Long Yuehong jumped in fright, instinctively grabbing the "Berserker" assault rifle beside him and leaping to his feet.
Just as he was hesitating whether to throw away the lunchbox he was holding in his other hand, Jiang Baimian calmly looked around:
"There's no movement..."
She then smiled at Long Yuehong:
"Don't be nervous. It hasn't really gotten close yet.
"Sit down, sit down. We can eat when the canned food is heated up."
As she spoke, she patted the grenade launcher nicknamed "Tyrant" that was placed beside her.
On the other side of the campfire, Bai Chen carefully observed for a while before turning her attention back to the food.
"But, Team Leader, there's something approaching us! Aren't you worried about being suddenly attacked?" Long Yuehong couldn't understand Jiang Baimian's attitude.
Jiang Baimian stared at the several opened cans and said:
"Isn't that why we have Shang Jianyao to guard against such situations?
"If that thing doesn't approach, are we just going to keep waiting here without eating? If we get too hungry and tired, it will affect our performance instead."
She gradually revealed a smile:
"In short, as long as the sky hasn't fallen, it won't affect us from filling our stomachs."
Long Yuehong sat down dubiously, occasionally glancing at Shang Jianyao, afraid that he would make a mistake and fail to notice an enemy entering the danger zone.
In the flickering flames, the juice in the cans melted, and an indescribable rich fragrance continuously spread around.
This was the aroma of pork, soybeans, salt, and spices mixed together through a complex process, making everyone present feel as if a hand had reached out from their stomach, uncontrollably drilled through their throat, and arrived at their mouth.
"Alright," Jiang Baimian said sincerely with a smile.
Just then, at the top of the collapsed building complex, where green vines were entwined, a black shadow pounced out, heading straight for Long Yuehong by the campfire.
In the flickering firelight, Shang Jianyao and the others finally saw clearly what this black shadow looked like:
She was a female human, her clothes tattered, revealing dirty skin with dense hair. Her hair hung down in a messy tangle, greasy and matted into clumps.
Her fingernails were long and sharp, glinting with a cold light. Her eyes were bloodshot and cloudy, like a beast's.
Her body was bent over, and she was extremely fast, like an ape swinging over by grabbing vines.
Bang!
Shang Jianyao had just raised the assault rifle in his hand when he heard a gunshot.
Clang! The attacking black shadow fell heavily to the ground.
She was face up, and there was an exaggerated, hideous blood hole from her left chest to her shoulder, leaving no intact area.
After twitching a few times, this female human lost her life.
Jiang Baimian retracted her "Joint 202" pistol and said calmly:
"A 'Heartless'."
"Heartless"… Long Yuehong looked at the corpse in surprise and curiosity.
This was a term that everyone studying the history of the graylands couldn't avoid, and it was also something described in great detail in the internal textbooks of "Pangu Biology."
"Heartless," also known as "Mindless," refers to humans suffering from "Heartless Disease"—a disease also known as "Bestialization Disease" or "Atavistic Disease," meaning that the afflicted humans will lose all reason, thoughts, and emotions, turning into creatures similar to beasts, with only the instinct to hunt, the instinct to survive, and the instinct to use simple tools.
They cannot communicate and will actively attack normal humans, treating them as prey.
"Heartless Disease" first appeared when the Old World was destroyed. Humans in one city after another turned into "Heartless" in a very short period of time, and even more unprepared people died at the hands of the "Heartless."
Since "Heartless" need to eat to survive, like true beasts, they quickly died in large numbers after the collapse of human order and the arrival of the great famine, leaving less than one percent of their original number.
According to observations by many graylands historians, "Heartless," in addition to hunting humans, will also prey on wild animals, dig up tree roots, pick fruits, and catch mutated and non-mutated rats to eat. When they are most hungry, they will attack each other.
Such a "diet" and living environment mean that "Heartless" rarely live past the age of thirty, but they have the instinct to reproduce and have a large number of descendants.
And the "Heartless" after the first generation will have a little more intelligence and a stronger hunting ability.
Logically speaking, when humans restore a certain order and master sufficient firepower, dealing with "Heartless" who are closer to beasts is not too difficult, but this is not the case in reality.
On the one hand, although "Heartless" do not know how to disassemble and maintain weapons, they will use them, as if they have an instinct in this regard—the further away from the first generation the "Heartless" are, the stronger this instinct is. Moreover, "Heartless" have the essence of humans and will suffer from pollution and produce distortions, which, while causing a large number of "Heartless" to die in pain, also creates a batch of top hunters.
Of course, no matter how good "Heartless" are at using weapons, they do not understand scientific research, do not know how to organize production, and do not know how to maintain them. Even if they become top hunters, they cannot cause too much trouble in front of well-armed human armies. After all, humans master the technology of "inducing mutations and genetic modification." Even if it is not very mature and the success rate is low, it can still crush the "Heartless" who depend on the weather.
On the other hand, humans have never found out the pathogenesis and transmission rules of "Heartless Disease" and do not know how to prevent this disease. This leads to soldiers being unwilling to go to areas where "Heartless" gather, fearing infection. Therefore, after the major forces clear the "Heartless" around them, they are unwilling to deal with those entrenched in the ruins of old-world cities.
To this day, "Heartless Disease" is still a shadow looming over humanity.
Because even people who have not directly contacted "Heartless" and live well in settlements may lose their reason and wisdom after waking up and become "beasts."
And their relatives and friends are completely fine, with no signs of infection at all—this is the conclusion drawn after long-term isolation and observation.
In earlier years, a high-ranking official of a major force who feared "Heartless Disease" to the extreme slept in an isolation room and wore a gas mask and protective suit whenever he went out. As a result, he still became "Heartless" one day.
Fortunately, since the New Calendar, the average incidence of "Heartless Disease" is not too high, otherwise, humanity may have already collapsed.
The tragic state of the corpse made Long Yuehong, who saw a similar scene for the first time, feel a sour taste in his throat, and he subconsciously turned his head away, not daring to look again.
"It looks like a first generation," Bai Chen recalled and made a judgment.
"Judging from the extent of the clothes' tatteredness, the onset of the disease was no more than a year ago," Jiang Baimian looked at Shang Jianyao and Long Yuehong. "Do you need me to go over the knowledge of 'Heartless' again?"
Shang Jianyao did not answer and suddenly said:
"This is not the black shadow I saw earlier.
"That black shadow was shorter."
Jiang Baimian nodded slightly:
"You two search the corpse to see if there are any valuable items, and then carry the corpse outside and bury it. Don't leave the area illuminated by the fire."
After thinking about it, she walked to the jeep, took out four dark things, and threw one each to Shang Jianyao and Long Yuehong:
"Walkie-talkies, effective range of two kilometers, further in open areas.
"If there are any situations, notify me immediately. You should know how to use them, right?"
"I know how to fix them," Shang Jianyao answered irrelevantly.
He and Long Yuehong both graduated from the university's electronics department.
Long Yuehong hung up the walkie-talkie and hesitantly walked to the corpse of the "Heartless."
The smell of blood mixed with an indescribable stench surged upwards, almost making Long Yuehong, who was cowering and afraid to look at the corpse, vomit.
Shang Jianyao walked over, took the initiative to start the search, and then stood at the head of the corpse, which was the side with the gunshot wound.
"Do you need me to carry it?" he said to Long Yuehong.
"Uh…" Long Yuehong wanted to say that it wasn't too good to let Shang Jianyao carry the corpse himself.
"I mean, do you need me to carry you?" Shang Jianyao explained expressionlessly.
Long Yuehong laughed dryly:
"No need, no need."
He bent down and grabbed the corpse's feet.
Shang Jianyao then passed his arms through the armpits of the Heartless.
Blood dripped little by little. The two carried the corpse, walked out of the open space, dug a pit at the edge of the firelight, and buried the corpse in it.
This somewhat affected Long Yuehong's appetite, making him eat only a piece of compressed biscuit and half a can of pork stewed with soybeans.
The sky was getting darker and darker. Just as Jiang Baimian was about to arrange the night watch schedule, a roar suddenly came from the distance:
"Awoo!"
This sound resounded through the clouds, rough, hoarse, and desolate, like a nightmare at night.
As soon as it fell, shouts rose and fell in different parts of the Great Swamp, echoing endlessly.
Long Yuehong felt his heart tremble at the sound and couldn't help but ask:
"Is this a pack of wolves?"
"Have you ever seen packs of wolves distributed in different places?" Jiang Baimian said with a chuckle.
"Is this kind of situation with wild beast roars everywhere common in the Great Swamp?" Long Yuehong asked uneasily.
Jiang Baimian shook her head, her smile unchanged:
"Not common."
"Then, what should we do?" Long Yuehong blurted out.
Jiang Baimian looked at him amusedly:
"This is indeed a bit unusual, indicating that something may have happened deep in the Great Swamp.
"But looking at the general area and direction, there is no intersection with our route and destination at all, so don't worry about it."
"Don't worry about it?" Long Yuehong looked at Shang Jianyao beside him and found that he was not afraid at all.
Bai Chen, who was responsible for guarding the surroundings, said calmly upon seeing this:
"In the Black Marsh Wilderness, there will be an anomaly or accident every few days. How can we take care of everything?
"In such a large wilderness, the possibility of those things affecting you is very, very low."
"But what if it does affect us?" Long Yuehong asked further.
Shang Jianyao stared at the campfire and said:
"That can only mean your name is not good."
"…That's right. If your fate is bad, you can't avoid it no matter what. If your fate is good, you won't encounter it no matter what," Long Yuehong nodded, gritting his teeth.
Jiang Baimian couldn't understand the conversation between the two and was too embarrassed to ask further, so she could only say with a smile:
"We are far away from the event's location, so we can't figure out the specific situation and can't prepare in advance.
"Without withdrawing to the company, the only option is to walk around that place, take a detour, and our route is already like that."
"That sounds much more reasonable than before…" Long Yuehong thought carefully and found that the two ways of expressing the same meaning had completely different effects.
Jiang Baimian smiled upon hearing this:
"So, you have to learn to grasp the essence of things.
"In this regard, Shang Jianyao is much better than you. Look, he has never been nervous."
Shang Jianyao nodded slightly:
"I'm just considering whether to participate."
"Huh?" Jiang Baimian, Long Yuehong, and Bai Chen all looked confused.
Shang Jianyao opened his mouth and made a sound:
"Awoo!"
ps: Asking for recommendations on Monday~ The second update today is at 12:30 noon