Instinctively fearing the mutated zombie, they dared not approach the two figures fighting. Instead, drawn by the scent, they all converged on Building 7.
Forced to move again, Fu Erdie hobbled up to the second floor, supported by the pothos, and entered the room where the succulent resided.
The succulent happily greeted her, but Fu Erdie only patted its fleshy leaves before making her way to the window to look down.
The complex had twelve buildings, each containing at least two to three hundred zombies. Excluding those already cleared from Buildings 6 and 7, two to three thousand remained.
As far as she could tell, there were no other living people in the complex. Once these zombies caught a whiff of a living human, nothing else could distract them. Fu Erdie hurled a glass bottle toward the complex entrance, but the zombies, locked onto her scent, swarmed toward Building 7 without pause.
She thought quickly and gave orders to the pothos. “Your roots are in the flowerbeds on all sides downstairs, but you’re not strong enough yet to withstand being trampled. Focus on wrapping leaves around the zombies’ heads and releasing corrosive fluid to burn their eyes. If you can’t handle them all and some get through, that’s fine. Your job is the outer perimeter, hit them and protect yourself.”
She turned to the cucumber and tomato, whose roots had extended to the first floor and were flexible enough to detach sections of vine. “You two, on the first floor. Trip them up as much as you can. Tie left foot to right foot, or one zombie’s foot to another’s, anything to create knots and make them fall over each other.”
Her gaze shifted to the dandelions.
The dandelions were the most delicate, still small in size. But unlike the others, they hadn’t reached the first floor by growing roots, they had spread through seeds.
A single dandelion could release hundreds of seeds on the wind, regrow within an hour, and scatter again. Ordinary seeds, in the contaminated soil of the apocalypse, struggled to survive. But the seeds that inherited the mother plant’s traits and mutations could choose when to ride the wind, circle back, and take root in Building 7, the most nurturing environment.
These dandelions had an affinity for wind and could coordinate with one another.
As far as Fu Erdie could tell, they were the only plants among her little ones that had developed an ability.
“Use the wind. Guide your seeds toward the zombies’ eyes, ears, noses, and throats. Coat them with corrosive fluid beforehand, once inside, they’ll corrode the zombies from within. And if any of those seeds happen to be mutated dandelions, have them sprout right there, using the zombies as nourishment.”
As for the other plants.
“You’re the main force. While your companions slow them down, strike hard and fast, snap their necks, just like you’ve done before.”
“This time, it’s not twenty or thirty zombies. It’s two to three thousand. We can’t afford to be careless. We have to hold our ground and protect our home.”
Fu Erdie lowered her gaze. “No, to be honest, you’re protecting me. The zombies don’t want to eat you, they want to eat me. So please…”
Steadying her injured ankle, she slowly straightened up and gave the plants a deep bow.
“Please help me, and protect yourselves, too!”
The little ones, who had been listening attentively just moments before, surged forward, brushing affectionately against Fu Erdie’s head and hands.
They say plants are heartless, without warmth. But Fu Erdie could feel their pure, untainted affection and the genuine warmth within them.
They were the best little ones. And they were helping her unconditionally.
As Fu Erdie finished laying out her battle plan, the pothos at the outermost perimeter had already engaged the zombies.
The pothos’s leaves could now expand or contract, the largest growing as wide as banana leaves. It stretched out a leaf and slapped a zombie across the face, sending it spinning.
As a veteran of the plant kindergarten, the pothos was a quick learner. At first, it followed Fu Erdie’s instructions exactly, wrapping zombies up before releasing corrosive fluid.
But after dealing with a dozen or so zombies, it quickly caught on. Instead of wasting time wrapping them up, it now seized the opportunity the moment it slapped them, smearing corrosive fluid directly into their eyes.
The frontmost zombies became disoriented, stumbling in place. Those behind them, blocked and unable to move forward, pushed ahead mindlessly, shoving the front ones down. In a chaotic twist, a stampede broke out among the zombies.
Following Fu Erdie’s orders, the pothos kept its roots underground, avoiding damage. But its branches and leaves took a beating, many snapping in the chaos.
It didn’t feel pain, but regrowing them required time and energy.
It needed to release corrosive fluid, consuming zombies for energy while regrowing its leaves to continue holding them back.
Two to three thousand zombies was simply too many. Each new leaf that grew could barely cover one zombie’s head and eyes before reaching its limit. Many more leaves never got the chance to grow tall enough before being trampled.
Fu Erdie quickly changed tactics. “New plan: pothos outside, aim for their heels, ignore their heads. On the first and second floors, let the pothos grow along the walls about two meters above ground and target the zombies’ heads.”
The pothos followed orders without hesitation, and the rate of leaf damage dropped significantly.
Attacking from the walls made things much easier. Instead of struggling to weave through and avoid being trampled, the leaves simply hung at a height of one and a half to two meters, waiting for zombies to pass before smothering their faces.
The effort-to-result ratio improved dramatically.
The other little ones followed suit, dangling their leaves at the same height and corroding zombies as they passed.
Although this method wasn’t as fast as fully enveloping a zombie to dissolve and absorb it, it was far less exhausting and highly effective at disrupting the horde.
Some zombies, either shorter than average or shaking their heads erratically, managed to slip past the dangling leaves without getting corrosive fluid in their eyes.
They made it inside the first floor of Building 7, only to be met with a tangled web of vines.
Zombies lacked intelligence. Instead of navigating around obstacles or dealing with the vines blocking their path, they simply pushed forward in a straight line.
The first row fell. The second row trampled over them, only to become the new front line, and then trip over the vines themselves.
Among the plants, the millet had some of the hardest roots and stems.
It didn’t twist zombies’ necks like the others. Instead, it silently emerged from the ground, infiltrating through weak points like the eyes, boring into the brain and scrambling it from the inside.
Although it didn’t burst the head open, the effect was just as fatal.
More and more zombies flooded the first floor. The cucumber and tomato vines at the bottom were buried under the growing pile, no longer able to move.
Abandoning those sections, they wove new vines into nets and knots around the next wave of zombies. It still tripped some, but it wasn’t as effective as the initial traps.
As a result, some zombies made it to the second floor.
And there, they met the succulent.
Among the first generation of mutated plants, the succulent might have seemed unremarkable compared to the pothos, gardenia, and spider plant.
It was slow, clumsy, and its heavy body left only its aesthetic appeal.
(Not that it was the only good-looking one, the gardenia would argue otherwise.)
It wasn’t the most powerful, but it had high defense. In many ways, it served as Building 7’s shield.
Its roots were nearly impossible for ordinary zombies to crush.
Fu Erdie had once tested them herself, with the succulent’s permission, of course. She found that despite being only a few months old, the roots were as tough as those of a decades-old tree, hard as stone.
While the other plants were fragile, requiring their roots to be protected, the succulent scoffed at the idea.
If you can break my roots, I lose.
It blocked the entrance to the second floor, rolling up zombies in its roots, twisting them into pretzels with sickening cracks, heads and bodies alike, before eliminating them.
Layer by layer, the defenses held. Out of two thousand zombies, not a single one reached the room where Fu Erdie and the succulent waited.
The only zombie that came close was one that had climbed up from outside, using the piled-up bodies of other zombies as a ramp.
Most of the zombies beneath it were still alive, blinded by the corrosive fluid from the plants and crushed under the stampede, they had stacked into a mound against the outer wall of Building 7.
But they were still moving. And the mound, unstable as it was, eventually collapsed.
Before Fu Erdie or the succulent could even act, the climbing zombie lost its footing and tumbled back down, swallowed by the writhing horde below.
Seeing that the perimeter was holding, Fu Erdie turned her attention back to the fight between the ability user and the mutated zombie.
She couldn’t make out their exact movements, only the sweeping arcs of their collisions. But one thing was clear: the ability user could levitate objects, or at least control metal.
He could launch metal fragments at the zombie from a distance. Even when his gun ran out of ammunition, he would retrieve spent bullets from the ground and hurl them through the air.
And these telekinetically propelled bullets struck with far more force than any gun could produce.
Gunfire couldn’t pierce the zombie’s defenses, but the bullets he controlled could.
The only downside was that repeated use wore them down until they shattered. Once they were gone, he relied mostly on his fists, using bullets only for harassment.
Fu Erdie felt her worldview shift once again.
Now, ability users’ fists could rival metal?
What kind of ability did this person have? And how many abilities did he possess?
Ignoring the swelling pain in her injured leg, she quickly gathered all the metal she could find on the second floor, pots, pans, scrap iron, and dragged herself back to the window.
“Catch!”
Without waiting for a response, she hurled the items with all her strength.
Months of training, combined with the physical enhancements from her apartment, paid off in full force.
From a height of several floors and a distance of nearly eighty meters, she managed to land most of the metal objects in the battlefield below.
The ability user seemed to glance her way before swiftly repositioning himself, now about thirty to forty meters from Building 7.
—This was also the farthest distance Fu Erdie could reliably throw.
Understanding his intention, she realized she had guessed correctly.
Without hesitation, she continued searching for more metal objects, returning to throw them every ten minutes.
Whether it was tools like axes and hammers or broken door locks and mirror frames, all of them became weapons in the ability user’s hands. When they shattered against the mutated zombie, he simply grabbed new ones.
Now that he was closer, Fu Erdie could finally see that the man wasn’t fighting barehanded. He wore iron knuckle guards on his fingers and metal bracers on his forearms.
His ability, she deduced, likely allowed him to reinforce these tools, which was why he could engage the powerful zombie in close combat.
She scavenged the entire building, even removing hinges from cabinet doors to toss down as ammunition.
Finally, just as she was eyeing the refrigerator, wondering how far she could throw its heavy door, the zombie’s impenetrable skull was smashed open.
They won.
They had won!
Fu Erdie’s eyes lit up. She barely stopped herself from cheering, waving at the ability user from a distance and silently applauding.
So there were good ability users in this world!
Not everyone was like that one from before, the one with hardened fingernails who used his power to bully the weak.
Relieved and grateful, she considered whether to bring him into Building 7.
But before she could make up her mind, the ability user, who had seemed perfectly fine moments ago, suddenly collapsed to the ground.
His skin began to split open, blood pouring from every inch of his body. In an instant, he was drenched in crimson.
Fu Erdie: …?
The zombies still swarming toward Building 7: …?
The overwhelming pressure from the mutated zombie had vanished, replaced by the intoxicating scent of fresh human blood.
The scent was stronger, came from a weaker source, and was far easier to reach.
So the zombies shifted direction, converging on the ability user.
Fu Erdie’s heart tightened.
He was only thirty to forty meters from Building 7.
The zombies, now moving as steadily as humans, could swarm him in half a minute and tear him apart.
What should she do?
Should she abandon him?
But he had just saved her.
Should she save him? How?
Fu Erdie made a split-second decision. She scraped her arm against a sharp corner of the outer wall, tearing open a twenty-centimeter-long wound. Blood welled up from the gash.
She thrust her arm out and shouted, “Here! I’m over here! Come and eat me!”
It had been a long time since she had raised her voice. Her voice came out strained and hoarse.
Her desperate move did draw the zombies’ attention. Blood dripped from the second-floor windowsill into the horde below, stirring their hunger.
But still, they went for the ability user, the source of the stronger, more abundant blood.
Fu Erdie: …
The front line of zombies was now only twenty meters from the man. Without hesitation, Fu Erdie grabbed the potato plant, the one that liked to stay in its pot and follow her around, and leaped from the second floor, aiming for the ability user.
As she fell, a flash of green caught her eye, brushing against the potato plant.
She had no time to dwell on it. She sprinted toward the man, hoisted him over her shoulder like a sack, and bolted for Building 6.
Building 6 had already been cleared of zombies, making it the safest place in the complex aside from Building 7.
Carrying the ability user on one shoulder and the potato plant in its pot with the other, she was still faster than the zombies.
She rushed into Building 6 and slammed the rotten door shut behind her.
A rusty chain lay nearby. Without a second thought, Fu Erdie looped it around the door handle as many times as she could, then ran upstairs.
Her ankle was giving out, she wouldn’t be able to keep going for much longer. She ran as far up as she could.
Suddenly, a small vine brushed against her finger.
In the chaos of her escape, she glanced down and saw that the little potato plant was now “holding” several large pothos leaves, rolled into tubes.
Fu Erdie froze. “Did the pothos give you these?”
The potato plant “nodded.”
Understanding dawned on her.
Back when she used to return home injured from fighting zombies, the apartment would heal her. The pothos couldn’t heal, but it would press its leaves against her wounds to stop the bleeding. Over time, whether from the apartment’s influence, exposure to her blood, or simply consuming too many bloody snacks, its leaves had gained the ability to adhere to wounds and staunch blood flow.
It must have known she wouldn’t be near it this time and had sent these leaves to help stop the bleeding, for both her and the ability user.
“Thank you, little potato. And thank you, pothos.”
She paused for a moment to catch her breath.
The pothos was so smart. In just a few seconds, it had assessed her decision and acted to support her.
What a remarkable little one.
Fu Erdie smiled. “Looks like the pothos has already graduated from kindergarten. You’ve grown into something truly capable.”
She set the ability user down and stripped off his clothes.
As she worked, her mind was blank. She was focused on one thing only: covering his body with the large pothos leaves to stop the bleeding and mask the strong scent of his blood, a scent that would otherwise draw zombies straight to him.
But as her hands moved deeper, Fu Erdie couldn’t help but blush.
He was covered in blood, so she couldn’t make out any muscle definition, but as she pressed the leaves onto his skin, she couldn’t ignore how certain parts bulged where they should, dipped where they should, and… were big where they should, ugh, no!
She kept telling herself she wasn’t taking advantage of him. This was just first aid, an emergency measure to stop the bleeding and cover wounds.
She forced any stray thoughts out of her head.
As she worked, she did her best to avoid one particular area, fashioning a leaf skirt for him instead.
There weren’t enough leaves. After wrapping him up in pothos clothing, there was nothing left for the wound on her arm.
The potato plant pressed a leaf against her injury, as if to say it could help too.
Fu Erdie smiled. “Can I take two of your leaves?”
The potato plant “nodded.”
She placed the leaves over her wound, then pulled down her rolled-up sleeve, tucking everything in to secure the leaves and mask the scent of blood.
Once that was done, she tossed the ability user’s blood-soaked clothes downstairs, letting the zombies chase the scent to the back of the building, then carried him and the pot up the stairs again.
By the time she reached the tenth floor, her legs gave out.
She found a relatively clean corner, set the ability user down gently, and collapsed beside him.
She placed the potato plant in front of her. “Little guard, I’m counting on you tonight.”
The potato plant puffed up its leaves in assurance, and, as if laying eggs, produced two potatoes right in its pot.
Fu Erdie smiled, her eyes crinkling.
This was exactly why she had brought the potato plant.
Potatoes couldn’t be eaten raw, but in a critical moment like this, the slight toxicity was negligible compared to the healing properties of a mutated plant’s fruit.
Besides, with the potato plant having mutated, there was no guarantee its potatoes still contained toxins.
She picked one up, broke off a tiny piece, and ate it.
Hmm… Hmm?
It was crisp and sweet, almost like a sweet potato?
Fu Erdie looked at the potato plant in surprise. The plant, in turn, pointed at her injured arm.
Inside her sleeve, the potato leaf she had placed over her wound was stained dark with blood. But the dark color was slowly fading, transforming into specks of white light that drifted, guided by the potato plant’s influence, into its own body.
With a bit of effort, the potato plant produced a third potato, one faintly glowing with white light.
Fu Erdie: …
Watching the familiar scene, she fell into thought.
Was her blood somehow special to the mutated plants and the apartment? Could she promote their mutation? And did they, in turn, instinctively nurture her after evolving?
She looked at her fingers, dirty from the escape, wiped them on a clean patch of her clothes, and put them to her mouth to bite and feed the potato plant.
But the potato plant stopped her, shaking its leaves, and pressed her hand back down.
She gazed at it, a softness in her eyes that she herself didn’t recognize. “Alright. We’ll hold off on experimenting for now. Let’s get through this first.”
As effective as the potato was for healing, it still couldn’t compare to the apartment.
Half a potato and the wound on her arm had mostly scabbed over. A whole potato and the swelling in her ankle had gone down significantly.
But she suspected she had at least a fracture, if not a break. That would require returning home to fully heal.
She broke the remaining two potatoes into small pieces and fed them to the man bit by bit.
Finally, near the end of the second potato, his eyelids fluttered, and he slowly opened his eyes.
The hallway was dim, but Fu Erdie thought his obsidian eyes were quiet and bright, radiant even without the sun.
She had been sitting next to him to feed him. Now that he was awake, she handed him the remaining potato and moved away.
“These potatoes have some healing properties. You can eat them.”
His face was covered in blood, making it hard to discern his features or expression. He chewed for a moment, swallowed, and looked at Fu Erdie. “You saved me. Thank you.”
His voice was hoarse, and he seemed reserved, a man of few words.
Fu Erdie shook her head. “You saved me first. I was just repaying the favor.”
The man was silent for a moment before speaking again. “That zombie… it followed me here to your complex.”
Fu Erdie: …
Damn! So that was it!
She had been observing and recording daily, how could she have missed a zombie this powerful suddenly appearing?
But then again…
“Why was it chasing you? Weren’t there any other humans on your way here?” Fu Erdie frowned.
Not that she wished for others to be sacrificed, but under normal circumstances, zombies would get distracted mid-chase. For it to fixate on a single person was unusual.
“It was hunting ability users for their cores,” the man explained.
Fu Erdie leaned in, genuinely curious. “Could you tell me more about ability users and mutated zombies? I’ve been staying in this complex since the outbreak. I haven’t gone out, so I don’t know what’s happening outside.”
Her knowledge of crystal cores and abilities came mostly from novels and movies. Her attempts to gain abilities had followed those fictional methods. The reality was still a mystery.
The man pressed his ear to the wall, listening to the sounds below. After confirming no zombies were coming up, he spoke in a low voice about what he knew.
Mutated zombies and ability users had different abilities and attributes. Both carried crystal cores in their heads. Consuming a core strengthened one’s own abilities.
Consuming a core of the same attribute would lead to faster growth.
Consuming a core of a different attribute would still grant growth, but at a slower rate.
His name was Sang Wenhao. At 23, he was a year younger than Fu Erdie. Although he had been using a gun, he was just a first-year graduate student at City C University before the outbreak.
When the zombie virus first emerged, his university campus had been one of the hardest-hit areas, and one of the hardest places to escape from.
People were everywhere. The density of zombies was immense, and the virus spread fast.
To make matters worse, the university campus was surrounded by main roads clogged with vehicles. Within ten days, every route out was gridlocked.
Sang Wenhao survived because he awakened his ability on the first day. He took refuge with his uncle, who ran a bicycle shop near the campus, and made it through the initial chaos.
But the same hardships that plagued others in the apocalypse plagued him too.
Food shortages. Water and power cuts. Extreme heat. Mosquitoes and insects. The constant threat of shattered glass and torn-down metal shutters.
Not everyone awakened with overwhelming power. Sang Wenhao was just slightly stronger and faster than an average person, with the ability to levitate metal objects no larger than a fingernail. That was all.
When the bicycle shop’s food and water ran low, he started venturing outside, fighting zombies, competing with other survivors. His control over metal slowly grew stronger.
Aside from his uncle, there were three other college students who had taken refuge in the shop when the outbreak hit. One of them had turned and was put down by the group. The other two joined Sang Wenhao in scavenging for supplies.
But even when they found food, water was always scarce.
They searched supermarkets, restaurants, cafeterias, wherever they could. Large cases of bottled water were always taken by larger groups with carts. The few times they managed to grab a bucket of water, someone would steal it within ten meters.
Water was too heavy. They never made it back to the shop with any.
So they collected rainwater when it fell. When there was no rain and no water, Sang Wenhao would risk a ten-kilometer run to the river and haul back a bucket.
They barely scraped by for a month. Then his uncle developed a massive tumor on his neck.
It grew rapidly, vascular, sarcoma-like. Within three days, it pressed against his windpipe, making it impossible to breathe.
His uncle begged him to cut it off. If he didn’t, he’d either suffocate or have his cervical spine crushed.
So Sang Wenhao did.
His uncle bled out from the incision.
Desperate, Sang Wenhao tried everything to stop the bleeding. In the process, he discovered he could shape metal into thin sheets to cover the wound.
But it was too late. His uncle died.
Soon after, one of the two students began to deteriorate, not from a zombie bite, but from something else. His eyes turned cloudy. His mind remained intact, but his body started rotting.
He was fully conscious as his body decayed. His throat grew clogged with rotting tissue, silencing him until only anguished throat sounds remained. In the end, he died a miserable death.
The other student, though less physically strong, remained unaffected and followed Sang Wenhao out to scavenge every day.
The more they went out, the more information they gathered.
A makeshift group had formed nearby. Those who contributed more got bottled or bottled water. Those who contributed less got rainwater or river water.
So far, no one in the first group had shown abnormalities. But among the second group, there had been severe cases of illness and death. None had turned into zombies or become ability users, they simply fell victim to a variety of strange diseases.
Sang Wenhao concluded that the water itself was the problem.
Some people could tolerate it, at least for a while.
Others couldn’t, and they fell ill in different ways.
Fortunately, he was among those who could tolerate it.
At least for now. Who knew when it might catch up with him.
He kept struggling to survive, killing mutated zombies when he could, harvesting their cores to strengthen his abilities.
He overcame countless hardships.
Then he encountered a zombie that could metallize its own body.
“It had some intelligence. In life, it must have trained in combat, it had technique and instinct. It was relentless.” Leaning against the wall, Sang Wenhao frowned deeply. “After it saw my metal-manipulation ability, it fixated on me. I couldn’t beat it. With the roads blocked, I had no choice but to flee on a bicycle. The other student stayed behind at the shop, he was safe.”
While on the run, he encountered a military unit on a rescue mission.
They were from Base D, 300 kilometers away. Tanks led the way, trucks carried survivors. They had already rescued many. Once the last truck was full, they planned to head back.
When they learned of Sang Wenhao’s situation, a sniper spotted the powerful zombie through a scope and took a shot.
It hit. But it didn’t wound.
The soldiers were stunned. But Sang Wenhao already knew, he had to lead the zombie away, or the entire convoy would be doomed.
With a quick word to the sniper, he turned his bicycle around and rode off.
“Wait!”
The sniper called out to him, exchanging a few words with a nearby officer.
The officer nodded and approached. “Have you ever fired a gun?”
Sang Wenhao didn’t expect that question. His heart pounded as he sensed where this was going.
“I have. Someone in my family runs a shooting range. I trained there since I was young.”
Time was short. The officer didn’t elaborate. He handed Sang Wenhao a spare sniper rifle and quickly explained how to use it.
Then he said, “You’re the kind of person who would lead an enemy away to protect ordinary people. Can I trust that you won’t open fire on civilians?”
Sang Wenhao straightened up. “You can.”
The sniper rifle was pressed into his hands, along with three magazines, thirty rounds in total.
“Our primary mission is to escort as many survivors as possible. I’ll report your situation. I hope your marksmanship and your ability will work together to get you through this.”
Sang Wenhao nodded and rode off on his bicycle, taking a different route.
He knew that reports like his were too numerous to address. Giving him the sniper rifle was a gesture, a slim chance at survival.
When he reached a stretch of gridlocked cars, he found one that still worked.
Instead of driving off immediately, he climbed onto its roof, set up the rifle, and aimed at the approaching zombie.
He took a deep breath and channeled his ability into the bullet, ensuring he could correct its path mid-flight if needed. His target: the zombie’s eye.
He didn’t believe the eyes could be as hard as the skull.
The shot rang out. The recoil slammed into him. By the time he steadied himself and looked again, the target was gone.
A bad feeling crept over him. He grabbed the rifle and rolled to the side, just as the enraged zombie dropped from above and struck his shoulder.
He fell off the roof. Ignoring the pain, he scrambled into the driver’s seat and slammed the gas pedal, trying to shake the zombie off.
The zombie clung to the front edge of the roof with one hand and smashed the driver’s side window with the other, blindly swinging into the cabin. The blow landed square on Sang Wenhao’s temple.
His vision blurred, his foot instinctively pressed the accelerator to the floor.
The zombie leaned down from the roof to peer into the cab. One of its eyes was already destroyed, leaving a gaping, hideous wound.
Enraged, it swung again at Sang Wenhao’s head.
He jerked the steering wheel hard, finally throwing the zombie off.
Dizzy and disoriented, he didn’t stop. He sped on, desperate to put as much distance as possible between himself and the creature.
Then, passing by Fu Erdie’s neighborhood, a tire blew out, the combined result of high heat and prolonged high-speed friction.
Lightheaded and likely suffering a mild concussion, he forced himself to stumble into the complex, found a window, climbed inside, killed the zombie within, locked up, barricaded the doors and windows with cabinets, and covered his wounds with metal sheets to mask the scent. Only then did he lose consciousness.
As long as a mutated zombie’s head wasn’t destroyed, its injuries would slowly heal over time.
So the zombie followed the trail, tracking the scent, slowly making its way toward him as its eye regenerated.
Meanwhile, Sang Wenhao remained unconscious for a long time. When he finally woke, his dizziness had faded.
He killed the zombies that broke into his shelter, moved to another spot to survive, and repeated the process.
Every night, when the zombies’ vision was at its worst, he would search the building for anything edible or drinkable.
Spoiled or moldy, it didn’t matter. He ate it all.
“The only reason I’m still alive and able to fight is because I learned to harden my skin. During battle, it’s not just my fists, arms, and lower legs that harden, the wounds I take also solidify inside and out. That lets me keep fighting. But once the fight’s over and the effect wears off, the injuries are worse than before. And even the parts that weren’t directly hit suffer from the accumulated strain, vessels rupture, muscles tear.” Sang Wenhao spoke slowly, laying out his situation.
“Zombies can regenerate. I can’t. So even if I survive this fight, there’s no good outcome. Every time I use my ability, my body breaks down a little more, until eventually, it falls apart. Even if a zombie doesn’t kill me, I’ll destroy myself.”
His voice was calm, but his eyes carried a quiet despair, like a stray dog that had given up hope.
Beside him, Fu Erdie was silent.
Curious, he turned his head, and met her bright, gleaming eyes.
“What a coincidence!” she exclaimed. “You break down, I heal!”
She had speculated that Sang Wenhao’s ability might involve something like blood explosion, burning his own life force to temporarily boost his power. If that were the case, no matter what she did, she wouldn’t be able to save him.
But now? Wasn’t his problem simply that his injuries had never been treated?
For her, was there anything easier to handle than that?
Her home had everything, food, shelter, water, clean air, and an apartment that could heal wounds automatically. Things that were nearly impossible for others to obtain were abundant here.
The only issue was combat strength. Her plants could handle ordinary zombies, but against an ability user or a zombie with any intelligence, all her abundance would be for nothing.
She needed a trustworthy ability user to cooperate with, someone who could provide Building 7 with stronger, more reliable protection.
And the person in front of her might just be a potential ally.
Reining in her excitement, she lowered her voice. “Can you push yourself one more time? Carry me to that clearing and grab the mutated zombie’s crystal core, then take me to 16-1 in my building?”
Sang Wenhao was silent.
He could. But it would cost him.
“Is your ability healing?” he asked tentatively. “Could you heal me first? Then I’ll take you back.”
Fu Erdie shook her head. “I’m not an ability user. But I have a special apartment and mutated plants. They’re in that building, in 16-1. They can heal you.”
Sang Wenhao paused, looking at her calmly. “Don’t you know? You’re an ability user.”
Fu Erdie: “…?”
“That zombie with the metal-reinforcing ability doesn’t go after ordinary people, only ability users. When it couldn’t find me right away, it observed from the shadows and noticed you. It decided to go after you first. If you were just an ordinary person, it wouldn’t have risked exposing itself just to eat you.”
Sang Wenhao looked at Fu Erdie. For the first time, a flicker of disbelief crossed his usually impassive face. “So… you really didn’t know you had an ability?”
Fu Erdie: !!!!!!!
Sang Wenhao: …
This girl seemed smart and brave… but a little slow.
Still, someone this clueless probably wouldn’t deceive him.
Over the past few days, he had noticed the strangeness of Building 7 and had seen the plants’ strategic response to the zombies earlier.
He had initially thought she was a plant-type ability user, but now that didn’t seem to be the case.
Her ability was so unusual that she hadn’t even realized she had one.
Fu Erdie sat on the floor, stunned. Sang Wenhao had already gotten to his feet.
He suddenly became aware that he was covered in leaves. His blood-soaked clothes were long gone.
“…!” His face, already flushed, was barely visible beneath the dried blood.
He crouched down, head bowed, gesturing for Fu Erdie to climb onto his back.
Still dazed, she let herself be lifted. Then, the sudden sensation of weightlessness hit her as they soared outside the tenth floor.
Her mind snapped back.
Mom, I’m flying!