Chapter 8

Lin Tu never expected to find the very thing she wanted most, right here and now.

She immediately raised her hand high to signal that she needed it.

"Sorry, I don't know how to use it... I-I'll throw it to you!" the woman said, and following Lin Tu's nod, she tossed the handgun gently, landing it on the ground not far from Lin Tu.

Lin Tu dodged a zombie's attack, sprinted over, bent down, and grabbed the gun, its grip settling into her palm.

Her experience with firearms came entirely from the shooting club in Yakutsk she'd visited not long ago. Back then, time was short, and most of it went toward learning basic gun knowledge and how to handle different models. Actual firing time boiled down to a mere half hour, which was why it took Lin Tu a while to figure out where to load the chamber.

Once she'd moved to a spot farther away, she turned, gripped the stock tightly, and raised it in front of her. Her instructor's words echoed in her mind: "Stay calm, aim, fire."

A loud *bang* rang out as Lin Tu pulled the trigger.

The violent recoil slammed into her hand—far more brutal than the shock from a punching bag. In her sight, the zombie crumpled to the ground, brain matter splattering in a scene almost dizzying to witness. The pain in her hand snapped her back from the gory display.

In that instant, she fell in love with the feeling.

She raised the gun, aimed at two zombies farther off, and fired twice—both dropped.

"Sis, you're a sharpshooter!" the girl cheered excitedly.

Over the next stretch, she shifted positions repeatedly, alternating between the crowbar and the handgun to take down zombies one by one. Her hands were especially steady, unnervingly calm for someone who'd never fought in a disaster before—or perhaps she was simply immersed in it.

The tables had turned. The girl shouted, "Go, sis! Go!" while the woman occasionally lobbed bricks from the rooftop to harass the zombies, reminding Lin Tu to mind her position.

Soon, few zombies remained on the rooftop, and the stragglers drawn in by the gunfire were eliminated too.

After using up the last bullet, Lin Tu finished off the final zombie with her crowbar.

As it slowly collapsed, she leaned on her knees, panting heavily.

She itched to pull out her phone and check how much had been credited to her account, but with others around, she hesitated... then gave in. Turning her back, she opened the phone.

[From Anju: In the D-level world "Global Zombie Crisis," you have killed a total of zombies ×74.5]

That came to 745,000 yuan. Combined with the million-plus from earlier, she now had enough to upgrade another Anju function. Even if she wanted to spend points on [Long-term Electricity], she'd have a fridge and a lamp for the next disaster.

Satisfied, Lin Tu snapped the phone shut.

"Sis! Sis!" Just as Lin Tu was looking at her phone, the little girl came running over in excitement. "You're amazing! You're like Mulan from the movies—no, even better than Mulan!"

At around ten years old, the girl was in her lively, restless phase. In no time at all, she'd adopted this beautiful sister who'd saved them as her idol, and her voice rang high as she practically clung to Lin Tu, ready to fire off a hundred questions.

"Sis, I'm Nora. I live downstairs. I'm a top student at my elementary school. Are you here to award me for being brave?"

Nora's mother quickly pulled her back and bowed to Lin Tu in thanks. Her eyes were brimming with tears, and clearly, she was working hard to hold them back so her daughter wouldn't worry.

Lin Tu looked at the pitiful mother and daughter before her and instinctively reached up to adjust her glasses, searching for the right words—but her fingers met the bridge of her nose and found nothing there. It struck her that she hadn't worn glasses in days.

She lowered her head, suddenly panicked by the emptiness on her face, which made her feel like all she could hear was a constant buzzing. Especially in moments like this, when she needed to meet someone's eyes, Lin Tu almost couldn't control the urge to bolt.

She wasn't well; Lin Tu had always known that.

As for what was wrong, how to fix it? She'd never bothered to think about it. Being unwell didn't fit the image she was supposed to project, so she'd always just pretended everything was fine.

"Excuse me, do you know of any organizations still operating? Or even survivors? I'm here alone with my daughter for work—I don't have any connections or a place to stay. I don't know what to do..."

As the mother spoke, Lin Tu held up her hand and made an X sign.

"Rather than torture yourself, just avoid it," she said with a smile, in her hometown dialect, pronounced crisply and clearly. That familiar accent immediately brought her voice back. "Sorry, I don't understand English."

"I don't know anyone else, but I can take you somewhere safe. Follow me," Lin Tu said confidently, as if the two sides weren't talking past each other but were engaged in some perfectly normal, seamless exchange.

She turned, waved, and headed downstairs, not caring whether the mother and daughter could understand.

The mother and daughter were momentarily stunned—like they'd just run into a foreigner—but they still followed her.

Passing the third floor, Lin Tu first entered the middle-aged man's apartment.

According to the woman, the man had barely fired a shot, so there might be leftover bullets at home.

Searching houses was second nature to Lin Tu by now. She quickly found a 15-round box in the nightstand with six rounds still in it.

Somewhat clumsily, she loaded the bullets into the magazine and tucked the handgun into her waistband.

The food in the house was completely gone, and the wardrobe held only men's clothes. Lin Tu searched the place and, with a hint of distaste, pocketed a bottle of men's cologne.

Besides sound, zombies were also sensitive to smell. The woman's earlier words had sparked an idea: if she ever needed to hide in a tight spot, a bottle of cologne might mask her scent.

After searching the man's place, Lin Tu went ahead and checked a few other homes.

As the old saying goes: since I'm here, might as well not leave empty-handed.

Seeing this, Nora and her mother hurried back to their own place to pack. But by the time Lin Tu finished searching the others, they still hadn't come out.

Frowning, Lin Tu went looking for them—and heard shouting from outside the door.

"You say I pushed you out, but didn't I give you the gun?! I didn't send you to your deaths!" It was a man's voice, loud and strained.

"If this isn't death, what is? You didn't know how to use the gun, but did we? Your wife—Vera! The woman you shared a bed with for six years—she died because of that push!" the woman shot back, furious.

"I pushed you two, not her! She died in your place! She saved your lives! Look at this blood—it's my wife's! Do you think I'm not grieving? You killed her! How dare you come back asking me for things!"

Lin Tu eased the door open a crack. The two inside were too busy arguing, faces flushed red, to notice her at all.

In the room, a haggard-looking man stood beside a pool of blood, clutching a backpack tightly. His clothes still held a faintly sharp shape, suggesting he'd once been presentable.

Across from him, the woman stood her ground, her raised finger trembling.

So the middle-aged man wasn't dead after all. From what he said, it sounded like he'd pushed the mother and daughter out, shoved the gun into their hands, and his wife had died in the process.

Lin Tu crossed her arms and watched coldly.

"You deserve to die—are you even human?" the woman's voice shook with rage. "Give my stuff back. I'm leaving! I never want to see your wretched face again!"

"That's mine!" the man grabbed the backpack strap defiantly. "What am I supposed to do without it? Have you no conscience? Aren't you worried about turning Nora into a bad person?"

"You bastard! You, you—you deserve to die!"

"I'm coming with you whether you like it! Who saved you? He's going to take you somewhere safe. My wife saved you—you can't deny that. It's only fair I come along!"

The woman's chest heaved with fury. Behind her, Nora's eyes were red, her small fists gripping her mother's clothes so hard they might tear.

Suddenly, Lin Tu felt it all was pointless.

She strolled over. As the middle-aged man looked up at her, Lin Tu raised her knee and drove it into his stomach.

She wasn't exceptionally strong, but she'd been tempered in the zombie horde; a soft, pudgy man like him couldn't withstand that kick.

"Ah!" he cried out, caught off guard, tumbling to the ground in a heap.

Lin Tu walked over, grabbed the backpack strap, and gave him two hard kicks. He whimpered and begged, "No, no, please!"—but Lin Tu pretended to be deaf. After all, she knew herself well: she was a sick lunatic, and if she occasionally played deaf and beat someone up, so what?

It seemed only then that Nora's mother realized Lin Tu was a foreigner. She watched coldly for a long moment before pulling Lin Tu back. "Don't dirty your legs, miss."

"Damn it to hell," Lin Tu said with a dry laugh, then tossed the backpack into the mother's hands and waved for them to follow.

When she went down to start the truck, a few more zombies were drawn by the noise, but Lin Tu had no intention of dealing with them. Once the mother and daughter were in, she sat down in the driver's seat, expression cold.

The pickup roared away, leaving the zombies to sniff around and slowly converge on the apartment building.

In the back seat, there was some rustling, then a small hand reached forward. "Thank you, sis."

Nora offered a loaf of bread. The bag had suspicious drool marks and bite impressions—Lin Tu had a feeling some little girl had been sneaking bites through the packaging.

"Sorry, miss, this is our last loaf. That man ate everything else. We don't have anything else to thank you with," the mother said after a pause, when Lin Tu didn't take it. Then she realized Lin Tu couldn't understand her.

She took the bread from Nora's hand and tried to force it on Lin Tu.

"No need," Lin Tu said, stopping the car and turning with a smile. She picked up a bag from the passenger seat, revealing a crab-leg and pickle sandwich. "I already have lunch." She shook her head and refused.

The faint vinegar-pickle smell reached the mother, who looked a bit taken aback but withdrew the bread.

This exchange seemed to reassure Lin Tu that the mother and daughter she'd saved were decent people, and her mood lightened. She grabbed a few chocolate candies from the glove box and passed them to the back seat. Since the language barrier made it easy to pretend she couldn't understand, she shoved the chocolates at the drooling little girl.

The car slowly made its way to the edge of town. At first, the mother and daughter were pale with fear at the zombies wandering around, but Lin Tu sped up and soon left them behind, steering onto a quiet road.

The two were surprised to find not a single zombie in this area—like a hidden paradise.

What they didn't know was that Lin Tu had cleared out this entire stretch of road and the nearby buildings, leaving nothing behind like a swarm of locusts.

"You can stay there for now," Lin Tu said, pointing to one of the houses. It was the first place she'd searched when she'd arrived in town. It was remote enough, well-sealed, and fairly well-equipped.

The only downside was that Lin Tu had already scoured nearby supplies.

But since it was just temporary, that wasn't much of a drawback. At least until they found a human settlement... Lin Tu figured she could bring them supplies now and then, at least enough to repay them for the handgun.

Though they hadn't understood what Lin Tu said, they grasped her meaning well enough.

The woman thanked her profusely. Lin Tu got out and led them through the house, making sure it was secure. She showed them how to bar the door, then left.

With the handgun, Lin Tu felt more confident about entering "Combatants."

But she wasn't in a hurry. She first returned to the shop's vicinity, placed the drone on a windowsill crevice aimed inside, hoping to record something useful.

While monitoring the shop and gathering intel, she planned to stock up more supplies. The scene earlier—neighbors fighting over goods—had strongly reinforced her belief that the more supplies, the better.

It just so happened that around the residential area, a few small shops were scattered among the houses. With a crowbar and an axe, there was almost nowhere Lin Tu couldn't get in. She instantly transformed into a procurement expert, diving into immersive shopping.

She started with the nearest convenience store. The door was wide open, the inside messy, with a few zombies wandering around. Most of the food was gone; leftover fruits and vegetables had rotted on the floor.

Probably because people had snatched things up in a hurry, some items remained in corners and on shelves: chocolate, beer, biscuits, candy, milk, tea bags, and some Russian-labeled goods she couldn't identify. Lin Tu cleared out the zombies, delighted, and gathered up these finds into a shopping basket she'd taken from the front counter. Then she took the basket to the daily necessities aisle.

There was much more left there. She found a dozen packs of towels, two suitcases, a portable chair, twenty packs of sanitary pads, two large bags of heat packs, several bottles of body wash, shampoo, and facial cleanser, plus local moisturizer and lip balm for the extreme cold.

There was so much that it took her two trips to haul it all to the car. After finishing the convenience store, she went next door to a nail salon and grabbed two big bags of rubber gloves, three large bottles of alcohol, and a few packs of tweezers.

The chair in the salon's break room had a kind of comfort that only a working stiff could appreciate. Lin Tu wanted to take it, but the thought of her eight-square-meter room stuffed with supplies made her reluctantly give it up.

Later, once she made money and expanded her house, she'd definitely buy a nice sofa.

With that thought in mind, she eagerly cleared the zombies out of some deli or other, finding three sealed sausages, a box of intact ketchup, and some powdered seasonings like curry powder and Orleans seasoning in the cabinets. She'd experiment with those later.

Finally, there was a garden center, but she decided to skip it—her car was full, and it was almost lunchtime.

Lin Tu headed home, ate, then packed some of the local supplies into a suitcase. Lugging it back, she returned to the small town.

By then, Nora's mother was anxiously peering out the window, using the method Lin Tu had shown her to crack open the board and watch what was outside.

Even though this was where Lin Tu had brought them, having witnessed crowds chased through streets by zombies, seen people killed by zombies that suddenly lunged out, and experienced the terror of being surrounded, she lived in constant fear that more zombies would appear.

When she spotted Lin Tu's car coming from the edge of sight, the woman perked up, surprised that Lin Tu had actually returned. She turned to call her daughter—only to find Nora, who'd been watching her mother all along, already bounding downstairs to wait for Lin Tu's arrival.

Lin Tu pulled a suitcase from the trunk and opened it. Inside were canned goods, compressed food, drinking water, clothes, tissues, sanitary pads, facial cleanser, and other daily necessities. It was easily enough for ten days or more, and the sight of it stacked together was reassuringly abundant.

"Use these for now, and I'll bring more when you're running low," Lin Tu said in her dialect. "If I find any of your countrymen, I'll let you know."

In a post-apocalyptic world where even a small loaf of bread could turn former neighbors into enemies, this case of supplies was beyond precious. The woman wanted to refuse—she knew exactly how much it was worth, and she couldn't take so much.

But Lin Tu shoved the case into her hands, pointing at the gun at her waist. "It's fine. Consider it payment for this gun. It's the least I can do."

At that moment, the language barrier stopped mattering. The woman clearly understood Lin Tu's intent. Her eyes nearly welled up as she pulled Nora to bow to Lin Tu, but Lin Tu held them back.

Lin Tu patted Nora's head. "Settle in, and don't worry."

As the truck's silhouette disappeared down the empty street, Nora seemed to have grown up in an instant. "Mom, the game's not over, is it?"

"It'll be a long, long time," the woman said, hugging Nora tightly as if to ward off fear. "A long, long time, but we'll be okay."

"Mom, why isn't the big sister scared? That man... the bad man—the big sister knocked him down with one kick..."

"The big sister is very strong, sweetheart. We need to thank her, okay? She helped us a lot. She's our benefactor."

"I know," Nora nodded firmly. In her mother's arms, the lingering sensation of the big sister's hand patting her head stirred a strange mix of fear and comfort.

"I'm going to be just as strong as the big sister someday, and I'll kick those bad people until they die," she resolved silently, as if making a private vow that marked the end of her childhood.

Meanwhile, several cars arrived at the edge of the small town.

"We made it!" they said excitedly.

The town was small, and following the tracker, it took just over ten minutes to reach the "Combatants" storefront.

But they didn't rush in recklessly.

They observed the area from the outside first and, by chance, found the drone Lin Tu had left behind.

"This doesn't look accidental. It's in a tricky spot, and its light's still on," Dong Huadan frowned.

"Could a local be using this drone to watch the area?" Tian Jingjing suggested, then scared themselves with the thought.

"Doesn't seem like a local," Dong Huadan shook her head.

Hearing that, Zhang Zisheng patted Tian Jingjing on the back, as if in reassurance.

In [Infinite Calamity], "local" wasn't a good word. It was what players called the original inhabitants of disaster worlds. Unlike normal worlds, morality in disaster worlds teetered on the brink of collapse—sometimes completely shattered—which meant the locals had nothing to do with virtue or goodness, and the higher the disaster level, the more twisted they were.

Especially when locals found out that a group of pretty-well-off outsiders had come to their world to play a timed survival game—the resentment and jealousy could turn them into demons... though that was something only high-level players encountered.

"If a local was watching this place, at least they'd know what's inside. If they knew, there'd be no reason to monitor it with something that gathers so little info," Dong Huadan said.

"So, there's another outsider?!" Amid the others' reactions—some excited, some dumbfounded, some displeased—Dong Huadan nodded.

The opposite of "local," "outsider" was the collective term for [Infinite Calamity] players. Compared to the fully-deranged locals, outsiders at least had a place of refuge to look forward to; they banded together for warmth and didn't tend to become as monstrous as the natives.

Of course, that only applied to the ordinary majority of outsiders.

"And not just any outsider," she added, turning the drone in her hands. "This thing is rare. Poor quality, sure, but it costs at least a hundred points. Plus you'd need to keep charging it—and you all know how hard that is."

"Then we've run into a big shot!" Zheng Yangyang cheered.

"Not necessarily," Dong Huadan mused. "Bring the drone along. Let's gear up and head into this shop."