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“Is this the ‘small favor’ you mentioned?” Lin Feng shivered atop a bus, glaring down at the dense swarm of zombies below. He cast a reproachful glance at Li Ying beside him.

“Ha, cough, it was… an unforeseen mishap,” Li Ying stuttered, fearfully clutching Lin Feng, who was even more diminutive in stature, both trembling together.

Atop the bus’s roof, they found themselves encircled by a sea of zombies.

Below, the undead throng roared excitedly at the sight of their lively potential prey.

Overwhelmed, Lin Feng surveyed the horde of zombies, a near-impossible task to clear even with a rifle, and winced at the thought.

“What if we try another one?” Li Ying suggested with a strained smile, retrieving a small black box from her bag.

“Not on your life! It’s precisely because of your ‘let’s try this’ that we ended up in this mess!” Lin Feng snatched the black box from her hands and crushed it underfoot.

They were stranded on a vehicle’s roof next to a police station, situated in a central urban sprawl. Skyscrapers loomed around them, casting shadows teeming with an incalculable number of zombies.

These creatures, seemingly avoiding the sunlight, amassed in the shadows, leading Lin Feng to suspect that this was the new gathering point for the zombies from the initial outbreak.

It had started when Lin Feng and Li Ying, encircled by a dozen zombies, saw Li Ying ‘wisely’ produce the small black box.

And then…

There was no continuation. From the shadows surged an endless tide of zombies, as far as the eye could see.

Lin Feng sighed, unfazed by the surrounding cacophony of groans. He retrieved some packaged grilled fish from his bag, having grown accustomed to the constant drone of the undead. Only the deeper, more guttural growls of the mutated ones stood out now.

“How can you still eat at a time like this? What are we going to do, Lin Feng?” Li Ying stomped her feet in frustration, eyeing the encircling horde with alarm.

The previous day’s close encounter had led to a brief exchange of personal histories, fostering a mutual understanding and respect. Li Ying admired Lin Feng’s courage, and he, in turn, was impressed by her extensive survival skills, including her surprising proficiency in wilderness survival, a stark contrast to her white-collar appearance.

“What can we do? It was your insistence on investigating this area. But, remember, we need to eat to maintain strength… especially if we’re going to escape,” Lin Feng remarked, taking a bite of the grilled fish as he contemplated their escape from the zombie mass.

“Fine,” Li Ying conceded, sitting down with a sense of resignation. She pulled out a piece of bread and began to eat listlessly.

Their meal was abruptly interrupted by a booming voice over a loudspeaker, “Hello there, two beauties.”

Startled, Lin Feng and Li Ying looked up to find the source of the intrusion. A few hundred meters from their bus, a tank equipped with loudspeakers caught their attention.

“What’s that about?” Li Ying asked, bewildered. She quickly took out her phone and started recording.

“How should I know?” Lin Feng responded, standing up to get a better view of the tank’s subsequent actions.

A hatch opened, and a figure brandishing an AK emerged. It was a gangster, one of a pair they had encountered recently.

The gangster spoke into the speaker, “Cough, tell us the location of a gold shop, and we’ll rescue one of you. Do you hear? We’re only interested in the money, not your lives. Wait a minute, you are…”

Mid-declaration, the gangster’s eyes widened in recognition upon seeing Lin Feng’s distinctive tail. He whispered to his accomplice, then confirmed his suspicion through a telescope.

“Yes, you, the one in the black cloak with a tail. You! Were you the one who interfered with our plans the other day? Haha, fate has a funny way of bringing enemies together.”