9 Zombies

Before leaving the tomb, Qin Zhen had considered Fu Qi to be a tomb raider of questionable character. After leaving, her perception of his identity shifted; she began to think he might be an archaeologist with some martial arts training. However, her opinion regarding his questionable character remained unchanged.

She thought this for two reasons: first, Fu Qi possessed extensive knowledge related to archaeology, such as geology, airflow, and ancient clans; second, he maintained a high level of curiosity toward zombies.

While they were waiting for rescue inside the tomb, Fu Qi had stared at Qin Zhen’s wound without blinking for no less than five hours, insisting on watching the healing process with the naked eye. He had also methodically tested her perception of hot and cold, as well as the acuity of her five senses. After they left the tomb and secured supplies, he made sure to offer some to Qin Zhen while he ate.

Qin Zhen took a bite and asked if he was trying to fool her with mud.

Fu Qi said no, explaining that it was a compressed biscuit they had scavenged from an A-nationer’s backpack, and it was vanilla-flavored.

Qin Zhen then realized that zombies had no sense of taste. It was truly a pity, though fortunately, zombies still retained their sense of smell.

By the time the city’s silhouette became vaguely visible from the hang glider, they had been soaring for several hours. Even a zombie would find it tedious; Qin Zhen had already closed her eyes, becoming a literal corpse, leaving it to Fu Qi to decide where to take her.

A stench of rot jolted her back to consciousness.

As Qin Zhen was wondering what was happening, she heard Fu Qi say, "Hold on tight, we’re going down."

Qin Zhen instinctively opened her eyes, just in time to see Fu Qi release the safety buckle. Almost simultaneously, a sense of weightlessness hit them, and the human and the zombie plummeted.

Qin Zhen immediately closed her eyes, a scream rising to her throat before she swallowed it back—there was no need. Fu Qi had brought the hang glider in extremely low before landing, allowing them to hit the ground almost instantly.

Upon impact, out of inertia and self-preservation, Fu Qi rolled while clutching Qin Zhen, releasing her and standing up before she could even react.

Qin Zhen desperately wanted to ask him who taught him that landing method and if he had any sense of safety at all. She also wanted to demand why he couldn't have chosen a cleaner place to land—it reeked!

But after enduring so many hardships, she was truly thrilled to finally see human technology. She quickly calmed her emotions and opened her eyes, full of anticipation.

What met her gaze was a sky dyed orange by the sunset. They were on a rooftop—a large, dilapidated one, cluttered with heaps of trash. Weeds sprouted from the cracks in the corners, and the surrounding guardrail was no better, covered in rust and deformed as if it had been struck by something.

It was a rooftop that had long been abandoned.

A sound came from behind. Qin Zhen turned to see Fu Qi drawing the long sword strapped to his backpack, a blade with a distinct B-nation style.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

Fu Qi stood with his sword drawn, chinning toward the rooftop entrance. "I'll explain in a moment."

No sooner had he spoken than several dark shadows surged from the pitch-black entrance like lightning, lunging toward him.

Fu Qi swung his blade with lightning speed. The silver steel caught the sunset, a flash of golden light crossing Qin Zhen’s vision, followed immediately by a spray of black-red gore and an intense, pungent stench of decay.

Then, a filthy, greenish-gray head rolled to Qin Zhen’s feet.

Qin Zhen: "...?!"

Fu Qi quickly dispatched the remaining zombies that had rushed onto the roof and pulled the iron gate shut before he had the time to look at Qin Zhen.

Qin Zhen was bewildered. "W-what, was, that?"

Fu Qi didn't answer. He picked up his soiled blade and walked to the edge of the roof. "I told you, you don't need to worry about those concerns regarding your zombie identity."

Qin Zhen followed him involuntarily.

It was an apartment building—very tall, with an excellent vantage point. Looking out from the edge of the roof in the fading sunset, one could clearly see collapsed buildings, wrecked cars on the streets, and dark, shambling shadows moving among the ruins below.

"There. Zombies just like you, everywhere," Fu Qi said, facing the wind and looking at Qin Zhen with calm indifference. "Darling, welcome to the zombie apocalypse."

Qin Zhen: "...Ah?"

Still in shock, the iron gate at the rooftop entrance began to rattle with several heavy thuds.

Qin Zhen turned back to see several figures covered in filthy blood, hissing and growling as they hurled themselves against the barrier.

She asked, dazed, "What, are, they doing?"

"They are coveting my flesh," Fu Qi replied, adding helpfully, "Literally."

Qin Zhen: "..."

Qin Zhen fell silent. After a long while, she said with great difficulty, "Are you humans... crazy?"

"Not crazy, just mutated by the dead." Fu Qi ignored the zombies drooling on the other side of the gate and checked the remaining items in his pack. "Five years ago, all over the world, the dead began to rise and bite the living simultaneously. Those caught by these living dead were either quickly devoured or injured, turning into monsters just like them within a short time..."

The bizarre catastrophe came suddenly. In just three days, hundreds of thousands of people met their end. A week later, over a dozen small countries had fallen. These monsters felt no pain, cold, or heat, but their sense of smell and hearing were exceptionally sharp. Their only weakness was the head. People called them zombies.

Half a month later, all human daily necessities—transportation, communication, medical care, and production—were severed, and the world changed completely.

"...It wasn't until six months after the disaster that humans reorganized. Surviving researchers concluded that it was a global virus; everyone was infected..."

"You, you, you..." Qin Zhen pointed at Fu Qi.

Fu Qi had just pulled a rope from his bag. He smiled and said, "Of course I'm infected, too. Don't worry, the virus only activates upon death or after being bitten by a zombie. I am currently healthy and intact; I will not mutate."

Qin Zhen suddenly remembered the shot he had put into the head of the foreigner who had lost all signs of life.

Fu Qi recalled it too and added, "If you hadn't landed in the water after your heart was pierced, you would have had a bullet put in your head, too."

Qin Zhen: "..."

Should she say thank you?

Qin Zhen was briefly distracted, but her mind was quickly re-occupied by the tragic news of humanity. Though the facts were right before her eyes, she still couldn't believe it was real. "Does the government... not manage it?"

"They can't."

The government never stopped trying, sending rescue missions and building several survival bases. They had once seen positive results, but rebuilding a prosperous human home was difficult. Humans were accustomed to relying on science and technology; to restore past glory, they had to retrieve old data, machinery, and equipment. But cities had long been occupied by zombies. Retrieving those items meant taking risks and suffering injuries—and human injury or death only meant the expansion of the zombie army.

What was even harder to accept was that even in the survival bases, humans who never encountered zombies would still die from disease, accidents, or conflict, causing internal mutations that led to the fall of the bases.

The only way to completely eradicate the zombies was to develop a vaccine. Yet, five years had passed, and other than an A-nationer who had developed a "death-feigning" agent that could temporarily mask human scent from zombies, there had been no progress.

To Qin Zhen, this sounded like an absurd, grotesque story. She was too shocked to know what to say.

Seeing that she was on the verge of a system crash, Fu Qi told her to stay on the roof and sort things out, and not to wander off.

"Where... are you going?"

Fu Qi had already tied a rope to the railing. "Going downstairs to find an empty room. How else are we going to rest tonight?"

With that, he slid down the rope and vanished. Qin Zhen chased after him to the railing, only to see him break into a window while zombies swarmed toward the smell from below.

She watched for a while before returning to the rooftop in a daze, noticing that as Fu Qi disappeared, the frantic zombies outside the iron gate slowly calmed down.

Qin Zhen stood there blankly, not knowing what to do next. She had overexerted her brain, and the massive influx of information was more than she could process.

It wasn't until the sunset was about to vanish and Fu Qi returned to retrieve her that she snapped out of her thoughts on humanity's plight and noticed the contradiction in his words.

"Communications are cut... then, the watch?"

"That’s the latest technology developed by A-nation after the apocalypse. It’s top-tier global tech—there are no more than ten in existence."

Qin Zhen fell silent for a moment, then asked, "What about... androids, consciousness extraction, space... travel?"

Fu Qi looked confused. "What is that?"

"..." Qin Zhen emphasized her words. "Human high... technology, you told me!"

"I told you?"

"You, said it!"

"Although humans have developed rapidly, we aren't currently capable of making things found only in science fiction movies," Fu Qi said. "If I told you that, it might have been because I’d been underground too long and was hallucinating, talking nonsense. You know, the human mind is very fragile."

After saying this with a straight face, he apologized sincerely: "I’m sorry for misleading you."

Qin Zhen: "..."

Her brain stalled again.

Fu Qi added gently, with a hint of apology, "Now that the cities have fallen, zombies are rampant, countless people are displaced, and tech products are completely broken. But don't worry, once order is restored, I will be the first to find you a new tomb and buy you a computer and internet access. Please wait a little longer, can you?"

Qin Zhen: "...C-can I?"

"You really are a generous and kind zombie," Fu Qi said, not sparing any praise. "Shall we go to the room below? I found some cosmetics there. They’re expired, but they can still be used to disguise you as a human so you won't have to worry about being recognized."

"...Okay..."

Qin Zhen followed Fu Qi down the rope to the room below.

Most of the rooms around the apartment building were single units. The room was chaotic, with bloodstains and signs of being ransacked, but the lock still worked, so safety wasn't an immediate concern.

In the midst of the apocalypse, all people cared about was food and water for survival. The cosmetics, just as Fu Qi said, were still scattered on the vanity.

Fu Qi told Qin Zhen to look at how to use the cosmetics while he, after eating some compressed biscuits, tore his pant leg to tend to his wounds—abrasions from bullets and bruises from the fight.

Only then did Qin Zhen realize that he hadn't been uninjured; he just hadn't shown it.

She held a bottle of cosmetics, studying the small print for a moment, then looking back at Fu Qi. After about half an hour of this, she set the items down, walked over to him, and pinned his hand—the one holding the gauze—to his lap.

Fu Qi raised his eyes and asked with a smile, "What, are you going to help me?"

Qin Zhen nodded. "I will help."

As she spoke, she leaned in to examine Fu Qi’s wound, then looked at him and said, "It hurts, don't move."

"Fine, I won't move," Fu Qi said.

Qin Zhen nodded with a serious expression. Then, she lowered her knee to pin down his uninjured leg, pressed one hand against his right arm, and balled her other hand into a fist, slamming it hard into Fu Qi’s face.

"YOU! BIG! LIAR!"