A crowd instantly gathered outside the supermarket across the street.
The young woman accompanying the fallen man screamed hysterically, desperately begging passersby for help. A few kindhearted people actually stepped forward to check on his condition.
The bloody scenes from the Apocalypse in her previous life surged uncontrollably through Su Nian’s mind.
“Xingxing, we’re leaving right now!”
She quickly packed everything away, scooped her son into her arms, and started the truck.
“Mommy, what’s wrong?”
Xingxing immediately sensed that something was off.
“Nothing.”
Suppressing the fear rising inside her, Su Nian gently stroked his head.
“We need to move faster and get somewhere safe.”
There were still a few final supplies missing from her storage space. She had planned to buy them tomorrow, but…
It was only seven o’clock.
There was still time.
Su Nian pressed harder on the accelerator and headed straight for the wholesale market.
Tools were absolutely essential. She bought military shovels, fire axes, knives, lighters, candles, ropes, steel wire, flashlights, generators, and several sets of repair tools.
She also stocked up on every kind of kitchenware, including pots, bowls, plates, kitchen knives, disposable tableware, and insulated flasks.
Then she found an outdoor equipment store and purchased camping gear such as tents, utility wagons, portable camping stoves, and more. She paid extra to have everything delivered to the warehouse immediately.
As she passed a bookstore, she bought picture books, elementary school textbooks, drawing supplies, audiobooks, books on farming and gardening, and many others.
She visited another large wholesale market and bought children’s snacks including chocolate, candy, and biscuits, fifty cases of each. For adults, she bought fifty cases each of nuts, potato chips, and other snacks. She also purchased fifty cases each of ice cream and frozen treats, along with a large number of toys for Xingxing.
Passing a bicycle shop, she bought ten children’s bicycles and ten adult bicycles.
By the time she reached the clothing wholesale district, the shops were already preparing to close.
Su Nian handed each owner a one thousand yuan tip, and the delighted shopkeepers immediately called their employees back to start packing clothes.
She was no longer worried about drawing attention.
She planned to leave the city tomorrow afternoon.
She prepared clothing for every season.
The clothes she bought for Xingxing would fit him until he was ten years old.
Thermal underwear, underwear, socks, athletic shoes…
There was a bedding store right next door, so she had them pack up quilts, blankets, and everything else for delivery to the warehouse.
Just as Su Nian was trying to think of anything she might have forgotten, she noticed Xingxing squatting quietly on the ground, looking unusually dejected.
“Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”
She crouched beside him and realized he was genuinely upset.
“Mommy… why didn’t you buy clothes for Daddy? Isn’t Daddy coming with us?”
The innocent question made Su Nian’s heart ache.
She had always told Xingxing that his father had gone to work somewhere very, very far away and couldn’t come home.
She hadn’t expected him to remember those words so clearly.
“We’ll buy some. Mommy just forgot. Thank you for reminding me, sweetheart.”
Deep down, Su Nian knew that man would never come back.
She would never see him again in this lifetime.
But she couldn’t bear to break her son’s heart.
“Come on. Let’s pick out some clothes for Daddy.”
Holding Xingxing’s hand, she entered a men’s clothing store.
They chose outdoor jackets, padded coats, T shirts, casual pants, underwear, socks, shoes, and more.
When the sales clerk asked for the size, Su Nian answered with Lu Chen’s measurements almost instinctively.
By the time she realized what she had done, the clerk had already begun packing everything.
She quietly closed her mouth.
It didn’t matter. Time was far more important.
By eleven o’clock that night, every last supply had been transferred into the storage space.
When they returned to the hotel, Xingxing was already sound asleep.
He didn’t fuss at all and fell asleep the moment he lay down.
With so much weighing on her mind, Su Nian barely slept.
What had happened to the man outside the supermarket?
As soon as dawn broke, she woke up.
After hastily eating a few bites, she took Xingxing out again.
Her first stop was to collect the gasoline she had arranged to buy earlier.
She had paid extra and relied on personal connections to purchase as much as possible.
No matter how much money she offered, she couldn’t buy any more than that.
Next, she collected the mountain fencing, iron gates, steel reinforcement bars, cement, and other materials she had ordered several days earlier to reinforce the house.
She also picked up several USB drives filled with movies and all kinds of videos that she had paid someone to download for her.
Finally, she went to the warehouse.
Inside were twenty electric scooters that had been delivered ahead of time, along with a brand new pickup truck.
Combined with the car she already owned and the rental truck she had no intention of returning, it would be more than enough to reach Shuixi Village.
Originally, she hadn’t had enough money.
So she had used the evidence of Liu Wei accepting kickbacks and leaking company information to extort some money from him.
The moment she received the payment, she immediately sent all the evidence to the company.
According to one of her coworkers, Liu Wei had been taken into custody that very night.
By the time he got out…
The Apocalypse would already be here.
After paying for everything, only a few hundred yuan remained in her bank account.
Since there was almost nothing left to spend, she took Xingxing to a supermarket and let him choose whatever he wanted.
It would probably be their last trip to a supermarket before the Apocalypse.
Su Nian pushed the shopping cart while Xingxing sat happily inside the basket, swinging his little legs back and forth.
This would be the last supermarket visit before the end of the world.
For once, Su Nian didn’t rush him.
Watching the excitement on her son’s little face filled her heart with both warmth and sadness.
They hadn’t been shopping for more than a few minutes when terrified screams erupted at the supermarket entrance.
Su Nian immediately looked up.
Someone burst in from outside, covered in blood, crashing into an entire row of shelves.
“Someone’s biting people!”
“Is… is that a Zombie?”
The supermarket exploded into chaos.
People screamed as they ran deeper inside.
Shopping carts collided with one another, sending groceries scattering across the floor.
“Mommy!”
Xingxing gripped the shopping cart tightly, trembling with fear.
There was no time to hesitate.
Su Nian snatched him into her arms and sprinted toward the emergency exit.
They couldn’t stay inside the supermarket.
The alley behind the building was safe for now, and her vehicle was parked two blocks away.
Run!
Holding Xingxing tightly, she ran with all her strength.
Behind her, heart wrenching screams echoed from inside the supermarket.
Su Nian didn’t dare look back.
The alley was deserted. Her vehicle was parked at the entrance.
She yanked open the rear door, placed Xingxing inside, then jumped into the driver’s seat.
She shoved the key into the ignition and twisted it.
The engine roared to life.
As the vehicle shot forward, the rearview mirror reflected the scene outside the supermarket.
Those people were pouring out.
No! They weren’t people anymore.
Something was terribly wrong with the way they moved.
Their bodies were stiff and twisted, as though invisible strings were dragging them forward.
Su Nian looked away and slammed the accelerator to the floor.
“Xingxing, lie down and close your eyes.”
The little boy didn’t make a sound.
He obediently lay across the back seat, covering his face with his teddy bear.
The vehicle turned onto the main road.
The entire city had descended into chaos.
Some people were running. Some were crying.
Cars had crashed into streetlights, their airbags deployed in bright white clouds.
Gripping the steering wheel tightly, Su Nian drove around the congestion by cutting across the sidewalk.
Ahead lay the road leading out of the city.
A few more blocks, and they would reach the highway.
She wasn’t familiar with this part of the city.
Afraid of wasting time, she opened the navigation app with trembling hands and turned the volume all the way up.
After only a few minutes, the navigation voice suddenly stopped.
The second phone in her pocket began vibrating.
It was the same unknown number again.
She had no time to answer. After vibrating several times, it finally stopped.
Keeping her eyes fixed on the road ahead, Su Nian continued driving.
At the next intersection, a bus lay sideways across the road.
Its doors stood wide open. The entire interior was soaked in blood.
There was no way through.
Su Nian spun the steering wheel sharply and turned onto a narrow side road.
The road was cramped, but it could bypass the blockage.
She had taken this route in her previous life.
From the back seat came Xingxing’s quiet sobbing.
He cried so softly, as though he were afraid someone might hear him.
“Xingxing, Mommy’s here.”
Su Nian’s voice was steadier than she expected.
“Count from one to one hundred.”
“One… two… three…”
Xingxing counted through his tears.
Clenching her teeth, Su Nian pressed even harder on the accelerator.
At the end of the side road was the highway entrance.
She could already see the toll station canopy.
But she also saw a seemingly endless line of vehicles stretching ahead without moving an inch.
A sea of red brake lights merged into one.
The highway was completely blocked.
Su Nian slammed her fist against the steering wheel.
The horn blared briefly before falling silent again.
She stared at the endless line of brake lights, feeling as though a massive stone had settled on her chest.
Taking a deep breath, she lowered her gaze to the navigation app and began searching for another route.
Her phone vibrated again.
It was the same number.
This time, she answered.
“… Su Nian? Can you hear me?”
The voice crackled through the poor connection, but it was much clearer than before.
It was Lu Chen.
“… Shuixi Village… recalculating route…”
The navigation voice cut across the call.
Su Nian glanced at the screen.
Before she could say a word, the signal suddenly disappeared.
The display read: No Service.
She stared at those two words, her fingers tightening around the phone.
In the rearview mirror, black smoke was already rising over the city she had once called home.