In the early morning, the alarm on Zhang Xiaoqiang's mobile phone woke him up with a start.
He got out of bed and went to the living room. As usual, he took stock of the remaining supplies. Five days ago, he had risked his life to get those cabbages, and now there was only one left.
He walked into the kitchen, turned on the induction cooker, boiled the last remaining cabbage with water, and after it was cooked, he divided it into two portions, one for breakfast and the other for dinner.
After having breakfast, Zhang Xiaoqiang, as he always did, went to the window and looked at the zombies downstairs, stared at the end of the road, and gazed at the gloomy, thick, and dull sky. The obscure clouds carried a somewhat chilly air, weighing heavily on his heart and making it hard for him to breathe.
To be honest, he really hoped that at the end of that road, a convoy would suddenly appear, with a row of soldiers standing in the camouflaged compartments, sweeping away the despair on earth with their guns in hand, driving those stinking zombies into hell, bringing life back to normal, and allowing him to return to his former laid-back life.
But fantasies were just fantasies after all. The zombies were still wandering around everywhere, and Zhang Xiaoqiang still had to worry about food.
He went back to the living room, put his hands on his head, and got ready for today's physical training. If a person stayed in a room for too long, his body would gradually become weak. So if he wanted to survive and leave this dead city, he had to work hard to improve his physical fitness. Even if the effect of daily exercise was minimal, as long as he persisted, one day it would bring him unexpected surprises.
"Ninety-four... Ninety-five..."
Zhang Xiaoqiang was supporting himself on the ground with both hands, sweating all over. He was so tired. He hadn't exercised like this for a long time.
But when he thought about those zombies still lurking outside, the little food left at home, and the possibility that his sister in another place was waiting for him to rescue her, he took a deep breath again, put his hands on his head, and started all over again.
Strangely enough, since his ankle was injured by a zombie, his physical fitness had actually started to improve gradually. In the past, he could only manage to do ten sit-ups at most before collapsing from exhaustion on the ground.
But now, he could keep going for over a hundred, and on top of that, he could even do a thousand frog jumps. Things he wouldn't have dared to dream of before were now a reality, and he was starting to accept it calmly.
In the afternoon, Zhang Xiaoqiang picked up a towel and wiped the beads of sweat off his face. A thousand frog jumps and a thousand practice stabs with the iron spear while holding it up had really worn him out. The food he had for breakfast had been mostly digested, and his stomach started growling again.
The supplies at home wouldn't last him for many more days. The most urgent thing now was to find new food as soon as possible to fill his stomach.
Zhang Xiaoqiang remembered that there was a convenience store across from the community. Usually, it sold cigarettes, alcohol, and non-staple foods, as well as rice and eggs. But now, there were over twenty zombies aimlessly wandering around nearby. He could imagine that if he rushed over there alone in his current state, he'd surely be eaten up by these walking corpses without leaving a trace.
Thinking of this, he ate up the remaining cabbage and drank some water until he was half full. Then he stuck the kitchen knife into his belt, picked up the homemade iron spear and the iron pot lid shield, and walked to the door.
After that, he opened the security door skillfully, just like he did five days ago. He killed the six zombies one by one in the same way. Then he walked into the corridor and directly took out the kitchen knife to chop off their heads and limbs to avoid being hurt by any zombies that weren't completely dead.
After dealing with all the zombies in the entire unit building, on his way downstairs, Zhang Xiaoqiang saw that the door of a first-floor household was open. After only a moment's hesitation, he held the shield and the iron spear and walked in.
He pushed the door open cautiously and carefully, but found that there were no zombies left inside. Similarly, after searching the whole house, he didn't find any food either.
Fortunately, the owner of this house seemed to be a military enthusiast. Zhang Xiaoqiang found a crossbow and a military knife in the bedroom, and even a high-power telescope.
Zhang Xiaoqiang wasn't very familiar with crossbows, so he found the instruction manual for the crossbow.
MP9 Military Anti-terrorism Sniper Crossbow:
Pull Force: 48 kg
Range: 180 m; Effective range can reach over 100 m
Net Weight: 4.6 kg
Equipped with 1 spare string, 1 large crossbow bag, 1 LED strong light for the crossbow, 1 laser sight, 1 mechanically adjustable sight in four directions, 1 4*32 optical sight, 1 set of crossbow assembly tools, 3 long arrows, 1 pack of steel balls, 2 calibration arrows, 4 ordinary arrows.
After reading it, Zhang Xiaoqiang immediately strung the MP9, put a steel ball on it, aimed at the wall calendar five meters away, turned on the safety, and pulled the trigger.
With a bang!
The MP9 jerked backward suddenly, making his shoulder blade ache. He almost couldn't hold the crossbow body and nearly dropped it on the ground. He rubbed his shoulder and looked at the wall calendar. The head of the beauty on last year's wall calendar was gone, and the floor was covered with scraps of paper.
Zhang Xiaoqiang took down the wall calendar, and some cement debris fell sparsely onto the ground. A cement pit the size of a cup appeared in front of him, and a slightly deformed steel ball was embedded in the wall tile...
"Hiss..."
"What a fast speed!"
"What great power!"
He gasped in amazement.
If a zombie was hit in the head at this distance, its skull would probably be blown away, right?
His shoulder was still aching slightly. He gently stroked the crossbow with his fingertips, as if he were stroking a girl's delicate and smooth skin, afraid that he might accidentally damage it if he used too much force.
The textured paint surface of this crossbow had a slight sheen, like the delicate lips of a young girl, carrying a bit of mystery and allure.
Zhang Xiaoqiang put down the MP9 Military Anti-terrorism Sniper Crossbow and then picked up the telescope. It was a silver-gray high-power binocular telescope. The instruction manual stated: 10x50mm Binocular Telescope Observation Magnification: 10 times; Diameter of the objective lens; Field of view range: 114 meters at 1000 meters; Minimum focusing distance.
Zhang Xiaoqiang walked to the window, raised the telescope, and looked outside. The sky was still gloomy, and at some point, it had started to rain outside. The dark and depressing clouds made him feel depressed and conflicted all the time.
The zombies downstairs were brought closer to his eyes through the telescope. Looking at the sharp teeth in the zombies' mouths, he almost seemed to smell the stinking odor from their mouths.
He stood inside the window and carefully observed the zombies in front of the convenience store. After half a month, the zombies seemed to have started to mutate towards the legendary mummies.
The hair of these zombies had become sparse, the flesh on their faces was slowly disappearing, leaving only a shriveled old skin. The zombies didn't move very fast. Without vision, they would only change direction and move aside when they bumped into obstacles like walls and cars. Many zombies' shoes had been worn out constantly during the past half month and started to deform. Some zombies had a shoe on one foot and were walking barefoot on the other, staggering along with one foot higher than the other.
As the rain grew heavier, the scenery outside the window became hazy. Suddenly, the zombies downstairs stopped moving, as if they were telegraph poles, standing quietly in the rain, and then they filled the whole street, creating a terrifying sight.
Through the telescope, Zhang Xiaoqiang saw that these zombies were now raising their heads and opening their mouths to catch the rain. Although he couldn't tell what expressions were on their faces, he could sense that these zombies really liked the baptism of the rain. Even in this strange situation, their craving for the flesh and blood on the ground seemed to have become less important.
When Zhang Xiaoqiang discovered this fact, he was really excited!
Since these zombies stopped moving and stopped eating, did that mean that his appearance wouldn't disrupt their process of catching the rain at all?
Did it mean that he could do whatever he wanted and that they wouldn't even resist if he attacked them?
At this moment, impulse overcame reason.
Zhang Xiaoqiang put down the telescope, then slung the crossbow and the military knife on his back, picked up the iron spear, and strode out of the unit building along the stairs.
The heavy rain diluted the stench of the corpses in the air. He took a deep breath, as if he hadn't smelled air without the stench of corpses for years.
Although the stench of corpses was gone, there was now an iron-rust smell in the air, like that of rusty steel.
The zombies in front of the convenience store were standing in the rain like their companions on the street, with their mouths wide open to catch the rain. Zhang Xiaoqiang bent over and tiptoed towards them. The heavy rain kept falling at his feet, creating countless ripples in the puddles. When he lifted his feet, small waves were stirred up in the puddles and spread out in circles.
"Thirty meters... Twenty meters..."
He was getting closer and closer to the zombies. His heart started beating faster. He tightened his grip on the iron spear, took two deep breaths in a row, and continued to approach the zombies!
"Ten meters... Five meters... Two meters..."
At this time, Zhang Xiaoqiang was standing about two meters away from these zombies. He raised the iron spear and pointed it at the zombies' heads, ready to thrust at any time. However, the zombies in front of him didn't make any move to fight back at his approach. They still kept their heads up to catch the rain.
It was also at this time that he noticed that after getting wet in the rain, the originally emaciated cheeks of this zombie had actually started to become plump again, and there was some flesh on its hands, as if life had been restored to it.
Zhang Xiaoqiang took two steps back and looked around in the dim light. The number of zombies in front of the convenience store had increased from over twenty to over forty now. Many zombies from the corridors and houses had also come out and were standing in the rain outside.
In the next moment, he raised the iron spear and thrust it into the zombie's head!
The iron spear stabbed into the zombie's eye socket and then was twisted and pulled out. The zombie fell onto the grass full of rainwater, splashing water in all directions.
Zhang Xiaoqiang was afraid of waking up the other zombies, so he turned around and ran. After running more than ten meters, he looked back and found that all the zombies were still standing quietly in their original places!
He immediately got excited. It was even more thrilling to kill zombies that wouldn't move!
As the sky was getting darker and darker, Zhang Xiaoqiang rushed over.
"One... Two..."
When the 43rd zombie fell under Zhang Xiaoqiang's iron spear, he finally cleared the way to the convenience store. And as the rain started to ease off, he had to hurry up and rush into the convenience store to replenish his energy.
He rushed to the door of the convenience store, dealt with the owner who had turned into a zombie, and then rushed into the already broken glass door. There were no zombies in the narrow space. He looked up at the inside of the convenience store. Just one glance was enough to make him excited. The inside of the convenience store was in a mess. The two outermost rows of shelves had collapsed. Although the shelves inside were empty, things like mineral water, rice, canned dace with black beans, various biscuits, and cigarettes were scattered all over the floor!
His stomach was empty at the moment. Looking at these abundant foods now, he was so happy that he almost shouted out loud!
Zhang Xiaoqiang laughed loudly and kept on laughing. As he laughed, tears kept streaming down his eyes, running across his cheeks, dripping from his chin onto his raincoat, and blending with the rainwater.
He didn't notice that some rainwater was slowly flowing into his mouth along with his tears...