201 Vixen Above, Mensao Below (15)

There were no lifeboats left.

The moment Song Jia stepped out onto the promenade deck of Deck 8, also called the lifeboat deck, she immediately saw the empty space where the lifeboats were supposed to be. It was windy, cold, and the only light came from the fluorescent lights shining above them.

The ship was swaying gently, and Song Jia started to run across the narrow deck, wanting to see if all of them were truly gone.

Ye Minzhe pulled her back. "Jia, let me go first, there might be zombies here."

She looked at his serious expression and nodded.

Sheng Li, Wen Yan, and Gu Yuan soon caught up. Gu Yuan looked at the empty space where the lifeboats were supposed to be and all the blood drained from his face.

"If they used the lifeboats to get off the ship, why didn't they tell us? Shouldn't there be alarms? Where are the staff and crew?"

His trembling voice was nearly covered by the howling wind as his cold hands grabbed the brass railing for support.

At this point, Song Jia knew that panic was starting to set in. They were still far away from land, and by the look of things, they couldn't get off the ship even if they wanted to.

"All ships exceeding five thousand tons are equipped with a GPS system capable of tracking their current location down to the number of meters and even the direction that they're facing," Song Jia said. "So it's not as if we can vanish and they can just leave us missing for a long period of time. Even if they did, the lack of communication would immediately alert the port that something is wrong."

After hearing her words, their expressions eased up a bit. Song Jia didn't tell them that from the start, there was something suspicious going on. Had this been a normal cruise ship, even if there was a zombie outbreak, it shouldn't be this chaotic and disorganized.

Ye Minzhe led the way as they walked forward upon the promenade deck, on guard for any stray zombies. Because the cruise ship was large, it took them a while before they came to a pair of sliding doors that directed them to the forward lobby. Ye Minzhe stopped just before the sliding doors and held back Song Jia.

She looked up at him with a puzzled look.

Ye Minzhe slipped his arms around her waist and pulled her back against his chest, taking a step back away from the sliding doors. He turned his head and placed a finger against his lips to warn the others.

"There are about ten zombies inside the lobby," he told them in a low voice. "I can take them down, but I'll need some help."

He looked at Gu Yuan, raising a silent question.

Gu Yuan shivered. He paled and said, "Let's not go this way then. We can just go back the way we came, it'll be safer."

Ye Minzhe snorted. "We need to take a look at the lifeboat deck on the opposite side of the ship too. It'll be faster if we go through here."

Song Jia struggled out of his hold.

"Let me go, I know how to fight."

Ye Minzhe looked down at her and pinched her nose. "Of course you know how to fight, you're a Ye. But never in a million years, Ye Jia. Never mind, I think I can do this alone."

Song Jia pursed her lips. Of course she knew that he could probably do it alone, and she wasn't really needed. However, if he got bitten...

Song Jia remembered the sparse details of the transmigration mission Nova had given her. A zombie outbreak on a cruise ship, with the male god as one of its passengers. In fact, the zombie outbreak wasn't really the most important point, since it wouldn't be long before the outside world would be overrun with zombies as well.

The most important point was Ye Minzhe's fate inside that zombie-infested cruise ship.

In the future, Ye Minzhe was destined to build the most fortified and strongest base in the country, leading the people to a new age after the zombie apocalypse.

But that was only if he successfully got out of the cruise ship without having gotten infected.

According to what Nova told her, if the vengeful reincarnator was allowed to run freely, it would make a mess of things. Due to a series of circumstances, the vengeful reincarnator would cause Ye Minzhe to get infected and become a zombie. If he had been a normal person, this wouldn't be too much of a problem.

But Ye Minzhe was a Rank SSS male god, meaning that he had the potential to destroy the world.

Once Ye Minzhe got infected, he would turn into a newly evolved zombie, which could also be called as a 'zombie king.'

The main advantage of humanity against zombies was that zombies have no intelligence, therefore making it impossible for them to team up and organize a large army to hunt down surviving healthy humans. There was no hierarchy, no chain of command, and no drive toward any type of collectivization. At its core, a mass of zombies, regardless of size, was simply a mass of individuals. If they gathered together, it was only because they were drawn towards their prey by their own instinct.

But Ye Minzhe's existence made this impossibility become possible.

Although he would long lose his memories after becoming a flesh-eating monster, his intelligence would still remain. Imagine a psychopathic mass murderer who neither knew nor cared about morals and ethics. An evolved zombie who had inhuman physical abilities, being able to control hordes of zombies at once, like an insect-like pheromone-driven hive.

With their capability to take on fatal injuries and still survive, if an undead army indeed formed with a central chain of command, it would spell doom for the rest of humanity.

Ye Minzhe gripped his baseball bat and told Song Jia, "Stay here. I'll tell you to run if something goes wrong, so don't worry. Even if worse comes to worst, I'll be able to delay them long enough for all of you to escape."

Song Jia didn't argue and simply nodded.

Ye Minzhe ruffled her hair, resisting the urge to give her another hug.

Sheng Li moved her lips and said worriedly, "Prince Ye..."

Ye Minzhe glared at her. Although it was true that he bullied Ye Jia first, he had already apologized. What about these two people? Still holding on to their pride? Ye Minzhe couldn't be bothered to deal with them.

"Don't call me that," he said coldly, then without another look, he opened the sliding doors and went in.

They could hear the groans of the zombies and the sounds of fighting even through the closed glass doors. Song Jia took a deep breath, tightened her hold on her makeshift quarterstaff, and before any of them could stop her, she went in after Ye Minzhe.

"Miss Ye!" Gu Yuan was too late to grab her arm.

As soon as she entered, a zombie lunged at her, its jaw open wide. It's neck looked as if it had been broken, but it continued to move quickly, mindless of its own injury.

Song Jia pivoted on her heel, and the zombie bypassed her by a few steps. She slammed down the wooden rod on its back, making it collapse on the floor. Another zombie charged at her, and Song Jia spotted a coffee mug that was left on the lobby glass table.

She grabbed it and conked the zombie's head with it, before using the blunt end of her makeshift quarterstaff to push it away.

Song Jia jumped up and took a running leap on the sofas, yelling, "Ye Minzhe, duck!"

Ye Minzhe was too busy fighting multiple opponents at once, so he wasn't aware of Song Jia's presence. Hearing her voice, he instinctively dropped on the floor.

The zombie from behind that was about to take a bite of his shoulder only managed to look up with a stupid expression before Song Jia's incoming kick hit its face soundly, with a loud crunch that meant she had broken its nose.

After Ye Minzhe got up, his eyes met Song Jia's. A vein ticked on his temple, and his jaw tightened. He looked as if he was about to explode.

"Ye Jia!" He roared. "Didn't I tell you to stay outside?"

Before Song Jia could reply, he swung his bat on a nearby zombie with all his strength and momentum, spraying brains and gore on the wall behind it.

Song Jia, "..."

Ye Minzhe snapped his head in her direction. "Just wait, this young master will definitely take care of you later!"

His eyes were red, and his expression was fierce like a caged animal. He looked even more terrifying than the zombies surrounding them.

Song Jia took a step back. Without another word, she turned around and ran out of the lobby.

This grandma deeply believes that of the thirty-six stratagems, running away is the best, ah~