By the time the rescue team entered the city, Mo Chu was in the middle of peeling a sausage for Xiao Jin. The dog sat obediently on the floor, tail swishing softly as he waited for his treat.
The first thing she heard was the distant thrum of helicopter blades.
The sound grew closer and closer until it seemed to hover directly above them. Then came the synchronized, heavy footsteps of soldiers marching into the city streets, shattering the silence of dawn.
Mo Chu’s eyes lit up.
Without even finishing peeling the sausage, she tossed it toward Xiao Jin. The dog leaped into the air and caught it neatly in his mouth.
Thinking it was some kind of game, Xiao Jin proudly turned around with the sausage clenched between his teeth, only to discover that Mo Chu had already unfolded the ladder and was climbing upward at full speed.
He tilted his head in confusion.
Mo Chu climbed to the top of the ladder, pushed open the highest warehouse window, and leaned out to look.
A perfectly ordered line of soldiers was advancing from the far end of the street.
Leading them was a heavy tank. Behind it marched roughly a platoon of troops.
Mo Chu knew this platoon was responsible for their district alone. Countless more soldiers had already spread into other neighborhoods across the city.
Today, none of the survivors in this city would ever forget the sight of them.
When disaster struck, the military hadn’t escaped unscathed either. Even in her previous life, Mo Chu never learned how many soldiers had died in those first desperate rescue operations.
And yet, after everything—
they were still the first to reach out a hand to the people.
Every soldier she could see was fully armed, weapons in hand, tense and ready for combat. Guns that would become priceless treasures in the future were now standard issue in their grasp.
Mo Chu wasn’t the only one staring at them with burning hope.
The moment the troops entered the district, the entire street seemed to come alive. Behind every window that still held survivors, a pair of eyes watched them intently—some excited, some tearful.
Those were the eyes of people looking at hope itself.
The soldiers’ first priority wasn’t searching buildings for survivors.
It was clearing the streets of zombies.
Only once the area was secured could they safely evacuate civilians.
Against the current first-stage zombies, an entire platoon of heavily armed soldiers was overwhelming force incarnate. At this point in time, firearms still possessed terrifying deterrent power, and with a tank leading the way, the soldiers advanced almost unhindered.
Where they passed, only mangled zombie corpses remained beneath the tank treads.
First-stage zombies had low intelligence, but they still retained animal instinct. Once they realized they couldn’t overpower a group, they would retreat in packs.
Avoiding danger was instinct.
The moment the soldiers demonstrated overwhelming firepower, the zombies that had been wandering the streets hunting for food scattered and fled in groups. No one knew where they retreated to, but the soldiers didn’t pursue.
Instead, they systematically entered the buildings lining the street and escorted the trapped survivors outside.
Under Mo Chu’s watch, more and more people emerged.
Some followed the evacuation instructions exactly—traveling light, carrying only a backpack.
Others acted like they were moving houses.
They dragged enormous bags stuffed with possessions behind them, unwilling to leave anything behind. One man even hauled four suitcases downstairs.
Mo Chu nearly laughed from sheer disbelief.
Naturally, the soldiers refused to let survivors carry that much.
Forget whether they could manage it—if danger appeared, all that luggage would become dead weight.
Under military orders, some people obediently discarded the extra baggage. Others grumbled bitterly but still complied out of fear.
And then there were the ones who still behaved as though the apocalypse had never happened, throwing tantrums and making scenes.
Before the end of the world, the soldiers might have patiently reasoned with them.
Now?
With death hanging over everyone’s heads, no one had the patience left.
Mo Chu watched a soldier firmly confiscate an elderly woman’s overstuffed cloth bag, only for the old lady to grab onto him and begin wailing.
“Oh heavens! This is outrageous! Soldiers are beating people and stealing our things!”
Her daughter hurriedly tried to pull her away while apologizing profusely to the soldier.
The scene descended into chaos.
Then—
the platoon leader suddenly raised his gun and fired toward a nearby building.
A zombie hanging outside a second-floor window dropped instantly to the ground.
The entire street fell silent.
The old woman’s face turned deathly pale.
In the stillness, the platoon leader repeated calmly,
“If you want to move with the main group, excessive luggage is not allowed. No more than two backpacks per person. Those who comply can follow us. Those who don’t are free to leave on your own.”
That single shot accomplished more than all the earlier persuasion combined.
The people who had stubbornly refused to abandon their luggage finally clenched their teeth and tossed their belongings aside.
Sometimes, intimidation worked far better than reason.
Mo Chu let out a quiet sigh and climbed back down the ladder.
Only then did she realize Li Chen had been standing below the whole time, silently steadying it for her.
He hadn’t said a word.
And she hadn’t noticed him at all.
A faint sense of guilt stirred in her chest.
In her previous life, she had always been alone. After being reborn, she still unconsciously acted as though there was no one beside her.
Li Chen, however, seemed not to notice anything strange.
When she climbed down, he naturally reached out to steady her before withdrawing his hand just as quickly.
The moment her feet touched the ground, Xiao Jin circled happily around her legs.
Mo Chu rubbed the dog’s head thoughtfully before saying to Li Chen,
“Let’s go outside and take a look.”
Li Chen didn’t ask why.
He simply picked up his own bag, then slung Mo Chu’s onto his shoulder as well.
“Okay,” he said.
Mo Chu bent down to grab another bag, only for Xiao Jin to snatch it up first and toss it onto his own back with practiced ease.
Just like that, Mo Chu ended up empty-handed.
She looked at Li Chen, then at Xiao Jin, confusion flickering across her face.
…Had Li Chen always been this easygoing in her previous life?
No questions. No hesitation.
Just “okay.”
She thought about it carefully and realized something unsettling—
she barely remembered anything about the real Li Chen at all.
Everything she knew about him had come from other people.
Ruthless.
Bloodstained.
A man who killed without blinking.
But she had never truly understood him herself.
After a moment of silence, Mo Chu stepped forward and opened the warehouse doors.
She had no intention of leaving with the military convoy, but there were things she still wanted to tell them. Information that would be far more useful in the hands of many rather than herself alone.
And besides—
she wanted to find the elderly man named Xie Jinyuan.
The more she thought about the name after returning today, the more familiar it sounded.
Their appearance drew some attention, but no one paid them much mind. Under the soldiers’ direction, the rescued survivors were resting in place while armed troops formed a protective perimeter around them.
Medics moved among the civilians, checking everyone for wounds.
Mo Chu and Li Chen found a quiet corner and sat down.
Soon, another group of soldiers returned from one of the buildings.
Mo Chu overheard one of them mutter uneasily to his comrade beside him,
“Old Li, something’s wrong. Squad Leader Jin’s been inside that office building for a while now. We’ve already brought out two groups of survivors—why hasn’t there been any movement from them yet?”
The moment he finished speaking—
a scream suddenly tore through the air from a distant skyscraper.
Gunfire erupted immediately afterward.
Every soldier present stiffened and raised their weapons at once.
The two soldiers exchanged looks.
“Squad Leader Jin!”
Something had happened.
The crowd instantly descended into panic, everyone scrambling away from the building.
Mo Chu exchanged a glance with Li Chen.
He gave her a small nod.
Then the two of them began moving against the flow of the crowd.
By the time they reached the front, the gunfire from the skyscraper still hadn’t stopped.
The platoon leader stood watching the building through binoculars while ordering some soldiers to calm the civilians and dispatching another armed squad toward the tower to provide support.
Before they could reach it—
someone burst out of the building.
The man was drenched in blood, so mangled he barely looked human anymore.
The instant the platoon leader saw him, shock tore from his throat.
“Squad Leader Jin!”
The nearby soldiers immediately rushed forward to rescue him.
But before anyone could move—
a bluish-black figure shot out from the building behind him.
It looked like a zombie.
And yet completely unlike any zombie they had encountered before.
It was far faster.
Far more agile.
In the blink of an eye, it appeared behind Squad Leader Jin and drove a claw straight through his abdomen.
Before collapsing, the man roared at them with the last of his strength—
“Run!”
“Squad Leader Jin!”
“Fuck this monster! Kill it!”
The soldiers instantly opened fire, concentrating everything on the zombie.
But the creature was terrifyingly agile, completely overturning everything they believed about zombies being slow and clumsy.
It even knew how to use Squad Leader Jin’s corpse as a shield.
Faced with their comrade’s body, the soldiers’ firepower faltered for a split second.
But Mo Chu knew—
this was the worst possible moment to hesitate.
Because this—
was a second-stage zombie.
Even Mo Chu was stunned.
The apocalypse hadn’t even lasted ten days, and a second-stage zombie had already appeared.
Its speed had evolved dramatically.
It even possessed basic intelligence.
If humans still treated it like an ordinary first-stage zombie, the consequences would be catastrophic.
For it to evolve this quickly, it must have devoured enormous amounts of flesh—perhaps even consumed its own kind.
As for whether there were still any survivors left inside that skyscraper…
that was hard to say.
If the soldiers stopped firing now and let it get close, one swipe of its claws would be fatal.
At this stage, there was no healing ability capable of curing the zombie virus.
Mo Chu stopped hesitating.
She grabbed the unused handgun from a nearby soldier’s waist, chambered a round, and fired.
The bullet slammed into the zombie’s shoulder.
The sudden shot snapped the soldiers back to their senses.
The platoon leader shot Mo Chu a sharp look before barking immediately,
“Open fire!”
Orders were absolute.
Red-eyed, the soldiers gritted their teeth and fired through the body of their fallen comrade.
While issuing commands, the platoon leader spared another glance at the young woman holding the gun.
She looked calm.
Steady.
Her stance was flawless, and her accuracy rivaled that of trained soldiers.
Not remotely like a beginner.
Meanwhile, realizing the humans intended to fire without hesitation, the zombie abruptly discarded Squad Leader Jin’s corpse and sprang onto the wall of the nearby building.
Its jumping ability was terrifying.
Just as the soldiers adjusted their aim upward, it kicked off the wall from more than three meters high and lunged toward the nearest young soldier, claws extended.
Mo Chu instantly swung her gun toward it—
but she was too late.
At that exact moment, a crimson line of fire appeared out of nowhere, whipping around the second-stage zombie midair.
The burning cord moved like a living thing.
Flames spread violently along its body as it slammed the zombie hard into the ground.
Mo Chu turned sharply toward Li Chen.
His expression remained calm and unreadable.
But he was only first-stage himself. The zombie struggled madly and quickly tore free from the fiery restraints.
Yet although it escaped the bindings—
it couldn’t shake off the flames clinging to its body like a curse.
And at the same time—
a storm of bullets arrived right on cue.
