But she wasn’t willing to accept it, truly unwilling!
Her apartment, her pothos, her dog, they were all her treasures!
She had precious things she loved, yet lacked the strength to protect them. Every day was spent in fear and anxiety, mechanically training her body but never able to break through her limits.
If she couldn’t become an ability user, she would always be weak.
When she fought this speed-type zombie, she would get hurt.
But this time, she wouldn’t return to her apartment immediately. She would wait by the entrance, hold on until the very last moment, and only go back in when she truly couldn’t endure any longer.
She had to try.
Just this one last time!
Having made up her mind to fight the speed-type zombie, Fu Erdie didn’t act immediately. She needed to figure out how to isolate the speed-type zombie from the ordinary ones.
She couldn’t just charge recklessly into a horde of zombies, trying to take down the leader amidst thousands of enemies.
The safest place was still her own Building 7.
Building 7 now had several mutated plants. Whether it was the dandelions, which were more decorative than useful, or crops like cabbage and millet that provided daily sustenance, none of them could afford to be damaged. If they were destroyed, the past half-month of effort would have been for nothing.
She had to seal off the rooms containing mutated plants.
Fu Erdie set to work immediately, and Zhang Dongxuan joined in to help.
“Back in the day, these parts were all countryside. My husband and I were farmers too. We did all our own work around the house, even built our home with the help of friends. Why would we ever hire someone from outside? Fixing a door? That’s a small problem.”
Talking about things she was familiar with put Zhang Dongxuan at ease. She chattered on as she worked. “The millet, potatoes, peaches, and kumquats you gave me are all so delicious. After eating them, I feel full of energy, and even my back pain is gone. Don’t let my age fool you, without those old aches and pains, I’m still quite capable.”
Fu Erdie’s gaze flickered.
So it wasn’t just the apartment that had healing properties, these mutated crops could also help restore the human body.
That was an unexpected bonus.
After sealing off the rooms with mutated plants, the next step was to secure Zhang Dongxuan’s living space.
The security door of the room Zhang Dongxuan had chosen on the second floor was intact, and they each had a spare key.
As an extra precaution, they put sealing strips on the door to prevent zombies from accidentally wandering in.
During this time, Zhang Dongxuan would stay in Unit 16-1.
She felt a little nervous.
She knew that Fu Erdie must have something special about her to be living so comfortably in the apocalypse. But as an outsider, not prying into someone else’s secrets was the basic rule of survival. She had never asked questions, she just focused on watching the surveillance feeds and looking after the dog, which often stayed on the second floor, fighting off zombies that wandered in.
Now, was she being trusted enough to step into the girl’s home?
Or was Fu Erdie simply making arrangements for her because she would be busy fighting zombies and couldn’t leave her elsewhere?
Zhang Dongxuan asked herself honestly, she and the girl weren’t close enough for this.
Although deep down, she did want to go.
Staying on the second floor, she had already been eating such good food, feeling healthier than she had even before the apocalypse. If she could stay in the girl’s home, it would certainly be even more comfortable.
But… but…
A person had to learn to be content.
The girl was fighting zombies for her own sake, but at the same time, she was protecting her.
If she couldn’t even do something as simple as staying away from the girl’s secrets and letting her keep her sense of security, what kind of person was she?
The two of them and the dog slowly made their way up to the 16th floor. Fu Erdie led the way toward Unit 16-1, but Zhang Dongxuan stopped.
She slowly shook her head. “I’ll go back to the 24th floor. My security door is sturdy. I lasted two months there before, so I can last another two days.”
Fu Erdie was taken aback. “But if things go wrong while I’m fighting the zombies, you’ll be trapped in there. If you stay in my home, even if I don’t make it, there will be food and water, you’d be able to hold on for a long time.”
Zhang Dongxuan looked at Fu Erdie’s still-youthful face and couldn’t help reaching out to pat her head. “I’ll be on the 24th floor, waiting for you to come find me again.”
Fu Erdie watched as she slowly made her way upstairs.
Fu Erdie felt a twinge of guilt. Because when she heard the old woman’s words, she had let out a quiet sigh of relief.
It was an instinct for self-preservation, beyond her moral control. She hadn’t stopped it.
The power strips running from the 16th floor down to the first had been properly stowed away. The building was clean and empty, with nothing left lying around.
It was time to act.
Fu Erdie used her telescope to track the speed-type zombie she had been watching. When it wandered close to Building 7, she tossed an old shoe toward the main entrance on the first floor.
As expected, the speed-type zombie was drawn in, dashing toward the source of the sound.
Six or seven other wandering zombies also heard the noise and started shuffling in that direction.
The speed-type zombie reached the entrance but found no trace of a human.
Still, the faint scent of a human lingering on the first floor drew it inside.
On the wall, there was a broken trail of blood, very faint, but unmistakably fresh human blood.
The speed-type zombie grew excited. It followed the trail at full speed.
On the 16th floor, Fu Erdie pressed on the finger she had deliberately scraped raw.
Based on her half-month of observation, if the speed-type zombie ran at full speed, it could reach the 16th floor in two minutes. The other zombies, moving slowly as they sniffed out the scent, would take at least an hour to make their way up.
If she could take down the speed-type zombie within an hour and become an ability user, that would be the best-case scenario. If not… she hoped she could at least seriously wound it, giving the dog and the old woman a chance to escape.
Fu Erdie had placed several hammers, shovels, knives, and daggers on the 16th floor.
If she lost her weapon during the fight, she had to be able to react quickly and grab another one to continue attacking.
She gripped her hammer tightly, waiting for the zombie to charge up the stairs at any moment.
Just as the fifteenth drop of sweat slid off her chin, a black blur flashed before her eyes. In an instant, the zombie was right in front of her, lunging straight for her neck.
Fu Erdie instinctively ducked and turned, but the zombie swiftly reached for the back of her exposed neck.
She swung her hammer with her other hand, but couldn’t get enough force behind it. The zombie caught the hammerhead, and she let go immediately, rolling forward to avoid being bitten. As she rolled, she grabbed the nearest knife and spun around, driving it into the zombie’s head.
The zombie was far faster than Fu Erdie. In the brief moment she lost her balance while rolling, it locked onto her neck again and lunged. Unable to stop its momentum, it drove itself straight onto Fu Erdie’s dagger.
The blade sank into the zombie’s eye socket, bursting one eye in a spray of blood and flesh. The sickening sound of the sharp tip piercing through tissue sent a shiver down her spine.
But she hadn’t destroyed the head, or crushed the crystal core. The strike only impaired its vision, making it tilt its head and miss her neck, instead sinking its teeth into her left shoulder.
The zombie felt no pain. Even with a dagger buried in its skull through its eye socket, it still tore a chunk of flesh from Fu Erdie’s shoulder.
She cried out in agony, twisting the dagger in an attempt to split its head open.
But the blade was too dull, it lodged firmly in the zombie’s eye socket.
Forced to shove the zombie’s head away, Fu Erdie abandoned the dagger and grabbed the hammer lying beside her. Swinging her right arm, she brought it down toward the zombie’s skull.
She was fast now, and strong. The hammer cut through the air with a sharp whistle.
But the zombie was faster. Sensing the danger, it leaped back in an instant, avoiding the blow before lunging again.
The hammer was too long to maneuver in close quarters. Fu Erdie tried to drop it and defend herself, but she was too slow. Helpless, she watched as the zombie bit down on her already torn left shoulder.
The searing pain returned. The gnawing and tearing made her break out in a cold sweat. She clawed desperately at the zombie’s mouth with her left hand.
The zombie’s speed was its advantage, but its strength was slightly less than Fu Erdie’s. In their clashes, its true edge was its inability to feel pain.
After pushing it back slightly, Fu Erdie dug her fingers into its cheeks, forced its jaw downward, and twisted sharply.
With a crack, the zombie’s jaw dislocated.
Its biting became clumsy, forcing it to rely on its hands to claw at her.
Its long nails were far more dangerous than her bare fingers, but it had no technique. Relying solely on its speed, it would retreat when it sensed a threat and charge again when it saw an opening.
Fu Erdie pressed herself against the wall, watching the zombie’s movements closely. She focused on defense, waiting for an opportunity to counterattack. Whenever she struck, the zombie dodged quickly, leaping away before charging again.
Neither could land a decisive blow, and both kept probing, circling each other.
At first, Fu Erdie sustained new wounds. But as she grew familiar with the zombie’s attack rhythm and angles, she adjusted her defense and counterattack, minimizing energy expenditure. She used the smallest possible movements to block or evade the fiercest charges and struck back at the best angles.
But the zombie’s speed was still overwhelming. Sometimes her mind reacted, but her body couldn’t keep up, causing her to miss the chance to smash its head.
An hour passed like this. Not far away, the dog was already tearing into the zombies that had followed the scent up the stairs. Finally, Fu Erdie found her opening. As the speed-type zombie lunged at her again, she swung the hammer forward and landed a precise blow to its head.
The world fell silent.
The zombie collapsed like a heap of rotting flesh. From its shattered skull, a blue crystal core gleamed.
Fu Erdie’s eyes lit up.
A crystal core!
She hurried forward, pushing aside the broken bone and gore to pick it up.
She wanted to put it away first, deal with the ordinary zombies that had just arrived alongside the dog, and study it later. But as her fingers closed around it, without even applying pressure, the blue core shattered into several pieces.
Fu Erdie watched in disbelief as the once-glowing crystal dulled before her eyes. Panicking, she quickly put the remaining fragments into her mouth and swallowed. But in the brief moment it had taken her to raise her hand, the core had already lost all its energy, crumbling into nothing but sand.
Her palm was empty. The blood streaming down her shoulder felt particularly hot.
She had put everything on the line, risking her life against a mutated zombie for this one last attempt, and all she got was sand?
A mix of shock and fury left her numb. Why had the core shattered? Had she struck the zombie’s head too hard? Or was it that these damned cores couldn’t leave a zombie’s body?
Anger, helplessness, the sting of failure after risking everything, the dizziness from blood loss, the confusion over something she didn’t understand, all of it crashed over her.
She knelt on the ground, lost in a daze.
From Unit 16-1, several large pothos leaves extended outward, carrying specks of white light. They gathered the dispersing blue energy of the crystal core from the air, wrapping it within their leaves, and placed it in front of Fu Erdie, nudging her hand.
Fu Erdie stared blankly at the layered, dumpling-like bundle and blinked.
This was… the crystal core’s energy, gathered back together?
Her left hand was still on the ground, the wound there still bleeding. But only one thought filled her mind: The pothos can do that?
Her eyes shifted, a flicker of hope rising again.
But how was she supposed to use it? Eat the leaves along with the air inside?
Her mouth wasn’t big enough to swallow the pothos’s bundle, it was the size of two fists combined. Even if she tried, she couldn’t fit it in her mouth.
The two sides were at an impasse.
At the stairwell, the dog had already torn through six zombies’ necks.
Author’s Note:
The dog: Are you forgetting something?