamp showed 2:13 AM.

Over three thousand zombies in the east zone of the concentration camp stopped all activity simultaneously.

They weren't sleeping—zombies didn't need to sleep; their normal state was aimless wandering.

But at that moment, over three thousand zombies all stopped, facing the same direction, standing straight.

Like a group of soldiers in formation.

This state lasted for about twenty minutes, and then the zombies, like puppets with cut strings, suddenly returned to their normal state of wandering.

Li Feng pulled up all the night records from the past week to compare.

Every day, between 2:00 AM and 4:00 AM, the same thing happened.

The time wasn't perfectly fixed—sometimes 2:00, sometimes 3:30—but the behavioral pattern was identical.

The direction they faced was also identical.

He used data from three different camera positions to triangulate, with a margin of error of less than two degrees.

Northeast.

The base had never explored the northeast region of the Zombie World.

No one knew what was over there.

Li Feng packaged all the data, wrote an anomaly report, marked it as urgent, and sent it to Su Mingyuan's terminal.

After sending it, he took another gulp of cold coffee.

This stuff tasted like absolute shit.

But compared to the zombies on the screen queuing for food and standing in collective punishment in the middle of the night, the terrible coffee was the most normal thing about this night shift.

Three hours later.

There was an extra person in Su Mingyuan's office.

Tao Zhe.

In front of the two men lay a printed copy of Li Feng's report, and on the tablet beside it, the surveillance videos were playing on a loop.

Su Mingyuan watched the videos three times without saying a word.

Tao Zhe only needed to watch it twice; he set the tablet on the table and leaned back in his chair.

"The zombies have developed a social structure."

Su Mingyuan looked at him.

"The big ones eat first, the small ones eat later; this is a Rank system."

Tao Zhe said, "Zombies have no intelligence; their brains are softer than tofu. It's impossible for them to come up with something like this on their own."

"Could it be a signal transmitted from the outside?"

Su Mingyuan added.

"Exactly." Tao Zhe nodded. "Something is controlling them. The signal emitted by this thing has strong directionality. Look at this data—the orientation records for seven days, the deviation is less than two degrees. It's not a wide-range broadcast; it's directional, like a lighthouse, emitting from the northeast. Once the zombies receive it, they exhibit collective behavior."

Su Mingyuan didn't speak immediately.

He stood up and walked to the map of the Zombie World hanging on the wall, drew a line from the base's location with his finger, pointing northeast.

That direction on the map was a blank space.

No reconnaissance data, no terrain information, nothing at all.

"Do you think it could be him?"

Tao Zhe's tone wasn't a question.

Su Mingyuan turned around.

"It should be him—Daoist Wan Shi."

"Manipulating corpses." Tao Zhe said, "This is his specialty. In the records we've obtained, Daoist Wan Shi is most adept at driving the dead. To him, zombies are simply ready-made Materials."

Su Mingyuan walked back to the table and sat down.

"If it is him, what is he doing in the northeast?"

"Raising an army." Tao Zhe said two words, then added, "These in the zombie concentration camp are only a small fraction covered by his signal. If he's been operating in the northeast for this long, it's hard to say how many zombies he has under his command."

Su Mingyuan stared at the footage on the tablet of the zombies collectively facing northeast, silent for about ten seconds.

"Increase the surveillance Rank of Panshi Hub Base, and have all posts enter Level 2 combat readiness." He began issuing orders. "Send an additional drone squadron to conduct long-range reconnaissance along the northeast direction; advance ten thousand kilometers first to see the situation."

"Should the reconnaissance squadron carry armaments?" Tao Zhe asked.

"Yes." Su Mingyuan said, "And carry plenty. If you encounter abnormalities, retreat immediately; do not get bogged down in a fight."

Tao Zhe stood up and walked out; when he reached the door, he looked back.

"If Daoist Wan Shi is really over there, the drone's reconnaissance range might not be enough."

"Let's see first." Su Mingyuan said, "It's better than knowing nothing at all."

Tao Zhe left.

Su Mingyuan watched the video again.

In the footage, those zombies stood neatly under the moonlight, facing northeast, motionless.

They had no eyes, no expressions, but that posture made Su Mingyuan think of one word.

Worship.