Ruyi veered onto a secluded alley, stowing her car into the space. After dispatching a few zombies that lunged at her, she darted into a small clinic to take cover.
Once inside, she enacted her self-coined "three-light policy": take everything, steal everything, and loot everything.
She prioritized all medications, particularly contraceptives and abortifacients. Though she had already nearly cleaned out the city's stock of such items, the traumatic death of Ji Ruyi in the original storyline had turned her into an obsessive hoarder. What would Qiao Huixin think if she learned that the daughter she mocked for being an idle dreamer had orchestrated such thorough pillaging?
After gathering everything portable, Ruyi used the clinic's alcohol to prepare instant noodles for a makeshift meal. As she ate, she realized her preparations for solo survival were woefully inadequate.
She spent the rest of the night meticulously listing all the supplies she would need. With each page, visions of swarming zombies flashed before her eyes, and her mood grew heavier. By the time she finished her list, she felt utterly dejected. Without further delay, she slipped into her space and began the second-level trials. Strength had to come first.
Initially, Ruyi had been elated with how quickly she had cleared the first-level trials, even entertaining the notion that she possessed extraordinary talent. But her pride was swiftly crushed when she asked about the total number of trials.
"Given your aptitude and the enemies you may encounter, the trials are divided into 108 levels," the Sovereign intoned.
Her smugness instantly turned to despair as she begrudgingly entered the second-level trials. Perhaps sensing her overwhelming frustration, the Sovereign unexpectedly offered a consolation prize.
"Clear the second-level three-star trial, and I will reward you with four more chapters of the story."
"Make it five!"
"If you don't want them, I can always take them back."
"No, no! Four chapters it is. But seriously, these crystal cores really have no use? Can't you be a little less picky? Times are tough! Even a little is better than nothing… Hello? Sovereign? Are you there?"
The moment Ruyi stepped into the pitch-black trial space, she knew she couldn't afford to let her guard down. Then, a familiar sound reached her ears—the guttural growls of zombies.
Zombies?
Ruyi ground her teeth in frustration. The Sovereign truly enjoyed tormenting her. How was she supposed to fight zombies in complete darkness? Worse still, her weapon wasn't the large cleaver she had grown accustomed to but a small dagger.
She didn't even dare voice her complaints; the Sovereign would know.
This time, Ruyi felt genuine fear. Her past experiences had taught her resilience, and she had endured the physical agony of the first-level trials with gritted teeth. But nothing had prepared her for the visceral horror of hearing a zombie's rancid teeth tear into her flesh. It wasn't just the pain—it was the sickening sensation of being devoured alive.
In her previous life, her greatest hardship had been emotional scars inflicted by Qiao Huixin. Compared to the life-or-death stakes of her current reality, those seemed trivial. Beneath her hardened resolve, she was still a regular person who felt fear and pain. This trial, however, pushed her to her breaking point.
Once a trial began, the Sovereign wouldn't release her unless she was on the brink of death.
In the suffocating darkness, armed with a weapon that was painfully ineffective, Ruyi endured bites, scratches, and an unrelenting barrage of sensations—blood, stench, terror, revulsion, and searing pain. By the time she passed out from blood loss, she swore she would never set foot in that cursed space again.
Why bother? She might as well stay with Wen Xinyu. What difference did it make whether she died at the hands of simulated zombies or real ones? Death was death.
Emerging from the red recovery space, Ruyi exploded in fury.
"Forget it! I'm done! Find someone else!"
"The outcome may be the same, but the journey is not. In the trials, you will face pain, but you will grow stronger. The result is that you will no longer be a victim. Without the trials, you'll succumb to the narrative—assaulted, humiliated, utterly powerless. As a weakling, you'll lose your dignity over scraps of food, endure relentless suffering, and still end up as zombie fodder," the Sovereign said. As Ruyi's anger subsided, he added: "Fear is inherent to all intelligent beings. The truly powerful are those who conquer it rather than cower before it."
After venting her frustration and reflecting on the Sovereign's words, Ruyi gradually regained her composure.
Fine. She would accept her fate. From the moment she had entered this world, it seemed inevitable.
Damn you, Tong Yinyin. When I get back, I'll be sure to thank you properly.
That said, the Sovereign wasn't entirely heartless; his advice was, at least, somewhat considerate.
"Since you've accepted reality, let's continue the trial," he commanded, his voice as icy as ever.
As she returned to the darkness, Ruyi seethed internally: I take it back. You're just a relentless taskmaster.
By the time she had been bitten so many times that she was numb to the pain, Ruyi had developed strategies for fighting zombies in total darkness.
She learned to sacrifice a small portion of flesh to bait the zombies into a vulnerable position, then swiftly and cleanly decapitate them with her dagger.
When Ruyi finally mastered dodging attacks using only her heightened reflexes and dispatched her last foe, she completed the second-level one-star trial. By the time she emerged from the space, it was already midday.
The novel's realistic setting worked to her advantage; she was intimately familiar with the city she had lived in for nearly a decade. Recalling the locations of nearby malls and supermarkets, she mapped out the shortest route and set off without delay.
Zombies were sparse in the quiet alleyways. Ruyi quickly cleared her path and discovered a motorcycle in the courtyard of a quadrangle house.
As a former streetwise delinquent, riding a motorcycle was child's play.
The main roads were littered with dried bloodstains, shards of glass, and tattered scraps of clothing. Many storefronts had shattered windows, smeared with dark streaks of blood. Under the blazing noon sun, the eerily silent streets felt suffocating. Occasional zombie growls broke the stillness, amplifying the sense of desolation.
It was this silence that made Ruyi's presence all the more conspicuous. The zombies perked up immediately, charging toward her with wild excitement.
Fortunately, Ruyi's nimbleness and quick reflexes allowed her to navigate the chaos with relative ease. After weaving through the onslaught, she reached her destination—a sprawling shopping mall.
Stepping into the massive ground floor, she instantly dismissed the idea of entering through the main area. The dense horde of zombies there could overwhelm her in seconds.
Climbing was her only option.
She spotted an open window and scaled the nearest drainage pipe to reach it. After hoisting herself inside, she landed in a storage room. Peering down from the window, she noted the considerable height.
Good thing I've been training. Guess I'm a bona fide expert now, she thought smugly.
After basking in her small triumph, Ruyi cautiously opened the door to peek outside. A handful of zombies in store uniforms wandered nearby. She pulled a handgun from her space and dashed into the corridor, firing toward the farthest point from her position.
The zombies, drawn by the noise, immediately shuffled toward the source, their guttural moans echoing through the mall.
Ruyi seized the opportunity to dart into various stores, looting everything she could carry. Every so often, she fired a couple more shots to divert attention, keeping any curious zombies at bay.
Her agility, honed through rigorous trials, allowed her to clear most of the stores before running out of ammunition. She retreated to the storage room, firing a few final shots to cover her exit. As more zombies poured in from other floors, she climbed to the third level.
From her new vantage point, she observed clusters of zombies shuffling up the escalators. She waited patiently until only a few stragglers remained, dispatching them swiftly before ransacking the clothing stores. Whether it was men's suits or baby onesies, she stuffed everything into her space. With such ample storage, there was no need to be picky.
On the fourth floor, the remaining zombies were more concentrated. To save time, Ruyi pulled out a phone with some remaining battery life, cranked up the volume, and threw it to a distant corner.
As the sound blared, the zombies swarmed toward it, leaving her free to raid the floor.
Peering out the window afterward, she saw that the commotion had attracted even more zombies from the surrounding area.