The system's mechanical electronic voice whirred, a crackling sound stung the nerves, and the two bold words "Instructions" in the center of the screen flashed with a blood-red glow.
Yuan Zhuan, in his soul form, was shocked by the blood-red characters and felt uncertain. He had a feeling that this was a trap, a trap from which there was no escape!
The situation is dire; if you want to survive, even if you know it's a trap, you have to jump in!
With a light touch of the fingertip, the screen explodes like food being added to a frying pan, with dense black dots spreading out from the center, squeezing into black lines of varying lengths, as if they had a mind of their own, forming square characters.
This is a scene that would drive people with trypophobia crazy!
Note: This system is a dimensional trading system. The host's responsibility is to handle goods transactions. Trading interface: Apocalypse!
Trading rules: For trading goods only!
And then...
That's all!
Is this what you call an explanation? Could you be any more concise?
He rolled his eyes and touched the warehouse graphic with his fingertip.
Ten squares appeared side by side on the screen, each with the words "ten cubic meters" in it.
After a moment's thought, Yuan Zhuan understood. This must be the size of the warehouse storage space: ten square units, totaling one hundred cubic meters of warehouse space.
Can we really put things in here?
"How do I install the system?"
...
"system?"
...
Yuan Zhuan: Damn it, pretending to be mute again!
Knowing his predicament, Yuan Zhuan was naturally not foolish enough to try out the warehouse function now!
beep beep beep...
After a few seconds of blank staring, three blood-red 'SoS' letters appeared on the screen!
Oh!
Startled, Yuan Zhuan was somewhat bewildered. "System, what's going on? I didn't call for help!"
"Remaining time: eight hours~"
Yuan Zhuan: "!!!"
In my excitement, my finger accidentally touched the SOS letters.
In a flash, the blood spread, revealing a dirty, terrified face on the screen.
Wow! This thing can even do video calls? Who's on the other end?
"Is anyone there?!" came the voice on the other end. It was a woman's voice, trembling and hoarse. She seemed very panicked, and her voice was deliberately lowered.
Yuan Zhuan didn't speak. From the lower left corner, I saw a small box that was completely blank, without his own face. So, this was a one-way video?
"Hello, hello, who is this? Is anyone there? Hello?"
As Yuan Zhuan silently watched the faces on the screen, in the other world, in a low-lying house, a thin, bony girl wrapped in a dirty cotton-padded coat huddled in a corner, using a dilapidated dining table to block the cold and conceal her figure. She held a cell phone in her hand, shaking it shakily, and occasionally looked up in panic towards the door, as if she was very worried that someone or a monster might rush in.
This is the second year since the apocalypse began. Humanity has been hunted down and wiped out by zombies time and time again. Those who survived are either lucky or truly powerful!
This is a true dog-eat-dog world!
The apocalypse came without warning. Suddenly one day, the sky darkened, and there was no more day or night, no sun, no moon, only the same color where heaven and earth met: blackish-red! Like the color of blood that had been tainted!
Zhang Xiaoxiao, 18 years old, is a senior in high school preparing for the college entrance exam. She stayed up late doing her homework and fell asleep as soon as she was exhausted. The next morning at eight o'clock, she was awakened by screams and noises from downstairs (her apartment is near the main entrance, and the street is right outside her window).
She tossed and turned in bed, unable to fall asleep, and jumped up and rushed to the window. She wanted to see what was happening outside!
The chaos downstairs startled Zhang Xiaoxiao. Someone had gone mad and bit several people indiscriminately. Everyone was dodging and running away. The screams from earlier were clearly made by the passersby who were caught in the crossfire!
Soon, someone called the police, and they arrived. Seeing the solemn police badge, Zhang Xiaoxiao breathed a sigh of relief.
Unexpectedly, a police officer was also injured. After warnings proved ineffective, the officer was forcibly subdued, put in a car, and driven away. After the initial panic subsided, some went to the hospital, while others gathered to discuss the incident, pointing and showing off videos on their phones. Soon, everyone regained their composure, as if what had just happened was merely an accidental act of violence.
However, Zhang Xiaoxiao felt she might not have slept well and was hallucinating. She saw those biting madmen, their faces covered in blood and foam, tearing off pieces of living flesh without spitting them out, staring blankly with vacant eyes, numbly chewing something.
It looks like they ate the meat!
Like wild beasts whose wild instincts have not been tamed, they prey on living people, hunting and devouring them!
I suddenly remembered the zombie horror movies I'd watched. Wasn't what happened downstairs just a real-life version of those horror movie scenes?
As if possessed, I looked up towards the east. There was no sun today; the sky was blood red, the same color as the blood and foam on the madman's face… like the gaping maw of a monster, poised to devour the heavens and earth.
At that moment, Zhang Xiaoxiao felt as if she had fallen into an ice cave, goosebumps rose all over her body, and she shivered violently.
Anxiety welled up from the bottom of her heart. She turned around and buried herself in the quilt, trembling. She didn't leave until her mother called her to get up for breakfast. Her face was pale.
After breakfast, Mom went to work and my younger brother went to school. I wandered around the house like a lost soul for most of the day. When it was almost time for my brother to get out of school, I went to pick him up and secretly bought two fruit knives and a kitchen knife from a knife shop.
She used her remaining pocket money, about 15,000 yuan, to buy rice online, which would be delivered to her home the next day.
Perhaps it was a blessing from heaven, but she managed to buy her family a chance to survive.
After the rice arrived, she had it all moved into the storage room. The rice, weighing over 6,000 kilograms, was enough to feed her family for more than a year.
Three days passed in fear and trembling, and then the end of the world came...
The hospitals and prisons were the first to descend into chaos.
She will always remember that midnight when screams pierced the darkness outside the building, waking up her whole family and frightening the other neighbors in the building.
Many people got up and looked out the window, wondering if a murder had occurred outside so they could call the police. However, what they saw stunned everyone...
A murder did occur, but the bloodied and mutilated heads and faces under the streetlights were not human at all!
"Ahhh..."
That evening, she dissuaded her parents from continuing to go to work the next day and suggested they observe the situation first.
She didn't know why her parents believed her at that time. Anyway, the family prepared a lot of instant noodles, biscuits and drinking water. They were like madmen, going back and forth between the city and the village again and again on many nights to transfer the supplies to the cellar under her father's old house.
The real collapse of the world occurred three months later, when the entire social order broke down.
The surge in deaths led to chaos, and eventually, even if the authorities wanted to steer things in a positive direction, they couldn't, because the city had been annihilated!
What followed was like a grand ceremony of death, spreading rapidly and relentlessly eroding humanity, weeding out the weak through survival of the fittest. Cities fell one after another, and in less than six months, the world had descended into a state where nations ceased to exist and families ceased to care for themselves.
Beyond the zombie horde, there's also the internal strife among humans; the strength of one's military directly impacts survival.
Survival of the fittest!!
This is a true depiction of the end times!
The supplies Zhang Xiaoxiao's family collected allowed them to live peacefully in the village for eight months, only to have them destroyed by their neighbors.
Facing life and death is the ultimate test of humanity.
Unfortunately, Zhang Xiaoxiao's mother's momentary act of kindness brought about a devastating disaster.
The neighbors brought their accomplices, who robbed the Zhang family of all their supplies, leaving them not even water. It was from that moment that the family began their endless life of wandering, filled with despair and suffering.
Her younger brother is only eight years old and needs someone to look after him. Zhang Xiaoxiao is a girl, and even though she tries very hard to become strong, she still can't match the strength of a man.
In the apocalypse, girls are in great danger, even if they are emaciated, pale, and unkempt.
Therefore, Zhang's father always went out alone to find supplies to support his family.
However, one person's energy and ability are ultimately limited. Each time, the supplies retrieved were barely enough to sustain the family of four. This time, her father had been gone for two days and had not returned. Her mother and younger brother, who were already weak, fainted. In her fear and helplessness, Zhang Xiaoxiao thought it over again and again before deciding to go out to find food. Before that, she hid her mother and younger brother in a very safe place.
This was the last room she had found for the night. If there was no more food, she would have to go back. If she stayed out too long, her mother and brother would be very worried if they woke up and couldn't find her.
Reality was cruel, yet predictable; aside from dilapidated furniture, there was nothing left. Heaven had not granted her any hope of survival.
She searched the entire house, but found nothing, not even rotten vegetable leaves. She could only drag her exhausted and extremely hungry body out.
Suddenly, she heard a rustling sound, like the sound of a cell phone signal lag in her memory. She stopped in confusion, but it was gone. As soon as she took a step, the sound came back. This time, she was sure she hadn't misheard and followed the sound.
In the last two years of the apocalypse, cell phones have long been unusable. There's no electricity, so how could there be a cell phone signal?
She followed the sound with apprehension yet a glimmer of hope. If the cell phone could really contact outsiders, she might be able to find a way to save her family!
This time, she was lucky. She actually found a full-screen phone under the overturned sofa. The screen had a crack in the middle, but it didn't affect its functionality. At that moment, it was lit up, so she could see what was happening on the screen: someone was sending a video call, and the red and green arrows for answering were flashing. She hesitated for a moment, then pressed the green answer button. To her surprise, it connected! There was only a blank white screen on the other end, but she could hear a lot of noise. It sounded like there were many people on the other side; it was quite lively.
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