“Ding—”
“The global survival game has now begun!”
“All players, please get ready~”
At 1 p.m., the milk tea shop in the commercial district was at its busiest.
A girl with her hair tied up in a bun, wearing a work uniform, paused for a moment. Then, as if nothing had happened, she went on calling out, “3078! Is 3078 here?”
After a few calls with no answer, she smoothly set the prepared milk tea aside, picked up the next cup, and kept calling without a trace of emotion: “3079! 3079 is—”
“Ahhh—”
“Help!”
“Run!”
“Zombies! These are definitely zombies! Exactly like in the movies and the novels!”
“Run!!!!!!!”
“Ahhhhhhhhh—”
Screams erupted from all around.
Zhang Xiangyi put down the milk tea in her hands and stood on her tiptoes, trying to see outside. At the same time, she had already grabbed the bar tool from the counter slot. Her colleague, who had the height advantage, had clearly already seen the chaos outside.
Shocked, the colleague staggered back, dropped what they were holding, and ran out shouting, “Run! The zombie outbreak has started!”
Countless people were running. Some had their clothes torn, revealing bloody wounds, and as they ran they gradually warped into the shape of zombies.
The zombies’ eyes held no trace of life, only a craving for fresh flesh and blood. Their skin was pale as paper, the muscles of their faces twisted from hunger. Their movements were stiff, yet each step carried a strength and determination, as if nothing could stop them from chasing their prey.
No one knew where these zombies had suddenly come from.
The square in front of the milk tea shop, packed only moments ago, was instantly cleared out. With zombies chasing people, a few were already running in her direction even as they pursued others.
Zhang Xiangyi reacted fast and rushed for the storage room. She shut the door, locked it, and pushed shelves against it as a barricade, every motion quick yet orderly. No one could have guessed how panicked she actually was inside. Only after she finished did she slump to the floor, and only then did she remember her phone.
She immediately set it to silent, her hand trembling as she gripped it.
With everything done, she finally let herself relax a little, sitting on the floor against the cold wall, listening to the screams and the sounds of tearing outside.
Zombies?
How could there suddenly be zombies?
The screams outside were terrifying, but she didn’t dare make a sound. She clamped a hand over her mouth and waited for the noise to fade.
Before long, the sounds began to die down. Zhang Xiangyi kept talking herself calm, forcing herself to stay composed, while she pulled a large-capacity bag from her pocket.
Only then did she suddenly recall the voice she’d heard earlier.
She’d thought she was just exhausted and hallucinating, but now…
The milk tea shop’s storeroom wasn’t short on dairy or fruit. After filling the bag, Zhang Xiangyi steeled herself and carefully opened the back door. Seeing that the zombies chasing people were still some distance off, she slung the bag over her shoulder and picked up a metal table leg she’d just pried free.
Her rented apartment was about five kilometers away, not close. Normally she’d take the bus home. If it was late and there was no bus, she’d treat it as exercise and run.
A taxi?
No. Unless absolutely necessary, she wouldn’t. Saving the money was better.
Besides, hailing a taxi right now made no sense at all.
Now… running home was her only option. But the road would be dangerous.
Zhang Xiangyi took a deep breath, calculating quickly as she sprinted in her chosen direction. She was glad she’d kept up her exercise, she could still run flat out under such a heavy load, and even land a hard blow on any zombie that rushed her.
She passed a shared yellow bicycle and gave it a glance before running on.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to ride it, she simply didn’t know how. She’d never been able to learn.
She ran past a pharmacy, and after confirming no one was inside, she rushed in. At the counter she tore off all the plastic bags and began deliberately filling them with medicine.
A survival game?
Players?
There was no time to analyze it all, but one thing was certain: even if the government eventually stepped in, chaos would break out in the short term. The more supplies she stockpiled now, the better.
She ran past a supermarket. Seeing it still empty, she rushed inside without hesitation, grabbed more bags, and stuffed them with instant noodles, water, biscuits, chocolate, and other food.
On her back were the dairy and fruit. One hand carried medicine and supermarket goods, the other gripped the iron table leg. This was the most she could manage.
Zhang Xiangyi didn’t try to take too much. She took only a little of everything, but made sure she had variety.
Her home was in an older residential area. At this hour most people were at work and the elderly were taking their afternoon naps, so there wouldn’t be many zombies. Along the way she met only two stray ones. By the time she’d moved from the commercial district to the old neighborhood, she had already gotten used to fighting zombies, at least now one strike was usually enough to put one down.
She ran home, locked the door, dragged a wooden cabinet over to block it, and sealed every door and window before finally collapsing onto the sofa in relief.
The iron table leg that had seen her all the way home was now caked in blood and flesh, dented and warped all over, clear proof of how dangerous her journey had been.
Suddenly remembering something, Zhang Xiangyi ran into the small room she used for storage. She took out several buckets and basins and filled them with water from the bathroom and kitchen.
While they filled, she didn’t rest. She picked up her secondhand, laggy phone with its cracked screen and started browsing for information.
—Zombies? Are they serious?
—This has to be a joke…
—A joke? You call it a joke? I almost turned into a zombie. What kind of joke is that!
—If you don’t believe it, go outside and play, then. There are no zombies anyway, go ahead.
—Not gonna lie, where did these zombies even come from?
—Yeah, did nobody predict any of this?
—They only crawl out into the open when there’s no more room in the dark places…
—Shut up! Don’t say something so creepy.
……
Zhang Xiangyi frowned. Her phone was so laggy she couldn’t even scroll quickly.
Most of the comments were meaningless chatter, but soon one caught her eye.
—Did you all hear those few lines too? (scared.gif)
—It can’t be what I’m thinking, right?
—”The global survival game has now begun”?
—”All players, please get ready”?
—What the hell?
—You heard it too?
—Wait, I thought I was the only one! What is going on?
Zhang Xiangyi silently scrolled through the stacked comments. In the end she confirmed one fact: everyone had heard that voice.
Everyone was a player, but was it only their country, or the entire Blue Star [1] this world’s name for Earth jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2270458_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2270458_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });?
Was this sudden zombie outbreak caused by the so-called “game”?
As she thought, Zhang Xiangyi switched to another basin and went back to the bathroom to refill a bucket.
Would a game really be this simple?
She frowned. Her instincts told her it wasn’t.
It told everyone to prepare, but the zombies appeared right afterward. Clearly the “preparation” it wanted wasn’t this. So what exactly were they supposed to prepare for?
A survival game…
Then the most important thing was survival itself. But how were they supposed to survive?
The zombie outbreak was only the opening act. Just how dangerous would what came next be?
Zhang Xiangyi had never really played games and had no entertainment hobbies. All her time went to studying or earning money. She wasn’t familiar with games, but when it came to “survival,” it obviously meant a threat to life.
For now, all she could do was wait for government rescue and protect herself as best she could.
After filling all the basins and buckets, Zhang Xiangyi began taking stock of her supplies, the foundation of her survival.
She loved stockpiling. Mainly because buying in bulk was cheaper, and because between studying and part-time work she didn’t have time to shop carefully. So every month she set aside one day to buy a month’s worth of supplies. She rarely bought fresh vegetables, since she usually ate at the school cafeteria.
Right after Double Eleven [2] November 11, “Singles’ Day”, China’s biggest online shopping festival, famous for steep discounts jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2270458_1_2').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2270458_1_2', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });, she’d taken advantage of the sales and bought a lot, toilet paper, laundry detergent, sanitary pads, and other daily necessities.
She hauled all the supplies she’d just carried home into the storeroom, then pulled over a small stool and sat down to take inventory.
Two boxes of bottled water already stocked, two boxes of tissues, two bundles of toilet paper, one box of sanitary pads, five bags of laundry detergent, and a grand total of five boxes of assorted instant noodles.
Zhang Xiangyi: ……
Only after taking stock did she realize just how much instant food she had, snail rice noodles, spicy chicken noodles, mixed noodles, cup noodles, rice vermicelli… too many to count. She liked all of them, so she’d stocked up heavily.
She sorted everything into piles by category, then set the newly gathered items apart. After that she took out a flat-pack shelving set she’d bought earlier and assembled it, then neatly arranged everything the way she liked.
Looking at her supplies, Zhang Xiangyi nodded in satisfaction. If she ate carefully, it would easily last a month, more than enough time for the government to get organized.
With her basic survival secured, her mood improved a great deal.
Just after she locked the storeroom door, a burst of noise came from outside. Zhang Xiangyi cautiously picked up the battered iron table leg and carefully eased open the balcony door.
This old residential area sat at the very edge of downtown, a bit remote. Most residents were renters, a mixed crowd.
The only upside was that rent was cheap and it was just three bus stops from her school. Many classmates rented here too, along with people who worked nearby.
Her apartment was on the first floor, a two-bedroom unit. But one bedroom was so small that once a 1.2-meter bed went in, only a narrow walkway was left, so the landlord listed it as a one-bedroom instead.
She’d gotten lucky with it.
At this hour there was hardly anyone around. Most were at school or work, and few would risk running home the way she had.
When she opened the balcony door, she saw a young man with seven or eight zombies hot on his heels. Every one of them was chasing him at full strength, faces twisted and ferocious.
“Why are you chasing me?! Why?!”
“I already told you, I don’t have much meat on me!”
“There were so many fat guys you could’ve gone after just now, why are you all fixated on me? I’ve already killed a few of you, and you’re still chasing me?!”
The young man complained nonstop, but his movements never slowed. Swinging some unknown metal hanger like a staff, he beat at the zombies as if it were the Ruyi Jingu Bang [3] the magic, size-changing staff wielded by Sun Wukong the Monkey King in the classic novel Journey to the West jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2270458_1_3').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2270458_1_3', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });, shouting, “Take this! Eat my Monkey King’s staff!”
For the first time, Zhang Xiangyi regretted how good her hearing was. As the man drew closer, she finally recognized who he was.
He was from the same university and the same major as her. But she was a freshman and he was a junior. On the campus forums people often compared the two of them, and there were even some odd “CP fans” [4] fans who “ship” two people as a couple, CP, from “coupling” jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2270458_1_4').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2270458_1_4', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });, even though they’d never actually met.
Not only did she see him, he saw her too. After finishing off the last zombie with his “staff,” he ran over, grabbed her window, and said pitifully, “My dear rumored girlfriend, have a heart and let me in~”
How could a man be this shameless and this annoyingly flirtatious at the same time?
Zhang Xiangyi was baffled, but out of basic human decency she opened both layers of the window. Just as he was about to climb in, she suddenly thought of something and shoved him back. Under his shocked gaze, she said coldly, “Were you bitten?”
“Huh?”
Zhang Xiangyi didn’t reply.
The boy looked utterly disbelieving. “Sis, if I’d been bitten, would I still be here chatting with you this long? People who get bitten turn in about a minute. Do I look like I’d turn into one of those zombies, with a handsome face like this?”
As he spoke he even moved to touch his own face, then caught sight of his filthy hands in time and pulled them back. Remembering how badly the zombies had just chased him, he immediately gave Zhang Xiangyi a pitiful look. “Sister~ please, sister, I’m begging you~”
It wasn’t really the endless “sisters” that made her let him in. The main reason was simply that she was far too inclined to help people.
No girl can resist a good-looking guy calling her “sister.”
After letting him in, she put on a stern face. “Stand right there!”
But because her face was too cute and she wasn’t very tall, she didn’t look intimidating in the least. Even so, the boy didn’t dare move. He used the “Golden Cudgel”, the hanger, to close both layers of the window, then stood ramrod-straight like a recruit at drill.
Soon Zhang Xiangyi came back with a bottle of rubbing alcohol, a basin of water, and a pack of face towels. “Clean yourself, the window, the floor, that hanger in your hand, and this iron table leg.”
The boy nodded obediently. “Okay, I’ll make everything spotless!”
Zhang Xiangyi was deeply socially anxious and didn’t know how to deal with people. Someone who already struggled with normal conversation was even more flustered faced with someone this shameless and outgoing.
She practically fled back to the living room, grabbed her phone, opened the campus forum, and searched the name “Xiao Xingzhi.” There were far too many posts about him, and it wasn’t hard to see how wildly people rated him.
They actually called Xiao Xingzhi cold and aloof?
Was he really that cold?
References[+]