Chapter 3

"Huff, huff, huff-"

Su Cheng burst into her fastest sprint, clearly hearing her own ragged breathing and tasting rust in her throat. In her mind, she kept chanting, Run, run, run!

Don't fall. Don't slow down... stay calm, stay calm!

The snarls behind her faded. Su Cheng glanced back and saw that the zombie had switched targets, setting its sights on someone closer...

Screams rose one after another!

Su Cheng couldn't stop shuddering at how close she had come. Luckily, this wasn't the city center, or there would have been more than one zombie chasing her...

Out in the open, she attracted the zombies' attention far too easily. She had to get inside a building, fast.

Amid the chaos, Su Cheng fixed her gaze on a shop diagonally across the road, but three zombies were sprawled on the ground outside it, devouring someone alive.

Su Cheng could only give up on it. In the end, she chose a pharmacy less than a hundred meters away.

Author's note:

None

Chapter 3

Su Cheng shut the front doors after entering the pharmacy, but she couldn't find a lock. The glass doors could close, but they couldn't stop anyone else from entering.

The pharmacy was only about eighty square meters, not particularly large. Some shelves had been knocked over, and medicine was scattered across the floor. Dried blood remained on the shelves, floor, and counter in varying amounts.

Keeping low, Su Cheng checked between the shelves one by one. Only after finding no sign of zombies did she breathe a sigh of relief.

"Pharmacies usually have a restroom for the employees..."

Just as Su Cheng expected, she soon found a door in a corner. Rather than rushing in, she listened closely first, only pushing the door open when she heard nothing.

The restroom was a mess. Aside from a squat toilet, there were cleaning tools-a broom, mop, basin, rags, and more-piled haphazardly together.

Su Cheng picked up the mop and went to the glass doors, sliding its handle horizontally through the door handles. Then she drew all the curtains, blocking out the light outside.

Next, she strained to push an empty shelving unit against the doors. The shop became much darker.

"Urgh..."

Waves of dizziness washed over Su Cheng, her stomach churning as though she were carsick. She braced herself against the wall and dry-heaved, but nothing came up except acid.

She touched her forehead. A large bump had swollen there, and the cut near the corner of her eye from the broken glass stung, though fortunately it had stopped bleeding.

While she had been in constant danger, her brain had selectively forgotten every physical discomfort. Now that her tense body had relaxed a little, the discomfort came flooding back.

But this was no time to rest.

Su Cheng caught her breath and went to the checkout counter to search for anything useful.

The computer at the checkout counter was still on the sales entry screen, the only source of light in the room. The most conspicuous thing on the counter was the open cash tray. In a drawer were a few candies, scissors, a stapler...

Inside the cabinet were a stack of documents, two flashlights, and a canvas bag. The bag was probably an employee's; it held some cosmetics, a mirror, and a power bank.

Su Cheng unwrapped a candy and popped it into her mouth to replenish her sugar and energy. She emptied the cosmetics out of the canvas bag and put in the remaining candies, the scissors, and the flashlights.

What delighted Su Cheng most was a pack of bottled water in a corner of the cabinet, its plastic wrapping already torn open. Eight bottles remained.

Su Cheng had only four bottles left from what she had brought out of the car. She opened one and gulped down more than half.

She put all twelve bottles into a plastic bag, then doubled it with another bag.

"Since I'm in a pharmacy, I should definitely take some common medicines, but I can't take too much if I want to move easily... if only I could bring all this medicine back to the apartment!"

Looking at the shelves full of medicine, Su Cheng longed for a spatial cheat like those in novels.

In the end, Su Cheng took antibiotic, anti-inflammatory, fever-reducing, and painkiller tablets, along with five small packets of iodine-soaked cotton balls and a fifty-milliliter bottle of alcohol, stuffing the canvas bag slung across her body until it bulged.

The medicine wasn't heavy, and carrying it in the canvas bag didn't hamper her movements.

She also picked up vitamin gummies and small bottles of sugar water from the floor. They had probably been displayed on the shelves in front of the checkout counter, where they were usually used to entice children into buying them.

After a quick search of the pharmacy, Su Cheng sat on the floor by the checkout counter, chewing gummies.

The cramped space gave her an inexplicable sense of security.

She held up the mirror. The large bump on her forehead was red and swollen, but the cut by her eye wasn't very deep.

Su Cheng opened the iodine-soaked cotton balls and disinfected the wound. When the cool, damp cotton touched it, the pain was like a needle prick.

Su Cheng's face scrunched up in pain, and she let out a soft hiss. She endured it, quickly finished applying the iodine, and put on an adhesive bandage.

Once she finished, she poured the protein powder she had found in the supplements section into a half-finished bottle of water and shook it up and down.

The cold water couldn't fully dissolve the protein powder, leaving powdery lumps toward the bottom. It didn't taste great, but to Su Cheng, who hadn't eaten since before entering the instance and had been on an empty stomach for a long time, it wasn't bad.

"Consider it a little energy boost."

Su Cheng licked her lower lip and leaned against the corner of the counter, kneading her legs, which ached from exertion, while planning what to do next.

Her original plan had been to hide out in the sparsely populated outskirts and turtle through five days, but she was already too late. The zombie virus had spread too quickly, and she had missed her chance.

Su Cheng knew her own combat strength very well. She wasn't naturally strong, had no weapon worth taking a chance with, couldn't drive, and had no vehicle.

No matter how much she wanted to escape the city, she wasn't foolish enough to rush outside and fight a zombie one-on-one. She only had one life, and the apartment rules had said that dying in an instance meant dying for real!

"If I hide in the pharmacy, I can scrape through five days on the food I have. I can ration it, as long as I don't starve to death. But..."

But what if zombies broke in?

Although this wasn't the city center, there were still plenty of people here, and the pharmacy's glass doors were hardly an impenetrable fortress.

The zombies spread extremely fast. In less than three days, an entire city could fall completely.

Could Su Cheng guarantee that once there were no living people left nearby, the wandering zombies wouldn't break in here? When that happened, would she be able to fight back and survive...?

Worry covered Su Cheng's face. After some thought, she leaned out from behind the checkout counter.

When she looked toward the entrance, her eyes met those of a woman holding a fire axe high.

Su Cheng hurriedly gestured for her to stop, preventing her from smashing her way in.

Su Cheng ran over, pushed aside the empty shelving unit, and removed the mop handle to let the woman in before putting it back.

"Thank you."

The woman wore a backpack. Her ear-length hair was held back by a black headband, exposing her smooth forehead, and she gripped a fire axe tightly.

She looked about Su Cheng's age, but she was a head taller. Her figure was tall and slim, but the muscles in her arms and the blood staining her axe showed that she wasn't weak or helpless.

Most importantly, she wore a black wristband.

She was also a resident of the Survival Apartment!

The black wristbands could only display personal information and points while inside the apartment. In instances, aside from displaying the time, their only function was to identify the wearer.

The woman had also noticed the black wristband on Su Cheng's wrist.

They exchanged a glance, both lowering their guard considerably.

Su Cheng spoke first. "What medicine do you need?"

"Fever medicine and cold medicine."

Su Cheng glanced at the woman. Only then did she notice the unusual flush on her face.

As though something had occurred to her, the woman said, "It's just a cold. I haven't been bitten."

Su Cheng didn't belabor it either. "Okay. I know which shelf it's on. I'll get it for you."

Then she pointed in a direction. "You can look for food to replenish your energy in the supplements section, or look for scattered gummies on the floor."

"Thank you!"

Su Cheng quickly found the medicine the woman needed and picked up a few other common medicines for her as well.

The woman didn't dawdle either. Holding the fire axe made it awkward to carry things, so she put everything she needed into her backpack.

The woman took the plastic bag of medicine and opened it for a look, appearing a little surprised. Clearly, she hadn't expected Su Cheng to thoughtfully pick up other common medicines in addition to the cold medicine.

After stuffing the medicine into her backpack, she looked at Su Cheng with a much warmer gaze.

She said concisely, "I'm Yan Yu. My car's outside. Want to come with me? To the outskirts."

Su Cheng's eyelid twitched, and she agreed almost immediately. "Yes!"

She had wanted to flee to the outskirts and turtle there before the city fell completely. She hadn't expected Yan Yu to have the same plan.

After all those twists and turns, she was still following her original plan.

Su Cheng knew her own combat strength. With a weapon, she could barely handle one or two zombies, but with more than three, she would very likely get bitten.

Yan Yu looked far stronger than she was. Together, they could watch each other's backs against unknown dangers and ease the pressure of survival.

Having someone with strong combat abilities as a teammate in the instance made Su Cheng feel that she wasn't entirely plagued by bad luck.

With that thought, Su Cheng gave Yan Yu a sincere smile. "I'm Su Cheng."

Yan Yu wasted no more words. She glanced at her watch. "Okay, let's go. We need to hurry."

"Okay."

Su Cheng understood that time was tight. They had to leave before the city descended into complete chaos; every moment they delayed meant a few more zombies.

She picked up the supplies she had left beneath the checkout counter and followed Yan Yu briskly outside.

Yan Yu's car was parked by the road, a green SUV only fifty meters from them.

It was around six in the evening, and the sky was already darkening. Normally, it shouldn't have gotten dark so quickly at six in summer.

The streetlights still shone. The street was a complete mess, with overturned vehicles burning, their flames illuminating zombies crouched on the ground, feeding.

There were no longer any living people fleeing in sight.

A zombie sniffing around spotted Su Cheng and Yan Yu. As though some program had been activated, its blood-red eyes widened, and it sprinted toward them.

Its cry was like a feeding signal, attracting the other zombies' attention. All of them locked onto the same direction.

"Roar, roar-"

"Hurry!"

Yan Yu ran ahead with her fire axe raised, and Su Cheng followed close behind.

They got into the SUV at the same time. Its engine was already running, and just as the zombies lunged at them, Yan Yu hit the accelerator and sped away.