Chapter 7: Zombies, and Former Guilt

She lowered her voice. “Be careful of the people from the Bian family. Don’t let your temper get the best of you and end up making stupid mistakes—you might get played and not even realize it. Still, in the early days, sticking with the family group will be safer. It’s up to you. Also, train yourself well. No matter what, always stay alert and cautious. Soon, the signal will be gone, electricity won’t last much longer, and the water will get contaminated and become unusable. Just be prepared for that.”

There was a pause on the other end, then a sudden heaviness in the voice: “Xiaoxi…”

“Don’t ask me how I know, and don’t worry about me. I’ll manage better than you. That’s all.”

She hung up, sitting on the bed in a daze for a while. In her previous life, Bian Kuang had reportedly been out partying with friends the night the apocalypse began, but he still managed to awaken his wind ability within the first three days and made it back to the family estate. Later, he became one of the strongest among the younger generation of the Bian family. Now, with her warning, she shouldn’t have to worry about him.

She had two secrets: the farm and her rebirth. She really didn’t want to travel with anyone else. Otherwise, teaming up with Bian Kuang would actually be a good choice.

Besides Bian Kuang, she’d also warned Bai Heng and Chen Yisha. Only one person was left.

Gu Xu.

Setting aside those ambiguous feelings, she owed him a debt of gratitude, and now was the time to repay it. The problem was, she had no idea where Gu Xu was or how to contact him.

Fate really does like to toy with people.

With Bai Heng, she felt regret and concern; with Bian Kuang, it was remorse and pain; with Chen Yisha, sympathy and pity. But with Gu Xu, it was deep, deep guilt.

What exactly was her relationship with him?

He was the base commander, she was a healer-type ability user. They’d gone on missions together, been partners. She admired his abilities, and he probably appreciated her independence, at least a little. Who knows. They were barely more than strangers who could exchange a few more words than most. But that one time, he actually came to her for help.

At his most vulnerable and helpless, he asked for her company. She didn’t understand what he was going through, and maybe he was just grasping at straws, but in the end, she refused him.

Years later, when he’d become an unparalleled powerhouse but was utterly alone, even his gaze as sharp as steel, she could never forget that she’d once turned away someone who had nothing left.

She exhaled, walked to the living room, and pressed her ear against the front door, listening for a while. After making sure there were no zombies outside, she turned on the light and started packing.

She put two bottles of water, two packs of milk, two packs of compressed biscuits, and some bread into her hiking backpack, along with a few packs of chicken legs, marinated eggs, sausages, and chocolate. She also packed a change of clothes, binoculars, some bandages, and basic medicine.

She wrapped her rosewood straight-blade knife in cloth, tied it with a strap, and slung it across her back. At first glance, it just looked like a stick about fifty or sixty centimeters long—nothing eye-catching. She tucked one leg-tied straight knife into her boot and strapped another to the outside of her right thigh.

Once everything was ready, she made sure every container in the apartment was filled with water. She curled up on the sofa and dozed for a bit. Around dawn, she woke up, cooked some rice, steamed an egg custard, and had a hot meal. After warming up and digesting for a while, daylight had fully broken. She carefully opened the front door, looked both ways, and slipped out.

The corridor was cold and deserted, with no obvious signs of trouble. She glanced at the apartment across the hall. There hadn’t been much noise from there last night, just a few panicked screams—so the people inside were probably still okay.

She looked away and slowly headed for the stairwell.

Since this was a newly built complex, there weren’t many residents. Bian Changxi had asked the landlord before: each floor had about seven people, and the building had fifteen floors—so about 105 people in total. At a rate of one in ten, that would mean about ten zombies. But that wasn’t quite accurate, since the first wave of zombies were mostly flu patients, and most of them had been sent to the hospital. That was the real hell on earth. In the residential area, the ratio should be more like one in twenty, or even less.

Bian Changxi lived on the third floor. If she was lucky, she wouldn’t run into a single zombie on her way down. If not… Well, zombies weren’t smart enough to open doors, but they could still go up and down stairs.

Thinking this, she crept downstairs as quietly as possible. The stairwell was empty and silent; she didn’t make a sound. She made it safely to the second floor, then the first. At the locked glass door of the apartment building, she finally saw a pool of remains on the ground. It looked like a fashionable young man—flesh and bone scattered everywhere, organs spilled out, and even the glass door was smeared with blackened bits of viscera and handprints. It was hard to imagine how fiercely he must have struggled. It was almost unbearable to look at.

Bian Changxi glanced at it without a change in expression, then looked up. Sure enough, not far away, a female zombie was wandering around.

The first batch of zombies didn’t all appear at the same time.

That is to say, about ten percent of the population didn’t all turn into zombies at midnight. People with weaker immune systems would turn over the next three days, one after another.

As for the dead and the zombie by the glass door, Bian Changxi guessed they were a couple who’d been out late. When the zombies suddenly appeared, they rushed back to the apartment. On the way, the girl suddenly turned into a zombie. Since the glass door downstairs was locked, the boy couldn’t open it in time and got eaten.

Zombies have poor eyesight but sharp hearing and smell. Generally, a zombie is extremely sensitive to the scent of living creatures and blood. At the same time, they’re rather lazy by nature—if they don’t find another target, even after finishing off one victim, they’ll just wander nearby instead of actively hunting.

Of course, that’s just low-level zombies. Later, higher-level zombies develop intelligence and can do all sorts of things that fill people with shock and despair.

As soon as Bian Changxi spotted the female zombie, she froze, careful not to startle it.

A zombie’s strength and physical resilience are two or three times that of a human, and they feel no fatigue or pain. Without a certain level of combat ability, fighting a zombie one-on-one is just wishful thinking.

Bian Changxi wasn’t particularly strong or fit, but she had plenty of experience and mental preparation, and she was calm enough. After seven years in the apocalypse, killing zombies was as routine as chopping vegetables. Plus, she now had sharp enough weapons, and zombies were slow to react and move.

She still had a fighting chance.

The problem was whether there were any other zombies nearby.

She looked around and found a leftover tile from construction in a corner. She opened a window and tossed it outside.

The tile shattered loudly. The female zombie shuffled over to investigate, but when she found nothing to eat, she just stood there dumbly. Bian Changxi waited a while, didn’t see any other zombies show up, and let out a quiet sigh of relief. She opened the glass door, drew her straight-blade knife from her back, and, avoiding the corpse, stepped out carefully.

When she was about seven or eight meters away, the female zombie suddenly sensed something and slowly turned around.

Her level of decay was much worse than the zombie on the fourth-floor balcony yesterday. One eyeball was hanging out, facial muscles dangling in strips, thick yellowish pus dripping from her rotting mouth, and bits of flesh still stuck to her sharp teeth—utterly revolting.

In fact, many people can’t bring themselves to fight zombies largely because of how disgusting they are. Just imagining that rotten flesh and pus splattering on your face is enough to make you sick.

I just thought of a plot twist that will make things more interesting, so I’ve revised Chapters 1, 6, and this chapter. Feel free to reread them!

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