Ch. 4

Lou Ai stood in front of the mirror, put a light yellow chicken-shaped hairband on her head, and tied a small bun on her short black hair with a pink rubber band.

Lou Ai blinked and praised herself in the mirror as perfect.

This should be cute enough, right?

Lou Ai thought hesitantly, walked out of the toilet, picked up the gun at hand, and put half of the collected supplies into the trunk. Her body was still a little stiff, even stiffer than when she was a human. The good thing was that all the zombies had no interest in attacking her.
　　

She drove to the nearest road. She was going to kill zombies and collect zombie crystal cores today.
　　

The rescue troops will come to them around the tenth day after the end of the world and will take them to the nearest base.
　　

This rescue will be the one with the most relaxed inspections for entering and exiting the base. If she missed this opportunity, she will be unable to obtain a new type of identification document when entering and exiting the base by herself. In the end, her identity as a zombie will inevitably be discovered.

So she had to complete the upgrade before the army arrived.

After becoming a first-level zombie, the sensitivity of her hands and feet will be greatly improved.
　　

Not only that, by then, even a zero-level psychic would not be able to sense that she is a zombie.

　　

Lou Ai found a corner to park the car, then got out of the car carrying her backpack and bayonet.
　　

Lou Ai went to the highway, where abandoned cars were everywhere. Occasionally, a car would drive over with an anxious mood, but would turn around and run back after not driving for long. After the owners of these vehicles were bitten to death, the zombies attracted by them kept wandering on the road.

"Roar!" The zombies roared excitedly.

Lou Ai could understand the various emotions expressed by the zombies' roars. She put on sunglasses to shield her eyes and rushed forward at the speed of a level zero zombie.
　　

"Help, help!" The boy riding the scooter dropped the motorcycle and used his hands and feet to run straight up. Behind him were more than a dozen zombies with bloody and rotten flesh on their faces, purple-black nails, exaggerated teeth, and excited roars as they played with their prey.

“F#ck, f#ck, f#ck, I’m going to die.” A bearded man, wielding a mace, stepped back nervously as the zombies in front of him gradually increased in number, swearing all the time, “Die, die, die!”
　　

There was a sound of breaking air, and a sword brushed past his cheek and pierced into the eye socket of the zombie in front of him, and white liquid flowed out.
　　

Lou Ai ran over, pulled out her gun, and threw it at the zombie in front of the motorcycle boy.

She pulled it out again, chopped and forked, relying on the fact that the zombies would not attack her, and was in a full-on fighting situation. Lou Ai used her Taekwondo skills learned in her childhood to the fullest.

The boy on the motorcycle and the bearded man fled to the corner, watching Lou Ai attack the zombies like a string of candied haws, swallowing in shock.
　　

"Is it okay to kill someone?"
　　

"What a bunch of bullsh#t, they're all monsters. This guy is so f#cking powerful, she's Mulan wearing a chicken!!" The bearded man rubbed his palms.
　　

The boy on the motorcycle looked at the little chicken hair accessory on Lou Ai's head. "Chicken Mulan", this title is quite appropriate.
　　

Lou Ai glanced at the two boys who were looking at her, and without blinking, she took out the zombie crystal core.
　　

The apocalypse has just begun, and no one will intercept zombie crystal cores in the middle of the road.
　　

She put the zombie crystal core into her pocket without hesitation and rushed to the next zombie encirclement.
　　

On the seventh day of the apocalypse, Lou Ai supported her body with her bare hands and gasped for breath. She fiddled with the crystal cores in her hands and finally collected enough crystal cores for upgrading.

According to the information released by the scientific research giant in the previous life, the energy required to upgrade an ordinary zero-level zombie is about three hundred and twenty zero-level crystal cores. She saved up twenty more, which should be enough for the upgrade.
　　

Time to go back and upgrade.
　　

Lou Ai and the two boys who followed her to take advantage of the situation waved their hands and walked back to where they parked their car with slightly stiff legs.
　　

Lou Ai returned to the villa, closed the doors and windows, walked into the bathroom, pulled down the blinds, and sat down cross-legged.
　　

The upgrade of zombies is different from that of psychics. Zombies need to eat crystal cores.
　　

She was afraid that something unusual might happen when she upgraded, so she never ate crystal cores outside.
　　

After the crystal core entered the mouth, it turned into something like water and flowed down, making the whole body feel warm. It was not the kind of warmth that made the limbs weak, but the kind of warmth that made one could clearly feel that one's limbs and head had become harder and more powerful.
　　

Lou Ai continuously put crystal cores into her mouth, silently counting the number of them.
　　

When the total amount reached 319, Lou Ai paused. A clear snapping sound rang in her mind, and her whole body trembled in pain, as if she had broken free from some restraints. After a moment of pain, her eyes became clearer.

　　

The upgrade was successful, and she seemed to have developed some amazing new superpowers.
　　

Lou Ai touched the small iron basin that contained the crystal core, and when she saw the small iron basin disappearing into space with the zombie crystal core, she couldn't help but feel secretly delighted. This time, her upgrade unexpectedly opened up a space connected by her mental power, a stable space of about three by three cubic meters.

Moreover, as a first-level zombie, she has the ability to summon zero-level zombies.
　　

Lou Ai clenched her fists. This was a good start.
　　

She went downstairs happily and opened a box of high-quality canned beef to celebrate. She had looted it from the luggage of the young couple in the villa area. Although it didn't taste that good and had a strong meaty smell, it was less fishy than her other canned meats. She had to eat and live in human society, so it was important for her to develop good habits.

After eating, she actually felt a long-lost feeling of thirst.
　　

Lou Ai was so happy that she went crazy. She wasn't thirsty, hungry, or wanted to go to the toilet during these seven days. She forced herself to drink a few sips of the collected water symbolically, and used the rest to wash her hair and take a bath.
　　

Lou Ai quickly ran to find some water, fearing that her thirst would disappear.
　　

But the embarrassing thing was that after the water supply was cut off, she collected all the water in the villa area to take a shower and wash up. She thought she didn't need to drink water. The water she collected was not much to begin with, and the water was dirty from fighting zombies every day in the past few days. After a few days, she had squandered all the usable water.
　　

Lou Ai found the map she had saved in advance. She remembered that there was a large shopping mall on Xiangyang Road, which was only half an hour's drive away. Next to the shopping mall was an eyewear store, so she also had to disguise her eyes in advance.
　　

Originally, after upgrading, she wanted to go out and wait for the rescue troops, but now she decided to go out directly.
　　

Lou Ai made up her mind and raised her hand to collect the remaining supplies in the small storage room. The supplies filled her small space, leaving only a small amount of space.
　　

She was carrying a large backpack, which contained several canned beef, a few pieces of chocolate, and two mobile phones. She turned off one of the phones and put it in the space. Although there was no internet, the phone could still be used to listen to the radio, and some national regulations would also be broadcast to the general public through the radio.

Lou Ai drove directly away from the villa where she had lived for several days and drove towards the city. On the way, she passed by a gas station. She killed two zombies in the gas station, collected three large barrels of gasoline and put them into the space.
　　

The car was heading into the city.
　　

The streets in the urban area were visibly desolate, with bloodstains everywhere on the streets. Several cars were overturned on the road, and the glass windows of the shops on both sides were smashed. There were also abandoned rolling doors on the side of the road.
　　

When the wind blows, some garbage is blown up into the sky.
　　

The zombies wandering on the street heard the sound of Lou Ai's car engine and ran over. After chasing for two steps, they realized something was wrong and turned around to go somewhere else.
　　

How could Lou Ai do as they wished? She exuded the pressure of a high-level zombie, forcing the zombies to chase her. How could a human drive a car without attracting zombies to chase her?

After controlling about ten zombies, Lou Ai realized her limit.

There is an eyewear store next to the comprehensive supermarket on Xiangyang Road.
　　

Lou Ai parked the car in the corner next to the optical shop, controlled the two zombies to squat down, and threatened: "You two help me keep an eye on the car. If I come back and my car is destroyed, you two will be killed by me. If the car is there then the zombies are there, the car is destroyed and the zombies are dead, do you understand?"

"Uh... grahhh." Two zombies, one fat and one thin, squatted in front of the two car doors, one on the left and one on the right, with their heads twisted and their hands stiffly holding the doors.
　　

Lou Ai saw the dirty handprints on her car door: "..."

Fine.

The glass door of the eyewear store was not locked and was wide open with a crack. The low cabinets inside were leaning on the ground, and there was a pool of blood on the marble floor.
　　

Lou Ai walked in and found that most of the glasses frames inside were well preserved.
　　

She searched around and picked out two pairs of black decorative glasses frames and two pairs of sunglasses, and put away all the cosmetic contact lenses and contact lens solutions in the store that were suitable for her.
　　

She walked to the bathroom in the store. After the upgrade, her pupils expanded from the size of a needle tip to the size of a malnourished mung bean, but still did not look like human eyes.
　　

Lou Ai found a pair of dark-colored contact lenses and put them on. Apart from being less active, they looked more normal. At first glance, it looked like she was wearing contact lenses decorated with special patterns.
　　

After solving the eye problem, Lou Ai walked into the comprehensive market next door.
　　

As soon as Lou Ai entered the door of the supermarket, she was face to face with several zombies in front of her. The zombies rushed towards her with stealthy steps. She did not confront the zombies head-on, but sprayed pesticides at them to disrupt their sense of smell, and then quickly rushed to the second floor of the supermarket.
　　

The zombies couldn't see her, and with the smell hindering them, they quickly lost their way and started walking around the hall again.
　　

There were some small vendors selling drinks and ice cream in front of the supermarket on the second floor. Lou Ai quietly opened the mouth of the zombie standing nearby with its fangs and claws bared, and went to look for water in several small freezers nearby.

In the early days of the apocalypse, a small freezer like this would not be completely out of stock.
　　

But the entire freezer seemed to have been cleaned. It was filled with frozen cream and cakes. Because of the power outage, they had become a little smelly. She searched carefully for a while and found a neatly packaged bottle of mineral water in the corner of the freezer. It seemed that someone had deliberately hidden the supplies there.
　　

"Don't move, this is our water, the water we and the people in the supermarket buy."
　　

An old man suddenly rushed out and grabbed the mineral water bottle, begging sincerely: "There are many of us, girl, please leave the water for us. I saw you when you just came in. Girl, you are very capable, you will definitely be able to find water again."
　　

Lou Ai looked over and saw that the old man had a square face with gray hair on his temples. His cloudy eyes stared at Lou Ai motionlessly.
　　

"Is there anyone selling water in the supermarket? Where?" Lou Ai asked.
　　

"They took over the space where water used to be sold in the supermarket. They offered a gold bracelet for a bottle of water. The things that were used to make money in the supermarket were sold at very high prices," the old man said. "They paid my children when we helped them collect supplies."
　　

"Then go." Lou Ai let go of her hand and gently looked at the old man in front of her. She felt that there was an indescribable weirdness about the old man in front of her.
　　

When faced with something strange, her first choice is usually to stay away from it. Who knows what kind of crazy thing she might run into? This intuition has saved Lou Ai many times before. Just as the old man walked away with a cautious step, Lou Ai narrowed her eyes. Just now, she actually had a feeling that she could control the old man in front of her.
　　

Lou Ai shook her head, easily dodged two zombies, walked into the supermarket and found the area selling water.

Looking at the mineral water shelves that had been cleared out, she smiled bitterly. It was just as she expected.

"You want some water? Here's a bottle."
　　

Suddenly, the voice of a boy in the voice change period was heard nearby.
　　

A sense of déjà vu floated in Lou Ai's mind. She looked over, and her deeply buried memories were gradually pried open.
　　

Xia Xing, he is in this supermarket. By the way, the milk tea shop where she works seems to be in the commercial street two blocks away.
　　

In her previous life, she hid in the milk tea shop for eight days relying on the food stored in the milk tea shop. When she was about to give up, Xia Xing appeared with scratches all over his body. He handed her a piece of bread and said at that time: You must be hungry too, I will share one with you. They stayed in that small milk tea shop for three days, leaning on each other, encouraging each other, and persisted until the army arrived at this street and separated when they got on the bus.
　　

Xia Xing's family has a military background. If it weren't for him, the army might not have searched that small milk tea shop.
　　

"Thank you." Lou Ai took it and thanked him, "What's your name?"
　　

"You're welcome. My name is Xia Xing. I'm leaving first. My classmates are waiting for me." Xia Xing was holding two bottles of mineral water in his arms. He was about fifteen or sixteen years old and looked very cheerful. He glanced at Lou Ai, his expression paused, and suddenly he became alert, "There are a lot of us."
　　

Lou Ai looked in the direction Xia Xing was heading. Including Xia Xing, there were a total of six people, and they all seemed to be teenagers of the same age as Xia Xing.
　　

No, that's not right. The last one is an old man, the old man who just snatched her mineral water.

As a few people moved, Lou Ai saw the person who was originally in the corner.
　　

Moreover, the sense of control that was within reach became stronger and stronger, as if she was standing in front of a level zero zombie.

Lou Ai reached out and grabbed Xia Xing's clothes.

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