The hope brought by the broadcast and the shadow of dwindling supplies had not yet dissipated when another, even more inescapable threat—one that carried a biting chill—quietly bared its fangs.
Time.
The apocalypse had arrived in the sweltering heat of July. Now, nearly two months later, the calendar had silently turned to September.
Although the blood-red sky distorted normal daylight, it could not stop the iron law of the changing seasons.
Inside the air-raid shelter, the once stifling, humid air had begun to carry a faint but unmistakable hint of autumn coolness.
At night especially, the wind pouring in through the ventilation shafts already carried a sharp chill, making the thinly clothed ordinary survivors—curled up on the cold ground—tremble uncontrollably.
Winter was coming.
This realization chilled people far more deeply than any zombie’s roar.
In an apocalypse where order had collapsed and infrastructure was completely paralyzed, everyone knew what winter meant.
It would be an absolute season of death.
With no heating and a severe lack of warm clothing, the air-raid shelter—a massive stone cavern—would become an ice cellar. Freezing to death would become a more immediate threat than starvation or disease.
Scavenging in the wild would become nearly impossible. The ground would freeze solid, remaining plants would wither and die, and water sources would ice over. The already meager supply lines of the safe zone would be cut off entirely.
No one knew how low temperatures would affect zombies. Would they slow down—or would something even worse occur?
Traveling five hundred kilometers through snow and ice? Could vehicles even start? Would roads be buried under ice and snow? How would one keep warm while exposed outdoors?
That was nothing short of suicide.
“We have to leave before winter arrives!”
This thought was no longer a calculated choice weighed by pros and cons. It was the shriek of survival instinct itself—a cold noose tightening around the necks of every survivor still capable of thinking.
In Cubicle No. 7 of Area B, the faint excitement sparked by the news of Dawn Base was now replaced by an even colder, more urgent panic.
Zhou Min stared at her crudely hand-drawn calendar, her face pale. Her finger pressed so hard it nearly pierced the paper.
“September already… At most, we have a little over a month before temperatures completely drop. We must leave within one month—one and a half at the absolute latest!”
Her voice trembled, stripped of its usual composure.
Time had become the most ruthless enemy of all.
Lin Yan abruptly stood up and paced irritably around the cramped cubicle, her heavy military boots thudding against the floor.
“Damn this cursed weather!” She slammed her fist into a nearby wooden board.
“We can’t drag this out anymore! Find a car, find fuel, find food! Anyone who gets in my way—I’ll split them open!”
The threat of winter fully ignited the brutality and decisiveness in her nature.
To her, waiting to die was worse than gambling on a slim chance at survival.
Even the hooded woman showed visible unease for the first time.
She wrapped herself tighter, arms crossed around her body, as if fending off the invisible cold.
Occasionally, she would lift her head and look toward the entrance through the thick canvas. Her gaze was no longer purely detached—it now carried a trace of fear toward the coming bitter cold.
Ruan Ning quietly sensed the coolness seeping into the air. Her water-type ability made her especially sensitive to changes in temperature and moisture. More clearly than anyone else, she could feel that the season capable of freezing everything solid was steadily closing in.
“Winter…” she murmured softly.
This was not only an environmental trial—it would also be a proving ground for her water ability.
Water froze at low temperatures. Would her ability be affected? Or… could she comprehend a new transformation from it?
For example—condensing water into ice?
The thought stirred something in her, but survival took priority.
Time had become the scarcest resource of all.
All previous discussions about routes, intelligence, and cooperation now had to be bound by a brutal time limit.
“Zhou Min,” Ruan Ning spoke, her voice calm as ice, “we need to obtain everything required for departure as fast as possible. Intelligence, routes, vehicles, supplies—reorder priorities. Everything should focus on light load, speed, and cold resistance.”
She turned to Lin Yan.
“Lin Yan, prioritize missions that directly yield fuel, vehicle parts, and high-calorie foods that store well.”
Her instructions were clear and composed, as though winter were merely another challenge on her planning chart.
That calmness subtly steadied both the flustered Zhou Min and the agitated Lin Yan.
“Okay!” Zhou Min nodded vigorously, immediately spreading out her maps and notebook again.
“Got it!” Lin Yan stopped pacing, killing intent flashing in her eyes. She already regarded the upcoming scavenging runs as battles for survival.
Compared to the West District air-raid shelter where Ruan Ning lived, the situation at the North District logistics park safe zone could only be described as rapidly deteriorating.
Management had nearly collapsed, and the law of the jungle—survival of the fittest—was on full display.
Lin Jiaojiao’s family sat firmly at the very bottom of that food chain.
As September’s chill deepened, the cold was especially palpable in this area made up of sheet-metal containers and drafty shanties.
They lacked proper winter clothing and could only wrap themselves in scavenged rags and plastic bags, shivering through the nights with chattering teeth.
Food rations had long since become a hollow formality.
Each day, they survived only on scraps secretly hidden by Lin Wanyun and Lin Jiaojiao while sorting garbage—rotting vegetable leaves, moldy bread crumbs, or the occasional expired pet food overlooked by others.
Ruan Chenyang tried once again to find work, but exhaustion and exclusion caused him to fail repeatedly. In the end, he could only curl up in a corner, his eyes growing duller by the day.
The harsh environment, malnutrition, and mental torment eventually broke them all.
Lin Jiaojiao ran a persistent low-grade fever and coughed incessantly.
Lin Wanyun’s hand—cut while sorting trash—began to fester and rot, emitting a foul odor.
Ruan Chenyang suffered from severe gastrointestinal problems, weakened by constant diarrhea.
With no medicine and no doctors, they could only endure it, feeling their vitality slip away in despair.
To survive, they had long abandoned all remnants of dignity.
Lin Wanyun had no choice but to endure increasingly explicit harassment and groping from minor bosses who controlled supplies, occasionally trading her humiliation for a small piece of relatively clean food.
Lin Jiaojiao’s once-pretty face was now smeared with grime and sickly flush. The eyes that once gleamed with smug calculation in her past life were now filled only with numbness—and the occasional flash of venomous resentment.
They even had to curse, shove, and fight with others at the bottom of society over a slightly drier sleeping spot or an empty can.
Under the torment of hunger, cold, and illness, their fixation on Ruan Ning grew ever more twisted and desperate.
“That damn girl… she’s probably dead already…” Lin Jiaojiao rasped between coughing fits. The hatred in her voice had faded, replaced by a weak, pointless venting.
Sometimes she would clutch her empty wrist, her gaze unfocused, with the vague sense that she had lost something important—something that should have belonged to her.
Enduring the agony in her rotting wound, Lin Wanyun hissed venomously,
“She’s cursed us! If it weren’t for her, how would we have ended up like this? She must be enjoying herself somewhere! Heartless little bitch!”
Her hatred ran deep, pinning all her misfortune on Ruan Ning as though doing so could ease her own pain and helplessness.
Ruan Chenyang was mostly silent, but on nights when he woke shivering or in pain, he would stare at the pitch-black, icy container ceiling and murmur,
“Xiao Ning… Dad was wrong… If you’re still alive, come save us…”
It was the final flicker of humanity born from utter despair—begging stripped of all pride.
But that faint remorse and hope were quickly drowned by reality and his deeply ingrained selfishness, turning instead into bitter self-comfort: She must be suffering too.
From scattered radio waves and rumors, they had also vaguely heard about “Dawn Base” and other large safe zones.
“Dawn Base…” Lin Wanyun’s eyes briefly lit up, only to dim again.
“So far away… how would we even get there? We can’t even escape this hellhole…”
“And even if we went, so what?” Lin Jiaojiao coughed, her tone dripping with mockery.
“In our state, we’d still be the lowest of the low. Might as well—”
She didn’t finish the sentence, but the suffocating despair spread through the air.
For them, going to a large base was not hope—it was an unattainable dream they didn’t even dare imagine.
Like trapped beasts sinking into a mire, they were losing even the strength to struggle.
Winter had not yet truly arrived, but their lives had already entered its depths.
And they did not know that the Ruan Ning they cursed day and night—sometimes hating, sometimes longing for—was in another safe zone, feverishly preparing to march toward the “Dawn” they dared not dream of, growing stronger by the day.
The irony of fate was this:
As Ruan Ning sharpened her claws and fangs for the journey ahead, Lin Jiaojiao’s family was losing even the eligibility—the qualification—to become an obstacle on her path.
In the brutal sieve of the apocalypse, they were slowly sliding toward total elimination.