Amidst the destroyed buildings and scattered rubble where the woods and shrubs had taken their roots, a crooked figure bent down, kneeling on the ground, busily digging the ground with her hands. Her body and limbs had become shreds of flesh and skin, barely recognizable as human. Her body was besmeared with blood, though she, fortunately, hadn't been completely torn into pieces.
A muffled groan escaped from her throat.
"Grrr… grrr…"
At some point, the figure stopped digging and grabbed something from the ground.
Her pair of pale grey eyes—the kind of eyes that only a corpse could have—kept staring intently at the fistful of earthworm in her hand before she pried her mouth open and threw them whole inside.
Crunch, crunch—
Her upper and lower jaws clenched, moving up and down rhythmically, chomping down the mixture of ground and earthworm ferociously. Then, she swallowed them down her throat with a big gulp.
However, she didn't seem satisfied.
She dug the ground again, now with twice the strength she used previously, while her grunts became louder and louder.
"GRRR…. GRRR… ROARR…"
'So hungry…. So hungry…. So hungry….'
Those voices kept repeating again and again in her mind, driving her to dig for more earthworms, stuff them inside her mouth, munch and grind them before swallowing them, and then dig for more earthworms, rinse and repeat.
The only thing on her mind was to satiate her endless hunger.
which seemed to be a failure.
She used up all of her energy and then her body toppled sideways and fell to the ground.
She lied on the ground while gazing at the sky. She had no idea how long she had lain there. The only sensation available to her right now was hunger. She was so starving!
'So hungry…. So hungry…. So hungry….'
After seven days, Qin Yu, who had become a zombie in the apocalypse for seven years, had her life end due to starvation.
***
"Kook, kook, kook…. Kooook!"
The cock was crowing, signaling the dawn of the new day. The darkness slowly uncovered, lifting the curtain for the sun peeking shyly.
"So hungry… so hungry… so hungry…"
Or not.
For the first time after seven years had passed, Qin Yu woke up with wide eyes and felt anything but hungry.
"W-what happened? I don't feel famished anymore!"
"I'm not dying, I'm not dying! I'm still alive!"
"Human... I-I... I am human.... I'm not a zombie! I'm not a fucking zombie!"
Qin Yu couldn't contain her laughter nor her tears of joy.
She was breathing.
She had body temperature and felt her heart pounding.
She could laugh and cry, and even talk instead of the zombies' roar...
It felt like it took many years to return to her body, but Qin Yu adapted very quickly, without any discomfort. Maybe this is instinct?
She got out of bed and walked over to the front of the mirror to immediately check her body. She looked through her reflection and found out that her body was still as complete as she remembered before the apocalypse descended on the world.
She couldn't be said as a gorgeous woman in the modern sense, but her slightly masculine facial features gave her a particular kind of charm.
Her high and strong cheekbones and her beautiful slanted phoenix eyes were complemented by her shoulder-length black and silky hair perfectly, making her look really pleasant to the eyes.
The pajamas she wore were kind of loose, but they made her well-curved body look more alluring.
Her smooth jade white skin with a hint of rosy pink was really different from the pale, bluish, inhumanly disgusting kind of skin in her memory, which made her feel like she was dreaming.
She pinched her slightly plump arm to be sure that she wasn't.
"Ouch…!"
Truly alive... She was truly alive….
Qin Yu recalled the time of the end of the world. She quickly searched for her phone's whereabouts, unlocked the screen, and stared intently at the displayed date.
Today is... July 4, 2025.
And the night where everything changed was the eve of the New Year.
She was back six months before the catasthrope brought by the apocalypse had swept the world, destroying half of the human population in a single night by turning them into zombies!
In the future, people will remember that night as the "Bloody Eve" or the "End of The Era".
In the apocalypse, the threat that humanity should face was not only human infection and zombification after death, but also biological mutations on the earth and dark creatures of unknown origin, and many more unknown danger.
Although there will be wars between those creatures and humans, ordinary humans without abilities are the shrimps at the bottom of the food chain.
Many memories from before she was turned into a zombie flooded her mind. She could vaguely remember the event until a year after Bloody Eve.
Streams of fuzzy and blurry images overlapping with her current memories made her feel slightly dizzy.
Strangely, she couldn't recall what had happened to the Fu Town.
Indeed, Qin Yu was waking up in her room in the old mansion owned by her paternal family line. Her grandparents spent their lives until they passed away in this house.
She herself rarely visited the house after her parents had gone, only once or twice a year to check that the building was still in pristine condition.
In her previous life, she had only spent roughly two weeks in the city, and then she sold this old mansion for quite a fortune before moving out to Yunlin City to find a new opportunity.
Unfortunately, the hell broke loose only after a short time. She didn't even have time to enjoy the money she got since after the apocalypse, the value of current money became worthless.
In this lifetime, she wasn't sure what she was going to do.
Will she follow her previous decision and once again leave the Blessed Town?
With her memories of the future event, she had an advantage compared to other people and could gain the greatest benefit for herself and also for the sake of her survival. Even if she was destined to be a normal citizen without supernatural power, maybe she could use her previous experience to save many people and then be respected and loved?
She cracked a peal of laughter as she imagined the people who'd once been looking down on her and kicking her when she was down, turned into her bootlicker and worshipper.
Satisfying, it was extremely satisfying!
As many kinds of revenge ideas were popping out wildly in her mind, a voice—a cold mechanical voice, so clear as if it was spoken directly to her head, interrupted her fantasy.
[Ding!]
Congratulations on your successful rebirth! The will of the world gave you a present. Do you accept it?]
Qin Yu was awestruck.
Her eyes widened to the point where her eyeballs nearly popped out of their sockets, and her jaw dropped so low that it was almost touching the floor.
In short, her expression was extremely funny right now.
Suffering in previous lives and then having a second chance with the addition of the golden finger and the setting of the apocalypse world.
'Am I some kind of protagonist in a cliché web novel?'
[Waiting for confirmation…. The will of the world gave you a present. Do you accept it?]
Once again, the robot-like voice, which sounded just like an answering machine, rang inside her head, seemingly impatient.
"Accept! I accept! I am a damn pig if I refuse a pie falling from the sky!"
Qin Yu's body trembled, her cheeks blushed with excitement.
Her emotions had been numbed for the past seven years as a zombie, so when good news was knocking on her door one after another, like now, it was hard for her to not have an emotional burst.
[Ding!]
[Opening the present…. Congratulation! You get the Red Packet System!]
Oh boy, the Red Packet System! She got the Red Packet System!
It was one of the top ten golden fingers you want to have as a protagonist, according to webnovel enthusiasts!
Qin Yue let out a big sigh. It seemed that her departure from the Blessed Town had already been set in stone.
With this kind of golden finger, she will be like a carp leaping through the dragon gate, transforming into a cute pure white dragon. Could a small pond like Blessed Town contain a being that was destined to soar through the firmament like her?
She was fated to be the top dog in the apocalypse world, killing zombies and monsters left and right, saving humanity from the brink of destruction, and becoming a goddess that enjoyed their worship and reverence.
[Warning! The system only works in the Blessed City. Please proceed with caution.]
'DAMN IT!!'
[Have a good day!]