Chapter 18: White Stiff Corpse
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With one person short, they could only play Landlord.
Li Ang's card skills and sleight of hand were strong; in the past, Chen Daozai could win 37 million with just 20 yuan, so it wasn't a problem for Li Ang to win 5 million with 200,000 happy beans.
After several rounds, the other two players were soundly defeated and were grumbling to themselves about whether Hammer had stepped in dog shit that day, while also feeling a depressing anxiety rising within them.
Feng Tieyi slapped his cards on his hand and glared at Li Ang, "With seventeen cards, you can wipe me out instantly? You can annihilate me?! If you can wipe me out with seventeen cards today, I! Will! Eat! This deck of cards right here and now."
Li Ang coolly tossed all his playing cards onto the newspaper in the middle, "Bomb," "Plane."
Seventeen cards, instant wipe out.
Feng Tieyi stared hard at the poker cards laid out on the newspaper, about to explode in anger, when he suddenly heard an extremely faint "click."
He instinctively turned his head toward the distant grand hall platform.
The white-haired corpse sitting upright in the coffin was slowly rising straight up in an eerie manner,
It stepped out of the low coffin, lightly hopped down from the platform, and silently approached the three players engrossed in their card game.
Zombies, born from the resentful and foul energies of heaven and earth, gain strength from resentment and feed on blood.
According to strange fiction collections like "Zi Buyu", "Xuzi Buyu", and "Observations from the Thatched Cottage", zombies can be classified into Purple Zombie, White Zombie, Black Zombie, Green Zombie, Hairy Zombie, Flying Zombie, Wandering Corpse, Crouching Corpse, Unchanging Bones, and even the Drought Demon and Haunt.
The Purple Zombie is a regular deceased human, while White and Black Zombies grow hair on their bodies, can stand upright, and move freely.
The Green and Hairy Zombies are agile, capable of leaping and bounding as if flying, are impervious to ordinary fire, and even unafraid of sunlight.
Higher-level Flying Zombies can cast spells, fly through the sky, and travel a thousand miles at night.
As for Unchanging Bones and even higher-level Drought Demons, they have become legendary monsters that leave no vegetation in their wake.
The White Zombie in front of them, though a lower-level zombie, was not something an unarmed human could contend with — for ordinary people, stiffening with fear upon encountering a monster is the norm.
The White Zombie leapt down from the platform and walked over at a slow pace, the entire process unfolding in utter silence. Feng Tieyi was about to scream, but suddenly remembered the companion who had hurriedly left earlier, and his face changed color.
According to the bizarre beliefs passed down in the village, when encountering a corpse coming back to life, the living should not speak loudly; in fact, they're best off not even breathing, lest the resurrected corpse smells the breath of the living and pounces fiercely, choking the life out of them.
Feng Tiebing, sitting opposite Feng Tieyi, saw his companion's changing expressions and instinctively turned his head to look, also seeing the reanimated zombie.
The two usually got along well, but now they were so scared that they dared not warn Li Ang, who had his back to the zombie. They simply threw down their cards and stumbled towards the door to run out.
Perhaps in their unspeakable thoughts, they hoped that Li Ang with his back to the White Zombie would serve as a meat shield to temporarily fend off the reanimated zombie, at least for a while.....
Li Ang, sitting at the innermost, watched as all his companions left the grand hall. He stood up unhurriedly, patted the dust off his clothes, turned around, and faced the zombie.
This unfortunate woman, starved to death by her own son, still couldn't find peace in death.
Her whole body was covered with white long hair, those fine and fluffy mycelium strands spreading wantonly from the gaps in her shroud, gently swaying with every gust of air.
Underneath the white hair, her skin was an iron-blue color, with tight flesh full of wrinkles like snake skin.
The only part of her face not completely covered by white hair was horrifically ferocious; her eye sockets were hollow, her mouth was wide open without any teeth, showing only pale gums.
As if sensing the breath of the living, the Hairy Zombie extended her arms and advanced towards Li Ang with deceptively quick steps.
"Sigh...."
Li Ang let out a long sigh, lifted the Kalashnikov assault rifle, pressed the buttstock tightly against his shoulder, tilted his neck slightly to the right, aligned his right eye with the sight, took a step forward with his left foot, bent his left knee, braced his body with his right foot, and shifted his weight forward.
His rifle standing position was textbook perfect.
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Pulling the trigger, the bullet spiraled down the rifling and fired out.
The 7.62mm caliber rifle bullet, flying at a speed of 850 m/s and carrying 1980J of muzzle energy, would leave a small hole where it entered a human body and carve out a bowl-sized wound at the exit point.
The frailty of flesh far exceeds the imagination of ordinary people; even mammoths and tyrant dragons could not withstand a 7.62mm bullet point-blank without damage.
Da, da, da.
Flames spewed from the gun muzzle, and in the span of six seconds, Li Ang had emptied all twenty-nine bullets from the magazine into the hairy zombie's head, torso, and limbs.
When there was only one bullet left in the magazine, Li Ang, with the gun in his right hand, took out a magazine from his waist with his left hand. Then he used the new magazine to push against the magazine catch on the gun, flipping it open. As the empty magazine loosened, he pushed the new one forward causing the empty magazine to fall out, and then slotted the new magazine into place as usual.
This single-handed magazine change tactic took only 2 to 3 seconds, saving a significant amount of time compared to the traditional reloading process, and even the action of pulling the bolt to chamber a round could be omitted, greatly enhancing sustained firepower.
The 7.62mm bullets were relentlessly pumped into the body of the hairy zombie. The dull thuds echoed in the spacious rural assembly hall, accompanied by the crisp tinkling of falling bullet casings, composing a symphony soaked in the scent of iron and blood.
The tremendous muzzle energy forced the hairy zombie back. Its grey-white hair, connected to a large piece of scalp, was sheared off by the rifle bullets, exposing the pale cranium with red and white flesh stuck to it.
However, the 7.62mm bullets were hindered on the body parts covered in white hair.
The seemingly fluffy and soft white hair acted like a highly effective bulletproof vest, gripping the copper-cased bullets tightly and preventing them from penetrating any further into the zombie's body.
Even tufts of white hair extended from the zombie's throat, blocking the bullets trying to pass through the mouth.
The task surely wouldn't be so leisurely easy, and Li Ang, already mentally prepared, put his AK47 back into his backpack. He drew his double-barreled shotgun made from motorcycle parts with his right hand, and a homemade hand grenade fashioned from a soda can with his left.
Bang! The double-barreled shotgun sprayed the hairy zombie with a dense swarm of small steel balls, shattering its numb and pale eyeballs.
The hairy zombie's body shook violently from the heavy blow, and the next second, a fierce and resolute scream echoed through the mountains!
The zombie charged forth, its long grey hair trailing behind it, fluttering sideways with the sudden burst of speed, resembling a ghost.
"So fast..."
A thought flashed through Li Ang's mind as he instinctively stomped the ground and leapt away like an arrow released from a bow, narrowly avoiding the zombie's air-tearing claws.
In the blink of an eye, Li Ang saw clearly that the zombie's pitch-black nails were extremely long and sharp; a single scratch could cleave him in two.
Li Ang, retreating, quickly rolled on the ground and stood up while maintaining his balance. He continuously pulled the shotgun's trigger, unleashing bullets, and with his left hand, he yanked off the pin of the soda can grenade and hurled it towards the zombie. He then quickly took cover behind a pile of chairs to the side of the assembly hall.
The soda can, firmly wrapped with duct tape, traced a beautiful arc in the air and landed in front of the zombie.
The white zombie reached out and grasped the soda can, squeezing it ferociously.
Boom!
A towering blaze shot into the sky, and the visible blast wave swept across the entire assembly hall with irresistible force, grinding every table, chair, and bench in the corners to pieces.
Inside the can, a dense mass of steel balls, nails, and metal fragments burst into death's blossoms in the air. Accompanied by the whistling noise of breaking the speed of sound, they embedded themselves into every corner of the hall.
Li Ang, taking cover behind the tables and chairs, peeked out only to see a figure still standing amidst the swirling dust.
"Heh... heh"
A deep growling sound arose from the center of the hall, and the zombie stepped out of the smoke and dust; the flesh on its palm had been completely stripped away, leaving only white bones exposed.
Yet, tufts of hair, as if alive, were climbing up the zombie's arm, attaching themselves to the wounds on its palm, healing the scars.
And the hair on its body, visible to the naked eye, was rapidly turning black, even sprouting spots of green from the roots.
From white zombie to black zombie and even green zombie, it was evolving.