"No!!!"
"Bang!"
The scenery around me shot forward in an instant. Just as I was thinking, Am I really going to die this time?
I suddenly felt a violent impact against my back!
"Bang!"
I had actually fallen onto a rain shelter!
The tightness in my chest and the pain in my back made my vision go black. At the same time, I lay on the rain shelter, a rectangle less than one square meter wide, staring helplessly as those zombies, no longer resembling human beings, broke through the window and charged straight down headfirst.
As they fell, they frantically reached out toward me, trying to grab me. Unfortunately, they had been moving too fast, and the distance from the balcony was too great, so... not a single one managed to catch the rain shelter. Like a rain of corpses, they all fell down with a series of bangs!
Muffled thuds rose from below. I struggled to move twice and lowered my gaze...
Well, it was too dark to see anything...
"Phew~~~"
I let out a long breath and finally relaxed. The wind between the buildings was truly no joke, though. My long hair...
It was really awkward.
It was being blown wildly in every direction, and a few strands had even fallen into my mouth.
"I should cut it. At least it'll make moving around easier." I muttered to myself, then suddenly remembered the phone at my waist!
"Please don't be broken..." I habitually muttered, then hurriedly sat up. Leaning against the building, I untied the bag that had been fastened to my back and had slipped down to my waist.
Everything inside was intact...
Uh... the cigarette case had been crushed flat. Still, at least...
"I can still smoke, can't I..." I laughed at myself and took out the flattened pack of Changbai Mountain cigarettes. But...
This wasn't my pack of Changbai Mountain cigarettes, because I remembered that mine had only a few cigarettes left.
"Could Tian Feng have bought it?" I thought back to what had happened before I lost consciousness. The things that had bitten me then, if nothing unexpected had happened, should have been those things just now.
In other words, I had been bitten by a zombie... yet I had survived. I still didn't know whether it was because of the virus that I had turned into a beautiful girl.
After I lost consciousness, I guessed things had gone like this: Long Tianfeng saved me and took me to the hospital. He probably visited me for the first two days as well, but later, perhaps because of the zombies, he could no longer come.
This pack of cigarettes proved everything.
When Long Tianfeng took me to the hospital, he couldn't possibly have been in the mood to buy a pack of cigarettes. He would at least have had to wait until I was out of danger and settled in a hospital room before feeling like doing anything else. Although that bastard made me envious, jealous, and resentful in every way, he would definitely have done that much.
So next...
I could only make my next guess by turning on my phone.
I switched on the battery pack in the phone case. The phone's screen suddenly lit up, and a battery icon appeared on the display. I felt somewhat relieved.
I pressed the power button and waited for the phone to respond. The familiar bitten-apple logo appeared. Without a doubt, the phone had turned on!
After waiting for about ten seconds, I finally opened the phone. The moment it powered on, my heart settled down as well. This was probably a common ailment among modern young people: whenever they were separated from their phones, they always felt as if something were missing.
No network... no Wi-Fi either. Even the SIM card in my phone didn't respond at all.
"Has society already collapsed?" I couldn't help asking myself.
The wind continued howling in my ears. I quietly opened the phone's network settings. There was no signal and no way to connect to the outside world.
"Hopefully... it's only this city." I murmured, then casually swiped across the still-responsive screen and opened the calendar...
September 9, 2027... September... the ninth?
"WTF!!!" A classic English phrase burst from my mouth. Although my voice sounded rather deep, this low female voice was unexpectedly alluring.
Wait! This wasn't the time to worry about whether my voice was alluring!
I clearly remembered that before I lost consciousness, it had been August! And it should have been early August, somewhere between August 1 and August 10!!
I hurriedly swiped the calendar backward. Sure enough... August 6 should have been the day.
In other words, I had been unconscious for an entire month and three days?!
"How could this..."
The words possibly stuck in my throat, and no matter what, I couldn't say them.
Especially after seeing the ruined scene before me and the city with not a single light turned on...
I lowered my phone helplessly and stared blankly at the moon hanging high in the sky, with stars filling the heavens. My mind went completely blank...
Chapter 3: Memories
Amid the silence, I once again recalled what had happened before I lost consciousness.
The weather had been unbearably hot, without the slightest breeze. The streets had been filled with traffic, and the bustling snack street had been just as crowded as ever.
I pushed through the crowd. After going through countless hardships and enduring the sun and wind, I finally entered the restaurant my friend had mentioned after a long trek lasting seventeen minutes and twenty-five seconds.
Old Bi's Fat Beef Hot Pot Restaurant...
When I saw the name, I really wanted to smear a bag of salt across my friend's face. Who ate hot pot in weather this hot?!
Still, I walked inside. Although hot pot annoyed me, the air-conditioning was an enormous temptation after I had been roasting under the sun for more than ten minutes.
The moment I stepped through the entrance, the cool air brushed against my exposed arms, calves, and face. I couldn't help closing my eyes and enjoying it properly. I even ignored the professionally polite smile of the pretty, brightly dressed waitress beside me and her words, "Welcome!"
At that moment, all I wanted was to enjoy the refreshing coolness.
"You're here! What are you standing around for? Come on in!" A familiar, enthusiastic voice rang out. When I opened my eyes, that handsome face I envied, resented, and was jealous of appeared before me once again.
This was my annoying friend, childhood buddy, classmate, and bastard of a brother—Long Tianfeng!
That's right. He had a name straight out of a protagonist's story, a handsome face with refined features, and a physique like a fashion model.
What made him even more infuriating was that he was genuinely both an official's son and a wealthy heir. Not merely a third-generation descendant—his family had been an official household for three generations, and they had all been rich as well.
He had sharp, swordlike brows and tiger-bright eyes. His angular face was white as a mirror, with a tall, straight nose and thin lips that were always bright red, as if painted with a woman's lipstick.
And he possessed the kind of charisma that could make anyone become his friend. In my life, this bastard was the very definition of someone to envy, resent, and hate!
"You're here! Hurry, hurry, hurry! I reserved a private room inside. I was just waiting for you. Everyone else is already there."
Ah... ah... ah... Sure enough, whenever this bastard ate, he invited a whole group of people I didn't know. Didn't he know I hated places this lively?!
And every time...
They were always people who had nothing in common with a loser like me... That's right, the legendary gathering of officials' second-generation heirs and rich second-generation heirs.
When I passed the entrance, I noticed that there were far too many luxury cars parked outside today. I couldn't name a single one, but just looking at their appearance was enough to make even someone like me, who didn't care about cars, fall in love with them.
"I'm telling you..." I was genuinely getting annoyed. Couldn't the two of us just catch up properly for once? Did he have to do this every time? Was he trying to tell me how wide the gap between us was?
"What?" Long Tianfeng turned around and looked at me with a brilliant smile. His pitch-black eyes held no impurities at all, only the deep brotherly affection between two brothers who had not seen each other for a long time.
"Nothing..." I paused. The trace of anger in my heart suddenly vanished. That bastard's smile always made people lower their guard without realizing it. Even someone as antisocial as me could easily accept him, let alone anyone else.
Thus... everyone who knew him was aware that he had a very famous nickname.
The Sunshine Little Prince!
He was sunny, had the bearing of a prince, and possessed all the qualities of one. If he wasn't a prince, then I didn't even count as a human being.
"You just got back from America. I heard things are always pretty chaotic over there. Nothing happened to you, did it?" Looking at that brilliant smile, I could only force out this baseless question.
"What could have happened? It's fine over there. Some places are indeed pretty chaotic, though. Of the dozen or so classmates I know, at least...