“Host, when are you going out to dominate the battlefield?!”
Xiao-Ou was practically burning with impatience. Ever since Yue Suran returned to her apartment, she had done nothing but organize her scavenged goods. It was almost afternoon already—how much longer was she going to keep tidying up? She still had eight zombies left to defeat; if she didn’t put in the effort today, tomorrow’s pressure would be overwhelming.
“Got it, got it!”
Yue Suran was nearly nagged to death by Xiao-Ou. Even though I’m not in a rush—what is Xiao-Ou so anxious about?
Still, to give her ears a moment of peace, Yue Suran grabbed an empty, oversized backpack and slung it over her shoulders. She was heading down to check out the mini-mart inside the residential compound. Although this was an old neighborhood, the small supermarket was usually well-stocked with daily necessities.
She had no idea if there would be anything left inside; the shelves might have been cleared out long ago. After all, she had only woken up on the third day after the apocalyptic outbreak, making it difficult to guess what had transpired in the interim.
Maintaining a high state of alert, Yue Suran made her way downstairs.
Apart from herself, the compound’s walkways were virtually deserted. Nevertheless, she could still sense a few hidden gazes observing her from the surrounding buildings—likely neighbors hiding inside their own homes. The outbreak had struck without warning, and since most people kept a small stash of food at home, it was only natural that they didn’t dare venture outside just yet.
Thinking about it that way, maybe the goods in the mini-mart haven’t been touched yet.
Tightening her grip on her baseball bat, Yue Suran conveniently smashed the skull of the zombie that had fallen from the building earlier. She then mapped out a quick route, doing her best to avoid blind spots along the path.
A few minutes later, she arrived at the mini-mart without further incident, only to discover that the shop doors were wide open. From inside came the heated voices of several people arguing.
“This stuff belongs to our neighborhood! You outsiders have no right to touch it—put it down!”
“That’s right! This is our food, don’t even think about stealing it! Keep it up and I’ll call the police to arrest you!”
“You ungrateful bastards! If it wasn’t for us just now, you would’ve been bitten to death by zombies!”
Mu Li had never encountered such unreasonable people in her life. If she and her boss hadn’t saved them from the jaws of the undead, these folks would have been reduced to zombie rations by now—they wouldn’t even have had the chance to turn into zombies themselves. Now, when she and the boss merely wanted to grab a bit of food, these people refused to let them take a single bite. Talk about saving a pair of ungrateful wolves!
“Forget it. Let’s go,” said a low voice.
In truth, Ye Liangfeng had come all the way here just to search for his employee. If asked what was so special about this particular employee, Ye Liangfeng couldn’t articulate it himself. He only knew that after the apocalypse broke out, he was so overwhelmed with worry for Yue Suran that he had rushed over without a second thought.
The trouble was that he only knew she lived in this compound, but had no idea which specific unit was hers. He had initially saved these two residents hoping to ask for directions in case they recognized Yue Suran. Unfortunately, the duo knew absolutely nothing. Had he known they possessed such hideous attitudes, he wouldn’t have bothered saving them in the first place.
“Boss? Mu Li?”
Standing outside the entrance, Yue Suran hesitated upon hearing her best friend’s voice. But the moment Ye Liangfeng’s highly distinct voice drifted out, she could no longer hold back and hurried straight inside the store.
“Ranran! I finally found you! Sobbing~”
Seeing Yue Suran was like seeing family. Mu Li threw her arms around her best friend and began wailing loudly.
Mu Li was an orphan who had been shunned and isolated since childhood. It wasn’t until she met Yue Suran at work that she made her very first friend. Ever since the apocalyptic outbreak, she had been desperate to come look for Yue Suran.
Although she had wanted to search for her on the very first day, Mu Li hadn’t dared face the zombies alone. Nor did she dare drive over, fearing that the roads would be blocked and that the roar of an engine would easily attract swarms of the infected. After hesitating for a long time, she finally plucked up the courage to come—after all, Yue Suran was her only true friend in this world.
Luckily, Mu Li had bumped into their boss, Ye Liangfeng, on the road.
“So you were originally looking for me, bumped into Boss halfway through, and begged him to bring you here?”
Yue Suran quickly pieced together the full story from Mu Li’s fragmented babbling.
She was genuinely moved. To think someone actually cared about me enough to remember me in the middle of an apocalypse!
Didn’t all those post-apocalyptic books say that when the end of the world arrives, the most dangerous thing isn’t the zombies, but the people around you? It seemed those novels weren’t entirely right after all.
Seeing that Yue Suran was safe, Ye Liangfeng breathed a quiet sigh of relief, though he didn’t bother correcting Mu Li’s version of events. The truth was simply that he had encountered Mu Li on his way over, and since her destination happened to match his, they had traveled together.
“Where are you staying?”
“Right in that building up ahead! Wait a second—let me grab some food first, there’s nothing left to eat at home.”
Yue Suran claimed this on purpose. In reality, her apartment still had a decent stash of rations. Even with Ye Liangfeng and Mu Li added to the mix, there was enough food to last them half a month. Still, no one in their right mind would turn down extra supplies.
“You live in our neighborhood?” A chubby, middle-aged woman had seen Yue Suran around before, so she didn’t try to stop her from taking things off the shelves. However, her tone was abrasive, as if Yue Suran owed her a small fortune. “Fine, you can take some, but only enough for one day!”
“And who are you supposed to be?”
Yue Suran brandished the baseball bat—the very one she had used to bash a zombie’s head in just moments ago—and gave it a casual wave in front of the middle-aged woman.
This was the exact same voice that had barred Mu Li from taking food earlier. People who were completely useless yet ungrateful always ended up with the same miserable fate in stories like this.
Gazing at the dried blood staining the bat, the chubby woman instinctively took a step back. She cast a desperate glance toward her husband, silently begging him to step up and back her up.
Her husband, who had been shouting arrogantly just moments before, glanced at the gory baseball bat in Yue Suran’s hand, then did a quick mental count of their numbers versus hers. Pulling his wife back, he firmly silenced her.
“Are you out of your mind? None of these three look like people you want to mess with! Besides, we can’t carry everything here anyway—let’s just get out of here quickly!”
Duly reminded, the chubby woman realized this wasn’t the time to play tough. Clutching several bulging plastic bags, she hurriedly fled the store alongside her husband.
“Ranran, you’re amazing!”
Seeing how effortlessly Yue Suran had chased the couple away, Mu Li immediately darted over to grab some plastic bags and start packing food.
“Hurry up. We’ve been lingering here for quite a while—zombies might be heading our way soon.”
Although the apocalypse had only just begun, Ye Liangfeng had already made a sharp observation: if you stayed in a well-ventilated area for more than half an hour, the surrounding zombies would inevitably be drawn toward your location.
Neither Yue Suran nor Mu Li doubted Ye Liangfeng’s warning. Having worked under him for several years, they held immense respect for his judgment, which was why they respectfully addressed him as “Boss.”
As Yue Suran gathered food supplies, she communicated with Xiao-Ou in her mind.
“Xiao-Ou, can you harvest the crystal core inside the head of that zombie over there?”
“No can do, Host! Currently, Little Xiao-Ou only has authority to harvest cores from zombies directly killed by the Host~”
Yue Suran sighed inwardly at the refusal. Risking exposure by revealing too much just for a single crystal core didn’t seem like a worthwhile trade-off. After weighing her options, she decided to play dumb and act as if she knew nothing about the core inside that corpse.
“Are you done yet? Zombies are already gathering!”
Ye Liangfeng hastily grabbed two bags of food and posted himself near the entrance. Sure enough, two zombies were already shuffling slowly in their direction.
Yue Suran had packed her oversized backpack full. Upon hearing that two zombies were approaching, she immediately hoisted the heavy bag onto her shoulders, gripped her baseball bat tightly, and dashed straight out the door.
Before Ye Liangfeng could even raise a hand to stop her, he watched Yue Suran bolt right past him.
Just as a pang of disappointment washed over Ye Liangfeng—thinking she was abandoning them to flee on her own—he saw her raise the heavy baseball bat and ruthlessly smash it down onto the slow-moving zombie’s head.
Dazzled and thoroughly amused by the scene, Ye Liangfeng held his forehead and let out a light laugh.
“Heh… Thankfully I came. Otherwise, I definitely would have regretted it for the rest of my life.”