Ch 96: Opening a Survival School Before the Zombie Outbreak

After calling several times, Zhao Liang finally picked up, though the signal kept cutting in and out.

Every couple of words, the image froze.

From the background, it was clear he was in a dim basement with no windows.

“What’s going on over there?” Zhao Ya asked, quickly scanning him. Seeing that he looked unharmed and not covered in blood, half her worry eased.

Calculating the time difference, it should already be the middle of the night where Zhao Liang was.

The basement contained a washing machine and dryer, a shelving unit stacked with toolboxes, and a mountain bike that took up most of the space. Zhao Liang crouched in a corner, repeatedly glancing warily offscreen.

At her question, he shook his head in near collapse. “I don’t know. On my way home tonight, I suddenly heard gunshots. A bunch of people covered in blood were running around everywhere. A few even followed me back to my house. I locked them outside.”

Unfortunately, Zhao Liang lived in a detached house with a yard. Laws against trespassing meant nothing to zombies.

At first, he had assumed it was just drunk young people or someone high on something, which wasn’t uncommon where he lived.

That belief shattered when he saw his neighbor shouting and firing a gun. One shot blasted apart the lower leg of someone who had broken into the house. At close range, a rifle’s power was terrifying. Half of the man’s calf was blown away, flesh torn open, bone protruding through the skin.

Zhao Liang had never witnessed anything like it. Terrified, he hid behind some bushes, only to see something even more horrifying.

The intruder, missing half a leg, continued crawling forward as if nothing had happened, stubbornly dragging himself toward the neighbor.

After repeated warnings failed, the neighbor kept firing. Only when the fourth shot pierced the man’s head did he finally stop moving.

Every bullet before that had merely slowed the intruder but never stopped his advance.

He was like a machine without pain, fearless and relentless, driven by a single purpose: to attack the person in front of him.

What kind of drug could cause something like that?

Zhao Liang fled back into his own house in sheer panic. Locking the front door wasn’t enough. He hid in the basement storage room and locked that door too before finally feeling a bit safer.

Even now, through the door, he could hear loud banging against the large floor-to-ceiling window connecting the living room to the outside. Whoever was out there kept striking it relentlessly. The sound alone was enough to make his heart race. At this rate, the glass wouldn’t last long.

Zhao Liang did have a firearm license and owned a gun, but aside from visiting a shooting range two or three times, he had never actually fired it in real danger. Now he clutched the gun with trembling hands as he described everything to his sister and mother, none of his usual arrogance remaining.

Zhao Ya sighed inwardly, guessing he still didn’t know the same monsters had appeared worldwide. She briefly explained the situation back home.

Zhao Liang listened in stunned silence. The shock only deepened his fear.

Experiencing a zombie apocalypse in Country A felt completely different from being in China. Back home, people lived close together. In an emergency, neighbors could at least help one another. But alone in his detached house, he felt stranded on an isolated island, completely cut off.

Zhao Ya could still hope for government rescue.

As for Zhao Liang…

He felt that hope was unrealistic.

Looking down at the handgun in his arms, he gritted his teeth.

“If they really break in,” he said, “I’ll shoot.”

After all, this counted as self-defense. Once he overcame the psychological barrier, a gun was ten thousand times more effective than a knife.

But Zhao Ya remembered some of the creatures she had seen on the way, ones noticeably faster than the others, and she felt uneasy.

With that kind of speed, once they closed the distance, someone inexperienced with firearms might not be able to land a hit.

She had also seen online that injuries to the limbs didn’t seem to reduce the creatures’ aggression. If Zhao Liang failed to kill one with a single shot, he might end up in even greater danger.

One side only needed a single bite to infect someone, while the other had just one vulnerable point on the entire body. It was completely unfair.

Zhao Ya warned Zhao Liang not to act recklessly. Then, glancing at the shelves behind him, she hesitated before asking, “By the way… do you have any food there?”

Zhao Liang suddenly stiffened.

He had only recently declared that canned food was unhealthy, so naturally he had none at home.

There were some fresh fruits, vegetables, and beef in the refrigerator, but those wouldn’t last long.

Since he was devoted to fitness and body sculpting, he didn’t eat snacks either. Living alone meant his food reserves were pitifully small.

Cold sweat slid down Zhao Liang’s back.

He hurriedly turned to rummage through the shelves. After a long search, he finally found a box of energy bars.

They were high in protein, excellent emergency supplies for replenishing calories. Translated on Hololo novels. There were dozens in the box. If rationed carefully, they could last quite a while.

But they contained very little dietary fiber or vitamins. Living on energy bars alone would inevitably lead to nutritional imbalance.

Most importantly…

They didn’t taste good.

At least, Zhao Liang didn’t think so.

Imagining himself surviving the next ten or more days on nothing but those bars made his expression darken instantly.

He began wondering whether he could go outside to find food.

But although Country A had vast land and a sparse population, public transportation was underdeveloped. People relied heavily on cars, which meant major roads easily became congested. If he got stuck in traffic, he would be finished.

Traveling late at night might avoid traffic, but honestly, even on normal days Zhao Liang wouldn’t dare go out alone at night.

Even without monsters, there were long stretches of unlit roads in the suburbs, homeless people wandering neighborhoods, drug-addled teenagers, gangs, and dealers. Any of those were frightening enough.

The possibility of going out to search for food was essentially eliminated.

Zhao Ya could tell what he was thinking and comforted him. “Focus on surviving first. Watch how things develop. At least you still have food. Oh, and remember to store water.”

Zhao Liang usually drank bottled water anyway, and he had several cases. He nodded. His expression still looked grim, but at least he had the presence of mind to ask about them.

“What about you? Do you have enough food?” The moment he finished speaking, something occurred to him, and his expression turned strange.

Sure enough, Zhao Ya on the other end let out an awkward “uh,” while Grandma Zhang took the phone and once again showed off the household’s supplies.

At the end she added cheerfully, “Don’t worry! We’re doing great. Just take care of yourself.”

Zhao Liang’s mouth slowly fell open wider and wider.

Was this supposed to reassure him?

It felt more like emotional damage.

Not only that, it was a slap in the face.

The supplies his mother had stocked, which he had recently mocked both openly and indirectly, had now transformed into the best survival guarantee possible.

They might not be living luxuriously, but if they were truly trapped, Grandma Zhang’s household would unquestionably fare better than most people.

Besides staple foods and canned fruit and luncheon meat, they even had bean sprouts, along with chives and scallions Grandma Zhang grew on the balcony. Their seasonings were fully stocked as well.

Zhao Liang technically had condiments too, but his cooking skills were mediocre. Having adapted to local habits and frequently eating out, most meals he cooked were simple, minimal “white-people meals.”

Which made things awkward.

His mother and sister could mix bean sprouts and luncheon meat with Lao Gan Ma chili sauce or mushroom beef sauce and turn it into a full meal. Switching sauces meant a completely different flavor.

What was he supposed to do?

Dip energy bars in peanut butter, salad dressing, and ketchup?

“….”

Zhao Liang fell silent.

Seeing those familiar items again through the screen, things he had once dismissed, left him dazed.

He remembered Grandma Zhang’s delighted expression when she had shown him the pile of online purchases, saying she could never have carried so much back from the supermarket herself and was grateful Xiaoshuang had helped.

…Putting everything else aside, if Song Rushuang hadn’t helped stock those supplies, if his sister hadn’t happened to visit their mother, how would she, living alone, have survived this apocalypse?

Thinking back to the things he had said before, Zhao Liang felt as if those words were slapping him across the face, burning with shame.

The regret came late, but it hit hard.

Thank goodness Xiaoshuang had helped. Thank goodness for Xiaoshuang.

In the cramped, dim basement, the only light came from the glow of the phone screen.

Holding the box of energy bars in his arms, Zhao Liang felt, for the first time since moving abroad, a quiet longing for home.

₊˚.🎧📓✩

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