Chapter 8: Volume One & Two, Chapter 8: Look at Me

What woke Fuling was a rich, mouthwatering aroma.

The enticing scent gently tugged at her hazy sleep, coaxing her toward the living room.

A tall, slender figure in a trench coat stood at the threshold between the kitchen and the bedroom. Like a magician performing a marvelous trick, dish after dish of piping-hot food drifted out of the kitchen, settling gracefully onto the spotless dining table.

Hearing footsteps, Linglan turned and gestured for Fuling to take a seat.

~

Linglan had found it impossible to sleep in the middle of the night. Every time she rolled over and saw Fuling’s face, she couldn’t suppress the urge to take a bite.

She’d needed something else to distract herself!

So Linglan had chosen to rummage through the looters’ supplies and give the entire apartment a thorough cleaning while she was at it.

Hmph~ Look how capable I am! Cleaned the whole place spotless and sorted every single item in a single night!

Today’s breakfast: stewed radishes and soybeans, garnished with a few sprigs of cilantro, plus a pair of sausages.

All main ingredients courtesy of the “delivery drivers”~

Given the looters’ psychotic tendencies, she had taken extra care when slicing the meat, sniffing it thoroughly. She hid away any sausages that triggered a monstrous appetite in her, saving only the normal food for Fuling~

Linglan planted her hands on her hips, puffed up with pride.

“Ling… you’re still as neat as ever.”

Fuling murmured, stunned. The once-filthy living room was completely transformed; gear and furniture were arranged neatly in their proper places.

The grease and caked-on grime on the floor had been scraped away by force. Though it left behind pitted little gouges, the chaotic filth had been replaced by a clean, harmonious order.

Compared to before, the shelter finally felt like a home.

Fuling’s eyes slowly widened.

This wasn’t a dream. The sun had risen, and her life was no longer defined by death and bleakness.

Her vision suddenly blurred as tears slipped from the corners of her eyes. A warmth hundreds of times more comforting than sunlight welled in her chest. Wiping away her tears with the back of her hand, Fuling flashed Linglan a radiant smile.

“Good morning, Senior~”

Ahhh~

Scooping up a spoonful of sizzling, pan-fried soybeans mixed with sausage, Fuling closed her eyes in pure bliss.

“It’s so good~ Ah, whenever I tried to cook before, I always messed it up. In the end, I just ate cold dishes or tossed salads every day.”

Fuling chattered non-stop as she ate, as if pouring out all the loneliness and hardship of the past three years in one breath.

Linglan sat across from her, holding a flat, foam-free can of beer, quietly listening.

After finishing a bowl of chicken bone broth, Fuling let out a long, contented sigh.

She rested her chin on the table, watching the zombie lady studying a map across from her.

Neat and tidy, skilled at cooking, fond of alcohol, the exact way she held her can—she was just like the real Linglan, yet slightly different.

But that didn’t matter. There were no rivals here; this was a world for just the two of them.

This time, she would take the initiative and hold on to her.

“Phew.”

Seeing that Fuling had eaten her fill, Linglan laid the map out in front of her and pointed to the Museum Shelter.

Today’s objective: explore this place.

The museum lay north of the city center. Linglan had already sorted through the looters’ weapons: two electrically fired steel-pipe guns, one Type 92 pistol, twelve paper-wrapped shotgun cartridges, four 5.8mm pistol rounds, three crude handmade crossbows, and sixty-one crossbow bolts.

While sorting the gear, Linglan had been surprised to find that she could identify the weapons’ specs at a glance. Perhaps having lived through so many cycles in her dreams, she had unconsciously memorized all this armed police equipment.

“Whoa, so cool!”

Fuling happily fiddled with the pistol, looking thrilled.

She couldn’t be blamed for acting like she’d never seen the world. To understand why firearms were so rare, one had to start with the zombies’ formal name: Hell Spore Parasites.

Humans whose minds had been subverted by the spores.

In the early stages of infection, Parasites retained all their memories, yet perceived all normal humans as incomprehensible monsters. They became unspeakably violent and bloodthirsty, driven to slaughter survivors at any cost.

They knew how to use weapons. Given the chance, they could launch intercontinental ballistic missiles or fire nuclear warheads.

For that very reason, the military treated the denial and destruction of weapons as a top priority. Whenever troops prepared to evacuate, they thoroughly scuttled every piece of military hardware left behind.

In cities like Xuzhou, which were among the first to fall, large numbers of armed police and military units had fought fierce battles, but virtually no intact firearms were left behind. As a result, guns were extraordinarily scarce in the post-apocalyptic era.

Fortunately…

By now, continued mutations had ravaged the Parasites’ brains, reducing them to mindless creatures ruled only by primitive instinct.

Overall, the apocalypse’s combat strength had been slowly declining—until a Mother Entity would initiate the World Tree Project, causing global spore density to climb once more.

Linglan kept on her stylish trench coat, stuffing her pockets with a handful of steel ball bearings for weapons.

Fuling prepared far more meticulously. She strapped on a large hiking pack loaded with essentials: a first-aid kit, biscuits, emergency water, a water purification bottle, a lifeline, and other supplies.

Packed together, they took up half the bag’s capacity.

The outbreak had brought more than just societal collapse; spores had integrated into the planet’s ecological cycle. Humans like Fuling were known by another name: Spore-Infected.

The spores hadn’t hijacked her brain; instead, they had enhanced her basic physical traits.

After becoming an Awakened, Fuling’s physical capabilities had leaped forward once again. A mere thirty pounds of gear was nothing to her.

Considering this mission was primarily reconnaissance, and the museum district was unfamiliar, perilous territory to Fuling, she naturally went fully armed.

Clang, clang!

Fuling banged her entrenching tool against the security door, drawing the zombies outside before methodically spearing their heads one by one through the gaps.

In the city center, the sprawling vines seemed to divide the world in two: the sunlit upper reaches of the high-rises and the dark, damp ground below.

Down on the ground:

A pale, lifeless gray formed the dominant tone. No matter which direction one looked, there was only a lingering, deathly mist. The far ends of the streets were blurred and indistinct, with dark silhouettes lurking in the shadows.

Dense, tangled vines blocked almost all the sunlight, leaving only a few stray beams struggling through the gaps. They slanted down against the pavement, their faint light scattering across the asphalt in a dim, murky haze.

Stepping through the front entrance, Linglan took her first careful look at this world.

The streets had been buckled and torn apart by rampant, overgrown tree roots. Deprived of sunlight, these sporified trees had died, leaving visible dampness clinging to the asphalt and rotting timber, sprouting vibrant, multi-colored mushrooms across their surfaces.

Scattered debris, wrecked vehicles—the scars of the war three years ago remained remarkably preserved. Vast patches of dark green moss-like growths lay sprawled across the road.

Cratered bullet holes, blast gouges, blackened storefronts, collapsed walls, and colossal claw marks.

Everything from the past had been reduced to ruins. Now, only shade-loving spore plants remained. The scene before her was undeniably colorful, yet it inspired only terror and isolation.

This was no environment for humans to live in.

Such an oppressive world…

Linglan stared out at the street in a daze when a crisp, clear voice broke the silence.

“Ling~”

Fuling vigorously cranked a hand-powered flashlight, then suddenly shone the beam directly onto her own face, smiling cheekily at Linglan.

“Looking at a place like this too much will definitely get you down—so look at me instead!”

In the warm orange glow, that lovely face was brimming with boundless vitality and warmth.