Apocalypse Escape: Day One of Survival

Xie Ning stared blankly into a pair of sullen, gloomy eyes.

’This was... freaking unexpected.’

She had never imagined she would run into this gloomy, lifeless boy—a Healing System user—inside Zhu Zihao’s farmhouse Space.

And his current state... uh, let’s just say it was far from good.

His slender left wrist was cuffed to a nearby metal frame. He lay askew on a large, heart-shaped bed, his clothes in disarray, revealing a shoulder as pale as jade.

A heart-shaped bed. Unbelievable! Who would have thought a thatched hut like this would be furnished like a luxury suite?

That’s right. It was the exact same kind of bright red, heart-shaped bed you’d find in a couple’s motel.

The bed was missing the requisite rose petals to set the mood, but it did have a beautiful boy with a sinister look in his eyes.

Xie Ning stared, stunned, for about ten seconds before silently averting her gaze. She kicked a low stool out of her way and walked impassively toward the bed.

”Where’s the key?”

”Didn’t you check his pockets when you killed him?”

Xie Ning really wanted to snap back at him. ’How the hell was I supposed to know he was hiding a whole living person like you in his Space?’

The young woman glanced sideways, stepped forward, and abruptly grabbed his suspended wrist.

”What do you think you’re doing?” The boy’s wary eyes fixed on her as if she were a murderer not to be trusted.

Xie Ning shot him a look. ”Can you get it off yourself?”

’What was he supposed to do to get it off?’

Beichen shot her a vicious glare, unsure if he was more furious with his own powerlessness or with the girl’s cold, resolute demeanor.

Xie Ning gripped his wrist, channeling her Gold Ability and infusing it into the handcuff.

An instant later, the handcuff on the boy’s wrist rapidly expanded and warped. He wrenched his hand free and immediately flung Xie Ning’s hand away.

Xie Ning paid it no mind, simply moving the boy—bed and all—out of the Space.

In an instant, the stench of corpses and blood filled the air.

The Healing System boy was completely stunned.

When Xie Ning reappeared in the outside world, she was still in mid-air.

And so, caught completely off guard, the boy and the bed plummeted downwards.

Xie Ning froze for a second, then quickly unfurled her Metal Wings. With lightning-fast reflexes, she grabbed the boy by the arm.

The two of them dangled in mid-air, watching helplessly as the ridiculous red heart-shaped bed smashed into the horde of zombies below, shattering into pieces.

”You.” The boy was about to be driven insane with rage by this woman.

’Couldn’t she have picked a better place to pop out?’

’Of all the places, she had to appear right above a horde of zombies.’

On a crumbling, slanted rooftop nearby, a tightly packed horde of zombies let out even more frenzied roars as their target suddenly appeared.

Without a second thought, Xie Ning dragged the Healing System boy and flew toward the platform of an intact building nearby.

’Dragging a person uses up a lot more Gold Ability.’

Once she’d dragged him onto the platform and landed, Xie Ning quickly retracted her Metal Wings. Her feet touched a thin layer of snow, and a strange glint passed through her eyes.

’How long has it been? Snow is already starting to stick to the ground?’

’It must be snowing pretty hard.’

Xie Ning tilted her head back, staring at the gloomy, overcast sky.

Just as she raised her hand to catch a crystalline snowflake, the Healing System boy grabbed her wrist, his voice practically a roar. ”What are you doing? What the hell is this place? Why are there so many zombies?”

”Are you trying to ditch me?”

”You can’t just leave me here! Hurry up and take me back to your Space.”

’Seriously? Now he’s latched onto me?’

Xie Ning narrowed her eyes at him. ’Should I just knock him out and dump him somewhere safe?’

’She had no desire to travel with a moody, ticking time bomb.’

’And she definitely wasn’t leaving him in her farmhouse Space!’

’Was he kidding? She had absolutely no desire to get involved with him.’

’So what if he’s a High-level Healing System user sought after by tens of thousands? In her past life, he was pathologically twisted. Judging by his personality, he couldn’t be much better now.’

When Beichen saw her chilly expression, his heart sank.

His grip on her arm tightened involuntarily. ”You at least have to get me back to the Base. In return, I can provide free healing for you.”

”No matter how badly you’re hurt, as long as you’re still breathing, I can keep you from dying.”

’Thanks for jinxing me without even using a curse word.’

The offer sounded tempting, but Xie Ning remained unmoved.

”Don’t—Don’t you have elderly family members? My healing ability can help regular old people by clearing their meridians. I can at least guarantee they’ll remain healthy and free of sickness for decades. Think about it! I’m not useless. My healing ability is even more effective on ordinary people!”

The boy rushed the words out all at once, his tone softening involuntarily.

Xie Ning watched him silently for a moment before a smile touched her lips. ”Why not threaten me with what you know about my Space?”

’Something like, ”Save me, and I’ll keep the secret of your little pocket dimension with the farm!”’

The gloomy boy stared at her blankly, a flicker of frustration passing through the eyes hidden by his angled bangs. ”Do you think I’m an idiot?”

’If I’d actually tried to threaten her, I’d be a corpse right now!’

’He really is a smart one. And he knows how to read the situation.’

Xie Ning glanced at him, and at the same moment, they both turned to look ahead.

In the distance, a loud explosion rocked the side of Canghua Garden’s Zone 1. Raging flames shot straight into the sky.

Several fighter jets emerged from the thick smoke, heading straight for Zone 2 and Zone 3.

”That must be the Base, sending them to wipe out the zombies!” The boy’s eyes flickered, and he tugged her hand urgently. ”Hurry, let’s go! Don’t just stand there. Do you want to be blown to smithereens?”

Seeing the fighter jets closing in on Zone 3, Xie Ning didn’t dare hesitate any longer. She grabbed the Healing System boy and vanished into her farmhouse Space.

Half a minute after they vanished, the fighter jets arrived over the residential complex, dropping one napalm bomb after another from high in the sky.

As another series of deafening RUMBLES echoed, Gu Chen swore and urged his flight assistant to message the Base for an update.

The pilot, practically shivering from the icy aura radiating off his boss, stammered, ”We... we just searched this entire area of Zone 3. Th-there were no signs of life.”

Gu Chen’s head throbbed with fury. ”Ask him who ordered the bombing! Whose orders? Whose!”

The flight assistant was so startled by his boss’s murderous roar that the communicator nearly slipped from his hand.

Even amidst Gu Chen’s furious roars, Lu Wei managed to remain relatively calm. His fingertips danced across a virtual screen projected from a specialized phone. ”Zuo Dazhu’s report just came in to HQ. It was Chairman Huang. He deployed B97-1, B97-2, E33, and E40 to Golden City’s Canghua Garden, Zones 1, 2, and 3, without authorization...”

Lu Wei pulled up a rotating schematic map, took a deep breath, and continued in a steady tone, ”His reasoning was to prevent the zombie horde from growing and subsequently attacking Golden City Base.”

”Zuo Dazhu, that old fox,” Gu Chen seethed, grinding his teeth.

Everyone knew what that meant.

As if Zuo Dazhu wouldn’t know that this Chairman Huang had deployed fighter jets on his own authority.

Zuo Dazhu was simply watching him sprint down the path to his own doom, and he certainly wasn’t going to step in and stop him.