Chapter 4: The Residents Within the Building

She skimmed through the messages, which were all inquiries about whether she was still alive.

Rolling her eyes in silence, she jabbed at the keyboard to reply, "I'll outlive you for sure."

After sending it, she exited the chat and opened the conversation with her best friend, sending a comforting message to the frantic messages she had received. Before she could even finish typing, Ye Yuzhou replied instantly.

"Scared the hell out of me. I thought I’d have to go collect your corpse."

Truly, nothing refined ever comes from a dog's mouth.

Ye Yuzhou had been her first deskmate after she transferred schools. He was a troublemaker who skipped classes and fought constantly, arrogant and aggressive, never speaking kindly to anyone. She had even seen him extorting "protection money" from timid classmates—a classic school bully.

Because of this, she had a terrible impression of him and ignored him even when he tried to speak to her. Later, he began to oppose her in everything. The incident she remembered most vividly was during her period, when he drank the hot water she had prepared and replaced it with iced watermelon juice just to spite her.

She suspected he wanted to force her to submit, but instead of yielding, she asked the teacher to change her seat to escape that annoying guy. Had it not been for a group project, she wouldn't even have added him on WeChat.

Now that the zombie apocalypse had broken out, he still had the energy to be a nuisance.

"Worry about yourself!"

After typing this curt reply, she opened his profile, intending to delete him. Just as she was about to click, she hesitated.

It was the end of the world; deleting him now might mean losing contact forever. Even though he was infuriating, the fact that he had sent over eighty messages during such a dangerous time could be seen as a twisted form of concern.

In the end, she chose to turn on "Do Not Disturb" instead.

Her best friend, An Xiaofu, received her reply and sent back a flurry of excited messages. Usually someone who hated typing, she didn't dare send a single voice note today.

Lin Wanmei sensed something was wrong. After pressing for details, her fears were confirmed: the residential complex where An Xiaofu lived had already been breached by zombies.

Fortunately, An Xiaofu lived on the top floor—over thirty stories up. As long as she didn't make too much noise, zombies weren't likely to wander up the stairs for fun, so she was relatively safe for the time being. By comparison, An Xiaofu felt that Lin Wanmei’s family was in more danger and kept worrying over her.

"Sigh, I don't know if we'll ever get the chance to see each other again."

An Xiaofu’s words were heavy with uncertainty about the future.

"We will. We definitely will."

With the protective talismans, they would surely be reunited.

After promising to keep in touch, Lin Wanmei replied one by one to others who had sent messages of concern: her mentors, classmates, roommates, and, most importantly, her brothers.

Lin Wanmei had five brothers, the sons of her three uncles. Her mother was the only girl among four siblings, and Lin Wanmei was the only daughter of the next generation. Since birth, she had been treated like a treasure, with each of her five brothers spoiling her immensely.

However, only two had messaged her so far; the second, fourth, and fifth brothers were completely silent. Upon asking, she learned that her third uncle and aunt had taken the fifth brother on a trip. Since the news of the zombies spread, the family had tried repeatedly to contact them, but there had been no response. As for the second and fourth brothers, one was working at a hospital when the outbreak began, and the other had gone out on a date.

No wonder her mother’s complexion was so poor.

Lin Wanmei’s heart sank. With them missing, there was nowhere to even begin looking. And the second brother... what kind of place was a hospital? It was densely packed with people, and those bitten were taken there immediately. She feared his situation was even grimmer.

Distressed, Lin Wanmei put her phone away, missing the subsequent messages from the person she had set to "Do Not Disturb":

"Don't go out."
"Wait for me to come find you."
"Stay safe."
...

The sunset today was blood-red, as if echoing the tragedy in the world. The family of four was preoccupied, and no one spoke for hours. They simply heated up some leftover rice from the morning to satisfy their hunger.

Lin Wanmei’s mother and grandmother were organizing the household supplies. Since they couldn't go out to shop anymore, every resource was precious and dwindling.

Lin Wanmei, however, kept her eyes glued to her phone. She wanted to go to the hospital to check on her brother, but she didn't dare tell her family. She searched for a reasonable excuse while hoping to hear from him.

Her second brother was eight years older than her and had always doted on her since childhood, taking her out to play and carrying her home when she was tired. He was a severe germaphobe with others, but with her, he never complained even when she ruined his pristine white shirts. If he was still alive, he must be suffering terribly. Just thinking about it made her eyes well up.

The residents in the complex seemed to have finally snapped out of their terror. The group chat was nearly exploding with messages flooding in. To distract herself, she skimmed through them.

"There are so many zombies in the complex, how are we supposed to get out? This is so frustrating!"

"Can someone tell me why the zombie outbreak happened so suddenly? Such important information and they kept it quiet without a whisper! We didn't even have a chance to prepare! Who’s responsible for this?!"

"My daughter-in-law is at the hospital giving birth! What are we supposed to do now?!"

"My child is still at their tutoring center and hasn't come back! The police line is busy and I can't get through. I’m going crazy! Can't the property management organize a search party?!"

This message made Lin Wanmei’s eyelids twitch. The residents' group nicknames were their apartment numbers, and next to this woman's avatar, it clearly read "Unit 2, 702." She was in their building.

"The official notices have been out for half an hour. There is no property management left; they went home ages ago," someone replied. "If you're really that worried, go find them yourself."

702: "There are so many zombies, how am I supposed to go out?!"

"Oh, so you do realize that?"

"And yet you want the property management to go? Do you really value others' lives so little?"

"What a piece of work!"

702 drew universal condemnation. Lin Wanmei frowned, a bad premonition washing over her.

Sure enough, the next moment, a loud "bang" echoed from the floor above. It sounded like someone had slammed a door shut. Outside the window, the snarling of zombies grew louder, as if they were drawing closer.

She deleted her group nickname and changed her avatar. She had never spoken in the residents' group and hadn't added anyone, so by removing her apartment number, she could perfectly blend in with the residents who were too lazy to update their profiles.

She then tapped on the keyboard: "Who made such a loud noise? Don't you know you're attracting zombies? If you want to die, don't drag the rest of us down with you!"

602: "It’s the unit above me. She isn't seriously going out to find her child, is she?"

The residents discussed it fervently. Lin Wanmei quickly whispered to her father, "Dad, it sounds like someone is going out!"

"What?"

Her father, who had been in the storage room grinding the rings to fix the talismans, walked out quickly. He grabbed a baseball bat and carefully opened the security door. Lin Wanmei followed immediately, while her mother and grandmother stopped what they were doing, watching their every move.

The elevator display currently showed it was on the seventh floor. The next second, it began to move downward.

Her father frowned, looking at the elevator entrance and then toward the stairwell, deep in thought.

Not long after, a frantic voice echoed: "Why is the door locked?! Which bastard did this?!"