Chapter 325 - 164: Human Habitation

Chapter 325: Chapter 164: Human Habitation

They were just piled up here, not burned or buried, just left out in the open. No wonder it attracted so many carrion birds.

He circled the pile of corpses, and Xu Mo’s eyes narrowed.

The zombies’ wounds were obvious. Either they had been shot in the head, or their heads were smashed beyond recognition. Some zombies didn’t even have heads at all.

’This was the work of humans!’

Xu Mo confirmed this fact almost instantly. If humans did this, it meant there had to be survivors nearby.

And not just a few survivors, but a group. To be able to clear out over a hundred zombies, including a Tier-1 mutant, meant this group’s combat strength was not to be underestimated. Judging by the decomposition of the corpses, these zombies hadn’t been killed long ago—two or three days at most.

’So, the question is—where are these people?’

Xu Mo looked up into the distance. All around was a boundless wilderness, with the occasional withered tree and a few clumps of shrubs. But at the edge of his vision, he could vaguely make out some blurry silhouettes—they looked like buildings, or perhaps hills. It was too far to see clearly.

Xu Mo brought his gaze back to the pile of bodies. ’Why didn’t these people burn the corpses?’

Burning required fuel, and in the apocalypse, fuel was a precious resource. But leaving zombie corpses undealt with also posed a hidden danger—like these carrion birds.

’What if these birds mutate after eating the zombie corpses?’

Xu Mo watched the flock of birds circling in the sky, his brow furrowed slightly.

’These birds are still normal for now, but who could guarantee they’d stay that way? How do mutated creatures come to be? Isn’t it a step-by-step process of feeding, infection, and evolution? If someone just piles up zombie corpses here and lets a flock of birds feast on them every day, it won’t be long before a flock of mutated birds appears in this sky. When that time comes, those people will be the first to suffer.’

Xu Mo shook his head.

’I can think of this, but couldn’t they? Maybe they really couldn’t!’

In the apocalypse, people lived one day at a time; who could afford to think so far ahead? Or maybe they thought of it but couldn’t be bothered. In this heat, who would want to go to the trouble of dealing with hundreds of stinking corpses?

Xu Mo stopped overthinking it and turned to get back in his car. But after just two steps, he stopped again. He remembered the two lone zombies he had seen earlier.

’Where did those two zombies come from? Could they have crawled out of this very pile? Maybe they weren’t completely dead then, just injured and knocked down. Then they woke up and staggered off into the distance. After a while, one of them couldn’t go on and collapsed, and the other started eating its companion...’

Xu Mo glanced back at the pile of corpses. He thought it was very likely.

Seeing that Xu Mo only circled the pile of bodies and showed no intention of driving them away, the birds in the sky gradually grew bolder. A few landed and tentatively resumed pecking at the corpses.

When the flock saw that Xu Mo didn’t move, they became even more brazen, burying their heads and feasting. In the next moment, more birds landed, and soon the pile of corpses was once again covered in a black, oppressive mass.

Watching the birds feasting as if he wasn’t there, Xu Mo shook his head and returned to his vehicle.

Back in the car, a question circled in Xu Mo’s mind: ’Since there’s a survivor settlement, or rather a shelter, nearby, should I go check it out?’

Following normal logic, Xu Mo felt he should go take a look. He had gotten almost no information about Ming Pearl Port on his journey so far. The mission of the Dandelion Plan was to travel to Ming Pearl Port and establish contact, but if he could glean some information from other survivors beforehand, it would be a great help for the rest of his trip.

Moreover, a settlement capable of clearing out hundreds of zombies had to be of a considerable size. Maybe they had a radio. Maybe they were in contact with other shelters. Maybe they knew something about the situation in Ming Pearl Port.

But—

Xu Mo’s fingers tapped lightly on the steering wheel.

’Going to a strange settlement all by myself is no small risk.’

Survivors in the apocalypse usually had two attitudes toward outsiders: one was a warm welcome, as one more person meant one more pair of hands; the other was vigilance and rejection, fearing you were there to steal their resources.

Of course, there was a third type—the kind that welcomes you warmly on the surface but is secretly plotting against you.

’To go, or not to go?’

Xu Mo was silent for a moment, then finally made a decision.

"Forget it," he muttered to himself. "I’ll just follow the road. If I happen to come across the settlement, I’ll check it out."

’I’ll leave it to fate.’

If the settlement was right on his route and he could see it easily, he would go take a look. If not, or if it required a long detour, he would forget it. Xu Mo decided not to actively search for it, but also not to deliberately avoid it.

Taking one last look at the birds still feeding on the carrion, Xu Mo stepped on the gas and drove away from the pile of corpses.

The SUV drove further and further away, until the pile of bodies and the flock of birds finally disappeared from view.

「Around three in the afternoon, the sun began to tilt westward.」

The hottest part of the day had passed, but the temperature was still high. Xu Mo glanced at the thermometer—thirty-nine degrees, one degree lower than before. At this rate, it would drop to around thirty-five degrees by evening.

He continued driving, his gaze occasionally sweeping over the roadside.

This area was more desolate than Xu Mo had imagined. The highway was flanked by endless wilderness, with only the occasional withered tree or patch of shrubbery.

After driving for about an hour, Xu Mo noticed some faint outlines appearing in his line of sight ahead. They were the silhouettes of buildings—single-story houses and multi-story buildings packed tightly together. It was a town. ’But it doesn’t seem to be marked on my map.’