The heat was stifling. It felt as if he had been thrown into Lord Laozi's alchemy furnace. Every breath he drew into his lungs tasted of sulfur and rusty iron.
“Cough, cough...”
Xiao Yi huddled in the darkest corner of the troop carrier and coughed violently twice. The taste of rust in his throat grew stronger. By instinct, he pressed the inner pocket of his chest, where he kept a crumpled photograph. The girl in it smiled with crescent-shaped eyes. That was Xiao Yu, his only family.
“Damn it, what are you coughing for? Trying to bring every zombie around? You miserable jinx!”
A furious shout exploded from the front of the vehicle. The speaker was a one-eyed man with a face full of fleshy folds that quivered as he spoke. His only remaining eye, the right one, gleamed with the viciousness of a starving wolf. His name was Zhao Gang, leader of the “Vulture” scavenger squad and a notorious brute from Black Iron Stronghold, the kind of man who would eat you alive and leave no bones.
Xiao Yi said nothing. He only lowered his head and dug his fingers into the chipped handle of his cleaver. His knuckles went white, and the veins on the back of his hand bulged like earthworms.
For Xiao Yu, he repeated silently to himself.
