Chapter 16 The Sixth Death
July 10, 2025, the 50th day of the zombie outbreak.
The daytime temperature has reached 34 degrees Celsius. Because of the unpleasant smell outside, we can't open the windows, and the indoor temperature is very stuffy.
Now, with the dog days of summer approaching, the high temperatures are unbearable, and Lin Xi feels dizzy and lightheaded most of the time.
She laid an old mat on the floor and lay down on it to cool off. When it got too hot, she would scoop some water from the bathtub and wipe her body to cool down.
The few bottles of mineral water at home have been used up, and the only remaining purified water resource is the mineral water in the backpack, but that is for escape and cannot be used lightly.
These past few days, she could only quench her thirst by drinking milk and beverages. Although she tried to save money, in this high temperature, milk and beverages would spoil if not consumed within half a day after opening. Therefore, Lin Xi could only drink a carton of milk every day when she was extremely thirsty.
With her phone and tablet powered off, Lin Xi could only tell the time with her watch. To remember the date, she wrote a diary entry in her notebook every day.
In addition, she would open "Robinson Crusoe" almost every day, seeking ways to survive and the will to live from the fictional island survival story.
-
On the 70th day of the zombie outbreak, Lin Xi finished the juice in the last jelly.
Nanhua's summers are never short of rain, and the bathtubs and basins are filled with simply filtered water, but Lin Xi still can't break through her psychological defenses.
After enduring a day without drinking water, Lin Xi finally couldn't resist drinking it when her lips were chapped and she was exhausted.
The water had not been distilled or filtered, nor had it been boiled; besides its raw taste, it also had a slightly bitter aftertaste.
But Lin Xi was so thirsty that she simply drank two glasses in one go.
I've been conserving drinking water for days, never daring to drink too much, but now I let my guard down and drank to my heart's content.
She was even somewhat relieved that she had broken the rule, so that she could drink natural water without any worries from now on.
However, within two hours, the adverse effects of drinking untreated water began to appear:
Over the next two hours, she had diarrhea five times intermittently until she was exhausted and, combined with heatstroke symptoms, almost fainted.
When stockpiling supplies, Lin Xi prepared medicine, but there was no water. She took an anti-inflammatory pill, but without water to help her swallow it, the pill got stuck in her throat for a long time, and the bitter taste gradually spread in her mouth.
After finally managing to take the anti-inflammatory medicine, Lin Xi endured the nausea and swallowed a packet of montmorillonite powder.
I was already suffering from diarrhea, and now I feel nauseous even more.
But she couldn't vomit anything anymore, and could only manage to secrete some saliva in the hope of getting the medicine down a little so it would take effect quickly.
However, by 8 p.m., when it was completely dark, there was no improvement. Lin Xi was almost dehydrated and had developed a high fever.
Fortunately, the ibuprofen painkillers she bought were chewable tablets, so she didn't need to swallow them with water; they would take effect slowly after being chewed in her mouth.
Lin Xi didn't know how long she had been unconscious, but she broke out in a sweat and vaguely felt that her fever had subsided a little, and her mind had cleared up.
But her ailing body and difficult conditions continued to torment her. At that moment, she longed to take a hot bath, drink a bowl of hot porridge, take her medicine, and then rest in a room with a comfortable temperature.
But now there's no fire or water to cook porridge, not even water to take her medicine. She still has abdominal pain, but there's nothing left to make her have diarrhea.
Lin Xi forced herself to eat half a piece of bread and a vitamin C tablet to maintain her strength. The dry bread was hard to swallow, but Lin Xi dared not drink any unboiled water.
While ordinary tap water isn't clean, it shouldn't cause such a reaction. Lin Xi suspected that the appearance of zombies had contaminated the water cycle, and that highly dangerous bacteria had appeared in the rainwater, which explained her severe reaction after drinking just two cups of water.
In the middle of the night, Lin Xi developed a high fever again, which at one point reached the point of convulsions.
Before she fainted, she felt the signs of impending death. Whether it was being overwhelmed by illness or turning into a zombie after drinking contaminated water, she would die.
When I woke up again, my watch showed that it was 5 p.m.
She had been unconscious for most of the day and didn't even have the strength to turn over. She tried to speak, but her throat was unbearably dry and itchy, and her body was still running a high fever.
If this continues, I'll definitely die.
Lin Xi's mind raced. To save herself, she needed to replenish her fluids and take medicine, but raw water was absolutely not an option, and there was no way to boil water for disinfection.
Boiling water...
Lin Xi had a sudden inspiration!
Suddenly, as if grasping at a straw, she mustered her remaining strength and rummaged through the supplies to find self-heating rice and a self-heating hot pot. Looking at the most inconspicuous heating pack, tears welled up in her eyes—
You can use a heating pack to boil water.
We don't know if boiling can disinfect contaminated raw water, and we don't know if the heating pack in a self-heating hot pot can bring the water to a boil, but we have no choice but to try anything.
She cannot die of thirst or illness.
Lin Xi immediately turned on two self-heating pots, one to boil water and the other to cook porridge.
Listening to the bubbling and crackling of the food in the self-heating pot, Lin Xi was teetering on the brink of life and death. She thought that she could survive by stockpiling enough supplies and staying home, but she never expected that she would still face death due to the water and power outages.
The porridge cooked in the self-heating pot was only half-cooked, but still drinkable. Driven by her body's instinct for survival, Lin Xi finished a large bowl of porridge, then took anti-inflammatory and fever-reducing medication with the boiled water.
Whether they can overcome this crisis depends on whether the self-heating pot can sterilize the water. If it fails to sterilize, another poisoning incident will likely kill Lin Xi.
Lin Xi's fifth rebirth ended with diarrhea, and she imagined a new way to die.
If the virus in the tap water is eliminated, the medicine she takes will gradually take effect and cure her illness, and the replenished water will also help her body regain its strength.
Time passed slowly, and as Lin Xi wished, the high temperature killed the toxic substances in the raw water. Lin Xi's condition did not worsen, and the medicine she took also worked.
It took a week to recover from this illness.
After a brief moment of relief at her new life, Lin Xi faced a new challenge—
I've stocked up on some self-heating hot pot and self-heating rice, but the quantity is limited, and no matter how well I plan, I'll eventually run out.
As usual, she would collect rainwater, filter it, and store it in the bathtub when it rained. She would boil a bowl of water in a self-heating pot and drink it sparingly, finishing it in two or three days.
During this time, she tried many ways to start a fire, but she could not succeed in making fire by rubbing sticks together.
-
September 1, 2025, the fourth month since the zombie outbreak.
The dog days of summer have passed, but the lingering heat of late summer persists, and temperatures in Nanhua remain high.
But few people cared anymore, because there were hardly any survivors.
The zombie outbreak is far from over; Nanhua has become a ghost town, with zombies being the only living thing in existence. These days, the zombie hordes have grown even larger, and with no new living targets, they wander aimlessly.
Lin Xi finished her last sip of drinking water and knew that she would not be rescued. Without drinking water, she had only about three days left to live.
She wanted to use her last strength to write her will in her notebook, but she had nothing to write and no one to talk to.
She was an orphan with no close relatives, and all her friends and companions had perished in the zombie outbreak.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
