Published: February 6, 2025
“Still a two-in-one, thanks to Lingnan’s 588, thank you for the support from friends like Cold Autumn, Angel, Night West Rabbit, and many others.”
Chen Jinhong looked at a small supermarket with its door wide open, thirty meters away, and couldn’t help but lick his cracked lips.
His gaze scanned the surroundings; within sight were several skeletal remains draped in cloth, and occasionally, a shadow of a zombie staggered by in the distance.
Further away stood a seven-story residential building; a large hole had been shattered in a floor-to-ceiling window on the top floor, and a climbing rope hung down from it, tied to a person who swung back and forth in the wind, occasionally slamming against an air conditioning unit with a thud.
Below, zombies occasionally tilted their heads, searching for the source of sounds, their hollow nostrils straining to sniff out any chance of food.
There were some noises coming from the small supermarket, indicating danger. Even though this was just a small county town next to Ying City, it still had a permanent population of tens of thousands, and a decent county hospital.
Thinking about this, Chen Jinhong felt a bit wronged; if he hadn’t come to this hospital to give a lecture to the medical staff, he wouldn’t be stuck here now.
Recalling his family in Ying City, he became pessimistic. The problem of survival before him was substantial, and if he couldn’t find anything to eat or drink soon, based on his professional judgment as a doctor, he wouldn’t survive more than three days.
His body was already very weak.
Chen Jinhong decided he had to go in. He would run out of stamina by tomorrow, and at that point, his chances of finding food would be even slimmer.
Crouching low, the youngest general surgery professor in Ying City rushed into the supermarket.
The room was dimly lit, exuding a faint odor familiar to apocalypse survivors, the smell of rotting corpses.
Chen Jinhong glanced around and didn’t spot any immediate danger. The noise from earlier had ceased, and he couldn’t afford to think of anything else because, just two meters away from him on a shelf, several boxes of biscuits lay waiting, still recognizable despite the dust covering them.
He lunged forward, as those biscuits represented his lifeline.
“Hey, another one ready to bite the bait.”
A large hand suddenly grabbed the back of Chen Jinhong’s neck, yanking him away from the shelf with immense force. At that moment, his fingertips were just a few centimeters away from those boxes of biscuits.
With a thud, Chen Jinhong was thrown to the ground. The combination of hunger and the force of the toss made his head spin for a few seconds. When the world stopped spinning, he felt a hand rummaging over his body.
“Damn it, not a single magic crystal?”
At that moment, Chen Jinhong clearly saw that the person who had knocked him down was a burly man nearly two meters tall, with a bearded face and a foul odor emanating from him.
Seeing Chen Jinhong looking at him, the big man slapped him hard across the face, the sound echoing in the small supermarket.
“Poor bastard, not even one? How the hell have you survived until now?”
Chen Jinhong felt his face swell rapidly; his vision on that side was affected.
He curled up, cradling his head. He had nothing of value; while he had received magic crystals in the past, he had traded them for food with a caravan, and the people from that caravan had been quite decent. He had even treated their wounds and received an extra bottle of water in return.
Now, he had nothing worth coveting on him, and in situations like this, it was inevitable to get beaten up.
But after waiting for two seconds, he didn’t feel the expected hard fist. Through the gaps between his arms and head, he caught a glimpse of a shadow suddenly swinging down a stick.
His body slammed toward the big man’s position, and after the stick hit the ground, the man was also knocked aside. Chen Jinhong, gritting his teeth against the pain, pushed himself up with one hand while the other hand slashed across the big man's neck.