Translator: Law Editor: Hitesh_
Lin Qiao was stiff with worry. She didn’t know what to do, but she knew that she shouldn’t approach the child right now. All she could do was move two steps backward and try making the child react.
What she really wanted was to carry the child to the lake and get her to drink some more water.
She had taken a bath in that lake earlier on, and didn’t know if the virus in her body had infected the water or not. However, she remembered that the child had drunk a tiny bit of lake water when she first came in, and no adverse effects seemed to have appeared so far. This proved that the water was safe.
When Lin Qiao stepped back, Wu Yueling’s eyes suddenly sparkled. Surprisingly, those dull eyes of hers began brightening, and the fear and desperation in them seemed to be magically fading away, albeit marginally so. Then, she looked at Lin Qiao with curiosity.
Children could actually be very sensitive. When she saw Lin Qiao’s horrible zombie face just now, her first response was fear. However, this wasn’t the first time she had seen the latter, and was actually the second or even the third time.
She was scared, but when she saw Lin Qiao step backward, she was suddenly reminded of a question. Why hadn’t this zombie bitten her yet?
Although Wu Yueling was very young, she had seen zombies before, which had left her with psychological scars that were the root of her current psychological problems.
In her memories, zombies were terrifying, and would savagely pounce and bite anyone they saw.
Why hadn’t this zombie pounced on her? Why was this zombie standing so far away from her, as though she was too scared to approach?
Thinking about this suddenly set off an internal struggle inside Wu Yueling’s little head. For a moment, she found that she actually wasn’t as scared as she had been before.
She also recalled that the last time she saw this zombie, it had jumped away from her, as though it were startled by her screams.
Wu Yueling pictured the startled Lin Qiao whose hairs were standing nearly straight up on her head.
On the other side, Lin Qiao was carefully observing Wu Yueling’s every move. She had noticed the change of expression on the latter’s face, and at the same time, she also had a faint sense that this child’s fear and despair had abated slightly, replaced by curiosity instead.
‘The psychology of children is strange indeed!’ Lin Qiao thought. But in the meantime, she silently sighed in relief as well. Now that the little one wasn’t as afraid of her, other things should be much easier.
As Lin Qiao was reading Wu Yueling’s mind, she suddenly had an idea.
She was able to control zombies and read their minds, so… could she convey her own thoughts to others as well? Could she let this little one know what she had been thinking? If she could…
Once she thought of this possibility, Lin Qiao felt her heart beating faster, even though she knew that this was an illusion as her heart wasn’t beating at all. She didn’t have any heartbeat at all!
Thinking of this, Lin Qiao decided on immediate action. She looked at Wu Yueling in the eyes, then suddenly sat cross-legged on the ground while facing her confused gaze. After that, the two of them just stared at each other.
‘What is she doing? Isn’t she coming over to bite me? Isn’t she going to eat me?’
Wu Yueling’s sense of danger gradually faded, and she became more and more curious. When she saw that Lin Qiao made no attempt to approach her and simply sat on the ground, these thoughts instantly popped up in her mind.
And of course, Lin Qiao could sense her thoughts.
Children who were only a few years old were barely able to keep their thoughts hidden. In fact, Wu Yueling’s thoughts played like a movie across her face.
The two gazed at each other for a while, after which, Lin Qiao lifted her hand slightly and waved at Yueling, as though greeting her.
Wu Yueling sat in front of Lin Qiao, wondered what she was doing. She was obviously quite confused by the latter’s action.
She blinked her eyes and then moved her body, finally feeling that lying like this was very uncomfortable. So, she supported her body with her arms and slowly sat up while looking at Lin Qiao alertly.
“Hrr? Hrr?” Lin Qiao produced a low, gravelly sound from her throat in a bid to try and talk to Wu Yueling.
‘Ling Ling? Ling Ling?’
She concentrated her thoughts and called Wu Yueling both out loud and in her heart. However, her tongue was stiff being a zombie, which made her voice sound weird like ‘hrr, hrr’.
Wu Yueling couldn’t do anything but look back at her with a confused expression on her face
Lin Qiao tried a few more times, but Wu Yueling had only been looking at her, feeling strange without showing any change of expression.
After a while, Lin Qiao sighed with disappointment.
On hearing this sigh, the expression in Wu Yueling’s eyes slightly changed. However, this was unnoticed by Lin Qiao, who had turned around to look at the lake.
Since she had failed to communicate by using her thoughts, she thought she would try with actions.
After glancing at the lake, Lin Qiao had a sudden inspiration, and then she slowly stood up.
Seeing her stand up, Wu Yueling became nervous again. But next, she soon realized that this zombie wasn’t coming near her.
‘What is she doing?’ Wu Yueling wondered curiously as she watched Lin Qiao walk to the lake.
Lin Qiao reached the lakeside, plucked a few long grass leaves, then deftly wove them into a small, green dragonfly. She subsequently put the dragonfly down, picked up a few more leaves, and made a small funnel with them. Next, she pinched the edge of the funnel, put it into the lake, and scooped up some water.
The lake water was as clear as before. It poured into the funnel woven by Lin Qiao, and she was delighted that it didn’t leak out.
Lin Qiao held the water-filled funnel in one hand and the grass dragonfly in the other, then slowly walked back to Wu Yueling.
Wu Yueling was watching Lin Qiao with wide-eyed curiosity, as she wanted to know what the latter had been doing by the lake. However, when she saw Lin Qiao suddenly stand up and walk toward her, she was startled and instinctively drew back.
Seeing her reaction, Lin Qiao immediately stopped walking and stood still. Moving no other part of her body except for her arms, she slowly extended the things in her hands forward.
As she had hoped, the little one was instantly attracted by the grass dragonfly and funnel in her hands. For some reason, children were always interested in straw-woven toys like these.
Lin Qiao lived in the countryside as a child, and her grandpa had taught her how to make grass dragonflies like this one. She had never imagined that she would be using this to cheer up a child one day.
She showed Wu Yueling the grass dragonfly and was gratified to see that the repulsion she had seen in Wu Yueling’s eyes was now gone. After that, she raised her foot and took two more steps toward Wu Yueling.
She caught the child’s attention once she moved, but this time, the child didn’t seem to be as nervous as before. Wu Yueling just looked at Lin Qiao in the eye and then switched her attention to the dragonfly in her hand.
Lin Qiao took the child’s reaction as permission to proceed. So, she lifted her foot again and slowly walked toward the little girl.
The little girl watched her warily and nervously, but couldn’t help glancing at the grass dragonfly in her hand.
Lin Qiao slowly moved to about a meter away from the child, leaving some space between them. This space gave the child a little sense of security, and also allowed her to clearly see the grass dragonfly in Lin Qiao’s hand. Therefore, the child now showed much less repulsion toward her than before.