Smoke screen

Following the mutant bees was dangerous, but Liushi was confident they would be able to escape.

Unlike the previous day, he was only using the electric half of the engine. It made very little noise, produced less heat than the fuel engine, and didn't release exhaust gas. It was what had attracted the mutant bees the most before.

"Brother Liushi, I don't think that's a good idea" said Xiaotian.

She had taken the wheel, and her sister was at the back preparing the molotov cocktails.

"Probably not... but we need the information. And not just because of your family."

"What do you mean?"

"Have you heard the saying 'things get worse before they get better'? The whole world is mutating, changing. It will be chaotic before things start to stabilise. The mutant animals, mutant insects, mutant plants. They are still new, still vulnerable. I want to know more about them before it gets too troublesome. It's a chance for me to know about a mutant hive before it gets too strong. And I want to know about the kind of monster that can control immature mutant beasts, how strong or smart they can be."

"That's too dangerous!! That's crazy!!"

"Stop!"

She stopped the vehicle and looked around anxiously.

"We're getting close. There are more of them, and no traces of zombies. I have to continue on foot."

Xiaotian's expression became alarmed. She was about to shout at him when he put his hand in front of her face.

"One of the blankets I have is insulated. I can escape detection with it. And for scent, I kept a dead beasts as sample for a scientist to study later. I will scrub myself and the blanket with its body so its scent will rub on us and mask my own. Bees don't like smoke, so I'll put a few cars on fire on the way, they will avoid the area."

Xiaotian, and Lu who was listening to the not discreet conversation, paused to think about it. They realised that Jiang Liushi wasn't as reckless as he seemed. True, the decision to follow the mutant beasts was abrupt, but at least he was thinking about the risks and methods to stay safe. They weren't completly convinced but relucantly agreed with him. On top of that, they didn't really want to go against their benefactor.

As for Liushi, there was another reason why he decided to risk entering the territory of the mutant bees boss. Mutant beast core. The Starseed informed him that not only did mutant cores contain energy, they were also excellent catalyst for its material manipulation abilities. On its own, the capabilities of the Starseed were basic, but with a proper supply of energy, or special materials like muant beasts core, it could do incredible things. It could make complex materials from basic ones, like alloys and ceramics, or even create matter from energy.

He still had the mutant core from the boar. He hadn't used it yet because he wasn't decided between accelerating some basic transformations, or converting basic materials into better ones before using them to upgrade his vehicle. The first option gave him benefits in the short term, and the second one gave him long term benefits. So he choose the second option. He just didn't have the time to implement it, especially since he was quite anxious to be reunited with his sister.

He told her to prepare supplies for a week, and it had already been 5 days since the outbreak. With 2 mutant cores, he would be able to make impressive upgrades in no more than a day. Upgrades that would be very welcome once he got into Nanjing City. He remembered the amount of zombies that swarmed Shenbei when he left Jiangbei, and dreaded what he would find in Nanjing.

Jiang Liushi stood up and went to prepare himself for his little infiltration mission. The bottles used for the molotov cocktails were small ones, easier to carry and more uses. Aside from them he only took the fire axe and his needler as weapons. After scrubing both himself and his blanket with the zombie corpse, he left. Xiaotian had the instruction to slowly move toward the smoke made by the burning cars each time a column appeared in the sky. He wanted the truck nearby when he would need to retreat.

As they watched him leave, the sisters repressed a snort of amusement despite the circumstances. Liushi wanted to stay as low as possible while moving, ready to lay down and stay still at any moment. Thus, he was moving on all 4, with his blanket covering. He only got on 2 feet when he needed to cross an area without cover. It was a ridiculous and funny sight, and in the back of his mind he was aware of it and embarrassed.

On the way, he often checked the sky before moving. He had to freeze each time he heard the buzzing sound of their wings. It was only 15 minutes after his departure that he put his first abandonned car on fire, an old suv with a lot of material to burn. He encountered very few zombies on the way, and that was only when he made enough noise to attract the attention of those hidding in nearby building when lighting said vehicles. They had learned to avoid the outdoor due to the mutant bees. He dealt with them using his needler.

He caught more and more sighting of mutant bees, and looking at heir movements, guessed the right direction to reach their nest. He had to stop so often that he advanced slower than a regular walking person. It was like playing a lethal version of Peep Behind the Curtain [AN - I'm french, so when I searched for the english name of the game "123 Soleil". Including what I used, there was also Grandmother's Footsteps, Sly Fox and Black Pudding. It looks like differents games with the same basis: freeze when you're about to be seen]. He was getting very nervous and started to have regrets.

'I should have taken a cardbox. A big one with holes to see. Much more inconspiscious than an abandonned blanket covering something... Damn, now I have the game over screen playing in my head. How comforting.'

Despite his growing fear, Liushi noticed another change in the environment. A scent, reminescent of forgotten food that started to mold. He had to stay in place for a little while, keeping track of the changes in the wind direction, to find out where the smell came from. He couldn't go there yet due to the large number of mutant bees patrolling. He needed a bigger distraction than some abandonned car. He decided to put a whole building on fire.

There was a general direction where the wind was blowing despite the small changes, and he wanted the wind to carry the smoke in the direction of the hive. So he had to circle around the supposed position of the hive until he came across a usable building. This took him another 30 min. The building was 5 stories high, with a small clothes store on the groundfloor. That meant plenty of burning materials. He had to clear it from the 8 zombies that were inside, which wasn't much of a problem with his needler and fire axe. The action actually allowed him to unload his excess tension on the zombies.

He spent another 45min in the building, preparing to light it up. All the doors and windows on the ground floor would be open to allow air in, the windows on the 1st and 2nd floor would be closed, and the ones on the upper floor would be open to allow the smoke out. Clothes, plastics and rigged aerosol bombs were placed in the most efficient ways he could think of on the spot. He wanted to start the fire in the 1st and 2nd floors, and leading it to spread to the upper floor instead of the ground floor. He wanted the fire to be very hot and produce as much smoke as possible.

He started a small fire in each rooms of the second floor, then the first, then waited a bit in the groundfloor near the front door. He would only move out once the fire spread enough.

'The fire I made shouldn't spread too far, since the block is small... I wonder how many major cities in the world will have to be burned to get rid of the zombies within? Heck! I bet there are some towns and cities that partially burned because of the chaos of the past days? How many zombies were forced out of them and started to pleague the countryside because of it? Things must be quite unpleasants for the survivors of that area...'

After a while, Jiang Liushi started to feel the heat on the floor above him. Once in a while he could hear an aerosol bomb exploding. He wasn't too worried about the noise made because the mutant bees got rid of most zombies and they wouldn't get close to the fire. When smoke started to slowly fill the groundfloor, he decided to leave.