“My name is Jiang Cheng.”
“Hiss—my name is Shen Wei.”
“Do you live alone?”
“With my boyfriend. Oh, I hiss—I forgot my bag. Hiss—”
“Never mind that. Let’s make sure we’re safe first.”
“Okay.”
Jiang Cheng thought Shen Wei felt light—much lighter than she had visually estimated based on her height and build. That wasn’t normal.
Jiang Cheng was basically certain that her strength really had increased compared to before she lost consciousness.
But it didn’t seem to have increased as much as the monsters’ strength had. Fortunately, the monsters weren’t that agile. If a monster could control its limbs and balance like a normal person, she would have been dead by now.
“Ah!” Shen Wei gasped softly.
She had seen the security guard’s body.
“You killed him?” her voice trembled. “Even the security guards turn into monsters?”
“Turning into a monster doesn’t discriminate by identity or profession,” Jiang Cheng said.
Shen Wei was speechless.
They walked further ahead, and when they reached the building, they saw the neighbor’s body too.
Not only was the neighbor’s head shattered, but his hands, feet, arms, and legs were also broken and twisted. His death was even more gruesome than the security guard’s and the male resident in the garden.
Shen Wei felt both nauseated and terrified. After one glance, she couldn’t bear to look again.
Jiang Cheng said, “You were right not to go back. There are other people in your home—you can’t be sure they won’t mutate. This is my next-door neighbor. He was probably the first one in the whole complex to wake up. He might have bitten his dog to death. The dog’s barking woke me up. Sit here for a moment.”
She set Shen Wei down on a sloping curb next to the steps, then quickly climbed the steps in a few strides.
Under the porch, the black cat lay still, a large pool of blood beneath it.
The security guard had bitten the cat in the abdomen, tearing away a chunk of fur, flesh, and blood.
Jiang Cheng started crying.
She had come to this city just to get away from her greedy relatives who wanted to take everything from her, and also because it was easier to find work in a big city.
But she had never truly fit in. Her relationships were all superficial.
The truth was, she had always been lonely.
Even though she couldn’t tell whether this feeling of loneliness truly belonged to her or to the original “Jiang Cheng” whose body she had inhabited, whenever she thought about it, that aching sensation wrapped around her heart.
Just yesterday, she was finally no longer lonely—she had gained a companion: Moli.
The somewhat aloof little black cat hadn’t seemed to want to be kept indoors. He had run away. But at the critical moment, he came back, bravely sacrificing himself to save her.
In the kitten’s heart, she must have been special, right?
He must have accepted her as a partner, right?
He must have been lonely too.
Jiang Cheng’s tears fell, splashing onto Moli’s wound. Suddenly, Moli twitched a few times.
He wasn’t dead yet! Still alive!
Jiang Cheng wiped away her tears in one motion and quickly reached out a finger to feel for a pulse. Sure enough, the heart was still beating—much faster than a human’s, thump-thump-thump.
Jiang Cheng glanced back at Shen Wei, who was staring up at her helplessly from the bottom of the steps.
Shen Wei was shivering in pain. For a young woman to endure such intense pain without crying out was pretty impressive. If she had to walk on her own, she could, but she’d probably be slower than an old person.
Jiang Cheng thought for a moment, carefully scooped up Moli, and tucked him into the hem of her T-shirt, making a pouch. She pinched the left, right, and center parts of the hem together and held them tightly between her teeth.
Now her entire stomach and waist were exposed, even her bra was showing, but Moli was cradled against her chest in the T-shirt pouch, leaving her hands free.
She walked down the steps, then lifted Shen Wei’s arm again. “Go!”
Shen Wei endured the sharp pain and, with Jiang Cheng’s help, made it up the steps. They entered the building.
Jiang Cheng glanced back and used her foot to close the glass door behind them. Even though it was just a useless glass door, she felt that without the lure of live human flesh, the monsters probably wouldn’t actively break things.
The neighbor had chased her out of his apartment, smashed through the hallway window, and jumped down—his target had been her, a living person.
The man in the garden had also gone after Shen Wei’s flesh and blood.
Without a living person to attract them, closing the door might keep the monster in the garden from coming in.
Shen Wei seemed on the verge of passing out from the pain.
She had done pretty well, all things considered. After the initial fear and panic, she was at least able to cooperate without crying or making a fuss.
But making her walk up the stairs wasn’t realistic. Jiang Cheng chose the elevator.
One elevator was already waiting on the first floor. It opened as soon as Jiang Cheng pressed the button. She deliberately kept her distance from the elevator doors, just in case something was inside.
Fortunately, the elevator was empty. The pale white light shone against the frosted metal walls, looking exactly like a haunted scene from a movie.
The advantage of living on a low floor was that they arrived in seconds.
When the elevator doors opened, Shen Wei could feel that every muscle in Jiang Cheng’s body was tense, so much so that even Shen Wei, dizzy as she was, could sense it.
Luckily, there were no monsters in the hallway.
Jiang Cheng led Shen Wei toward her own apartment.
As they passed one of the doors, a voice came from inside: “Ziqing! Ziqing, what are you doing? It’s me! Ziqing, have you lost your mind? Let go of me! Li Ziqing! Ah—”
“Ahhh—!” The man’s voice turned shrill. “Help! Somebody help me! Ahhhhhhh—”
Shen Wei’s eyes flew open in shock. She looked at Jiang Cheng.
Jiang Cheng’s footsteps faltered for a moment, but then she clenched the hem of her shirt tighter between her teeth and kept moving forward without stopping.
Shen Wei bit her lip and lowered her head.
Both of them knew what was happening inside that room—two people had woken up in that small apartment. One was still human. The other had turned into a monster.
In such a tiny space, with the other person being someone close to them, they probably hadn’t reacted in time to find a proper weapon to defend themselves. Nor were they as lucky as Shen Wei, who had Jiang Cheng to save her.
Monsters are incredibly strong. Once they pin you down and start biting… that’s basically it.
But Jiang Cheng and Shen Wei weren’t superheroes. They were just two ordinary young women. Their top priority was to save themselves.
They had one injured person and one injured cat.
One was on the verge of death, the other on the verge of passing out.
Jiang Cheng spotted a baseball bat lying on the floor across from the neighbor’s door. It was a good weapon—very effective against monsters with brittle skulls and uncoordinated limbs.
Jiang Cheng hooked it with her foot, gave it another kick, and sent the bat rolling to her own doorstep.
Her apartment door was still wide open. Earlier, when she’d gone out to check on the neighbor, she hadn’t closed it—just left it cracked open.
Through the open door of the neighbor’s apartment, with the hallway light, she could vaguely see blood on the floor and the shattered remains of a dog.
Jiang Cheng used her foot to push her own door wide open. Her small apartment was visible at a single glance—safe.
She kicked the bat inside, then guided Shen Wei in and pulled the door shut behind her.
The lock clicked into place with a snap, meaning Jiang Cheng had finally returned to a temporarily safe space.
Mustering her last bit of strength, Jiang Cheng led Shen Wei to the bed and set her down on it.
Shen Wei couldn’t hold on any longer either. She opened her eyes, looked at Jiang Cheng, then closed them again.
The white shirt tied around her wound was completely red. Jiang Cheng hadn’t used very professional technique; she’d been in a hurry, and Shen Wei’s wound was large. With all the walking and movement, the shirt hadn’t been able to cover the entire injury, and the exposed parts had been bleeding continuously.
Now that her hands were free, Jiang Cheng quickly let go of the hem of her shirt and gently placed Moli, still cradled in the fabric, onto the bed.
She couldn’t relax yet. Holding onto her remaining energy, she moved swiftly and fetched the family first-aid kit. It wasn’t large—just stocked with some basic supplies.
She rummaged through it and pulled out a bottle of iodine. Unscrewing the cap, she poured some directly onto the wound on Moli’s belly.
It must have hurt terribly—Moli’s limbs twitched several times.
Then she used scissors to cut away the white shirt tied around Shen Wei’s wound. The injury was so large that Jiang Cheng poured the rest of the iodine into it.
Shen Wei had been unconscious with her eyes closed, but the sudden, sharp pain jolted her awake. She couldn’t even scream—all she could do was hiss as she gasped for air.
Jiang Cheng took out gauze dressing and bandages, wrapped them around Moli’s belly a few times, and tied them off.
There wasn’t enough bandage left for Shen Wei. Jiang Cheng pressed a few pieces of gauze against the wound, wrapped what remained of the bandage around it, then went to the closet and cut up a T-shirt. This time, she wrapped Shen Wei’s wound tightly and securely.
Shen Wei passed out from the pain. Passing out was better—less suffering.
Both the person and the cat were now bandaged. Supplies were limited and her technique was rough, but Jiang Cheng had done her best.
Only then did she finally collapse from exhaustion. She sat down on the floor beside the bed, leaned her back against the bed frame, and rested her head on the mattress.
As the adrenaline faded, her whole body was filled with an indescribable weakness.
She tilted her head back, closed her eyes, and took several deep breaths before she felt even slightly better.
Then she opened her eyes again—the sounds had stopped. The man who had been shouting “Li Ziqing” in the hallway had gone silent.
She had seen the people on her floor a few times. Jiang Cheng could roughly guess which neighbors it was—another cohabiting couple, just like Shen Wei and her boyfriend.
Single women living alone are often considered unsafe.
But today, single people living alone were the lucky ones. Because you couldn’t guarantee that the person beside you would still be human when they woke up.
The vast majority of people couldn’t immediately grasp the situation or bring themselves to strike a loved one in such a brutal way. In a small apartment, once you lost the element of surprise, your chances of survival weren’t high.
Jiang Cheng closed her eyes again.
But just as she was about to rest for a moment, voices rang out in the hallway again—
“What’s going on?” The sound of someone slapping a door—from the distance, it was Li Ziqing’s door. “Is everything okay? What are you doing? Are you messing around or is something wrong? If you’re joking, say something.”
Jiang Cheng opened her eyes again. Helpless, she could only take a breath, stand up, and walk toward the door.
She checked through the peephole first. After confirming nothing was wrong, she pulled the door open a crack to look further, then stuck her head out.
The man knocking on Li Ziqing’s door looked familiar to Jiang Cheng too. He was a male neighbor on the same floor. Jiang Cheng didn’t know the neighbors’ names, but she had subconsciously given them nicknames.
For example, Li Ziqing and her partner—because they were always all over each other in the hallway and elevator—Jiang Cheng mentally called them “the lovey-dovey couple.”
The man who was knocking was big. Clearly a fitness enthusiast—broad shoulders, large pectorals and biceps, even a slightly thickened neck.
Jiang Cheng thought of him as “Muscles.”
Muscles had once tried to strike up a conversation with her, but she didn’t like that exaggerated, bulky type, so she hadn’t responded.
He hadn’t persisted. Occasionally, they would nod at each other when they crossed paths.
“Go back!” she shouted. “Go back! Go back inside! Someone has mutated—they turn into monsters that bite! Go back right now!”
But without witnessing something supernatural with their own eyes, who would easily believe someone else talking about monsters? Muscles looked baffled. “Huh? What? No, what are you talking about?”
Jiang Cheng was about to shout again when suddenly, the door of the apartment next to Li Ziqing’s let out a loud bang.
Then another bang.
Just like Jiang Cheng’s next-door neighbor earlier.
Jiang Cheng’s pupils contracted sharply.
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