Chapter 8
Chapter 8: Stockpiling Supplies
Behind curtains, households lining the alley felt the difference in tonight’s air. They peeked through slits of fabric and watched Lian Yi cut through zombies with brutal efficiency. Mouths hung open. Not one person stepped out to help.
TV, radio, weibo—everything broadcast the same lie: a viral attack. Stay home. Don’t go out. Wait for official notice.
So people waited, anxious and terrified. It was only the third day. Most homes still had food. They could endure a little longer. Watching Lian Yi out there, covered in black gore, they looked at her like she was the crazy one.
By the time her cleaver’s edge had curled, she finally reached the shopping complex. Just as she’d expected, the front doors were locked tight.
But the small structures to one side had been smashed open—seven little snack shops built along the exterior wall.
Another wave of zombies surged in.
Lian Yi shoved the cleaver into her hiking pack—then, thinking better, slipped it into her Pocket Space—and climbed onto the concrete barriers in front of the doors. One jump put her on the snack-shop roof. Another jump, and her fingers hooked the ledge of a second-floor floor-to-ceiling window.
She planted her right foot against the uneven wall, pushed up, and hauled herself onto the sill. Then she pulled out the warped cleaver and struck the glass with the handle.
The sharp slap echoed in the empty night. She hit it a second time—harder—and heard a brittle crack.
She stopped immediately, shifted to the side, and hurled the curled cleaver into the fracture.
Glass exploded outward with a loud crash. Shards rained down and stabbed into the heads of the zombies below, dropping two of them on the spot.
With the opening made, Lian Yi hooked her left foot onto the sill and eased herself inside.
A bluish face lunged into her space.
She’d already smelled it—the rancid stink clinging to the mall like mold. The zombie wore a security guard uniform, the kind of man left behind on night shift. Turned. Trapped here. Starving.
When its teeth snapped for her throat, Lian Yi braced her left foot on the sill and shot her free hand forward. She seized the zombie by the neck, twisted with a sharp burst of force, yanked it out, and flung it down.
It hit the cluster of zombies below with a heavy thud, bowling over four or five clawing bodies. Then it went still for good.
Only then did Lian Yi climb fully into the mall. She dragged two broken counters over and blocked the shattered window. She didn’t rush to loot. First she listened—long, careful seconds—until she was sure there were no other zombies, no footsteps, no human breath hiding in the dark.
Then she moved.
First stop: the basement supermarket. Fully stocked. Full of the stuff that kept you alive.
Lian Yi swept entire shelves into her Pocket Space, lining them up row after row in the black region inside.
Produce, meat, packaged foods, drinks, toiletries—everything her eyes touched vanished.
Then she hit the first floor: jewelry, gold, high-end cosmetics. Gone.
Second floor: women’s clothing. Summer or not, she took it all.
Third: bags.
Fourth: men’s clothing.
Fifth: appliances.
Sixth: home goods.
Seventh: sports and equipment.
Eighth: the food court.
She didn’t leave a single section untouched.
But the real prize waited on the seventh floor, tucked into a corner office of the membership center. A longsword hung on the wall as decoration.
The moment she drew it, a genuine smile broke across her face.
Her bonded sword.
It had come with her into this apocalypse—the only physical object she’d bargained out of the men in black suits, the one thing allowed to cross into the mission world.
“Lei Yao,” she murmured, almost fond. “We meet again, old friend.”
She spun the blade in a tight flourish. Cold light slid along the edge. A faint hum answered her, like the sword was pleased to be back in her hand.
All the supplies in this mall meant less to her than Lei Yao. This was a weapon that matched her spiritual roots, a true killer—worlds better than a warped kitchen cleaver.
She checked her Pocket Space. The black storage region was already half full. Enough to breathe easier.
She decided not to strip the back warehouse bare—leave something for nearby survivors. Even in the end times, you didn’t have to take everything down to the bone.
Next, she needed more weapons. And a vehicle.
The underground parking garage should have both.
Sword in hand, Lian Yi walked down the stairwell floor by floor. As she reached the garage, she caught wet, wheezing breaths—and layered over that, a woman’s sharp scolding and a man’s panicked yelp.
Lian Yi tightened her grip on the sword and moved without sound.
Ahead, a man and a woman were being boxed in. The woman stood in front, swinging a wooden club with grit and fury. The man hid behind her, squealing every time a zombie twitched. His noise only dragged more dead their way.
Lian Yi’s mouth twitched. People joked about yin overpowering yang—tonight, it wasn’t a joke.
She couldn’t watch it.
Lei Yao slid free with a whisper. Lian Yi surged forward, dropped into a low slide, and cut two zombie heads clean off from behind.
Three more turned on her at once. She cut them down in two crisp beats—then glanced up in time to see the woman drive her club straight through a zombie’s skull.
Another zombie’s claws were about to rake the woman’s arm.
The man screamed, grabbed the woman around the waist, and blurred. In a blink, both of them appeared ten meters away, neatly out of reach.
“A speed evolver,” Lian Yi noted, surprised.
The last zombie, robbed of its target, rushed her instead.
“You—” the woman started to speak, but Lian Yi ended the zombie with a clean backhand slash. The head toppled. The body dropped.
Not a single strand of gore clung to the obsidian-dark blade. The man and woman stared at it with plain envy. If they’d had a weapon like that, they wouldn’t have been cornered by a handful of dead.
Lian Yi scanned the garage and spotted a high-clearance SUV with a half-open door. Blood darkened the ground beside it. The owner was probably already shambling somewhere.
Her eyes lit.
She walked toward it—and the man and woman moved in the same direction.
Lian Yi lifted a brow. They noticed her look and slowed, suddenly wary.