Chapter 191: Zombies and outing.
One man on the upper floor actually forgot to breathe for a second when Bai Li kicked a zombie away and immediately followed with a second strike. Another survivor tightened her grip on the window frame and whispered that the girl downstairs must have some kind of military training. Someone else was already wondering whether Bai Li was even human in the normal sense, because the entire fight had been too fast, too clean, too unbothered. But if those people had stayed watching long enough, they would have noticed something else too. Bai Li was still not pushing herself all the way. She was not flailing with all her strength. She was still holding some of it back, as if she was testing the shape of her own power while staying careful enough not to expose everything at once.
That part mattered. Bai Li did not like showing all her cards when she did not need to. Even if the survivors had seen her fighting, they had only seen a portion of what she could do. She knew exactly how dangerous people could become once they realized someone was strong. Some would fear her. Some would admire her. Some might even try to depend on her too much. In a collapsed world, every useful person could become a target in one way or another. So Bai Li let the people watch, but she did not let them understand everything. That was the difference between being powerful and being reckless.
As Bai Li and Yan Cijin kept moving forward, the road ahead opened up in a way that was both better and worse than the stairwell. Better because there was more space to move. Worse because open space meant zombies could come from multiple directions, and there would be less protection if they got surrounded. Bai Li already knew that from experience. She kept her knife ready and her eyes shifting across the area in front of her. The supermarket was still not far away, and the question now was not whether they could reach it, but how much resistance would be waiting around the next corner.
Yan Cijin kept close to her side. The two of them moved in a way that was starting to feel more natural each time they went out together. Bai Li would take point, breaking the line of zombies and forcing them into smaller numbers. Yan Cijin would follow the openings she made, using her kukri to deal with any threat that managed to get around Bai Li’s immediate reach. Every now and then, Bai Li would glance at Yan Cijin just long enough to make sure she was still right there. Every time she did, she found Yan Cijin already watching the same direction, already ready to react. That kind of quiet coordination made the fight smoother than it would have been with a stranger. It also made Bai Li’s chest feel a little strange in a way she did not have a proper name for yet.
The neighborhood looked even more empty now that they were outside the building. Parked cars sat unmoving under the sun. The road signs were dusty. A few paper scraps spun lazily across the pavement when a breeze moved through, and far off in the distance there was a low sound that might have been another zombie cry or maybe just some kind of metal sign rattling in the wind. Bai Li did not look too far ahead for long. The things nearest to her mattered first. One zombie was approaching from the side of a garden wall, and she cut it down without changing pace. Another was coming from deeper in the lane, and she was already turning toward it before it finished shifting its body.
Yan Cijin noticed the speed of Bai Li’s responses and felt that quiet shock again. She had seen Bai Li get stronger over the last few days, but seeing it in real combat was still different. Every step Bai Li took looked light, but the force behind it was not light at all. Every swing of the knife looked simple, but the effect was violent enough to make a grown zombie drop in one clean motion. Yan Cijin knew enough to understand that this was not luck. This was progress. Real progress. And as she watched Bai Li work, she also noticed something that made her heart beat a little faster than before. Bai Li’s expression during a fight was calm, but not empty. There was a kind of controlled focus there that made her look very hard to ignore. Not because she was flashy, but because she was so steady.
The two of them continued advancing, and the area ahead of the supermarket slowly came into clearer view. Bai Li had already started thinking about the route, where the nearest cover would be, and whether they should cut left or right once they reached the open space. She could also hear movement ahead in short bursts, which meant there were probably still zombies drifting around the entrance. That was fine. As long as they did not all pile together at once, she still had the advantage. Her knife hand felt steady. Her feet felt steady. Yan Cijin’s presence behind her felt steady too.
That last part mattered more than Bai Li wanted to admit.
Because now, every time Yan Cijin came close enough that Bai Li could feel her breath or hear her step land right behind her, there was a tiny, hard to ignore shift in her chest. It was not fear. It was something warmer and more annoying to define. The kind of thing that made a person want to glance over their shoulder even when they already knew the other person was there. Bai Li had no spare time to figure out why that was happening, so she simply kept going and let the feeling sit in the background for now.
They were still moving forward when another low growl drifted toward them from the side street ahead.
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To be continued.
