Chapter 5
10.02 p.m. Two days after the apocalypse.
Murong Jiao ran away in the middle of the night. Seeing a zombie, she would hide and hold her breath, waiting patiently for the zombie to leave before continuing to escape. From this game of hide and seek she played with zombies, she found out that zombies were blind. They use their sense of hearing and nose to find humans.
Therefore, she just needs to hold her breath before zombies lose her. Even though she knew this, she was forced to fight zombies several times. The reason is simple. Her lungs capacity is very bad, and she cannot hold her breath for more than twenty seconds.
Bam!
The baseball bat in Murong Jiao’s hand swung vigorously at the head of the zombie running towards her. The zombie’s head exploded directly, and the blood and the remaining brain of the zombie’s head splashed everywhere. She looked at the mess on the ground and almost vomited for the N-th time.
She covered her mouth to resist the urge to vomit, and quickly fled the scene of the crime. While running with a clear objective, she looked at the watch on her left wrist, and the time was already 2:10 in the morning. There’s not much left until sunrise.
Not daring to slow down, she ran until she felt like her lungs were about to explode like the heads of those zombies. Panting heavily, after another two hours, she finally arrived at the school gate. Now the sky is bright and her watch reads 4:18 a.m.
Murong Jiao hid behind the bushes and observed her surroundings. From the bloody battle in the dormitory to the gate of the university, she has learned her lesson. Observe your surroundings before acting. Otherwise, zombies will warmly welcome you with open mouths.
After waiting for another five minutes, she didn’t see any zombies or humans. Holding the baseball bat tightly, she took a deep breath and ran to the gate as fast as she could. Fortunately, the gate of the university is slightly ajar. Just enough for her to squeeze through that gap. Without hesitation, she quickly used all her strength to get through the gap.
“Ugh!”
Sweat and dirt covered her body and face as she clenched her jaw and gave one last push.
Plop!
When she finally managed to get through the gate, she fell to the ground. “Ow…”
Rubbing her bottom, she stood up quickly, picked up her backpack and baseball bat, and looked around. With her spirit courtyard, she can now collect supplies as much as she wants. If she remembers correctly, there is a wholesale market street not far from the university. She used to go there sometimes to buy boxes of snacks at a time.
She took out her mobile phone, opened the map application, and marked the location of the wholesale market. She was lucky that the connection and the internet still worked. She doesn’t know how long the internet will last, so she has to find a map before then.
Locking the location of the wholesale market on the phone screen, Murong Jiao took a deep breath and started the long marathon track again. Just half an hour after she left the university gate, a group of college students also came out of the university.
Standing in front of the gate, Baili Jun looked at the map on his mobile phone and said: “Not far from here, there is a small gathering place. It is three kilometers away from here, and it is managed by soldiers. If we walk fast, we can get there before noon.”
The others nodded, and they headed in the opposite direction to Murong Jiao. Before leaving, Baili Jun turned around and looked in the opposite direction until Lan Xingchen called him. Murong Jiao didn’t know that there were seven small gathering points managed by soldiers around the city, and she went further and further away.
During the two days she stayed in the spirit courtyard, the government had sent a large number of soldiers to rescue the civilians around the country. And to join the rescue team, one had to gather in these small gathering points and wait for the soldiers to arrive. Missing this time, she doesn’t know how difficult her future will be.
Running, hiding, and fighting zombies along the way, the twenty minute journey turned into a three hours journey. When the sun is out, the temperature rises very fast. Murong Jiao glanced at her watch, it was only 7:32 a.m, but she felt that the temperature was already over 30 degrees.
Out of curiosity, she took out her mobile phone and looked at the weather app. As she expected, the temperature displayed on the phone screen was 34 degrees Celsius. She wiped her sweat with her sleeve, took out a water bottle from her backpack, and took a few sips of water. Feeling better, she closed the lid and put the water bottle back in her backpack.
Looking at the map on her phone again, she stood up and continued to run in the direction of the wholesale market street. If she wants to get more supplies, she has to get there faster than anyone else. Also, she doesn’t think the temperature is right. To avoid dying of heat stroke, she had to speed up and find a place to hide from the sun.
Two hours later, she finally arrived at the wholesale market street. The time is already displayed as 9:24 a.m. There’s not much time left until noon. The wholesale market is not a single supermarket, but a long street with countless large chain stores selling everything from daily necessities to expensive cars.
She looked around and saw no one except a few zombies wandering around on the street. She didn’t know why no one came to pick up the supplies, but she was secretly happy.
What she doesn’t know is that all the survivors in the surroundings have gone to the gathering places around the city. It is the soldiers who collect the materials, and they don’t need to collect too many materials for the time being. As a result, she encountered a situation where countless materials were left untouched.
Looking at the supplies in front of her, she couldn’t help but feel excited, and all the strength in her body came out of thin air. With her backpack and baseball bat on her back, she headed for the first building on wholesale market street. Although she was running and panting, she still had a smile on her dirty face.
When she smashed the lock with a stone and pushed open the door of the first building, she saw exactly the same scene as what she saw in the spirit courtyard warehouse. Numerous rows of shelves are neatly arranged and filled with supplies. Suppressing her excitement, she quickly ran to the first shelf, and put it directly in the open space of the spirit courtyard behind the warehouse building.
She didn’t care what she got, as she was running around the building taking everything into her spirit courtyard. As she runs like a sprinter, every shelf her finger touches disappears in an instant. Ten minutes later, she bent over and panted heavily, looking at the empty spacious room with a smile.
“At my speed, if I don’t take much rest, I can collect everything in this long street in two days.”
Sweat dripped from her chin to the floor, and she clenched her hands to cheer herself up.
‘I can do it! For my stable future!’
After cheering herself a few times, she continued to plunder everything. Two days later, her whole body was drenched in sweat and dirt, as she collapsed on the floor of the last warehouse with a pale face. She closed her eyes and looked at her spirit courtyard, while a bright smile appeared on the corners of her lips. With the supplies she gathered in the past two days, she can live a few lifetimes in peace.
“Uh…”
Unable to hold on anymore, she touched the pale green leaf marks on her left chest, and entered the spirit courtyard, then fell to the ground weakly. When she felt the soft ground under her body, she relaxed her mind and passed out.
Forty minutes after Murong Jiao returned to her spirit courtyard, two teams of soldiers drove four military vehicles to the wholesale market street. As they stopped in front of the first warehouse building, the captain saw that the lock was broken. He signals to the others and they form several small squads and start moving towards different buildings at the same time.
A few minutes later, the captain was standing in the middle of an empty building. When he looked up, every floor of the building was as empty as the ground floor. Not sure what happened, he came out of the building and waited for other squads.
Twenty minutes later, all teams received the same report. Every building on this wholesale market street is empty. The captain didn’t believe what his teammates said, and went to another building one by one. He saw the last building was empty and he stood there in silence.
“Captain, what should we do? We need to get supplies today.” One of his teammates asked.
The captain opened the map of J City calmly and began to study it carefully. In addition to this wholesale market street, there are several places to collect supplies. It’s just that the risk is higher, and the supplies are not as abundant as here. The variety is also limited.
After carefully weighing the pros and cons, the captain decided to go to a nearby supermarket. Although it is not big, if carefully rationed, it is enough for them to supply the citizens for a week. After determining where the next target was, the captain gave an order, and the soldiers left the wholesale market street in just a few minutes.