PS: An alternate world, please do not compare it to reality...
Jianghai City.
A stench of rot pervades the streets, debris and abandoned vehicles are scattered everywhere, and garbage is wildly flying in the wind.
In a dim room, a zombie quietly stands by the window, its hollow eye sockets facing the devastated world outside.
Outside the window, a broken power line pole is tilted at the roadside, with wires tangled like messy hair strands.
The glass of formerly towering buildings is shattered, and the walls are covered with black stains and cracks, teetering on the brink of collapse.
The shop signs by the street are in disarray, the doors half-open, with goods inside already looted clean.
"When will this neither human nor ghost-like life finally end?!"
Lu Chuan looks at himself in the mirror, wanting to howl at the sky, but his already hoarse throat only emits unintelligible growls.
The figure in the mirror appears somewhat emaciated, the clothes are tattered but seem quite clean compared to the bloody, desolate surroundings.
However, the exposed skin has become extremely pale, with clear blue-black veins visible.
The most terrifying thing is, Lu Chuan's head at this moment is practically skin and bones.
Even his originally thick black hair is starting to thin, and his teeth have become exceedingly sharp and much looser.
The black-and-white pupils have turned completely blood-red, though a hint of sorrow can still be vaguely seen in his eyes...
As Lu Chuan takes off his jacket, a hideous wound with flesh turned outward can be seen on his shoulder, as if bitten by some beast!
The blood at the wound has long dried, but the black hole remains unhealed.
If a normal person suffered such severe injuries, they would have died long ago.
But Lu Chuan remains as if nothing happened, because he is no longer human...
...
A month ago, while working overtime, Lu Chuan suddenly lost consciousness with everything turning black before him.
He thought he had died from overwork, but unexpectedly, he found himself on a strange street upon waking again.
Before Lu Chuan could be thankful for his rebirth, the next moment, the previously serene street suddenly burst into uproar.
Explosions followed one after another, plunging the entire city into chaos.
Having just crossed over to this world, Lu Chuan was caught off guard by the sudden change, forced to flee in panic with the crowd.
During the frantic escape, Lu Chuan noticed some zombies in the crowd, covered in blood, severely injured yet still biting the pedestrians.
For a moment, Lu Chuan felt his brain had short-circuited.
Having just crossed over, he even wondered if he was hallucinating or had accidentally stumbled onto a film set.
Zombies, which existed only in science fiction films, actually appeared in the real world?!
However, Lu Chuan quickly realized that this was no illusion.
Because while he was in a daze, a zombie jumped onto his back and viciously bit Lu Chuan's shoulder.
In a mere instant, Lu Chuan felt a large chunk of flesh and blood being ripped from his shoulder.
The heart-wrenching pain caused Lu Chuan's adrenaline to surge instantly, promptly grabbing the zombie on his back and slamming it hard to the ground, smashing its head to pieces.
However, the toxin quickly spread within Lu Chuan's body, making him feel dizzy and light-headed, causing such severe pain that he nearly fainted.
Struggling to maintain consciousness, Lu Chuan walked into a small shop, clutching his wound.
Lying on the shop's floor, Lu Chuan lost his consciousness again.
When he opened his eyes once more, the city had completely fallen, society paralyzed, and order collapsed.
Lu Chuan was also horrified to find that he, having just crossed over, had turned into a bloodthirsty zombie!
Despite the confusion it caused Lu Chuan, he clearly turned into a zombie, possessing bloodthirsty impulses without feeling pain from his wound.
But he still retained human consciousness!
Yet the bloodthirsty impulse and hunger kept pounding against Lu Chuan's soul.
Fortunately, the place where he fainted was a shop, with plenty of food in the fridge.
For the past month, Lu Chuan has been living in the shop, alleviating his hunger by gnawing on the frozen meat in the fridge daily.
A month has passed, and Lu Chuan is now certain this world has completely fallen.
Otherwise, after so much time, the army should have entered the city to clean up the battlefield by now.
During this time, he only saw a few survivors who risked everything to search for food, most of whom ended up dead at the mouths of zombies.
Driven by hunger, Lu Chuan headed towards the fridge in the store.
However, upon opening it, a rancid stench assaulted his senses.
Even though he had already turned into a zombie himself, exuding a rotting odor, it didn't stop him from despising such decaying food.
A week after the zombie outbreak, the city began experiencing widespread water and power outages.
Now, with time passing, the meat in the fridge had finally started to rot.
Over the past month, Lu Chuan had gnawed on quite a bit of frozen meat, leaving only some remnants at the bottom of the fridge.
Originally, Lu Chuan planned to look for food in a few days, but now he was forced to do so earlier.
He picked up a bloodstained shirt from the ground and put it on, then grabbed a crowbar and stuffed it into his backpack.
The crowbar wasn't really for self-defense, but to make breaking locks easier.
After all, as a zombie, he wouldn't be attacked by his fellow creatures on the street; humans would just turn around and run when they saw him.
Unlike other survivors, Lu Chuan, as a zombie, didn't need to worry about safety while walking down the street.
Yet, to avoid being noticed as a conscious zombie by those with keen eyes, Lu Chuan pretended to limp, growling occasionally as he slowly walked down the street.
However, Lu Chuan deliberately avoided other zombies on the street, as after a month, their stench had become overwhelmingly strong, severely affecting his appetite...
Lu Chuan didn't plan to go too far and decided to first search the residential area near the store.
Entering the district, Lu Chuan randomly slipped into a building.
On reaching the second floor, he found the front door open with bloodstains everywhere inside. Only a heavily gnawed, decomposed body lay inside, indicating the unfortunate fate of the home's owner.
Just as Lu Chuan was about to head to the kitchen, he suddenly heard the cry of a baby coming from next door.
...
At this moment, Ji Ruxue stared at the ceiling, feeling utterly hopeless.
In her previous life, she had battled across lands, overcoming numerous life and death tribulations to eventually attain the position of Empress.
But her power was still insufficient, and during an unending war,
Ji Ruxue, as the Empress of the human race, slew countless powerful alien beings, ultimately dying from exhaustion at the hands of the Star Sky Insect Race's queen.
After falling, Ji Ruxue's consciousness drifted into chaos. She didn't know how much time had passed when she opened her eyes again, only to find herself not having perished in that epic battle.
Or rather, it seemed more accurate to say... she had been reborn.
Though unsure of how she survived after falling, Ji Ruxue felt no joy at all.
Because she soon discovered... she had been reborn as a baby!
The most critical point was that she returned to the early days of the apocalypse, fifty years ago.
Reborn, only to face a doomsday opening...
The zombie outbreak had already claimed her parents, who turned into zombies and died, leaving her locked in a bedroom by sheer luck.
But that wasn't the main issue; the main problem was that she hadn't eaten anything for two days.
The hunger in her body caused Ji Ruxue to feel dizzy, her stomach even cramping from the lack of food.
After being reborn as a baby, Ji Ruxue lost the boundless power she had in her previous life.
Forget about dealing with zombies; even moving around was extremely difficult for her now.
"I, a dignified Unparalleled Empress of the human race, am I really going to starve to death in a crib? This is simply too humiliating!!"
Looking at the ceiling, Ji Ruxue felt like crying, but had no tears.
At this moment, she regretted that such a disastrous rebirth made dying in battle seem far more preferable...
Click! Click!
Suddenly, someone furiously twisted the doorknob of the bedroom door, scaring Ji Ruxue into holding her breath.
But since the bedroom door was locked from the inside, after a while, the noise ceased, seemingly as if the zombie outside gave up.
Yet, just as Ji Ruxue breathed a sigh of relief, a loud bang resounded.
Bang!
The bedroom door was forcibly pried open from the outside.
Seeing the terrifyingly hideous zombie face at the door, Ji Ruxue felt utterly hopeless.
"Wan La!"