Chapter 596 – The Mucus Figure

Although a “small accident” happened just after they came down, things quickly got back on track.

It was just a little trick that Ling Mo used to temporarily throw Mu Chen and the others off. This trick mainly relied on the female Zombie Puppet and Ling Mo’s psychic tentacles.

For example, the shadowy figure effect was actually produced by the female Zombie Puppet, but instances like the poster shaking inexplicably or those small noises were caused by Ling Mo using his tentacles.

However, Mu Chen and the others never expected Ling Mo to play such tricks, which is why they were easily confused by these simple tactics.

Now, only the female Zombie Puppet was left above, and without Ling Mo deliberately controlling her, she wouldn’t be able to stall them for long.

Once they regrouped, they would soon start searching everywhere for the missing Ling Mo and his group.

This mall isn’t actually that large, especially this basement level that looks so eerie. It would be unreasonable for them to overlook it.

So, after giving the three female zombies a stern lesson, Ling Mo took a flashlight and started exploring deeper into the basement.

From the furnishings and brand logos illuminated by the flashlight, it was evident that this level was supposed to be an undeveloped computer market.

Although it was clear that it hadn’t started operating yet, the environment here was much more complicated than the floors above.

A large number of display counters were messily stacked, leaving only some narrow, meandering pathways.

If it weren’t like this, Ling Mo wouldn’t have fallen so easily just now…

“This way…”

After glancing around, Ling Mo aimed his flashlight in a particular direction.

His voice involuntarily dropped, as if he was afraid of disturbing something.

Although he had frequently visited such places while searching using Zombie Puppets, experiencing it firsthand was still different.

Even Ling Mo felt a bit anxious walking through this dark, empty, and silent place.

Ling Mo suddenly felt a bit envious of Xia Na and the others… Being fearless zombies at times like these was really convenient…

Humans are different. No matter how strong-willed they are, sometimes they can’t control their subconscious thoughts and natural nervous reactions…

For instance, right now, Ling Mo was involuntarily tense…

“Oh… there are so many scents here,” Li Yalin suddenly said, sniffing the air.

“Huh?” Ling Mo responded, not fully understanding, while carefully stepping over a chair that had fallen to the ground.

From the old blood stains scattered around, it was clear that there had been a commotion here when the Cataclysm first broke out.

Luckily, the place hadn’t officially opened for business, so there shouldn’t be too many people inside. Otherwise, they would be navigating through a stench of decay right now.

Ling Mo didn’t smell anything, so he had no idea what Yalin meant.

“Yalin means that there should be a lot of zombies here,” Xia Na immediately clarified.

Ling Mo’s steps halted, and he quickly swept the flashlight beam around: “Where?!”

“It’s strange precisely because we don’t see any…” Xia Na said calmly.

As Leader-Level Zombies, the three girls were actually quite composed.

It felt like three national martial arts champions visiting a kid’s kung fu class—relaxed and carefree, with no pressure at all…

However, Ling Mo couldn’t help but feel nervous and reminded them, “Be careful.”

“Okay…” Ye Lian, the least talkative one, responded obediently in times like these.

When she spoke, the other two instantly became more compliant as well.

The relationship among these female zombies sometimes puzzled Ling Mo.

In terms of evolution, Ye Lian was now the weakest among them, but both Li Yalin and Xia Na, not to mention that troublemaker Yu Shiran, treated Ye Lian with great “respect.”

Among zombies, this kind of “respect” is typically based on strength.

Even if Li Yalin and Xia Na might be influenced by their connection as Ling Mo’s Zombie Puppets, what about Yu Shiran?

That zombie Loli wasn’t Ling Mo’s Zombie Puppet and shouldn’t be affected by such influence…

Sometimes Ling Mo was quite curious about Ye Lian’s situation. He really wanted to understand this zombie girl who had been with him the longest but evolved the slowest…

Seeing this now, his curiosity resurfaced.

“Maybe Niepan has some relevant research methods?” Ling Mo wondered with a sense of anticipation.

But as soon as he thought of that, he also remembered Yu Shiran and the others running around, making his teeth grind with frustration…

“Making me squeeze through places like this, Ban Yue’s ransom has to be doubled!”

After moving about a few dozen meters deeper, a large hole suddenly appeared in front of him.

Ling Mo carefully approached and found that it was an unfinished elevator shaft. There was no way down from here, so Ling Mo looked around and finally discovered another stairwell.

The moment he pushed open the iron door to the stairwell, a rush of humid heat hit him in the face.

“Cough, cough.” Ling Mo choked and coughed, not because of any strong smell, but because the heat was somewhat suffocating.

“Hey, hey, this is the smell!” Li Yalin exclaimed excitedly.

The zombies really had a keen sense of smell. Li Yalin noticed something from so far away that Ling Mo hadn’t detected without opening the door.

And Ling Mo still didn’t smell anything now; he just felt that it seemed very hot below. He had no idea what kinds of scents Li Yalin’s specially mutated olfactory system was picking up from this heat.

“There’s definitely something down there!” Xia Na said with sudden interest.

Ye Lian remained silent but her eyes sparkled a bit.

“Looks like we’ve found the right place.” Ling Mo held the flashlight in one hand and covered his mouth and nose with the other. After cautiously peeking inside, he entered the stairwell.

The three female zombies followed closely behind, all slightly twitching their noses.

The stairway led downward. At first, Ling Mo didn’t notice the mucus, but after descending a level, he found a layer of sticky white substance beginning to appear on the floor.

Stepping on it was slippery, and lifting his foot he could feel the stickiness; moving slightly more energetically produced squelching sounds: “plop plop.”

If it weren’t for his heavy-duty anti-slip military boots, Ling Mo figured it would be very difficult to move freely here.

Thinking about Yu Shiran and Xiao Bai moving swiftly through such an environment, Ling Mo couldn’t help but let out a long sigh, “Damn, this is species discrimination…”

Not only that, but Ling Mo discovered another troubling issue here.

His psychic power was severely limited!

The layer of mucus seemed to block the extension of his psychic tentacles. No matter how hard he tried, breaking through it was incredibly difficult.

It felt like when his superpower had just awakened, and using his psychic power felt particularly awkward, like punching into cotton with no force behind it.

Having become used to using his psychic power, almost as a reflex, experiencing this feeling again was both unfamiliar and uncomfortable.

“What kind of place is this?”

Although he would soon find Yu Shiran and the others, it didn’t give Ling Mo any sense of reassurance.

On the contrary, he felt the place was very ominous.

The sense of dread he had initially felt through Black Silk was now more pronounced when experiencing it firsthand.

What kind of monster would produce so much mucus? And one that could shield against his mental energy?

Despite his curiosity about the mucus, having his life-sustaining ability restricted made Ling Mo very uneasy.

“I don’t know…”

Xia Na had moved ahead of them by this point. She suddenly stopped at a corner of the stairwell and eerily asked, “Ling-Ge, didn’t we say earlier that there should be a lot of zombies here?”

“Yeah…” Ling Mo tried to use his flashlight, but the mucus seemed to absorb light as well. The normally powerful beam now appeared quite dim.

“No wonder we couldn’t see them; they were here all along.”

Xia Na slowly stepped aside, and in the dim light, a shadowy figure appeared in Ling Mo’s field of view.

Though completely covered in mucus, its outline was unmistakably humanoid…