It was the direction sign at the city entrance!
Tall and wide, perfect for posting an advertisement.
“System, system, can you print three flyers sized for that big sign?”
After all this traveling, Shan Nai’s tolerance for zombies had grown a lot. She wasn’t afraid of them anymore, all she could see was that huge three-sided sign!
【Er, the system will try.】
While she waited, a small wave of zombies had already surrounded Shan Nai completely.
Even though she wasn’t afraid, seeing their bloody forms and smelling the stench radiating off them, she couldn’t take it anymore.
She drew the baseball bat from her back, waved it a few times at the zombie in front of her, closed her eyes, and swung with all her might.
“Whoosh!”
This was her first time hitting a zombie, and she felt a bit awkward about it inside.
She had no cultivation right now, but she was still the sole heir of the spirit cat clan, famed for her agility and raw strength.
“Bang—”
The meteoric-iron gold baseball bat danced fiercely in Shan Nai’s hands.
Several zombies were sent flying several meters to the other side of the road.
Shan Nai swept past the crowd of zombies and arrived in front of the small rallying zombie, not even blinking as she brought the iron bat down straight onto its face.
This meteoric-iron gold bat really was excellent, it didn’t take much effort at all to deliver a devastating blow.
【Host, printing complete. The system’s energy is running low, for now…】
The system’s sentence trailed off, cut short.
“System?” Shan Nai saw three large flyers appear in the backend storage and guessed the system might be resting for now. “Don’t worry! I’ll get it done!”
“Die already!” Shan Nai leapt up and slammed down hard on the small zombie’s head.
The small zombie’s head burst open, and it finally collapsed, its howling silenced.
With its cries gone, the zombies nearby clearly turned back into headless flies, moving about aimlessly, no longer trailing Shan Nai. [1]headless flies (wú tóu cāng ying, 無頭蒼蠅) – idiom, describing creatures bumbling around with no sense of direction or purpose once whatever was guiding them is gone jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3034095_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3034095_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });
Shan Nai rubbed her arms, exhausted, her current small body just didn’t have the stamina.
“Hmph! If I don’t take care of you, you’ll really think you can run wild.” Muttering to herself, she picked up a stick off the ground and poked it into the zombie’s head.
“Oh, a white crystal core!”
It really was a tier-two zombie. Shan Nai tore off a scrap of the zombie’s tattered clothing, wrapped the white crystal core in it, wiped it clean, and put it in her pocket.
“Good. Once I finish putting up this direction sign, I’m heading back!” Shan Nai jogged over to the base of the iron-frame signpost and began climbing.
Shan Nai couldn’t transform back into her true form right now, so she had to climb bare-handed, a bit of a shame, since as a little orange cat, she’d have scaled these ten-odd meters of iron frame in seconds!
Sure enough, after nearly half an hour of dry climbing, Shan Nai finally reached the top.
Good thing it was an iron frame and not a telephone pole, or there’d have been nowhere for her hands and feet to grip.
Shan Nai squinted into the wind, pulled out the oversized flyers, peeled off the backing film, and pasted them bit by bit onto the three-sided direction sign.
“If this were the old days, this ad spot would’ve been impossible to grab.” Shan Nai looked at the last panel, its original image badly faded, reading: Welcome to 【City Name】.
But the very next second, Shan Nai had already pasted her own supermarket’s ad over it. “Welcome to the Lucky Supermarket! Meow-ha~” She gave herself a mental thumbs-up.
Once everything was posted, Shan Nai clapped her hands and admired her work with satisfaction.
This spot was high up, and it was the main city in the area, there were probably quite a few bases and shelters nearby. If people passed through here, they’d surely be able to see an ad this large.
In the flyer, the shelves’ bottled water and crackers were photographed with perfect clarity, and today’s tomato-and-egg dish gleamed with mouthwatering shine.
Shan Nai was confident that anyone who saw it wouldn’t be able to resist coming to take a look.
Getting down was actually pretty easy, taking hardly any effort at all.
She put away the baseball bat, hopped on her little scooter, and planned to head straight back to the supermarket.
“Brother Jianan, there’s someone over there! She’s got an electric scooter!”
Two living people had appeared across the street at some point, helping each other along. The woman got excited and shouted the moment she spotted Shan Nai.
Behind them followed a tall, hulking zombie.
The man called Jianan was clearly an ability user, struggling to fend off the zombie, but hearing his companion’s cry, he too looked over at Shan Nai.
Shan Nai noticed these two strange gazes as well, but…
They were living people, which meant, they were potential customers for her supermarket!
Great opportunity. She decided to go over and do some advertising.
“Hey! Come over here and help!”
The woman watched Shan Nai leisurely riding her scooter over, her heart pounding with excitement, finally, a living person, and one with a vehicle no less!
To be able to start an electric scooter at a time like this, she must be an electricity-type ability user, Li Jianan beside her guessed.
Shan Nai frowned. This woman’s attitude was terrible, she didn’t feel like dealing with her.
“I’m talking to you! Come lend a hand!”
“Rourou, mind your manners.” Li Jianan said in a low voice.
He’d been badly wounded and was very weak now, even speaking made him short of breath. If this girl really was willing to help, that would be the best outcome.
Lin Rou glanced at Shan Nai, just a kid, huh, with a hint of displeasure in her eyes.
The two of them were members of the tier-one ability squad from Tomorrow Base, sent out in a pair to gather crystal cores.
On the way, they’d run into several tier-two zombies. Li Jianan had been badly hurt, and Lin Rou, a healing-type ability user with no combat power, had had no choice but to flee with him.
But their luck had been terrible, they’d barely shaken off the zombies when they ran into a gang of lunatics from the Freedom Base, who not only robbed them of their supplies but also took all the crystal cores they’d collected over the past few days.
As Shan Nai’s figure drew closer, Li Jianan used up the very last trace of energy in his body, the ordinary wooden stick in his hand instantly turned to steel, and he took down the zombie behind them.
Lin Rou rubbed her eyes, hardly able to believe it.
Three years into the apocalypse, and there was still a young girl dressed this… clean and tidy, with long hair, and wearing a cat-ear hair accessory!
She could even smell a faint scent of gardenia drifting from the girl’s hair.
Water was so scarce now that most women kept their hair short.
At their base, only ability users got to bathe once a month, and even then it was just a small basin of water.
In this hot weather, everyone carried the smell of stale sweat on them every day.
“Lend us your scooter. My teammate is badly hurt and can’t walk.”
Lin Rou said this as if it were the most natural thing in the world, though she even felt a pang of envy toward this clean, bright girl in front of her.
The corner of Shan Nai’s mouth twitched. Lend it, huh?
Said so nicely…
“No.”
Did this woman think she was a three-year-old kitten?
“You little brat—”
“You’re probably starving and thirsty, aren’t you?” Shan Nai cut Lin Rou off, not bothering to argue with her, and stepped past her to address Li Jianan instead.
She’d noticed Li Jianan’s wound had started bleeding again.
Lin Rou, quite tall, was supporting Li Jianan as he sat on the curb. She glanced at Shan Nai again. “If you have any, hand it over. As you can see, we’re both ability users…”
As she spoke, Lin Rou walked up to the girl, reaching out to try to pull Shan Nai off her scooter.
“Oh my, I’m so scared~”
Shan Nai hated nothing more than strangers putting their hands on her.
She glared with disgust at the hand reaching toward her, planted one foot firmly on the ground, and kicked out hard with the other, sending Lin Rou flying through the air.
The motion was clean and swift.
“Ah… hiss…” Lin Rou was sent flying high, then came crashing back down hard, seeing stars, blood gushing from her nose. She lay sprawled on the ground, face twisted, and cried out, “…Brother Jianan, she kicked me, it hurts so much, ugh…”
“He can barely take care of himself, look at how much he’s bleeding, tsk tsk tsk, and you want supplies?” Shan Nai walked closer to Li Jianan, looking down at him.
Li Jianan nodded. “Sorry, we haven’t eaten in days. She’s a bit on edge. I really do need supplies.”
Even in the apocalypse, Lin Rou still hadn’t gotten the picture.
The fact that this young girl could stand here in clean clothes already proved she had some real ability, yet Lin Rou had still dared to provoke her.
This sort of thing had happened plenty of times before. No matter what he said, Lin Rou never listened, and it gave Li Jianan a constant headache.
“See that billboard over there? That’s my supermarket. Honest customers who buy things are welcome, otherwise… you won’t die in one piece!” Shan Nai pointed across the street at the big direction sign, smiling sweetly.
Having finished her bit of advertising, Shan Nai put on her helmet and got back on the scooter. “Oh, and by the way, the supermarket takes crystal cores as payment.”
“Zoom—”
The little scooter shot past Lin Rou.
Lin Rou was furious, why did this girl have so much strength!
But right now she needed to heal Li Jianan, or once his blood kept spilling out, it would surely draw another swarm of zombies.
References[+]