Chapter 461: Diary entry

Chapter 461 -74 – Diary entry

Chen’s laughter didn’t last long.

The moment he tried to straighten, pain shot through his ribs and throat, forcing him to lean more heavily against Skyy. Skyy immediately tightened his arm around his waist, all traces of amusement disappearing from his face.

“Don’t move so fast.”

“I’m fine.”

Skyy gave him a look that clearly said he didn’t believe a word of that.

Chen chose not to argue. His head was still ringing from being thrown against the ground, and the blood running down the side of his face had already reached his neck. He wiped at it with the back of his hand, only succeeding in smearing it farther across his cheek.

Skyy frowned. “Stop.”

He caught Chen’s wrist before he could do it again, then pulled a relatively clean corner of his shirt out and carefully wiped the blood away. Chen stood there quietly while Skyy worked, his eyes occasionally drifting toward the dead zombie a few meters away.

The thing was finally still.

Its body lay twisted among the leaves with Skyy’s metal pipe sticking from its skull. Looking at it now, Chen could hardly believe how close it had come. If Skyy had hesitated for even a few seconds…

His eyes moved back to him.

Skyy’s hands were still trembling.

Not much, but Chen could feel it whenever his fingers brushed against his face.

Chen reached up and caught his wrist gently.

“I’m really okay.”

Skyy pressed his lips together. “You almost weren’t.”

There was no accusation in his voice, which somehow made Chen feel worse. He rubbed his thumb over Skyy’s wrist before letting go.

Before either of them could say anything else, branches rustled somewhere behind them.

Chen reacted instantly. He pulled Skyy behind him and reached for his rifle, only to remember it had been knocked somewhere into the bushes.

A figure appeared between the trees.

Liang Wei.

He was breathing hard, his face pale and his injured arm clutched tightly against his chest. The moment he saw the zombie lying on the ground, he stopped.

His mouth slowly fell open.

“You killed it?”

Chen’s expression immediately darkened.

Liang Wei took one look at his face and wisely stayed several meters away.

“You ran.”

There was enough in those two words that Liang Wei visibly swallowed.

“I thought we were dead.”

“So you decided to make sure you weren’t included?”

Liang Wei looked ashamed, but he didn’t try to deny it. His eyes dropped toward the ground as he explained that he had encountered something similar before. A powered zombie had destroyed most of a survivor group he once traveled with, and when he felt that strange pressure in the air, his body had reacted before he could think. He had run until the sounds of fighting disappeared, then spent several minutes convincing himself to come back.

Chen was still furious, but there wasn’t much point wasting energy beating an already injured man.

More importantly, they still needed him.

“If you do that again,” Chen said, “you’re finding City S by yourself.”

Liang Wei nodded quickly.

Chen left it at that.

They spent the next few minutes retrieving what had been scattered during the fight. Chen found his rifle beneath a bush several meters away. Skyy retrieved the pipe with considerably more reluctance. He planted one foot against the zombie’s shoulder and pulled until the metal finally came free with a wet sound that made his face turn slightly green.

Chen watched him wipe it repeatedly against the grass.

“Still want the pipe?”

Skyy grimaced. “Can I have a different one?”

Despite himself, Chen smiled.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t another one.

They couldn’t leave immediately either. Chen’s head was still spinning whenever he moved too quickly, and Liang Wei’s injured arm had begun bleeding through the bandage again after his enthusiastic escape. They eventually settled beneath a group of thick trees while Skyy dug through their supplies.

That was when Chen remembered the diary.

It had been sitting at the bottom of his bag for long enough that he had almost forgotten about it. When he pulled out a strip of cloth for Liang Wei’s arm, the old diary came with it and dropped onto the ground.

Skyy bent down to pick it up.

“Wait.”

Something had slipped from between the pages.

It was a folded sheet of yellowed paper, thin enough that it had almost blended into the binding.

Skyy handed it to Chen.

“Was that there before?”

“I don’t remember.”

Chen frowned and opened the diary again. He had looked through it before, but not carefully enough to memorize every page. Most of it had been the ordinary records of someone trying to survive: food shortages, infected sightings, names of people who had disappeared or died.

Now that he knew what year they were in, those entries suddenly mattered a lot more.

He turned toward the final pages.

Several had been written hurriedly. The handwriting became increasingly messy, with words crossed out and rewritten as though whoever owned the diary had been panicking.

Then Chen stopped.

There was a date.

September 17, 2040.

His brows slowly drew together.

Skyy noticed immediately and leaned closer.

“What is it?”

Chen didn’t answer.

He read.

The writer had heard confirmation of an evacuation order. At first, everyone believed soldiers were moving civilians because another infected horde was approaching. That wasn’t the reason.

The military was preparing to bomb the region.

According to the diary, several heavily infected zones had become impossible to clear normally. High-level zombies were appearing more frequently, and survivor teams sent into the area had stopped returning. The decision had eventually been made to destroy the entire region before the infected could spread farther.

Smaller settlements hadn’t been properly warned yet.

City S apparently knew.

Chen’s expression grew more serious the farther he read.

Near the bottom of the page, the handwriting became noticeably heavier.

Seven days. That’s what we were told. September 24. Anyone still inside the marked zone after that is on their own.

Below it, another sentence had been underlined twice.

Do not use the northern road. Go south before the bombing begins.

Chen read the date again.

September 24.

A strange coldness settled in his stomach.

Skyy was watching him now. “Chen?”

Chen turned toward Liang Wei.

“What date is it today?”

Liang Wei, who had been adjusting the fresh bandage around his arm, paused.

“September twenty-first.”

Chen’s fingers tightened around the diary.

Skyy immediately noticed.

“What?”

Chen looked back down at the page.

Three days.

They had three days.

But that wasn’t the only thing bothering him.

Chen knew about the bombing campaigns. His father had spoken about them more than once. They were one of the reasons their settlement had eventually become relatively secure. Entire infected regions had been cleared through coordinated attacks after ordinary methods stopped working.

But Chen didn’t remember this.

Not like this.

The dates felt wrong. The area felt wrong. Even the number of powerful infected they had encountered didn’t fit what he knew.

He looked toward the corpse nearby.

A powered zombie strong enough to nearly kill him had simply been wandering through the forest.

Something about this version of 2040 was becoming harder and harder to dismiss.

Skyy moved closer until their shoulders touched.

“What’s going to happen in three days?”

Chen was quiet for a moment.

Then he turned the diary so Skyy could see the entry.

“This entire region is going to be bombed.”

Skyy’s face changed.

His hand unconsciously tightened around the bloodstained pipe.

Liang Wei had gone completely still.

“What?”

Chen closed the diary.

“We leave now.”

Liang Wei stared at him. “City S is still days away.”

“Then we walk faster.”

Chen pushed himself to his feet despite the ache running through his body. Skyy immediately reached out to steady him, but Chen’s attention had already moved toward the trees ahead.

City S was no longer simply somewhere they could go for information.

If the diary was right, someone there knew about the bombing. They might have evacuation routes, vehicles, maps, anything that could get them outside the marked zone before September 24.

Chen slipped the diary carefully back into his bag.

Three days.

Whatever had happened to this timeline, they could figure it out after they survived it.