Chapter 323: The golden fruit 34.

Within seconds the entire entrance hall was quiet again.

Yan Cijin glanced at the corpses.

"That was almost disappointing."

Bai Li looked deeper into the mall.

"It is the first floor."

"So?"

"It is supposed to be easy."

A low growl came from somewhere in the darkness.

Yan Cijin smiled. "Good."

They continued.

The first floor had once been a bright shopping district filled with clothing stores, cosmetic counters, fast food stalls and a wide central atrium. Now it looked as if someone had taken the entire place apart and left the pieces where they fell. Storefront shutters hung halfway down. Clothing mannequins lay scattered across the floor with their heads missing. A fountain in the center had dried years ago, leaving mineral stains along the stone basin. Several escalators stood motionless in the middle of the floor, leading upward into darkness.

Bai Li walked past a cosmetics store and stopped.

Yan Cijin looked at her. "What?"

"Nothing."

"You looked at that store for a long time."

"I was checking reflections."

Yan Cijin glanced toward the black mirrors inside the store. "Of course."

Bai Li narrowed her eyes. "What?"

"Nothing."

They moved on.

A sound came from the far side of the atrium.

It was a soft tapping.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Neither woman moved.

Tap.

The sound came from inside a closed jewelry store.

Yan Cijin looked at Bai Li.

Bai Li walked toward it.

"You are actually going to open it?" Yan Cijin asked.

"There is something inside."

"That is usually why people open doors."

Bai Li pushed the shutter upward.

Something launched out.

It was fast enough that an ordinary survivor would not even have seen it. Bai Li simply leaned aside. Claws passed within an inch of her shoulder. Yan Cijin stepped in from behind and cut downward.

The creature twisted in midair.

The blade passed through one of its arms.

It hit the floor, rolled, and sprang back onto the counter.

It looked almost like a dog, but no normal dog had a mouth that wide or eyes that reflected a pale green light. Its skin was stretched tight over a frame of blackened muscle, and something sharp had grown from its spine.

"Mutated hound," Yan Cijin said.

"Low level."

The creature lunged again.

This time Bai Li met it directly.

She raised one hand, caught its head, and slammed it into the tile.

The floor cracked.

The hound tried to move.

Bai Li hit it again.

It stopped.

Yan Cijin looked at the broken tile and then at Bai Li.

"You could have just cut it."

"This was faster."

"Fair."

They continued through the store.

There was a small pile of crystal cores in a drawer behind the counter. Bai Li opened it, looked at the contents, and took the cores without comment.

Yan Cijin watched her.

"You are becoming very efficient at stealing."

"It is not stealing if nobody owns it anymore."

"Very philosophical."

"I know."

The first floor proved to be exactly what Bai Li expected. The closer they came to the central staircase, the more frequently they encountered zombies. Most were weak, half-rotted corpses with slow reactions. Some showed minor mutations. One had long arms that bent backward. Another had thick armor-like skin along its chest. A third was fast enough to run across the ceiling for several seconds before dropping down at them.

None of them lasted long.

Bai Li and Yan Cijin did not rush. They walked through the mall as if they were taking a quiet evening stroll, only stopping when something forced them to.

At one point six zombies came from an escalator at once.

Yan Cijin looked at them.

"Six."

Bai Li replied, "You can take three."

"You are generous."

They separated.

Yan Cijin moved first. She stepped onto the escalator rail, used it as a pivot, and spun around the first zombie’s swinging arm. Her weapon flashed once. The head dropped. She kept moving before the body hit the stairs.

A second zombie lunged. She ducked beneath it, struck upward, and continued without looking back.

Bai Li’s side was even simpler.

She walked forward.

One zombie reached for her.

She broke its wrist.

Another opened its mouth.

She struck its throat and then its skull.

The last one jumped.

She moved half a step aside and let it fall into the path of Yan Cijin’s returning strike.

Yan Cijin glanced at her.

"Thanks."

"You are welcome."

They reached the bottom of the escalator.

The mall was larger than it looked from outside. The central atrium stretched far enough that the upper floors disappeared into darkness. Several balconies crossed the open space above them. The lights were dead, but faint gray daylight entered through the skylights high overhead.

Something else entered with the light.

A drop of water fell from the ceiling.

It hit the floor.

Then another.

Bai Li looked up.

"Not water."

Yan Cijin stared at the dark ceiling.

A thin black liquid dripped from a ventilation shaft.

Then the shaft moved.

Something was inside it.

The metal bulged outward once, twice, and then exploded.

Three long bodies came crawling from the opening.

They resembled snakes with too many legs, each the size of a human torso. Their bodies were pale and segmented, and their heads opened like flowers, revealing concentric rings of teeth.

"Interesting," Yan Cijin said.

"They are attracted too."

"Everything in this mall seems to be."

The first creature lunged.

Bai Li raised her arm.

The creature stopped in midair.

For a second Yan Cijin could not see what had happened.

Then she realized Bai Li had simply seized it by the front of its skull.

The thing thrashed violently.

Bai Li looked mildly annoyed.

"It is sticky."

Yan Cijin laughed.

"That is the problem you are worried about?"

Bai Li crushed its head.

The second creature struck from behind.

Yan Cijin turned and sliced it in two.

The third tried to escape back into the vent.

Bai Li flicked a blade across the room.

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TO BE CONTINUED.