The man, Li Wu, was a middle manager at a biotechnology limited company before the apocalypse, earning a respectable salary in X City, a third-tier-and-beyond city.
He had a deeply beloved wife and a cute daughter, and his life was once happy and fulfilling.
When the apocalypse descended yesterday afternoon, Li Wu immediately sensed something was wrong.
After a full day of careful observation, he noticed that the zombies moved slowly, and confident in his physical fitness, he believed he could evade their attacks.
He also discovered that zombies primarily relied on sound to locate targets. This morning, he reconfirmed the distribution of zombies, tore off a quilt, and tightly wrapped his shoe soles with cotton cloth. He was confident that as long as he remained silent, he could largely avoid attacks. The food at home had not yet run out.
There were still dozens of pounds of rice, and drinking water was enough for a family of three to last a week.
His wife had also urged him to wait and hope for possible rescue.
But Li Wu knew that waiting for rescue was a slim hope.
This zombie virus was a nationwide outbreak; his clients were spread overseas, and other countries were also in deep trouble. Rescue was distant, so he had to act in advance!
Food and water were the top priorities at the moment; the later he collected them, the more difficult it would be—food would spoil, and survivors would also be fighting over it. Supplies would only become scarcer. As for medicine and other daily necessities, he needed a long-term plan.
Today's goal was the supermarket on the street, which had plenty of food and water, and crucially, guns! Zombies were terrifying, but sometimes human hearts were even more sinister than zombies. He wanted to protect his wife and daughter; in this apocalypse, a gun meant an extra layer of safety.
The day before yesterday, he witnessed the fierce battle between the SWAT team and the zombies.
A dozen fully armed SWAT officers were eventually surrounded and killed by hundreds of zombies. They had run out of bullets, but the zombies felt no pain, and attacking any part other than the head was useless!
Although the guns on the SWAT officers were out of ammunition, there might still be guns and ammunition in the overturned SWAT vehicle. He had to search quickly, or other survivors would beat him to it.
Therefore, after observing the zombie distribution in the early morning, Li Wu began his first supply search.
Fortunately, he found a Type 92 pistol (with 15 rounds) and 30 spare rounds in the SWAT vehicle, totaling 45 rounds. It was a fruitful harvest.
Holding the pistol, Li Wu's confidence surged. He felt that zombies were nothing special; as long as he made no sound, the threat was limited.
However, he soon realized he was wrong.
Zombies not only attacked targets that made noise, but approaching them within three to five meters would also draw attacks!
He dared not shoot; the loud gunshots would only attract a massive horde of zombies—the SWAT team yesterday was a cautionary tale.
Fortunately, zombies were extremely slow and easy to avoid.
Relying on this, Li Wu successfully collected a backpack full of food from the supermarket.
He had considered taking bottled water, but the backpack's capacity was limited, and water was heavy, affecting his speed. It would be better to collect it specifically next time. This smooth trip made him very confident—he planned to make several more trips after delivering the food home to quickly stockpile supplies—after all, they weren't the only survivors. Unfortunately, he ultimately failed…
“Hiss…”
The intense pain made Li Wu's body tremble. He had been bitten by three zombies!
The zombie that fell from upstairs initially only knocked him down, causing minor injury, but then it bit his left shoulder fiercely. The two zombies that subsequently surrounded him bit his legs.
A distance of three hundred meters, which usually took only two and a half minutes to walk.
At this moment, Li Wu's thighs had bowl-sized chunks of flesh torn off, exposing his stark white bones, and a piece of skin was missing from his left shoulder. Each crawl was accompanied by excruciating pain that nearly made him faint.
His face was ashen, and large beads of sweat rolled down his face. He wanted to stop and catch his breath, but he couldn't! Time was running out; he knew he was about to turn into a zombie.
According to his observations, being bitten by a zombie did not result in immediate mutation. There was about an hour's interval from being bitten to complete zombification. He had less than an hour left and had to deliver the food in his backpack to his wife and daughter, then get as far away from them as possible…
He was afraid that he would harm his loved ones after becoming a zombie. He had thought about shooting himself in the head to end it all—that way he wouldn't turn, but he only had 44 bullets left in total, and now he couldn't bear to use even one. Because one more bullet meant one more guarantee for his wife and daughter to survive in the future.
Recalling the bullet he used in the supermarket, Li Wu's heart trembled. The scene in the supermarket completely overturned his understanding, otherwise he would never have risked shooting, knowing that gunshots would attract more zombies.
His understanding of zombies was wrong, terribly wrong! He thought all zombies were uniformly gray-skinned and slow-moving, but he hadn't expected such terrifying existences.
It took Li Wu a full fifteen minutes to painstakingly crawl downstairs.
Along the way, countless images flashed through his mind: his wife's youthful appearance in college, her flustered surprise during his proposal,
her radiant smile of happiness when they registered their marriage,
her weak but content smile on the delivery bed when their child was born,
the cute little face of their child when she first sweetly called out “Papa,” and countless ordinary but warm family moments.
It was these images that supported him as he crawled this far…
He saw his tear-streaked wife, one hand tightly covering their child's mouth to prevent her from making a sound, the other arm firmly holding the child, her silent sobs revealing the suppressed fear of not letting their daughter make a sound.
Li Wu watched his daughter try to pull away the small hand covering her mouth. He knew the child wanted to call out “Papa,” and he—how he wished to hear it one last time! But he could only shake his head vigorously, his eyes filled with guilt and reluctance.
With his blood-stained hands, he trembled as he propped himself up, his gaze fixed on the faces of his wife and daughter, wanting to engrave these two faces deep into his mind. Even if he became a zombie, he wanted to retain this last memory.
He laboriously took off the bulging backpack on his back, put his left hand to his lips and made a “shush” gesture to his wife and daughter, and with his right hand, he tremblingly made a winding motion towards the backpack. He believed his intelligent wife would understand.
While his wife turned to go back into the house to get a rope, Li Wu tore open his dust and blood-stained white shirt, dipped his finger in the blood from his shoulder, and rapidly wrote on the cloth.
He wanted to leave his last words to his wife and daughter. Every stroke was imbued with endless attachment and reluctance, each word precious and unforgettable. He knew this was all he could do for them.
After writing, he gently placed the shirt beside the backpack, a hint of determination flashing in his eyes.
A long climbing rope was lowered. Li Wu laboriously tied it to the backpack's shoulder strap, then stuffed the pistol and bullets into the left side pocket of the backpack.
He carefully folded the white shirt containing his last words, deliberately showed it to his wife, signaling her to pay attention. Seeing his wife nod through teary eyes, Li Wu then tucked the white shirt into the right pocket of the backpack and made an upward gesture with his palm facing up.
The backpack was slowly hoisted up to the fourth floor. Li Wu's gaze followed it closely until it disappeared inside the window, then he let out a long sigh of relief.
His pale face turned to his wife and daughter, and he broke into a wide smile—weak yet warm, as if pouring out all his love.
Zuo Feng, on the floor above, watched below, clearly seeing a pair of fair hands and a small, tender hand waving vigorously on the fourth floor.
He confirmed that this was a family of three, and the man had gone out to find food.
The previous wave of the hand meant “Don't come over!”
He also understood why the man, attacked by zombies, was lying on his back. A normal person would instinctively curl up to protect themselves when attacked, but the man's supine position was only to shield the backpack behind him.
Zuo Feng had never seen such a smile—radiant, reluctant, doting, helpless, comforting… a myriad of emotions intertwined within it.
The man wanted to speak, but ultimately made no sound.
He had been bitten and was no longer afraid of zombies. Crawling all the way, occasional sounds no longer attracted attacks; the wandering zombies seemed to have already regarded him as one of their own.
He knew he was beyond saving, but he feared that any sound would attract zombies that could threaten his wife and daughter. In the end, all words turned into a smile.
Perhaps he wanted to hear his wife call him “husband” one more time, wanted to hear his child call him “Papa” one more time, perhaps he wanted to comfort them, to say “I love you” one more time…
Then, the man laboriously propped himself up with both hands, turned his back, paused, and finally raised his left hand to wave behind him.
Enduring the intense pain, he struggled to crawl into the distance.
Time was running out. He had to try his best to get away from his wife and daughter until his last ounce of strength was gone. He didn't want to become a zombie and threaten their safety.
Leaving with all his might was the last thing he could do for them…
With every crawl, the bloodstain behind him extended, as if he was drawing a protective boundary with his life.
The figures of his wife and daughter gradually blurred. He knew that the further he went, the more secure they would be.
The blood-stained trail was like his silent vow, tenacious and tragic.
The wave of his hand as he turned his back was not a goodbye, but a never to be seen again…
“This is the apocalypse!”
A backpack full of food took away a woman's deeply beloved husband, a child's deeply beloved father.
In the apocalypse, humanity, stripped of order, doesn't always show only darkness; there is also such great brilliance.
But how long can a backpack of food last?
Five days? A week? Once supplies run out, it will be the child's mother who must go out to search, those fair hands—delicate, smooth, clearly once pampered; in this apocalypse, with a child, how will they survive?
A soft sigh, and the grinding sound on the balcony resumed…
The June sky darkened slowly. It wasn't until seven in the evening that the last glow of the sunset clouds was completely swallowed by darkness.
The once brightly lit residential area, all floors, was utterly silent.
“The power is completely out…” Zuo Feng looked around. Although X City was a third-tier city, it used to have neon lights flashing at night. Now, only patches of darkness remained, with only the solar streetlights illuminating the messy, silent roads.
“Da Bai Tu, wait for me!”
Holding his homemade weapon, Zuo Feng took a deep breath, his eyes firm.
“Rest, get enough sleep. Tomorrow, we start collecting supplies.”
He murmured softly, although he was eager to find Da Bai Tu, who had turned into a zombie.
But he understood that the immediate priority was to ensure sufficient supplies; only with adequate rest could he survive in the apocalypse.
Additionally, he had to completely clear all zombies in this building to ensure the base was safe and secure before he could embark on his search without distraction.
Zuo Feng closed his eyes, lying on the bed, tired but determined. Da Bai Tu's smiling face kept replaying in his mind. He knew that no matter how cruel the apocalypse was, that persistence would be his strength to move forward.
Late at night, the wind outside the window whimpered, as if narrating the desolation of the apocalypse, but Zuo Feng's heart remained as resilient as ever due to that unextinguished warmth. As the wind gradually subsided, his breathing deepened, and in his dream, Da Bai Tu still smiled charmingly….