Published: February 5, 2025
The strong began to dominate.
Because they could resist zombies, because they could find food, because they could... suppress resistance.
Meanwhile, the weak and powerless gradually sank to the bottom.
In the precision instrument factory, in the past, apart from a few leaders dispatched from above, those with superior intellect, education, and skills were at the top of the pyramid, receiving high salaries, enjoying good treatment, and being admired and noticed by others.
These individuals excelled in technology and intelligence but were frail and weak. After the apocalypse began, some turned into zombies, while others survived only by luck, but they were so weak that they couldn’t even kill a zombie. Just going outside to find food made them pant and weaken after running a few dozen meters.
On the other hand, those who used to do manual labor, ordinary workers without much technical skill, were able to find food with their strong bodies. They could even occasionally kill a lone zombie to obtain crystals that supposedly could turn the mysterious wheel.
As long as they turned the wheel to a specific potion, they could become evolvers!
Thus, those once high on their pedestals fell from grace, replaced by the ordinary people who had once been trampled underfoot, now holding far more power than before.
The rights to food, water, cigarettes, alcohol, various supplies, and even women were prioritized and claimed exclusively!
For such a sudden change, Le Da Yuan, like many other technicians, struggled to adapt.
But it didn't matter, because in peaceful times, the upper management would still listen to the opinions of those below, giving at least the appearance of consideration. But now, what consideration, what listening, was all nonsense; if you didn’t obey, you could get lost, and if you angered someone, you could face a beating, or worse, disability or death!
Sometimes Le Da Yuan felt like he had returned to a period — the era of slavery.
But no matter how he felt, it was irrelevant; what mattered was that others adapted to this world, while he could not.
From the end of the corridor came bursts of loud laughter. Amidst the stench of excrement and urine, Le Da Yuan could also smell the aroma of vacuum-sealed smoked chicken, stirring the acid in his already burning stomach and even causing some pain.
But he didn't dare to raise his head because he was afraid to see his wife through the open door.
On the fifth day after the apocalypse began, the woman who had been married to Le Da Yuan for over ten years, who often nagged him but always washed his clothes and cooked for him, finally succumbed to the tortures of hunger and thirst. She fell into the arms of a former dockworker from the factory. When Le Da Yuan learned the news and rushed into the darkest room he had ever seen, he found his wife leaning over a table, shoving flatbread into her mouth, with one hand clutching half a sausage and a bottle of water, while that man was vigorously thrusting behind her...
That was the first time Le Da Yuan fought with someone, and also the first time he felt something called courage.
In the end, not only did he fail to prevent anything, but he was also beaten until his head was bloodied, collapsing to the ground and watching his own woman under someone else...
At that moment, Le Da Yuan felt like he had died.
Yet, physical death proved to be far more difficult than Le Da Yuan imagined. He stood at the window, looking at the zombies wandering dozens of meters below, and his determination shattered like bubbles in the air.
Perhaps waiting to die in the dirtiest corner was the best outcome; at least this process wouldn’t be so intense, nor so painful.
Le Da Yuan gazed at the tips of his shoes through the gaps between his knees, lost in thought.
Suddenly, footsteps approached, and several people reached the end of the corridor before the crowd that could only sleep on the cold ground.
“Hello, all you technicians and seniors,” the speaker chuckled; only a fool would think he was genuinely greeting them.