The Zombie I Flirted With After Losing My Memory, Who Was Pretending to be an Alpha, Is Actually My Ex - Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Amnesia

“Crunch, crunch—”

The sound of fine, persistent chewing kept drifting into her ears. The woman lying face-up on the ground stirred, feeling somewhat annoyed.

As if tugging on a painful spot, she let out a sharp gasp of pain and snapped her eyes open, clutching her left arm as cold sweat poured down her face.

Before she could even glance at her dislocated shoulder, the scene before her eyes nearly sent her soul flying out of her body—

A pair of eyes so cloudy they lacked whites stared back at her. The pitch-black, lightless pupils protruded halfway out of the eye sockets, eerie and terrifying. The owner of these eyes had a deathly pale face that formed a sharp contrast with the blood covering half of it. A piece of raw meat hung from the corner of their mouth, and thick blood dripped down, stretching into viscous threads.

“Slap—”

This person—no, perhaps they could no longer be called human—this monster suddenly reached out and slapped a palm toward the woman. Fortunately, a glass wall separated them, leaving a blood-red handprint as the gore wound its way down.

The woman shuddered, instinctively holding her breath, not daring to move.

Seemingly surprised by the obstruction, the monster poked its head around to look left and right. Only then did the woman see the gruesome bite marks on the monster’s neck; the skin was torn open to reveal red flesh, and the blood had long since dried and turned black.

A moment later, the monster realized with disappointment that there was only a wall in front of it. It lowered its head mechanically, and the eerie chewing sound resumed.

Suppressing her churning stomach, the woman curiously propped up her upper body. Her gaze drifted over the raised baseboard, but the moment she saw what was happening, she couldn’t help but retch, vomiting until she was bringing up stomach acid.

That monster was eating a human!

The person lying on the ground had a face twisted in agony, as if they had suffered immensely before death. Their eyes were wide open in a sightless stare, and a massive, bloody hole gaped in their stomach. Their internal organs were being gnawed on, mouthful by mouthful, by the monster crouched over them.

Hearing the sound again, the monster raised its head and let out a low growl toward the woman. The meat clamped in its mouth fell to the ground with a wet thud, and it began to relentlessly beat against the glass wall with both hands.

In the hallway outside the glass, more monsters wearing blue-and-white striped hospital gowns turned their gazes toward her. The overhead lights flickered incessantly, reflecting off their pitch-black pupils with a ghoulish light.

“Shh—”

A palm slapped onto the woman’s left shoulder. Her body reacted instantly; her right hand pushed away the hand on her shoulder and pressed down on her own left arm. With a sharp click, the dislocated joint was forced back into place. Without time to think, her long legs kicked up with incredible flexibility, landing squarely against the chest of the person behind her. Using the momentum, she flipped her body over, pinning the newcomer down with her full weight. Her newly reset left hand pinned the person’s arm, while her right hand gripped their throat.

“Ahhh—it hurts! Little Mushroom is in so much pain! Xingxing, come save Little Mushroom! Little Mushroom doesn’t want to play hide-and-seek anymore!” The cry of a young girl came from beneath her as she flailed her hands in a futile attempt to resist.

Seeing that her “attacker” was just a fourteen or fifteen-year-old girl wearing the same hospital gown as the monsters outside, the woman’s vigilance did not drop one bit.

“Who are you?” The woman growled, suppressing her intense physical discomfort.

“Sister Xi Xi is a bully! Little Mushroom isn’t playing with Sister Xi Xi anymore!” The girl’s eyes were already rimmed with red, her face a picture of aggrieved hurt.

Little Mushroom? Sister Xi Xi?

Her memory was like a blank sheet of paper, leaving her searching in a daze.

A headache hit her like a surging wave, making her sway unsteadily.

The woman shook her head painfully, but it didn’t ease the pressure. Her grip loosened, and Little Mushroom seized the opportunity to bolt.

Having escaped the “demon’s claws,” Little Mushroom quickly curled up in a corner, hugging her knees. She muttered to herself, “Sister Xi Xi hurt Little Mushroom. Little Mushroom is never going to talk to Sister Xi Xi again.” Before she finished, large teardrops began to fall.

The woman glanced at the child, who clearly posed zero threat, and stumbled toward a nearby medicine cabinet while clutching her head.

Olanzapine, Perphenazine, Sulpiride, Amitriptyline, Doxepin…

She rummaged through the cabinet, making a mess. To her surprise, she knew the primary functions of these drugs just by glancing at their names.

After some effort, she finally found a box of headache medication amidst the sea of psychiatric drugs.

She swallowed the bitter pill dry. The lingering bitterness at the root of her tongue stimulated her brain, helping to distract her from the throbbing in her head.

The woman slid down against the cabinet, surrounded by scattered pill bottles. The headache didn’t subside immediately.

She frowned and held her head, one long leg tucked in front of her and the other stretched out casually. Clad in tight jeans and black ankle boots, her legs looked exceptionally straight and long; if not for the grim environment, she looked ready for a catwalk.

Time ticked by. The sound of the monster hitting the glass gradually weakened. It didn’t obsess over the wall, eventually shuffling away with a limp.

Once she was certain the current environment was safe, the woman fell into a deep, exhausted sleep.

Ultimately, it was the hunger in her stomach that woke her up again. By then, her headache had eased significantly.

Only now did she have the chance to observe her surroundings carefully.

Rectangular medicine cabinets stood orderly throughout the room. To her left was the full glass wall, and directly ahead was a counter with a few palm-sized service windows. The other two walls were painted white, radiating a mocking sense of purity.

Outside the glass wall was a long corridor. Beyond the counter was a lobby where monsters in hospital gowns wandered aimlessly. It wasn’t hard to deduce that this was a hospital, and this room was definitely the pharmacy.

It took her some time to find the door, located on the same side as the glass wall, next to the sink.

The reason it was hard to find was that medicine cabinets and wooden desks had been used to block it completely, leaving only a corner of the wooden frame visible.

The pharmacy’s overhead lights were still working hard. The glass wall, covered in blood-red handprints, reflected the woman’s face.

The silhouette slowly raised its right hand and touched its cheek. The woman watched the shadow mimic her every move, her heart racing.

She suddenly stood up and rushed to a full-length mirror. The face in the mirror was completely unfamiliar.

A few seconds later, she had to accept a reality—

She had amnesia.

Everything was too bizarre. The man-eating monsters, her own memory loss, and—

“Little Mushroom wants to play hide-and-seek. Xingxing, come find Little Mushroom!”

And that child in the corner calling herself Little Mushroom…

She was the only breakthrough.

The woman adjusted her expression, trying her best to look kind and approachable, and slowly walked toward the child.

However—

“Ahhh—Sister Xi Xi has turned into a monster too! Don’t eat Little Mushroom!” Seeing the woman approaching, the little girl screamed in terror, trying harder to shrink into the corner with her head buried in her knees. “Little Mushroom has shrunk back into the dirt now. Monster Sister Xi Xi can’t see Little Mushroom anymore.”

The woman’s mouth twitched. She didn’t know what kind of mental episode this kid was having.

A few seconds later, the woman grabbed the child’s shoulders and forced her to look up. After seeing the words on her hospital gown, she felt like slapping herself in frustration.

<Red House Psychiatric Hospital>

The woman: I’m the worst! I’m actually bullying a mentally ill child!

Immediately after, she began to doubt herself. Was she also a psychiatric patient? Was everything around her just a hallucination?!

The woman fell into a loop of self-doubt, self-affirmation, and more self-doubt.

“Sister Xi Xi, Little Mushroom hurts.” The child’s tears splashed onto the woman’s hand, snapping her back to reality.

“Little Mushroom, do you know me?” The woman released her grip and put on what she thought was a friendly smile.

Apparently, Little Mushroom wasn’t buying it: “Waaah—Sister Xi Xi is a monster! Little Mushroom is poisonous, don’t eat Little Mushroom, ughhh.”

The woman’s pulse throbbed in her temples as she continued her “luring”: “Sister Xi Xi isn’t a monster. Sister Xi Xi was turned into a mushroom by a monster. We are a family, remember?”

Sure enough, Little Mushroom stopped crying. Her large eyes blinked in confusion, but she quickly became alert: “No! You’re not Little Mushroom’s family! You don’t even have a mushroom cap!”

The woman was full of questions. She was certain that even if she were a patient, she couldn’t have been a staff member here—this one “mushroom child” was already exhausting her patience.

Seeing that the woman didn’t respond, Little Mushroom had an “I knew it” look on her face. She triumphantly pulled out a… cocktail umbrella from her bosom?

Given that alcohol wouldn’t appear in a psychiatric hospital, this thing was definitely swiped from a cupcake.

After that, no matter how the woman tried to coax her, Little Mushroom ignored her completely, holding the tiny cocktail umbrella over her forehead and diligently acting as a “little mushroom in the corner.”

The woman took a deep breath, suppressing the urge to use an “interrogation” approach. She muttered to herself: Patience, patience. Impulsiveness is the devil.

A few minutes later, the woman poked Little Mushroom with her fair index finger: “Little Mushroom, I am a Big Mushroom. Can we talk?”

Little Mushroom hummed and ignored her, but unable to withstand the persistent poking, she peeking an eye open.

“Wow! Sister Xi Xi turned into a Big Mushroom!” Little Mushroom’s cheeks flushed with excitement.

The woman smiled with satisfaction. She was now squatting next to Little Mushroom holding an actual umbrella; it hadn’t been easy to rummage through the room to find one.

“Little Mushroom, do you know what my name is?”

Little Mushroom didn’t fall for it: “Sister Xi Xi is so stupid, you even forgot your own name.”

“If Little Mushroom tells me who I am, I’ll take you to find more mushrooms,” the woman coaxed.

Little Mushroom hesitated, then took the bait: “Teng Xi! Xingxing said Sister Xi Xi is the only Alpha!”

The only Alpha? Even if Teng Xi had amnesia, she still had a basic understanding of gender. Alphas were rare, but they still made up about 10% of the population.

Teng Xi caught the keyword: “Who is Xingxing?”

At the mention of Xingxing, Little Mushroom suddenly looked like she remembered something. She put her finger to her lips and whispered, “Shh, Xingxing is asleep. We mustn’t wake her up.”

Teng Xi lowered her voice too, speaking in a mere breath: “Where is Xingxing sleeping? Shall we wake her up to play hide-and-seek?”

Little Mushroom’s eyes lit up. She stood up and scurried forward.

They bypassed a row of medicine cabinets, turned past a second, and Little Mushroom stopped in front of a pile of cardboard boxes.

Teng Xi originally thought it was just a pile of trash, but it didn’t look like it.

Little Mushroom reached out her “paws” to rummage through the pile. It wasn’t until a human head was exposed that Teng Xi realized something was wrong. she grabbed Little Mushroom and pulled her behind her.

At that moment, several taps sounded against the glass wall. Teng Xi whipped her head around to look. Several bloody handprints appeared on the glass wall where she had first woken up.

A figure was slowly crawling up against the glass. There was a bloody hole in its stomach, and gnawed internal organs hung out, attached by bits of sinew. Its clothes were in tatters, and its body was covered in bite marks. Teng Xi could not be mistaken—this was the person the monster was eating when she first woke up.

With wounds that severe, he should be dead, yet he had “resurrected.”

Her stomach churned again. Teng Xi instinctively raised her hand to cover Little Mushroom’s eyes, so terrified she forgot to breathe for a moment.

Zombies. The word surfaced in Teng Xi’s mind. She began to doubt again if she was a psychiatric patient having hallucinations from watching too many zombie movies.

“Ow, Sister Xi Xi is hurting Little Mushroom.”

Teng Xi turned her body to completely block Little Mushroom’s view, looking down at the girl who only reached her chin.

“Where does it hurt, Little Mushroom? Let me see.” The child had complained of pain several times. The first few times, Teng Xi had been heavy-handed, but this time, she definitely hadn’t been.

Little Mushroom pointed aggrievedly at her arm: “It hurts.”

A bad premonition bloomed in her heart. Teng Xi carefully rolled up the child’s long sleeve.

A bite mark was clearly visible on the forearm. It wasn’t deep, but it had drawn blood.

A rustling sound came from beside them, and Teng Xi’s right eyelid began to twitch.

Without time to think, Teng Xi shoved Little Mushroom away. A figure lunged at the spot where they had been standing but missed, crashing into a medicine cabinet. Pill bottles shattered across the floor in a noisy heap.

The “corpse” that had been lying on the floor earlier now opened a pair of pitch-black eyes, letting out a beastly roar at the two of them.

“Little Mushroom, hide!”