Chapter 285: Zombie Farming Workshop

After putting some distance between himself and the monster, Lin Fan focused his mind. The invisible veil shrouding his body quietly dissolved, replaced by a warm current that instantly flooded his system.

He equipped the [Activated Crystal (Critical State)].

Lin Fan glanced at the blue bar in the upper-right corner of his vision.

In the past, activating this kind of buff crystal would cause his energy—or Source Energy, as the system called it—to drain continuously, as if from a small leak. But now, having reached a critical state, the Activated Crystal revealed its truly terrifying feature: self-circulation.

Perhaps due to a dramatic increase in energy efficiency, its restorative function and its own consumption had achieved a sort of equilibrium. Not only was it not draining his energy, it was actually replenishing it slowly.

This meant that as long as he didn’t engage in high-intensity combat, he could keep this comprehensive physical enhancement buff active 24/7 and even get free Life Value regeneration on top of it.

Buoyed by this confidence, Lin Fan’s figure flickered as he slipped through the pitch-black gap in the factory wall.

The moment he stepped inside, a pungent odor—so thick it was almost tangible—assaulted his senses. It was a mixture of blood and the sharp sting of disinfectant.

The wide loading corridor now looked as if it had just been steamrolled by a heavy tank.

Signs on the walls had been scraped off and twisted into knots. The fluorescent lights overhead were all shattered, leaving only precariously dangling wires. The tiled floor was an even more wretched sight, pulverized by the giant creature’s hooves, exposing the churned-up concrete and foundation beneath.

‘Such destructive power…’

Lin Fan followed the trail of destruction to an open doorway. It must have once been a cold storage room—the giant pig’s “bedroom,” he presumed.

The room was now completely empty, with nothing but scattered trash and a few uneaten, rotting limbs on the floor.

This area was on the outskirts of the factory building. It was clear that besides the “boss,” no one else frequented this spot. He returned to the main path and followed a different, narrow route marked by dense footprints. After two turns, Lin Fan finally arrived in a large workshop.

This was the processing floor of the fresh meat plant, the core of the entire factory. Though sunlight had begun to pierce the clouds outside, the cavernous interior remained dim and gloomy. Only a few emergency lights flickered, their faulty connections emitting an electric ZZZT.

‘This isn’t a meatpacking plant; it’s a goddamn haunted house…’

Even for someone like him, who had grown accustomed to life and death in the apocalypse, the sight before him made his brow furrow in disgust.

On one side of the workshop, above a conveyor belt, the automated suspension rail once used for transporting pork carcasses still spanned the air. Except now, what hung from the thick, gleaming stainless steel hooks were not sides of pork, but zombies.

They hung in dense rows from the rail, like sides of cured meat. Each zombie had been impaled through its back ribs or spine by a sharp hook, left to dangle a foot or so off the ground. With no leverage, they could only flail their limbs uselessly at Lin Fan.

In Lin Fan’s vision, bright red health bars floated in mid-air like neon signs. None of the zombies were at full health; they had clearly sustained serious injuries during their “capture” and “hooking.”

As the zombies swayed with each movement, the hooks scraped against the rail, producing a grating CREAK. A few of them had been “processed” further: their limbs were severed at the trunk, leaving only torsos that writhed and roared silently. Their mouths had been sewn shut with wire, and they hung like living punching bags as black blood dripped from their wounds, forming small, winding puddles on the floor below.

‘Farming zombies and feeding them humans…’

Lin Fan’s gaze swept across the scene, and understanding dawned on him. To farm Mutated Zombies, the boss had clearly established a highly efficient “feeding assembly line.”

These zombies had no chance of escaping their hooks unless they rotted away completely. Deciding to ignore them for the time being, Lin Fan followed the bloodstains and footprints on the floor, continuing silently into the depths of the factory.

After passing through the “jungle” of hanging zombies, he came to an area of holding pens separated by iron railings. They were originally meant for live pigs awaiting slaughter.

The original waist-high railings had been crudely extended to the ceiling. They were reinforced with thumb-thick rebar and multiple layers of barbed wire, all welded into a formidable barrier. A small, barred gate, just large enough for one person to crawl through, was left about two feet off the ground.

The entire row of pens was mostly empty; only the five cages at the far end held anything.

“ROAR—!”

BANG! BANG! BANG!

The instant Lin Fan drew near, it was as if they caught the scent of a living human’s Fresh Meat. The creatures in the five cages erupted into a frenzy! They slammed themselves against the steel bars, creating deep, thunderous impacts that shook rust from the welded joints.

These zombies were noticeably larger and more swollen than the others. Some had muscle fibers bulging from their bodies like gnarled tree roots. One had an arm that had evolved into a foot-long, bone-white spur. Another cage was silent, but within a heap of flesh, a long arm could be seen slowly squirming.

[673/673] [788/788]… They were zombies in the process of mutating.

Perhaps freed from the suppression of the “boss’s” Superpower, the mutants went berserk at the sight of Lin Fan, frantically beating against their steel cages. But the bars were welded solid; no matter how hard these half-baked Mutated Zombies thrashed, they couldn’t break free.

Heaps of mangled flesh and blood were piled inside the cages. Looking closer at the tattered uniforms, Lin Fan realized three of them belonged to the men he had shot and killed earlier.