PS, In a fictional world, please don't substitute with reality...
Jianghai City.
The streets reeked of decay, with ruins and abandoned vehicles scattered everywhere, and trash fluttering wildly in the wind.
In a dimly lit room, a zombie stood quietly by the window, its hollow eye sockets facing the ravaged world outside.
Outside, broken utility poles leaned against the roadside, wires tangled like messy strands of hair.
Once towering skyscrapers had shattered glass, the walls were covered with black stains and cracks, barely holding on.
The store signs along the street were in disarray, doors half-open, the goods inside long since looted.
"When will these days of being neither human nor ghost ever end?!"
Lu Chuan looked at himself in the mirror, wanting to howl at the sky, but his hoarse throat could only produce muffled roars.
The reflection in the mirror appeared gaunt; his clothes were tattered but seemed clean compared to the bloodstained, desolate surroundings.
Yet, his exposed skin had turned deathly pale, with veins showing clearly in green-black lines.
The most terrifying sight was Lu Chuan's head, which now looked like skin stretched over bones.
Even his once thick black hair had started to thin, and his teeth had grown sharp and loosened.
The once black-and-white pupils were now blood-red, though a trace of sorrow could still be seen in the eyes in the mirror...
As Lu Chuan took off his jacket, a bloody, gaping wound was visible on his shoulder, resembling an animal's bite!
The bloodstains around the wound had long since dried, yet the dark hole refused to heal.
If a regular person had suffered such a severe injury, they would have been dead beyond saving.
But Lu Chuan remained unbothered, because he was no longer human...
...
A month ago, while working overtime, Lu Chuan suddenly blacked out.
He thought he had died from overwork, but when he opened his eyes again, he found himself on a strange street.
Before Lu Chuan could be thankful for his reincarnation, the once peaceful street suddenly became unbearably noisy.
Soon after, explosions erupted one after another, plunging the entire city into chaos.
Having just traversed to this world, Lu Chuan was caught off guard by the sudden upheaval; he could only run frantically with the crowd.
While fleeing in panic, Lu Chuan noticed some zombies among the crowd, covered in blood and severely wounded, yet still biting passersby.
In an instant, Lu Chuan's mind went blank.
Freshly traversed, he wondered if he was hallucinating or accidentally stumbled into a film set.
Zombies, which only existed in sci-fi movies, were now appearing in real life?!
Yet, Lu Chuan soon realized this was no illusion.
As he stood dumbfounded, a zombie jumped onto his back, biting viciously into his shoulder.
In just a moment, Lu Chuan felt a chunk of flesh being torn from his shoulder.
The excruciating pain sent his adrenaline surging; he quickly grabbed the zombie on his back and slammed it onto the ground, smashing its head to pieces.
But then, the toxin spread rapidly within Lu Chuan, leaving him light-headed; the severe pain almost made him faint.
Clinging to his last shred of consciousness, Lu Chuan covered his wound and staggered into a small store.
Lying on the store floor, Lu Chuan lost consciousness again.
When he woke up, the city had completely fallen; society collapsed, order disintegrated.
And to his horror, Lu Chuan found that he had just traversed here, only to become a bloodthirsty zombie!
Still, what puzzled Lu Chuan was that although he had transformed into a zombie, driven by bloodlust, with the wound no longer in pain, he retained his human consciousness.
Yet, the bloodthirsty impulse and hunger constantly attacked Lu Chuan's soul.
Fortunately, he had fainted in a store with plenty of food in the fridge.
For the past month, Lu Chuan had lived in the store, relying on eating frozen meat from the fridge to stave off hunger.
After a month, Lu Chuan was certain this world had completely fallen.
Otherwise, by now, the army would have entered the city to clean up the battlefield.
During this period, he only saw some survivors risking danger in search of food, most of whom died at the hands of zombies.
Driven by hunger, Lu Chuan headed toward the store's refrigerator.
However, upon opening it, a strong foul stench hit him in the face.
Although he had already turned into a zombie, and his own body emitted a rotting odor, it didn't prevent him from being disgusted by this decaying food.
A week after the zombie outbreak, the city began to experience large-scale water and power outages.
Now, with time passing, even the meat in the refrigerator had finally started to rot.
Over the past month, Lu Chuan had gnawed on quite a bit of frozen meat; only some remnants were left at the bottom of the fridge.
Originally, Lu Chuan planned to search for food in a few days, but now he was forced to act earlier.
He picked up a bloodstained shirt from the floor and put it on, then picked up a crowbar and placed it into his backpack.
The crowbar wasn't for self-defense, but merely for prying locks open.
After all, being a zombie, his kind on the streets wouldn't attack him, and humans would just turn around and run away upon seeing him.
Unlike other survivors, Lu Chuan didn't have to worry about safety while walking the streets as a zombie.
However, to avoid being discovered as a conscious zombie by those with malicious intent, Lu Chuan still pretended to limp, occasionally letting out a growl as he walked slowly on the street.
Nevertheless, Lu Chuan deliberately avoided the zombies on the streets, as the stench from them after a month was far too pungent, greatly affecting his appetite...
Lu Chuan didn't plan to go far, intending to first search the neighborhood near the store.
After entering the neighborhood, Lu Chuan randomly sneaked into a building.
Upon reaching the second floor, the door was open, and the interior was stained with blood, with only a rotting corpse inside that had been gnawed on, clearly showing that the resident of the house had long met an unfortunate end.
But just as Lu Chuan was about to head to the kitchen, he suddenly heard the cry of a baby from next door.
...
At this moment, Ji Ruxue stared at the ceiling, feeling utterly hopeless.
In her past life, she fought across the lands, facing countless life-and-death trials, ultimately achieving the position of empress.
Yet, despite her strength, it was still insufficient in an endless, protracted battle.
As the empress of humanity, Ji Ruxue had slain countless powerful beings of different races, ultimately dying from exhaustion at the hands of the Star Sky Insect Race's queen.
After her fall, Ji Ruxue's consciousness plunged into chaos, and it was unclear how long had passed until she opened her eyes again, only to find she hadn't perished in that spectacular battle.
Or rather... "rebirth" was a more fitting term.
Although she didn't know why she lived again after her fall, Ji Ruxue couldn't feel any joy.
Because she quickly discovered... she had been reborn as a baby!
The most crucial part was that she returned to the early days of the apocalypse fifty years ago.
Rebirth, yet only to face a catastrophic beginning...
With the zombie outbreak, her parents had already turned into zombies and died. She was locked in the bedroom, lucky to escape the disaster.
But that's not the main issue; the key point was that her body hadn't eaten for two days.
The hunger within made Ji Ruxue feel dizzy, as her stomach even began cramping from starvation due to the long period without food.
Reborn as a baby, Ji Ruxue lost the immense power she once had.
Let alone dealing with zombies, now even movement was extremely difficult for her.
"I, the Unparalleled Empress of humanity, must I truly starve to death on a baby crib? This is just too damn humiliating!!"
Ji Ruxue looked up at the ceiling, feeling like crying without tears.
She regretted it at this moment; this disastrous beginning of rebirth was less preferable than having died bravely on the battlefield...
Click! Click!
Suddenly, the doorknob to the bedroom was being frantically turned, the noise terrifying Ji Ruxue so much that she didn't dare take a deep breath.
However, because the bedroom door was locked from the inside, there was soon silence, as if the zombie outside had given up.
Just as Ji Ruxue breathed a sigh of relief, a sudden crash resonated.
Bam!
The bedroom door was forcibly pried open from the outside.
Seeing the terrifying and hideous face of the zombie at the door, Ji Ruxue's heart completely sank into desolation.
"Maru Spice!"