So Bored

Wanyu Group office building, third-floor dormitory area.

The stairways on both sides were tightly barricaded with all kinds of furniture, with even the gaps stuffed full of bedding and clothes.

"So bored. Who wants to play?"

A well-rounded woman in her thirties, still fairly attractive, looked flirtatiously at the men crouching by the window and peering outside.

The balding middle-aged man turned around. "Tongtong, there are so many people here. Don't talk nonsense."

Qi Tong lay on the sofa and spat at that. "It's the apocalypse. What's there to be particular about? Hurry up, who's coming?"

The balding man choked, waved a hand, and went back to admiring the scenery.

It was as though some peerless beauty outside had captured his attention.

Another man in his thirties, dressed in a wrinkled suit, seemed tempted. "Isn't it a bit inappropriate with so many people watching? I prefer it when it's just the two of us."

Qi Tong impatiently cut off the suited man. "Enough. Don't they all come over while we're playing anyway? You're the only one with so much nonsense!"

The suited man grew annoyed. "Don't go slandering me!"

"Then come on! Hmph, what haven't I seen before?"

The other men nearby looked over with great interest, and the suited man found himself unable to back down.

"Damn it! Fine, let's go!"

Qi Tong licked her lips in satisfaction, wearing the particular charm of a mature woman.

Within a few moves, the thirty-year-old woman had utterly routed the suited man.

The suited man surrendered and begged for mercy.

Qi Tong smugly restored the chess pieces to their original positions and provocatively looked at the other two men.

"Who else wants another round?"

The balding man turned away to keep watching the scenery, while the young man in his twenties scratched his head.

"Ahem. I'll go see what they're doing next door."

"Boring. Not a single one of you can fight."

The young man was embarrassed. He glanced at Qi Tong's voluptuous figure and swallowed.

Why didn't she ask me to join her at night?

There were eleven dorm rooms on the third floor. Most of the beds, cabinets, sofas, and other furniture had been dragged out to barricade the hallway.

As a result, each of the eleven rooms only had one or two beds left. These remaining Wanyu Group employees each lived with the people they had trusted most before the apocalypse.

Of course, some secretly switched beds and partners at night, and some even crammed together into the same bed.

"Woo—roar!"

Everyone in the room was startled. That was the sound a Zombie made when it found a target!

"Oh no, did something come loose somewhere again?"

The people in the room were restless. A young, clean-cut woman emerged from the room in the middle.

Her age was impossible to tell. Her face was as delicate and supple as that of a girl in her twenties, yet she possessed the graceful charm of a woman in her thirties.

She had a full figure and exaggerated curves.

With looks like that, even talent scouts from Japan would cry, "Sugoi!" Put her in a "Widow" series, and it would definitely become a hit!

Qi Tong, who was setting up the chessboard, glanced at Shang Qian, then secretly looked at herself and sighed.

"After meeting your gaze, I knew you were someone everyone wanted but no one could hold onto with one hand."

To still keep herself so impeccably groomed in the apocalypse, she truly was no ordinary person.

A group of men and women emerged from the rooms. More than twenty people stood together, faintly surrounding Shang Qian in the middle.

"Director Shang, what should we do about this?"

Shang Qian's face was tense, her voice crisp.

"Each of you take sheets and bedding to inspect the stairway entrances. First, look for any places where air might be leaking through, then reinforce them."

Everyone else looked troubled. "But... winter is almost here. Without enough blankets, we'll freeze to death."

"Yeah, yeah."

"Sigh, the food won't last much longer either. We'll just live one day at a time."

The others fell silent.

Everyone clearly understood that the things blocking the stairways were not only sealing off the Zombies—they were sealing themselves in as well.

This was slow suicide.

Shang Qian sighed. "Keep them blocked for now. The authorities will come rescue us."

An increasingly desperate atmosphere began spreading through the tiny dormitory area.

Shang Qian's brows furrowed slightly as she noticed several male employees looking at her strangely.

Relying on the authority she had built up in the company before, along with some measures she had taken afterward,

Shang Qian had maintained her position as leader because everyone still had hope.

Years of trust in the authorities meant that the restraints of social morality still remained.

But... what if the authorities never came to rescue them?

If they were all going to die anyway, why not go crazy once? Why not do the things they had wanted to do before but never could?

No one noticed that the strong but taciturn security guard uncle's gaze was gradually darkening.

There was a Zombie!

Shen Jin saw a withered, pus-covered hand scratching down the wall.

His earlier movements must have been too loud and had alerted the Zombies on the second floor.

"Since there's a Zombie, I should hurry up and leave."

With no intention of fighting a Zombie head-on, Shen Jin chose to keep playing stealthily.

Suddenly.

Shen Jin saw a Zombie in a little skirt coming down from the second floor, and froze.

It was her!

Those long, pale legs that had once been the talk of the entire company were now covered in blood and grime. She was gaunt as a skeleton, with green moss growing all over her body.

It made people want to scrub it all off for her.

Shen Jin suddenly felt a little sad, as though something had touched a patch of clean soil in his heart.

He took out a cigarette from his pack and drew in a deep breath through his nose.

"The last time I saw you was when I was handling my resignation. Right, it was here too.

You secretly calculated an extra week of wages for me behind the boss's back.

Hehe, back then, I thought you were really cute, kind, and a little silly.

How did I say goodbye to you back then?

Your legs... I could play with them for a year. Cough, cough, something like that.

Amid your blushing, scolding voice, I laughed loudly, turned around, and left this place."

Shen Jin put the cigarette between his lips and closed his eyes. The image of the young receptionist surfaced before him.

After the apocalypse, he had never dared think about what had happened to his former classmates, friends, teachers, or girls he had flirted with.

Because that way, he could keep living happily and carefreely, without attachments.

"But in the end, eighty percent of people have become one of the Zombies."

The scenes of joking around with the receptionist that day seemed to flash before his eyes.

"Goodbye, miss. The only thing I can do is grant you mercy!"

Shen Jin opened his eyes and put the cigarette away. His gaze held something rarely seen there before.

Shen Jin took out an Iron Shovel and softly called to the long-legged girl whose smile had once been so sweet in his memories.

"Come on!"

Woo... woo...

The female Zombie had clearly spotted Shen Jin. It let out low sounds and lunged toward him.

Shen Jin held a shovel in each hand, moving so quickly that afterimages appeared.

Grand Earth Burial Technique!

The filthy Zombie lunging through the air was covered in dense green moss, enough to make anyone with trypophobia faint on the spot.

Thud!

The Zombie fell into the earthen pit and roared as it tried to climb out.

Shen Jin scattered a pile of dirt models from his hands, burying the female Zombie.

He relaid the floor tiles from his backpack. The ground looked no different from before, and no one knew that a hazy, beautiful memory lay buried beneath it.

Shen Jin sighed and slipped back into the hole before the second-floor Zombies could rush down.

The people on the third floor listened to the Zombies below roar and run about, panicking all afternoon.

The balding man by the window kept observing through a pair of binoculars.

Shang Qian wrinkled her elegant nose, adjusted her gold-rimmed glasses, and asked, "Director Wang, have you noticed anything?"

The woman setting up the chessboard impatiently pressed on. "Did the authorities' army come? Are there tanks and cannons? Are we saved?"

Balding Director Wang rubbed the source of his wisdom, opened his mouth, then closed it again.

"I haven't seen anyone for now... but it seems something passed through. All the Zombies on the second floor have gone down to the first floor."

He stood at the most protruding window on the third floor, from where he could clearly see most of the situation on the second floor.

Everyone gathered around the window and discussed it for a while.

No one noticed the strong security guard uncle slipping into Shang Qian's room while everyone else's attention was focused outside.