The experiment with Xie Dong was successful. Based on that, both the throats of Lu Tianyi and Shen Yujen were fixed with no difficulties. After that, Lu Tianyi continued to be a level-four zombie, and neither did Shen Yujen upgrade. She was still between level two and three.
"How do you feel? Make a squeak and let me hear your voice," Lin Qiao came ashore and put on her clothes before saying to Lu Tianyi.
'I'm not a rat!' Lu Tianyi complained silently.
He glanced at Lin Qiao, then slightly opened his mouth and tried to let out a few words, "He-llo…"
As same as Xie Dong's voice, his was dry and hoarse as well, but slightly higher-pitched. Their voices weren't exactly the same, and were both different from their original voices.
"Hm, your voices can be rather unpleasant at first. But, as long as you can talk…" Lin Qiao nodded. She had learned from Xie Dong that despite his unpleasant voice, his throat didn't feel uncomfortable when he talked.
Lu Tianyi rubbed his throat as he felt a little strange. His voice did sound not good.
Lin Qiao turned to Shen Yujen and said, "Let me hear your voice."
Shen Yujen looked at Lin Qiao, opened her mouth and said, "Miss Lu…"
Her voice was not the same with the voices of Xie Dong and Lu Tianyi. It was dry, but not hoarse. On the contrary, her voice was quite high pitched.
Shen Yujen called Lin Qiao with a very low voice, so her voice didn't sound bad, but magnetic in a special way.
"Emm, not bad! Your voice sounds better than his," Lin Qiao nodded as she glanced at both of them with satisfaction.
Lu Tianyi felt a little speechless.
Shen Yujen smiled delightfully. She was finally able to talk. It was much better than being mute. Being able to talk would help them to hide their true identities better.
"Let's go and see if that mushroom is tired or not," Lin Qiao turned and headed toward the woods.
Lu Tianyi and Shen Yujen followed behind her with both confusion and curiosity. That was clearly not an ordinary mushroom, as it managed to make their Chief run all over the forest.
At the edge of the woods, the group of zombies was still watching the three mutated creatures. The three were still running; none of them showed a sign of stopping.
"They're running inside the woods all the time. Doesn't the mushroom know how to leave? Is it doing this on purpose?" Lin Qiao looked at the mushroom which was running in the front, seemingly happily. The zombie dog was chasing the mushroom excitedly, and Black, of course, had an angry face.
The three mutated creatures were as fast as the wind. The zombies on the scenes were only able to locate them by tracing the sources of their energies. If they tried to capture the three with their eyes, they would see nothing but shreds of shadows that they left.
Before she tried to stop the three, Lin Qiao sensed Xie Dong's vibe from the outside.
"You guys have fun!" She said to the three in the woods, then turned and exited the base with Lu Tianyi and Shen Yujen.
Xie Dong was waiting for her where she entered the base from. Soon, he saw Lin Qiao show up from the thin air.
"Those are tens of superpowered people who attained their superpowers not long ago. Among them, the strongest one is only at level-three," Xie Dong reported to Lin Qiao with his dry voice, "About a thousand people are following behind them, in over ten trucks. It seems that the tens of superpowered ones had separated themselves from those commoners. Our new base is nearby, so they decided not to stick with those commoners anymore. They see them as burdens. They left without those commoners, but then had their way blocked by the zombie crowd. I think they don't want to take the detour. They're probably waiting for those commoners to catch up, so that they can use them as baits to distract the zombies in that area."
"That's a convenient idea… a little evil though," Lin Qiao nodded as she said expressionlessly.
In the apocalyptic era, who would care about the lives of the others? People always tried their best to make use of others. Things like using living human beings as baits had become common since long ago.
"Keep an eye on them, but don't interfere. Let's see who will win at last. Only the winner has the right to survive," Lin Qiao didn't plan on helping those people.
Tens of low-leveled superpowered people against over a thousand armed commoners… It was hard to tell which side would win a fight like that.
"I get it," Xie Dong nodded, then turned and left.
Qiu Lili flew to Lin Qiao's side as she glanced at Xie, then asked her, "I found a level-five mutated tree over there. Shall we go?"
Lin Qiao looked at where she was pointing at, then nodded and responded with, "Yeah, why not? But, let's get a few goats before leaving."
"What?" Qiu Lili didn't understand her meaning at first.
"We can eat these mutated goats! Let's capture a few of them and keep them in my space, so that we'll have meat to eat in the future!" Lin Qiao pointed at the herd of mutated goats on the mountain.
The mountain was occupied by mutated goats. Their leader was a level-six goat who was already killed by Lin Qiao.
"Oh! That's easy! You go over there and touch them, and then they'll all be in the space!" Qiu Lili finally understood.
"Yeah, that's what I'm gonna do. You guys wait here," Lin Qiao smilingly glanced at her, then said a few words to Lu Tianyi and Shen Yujen. After that, she disappeared from where she was.
She returned about half an hour later. By the time, tens of black goats were thrown onto the grassland in her space. Those mutated goats weren't as fierce as those mutated roe deers, but were as strong as the latter.
As the tens of goats showed up on the grassland, the few roe deers that Lin Qiao kept for breeding immediately launched their attacks. However, the goats outnumbered them, and were very united and strong. As a result, those roe deers were forced away by the goats with their sharp horns.
After that fight, the goats and the roe deers each occupied one part of the grassland.
Lin Qiao was keeping an eye on them at first. She found that they had a fight, but didn't cause casualties. After that, she stopped paying attention to them.
Then, she started moving toward the mutated tree that Qiu Lili had mentioned.
…
On the other side, Lu Tong and his people waited for a couple of hours until Wang Jian and the others finally arrived. Then, they quickly hid and waited for those commoners to stop moving.
As they expected, Wang Jian ordered the motorcade to stop moving before they approached the zombie crowd. After that, he leaped off the car roof and shouted to the people behind him with both surprise and doubts, "Stay put… Wait for my orders!"
Then, he picked up his gun and shot the zombies that were scattered around him as he moved into a tall building with a squad. While staying vigilant against zombie attacks, they rushed upstairs quickly.
After killing a few zombies on the stairs, they climbed onto the roof of that twelve-story building.
Wang Jian looked at the front area through a telescope, then said with a serious look, "No wonder the number of zombies clearly declined on our way here. It turns out that they have all gathered here!"