Living with My Aloof Ex-Wife After the Apocalypse - Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Who Issued the Warning? And Where Did Everyone Go?

Now that the apocalypse had begun, there was no way to stop it. Any individual was a mere speck in the face of this massive torrent of history.

Xing He wondered if her actions had changed the timeline. She felt a flicker of panic. However, Qing Meng certainly wouldn’t have had time to leave City C yet; Xing He had to do everything possible to ensure her safety.

Moreover, while most supplies in the courtyard were ready, she still hadn’t obtained controlled medicines like anesthetics. She had to head into the city center immediately.

With her mind made up, Xing He packed her gear and drove into the city.

It was 7:50 AM.

The roads were still relatively quiet, with only a few early-rising sanitation workers cleaning the streets. On the surface, the city’s morning looked no different from usual, but the further she drove toward the center, the more obvious the hidden undercurrents became.

Vehicles were constantly driving out of the city, and these drivers were now completely ignoring traffic laws. They honked incessantly and didn’t slow down for red lights, as if being a second late meant being caught by something terrifying.

Xing He’s heart gradually rose to her throat. The situation in the city center was not optimistic; the virus was spreading faster than she had imagined. She hoped Qing Meng hadn’t left the hotel yet.

She floored the accelerator. The Wrangler was fast, but as she neared the center, the streets became congested, forcing her to slow down. Fortunately, there was no extreme chaos within her line of sight yet, which meant no zombies had appeared in this immediate area.

Xing He arrived at the hotel at exactly 8:30 AM. Things here seemed unaffected; the hotel staff were at their respective posts.

Standing at the front desk was the same receptionist from a few days ago. Her name was Fan Hua, a twenty-year-old recent college graduate who had been on shift these past few days.

“Hello, I’d like to ask if Ms. Qing Meng from Room 1909 has checked out yet?”

“Hello! Ms. Qing Meng hasn’t checked out yet.”

Xing He breathed a sigh of relief and turned to head upstairs.

Fan Hua had a deep impression of the woman named Xing He; after all, a mature and beautiful woman like her was hard to forget. As for the “Qing Meng” Xing He mentioned, Fan Hua remembered her clearly too—the cold-looking beauty who had come back with a temporary ID after losing her original one.

Aside from their looks, there was another reason Fan Hua remembered them: they had shared a room. Although they had tried to disguise it by pretending not to know each other and going upstairs one after the other, Fan Hua had seen plenty of “secret affairs” act out that exact scene. Honestly, Xing He and Qing Meng’s acting was quite amateurish.

Furthermore, they had been whispering in each other’s ears right in front of people! They had no sense of discretion at all!

That day, she had suspected they had some sort of “complicated” relationship. Now that Xing He was asking about Qing Meng, Fan Hua’s suspicions were confirmed. As a veteran lesbian herself, Fan Hua thought: If these two are a couple, they are… way too easy on the eyes!!!

Seeing Xing He impatiently heading upstairs, Fan Hua quickly called out to her with a smile. “Ms. Qing Meng went out already. You won’t find her up there right now.”

Xing He’s breath hitched, and she grew tense again. She asked urgently, “Do you know where she went?”

She turned back to Fan Hua, who was looking at her with a strange, indefinable expression. Does this person misunderstand my relationship with Qing Meng? Xing He felt a bit uneasy, but she didn’t explain. This misunderstanding might actually help her find Qing Meng’s whereabouts.

As a receptionist, Fan Hua didn’t track every guest’s itinerary, but because Qing Meng’s face was so striking, she had given her extra attention. She thought back carefully and actually remembered something.

“When Ms. Qing Meng went out this morning, she was on the phone. She seemed to mention the First Municipal Hospital. I don’t know anything else.”

It was a breakthrough.

“City C First People’s Hospital.”

It seemed that was where Qing Meng’s research forum was being held. Finding her there would also allow Xing He to resolve the medicine problem. Xing He felt much more at ease.

She thanked Fan Hua and, just as she reached the door, doubled back. She placed some cash on the desk and whispered, “Consider this a reward. Also, something is happening in the city. It’s not safe outside. You’d better go home quickly.”

Fan Hua stared at the money on the desk, feeling like a gift had fallen from the sky.

Xing He left immediately. Traffic was deteriorating; if she waited any longer, she might not be able to drive to the hospital at all.

After Xing He left, Fan Hua made an excuse to take a sick day. Although she hadn’t heard any rumors, Xing He hadn’t looked like she was joking. It was better to be safe than sorry. Besides, with all this “found” money, she’d just treat today as a holiday. Hehe~ Fan Hua thought happily as she walked home.

Shortly after they both left, a car suddenly pulled up to the hotel entrance.

The doorman, Ye Fan, greeted it as usual. He smiled and opened the door of the Bentley, but the person inside was no high-ranking official. Before Ye Fan could see clearly, a figure smelling of rot lunged at him and pinned him down.

Before he could resist, a sharp pain pierced his neck. Hot liquid flowed over him, his ears began to buzz until he was nearly deaf, and his mind went hazy.

“AAAAHHH!” a woman screamed.

“Murder! Someone’s been killed!”

“Call the police, quickly!” That sounded like his colleague, Xiao Wang. “Where’s security? Where are the guards?!”

It was so loud outside, but he couldn’t understand the words. Ye Fan slowly reached up to touch his neck and forced his heavy eyelids open. He finally saw what it was.

Oh. That’s my blood.

Similar scenes were playing out simultaneously in streets and alleys across the country.

At first, one could only see occasional scenes of people biting each other. Onlookers gathered around, craning their necks to see what the commotion was. But as more people were infected, they mutated within five minutes into monsters that attacked anyone on sight.

These monsters had rolled-back white eyes, withered flesh, and bulging veins. They emitted a foul stench. They moved slowly but possessed incredible bite force—a single snap of their jaws was enough to sever an adult’s neck. They seemed to feel no pain and possessed no life force; even with missing limbs or exposed internal organs, their movements were unaffected.

In disaster movies, such monsters were commonly called Zombies.

Only then did people realize the severity of the situation and begin to flee in terror. But they didn’t know that zombies were highly sensitive to sound; their desperate, emotional screams became a death knell.

Cars crashed recklessly on the roads. Pedestrians ran like headless chickens, wanting to escape but not knowing where to go. Most fled toward subway stations, thinking the fastest transport in the city was the safest way out.

However, the subway entrances were already severely congested. The desire to survive stripped people of their logic; they only knew to push inward. They didn’t know that zombies had already entered the subways. Most people in the carriages had already mutated, and the remaining survivors were desperately pushing out.

The small subway entrance had to carry the weight of those outside wanting to leave the city and those inside wanting to escape the dark tunnels. In the stairwells, many people found their feet lifted off the ground by the crush. In a state of severe oxygen deprivation where they couldn’t find footing or make a sound, they became the first batch of survivors to die at the hands of their own compatriots.

Xing He knew none of this. She had already arrived near the First Hospital.

During the drive, she had felt the public’s loss of control more acutely, forcing her to drive even faster. She wanted to park at the back entrance, but before she could turn the corner, she saw a massive crowd at the gate.

She initially thought it was a crowd of refugees, but upon closer inspection, she realized with horror that it was a swarming mass of zombies. They seemed quiet, wandering the open space in front of the hospital at a slow pace. She estimated there were over a hundred of them.

At this distance, if they spotted her—let alone the fact she only had a kitchen knife—even if she had a machine gun, she’d have to lose a layer of skin to stand a chance of escaping.

Xing He’s heart hammered. Holding her breath, she controlled her hands to reverse the car quickly, moving out of the zombies’ line of sight. Only when the last zombie was blocked by a building did she breathe a sigh of relief.

She didn’t linger, choosing to take a detour to the front entrance a kilometer away.

Two minutes later, she reached the front. Compared to the terrifying back entrance, the front was much better. There were almost no people, and only a few zombies were wandering outside the building. Xing He parked as close to the entrance as possible, cut the engine, and crept up with her kitchen knife.

At this stage, zombies were slow and lacked the reflexes of later evolved types. With a few swift strikes, Xing He dispatched the scattered zombies in the area.

Not knowing Qing Meng’s exact location, she entered the outpatient building. Strangely, while there were blood splatters everywhere, she didn’t find a single zombie inside the rooms. Notably, in the emergency center, she found the various medicines she was missing.

Aside from the outpatient building, the staff dorms, canteen, and testing center were all empty. There were various supplies left behind, but Xing He found no trace of survivors. Even the corpses on the ground had been eaten until only scraps of cloth remained.

The more areas she explored, the deeper her confusion grew. If only a few people were alive, it was possible the others had perished. But the fact that there was no one was abnormal.

There was only one possibility: Someone had warned everyone to evacuate in advance.

Who issued the notification? And where did the people from the hospital go?

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