Bai Yang glanced at her phone. It was five in the morning. Since everyone else in the family was still asleep at this hour, Bai Yang thought she might as well sleep a little longer. She had been busy preparing supplies lately and felt exhausted.
Before Bai Yang could even close her eyes, there was a knock on her bedroom door.
“Sis, are you awake?”
Hearing Bai Suisui’s voice outside, Bai Yang got out of bed and opened the door. The girl standing outside looked somewhat pale, so Bai Yang immediately opened the door wider and let Bai Suisui into the room.
“Suisui, are you feeling unwell? Why do you look so pale?”
Looking at the dark circles beneath Bai Yang’s eyes, Bai Suisui tugged at the corners of her lips before speaking, her voice filled with fear and unease.
“Sis, did you hear the noises coming from upstairs this morning? I saw someone running outside in the middle of the night, shouting for help!”
Seeing the fear in Bai Suisui’s eyes, Bai Yang reached out and pulled her into her arms.
“Don’t be afraid. I heard it too. No matter what happens, your sister will protect you, so there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
Hearing that her younger sister had already seen someone fleeing in the middle of the night, Bai Yang was slightly surprised. The apocalypse had arrived half a day earlier than expected.
Bai Yang clearly remembered that in her previous life, there had been no zombies at this time. It was not until noon that some people had suddenly turned into zombies.
“Old Bai, why is it so noisy in the hallway? Why don’t you go out and take a look?”
Hearing Bai Mom’s voice from the living room, followed by the sound of the door lock turning, Bai Yang immediately called out to stop them, but she was too late. Bai Dad had already opened the door.
“Roar, roar!”
A hand covered in corpse spots, with long, sharp fingernails, reached through the security door and lunged straight at Bai Dad.
Bai Dad sensed the danger. Before he could even clearly see what was in front of him, he quickly stepped backward and dodged the zombie’s attack.
When Bai Yang came running back and saw that Bai Dad was unharmed, the heart that had been hanging in her chest finally settled. She immediately shut the door, cutting off the zombie outside the security door.
The instant the door closed, the stench of decay coming from the zombie flooded her senses.
“Ugh!”
Bai Yang’s stomach churned violently. After trying several times to hold it back, she finally covered her mouth and ran into the bathroom.
“Ugh, ugh, ugh!”
Bai Yang vomited violently, even worse than the last time she had gotten carsick.
After leaning over the sink and vomiting for quite a while, she only managed to bring up a few mouthfuls of sour fluid. Bai Yang raised a hand and rubbed her still churning stomach before taking a deep breath. After only a few steps, however, a sudden pain shot through her lower abdomen.
Bai Yang pressed a hand against her lower abdomen, thinking that she had become much more delicate since being reborn. After resting for a while, she felt that the pain had eased considerably, so she finally left the bathroom.
“Yangyang, are you all right?”
When Bai Yang came out, Bai Dad was worried at first, but then he scolded her.
“You child, why do you always rush toward dangerous places? Didn’t you see how dangerous it was?”
Bai Yang tugged at the corners of her lips. Seeing Bai Dad’s slightly pale face, she ultimately said nothing.
She then turned toward Bai Mom. Although Bai Mom had not said a single word from beginning to end, seeing her pale face and terrified eyes, along with the way she was trying to suppress her nausea, made Bai Yang feel a pang of sympathy.
She had heard that before getting married, her mother had been cherished by her family like a precious treasure. Even after marrying Bai Dad, she was still treated like a treasure by him. Of everyone, Bai Mom would probably have the hardest time adapting to the apocalypse.
“Manman, hurry back to the room. I’ll get you some water.”
While Bai Yang was still worrying about Bai Mom, she saw Bai Dad, who had been angrily scolding her moments earlier, turn around and gently comfort Bai Mom. He carefully supported her back to their room, as though he were afraid she might bump into something and shatter like fragile glass.
Although Bai Mom was worried about her daughter, she saw that apart from being pale, Bai Yang did not seem to be suffering from anything else, so she followed Bai Dad back to their room. The two of them tacitly put what had just happened out of their minds.
Watching the couple continue displaying their affection as though no one else were around, Bai Yang suddenly felt that she was no longer uncomfortable at all.
When Bai Yang returned to her room, she found her younger sister, Bai Suisui, on her bed. She was curled up with her back facing Bai Yang, covered in a thick blanket.
Bai Yang walked to the bedside and gently patted the blanket. The person underneath trembled violently as though she had been startled.
For Bai Suisui, what she had seen today was indeed far beyond anything she could comprehend, so it was perfectly normal for her to be frightened.
Bai Yang thought about herself in her previous life. When the apocalypse arrived, her first thought upon seeing the zombies had not been fear, but worry. She had been worried about her family.
That was why she had been able to travel across provinces from her school and make her way home alone after the apocalypse broke out.
“Suisui, what did you see just now?”
Hearing Bai Yang’s question, Bai Suisui, still hiding beneath the blanket, trembled again and squeezed her eyes shut, clearly unwilling to answer.
Seeing that Bai Suisui remained silent, Bai Yang slowly pulled the blanket away, turned her around to face her, then crouched down so that their eyes were level.
“If you’re scared, little sister, then cry it out. Once you’re done crying, we’ll face it together, all right?”
Bai Yang had never comforted anyone before and had no idea whether what she said was appropriate. She only knew that after hearing her words, Bai Suisui’s expression went blank for a brief moment.
“Sis, is that how you comfort people?”
Although Bai Suisui’s voice was tinged with tears, her eyes remained dry.
“Sis, what was that thing outside the door? Was it a person? But how could a person become like that? That was clearly… clearly a zombie from a movie!”
Bai Suisui visibly stumbled when she said the word “zombie.” Her mind had yet to fully process it, and she still could not understand why zombies, which only existed in movies, had appeared in the real world.
“It’s probably because the virus spread. I don’t know either.”
Bai Yang thought about how serious Bai Heyu and Fu Le had looked before leaving, and she had some guesses in her heart, but she did not know how to explain them. If people had only become infected and turned into zombies because of a virus, then how could she explain the abilities that people would develop later?
Bai Suisui recalled the appearance of the zombie she had just seen and felt nothing but disgust.
“Sis, aren’t you scared?”
“No. I just think the zombies are so ugly that they make me want to throw up.”
After hearing Bai Yang’s answer, Bai Suisui felt a vein throbbing at her temple. It really was true. Judging from what had just happened, she had not seen any sign that her sister was afraid.
After gradually accepting the fact that zombies had appeared, Bai Suisui suddenly seemed to remember something. She sat up and looked outside through the window.
It was already fully daylight outside, making everything much clearer than when she had looked out in the middle of the night.
Only then did Bai Suisui see that the ground throughout the residential compound was covered in blood. Every now and then, a few panicked people could be seen fleeing, only to be caught by the zombies behind them and bitten.
Not long after being bitten, those people transformed into zombies just like the ones who had bitten them.
While Bai Suisui stared blankly out the window, Bai Yang had already picked up her phone and called Bai Heyu. To her surprise, the call actually connected this time.