Chapter Eighteen: A Bloody Incident Sparked by a Pig’s Leg Bone

Yang Xueli’s words completely unsettled something deep within Lin Lei. Other than his deceased parents, this was the first time Lin Lei had ever felt such unconditional trust from another person.

Was it because the people of this world were simple-hearted? Absolutely not. In this cruel world, only deception and scheming could offer the faintest hope of survival.

Perhaps this was what people meant by the saying: “True feelings are revealed in adversity.”

Even the most straightforward man is no fool; if someone treats another with genuine kindness, even the most unyielding ironwood will bloom eventually. Lin Lei had simply never experienced love before, and so he was just a little slow to react in such situations.

While Yang Xueli focused on breaking through, Lin Lei returned to the battlefield.

Only moments ago, he’d been out of breath and utterly exhausted, but now it seemed as if he’d been injected with adrenaline, suddenly possessed of boundless strength.

“Danger warning! Three level-three zombies are approaching, 120 meters ahead. Number: three. Please prepare for battle!” It was only the second time the system had issued such a warning.

The first had been when Lin Lei initially prepared to take on the zombie horde.

It seemed the system only gave such alerts when Lin Lei was acting recklessly or facing a major crisis.

“Damn! I can barely handle one of those things, and now there are three at once. Are they trying to kill me?” Lin Lei cursed, but his mind was already racing through possible strategies.

Yang Xueli still needed at least two more minutes to complete her advancement. To protect her for those two minutes, he’d have to make use of the low-level zombies before him.

Only by stopping his attacks and allowing the low-level zombies to cluster and block the passage could he hope to slow the advance of the level-three zombies.

Lin Lei would have liked to make peace, but the zombies didn’t care for that. He’d killed so many of their kind, even if he hadn’t, they would never let a living meal slip by.

“Clustered together... food? That’s it! I really am a genius!” Inspiration struck Lin Lei. He spoke to the system: “You must have some sort of bait that attracts zombies, right?”

“This system can exchange for any known existing item. Zombie bait may not exist in the known world, but I can analyze the habits of zombies and create a similar substance,” replied the system confidently.

“Do you really need to analyze their habits? Don’t they just love fresh meat and blood? You’re making it sound so fancy—are you trying to jack up the price?” Lin Lei caught on quickly.

Zombies had little intelligence. People in this world had long since devised several means to lure them: One was the meat-and-blood method, using fresh flesh cut from animals to draw their attention.

Another method, used by Yang Chunxi and his group, relied on sound. On Niutou Mountain, where even grass roots were scarce, they had no fresh meat or blood, so they used sound waves and the scent of the living to attract zombies.

“A pork leg bone, specially enhanced with attractant, can effectively draw the attention of all zombies below level three within a radius of 500 meters. The effect lasts ten minutes. Exchange price: one contribution point. Do you want it?” Seeing through Lin Lei’s intent, the system stopped posturing and named its price.

“One contribution point for a pork leg bone? At least throw in a fishing rod!” Lin Lei bargained.

“One contribution point deducted. Exchanging for one pork leg bone and one fishing rod. Exchanging... Exchange successful. Please collect your items from the material storage center,” the system replied.

To Lin Lei’s surprise, the system really did throw in a fishing rod. This was the first time he’d succeeded in bargaining!

Activating flight mode, Lin Lei rose over ten meters above the ground and took out the fishing rod, the pork leg bone tied to its end.

The moment the pork leg bone appeared, the zombie horde, which had been dispersing after losing sight of Lin Lei, suddenly went wild, surging toward the spot beneath him.

Several level-two speed-type zombies leaped seven or eight meters high, nearly catching his ankles, forcing Lin Lei to ascend another five or six meters in fright.

“What the hell is this!” Lin Lei was stunned by the scene.

The zombies had lost all “rationality,” ignoring even their own kind as they shoved aside weaker companions, piling atop each other in a grotesque pyramid.

Layer by layer, they built a mound of flesh over ten meters high, forcing Lin Lei to rise even further.

“I must be an idiot! If I’d thought of this earlier, I wouldn’t have wasted contribution points on tactical rifles, or on a laser greatsword, or on evolution serums...” The more Lin Lei thought about it, the more distressed he became, wishing he could slap himself.

With such a monster-attracting artifact and his flight mode, he wouldn’t have needed to trade Yang Chunxi’s group for ammunition—they could have just come with bayonets to collect the harvest.

Life’s greatest regrets always come from the phrase “If only I had known.”

“If I’d known it would turn out like this, I would have done things differently.”

“If I’d known, I shouldn’t have done such and such.”

“If only...”

But if you dwell on regret, you’ll hesitate and falter every time you face a problem in the future.

Fortunately, Lin Lei was in the midst of battle and had no time to get lost in regret—he could only sigh and move on.

It wasn’t just Lin Lei—even the system was nearly overwhelmed by his unorthodox tactics. What sort of eccentric host comes up with these bizarre ideas?

What should have been a tense and fierce fight had instead turned into a suicidal stampede.

The most absurd part: the cause of all this was a single pork leg bone worth just one contribution point. How was the system supposed to trick hosts into spending dozens or hundreds of points on advanced equipment after this? This business was a total loss, and even the fishing rod had been given away for free...

The mound of flesh continued to grow. An unlucky level-three strength-type zombie was buried halfway up the mass, unable to display its formidable power at all.

A level-three speed-type zombie, ghostly and agile, darted toward the top of the mound and leaped with all its might.

Its jumping ability far surpassed that of the level-two types—it easily reached the dangling pork leg bone.

But reaching it didn’t mean seizing it. Lin Lei nimbly jerked the fishing rod, pulling the bone higher and off to the side, causing the zombie to miss by a hair’s breadth.

Instead of the alluring pork leg bone, the zombie was met by the gleaming blade of a laser greatsword.

With nowhere to gain leverage in midair, the level-three zombie was pierced straight through the skull by Lin Lei’s sword.

Since level-three zombies were rare and Lin Lei was unwilling to waste contribution points to mark them, even though he’d killed it himself, there was no time to recover the body now—it simply fell into the flesh mound, becoming a stepping stone for the others.

“Come to think of it, these zombies died because of the pork leg bone I put out. Why can’t they be counted as my spoils?” Lin Lei asked the system.

The zombies that died in the mound, like those in the earlier valley crush, weren’t automatically recovered into his storage space.

“In theory, they died because of the pork leg bone, but in practice, it’s considered mutual slaughter. My recovery rules only count direct action, not indirect causality. Of course, since zombies are always hostile and can’t be traded with, whoever claims the corpse owns it,” the system explained.

In other words, Lin Lei couldn’t use the marked auto-recovery feature, but he could still collect the bodies manually.