It was the tenth day of the apocalypse. The blood-red sky remained unchanged, and a suffocating sense of despair weighed heavily on everyone’s hearts.
Ruan Ning hid in the shadow of an office building, calmly observing the street. Compared to previous days, there were clearly more “people” on the street—not zombies, but living humans.
Most of these faces showed the pale color of hunger and extreme panic. They crouched, eyes scanning every corner cautiously, moving as quietly as possible like frightened mice, avoiding the aimless wandering corpses on the streets.
Their goal was clear—small supermarkets and street shops that hadn’t been completely looted and where zombie numbers were relatively low.
Ruan Ning saw a skinny man tightly gripping a sharpened rebar. He moved quickly along the wall and seized a moment when a zombie’s back was turned, then rushed into a convenience store. Sounds of rummaging, fighting, short snarls, and screams soon came from inside.
On the other side, three young people who looked like college students—two men and one woman—worked together to distract two zombies with noise before quickly slipping into a nearby snack shop.
A few fit women wielding kitchen knives or sticks formed a temporary squad, carefully clearing the sparse zombies outside a small fresh-food supermarket, trying to open a path.
“Supplies are running out…” Ruan Ning realized.
It had been ten days since the apocalypse began—power and water were cut off, and the little food reserves at home had long since run out. The instinct to survive overrode the fear of zombies, forcing these survivors to leave relatively safe hiding spots and step into this perilous ruin to fight for their next meal.
It was an even harsher selection. They not only had to face zombies everywhere but also be wary of other humans who might attack to seize limited resources.
Watching the hurried figures struggling on the edge of life and death, Ruan Ning’s eyes showed neither pity nor mockery, only cold calm. In her previous life, she had been one of them, willing to risk her life for half a moldy piece of bread.
This life, she had enough capital to stay above such basic struggles for now. But she knew this chaos and competition would only intensify until a new order or even greater chaos arrived.
She had no interest in competing with these people for scattered, likely expired food. Her goal was more efficient hunting, obtaining crystal cores, and searching for specific people.
Just as she prepared to leave for more remote and zombie-infested areas to practice her powers, her gaze accidentally fell on a street corner where several men were roughly pushing an old man who had just found a few packs of cookies to the ground, snatching his pitiful loot. The old man’s desperate wails were cut off by their impatient kicks.
The law of the jungle—survival of the fittest—was rapidly taking hold in this wasteland, naked and bloody.
Ruan Ning’s eyes grew cold but she made no move. This wasn’t an isolated case, and she couldn’t intervene. Everyone had to learn to survive on their own or die in the apocalypse.
She silently turned and melted into the shadows, slipping away from the crowd fighting over food, heading toward the area where zombie growls were denser.
Her path was different from theirs. Her battlefield was even more dangerous. But only by doing so could she quickly build her strength to accomplish her true purpose for returning.
Ruan Ning chose a snack street in the commercial district. Before the apocalypse, this was a relatively prosperous street filled with shops selling food, drinks, daily necessities, electronics, and pharmacies—it was well stocked, and so were the zombies.
As she approached the snack street, the zombies smelled fresh flesh and slowly surged toward her.
Ruan Ning used the shops along the street as bases, luring zombies over to kill them. When she couldn’t handle the number, she hid inside a shop, meanwhile scavenging some of the goods inside.
Though small, these shops had large stock due to high foot traffic. Because of this traffic, the area had become a zombie gathering place. No human with the current ability would come here to collect these goods.
There were too many zombies. No one except Ruan Ning would be foolish enough to go to such a place. If these goods weren’t collected before zombies evolved, then when high-level zombies appeared guarding the area, the goods would only become worthless trash.
This was also why Ruan Ning avoided the supermarkets where supplies were easier to collect—she wanted to leave some survival space for ordinary people. Since she had the capability, why not go further and take things no one else could?
The blood-red dusk made the snack street even more eerie. The once fragrant street now only reeked of thick blood and rot. Under crooked signs, broken tables and rotten remains mixed into a hellish scene.
Leaning against the smashed counter of a milk tea shop, Ruan Ning’s chest rose and fell slightly, sweat soaking her stray hairs stuck to her skin. An afternoon of intense hunting had nearly depleted her newly advanced water abilities, and her arms ached and tingled from continuous swinging.
At her feet lay seven or eight zombie corpses she had just cleared away, blood slowly spreading. She skillfully searched among them with her dagger, but only found a dim level 1 crystal core.
“Still not efficient enough,” Ruan Ning sighed, putting away the core and feeling her empty meridians and tired body. She decided to stop for the day.
Before coming, she had prepared thoroughly—hiding a lightly reinforced SUV at the far end of the snack street in a relatively hidden abandoned repair shop, avoiding congested main roads and potential trouble.
She needed to recover quickly and drive back to the apartment. The city at night was many times more dangerous than during the day.
Taking out some spring water from her space, she drank small, quick sips. The cool liquid brought a faint energy into her body, slowly nourishing her dry meridians and tired muscles. She also ate some high-energy compressed food, chewing quietly while keeping her ears alert for any sounds.
The snack street quieted down temporarily, only distant zombie roars and unexplained bangs breaking the silence. The sunset light filtered through broken windows, casting flickering shadows on her dirt-streaked face.
She closed her eyes and rested, mentally reviewing the afternoon’s battles. The speed of her water arrow had improved slightly since yesterday, but she still needed to refine her control of energy, as sometimes she wasted power trying to increase strength.
The connection between close combat and her powers also required more practice to build muscle memory.
After about twenty minutes of rest, feeling more than half recovered in strength, though only 30-40% of her power restored, she was ready to handle any emergencies on her return trip.
Ruan Ning stood, stretched her stiff limbs, and chose not to take the same route back, instead taking a more secluded alley where there were probably fewer zombies, heading toward her hidden car.
Her footsteps were light, her figure darting quickly among broken walls and ruins like a ghost merging with the dusk.
She had to get back to the car that could take her safely to a temporary shelter before it got completely dark.
Night was the time for even more dangerous predators. She wasn’t ready to face them head-on yet.