At a glance, the upper half of the high-rise buildings was missing, while the lower halves were crookedly embedded in the ground.
The roads were split open. Steel rebar jutted out of shattered concrete. Everywhere were bricks, broken glass, twisted billboards, and crushed cars. Floodwater had already risen above ankle level.
Not a single person in sight—nowhere.
In situations like this, the authorities would normally respond. But the earthquake had struck too violently, and with rain like this, helicopters couldn’t fly, heavy machinery couldn’t enter, and even walking was difficult.
Or… if every other place was like this too, then that was even more terrifying.
The reason Ruan Zhe said they were “lucky” was because their RV had been wedged into a triangular void formed by a collapsed supermarket.
“We need supplies,” Ruan Zhe said, quickly scanning the surroundings and pulling two large backpacks from the cabinet.
Her adaptability was too fast—she was extremely calm. In a situation like this, she didn’t even think of calling family or friends, only survival.
Seeing the supermarket, her first instinct was to search for supplies.
Fu Yinli took the two backpacks. “I’ll go. You stay here.”
“No. Two people search faster.” In the apocalypse, the more supplies you had, the more confidence you had.
If only she had a precognition cheat ability—then she could’ve stockpiled everything twenty years in advance and be lying comfortably now.
Fu Yinli shook his head, opened the door, and rain instantly poured in.
“You stay and watch the RV.”
He took the backpacks and jumped out.
The RV was more important, so Ruan Zhe didn’t insist and closed the door.
After a while, she pulled out her phone. As expected, the signal was extremely weak.
She had no intention of contacting anyone. In fact, she even thought about just driving away. But she hadn’t forgotten—when the earthquake struck, Fu Yinli had shielded her beneath him.
She could be cold, but she couldn’t be inhuman.
For some reason, she felt uneasy. Even after such a severe earthquake, there was not a single person in sight—wasn’t that strange? Dead or alive, there should be someone. Judging from the buildings, this had clearly been a busy downtown area before the disaster.
She looked around—and then, through the rain curtain, she really did see a figure in the distance.
It was swaying, hunched over, moving very slowly.
Someone.
Ruan Zhe immediately slid back into the driver’s seat and pulled out an outdoor survival knife from the storage compartment beside it.
Half the RV was still exposed outside.
Through the rain, she couldn’t see clearly—but she had no intention of inviting any survivor into the RV. A cheat ability like this—if exposed—would be a death sentence.
Anyone who had read apocalypse novels knew: cheat abilities must never be revealed.
But the figure got closer and closer.
And just one look nearly made her scream.
Half of its face was missing. Tendons hung from its cheekbone. Its lips were gone. One eyeball dangled out of its socket. Its arm exposed white bone, washed by the rain. It walked in a jerky, broken motion.
Zombies—AAAAAHHHHHH!
Something like that could still move—there was no doubt it was a zombie. How had she not thought of that earlier? The complete absence of people was already abnormal.
Earthquake plus heavy rain—mass casualties—and now zombies harvesting the survivors.
Rainwater streamed into its mouth through where its lips should’ve been, then spilled out of the torn face and dripped onto its hollow chest. Then it lifted its head toward her.
It had noticed her.
In fiction and TV dramas, it was one thing—but facing it in reality made Ruan Zhe’s mind scream. Even terrified, she had to kill it.
Then she saw it suddenly speed up.
It rushed toward the broken wall. Ruan Zhe had been about to get out with her knife, but then she saw more figures behind it.
She didn’t yet know what kind of zombies these were—Korean films had fast ones, American films had ones that could tear apart airplanes.
If she stepped out, she might just become a meal.
The zombie reached the window, opened its mouth, and let out a hoarse, breathy sound that made her scalp tingle.
Then it slammed its hand onto the glass.
More zombies behind it accelerated.
The window couldn’t withstand this.
Ruan Zhe’s hand moved to the steering wheel. Right—she was inside an RV now.
Without hesitation, she started the engine, shifted gears, and reversed out of the collapsed triangular space, retreating about ten meters.
The zombies followed.
Seeing them gather, she gritted her teeth and drove forward.
The front of the RV slammed into them without much sound—but the feeling of crushing bodies seemed to crawl up along the chassis.
A fan-shaped smear of gore splattered across the windshield, quickly washed away by rain. In the rearview mirror, she saw the figures dragged under the vehicle, rolling out from beneath the wheels.
Not all were killed. Only those whose heads were crushed were dead. The rest were half-destroyed but still moving as long as their heads remained intact.
She felt nauseated and terrified—but her hands kept driving forward, crushing them again and again until she was sure they could no longer harm her.
Natural disaster plus zombies—what kind of nightmare-level apocalypse was this?
At least she had to be thankful for the rain; the heavy downpour masked the sound of the RV, or more zombies would have been attracted.
She finally took a breath and started the vehicle again, intending to move back.
But before the wheels even turned, the triangular structure she had just left suddenly collapsed completely.
Fine. Still raining.
She drove closer to where Fu Yinli had entered earlier, so he would get less wet when he returned.
But something still felt wrong.
She looked around again—and realized with alarm that fifty meters behind her, a group of zombies had emerged from collapsed buildings and were spreading out. Several were heading toward her.
“Beep—beep—beep!”
She looked up through the window and saw a man standing on a collapsed structure ahead, blowing a whistle hard.
The zombies immediately reacted.
Ruan Zhe: “!!”
What kind of idiot was that?! Sound really attracts zombies!
The man seemed to have locked onto her RV. Seeing she wasn’t moving, he jumped down and sprinted toward her.
Faster than the zombies.
“Let me in! Let me in! Save me! Save me!” he shouted.
Of course, Ruan Zhe had no intention of letting him in. She grabbed her knife and looked at him through the window.
Only when he got closer did he see her—and instead of fear, he became even more aggressive.
“Get me in now, you hear me?!” he shouted, slamming the window. When it didn’t break, he started grabbing things from the ground.
At the same time, more zombies gathered—seven or eight of them.
Ruan Zhe moved into the driver’s seat just as the door was violently struck. Screams echoed outside as a dense wave of zombies poured out from the supermarket behind them.