“N-no need for that! I think I can still be saved!”
Terrified, Tang Cheng backed away. He looked just like a zombie right now—one wrong move and that female soldier above might blow his head off.
“Well then, kid… good luck.”
The female special forces soldier lowered her M4A1 rifle and disappeared with the helicopter into the sky.
Tang Cheng reached up and touched the rotting wound on the left side of his face. Now that even the rescue teams had given up on him, it seemed he was no longer part of the human world.
Even if he hadn’t fully turned into a zombie, with a face like this—bearing a scar identical to theirs—there was no way he could go back. If he did, he’d probably just get shot on sight.
Grrrgle…
His stomach growled loudly. Whatever the case, he needed to eat something first.
But could he still digest normal food? Or had he already become like the other zombies, needing to feed on humans to survive? If it came to that… maybe taking a bullet to the head earlier wouldn’t have been so bad after all.
Exiting the school’s administrative building, Tang Cheng cautiously made his way through the campus. Zombies wandered everywhere—some crouched on the ground, gnawing on mutilated human corpses. It was a horrifying scene.
Yet just like before, none of the zombies paid him any attention. Not one of them tried to attack.
“Maybe they really do see me as one of them…”
With that thought, Tang Cheng felt a little bolder. He weaved his way through the zombie crowd and stepped out into the city beyond the campus.
What had once been a bustling city center was now deathly quiet. Other than the occasional shuffling zombie, not a single sign of human life remained.
Cars were abandoned all across the streets, many of them luxury models—Ferraris, Porsches—and some still had their keys in the ignition.
Since zombies weren’t a threat to him, Tang Cheng wandered the street at ease, starting to feel a strange sense of exhilaration.
In this apocalyptic world, it seemed like he was immune to the undead. Wasn’t that basically an invincible superpower?
He stood in the middle of the road, gazing up at the towering department store ahead. Upscale restaurants, flashy supermarkets, five-star hotels—weren’t all of these now his for the taking?
“Wait a second—the bakery!”
On the first floor of the department store were several well-known bakery chains. He remembered coming here a few times with Chu Ruoyun. This whole building belonged to the Chu Group.
Uuuuhhhhhh…
Several zombies were huddled against the department store’s glass sliding doors, scraping at the glass with claw-like fingers, moaning in that creepy, gurgling way.
There was no way inside unless he moved them out of the way.
For safety, Tang Cheng picked up a riot shield someone—probably a cop—had dropped nearby and began pushing the zombies aside.
The zombies reacted sluggishly, pawing at the glass. Even as he shoved them away, none tried to fight back. They simply stumbled and fell back.
That confirmed it—even if I attack them, they won’t fight me.
Clearing the entrance, Tang Cheng pushed open the heavy glass doors and stepped inside.
When he noticed the zombies trying to follow him in, he quickly shut the door behind him.
Inside the department store, a few more zombies were wandering around. Judging from their uniforms, they were employees who hadn’t escaped in time and had been infected.
The interior was spacious and cool—the air conditioning was still running, which meant the building still had power.
On the first floor were phone shops, tea lounges, and boutiques. Peeking through the window of one store, Tang Cheng noticed the LED clock display reading: July 17, 2150.
“July 17?!”
“That means I’ve been unconscious for a whole week!”
He clearly remembered the outbreak happening on July 10. That meant he had been out cold for seven days—seven days without water or food… and I didn’t die?
Guess my body really has mutated…
No time to dwell on it. His stomach still ruled the moment. He hurried into a premium bakery on the first floor.
The shelves were packed with all sorts of bread—cheese buns, cream rolls, puff pastries, even Caesar brioche. Stuff he used to only dream about.
Without hesitation, he grabbed a stack of them and started stuffing them into his mouth. Ravenous and shaky, he barely even tasted the food before swallowing it down.
“Ahh… finally. I, Tang Cheng, am living like a rich man!”
“Only the wealthy can afford bread like this…”
Tears welled up in his eyes—tears of joy. He devoured the bread, then turned to the nearby drink cooler, grabbed a bottle, and gulped it down in huge swigs.
“This… this is happiness!”
There was a feeling of fullness in his stomach, and strength was gradually returning to his limbs.
This was a good sign—it proved he could still eat human food, rather than needing to devour people like the zombies outside.
*****
But just then, a faint cry for help rang out.
“Help… somebody, help!”
“Hahaha, hold her down! I’ll take off her skirt!”
“No, please—please don’t!”
The voice of a young girl pleading for help seemed to come from the second floor. Tang Cheng, in the middle of drinking water, choked instantly.
“Cough, cough… Someone’s upstairs?!”
“And it doesn’t sound good at all…”
He rushed toward the stairs leading up from the first floor of the department store, but the stairwell door was tightly locked!
He slammed his body against it, but it didn’t budge an inch. It felt like something heavy was piled up behind it—there really were people up there. Otherwise, the stairs wouldn’t have been locked from the inside.
“Can’t get up… What should I do…”
Tang Cheng anxiously wracked his brain.
“Right, the elevator!”
He dashed toward the elevator set into the wall nearby. The air conditioning in the building was still running, which meant the power was still on.
Arriving in front of the elevator, he jabbed the ‘Up’ button. The indicator lit up immediately—thankfully, it still worked.
The elevator was currently on the basement level, so it quickly ascended to the first floor. As soon as the doors opened, he rushed in and hit the button for the second floor.
Sure, taking the elevator wasn’t necessarily safe, but he didn’t have time to worry about that now!
Ding—with a soft chime, the elevator doors opened on the second floor.
“Holy sh*t, that’s a lot of zombies!”
The moment the doors slid open, he nearly jumped out of his skin. The hallway was packed wall to wall with zombies—an absolutely terrifying number.
They must have been panicked shoppers trying to flee when the virus broke out, only to end up turning into the infected.
“Urghhh… grrrhh…”
The zombies groaned and crowded against the corridor walls. When the elevator doors opened, they mindlessly began to shuffle inside. Thankfully, they didn’t show any interest in Tang Cheng at all.
“Excuse me! Coming through!”
There were simply too many of them. Tang Cheng had no choice but to squeeze his body through the sea of undead. If he’d been an ordinary person right now, he’d have already been tackled to the floor and devoured.
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