XG 8 - Never help anyone that's bitten

 

Suzie Yap exited the washroom first, with her usual straight back and sophisticated walk that was her signature. Opposite her mother’s confident strut, Wong Xue Guo nearly tiptoed like a thief as she walked to control the sound coming from her shoes, her shoulder tense and her eyes roaming around.

 

As soon as Wong Xue Guo rounded the corner right outside the washroom, she nearly had a mini heart attack. She was not sure what she was expecting, but the sight of a young girl, clutching onto the phone receiver connected to the payphone might not be it. The girl was still in her school uniform and was crying as she pleaded for whoever she was calling to save her.

 

Her crying eyes widened when she saw them. "Help… help me."

 

Suzie Yap grasped Wong Xue Guo's wrist, acting as a chain if her daughter were to move to help. "She's bitten. Guo Guo, never help anyone that's bitten. You can choose not to kill them, but never risk your life to help them."

 

"Yes, mother." Wong Xue Guo had also noticed the girl's lower leg was bitten so badly she could not stand up straight. 

 

The young girl could never chase after them with her injured leg, and she also was not willing to end the phone call. In the end, she could only scream in helplessness from being abandoned as she watched the mother and daughter walk away.

 

"Mother, you are not afraid she would become one of the zombies if we don't kill her first?" Wong Xue Guo asked, trying to ignore the girl's scream that would attract danger. 

 

She had not seen the Calendar friends and thus was able to hold an indifferent heart, even if the sound of them meeting their end still spook her very soul. But she had seen that poor girl, which moved her compassionate side a tiny bit. 

 

Visuals were important in influencing people’s hearts. If not for her mother’s words, she might be debating on whether to help the poor girl even if she insisted on being a lone wolf. 

 

"As long as she's still breathing, it's not right for us to end her life without her permission." Just as Suzie Yap said that the screaming abruptly stopped, like the plug being pulled out from the socket.

 

That girl… might be found by a stray zombie. 

 

At that thought, Wong Xue Guo could not help but break out shivers from that disheartening guess. 

 

The lights in the shopping mall were much brighter than in the restroom area. The loudest sound came from different shops that were displaying advertisements on the TV, with no sign of other living humans.

 

The welcoming shopping mall had transformed into a horror mall, with some corpses littered around the place. There was also a large amount of blood spilt on every surface as if someone disdains the clean exterior.

 

Wong Xue Guo eyed those corpses warily, noting that most of them have completely white hair and shrunken flesh. There were very few corpses with black hair and with normal body sizes. She could not figure out why these people had not changed into zombies.

 

Was this related to what her mother called them? Failures? There must be conditions to be met to avoid being ‘failure’.

 

"Guo Guo, follow mommy," Suzie Yap called when she noticed her daughter was distracted from staring intensely at the corpses, who then hurriedly chased after her.

 

As they walked, she could hear echoes of growls and screams that yanked at her desire to hide to the surface. 

 

Wong Xue Guo resisted the urge to suggest hiding and sneaking around when she saw her mother walk around confidently. She also slowly got used to stepping onto blood and was forced to speed walk to keep up with her mother’s speed, as well as to avoid slipping on the wet floor. Luckily her school shoes were black and she could not see the blood staining her shoes.

 

Thankfully, she had the foresight not to remove her face mask and it helped to block out most of the bloody stench. As for those pieces around the pool of blood that looked like meat, she avoids her curiosity to examine them closely.

 

Suzie Yap's lively figure naturally attracted the zombies that were eying for new food and immediately ran over.

 

Clutching tightly onto the broomstick, Wong Xue Guo could not resist whimpering in fear seeing more than twenty zombies running towards them. They were moving as fast as a healthy human… no, they could be even faster, as they do not seem to need to think or be conscious of their limit as humans do.

 

This time, Wong Xue Guo saw with her own eyes how her mother fought against the zombies and understood why she was fearless.

 

She has the capital to feel so!

 

Suzie Yap's movement with her knives was swift, brutal, and precise. In Wong Xue Guo’s eyes, not even the stunt actors from movies could fight as well as her mother. There was no way she could see behind her head, yet she could defend all her weak spots and also guard Wong Xue Guo who was following closely behind her.

 

The charging white-haired male zombie was restrained with a kick onto its chest and Suzie Yap took the momentum to kick it onto the ground and stabbed its heart in one go.

 

As a woman that mingles in high society, Suzie Yap always wore high heels on any occasion, even if it was just going out to trim flowers in the garden. It was only inside their home had she replaced her high heels with cozy home slippers. The years of intimacy with her shoes had trained her to be able to run or jump with no problem in high heels.

 

Wong Xue Guo wondered just how much pain and suffering her mother had experienced to successfully conquer her high heels.

 

With how easily her mother pulled the aggro onto her and killed the zombies, Wong Xue Guo felt like she only needed to lie down to win the 'game'. She only got the chance to fight against one zombie. Unfortunately, even if she had planned to stab its chest, her fear had her move against her plan and smacked the zombie on its head instead.

 

Her attack had not even hurt the zombie but made it enter rage mode.

 

With a tiny yelp, she continues on with the second attack, only to once again let her die-hard habit of having her stab its head, intending for its brain. She had failed to reprogram her body to accept the zombie's heart as their new weak point.

 

In the end, her mother interrupted her clumsy fight and ended the zombie with a deep thrust into its heart. Earlier, Wong Xue Guo had confirmed that it was difficult to stab a person's head and bone with her level of chicken strength.

 

How could a woman that did not even do any housework get this kind of strength?!

 

Maybe her mother had hit the gym during her free time. That might explain how she maintains her figure. 

 

"Baby, did they frighten you? Mom will quickly kill them all, okay?" Suzie Yap gazed at her daughter with concern when she noticed her dejected mood and thought she was afraid.

 

Wong Xue Guo plastered her well-oiled smile, not that her mother could see it with her mask blocking. "I'm fine. I want to help my mother fight."

 

"No need. Such a thing, just let mom do it."

 

"How can I do that? Mother will be tired if you continue fighting!" Wong Xue Guo's voice was full of worry. "We haven't even passed through one floor yet."

 

And her mother seems to have cleaned up most of the zombies on this floor... Darn it, just how many humans had been infected in such a short time? There was also no encounter with any survivors.

 

"Don't worry. Your mom has lots of strength!"

 

Wong Xue Guo silently eyed her mother and concluded that it does not seem to be a lie.

 

Suzie Yap was only sweating a little, her breathing was not as harsh as one expected from the intense fight she had done. Her physical state was not something one could train in one day, but years.

 

Looks like not only does her father have secrets, even her mother was too …

 

Smiling until her eyes curved like a crescent moon, Wong Xue Guo said with a slightly spoiling tone. "Then Guo Guo will count on mom to protect me!"

 

She had done that to test if her mother would be offended by her clinginess, but who would have thought it made her mother so happy that she was over the moon? Suzie Yap would have hugged her daughter if she was not covered with blood.

 

Suzie Yap’s reaction told her that her current mother was not averse to having a closer relationship with her, which was in contrast to her previous attitude of keeping her at arm’s length. With her mother’s current attitude, she could use this chance to gather information from her.

 

If it was her father, she would not even have the chance to get even a word of information.

 

Little cub Guo Guo was trained to obey and be submissive to Alpha Wolf Papa, the head of their family of three.