After dodging another zombie's attack, Ye Zhao was drenched in sweat. Her legs felt like they were weighed down with lead, and she couldn't run anymore. She had to find somewhere to rest and regain her strength, or she'd eventually end up as food. Luckily, she managed to take shelter with a few others in a hot pot restaurant. The virus had broken out in the morning, before the restaurant opened, and most of the staff hadn't come in yet. When it happened, only three middle-aged women were washing vegetables inside. Now they had locked the doors and were huddled together, trembling. Ye Zhao and the others had climbed in through a window.
She kicked away several zombies trying to climb through the window, then slammed it shut and stacked two tables in front of it. Only after a long while did the frenzied pounding finally stop.
Everyone in the room breathed a sigh of relief and collapsed onto the floor, their faces pale.
"How could this happen? How could this happen...?"
"This is terrifying! Those people are eating people! It must be chaos out there, right?"
"What do we do? My son's still in elementary school, and I can't get through to the school. Could something have happened there, too?"
"Is this like the movies? Has the apocalypse come?"
"..."
The hot pot restaurant was safe for the moment. Ye Zhao looked around the first floor and saw no bodies or bloodstains. She climbed to the second floor and caught her breath, then took a bottle of mineral water from her backpack and gulped it down. Looking at the chaotic street below, she saw more than a dozen zombies tearing into someone's corpse. Screams rang out, then fell silent. A moment later, the zombies scattered, leaving only a pool of blood on the ground.
She couldn't help gagging a few times and quickly looked away.
Thinking about the road ahead, she studied the map for a while. After some time, she took out her phone to check what was happening in City X.
The map app was showing red everywhere, and traffic conditions were dire. Driving was out of the question.
Ye Zhao opened the social media apps to see what was happening elsewhere. To her surprise, no matter how she searched for terms like "zombies in City X," "cannibalism," or "chaos in City X," she couldn't find anything—not on Weibo or Douyin. Instead, news about celebrities and internet personalities was still topping all the charts. At a glance, the world seemed peaceful, as if the hell outside didn't exist.
Frowning, she posted several Weibo messages about "cannibal zombies appearing in City X, the whole city in chaos," but they disappeared as soon as she posted them. After she tried a few more times, even her account was suspended. When she tried to look up anything else, she found that the internet had vanished altogether.
Were they really suppressing news of City X's fall? Were they afraid of causing panic?
Putting aside her doubts, Ye Zhao opened the Game Panel to study it. Along the way, she'd scanned quite a few things, mostly vehicles: cars, minivans, off-road jeeps, even police cars, fire engines, and buses.
But her Creation Level hadn't increased, and she had only 80 Creation Points.
She used 40 points to create four rings that each granted +1 Speed, wearing them on the ring fingers of both hands. She kept the remaining 40 in reserve, just in case.
[Speed +1 Ring, Durability 100.]
Thinking of the scene she'd seen through the Prophet skill, Ye Zhao figured her options were to get out of the city as soon as possible or find somewhere to hide and survive for ten days. With her Golden Finger, she should be able to make it through ten days.
But her instincts told her staying in the city would be dangerous. Leaving City X was the best choice.
Ye Zhao was unlucky enough for even something like a mistaken soul retrieval to happen to her, but her instincts had always been reliable.
The hot pot restaurant's kitchen was on the first floor. Ye Zhao decided to find a suitable weapon there first.
The restaurant had plenty of food in stock. Ye Zhao's eyes lit up, and she made two rounds of the kitchen, scanning everything: frozen goods in the freezers, fresh fruit and vegetables, beef, cutting boards, pots and pans, and even the gas stove and gas canisters. At a crucial moment, she could use them to cook a meal.
There were plenty of knives, long ones, short ones, and cleavers for chopping bones. In the end, she picked out a watermelon knife. It was long, sharp, and easy to handle. Most importantly, it would let her keep a safe distance from the zombies.
"No, you can't take that. It belongs to the restaurant! Isn't that right, Sister Wang?" The middle-aged man called out to Sister Wang, one of the restaurant's staff. Put on the spot, she stammered, "R-right. We—we don't sell that!"
Ye Zhao glanced at the middle-aged man. She couldn't beat him, so she took two packs of biscuits and two cans of fruit from her backpack. She wasn't short on food anyway. "I'll trade these for it."
The middle-aged man hesitated for two seconds, then agreed.
She set down the food and left without another word.
It was true that the streets were dangerous and hiding was the best choice. But it was still the early days of the chaos, and she wasn't the only bait out on the main road. That made it easier to slip through the confusion. Once all of City X had fallen, getting out would be even harder.
The road ahead grew noticeably more difficult for Ye Zhao. After she'd hacked at a few zombies, the watermelon knife's edge had chipped. Fortunately, creating another watermelon knife only cost 1 point, which she could afford. Not long afterward, she came across a team of police officers out on a rescue mission. They were being chased by zombies and had ushered more than a dozen civilians into a residential compound.
The officers had opened fire and drawn most of the zombies' attention. Ye Zhao followed behind and hacked down several, but her watermelon knife was completely ruined. With zombies on her heels, she had no choice but to climb up to the second floor of a shop by the roadside. Hanging from the balcony, she stared wide-eyed at several people hiding inside.
Ye Zhao: ...
"Sorry to bother you. I'll rest for a bit, then leave."
It was still the early days of the apocalypse, and people were holding on to their better instincts and civility. Though she looked a little dangerous, no one stopped her from coming inside. They did, however, keep her apart in a corner of the balcony, even using a chair to block her off. She didn't mind. Taking off her mask, she pulled a bottle of mineral water and some biscuits from her backpack to replenish her strength.
After a couple of bites, she saw the blood-soaked zombies below and couldn't help gagging again. She set the biscuits on the balcony, put her palms together, and bowed. In her heart, she silently pleaded, Lord Ghost Messenger, please come save me!
The noodle shop owner and the others had been watching her from a distance for a long time. Seeing that she hadn't turned and was even praying for divine protection, they pressed their palms together and bowed along with her. That eased their wariness a little. "Miss, what's it like outside? Has everywhere turned into this? We can't get through on the phone, and the internet's down. What should we do?"
"I came from X University. It's the same all along the way. It's like this everywhere..."
At her words, a woman holding a child couldn't help bursting into tears again. Her child was affected by her mother's emotions and opened their mouth to cry, too. Afraid the crying would attract zombies, the woman quickly put a lollipop in the child's hand, then swallowed her sobs and coaxed them. The child soon stopped crying and smiled.
The mood in the room was bleak. Ye Zhao silently finished a pack of biscuits, then hid behind the window and watched the zombies below. Perhaps because the commotion earlier had been so loud, the whole street was now filled with wandering zombies. Leaving without drawing attention would be difficult.
But from her initial observations, she'd noticed that the zombies were exceptionally sensitive to sound and the smell of blood. Their eyesight, on the other hand, seemed poor, and their movements were stiff and slow. In a situation like this, as long as they didn't make a loud noise, the zombies wouldn't notice them.
Just then, everyone's phones vibrated. Ye Zhao opened the message on her phone. It was from the City X government:
[Dear citizens, an unknown virus has swept across all of City X. Please do not panic or wander outside. Do your best to find a safe place to shelter and wait for rescue...]
[Preliminary tests show that zombies are highly sensitive to sound and the smell of blood. Those who are bitten have a high chance of contracting the virus. The only way to kill a zombie completely is to sever its head...]
[Please do not go outside. Do not go outside. Wait for rescue! Wait for rescue!]
[Rest assured, we will never abandon a single citizen!]
[Let us stand united, overcome these difficult times together, and weather this crisis as one!]
[Believe that humanity will ultimately triumph over this disaster!!!]