Revealing the Truth of the Doomsday

Ye Zhao avoided the crowds on her way back to the hotel, only to encounter two police officers at the entrance. They flashed their badges and specifically checked her ID card. "Are you from City Y?"

Ye Zhao gave a hum of affirmation.

"City Y is quite close to City X. Did you come from over there?"

"Yes."

"Are you the one who posted that video on Douyin?" One of the officers pulled out his phone and showed Ye Zhao a screenshot. The reason they were looking at a screenshot was that the post Ye Zhao had made had already been taken down.

Ye Zhao glanced at it and said, "I posted it."

The officer said, "You don't have any evidence, so why post such information? Where is the proof, or did you film any videos? Bring them out and let us see."

Ye Zhao turned on her phone and dialed 110. "Police station? Hello, there are two people here impersonating police officers..."

The two officers' eyes widened in extreme shock, and they hurriedly stopped her. "Wait, wait, wait! We were just joking with you! We just finished a stage play and came over; these are costumes! We are students from B University, we have student IDs, we aren't scammers!"

"Don't call the police, let's talk this out. It's mainly my buddy here—his girlfriend is at X University! She's been out of contact for several days!"

"Yes, my girlfriend has been unreachable for days, and I'm very worried about her! That's why I tracked your IP, I didn't mean any offense."

Ye Zhao: Heh.

She had just used her skill to scan the handguns tucked into their waistbands, and the display had read [Lighter].

Otherwise, she might have actually been fooled.

The two quickly confessed the whole story. They had indeed come to find Ye Zhao to track down the girlfriend, and the reason they had temporarily posed as police was the fear that Ye Zhao wouldn't tell the truth.

The two knew a bit about hacking, which was how they had followed the digital trail to find Ye Zhao.

Ye Zhao checked their student IDs; they looked authentic.

"What exactly happened in City X? Miss, did you really escape from City X?"

"Is the zombie virus real? Is the doomsday really coming?... Miss, you're so pretty, you aren't just doing this to build a following as an influencer, are you?"

Ye Zhao looked at him and said only two words: "My condolences."

"...What does that mean?" the boy looking for his girlfriend asked. "Why condolences? You don't even know my girlfriend's name yet. Her name is Ling Xing, she's a sophomore in the English department at X University. I even have her photo; maybe you've seen her?"

Ye Zhao said, "On the second day of the X Virus outbreak, City X was reduced to ruins by a nuclear strike."

The two fake cops: ?

They looked at Ye Zhao with a terrified expression that suggested she was spouting nonsense. Although they had seen plenty of news online, they had never heard such a terrifying claim. Even if City X had fallen and been locked down, and the situation wasn't great, being nuked into ruins?

It sounded like a fantasy, a world-class horror joke. That was a major city with a population of ten million!

The boy looking for his girlfriend shook his head repeatedly. "Impossible. If there was a nuclear strike, how did you escape?"

Ye Zhao said, "Sorry, that is my business. Can I choose not to explain?"

She didn't care whether they believed her or not, and she had no evidence to offer to convince them. Although she could have taken off her hat to show them her head, which had gone bald from radiation, she decided against it—she still wanted to save face.

Ye Zhao walked away, leaving the two bewildered fake cops behind.

The two boys watched the girl's retreating figure and exchanged a look, at a loss for words. The boy looking for his girlfriend said, "Do you think what she said is true?"

The other replied, "...I don't feel like she was lying."

"If she wasn't lying, then why didn't she expose this online? City X is gone, that's so many lives! Shouldn't the unscrupulous government give an explanation?"

"I don't know." He truly didn't know Ye Zhao's thoughts. "But if this gets out, I'm afraid it will cause a massive uproar. If the government loses its credibility, it will cause total social chaos. It would be fine in peacetime, but..."

If the zombie virus broke out again by then, people would no longer trust a government that had lost its credibility, and survival would only become increasingly difficult.

Thinking of a certain possibility for the future, he couldn't help but shiver.

"Bro, I have a bad feeling. Let's hurry home! Stock up on some compressed biscuits!"

"Impossible, this is too terrifying. Is my girlfriend really dead?"

"Oh, stop thinking about it for now. Let's just go home first. Don't forget, you're your parents' only son! They're counting on you to protect them!"

Ye Zhao dragged her suitcase back to her room. She organized her belongings, putting most of them into her Personal Space and leaving only a few items in the refrigerator to avoid suspicion. She also washed the apples and carrots before putting them away.

She had enough food, but she was short on water. Ye Zhao filled the bathtub to have some in reserve and opened a delivery app to order three cases of mineral water and three cases of milk.

These supplies would be enough for her to live on for the next few days, and Ye Zhao finally felt a little more at ease.

The next day was relatively calm. Ye Zhao sat by the window, turned on the most popular idol drama in this world, and while keeping an eye on the activity downstairs, she gnawed on a carrot. Baidu doctors said eating carrots helped eliminate radioactive substances, so she needed to eat more.

Day five of the game.

Ye Zhao woke up, turned on her phone, and opened Weibo to check the trending topics: #Town A red rats go mad and eat people#, #S County witnesses cannibalism#, #Zombies appear at City W bus station#, #Chaos at City C airport#...

Each of these strings of keywords was followed by a "Burst" tag.

Ye Zhao's mind cleared instantly.

She clicked on them one by one to take a look. Each trending topic actually contained numerous videos, clearly showing rats attacking humans or scenes of cannibalism. Because there were so many videos and photos, and the scope was so wide—Town A, S County, City W, City C... and even more.

This time, the truth of the world could no longer be hidden; it was laid bare before the eyes of the world.

Faced with a chaotic world, the government finally held a press conference to publicly acknowledge the existence of the zombie virus.

"We are deeply saddened by this crisis!"

"...Although we have done our utmost to stop it, we have been unable to prevent the spread of the X Virus."

"...Global governments have established a vaccine research institute. We have gathered the world's top scientists and will do everything in our power to develop a zombie vaccine!"

"...Please do not despair, do not give up. Let us join hands to protect our homes, overcome these difficulties, and defeat the virus!"

After the emotional appeal, they announced the basic facts about the zombies: only attacking the head could kill them completely, and there was a high probability of infection after being scratched. Likewise, asymptomatic carriers existed, and they urged everyone to be careful.

Finally, the government announced three safe zones.

One of them was in City B.

Ye Zhao's choice had indeed been correct.

"Please believe that humanity will eventually win this battle!"