January 22nd.She rose early that morning.Ling Yechen had already begun to dread a moment that might soon arrive: the food would run out, her stomach would rumble, and as she habitually searched for sustenance, she would find herself frantically gathering cookie crumbs.Then, spotting a cockroach in the corner, its antennae gently swaying, she would swallow hard, forced to confront the grim reality that her diet might need to expand.
Rumor had it that Jing Lan and Keke knew how to prepare a local delicacy: ‘fried flower spiders.’Perhaps cockroaches could also be fried…
‘No, absolutely not!’
Just as the lower parts of the body must not be violated, the upper entrance should not be defiled by disgusting things.
Thus, she had to swiftly devise a plan to acquire food.Across the street, downstairs, lay a small convenience store.However, owing to a nearby pedestrian street that once bustled with people, the area was now swarming with zombies, who occasionally circled the building below.Ling Yechen intently observed the street, noticing a peculiar logic to the zombies’ movements.They neither scurried ceaselessly like particles in Brownian motion, nor did they exhibit much regularity.She attempted to record their appearances and tally the frequency of each zombie’s patrols.Just as she identified one zombie that seemed to complete a circuit every twenty minutes, it abruptly began to loiter downstairs, pacing for half an hour before jogging away and vanishing around a street corner, never to reappear.
Ling Yechen hurled the gel pen in her hand into the corner of the wall.
‘Should I just rush downstairs and storm the convenience store?’
‘That’s an absolute last resort, something to be done only when starvation is imminent.’
‘But by then, would I even have the strength to run, or to carry supplies?’
Unsure if the previous night’s reading and introspection had altered her mindset, Ling Yechen steeled her resolve, deciding to immediately plan for resource acquisition.
‘What is there to fear? I’ll just go, and see what happens!’
She began by searching You Bing’s room for anything useful.Perhaps books could be fashioned into arm guards or neck protection, a kind of gear she mentally dubbed ‘Knowledge is Power.’Alas, You Bing, that scoundrel, was no reader.His entire room contained no other reading material apart from a slim volume of *The Stars’ Moment*, a copy of *Men’s Health* (which was, in fact, a men’s clinic promotional magazine disguised as a periodical), and an issue of *Men’s Uno*.
Ling Yechen couldn’t resist flipping through *Men’s Uno*, inadvertently wasting another half-hour.
It wasn’t entirely a waste, however, as it featured a column on how men should care for their girlfriends.Ling Yechen mused that reading such articles might teach her how to be a better girl herself.
After finishing, she meticulously reviewed how much she had learned.
Then, with a sudden slap to her forehead, she thought, ‘What the hell am I learning this for?’
These flimsy magazines were utterly useless.As for melee weapons, she discovered a claw hammer beneath a small table, likely purchased for cracking nuts.
The hammer was considerably sized, and with sufficient arm strength, smashing a zombie’s head would pose no issue.
The problem, however, lay in her own slender arms; lifting the iron hammer felt somewhat—
Suddenly, a thought struck her.Ling Yechen gripped the iron hammer, slowly raising it to her chest.
‘My strength doesn’t seem to be insignificant after all.’
This was rather peculiar, as the hammer felt no heavier in her hand than a tool of similar size had felt when she was still a boy.
Lowering the hammer, she examined her arm.Her hand was indeed slender, like a peeled sugarcane stalk, yet the muscles, though not inherently bulky, seemed to harden considerably when she exerted force.
This, then, explained some of the lingering doubts from her counter-attack against You Bing the other day: despite being a seemingly frail girl, the force behind her blade had been considerable.
Another puzzle was how she had managed to execute such precise movements in so little time.
‘Like Mikasa from *Attack on Titan*, suddenly awakening combat skills?’
‘Or had this body, perhaps, already trained in these arts?’
‘Combat techniques, coupled with just the right amount of high-quality muscle.’
Muscle memory is, to some extent, separate from the brain; it was said that even highly skilled martial artists could swiftly retaliate if ambushed by an acquaintance, relying on movements almost etched into their muscles.
Ling Yechen retrieved a coat rack, using it as a dummy to practice a few moves.She found, however, that she couldn’t awaken any profound martial arts secrets.The few combat techniques she did know were merely those Jing Lan and Keke had taught her, showing no new improvements, and her execution might even be incorrect.
‘Given this, was the success of her rapid actions when killing You Bing largely due to sheer luck?’
Dwelling on these thoughts yielded no answers.Ling Yechen retrieved the iron hammer, then rummaged through You Bing’s wardrobe, pulling out a pile of clothes.After cutting them with her knife, she painstakingly recalled the rudimentary sewing skills she’d learned in elementary school craft class, and stitched the fabric together into something resembling a straw cape.
Though the fabric was soft, zombie teeth were, after all, still human teeth—short and not particularly sharp.Layered cloth should offer some degree of resistance.
‘Alright, this will do…’
Donning this makeshift ‘armor,’ gripping the iron hammer firmly, and with a small bottle of water and a mini flashlight tucked into her bag, the girl opened the door to her room.
It was noon.Descending to the ground floor of the apartment building, she unlocked the iron door, then cautiously peered out, scouting left and right, and found nothing amiss.
The weather was pleasant, with the midday sun shining brightly, and a faint shimmer of heat haze rising from the relatively new asphalt road.
Stepping out, she pulled the iron door shut, and without a moment’s hesitation, sprinted across the street towards the grocery store.
The grocery store had a wide entrance, allowing her a clear view between the shelves.Seeing no zombies, Ling Yechen immediately pulled out a plastic bag, ready for her ‘zero-dollar shopping spree.’
It appeared the recent biohazard outbreak had been so sudden and fierce that few others had managed to embark on their own looting expeditions.As expected, the convenience store had already been ransacked, yet a good number of items remained.Though mostly unhealthy snacks like potato chips and spicy strips, their abundance, combined with their high oil and calorie content, made them perfectly suitable for sustaining life.
Gazing at the local specialty potato chips in their simple packaging, Ling Yechen’s deep blue pupils suddenly trembled, and her throat tightened.
Tearing open the bag, she grabbed a large handful and ravenously stuffed them into her mouth.
‘So good!’
The girl’s long-suppressed hunger erupted instantly, as she devoured the savory fried snacks with near-frenzied abandon.Then, snatching a sparkling water from a nearby shelf, she gulped it down, her entire body seemingly emitting sounds of pure pleasure.
The noisy crunching of potato chips prevented Ling Yechen from hearing the figure gradually approaching the convenience store entrance.
A short, stout man, holding a crossbow, slowly and quietly stalked towards the convenience store.
His crossbow’s sight was already aimed at Ling Yechen, who continued to feast happily, occasionally emitting cheerful ‘mm-mm’ sounds.
Even a homemade wooden crossbow, at this range, could fire an iron-tipped bolt with enough force to pierce a human neck.
Indeed, this was precisely what the crossbowman had intended from the outset.He had once been an ordinary citizen, having bought the crossbow merely for hunting wild rabbits and birds in the wilderness.However, whatever had transpired over the past few days had transformed him, or perhaps he had read *The Three-Body Problem: The Dark Forest*, and had applied cosmic sociology prematurely, adopting the belief of ‘If I don’t kill you, you will kill me.’
But the moment his eyes fell upon the white-haired girl’s delicate, lovely face, and the satisfied, innocent expression she wore while ravenously devouring her food, his taut finger remained frozen.