I hacked through the chaotic world with my blade
Chapter 40 - 037 Turns Out You’re Still Alive

Chapter 40: Chapter 037 Turns Out You’re Still Alive

Lunch was very simple.

A bowl of white rice, a portion of stir-fried greens, and a serving of vegetable soup.

Although it looked rather plain.

But he liked to eat these things, they were more appetizing to him.

Any fashionable young person, even in a post-apocalyptic world, still had the habit of taking photos and sharing their life.

Before eating.

He took out his phone, snapped some pictures, and arranged them in a nine-grid photo.

The caption.

[Is this standard of living okay?]

No other meaning, just habitually posting to the moments, recording the beautiful moments of life.

The end of the world was bitter, and it was terrible, but no matter the circumstances, one should never mistreat oneself, no one else will pity you, only your own body will feel for you.

If you don’t take the advice, your body will tell you, "The problem arose here because you mistreated yourself."

He forgot who had said that.

But it made sense.

A bite of vegetables, a mouthful of rice, a sip of soup.

The softness of the rice, the deliciousness of the vegetables, and the smoothness of the soup left his taste buds very satisfied.

The screen lit up.

Someone had left a comment for him, so he picked up the phone to check.

He was somewhat expectant.

[Autumn Blade Slicing Fish]: Okay your ass.

Huh.

Lin Fan hadn’t expected that it would be that client who commented.

Thinking about it, to be in contact at such a time was also a kind of fate.

[Lin Fan]: So you’re still alive, huh?

[Autumn Blade Slicing Fish]: Alive your ass.

Looking at the comments on the moments, he sighed deeply. It was really difficult to communicate with unfriendly people. He was concerned about the other, but the other was cursing him.

Fortunately, he had a good temper and could tolerate the other’s temper. When he was doing design work before, he was used to the unreasonable demands of clients.

This one’s business had not gone through. The client’s budget for renovation was a hundred thousand. His former boss did the drawings. When faced with a client who wanted free design sketches for such renovations, the boss eventually agreed, planning to make fifty thousand, which didn’t seem excessive.

In the end, the one who handed over the project to the client was Lin Fan.

Later, this client, Autumn Blade Slicing Fish, inexplicably wanted him to take them somewhere to relax for a bit. Originally, this wasn’t his responsibility, but there was no helping it, so he took Autumn Blade Slicing Fish to an old foot bath shop where a woman in her fifties gave him a foot massage.

After that, the deal completely fell through.

And he got a mouthful from the boss, too.

[Lin Fan]: The zombies outside are terrifying, you should be careful. Do you need help?

After replying.

The response came quickly.

[Autumn Blade Slicing Fish]: Help your ass, I’m living the life now, surrounded by beauties, a gaggle of gorgeous women, your dishes wouldn’t even get eaten by my dog, I’m dining on delicacies from mountains and seas, abalone and lobster, you just be jealous.

Seeing the reply, he chuckled, truly happy for the other’s fortunate life.

[Lin Fan]: That’s good to hear, hope will come eventually, let’s work together to bring back our once thriving Yellow Market {laughing face}.

[Autumn Blade Slicing Fish]: Screw off...

Yellow Market, a certain community.

In an industrial-style room, a fat man with a greasy look was gnawing on a stale piece of bread while playing with his smartphone.

"Damn, what an idiot, this guy’s really a moron."

He always remembered how thoughtless the other person was; despite stating things so plainly, they still took him to an old foot massage parlor. Who wants to get their damn feet washed? And to add insult to injury, they paired him with a technician over fifty, old enough to be his mother, shattering his hopes of a freebie and even leaving him frightened.

But let’s not talk about that for now.

Since the apocalypse began, his life had been miserable. The first time he saw a zombie, he was kind of excited—the stuff from the movies had actually come to life.

The kind of zombie he hoped for was the slow-moving, dumb kind, where even with his size, he could take up arms and do battle for countless rounds.

But after looking out the window at the situation outside and seeing the zombies attacking people like rabid dogs, knocking them to the ground, tearing at them wildly, he knew he was utterly screwed.

His only option was to huddle at home, trembling, surviving on bread and cola.

Now, he was nearly out of supplies. Without finding more, he was as good as dead.

So, when he saw Lin Fan’s post on his social media, he was filled with rage. Damn the bastard, still enjoying delicious rice and stir-fry, how about choking on it?

Standing on the balcony, he looked over at the second floor across the way, where a survivor was. It was a woman, seemingly quite attractive, who kept beckoning him with her finger as if to say... come on, handsome guy, come over to my place.

For a man who had never had a girlfriend apart from online, this kind of temptation was hard to resist. Had he not been afraid of the zombies outside, he’d have dashed over without a second thought.

But now, he had an idea.

Continuing to hide at home would likely lead to certain death.

When some people reach a point of despair, they explode into action.

Others, however, simply die in their despair.

Clearly, he was the former.

Meanwhile, in an underground base in the desert,

An elderly scientist wrapped in a white lab coat was surrounding a sealed crystal.

"Is this what was obtained from inside the mutated zombie’s head?" the old man asked, adjusting his glasses and scrutinizing the specimen. A crystal growing inside a zombie’s brain was a strange occurrence, but definitely a novel discovery.

"Yes, this zombie was wandering the desert not too far from our base. The surveillance team noticed it might approach the base and attempted to shoot it in advance, but didn’t succeed in killing it. That caught the zombie’s attention. Finally, with a second shot to the head, they killed it and found this crystal in its brain," a military officer reported.

The old man said, "Tell me more about the situation."

"The member who fired the first shot was Xiang Nan, using a CS/LR35 sniper rifle. The first shot hit the zombie’s head, but it still had the ability to move, and not slowly, either. Then the second shot hit the head again, killing the zombie."

Hearing this,

The scientist in the white coat pondered. The first shot to the head didn’t kill it, which was mind-boggling. Up to that point, according to their encounters, a shot would kill a zombie instantly, let alone using a gun. Even an ordinary iron stick thrust into the brain would do the job.

The crystal before his eyes was beautiful, hard to imagine it was taken out of a dirty zombie’s brain.

"Are the zombies really evolving? But why would it be this kind of evolution, like a devil,"

The professor was lost in thought.

The apocalypse had just begun, and there were thoughts of suppressing the zombies, but the unpredictable contagion and sheer numbers of the initial wave were terrifying.

Zombies appeared mysteriously in various departments, beyond anyone’s expectation.

Even their isolated, deep underground base had been infected. How to stop it, how to block it?

"Professor, I have an idea."

"Let’s hear it."

"I like reading novels, and in many zombie novels, it’s described that there are crystals inside the zombies’ heads, essential for evolution. Humans killing zombies and obtaining these crystals could assimilate their energy, thus evolving into the Transcendent. I’m wondering if it’s the same with this crystal."

Looking at the crystal, his eyes burned with eagerness—imagine gaining energy from the crystal and becoming stronger. That would be truly thrilling.

"Zombie novels?" The professor was perplexed.

He never read fiction and was unfamiliar with it, but he caught on to some key elements—the idea of extracting energy from the crystal. Such a case needed to be verified through rigorous experimentation to reach a definitive conclusion.

So far, he had made contact with most domestic bases. Apart from Dragon Palace and Galaxy Base, he could no longer reach any others.

If they could unravel the secret of the zombies and eradicate them entirely, there might still be hope for this world.

Otherwise, the consequences were unimaginable.