He turned on the TV, and a program was on.
It was an entertainment show.
He had watched this show before, very entertaining and funny, with particularly hilarious plots, always managing to provoke uproarious laughter.
The screen changed to the news.
This was an emergency broadcast.
"Dear citizens, hello, we are interrupting with a news flash, a zombie outbreak has occurred in Huang City, highly infectious. If you discover that a companion has been bitten, please tie them up immediately. Should you encounter a zombie, please avoid them, it's best to hide at home, and wait..."
In the footage, a woman anchor in a business suit, with short, stylish hair, screamed as a colleague, mouth dripping with fresh blood, pounced on her and brought her down.
The screen shook, accompanied by screams and gnawing sounds.
Huang City's television station had fallen.
Lin Fan switched to another channel.
It was the official one.
If the channel showed the same situation, it meant things were truly grave.
On the screen.
There wasn't a soul in sight.
Suddenly.
A figure appeared in the camera's view.
"I recognize this host, very famous, exceptionally handsome, how could he have become like this."
The host was covered in blood, staggering, with a ghastly pale face and gray eyes that rotated in front of the camera, even pressing his face close to the lens, revealing the blood and flesh falling from his mouth.
He stepped out onto the balcony and looked down.
The sounds of car horns and collisions echoed through the city.
Panic-stricken crowds fled, with zombies in hot pursuit.
The piercing screams and the zombies' roars indicated that in this panic, everyone had gone mad.
A man and a woman, seemingly a couple, ran hand in hand, with zombies chasing after them. As the zombies drew closer, the man pushed the woman to the ground and ran without looking back.
The woman struggled to get up, not moving, not fleeing, staring at the man running away, seemingly in despair, no longer seeing the point in escaping. She calmly closed her eyes, allowed the zombies to tackle her down, buying time for the man to escape.
"In the face of great disaster, each flees on their own, no… that woman indeed bought the man time to escape."
When he tried to see if the man had escaped, a car careened out of control and struck the man mid-flight.
The man spun in the air before crashing into the horde of zombies.
These zombies, not stumbling but moving swiftly, ran as fast as normal people.
Escaping was difficult.
Lin Fan stood on the balcony, silently observing, maintaining a high level of composure in the face of the chaos unfolding on the streets below.
When had this composure come to be?
Perhaps it was after witnessing his own demise before being reborn, gaining this calm only after his rebirth.
Another incident occurred.
Within the fleeing crowd, a man and a woman, the man holding a child. Seeing the approaching zombies, he gave the child to the woman and, shouting angrily, waved his arms instructing her to run with the child. He then faced the zombies resolutely, blocking their path.
There were too many zombies, and the man was quickly overwhelmed.
It was a stark contrast to the previous event.
Some protected those important to them.
Others pushed the important ones towards the zombies.
There were those who knocked strangers over to buy time to escape for themselves.
Some people hid smartly inside cars, locking the doors tightly. Zombies climbed onto the windshield, banging their heads against it frantically, their heads a bloody mess but not stopping until they shattered the glass and dove inside.
Others hid beneath cars, zombies lying down and reaching to drag them out before greedily devouring them.
"Is this the city as I remember it?"
Lin Fan muttered to himself.
Back inside the house, I sat in front of the computer, logged onto the internet, and searched for the latest updates.
Everything had just happened; would electricity and the internet hold up? I just didn't know for how long they would last.
I opened the forum.
There were a lot of posts.
I clicked on the one with the highest number of replies.
"Damn it! I'm screwed. I busted my ass to make money and finally bought a flat in the city center of the international financial city; I've only lived there for three days, oh forget about that, can someone fucking tell me how to run away?"
Many people replied.
"Rich big brother."
"Bro, you might as well wait for death. Do you have any idea how populous our country is, living in such a densely populated city where can you run? There's probably a horde of zombies waiting for you downstairs."
"So screwed, I also live in a big city, I was just sleeping, heard sounds outside, opened my eyes, and it was all over."
"I live in a county town, a small county town with a population of a million, I'm done for anyway."
"Stop talking crap. My dad's outside banging on my door like crazy, what should I do? I'm just thirteen, skinny as a monkey, and my dad's fat as a ball, I can't stop him."
In the posts, there was helplessness and panic; most people who went online at this moment hadn't come to their senses yet, not realizing the severity of the tense situation.
At that moment, a post caught Lin Fan's attention.
"The Only Way to Survive Among a Group of Zombies"
He clicked on the post.
"Just wait to die. I'm a man, I like cross-dressing, but I'm always subjected to people's strange gazes. I've already dressed in women's clothes, ready to join the zombie horde. If I can't beat them, join them. If you see me in women's clothes among the zombies, please walk right into my mouth."
"The poster is so talented. As a young lady, I've put on heavy makeup and dressed up nicely; even if I turn into a zombie, I want to be a beautiful one."
"I'm afraid of pain, so I plan to cut my arm with a small knife and drip zombie blood into it, that should turn me into a zombie, right?"
Lin Fan laughed, not expecting these people's ideas to be so brilliant; it was really amusing.
Zombies?
He was not at all afraid, with a kitchen knife by his side, he could protect himself.
The outside was too chaotic now, people running amok, cars crashing wildly, many were not killed by zombies but died under the brutal wheels of vehicles.
He continued scrolling through the forum.
The posts were all similar.
He opened a game, tried to match, but never found anyone, which was a bit disappointing, so he had to kill time by playing against the computer.
After a while.
He grew tired of playing; playing against the computer was so boring.
Lin Fan sat on the bed, looking at the teddy bear on the nightstand, many years old, a little worn out. Lying on the bed, he held the teddy bear in his arms.
With his eyes closed.
This was something very important to him, more important than anything else.
Holding it, he felt much more at peace.
Some time passed.
He took out a notebook from the drawer, flipped it open, every page filled with writing.
Page after page.
The last entry was dated 2020. He had not written anything since then.
Now it was 2028.
Lin Fan held a pen, writing something new in the notebook.
He looked at it with a smile.
He closed the notebook.
And put it back in the drawer.
Then he lay back on the bed again, positioning himself like the letter 'big', holding up the teddy bear with a radiant smile, then letting go, the bear smashed into his face, eliciting a squeaky laugh.
"Have to make the most of every day..."