Early the next morning.

Lin Feng sat in the passenger seat of the off-road vehicle, leaning against the window with a frown, the military map gripped tight in one hand.

No matter how he turned it over in his head, something felt off. Like someone had deliberately left it there to draw people in.

A trap? But what kind of trap was this, exactly?

Same as any lucky survivor who stumbled across the thing, curiosity drives you to check the nearest marked location, and then what?

Where was the value in that?

Honestly, it wasn't even worth as much as the munitions they'd already pulled from the armory.

Hard to make sense of.

"Get ready — this is the closest drop-off point. We're going in on foot from here," Marcus called out, driving one-handed with the walkie-talkie pressed to his mouth.

The vehicle rolled to a smooth stop at a farm.

Lin Feng and the others climbed out, and one look at the place had them exchanging glances, expressions going a little complicated.

This was the old staging ground of that Goon gang. The location of Barn No. 2.

Lin Feng opened the map, studied it for a moment, then passed it to Orion.

Orion took it, ran the calculations, and nodded. "Enter the jungle from here, cross two more ridges, then follow the riverbed another two miles upstream. That puts us at the marked position."

Once Orion had spoken, Lin Feng didn't waste any time. One wave of his hand and the group moved into the jungle.

Not a large party, but every one of them was high-tier, Lin Feng's own three guardian demons, plus Orion, Jade, Crane, and Abraham.

Shane was out with the parkour runners stripping the urban district for supplies. Rick was holding down the camp, keeping watch while handling some basic construction work on the side.

Daryl and Orion took point as scouts, clearing the path ahead and gathering information.

The rest followed in silence behind them, spread into a search formation, moving fast through the trees.

An hour later the group came down off the slope and reached the river, then turned to follow the bank upstream.

Daryl moved with the signature crossbow in hand, looking every bit like someone who'd just come home, steady, with just the faintest edge of energy underneath.

That trace of a smile didn't last long.

"Something's wrong. This time of year the mountain forest should be loud with insects and birds."

Orion's movement hitched. The safety on the M4 clicked off, quiet and smooth, finger settling against the trigger guard.

Three seconds of stillness. Then Orion glanced at Daryl. "It is sparse — but there's still some. Environmental problem?"

Daryl gave a small nod. Same read.

Not an ambush. Not a monster that had just rolled in. The wildlife here had started relocating on their own.

Something in these woods made them feel unsafe, and whatever it was, it had been here a long time.

Daryl spoke up. "You think it just showed up, or has it already moved on?"

"Hard to call. Recovery rate depends on local wildlife density."

Daryl nodded, pulled out the walkie-talkie and relayed it to Lin Feng. Lin Feng's voice came back through the speaker: "OK, got it. Keep moving. Stay sharp."

Daryl acknowledged and pushed on alongside Orion.

A cool gust swept along the riverbed. Daryl sniffed, exchanged a look with Orion, and the expression there slowly shifted.

Riding that clean, cool air was the stench of rotting flesh. And it was strong.

That meant a walker horde had formed somewhere upstream. Not a small one.

The two of them widened the gap between themselves without a word, fingers moving to the trigger.

Trouble was on its way.

Time passed, and Lin Feng's group reached the vicinity of the map marker.

No unusual structures. No signs of anything out of the ordinary. Just a river valley, unremarkable except for the water running a little high from the weeks of rain, swollen but otherwise unchanged.

Lin Feng linked up with Daryl while Orion held the map against the surroundings, comparing carefully. The location was right.

Lin Feng clicked his tongue. Heavy rain for a solid week, two days back, even if there had been anything to find, the water would've scrubbed it clean by now.

Still. "Spread out and search the area. Don't wander too far. Something happens, call for backup — nobody handles it alone."

The group fanned out.

It didn't take long before Crane's voice cut through, waving everyone over.

They followed the sound and found it in a patch of undergrowth: the massive remains of a walker, half-swallowed by the bushes.

The limb bones were thick and long. The cranium was fully exposed, a large bullet hole punched straight through it.

Most of the muscle across the torso and limbs had broken down, only tendons and fascia still clung to bone. The chest and abdominal cavities were hollow. The skin had dried into blackened, leathery parchment.

"This thing has been lying here at least two to three months."

Crane stared down at it with an expression that was hard to read, then glanced at Jade. Neither one said anything.

The others might not recognize it. But there was no way these two didn't.

This was a Volatile.

Except two months ago, the quarantine on Harran hadn't been broken.

Which meant this one hadn't escaped from inside. It had already been out here.

Abraham's brow pulled together. "Is this the remains of one of those mutant walkers from before?"

Crane looked over. "What mutant walker?"

"One showed up at camp in the middle of the night, purplish-black skin, fast as hell, jumping ability like nothing we'd seen. Our lines of fire couldn't track it."

Crane and Jade traded another look. The disbelief was right there on both their faces.

A Volatile. Into camp. At night. And these people were still breathing.

"How'd you put it down?"

Deep lines cut into Contra's face as an eyebrow lifted toward Crane. "It pounced on one of our people. Lin used the opening and blew its head off with one shot."

Daryl's nose twitched. Without another word, Daryl drifted toward a nearby thicket. "There's another one over here..."

Lin Feng walked briskly over and looked down. Same condition as the first, head shot, one round.

Whoever had dropped these two had good aim. Both were single-shot kills to the skull.

Except, with ordinary human physicality, keeping up with a Volatile's speed was essentially impossible.

That meant sniper tactics. Ambush shots from cover. And two separate shooters.

Daryl crouched there, brow pulled tight. The math wasn't adding up. This didn't match what they'd smelled earlier, two dead Volatiles weren't the source of that corpse stench on the river wind.

"Lin. That smell in the river breeze earlier, it's got nothing to do with these two."

Lin Feng looked at Daryl. "You're saying there's a horde upstream."

Daryl nodded. "We should keep pushing up. Might find what we came for."

Lin Feng nodded and turned around, and found Crane and Jade both watching with the same complicated look. "What?"

"Merle said you've gone one-on-one with a Volatile twice. And won both times?"

Lin Feng looked at Merle. Merle gave a small, knowing squeeze of the eyes.

Lin Feng kept his voice perfectly level. "What, is that a problem?"

Crane stared the way you'd stare at something that shouldn't exist, and let out a long breath. "...Losing to a lunatic like you. Hard to feel bad about that, honestly."

Jade nodded along.

➤ Next: Da Shachun, What Do You Think You're Doing?!

Chapter 102 - Da Shachun, What Do You Think You're Doing?!

Lin Feng and the group kept trekking upstream along the riverbank. Daryl walked with his gaze drifting idly across the hillside, then gradually slowed, and stopped.

Merle caught it, followed Daryl's line of sight, and stopped too.

"Holy shit!"

The others had no idea what they were looking at. They looked up in the same direction and saw it.

A spectacle.

Halfway up the slope, a small patch of flat ground sat nestled among the trees. Not a large clearing, but every tree around its edge had a walker tied to it.

No hands. No lower jaws. The flesh at their throats had been carved away entirely, exposing stark white bone underneath. The walkers dangled and lurched in silence, endlessly struggling against the ropes.

"Looks like we found the place," Lin Feng murmured, eyes moving across the bound walkers as they twisted and swayed.

Not the most elegant method. But effective? Absolutely.

For reference, see the Whisperers' playbook.

The group climbed the slope, moved past the ring of bound walkers, and looked toward the back of the clearing. Tucked behind it all sat an olive-drab tent. High-end gear, by the look of it.

Damn. Whoever set this up knew what they were doing.

The walkers on the outside masked human scent. Inside the perimeter, a rough fence kept out wild animals, nothing fancy, just nearby trees used as posts with horizontal logs lashed across them. Dead branches had been piled along the top, and a thick carpet of fallen leaves covered the ground beneath, the whole arrangement serving as a kind of camouflage netting.

For what it was, the setup showed real care. It looked like a permanent shelter.

That assumption didn't last long.

Inside the tent: one cot, a handful of used supplies, a small camp stove. That was it.

Kyle Crane ran a hand across the stove top. A film of dust came away on the fingers. "Whoever this belongs to hasn't been here in a long time. They might have left for good."

"It's an outpost," Orion said. "Like a hunter's blind out in the backcountry — somewhere you sleep for a night, not somewhere you live."

He turned and walked to the entrance of the camp, gaze sweeping down over the river valley below. Something clicked in his mind.

He raised the M4, working from memory, and lined up the scope toward the spot where the two Volatiles had been found.

Through the 4x optic, that stretch of ground came in sharp and clear. So the shot had come from right here.

Orion looked down, nudging aside the weeds with a boot. It didn't take long. Two spent casings turned up in the dirt.

A slight frown. Orion crouched and switched to a careful, deliberate search, but a few minutes of looking turned up nothing more. Just those two.

Orion pinched the brass casings between two fingers. An unpleasant theory was forming.

When Orion straightened and glanced across at Kyle Crane's face, something was off. A flicker of unease, quickly suppressed, but there.

Orion walked to Lin Feng without changing expression, held out the casings, and laid it out plainly.

"Two bullets. Two Volatiles. One shot each. Rifle." A beat. "This person knows what they're doing."

Orion's gaze shifted to Crane.

"Or — this person knows mutated walkers. Maybe they weren't just passing through. Maybe they were studying the Volatiles."

Crane's pupils tightened. The breathing shifted, just slightly. Then came an involuntary turn of the head, a casual-looking movement, the kind that's anything but.

Orion caught all of it. This one was hiding something.

Lin Feng took the casings and stared at the carefully concealed camp, expression darkening.

The last time a Volatile attacked, that gaze in the dark, watching from somewhere out there. Lin Feng had felt it. But Daryl had swept the area and turned up nothing.

Now this.

Could be the same person. But what was the angle? What was the point?

Lin Feng turned it over. It wasn't like someone had eaten too much for a midnight snack and gone for a wander, only to stumble across their camp by accident.

No. The distances didn't work. The attack had come in the early hours of the morning, and getting back here from that location would take at least three hours. Someone had made that trip on purpose.

Orion saw Lin Feng turn inward and didn't push.

Instead, Orion's gaze drifted toward Daryl. The moment their eyes met, Orion angled just slightly, toward Crane.

Something's wrong with this one.

Daryl understood. A small nod. Two quiet steps to the side, drifting around to Crane's flank.

Merle was usually the last person to pick up on anything. Didn't like thinking if there was a way around it. But where Daryl was concerned, the brain switched on without being asked.

The moment Daryl made that subtle hunting step, barely a shift in weight, Merle felt it.

Yep. Somethin' ain't right with this guy.

Merle's head tilted. Then Merle started moving too.

Crane's instincts fired all at once.

Turning around, Crane found Orion's eyes already on him. Cold. Measuring. The kind of look that weighs a person.

From somewhere behind came a faint prickling at the back of the neck. Crane scanned the visible sightlines. The silent hunter with the compound bow was gone.

Crane's stomach dropped.

Oh hell. Had they just made Crane a mole?

Lin Feng was still turning the casings over in his palm, squeezing them like he was arguing himself out of something, then pulled back from the thought entirely.

He looked up.

Took in Daryl's position. Took in Merle's. Saw exactly what was happening.

His eyes went wide. He opened his mouth and yelled in Chinese:

"Stop — you absolute idiots! What do you think you're doing?!"

Daryl and Merle both froze mid-motion. Neither relaxed. Weapons stayed on Crane.

"Lin." Orion's voice was even. "Ever since those two carcasses back down the slope, Crane has been quiet. Evasive. And just now, when I said whoever was here might have been observing the Volatiles, Crane went rigid."

As Orion spoke, a finger settled onto the trigger guard.

Contra, Marcus, and Jade hadn't the faintest idea that in the span of about two minutes, Crane had been quietly upgraded to enemy asset.

"Wait." Crane's voice cut in fast. "I can explain. I do know things you don't, but I am not here to hurt anyone. I swear."

Lin Feng stared for a moment.

"The GRE."

It wasn't a question.

Crane went still. "How do you know that?"

And then everything opened up at once.

The first Volatiles they'd encountered, a small pack, newly infected, still evolving. Downstream. They'd been desperate for food, drawn in by the Goon corpses, and Lin Feng had found them and wiped them out in one go.

The Volatile swarm from last time was the main population. And this outpost, this careful, hidden, well-supplied outpost, was GRE. Built to watch them. To collect data.

It had been abandoned because Lin Feng's group had killed every last Volatile in that lumberyard. No subjects left to monitor. No reason to stay.

And then came the night raid.

Not random. Not coincidence. Retaliation.

Whoever sent it had done the math: one mature Volatile, at night, against a standard survivor camp. Should've been a clean sweep. So they'd watched, confirmed the target, and pulled back, confident.

The military map in his hands wasn't marking a laboratory or an armory. It was a distribution map. Volatile nest locations.

The soldiers who'd come through before hadn't been a combat unit. They'd been an assessment team. Evaluating threat level.

They'd fled because one of their recon elements had gone into Volatile territory and hadn't come back. Wiped out. No recon, no mission, nothing left to do but run.

Lin Feng stood very still.

Cold sweat was already spreading across his back.

➤ Next: Conclusions and Figures in the Woods