Virus Spreads

It was the fourth day since entering the game.

Ye Zhao finally got a good night's sleep. When she jolted awake, it was already past ten.

What greeted her was an unfamiliar room, a pillow covered in fallen hair, and half a bald head.

Ye Zhao: ...

It was fine, it was fine. As long as she was alive, that was all that mattered.

After comforting herself, it was time for her daily prophecy session. Ye Zhao clasped her hands together and bowed toward the sky.

[Prophet Skill activated. Current Prophet Level: 1. Skill duration: 10s.]

The sky was shrouded in a layer of gray haze.

Countless soldiers in protective suits moved swiftly about, erecting heavy wire fences around the outskirts of City X.

Yet deep underground, beyond their sight, burrowing rats had already spread in every direction. Bloodthirsty and crazed, one rat infected another, and their colony continued to grow.

The first chaos erupted at the roads leading out of sealed-off City X. Curious onlookers, media bloggers chasing traffic, passersby trying to get home...

The rats, drawn by the scent of flesh and blood, burrowed out of the ground and pounced on unsuspecting humans.

"Ah!!"

"Rats are eating people!"

Human screams of terror and frantic flight threw everything into disarray.

"Bang—"

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

With the first gunshot, a series of shots erupted all around!

Snipers lay prone at the highest points, blowing apart rat skulls with single shots. The pink rats burst like balls, rotten organs splattering everywhere...

Next came the county town Ye Zhao had visited yesterday. Fleeing humans carried the unknown X Virus inside, and it spread far faster than it had in City X!

The first zombie appeared in the county town, then the second, then the third...

The county town fell!

The surviving humans scrambled to flee for their lives—

System: [Prophet Skill usage ended.]

The [Prophet] skill turned gray.

[CD: 24h]

Ye Zhao opened her eyes and sighed helplessly.

She opened Douyin. Although her Weibo account had been banned, the resourceful netizens had still found her Douyin account. Her follower count was already close to a million, and there were far too many private messages for her to read.

She posted her first Douyin video.

[The global spread of the X Virus is now unavoidable. Please prepare yourselves for battle.]

[The mutated rats of City X are spreading outward. They will emerge from underground and attack humans.]

[Stay alert. Survive!]

There had been no shortage of accounts posting Doomsday theories these past few days, and most had been banned. Only particularly inflammatory posts drew an official response, so Ye Zhao was not afraid of being reported.

After all, Ye Zhao guessed that the government's manpower and resources were already stretched too thin. Her post would not attract much attention.

Besides, the scenes from her prophecy would likely appear very soon. They could not be concealed any longer.

After posting the message, Ye Zhao turned off her phone, ignoring the uproar she had caused online.

The internet was indeed buzzing because of her post. Within seconds, hundreds of comments had appeared, asking Ye Zhao all sorts of questions.

[How do you know this? What exactly is happening in City X?]

[Aren't you in City X? Why is your IP in City B? Did you spread the X Virus? Get the hell back to your City X!]

[Comrades, is it time to stockpile supplies? Screw it, I'm heading to the supermarket to buy everything!]

[I want to know how my daughter is doing. She's a sophomore in the art department at X University. Please, blogger, help me!]

[Just another blogger chasing views. What are you getting ready to sell?]

[A bunch of idiots. Who the hell would believe zombies exist?]

[...]

Unfortunately, they received no response. The agitated netizens flooded the official platforms instead, demanding the truth!

Ye Zhao called customer service and had breakfast delivered. She first went to the bathroom to wash up, then changed into a black tracksuit suitable for exercise. She also put on a hat to cover her nearly bald head. She planned to go out and stock up on supplies later.

Creation Points increased painfully slowly, only around sixty per hour. If money could solve it, she would not use her Golden Finger.

She needed to save her Golden Finger for survival.

After sleeping all night, she had accumulated 530 Creation Points. She still created five Attribute Pages for Constitution +1, raising her trash Constitution to 29 points.

After breakfast, Ye Zhao slung on her backpack and headed out. She went straight to the nearest large shopping mall. The mall had a more complete range of goods—clothes, bags, food, daily necessities, everything. She wondered whether scanning them could raise her Creation Level.

She asked the system in her mind, "How many more items do I need to scan before my Creation Level increases?"

[You must scan items with sufficient energy before your Creation Level can increase.]

"What kind of items?"

[The Player must explore independently.]

Fine then.

After breakfast, she began taking medicine. Antibiotics, anti-inflammatory medicine, vitamin tablets—she took vitamins A, B, C, D, and E without missing a single one.

Given the current situation, she did not dare go to the hospital.

Ye Zhao took a taxi to the mall. Including the basement level, it had five floors. She started browsing from the supermarket on the lowest floor.

The zombie virus had not yet broken out, and the wave of nationwide hoarding had not begun. The supermarket was not too crowded, but quite a few people were pushing carts loaded with rice, flour, oil, and grain. Seeing this, some could not help asking, "You're buying so much rice?"

"Yeah. My daughter called and said Doomsday is coming, told me to buy more rice to keep at home. She'll make a fuss if I don't. Sigh!"

"Haha, you believe that kind of rumor?"

"Isn't City X already locked down? Haven't you heard?"

"It's just a city lockdown. It's fine. It's not like everyone's dead..."

Ye Zhao first walked through every section of the supermarket, even visiting the fresh food section. Live shrimp and fish could not be scanned, but dead fish and shrimp could. She also went to the appliance section and scanned all kinds of refrigerators, rice cookers, and the like.

After finishing her scans in the daily necessities section, Ye Zhao took the largest suitcase available. She still needed to buy some convenient food, such as instant noodles, self-heating rice, and canned fruit. Living on bread alone was far too unnutritious for a patient suffering from radiation exposure like her.

After buying instant food, Ye Zhao bought a pile of carrots and apples. The doctors on Baidu said they were good for her health.

Finally, she bought a pile of milk candies and stuffed them into her pockets. It could not be helped. Life was so bitter that she could only eat some candy to make up for it.

Ye Zhao dragged her suitcase toward the first floor. It was full of cosmetics, skincare products, shoes, and jewelry. She walked through every store, but her Creation Level did not increase.

The second, third, and fourth floors were clothing sections, with clothes for adults and children alike. The fifth floor had restaurants and a cinema, with dry pot, hot pot, steak, hamburgers, and more. Ye Zhao had recently grown a little sick of meat, so she entered a Chinese restaurant and ordered a table full of vegetarian dishes.

When she finished eating and dragged her suitcase downstairs, a huge crowd suddenly flooded into the supermarket below. They frantically snatched up supplies. Ye Zhao adjusted the mask over her face and quickly left.