When Lin Bing returned home, she was like someone pulled out of the water.
She kept gasping for breath, unable to stop. She managed to finish the first two laps of her run, but had to walk slowly for the remaining 18 laps. By the last 5 laps, her slender legs were trembling, and she nearly collapsed on the ground. Fortunately, she had some willpower and managed to complete all 20 laps.
At 6:30, dinner would be ready in half an hour, and the kitchen was preparing the meal.
Lin Bing's body was almost limp, breathing heavily, but she still walked over to Aunt Zhou and instructed, "Aunt Zhou, please bring dinner up to my room. I won't be coming down. Please tell Grandpa and the others that I'm not feeling well. Thank you."
Aunt Zhou, seeing Lin Bing's pale face, covered in sweat, felt a pang of sympathy. "Miss, you should go rest. You've overexerted yourself running. Look at you—why push yourself so hard and end up exhausting yourself?"
Lin Bing gave a weak smile and then went upstairs.
Lin Bing sank into the bathtub with her eyes closed, enjoying the warm steam filling the bathroom.
Her sore and weak limbs gradually regained strength as she soaked in the hot water.
In the apocalypse, even if there was water, as an ice ability user, Lin Bing could only generate cold water from the air. There was hardly any hot water available. In the base, where the situation was dangerous for women with good looks, especially with people like Shu Xue who were enemies with her, bathing was risky.
Though there were fire ability users in the base, they were all close to Shu Xue and showed inexplicable hostility towards Lin Bing. The only people she was on nodding terms with were just acquaintances.
Because of her mother's health, Lin Bing always brought back some dry tree branches from the outskirts to make fire and boil water.
The Chaoyang base had generators, but due to its small size and large population, many devices were limited in use, requiring points or food in exchange. Lin Bing didn't have extra points or food to make her life comfortable. Her boyfriend Chu Fei, with lightning abilities, was more of a decoration and was seldom seen.
Ice ability…
Oh no!
Lin Bing suddenly opened her eyes. She had developed her ice abilities after catching a cold in the rain that day. If she stayed home safely for a month, would she lose her ice abilities?
With only spatial abilities and no one to protect her…
Even though she could stay with her family, Lin Bing had little faith in anyone after three years of the apocalypse. The situation could be unpredictable, and if people learned she had space and food but lacked self-defense, her future could be uncertain.
Lin Bing's expression grew serious.
She heard the door open, likely Aunt Zhou bringing dinner up. Lin Bing got out of the bathtub, dried herself with a towel, got dressed, and dried her hair before leaving the bathroom.
Indeed, dinner was placed on the table—a small bowl of porridge, two vegetable dishes, and two meat dishes, with a pleasing color combination, though the portions were small. There was also a generous serving of dessert and fruit afterward.
Lin Bing touched her stomach. Although she had eaten three large bowls of dumplings earlier and wasn't hungry, she felt she could still eat. Seeing the beautifully presented meal, she sniffed the aroma and decided she could eat it.
After living through three years in the apocalypse, she couldn't bear to waste any food. Back then, people fought over even a moldy piece of bread.
Lin Bing picked up her chopsticks and then noticed the black-green spot on her right palm. She suddenly wondered if her space could preserve food. She looked at the dishes on the table and, wincing in pain, decided to store one small vegetable dish in the space's underground warehouse. It contained eggs, which could easily spoil in this weather. She would find out tomorrow if the warehouse could preserve food.
Lin Bing also put a cup of steaming hot water into the space, in a different location from the food.
Seeing the clean plates and bowls as if they had been licked clean after eating, Lin Bing felt a sense of satisfaction.
Feeling full from the meal, she initially wanted to rest early but realized she had overeaten and needed some time to digest. To pass the time, she turned on the TV for some background noise.
Flipping through the channels with the remote, she found only idol dramas or ancient fantasy series, with little worth watching, and mostly entertainment news. When she switched to the news channel, she was about to change the channel again when a segment caught her attention.
The screen showed police rounding up a group of drug users. The suspects were resisting, and one of them was so strong that it took five or six officers to subdue him. The camera zoomed in on the suspect's face.
The suspect's complexion was pale, with red-tinted whites of the eyes, darkened around the eyes and nose, and purple lips. The person appeared stiff and was incoherently shouting.
On the news, the police and reporters seemed indifferent, considering this a normal reaction for drug users.
But Lin Bing recognized these symptoms as those of someone bitten by a zombie!
The suspect, while resembling a late-stage drug user, was far too strong to be subdued by just one or two officers. The resemblance to drug users was superficial.
Lin Bing's previously light-hearted mood turned heavy. How could zombies appear so quickly? This was far sooner than she had anticipated.
She glanced at the time on the news channel and then went to her desk to open her computer. She searched for keywords related to zombies and clicked through the results, eventually noticing a small title in a forum: "Zombie Sightings!" The account was newly created.
She opened the post, which was short but detailed the author's experience working in a hospital and witnessing a patient turning into a zombie, including several blurry photos showing blood at the patient's mouth.
The post also mentioned that the patient came from a small place in the mountains, where several patients with similar symptoms had been reported. This area had experienced strange, white mist that was tinged red and had persisted for several days, approaching the small town.
Seeing this, Lin Bing's heart sank. She knew this information was likely accurate. In the years of the apocalypse, experts had studied that zombies originated from such mysterious mists or rain mixed with unknown chemical elements. Even by the time of Lin Bing's death, the cause remained unsolved.
Few people had seen this post, and there weren't many replies. The original poster only appeared on the first page and never came back.
Many people in the thread treated the matter as a joke.
Lin Bing logged into her main account on the forum and reposted the thread, adding today's news content and time. She also briefly outlined some end-of-the-world precautions and things to prepare for before signing out. She also visited Uncle Ya's account and reposted the information there. She had done what she could; whether others believed it or not was no longer her concern.
Lin Bing knew that such alarmist posts would probably be deleted by the moderators soon.
She didn't mention the issue on Weibo or QQ because those platforms mostly consisted of friends and acquaintances. If she brought it up there, she would likely be considered crazy. Moreover, with a month left, she didn't want to be the subject of gossip during that time.
Lin Bing turned off the TV, feeling increasingly heavy-hearted. It was likely that signs of zombies were already emerging. Perhaps the numbers were too small to attract attention, or maybe some officials were already aware but were suppressing the information to avoid causing panic, dealing with it quietly behind the scenes.
The world seemed orderly on the surface, but it was probably already beginning to rot from within.
Who could know?
Lin Bing understood that the outside world was no longer safe, and she needed to speed up her preparations. The joy and excitement of having her space, along with the posts and news online, had cooled down.
There had been too many events today, and she was very tired. She needed to rest well and start everything fresh tomorrow.
She thought she would have trouble sleeping due to worries about zombies, but as soon as her head touched the pillow, she fell into a deep sleep. The night passed in the blink of an eye.