At 2:26 in the morning, the signal briefly restored, and the surviving individuals who were hiding learned the information that they were unlikely to wait for rescue and had to save themselves.
For some people, this was the motivation that pushed them to grab weapons and seek hope. Their goal was to head to the base.
But for others, it meant deeper despair.
Or perhaps, deeper indulgence.
Those with power began to rob houses recklessly. Since there were no restraints, they could kill as many as they wanted.
Everything in a room had to belong to them, and if someone dared to challenge them, they would eliminate them.
Once they exhausted the resources in one room, they would move on to the next.
They would recruit survivors who seemed useful or keep them as bedwarmers. When encountering zombies, these weak survivors served as bait to distract the zombies.
The world order began to crumble.
Fu Erdie was in a dazed state, occasionally experiencing brief moments of clarity before slipping back into sleep.
When she was awakened by scratching at the door, she had lost all sense of time.
She struggled to get up from the ground and unsteadily turned on the monitor.
At some point, the corridor had become densely packed with zombies.
She felt weak and unable to think clearly. She leaned against the wall, gasping for breath, occasionally coughing.
Eventually, she couldn’t hold on any longer and stumbled to the edge of the sofa, collapsing onto it.
Two more hours passed before she opened her eyes again, her senses returning, and memories flooded back into her mind.
She had encountered an awakened… the window, she and the awakened had perished together.
She turned her head to look at the balcony, where the eco-friendly plants were thriving. The fruits and potatoes she casually planted before the apocalypse seemed to have sprouted. The kumquats and spring onions she planted before the end of the world were growing well.
But the invader was nowhere to be found?!
She was shocked and struggled to get up, her body feeling weak and flimsy. She ran to the balcony to look outside.
He was truly gone!
Even the blood on the ground had disappeared!
She ran back to the bedroom and looked at herself in the mirror. There was no trace of blood or wounds from head to toe. Her previously damaged arm was now completely healed.
If it weren’t for the torn sleeves and bloodstains on her clothes, she would have thought it was all an illusion.
The dog had become much thinner but was now excitedly wagging its tail, circling around her.
Fu Erdie gently touched the dog’s head with a sense of compassion and then belatedly looked at the time on the monitoring panel.
It was already 6:30, and she had been unconscious for a full four days.
During these days, she had miraculously recovered, and the dog hadn’t starved to death.
It had found its own bag of dog food and tore open the packaging, eating from the torn opening whenever it was hungry.
“My Mozi is really smart.” Fu Erdie looked at the healthy and lively dog, a smile unconsciously appearing on her face.
But why did all this happen?
Could it be that she awakened a healing ability? And in her dazed state, she cleaned up and dealt with the bodies?
It seemed unlikely.
Fu Erdie looked at the eco-friendly plants and began to suspect that they were responsible.
She returned to the balcony and carefully inspected the crime scene.
And indeed, she discovered another issue.
The nail marks that had been scratched by the awakened on the window were gone.
That memory was very clear, and the fear and threat she had felt at that time were still etched in her mind.
However, the long nail marks were gone.
She looked at the corridor monitor again.
In the high-definition camera, their own door had deep scratches from the numerous zombies, stained with blood, looking quite gruesome.
But the doors of the other residents in the hallway were even more miserable. Even the best door had several dents from punches, and the other two lower-quality doors were completely smashed through.
So the question was, how could their relatively inexpensive security door withstand for so long?!
Fu Erdie sat on the sofa, feeling the cool breeze from the air conditioner.
She suspected that she hadn’t mutated.
But her house had mutated!!!
This hypothesis was confirmed as she stared at the monitor for the afternoon.
The door and the walls of her house were slowly healing and regenerating the scars and dents. The dirt and blood stains left by the zombies were also self-cleansing.
Fu Erdie was dumbfounded, and then she moved a stool to the kitchen, turned on the lights, and examined the pipes of the range hood and water heater.
Four days ago, there had been odours and insects in the house. They all came in through these two pipes. But now, they were gone, possibly due to something the house had done.
In this observation, she witnessed a live action scene.
A stray fly flew in through the range hood pipe. A green branch followed closely behind and swiftly struck, pulling it back into the pipe faster than it could fly.
Fu Erdie was shocked.
She climbed onto the stove barefoot and looked through the pipes.
The once greasy pipes were now clean as new. On the other end of the pipes, a green network of branches and plant roots covered the passage, sealing it off.
Fu Erdie blinked and put half of the pipe back, turned on the range hood, and continued looking from the other half.
The previously sealed exit now had gaps, and the freed branches fluttered around.
Fu Erdie seemed to understand.
She turned off the range hood, returned to the ground, and took out a small electric pan to fry an egg.
As the fumes filled the air, cracks and crevices began to appear on the walls and ceiling, and the branches extended, capturing and absorbing the smoke in the air, completely purifying it.
Fu Erdie’s eyes lit up.
Indeed, the eco-friendly plants could purify!
If she guessed correctly, after the mutation, the eco-friendly plants were protecting the house. During her unconscious days, the branches and roots of the plants made the room airtight, absorbing any mosquitoes or odours as if they were garbage.
The room itself was capable of self-repair. Fu Erdie didn’t know its limits, but one thing was clear: both the room and the eco-friendly plants had mutated, and both mutations were heading in a positive direction.
Her severe injuries must have been healed by the room or the plants.
The aroma of frying eggs made Fu Erdie realize her hunger belatedly.
She opened a box of milk that she cherished and fried another egg. Ordinary but delicious food filled her stomach, bringing a satisfying feeling that made her throat feel a little sore.
Encountering that awakened was unfortunate.
But to receive such great protection in a situation where she had no relatives and was in desperate circumstances, how lucky she was.
She felt content. Truly content.
Tears fell into the frying pan, mingling with the crispy pancake as she swallowed them down.
With eco-friendly plants doing the cleaning, Fu Erdie no longer needed to clean the room or scoop up the dog’s faeces herself.
The plants were exceptionally intelligent, accurately discerning what was useful to Fu Erdie and what was not. Fu Erdie didn’t have to fuss over trivial matters as long as she ate and drank on time, ensuring she wouldn’t starve or die of thirst.
She felt relaxed, playing music every day, adjusting the radio, loosening the soil in the flowerbed, and petting the dog. The day quickly passed by.
Except for the deceased awakened, no other awakened bothered her.
Fu Erdie hoped that this state could continue until the day she ran out of resources and died. The nightmares that surged at night were insignificant in the comfortable air-conditioned room.
However, human emotions are like the ever-changing weather.
In early July, there was a heavy rain in City C.
The sky was covered in dark clouds.
Strong winds raged, debris flew around, creating banging noises.
Lightning and thunder struck, as if the heavens were pierced by giant swords, tearing apart and slowly closing, only to be ripped open again.
Fu Erdie felt her arms, shoulder blades, and chest starting to ache once again.
Her wounds had already healed, and she had no problem with her movements; there were no internal injuries. She simply found herself returning to that early morning, a man poking his head through the window, staring at her with a sinister and eerie gaze.
Reality and nightmares intertwined, and Fu Erdie couldn’t shake off the feeling that there was another awakened lurking outside her door and window.
They grinned, revealing their foul and yellow teeth. Although they possessed a human form and consciousness, they were even more terrifying than zombies, like lurking devils, ready to attack at any moment.
And she, with no means to defend herself, could only be beaten.
From childhood to adulthood, apart from a mischievous punishment from her family that resulted in a slap on her back, she had never been beaten.
That one time had stayed with her for a long time, and her family had showered her with lots of candy to make up for it, finally soothing her anger.
But now, she was at risk of being killed by the awakened at any moment.
Fu Erdie hugged herself, leaning against the sofa, gazing out the window into the dark night, too afraid to confirm if the awakened she imagined watching her was just an illusion.
She simply turned off the air conditioner and the lights, silently standing in the pouring rain and storm for the entire night.
The next day, the rain subsided, and Fu Erdie opened the sliding door to the balcony.
It was humid, damp, and filled with the putrid odour of the apocalypse.
Summoning her courage, Fu Erdie cautiously stuck her head out, surveying her surroundings.
Except for herself, there was no one else.
She didn’t leave, intentionally standing close to the window to get drenched in the rain.
She wanted to become stronger.
She wanted to become an esper.
Raindrops, radiation, viruses—whatever the catalyst for triggering awakened abilities was, she hoped it would give her a chance.
A chance to shatter the nightmares.
The rain beat against her fair face, resembling tears splashing apart.
On the 10th of July, over a month after the apocalypse began, Fu Erdie had lost her normal routine.
She couldn’t sleep well at night, unable to fall asleep. During the day, she was drowsy, catching up on sleep, but when it was time for her usual sleep, she remained awake until dawn.
Every day, she would stand in the rain, hoping to undergo a mutation.
However, when her homegrown fruits and potato sprouts were about to be ruined by the rain, she still hadn’t mutated.
On this day, she closed the window and sat on the floor, soaked like a drowned rat.
The roots of the eco-friendly plants swept across the balcony, absorbing all the rainwater, dirt, and mud, restoring the messy balcony to normalcy within fifteen minutes.
The balcony sliding door opened on its own, and the air conditioner started again, making the room comfortable once more.
But Fu Erdie felt cold.
She took a hot shower in the bathroom, then turned up the temperature in the room. The display showed 30 degrees, a value that exceeded the normal range.
Fu Erdie reluctantly felt that she wasn’t as cold anymore, so she lay back on the sofa, wrapped in a blanket, curling up into a ball.
On the 10th of every month, it was the day for paying water, electricity, and gas bills in their district.
When Fu Erdie saw the time hit 10 o’clock, she instinctively opened the payment platform and slowly closed it again.
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