The subway was no longer safe!
She had to leave immediately!
The moment that thought surfaced in Jiang Qi’s mind, her body was already moving, sprinting toward the subway exit. Fortunately, her reaction had been fast enough. She managed to rush out just before the train doors closed.
At that moment, her mind was filled with scenes from every zombie movie she had ever watched.
There were two ways to clear the instance.
One: survive in Rong City for 30 days.
Two: escape Rong City within 7 days.
Jiang Qi had never been someone who exercised regularly. Back in high school, passing the 800-meter run had never been a problem, but now… she wasn’t confident anymore.
After thinking it over, the only thing she could count as combat ability was the women’s self-defense classes she had taken for two months in college out of personal interest. But would women’s self-defense even work against zombies?
Every zombie movie Jiang Qi had ever seen told her one undeniable truth: without strong combat ability and high-lethality weapons, like firearms, you should never fantasize about escaping a zombie horde on your own.
That was practically suicide.
So there was only one way for her to clear this instance.
Stockpile enough supplies for 30 days and hide somewhere safe.
Even if clearing it that way only awarded 1,000 points, points were still points. It was better than dying in the very first instance.
Before entering the instance, Jiang Qi had checked her personal points balance.
It was zero.
What if I fail this instance and the Survival Apartment System decides there are no points left to deduct… and kills me outright?
Thinking of this, Jiang Qi quickly began planning her next steps.
Right now was the early stage of the zombie outbreak, the easiest time to gather supplies. The moment she got out of the subway, she would find a supermarket or convenience store and shove supplies into her spatial ring. Once she had enough, she would immediately find a safe place to hole up.
As she ran out through Exit C of the subway station, she vaguely heard shrill screams erupting behind her.
Jiang Qi didn’t even look back. Spotting a shared electric scooter by the roadside, she immediately pulled out her phone and started scanning the QR code. Anxiety crept into her voice as she muttered, “I wonder if phones even work inside an instance… Please work, please work…”
The clothes Jiang Qi was wearing were the same ones she had on before entering the Survival Apartment, including her crossbody bag and phone. They were all her own belongings.
From entering the Survival Apartment to entering the instance, nothing had changed.
So she had no idea whether her phone could actually unlock a shared scooter inside the instance.
“It worked!”
Jiang Qi could feel sweat gathering on her palms and forehead. She had no time to pay attention to the pedestrians around her. The moment she got on the scooter and sped forward, only one thought remained in her mind.
Faster!
Get farther away!
The discussions of the passersby behind her quickly faded into the distance.
“What’s going on up ahead?”
Some curious bystanders ran toward the source of the screams, while many younger people took out their phones to start recording videos. None of them realized the seriousness of the situation until a freshly turned zombie burst out of the subway, its shirt soaked in blood and one ear seemingly bitten off, roaring at them.
“ROOOAR!!!”
“AAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!”
Only then did the crowd flooding toward the subway begin screaming and scattering in panic.
Jiang Qi couldn’t spare any attention for what was happening behind her. Her eyes constantly swept both sides of the street as she silently repeated in her head:
Supermarket, supermarket… I need to find a supermarket and gather supplies.
But before she could find one suitable for stocking up, a violent crash suddenly erupted at the intersection ahead, followed immediately by fire and explosions.
“There’s been a car accident! Call 120!”
“Mom? Mom, what’s wrong with you?”
“AAAAHHH! HELP! Don’t bite me!”
Jiang Qi clearly saw that the driver involved in the crash had blood all over his head and multiple broken bones, yet after convulsing violently more than a dozen times, he suddenly lunged at the child sitting in the passenger seat.
Her scalp instantly went numb.
That old lady on the subway must have already been bitten or infected before boarding the train.
Which meant the zombie outbreak wasn’t starting from a single location. It was erupting simultaneously in multiple places.
She couldn’t slowly search for a supermarket anymore.
She had to immediately find a place to hide and avoid the chaos of the first wave of the outbreak.
A place with lots of supplies…
Besides supermarkets, there were also malls!
Jiang Qi immediately turned left and rode toward a large shopping mall nearby.
Most large malls had supermarkets inside. She could gather supplies from there as quickly as possible, then head upstairs before the mall descended into chaos.
Jiang Qi could feel both her hands and legs trembling, but she could only do her best to suppress the shaking born from fear.
Because she wanted to survive.
She wanted to clear the instance.
And that meant rationality had to overcome fear.
The scooter finally stopped at the mall entrance. Jiang Qi tried storing the shared scooter in her spatial ring, and when she discovered it actually worked, joy flashed through her heart.
Great! At least transportation was more or less taken care of!
The mall Jiang Qi chose wasn’t particularly large, only seven floors.
The first floor mostly housed skincare counters and jewelry stores.
Floors two through four were clothing stores and shops selling women’s bags and shoes.
Floors five and six were restaurants.
The seventh floor was the movie theater.
Her luck wasn’t great. This mall’s supermarket was located on Basement Level 1.
Without hesitation, Jiang Qi rushed toward the basement supermarket.
At worst, after grabbing supplies, she could just sprint all the way up through the emergency stairwell. She had already figured out where she planned to hide.
At the moment, the mall hadn’t descended into chaos yet.
But Jiang Qi knew it would happen within one to five minutes at most.
She had to gather at least some supplies within those one to five minutes and evacuate immediately afterward.
The current time was 10:15 a.m.
The supermarket had only recently opened for business, and there were only a dozen or so scattered customers inside, most leisurely browsing products. Someone like Jiang Qi, rushing in frantically, startled quite a few people.
Step one of stockpiling supplies: sufficient water.
Jiang Qi wore the ring on the middle finger of her right hand. Clenching her fist tightly, she brushed the ring’s surface across rows of bottled drinks on the shelves.
Entire sections of beverage shelves vanished instantly.
Step two of stockpiling supplies: enough food.
Jiang Qi wasn’t picky at all. Anything edible went straight into the spatial ring: five-packs of instant noodles, family-sized bags of snacks, small bread rolls, canned food.
Everywhere she passed, half the shelves would suddenly empty here, a chunk would disappear there.
Step three of stockpiling supplies: useful weapons.
What weapons could an ordinary supermarket possibly have?
Jiang Qi couldn’t think of anything better, so she rummaged through the cookware and household goods sections instead.
At that moment, an employee finally noticed something was wrong and hurried over to stop her.
“Hey?! What are you doing?!”
When Jiang Qi turned around at the shout, she still had two frying pans in her hands, one intended for storage in the spatial ring, the other to keep as a weapon.
But before she could think of a way to deal with the employee, chaotic screams and pounding footsteps had already erupted from the first floor.
“AAAAHHHH! Someone’s being eaten!”
“Wuwuwu… I’m so scared…”
“Run, everyone! They’re zombies! I’ve seen this in movies!”
The employee turned around in stunned confusion, still unaware of what had happened.
Meanwhile, Jiang Qi seized the opportunity and slipped out of the supermarket. Before leaving, she even snatched two packs of gum from beside the checkout counter.
Emergency stairwell, emergency stairwell…
Jiang Qi tightly gripped the brand-new frying pan with both hands. She knew a frying pan had practically no killing power against zombies, but she also knew it was the weapon she could use most naturally.
After all, all she had to do was swing hard and smash.
She sprinted into the emergency stairwell and climbed nonstop all the way to the seventh floor.
Jiang Qi herself had no idea how she managed not to fall halfway up.
Maybe people really did unlock hidden potential when faced with fear.
Movie theaters had excellent soundproofing. The people watching movies inside wouldn’t know what was happening outside.
And the empty theaters without audiences, for the moment, were Jiang Qi’s target.
She planned to run into an empty screening room and shut all the entrance doors behind her. First, she would survive the chaotic opening phase of the zombie outbreak.
As for everything afterward…
She’d think about it later.
At worst, she could just hole up in the theater for 30 days. The screening rooms were large enough, and if something unexpected happened, there would still be three or four exits to choose from when escaping.
Half of the mall’s seventh floor belonged to the movie theater.
By the time Jiang Qi climbed up through the emergency stairwell, she was already gasping for breath and nearly exhausted.
Fortunately, this time luck was on her side.
The stairwell exit led directly beside the restroom, and just around the corner from the restroom was the theater hallway.
The corridor outside the screening rooms was empty. Not a single person wandered outside.
The doors to theaters 1 through 7 were tightly shut, likely because movies were currently playing.
The doors to theaters 8 through 10 were open.
But just as Jiang Qi reached the entrance to Theater 8 and was about to go inside, her eyes suddenly caught sight of something.
“That is…?”
A young man holding a gun with both hands.
Jiang Qi’s eyes widened.
A gun? Where did he get a gun?!
As Jiang Qi noticed the armed young man, he also noticed her because he, too, was running toward the movie theater.
He wanted to hide inside the theater?
The moment Jiang Qi realized this, she hesitated for three whole seconds.
Maybe… they could cooperate?
It was only the first day of the very first instance. Players probably hadn’t reached the point of doing whatever it took to survive yet.
Thinking this, Jiang Qi waved at the young man holding the gun and called out, “Hey, over here.”
The armed young man didn’t hesitate. As he rushed over, he shouted, “Close the door, quick!”
Click.
The door to Theater 8 slammed shut, and the two of them hid inside together.
Almost exactly three seconds after the door closed, dozens of zombies surged off the escalator from the sixth floor toward the still-unaffected seventh floor, trampling over each other in their frenzy.
Very soon, screams erupted.
***
Theater 8 had a total of three doors: the entrance door leading into the theater and the two exit doors on either side of the movie screen. After locking every single door, Jiang Qi and the armed young man both stepped back several paces, neither of them daring to breathe too loudly.
Because the growls of zombies had already started echoing outside.
Would the audience members still watching movies in the other theaters manage to survive?
Most likely not.
Jiang Qi: “……”
Armed young man: “……”
The tense silence, where neither of them dared even breathe heavily, lasted for a full hour. Only after everything outside the theater had finally gone completely quiet did Jiang Qi collapse weakly onto the floor.
“Hah… that… that scared me to death…”
Even when speaking, Jiang Qi could only manage a breathy whisper.
Her hands and feet were still numb even now, as though the sensation would never fade.
If she had known, she never would’ve chosen the City Instance!
Who would’ve thought the City Instance was a Zombie Instance?!
“Ye Ling.”
Jiang Qi froze for a moment and looked toward the speaker. The other party had delicate features, thick hair, and regular, upright looks. He appeared to be somewhere between twenty and twenty-five years old, probably no older than twenty-seven. His calm, meticulous temperament clashed slightly with his youthful appearance.
“Jiang Qi.”
After introducing herself, Jiang Qi didn’t bother hiding her curiosity.
“Your gun… where did it come from?”
There was no way he had managed to rob a police station in such a short amount of time, right?
“My ability is Weapons Manufacturer,” Ye Ling explained briefly.
So the weapon was something he had created himself? Jiang Qi immediately looked at him with envy.
How nice. She wanted an ability that came with its own weapon too.