Chapter 94: Will Zombies Become Extinct?
Song Yuqing led the group up to the third-floor theater. Just like before, the automatic doors snapped shut the moment they stepped inside the small room.
The screen was enveloped in total darkness.
Zhang Hua and Liu Xiaona held their breath, waiting for the first frame to cut through the shadows.
One second.
Two seconds.
Three seconds.
The screen remained a stubborn, empty void.
Song Yuqing’s brow furrowed. This isn’t right. Why would half of a premium ten-second clip be wasted on a black screen?
By the fourth and fifth seconds, there was still no discernible image.
“Did it freeze, or has it just not started yet?” Liu Xiaona whispered.
“Gaha…” Could it be because we haven’t processed any fresh zombie corpses through the gate?
“Shh!” Song Yuqing signaled for silence.
Suddenly, faint, crimson spots began to materialize on the display, looming obscurely in the dark. A heavy, suffocating quiet filled the theater. The red spots gradually expanded, bleeding across the shadows until they completely overtook the screen, painting the entire room in a hazardous crimson hue.
And just like that, the ten seconds expired.
The house lights flared back on, illuminating five profoundly confused faces.
“That was it?” Liu Xiaona’s eyelids twitched.
Little Meat Bun let out a massive yawn, entirely unimpressed, while Gaha shot an anxious look at Song Yuqing.
Song Yuqing’s face was pale with worry. Out of everyone in the room, only she and Gaha had felt the sudden, crushing weight of despair radiating from those final frames. If that clip was a true projection of what was to come, the future was one of endless darkness and a literal sea of blood.
Determined to find a more concrete answer, Song Yuqing decided to run it again. They took their seats, the automatic doors sealed them in, and the projection window cast another beam of white light onto the fabric screen.
This time, the ten-second vision shifted to a sprawling, sun-scorched desert. Countless zombies lay limply across the dunes, their decomposing flesh and black blood gradually liquefying, melting away to merge directly with the coarse sand. The camera tracked rapidly across the wasteland—the entire desert was choked with mutating zombie remains, without a single human survivor in sight.
The lights came back on, leaving everyone stunned.
Liu Xiaona clapped a hand over her chest, exhaling a ragged breath. “Wow. Okay, so that means the zombies are going to become extinct! That’s actually a massive win for us!”
Zhang Hua eagerly jumped in to agree. “Exactly! The monsters die out, and humanity gets to live. That’s a good thing!”
Little Meat Bun merely scratched his ear in contemplation. In his original world, the plague of the undead had also eventually vanished without a trace, leaving no clues behind.
“Gaha…” Gaha’s chest heaved as she fought for breath. Feeling suffocated by the implications, she abruptly stood up and fled the small theater.
Song Yuqing remained frozen in her seat, staring at the blank screen as she recalled the footage frame by frame. Was that desert the grid surrounding Base Zero?
If the zombies were truly on the brink of extinction, what would happen to humanity? Would the survivors finally return to the peaceful, pre-apocalyptic era, or would mankind vanish from the earth even before the monsters did? And why were the creatures melting into the sand like that? The mutated horde Chen Ke had evacuated was actively evolving into a higher tier; they shouldn’t just rot away into nothingness.
Lost in a spiral of dark theories, Song Yuqing was practically carried out of the theater by Liu Xiaona and Little Meat Bun, who ushered her back down to the first floor. The second her feet touched the floorboards, she walked out to the courtyard, scaling the massive tung tree to find a quiet branch where she could process her thoughts alone.
Down in the store, Zhang Hua was pacing circles around Liu Xiaona, furiously scratching his head until his scalp was red. “Man, if the zombies really go extinct, that’s great and all, but what am I supposed to use as currency to buy supplies from the store?!”
“Why don’t you go hunt around the grid right now? You might get lucky and stumble onto a few stray stragglers,” Liu Xiaona suggested, holding a fresh cup of water out for Song Yuqing whenever she decided to climb down. Zhang Hua’s constant pacing was giving her a headache.
If a problem didn’t have an immediate solution, there was no point in burning brain cells over it. As the old proverb goes: When the enemy arrives, we build a wall; when the floodwaters rise, we block them with earth. Things would sort themselves out.
Zhang Hua nodded fiercely. Not caring that it was the dead of night, he dashed next door, dragged a few unsuspecting teammates out of bed, and headed into the streets to search for targets.
Back behind the cash register, Song Yuqing sat in complete silence. The cinematic vision had left a deeply unsettling weight in her chest, as if an impenetrable wall had been erected overnight.
Seeing his manager looking entirely hollowed out, Little Meat Bun waddled over, planting his chubby face on the counter and pulling a series of adorable expressions to make her laugh.
Liu Xiaona glanced at the glowing computer monitor, noting the bright red badge reading 99+ notifications in the messaging terminal. Stretching her arm past Song Yuqing, she clicked the mouse to clear the queue.
They were all digital orders flooding in from the newly linked survival bases.
Liu Xiaona gave her manager’s arm a gentle nudge. “Don’t lose yourself obsessing over the future, Boss. The present is what demands our attention right now.”
As she spoke, Gaha dropped down from the branches of the tung tree outside, ushering a massive flock of carrier pigeons through the front door.
“Gahaha!” Our little delivery couriers must have flown in while we were away! They’ve been roosting out on the tallow tree for hours.
Song Yuqing snapped out of her daze, focusing her gaze on the screen. The vast majority of the invoices had been submitted during the day; the birds had clearly been waiting a long time to be unloaded.
“Alright, let’s get to work!” Song Yuqing clapped her hands, forcing herself to stand and begin sorting the inventory. Little Meat Bun, Gaha, and Liu Xiaona instantly fell into a rhythmic, busy routine.
As she scanned the manifests, one particular order caught her eye: an individual had purchased five hundred bowls of Truth Soup.
Liu Xiaona’s brow furrowed into a deep frown. “Five hundred orders of Truth Soup? That’s insane. How am I supposed to brew that much volume by myself?”
“Why would anyone need that much at once?” Song Yuqing investigated the user data, discovering the request originated from Base 20—yet another new sector Nanjiao’s tech team had successfully integrated into their online network.
Worried about the sudden spike in demand, Song Yuqing pulled out her phone to fire off a text to Nanjiao. Realizing they hadn’t spoken in days, a sudden pang of worry hit her.
She stared at the screen, waiting for a signature typing bubble, but the thread remained dead. Nanjiao didn’t reply.
Her heart took a sudden, heavy dip. Gaha reached out, gently patting her shoulder in solidarity. “Gaha, gaga gaga?” Don’t worry, Manager. He’s probably just fast asleep by now.
“Yeah, look at the clock. It’s the middle of the night, so it’s perfectly normal that he’s offline,” Liu Xiaona added, hoisting a crate of packed rations before wiping her hands on her apron. “I’m heading into the kitchen to start the prep.”
Song Yuqing nodded, taking Gaha and Little Meat Bun by the hand to help her employee with production. They emptied their remaining stockpile of Truth Fruit into a massive mixing bowl, but the pile barely managed to fill it halfway.
“Is this seriously all we have left?” Liu Xiaona asked, sifting through the sparse blue fruits.
“That’s the entire reserve,” Song Yuqing sighed. She couldn’t simply manufacture more Truth Fruit on a whim; it was a highly specialized product tied strictly to Ruan Fanfan’s unique wood-type mutation. No other elemental constitution could cultivate it. “If I had known demand would spike like this, I would have forced Ruan Fanfan to chug a dozen cups of ability coffee to boost her output before she left.”
“Well, let’s just brew as many batches as the current yield allows,” Liu Xiaona decided. “We’ll just have to issue a notice to the buyers for the rest.”
Song Yuqing sighed, making a mental note to ask Nanjiao to upgrade the digital storefront’s code the next time they spoke. The system desperately needed a proper automated return and refund feature. For now, she would have to manually log the unfulfilled orders and ensure the customers were properly reimbursed or credited on their next shipment.
While the four of them were deep in production, the front doors burst open. Zhang Hua and his water-type hunting party hurried back into the store, looking visibly rattled as they delivered two crucial pieces of intelligence.
First, the immediate streets were entirely devoid of mutants. As for whether any creatures were lurking deep within the abandoned residential flats, the squad hadn’t possessed the gear or the courage to breach the doors and check.
Second, they weren’t alone in the sector.
Because the grid was shrouded in pitch-black night, they hadn’t been able to identify the intruders clearly. They only knew the strangers were operating a motorized vehicle, having caught the sudden glare of high-beam headlights slicing through the dark alley.
“It definitely wasn’t Zhang Yimiao’s coalition,” Zhang Hua clarified, catching his breath. “Their caravan cleared the town boundaries hours ago.”
“Then who could it be…?” Liu Xiaona murmured.
Song Yuqing’s eyes narrowed. “Could it be Lin Han? Or… Wan Youzhi?”
