Chapter 1: The Big Gamble in a Desperate Situation
The breath of death is very long, as if it is far away and yet very close at hand.
Meng Fan fell like a dead dog in the corner of the utility room. His withered cheeks, lifeless eyes, and bloody scars on his arms caused by zombie bites made him look extremely miserable.
"This damn doomsday... I have tried hard for so long, but I still can't escape the fate of being bitten to death by zombies!"
Meng Fan leaned against the wall weakly and let out a deep growl. He never thought that because of his good intentions, he would be betrayed in the process of saving his colleagues, and would eventually end up being severely injured by zombies.
The severe pain from the wound was rapidly devouring the nerves. Meng Fan shivered in pain and tried to stand up several times, but ultimately failed.
Looking at the wound that had turned pitch black due to infection, Meng Fan's vision gradually blurred, and his thoughts returned to three months ago.
Three months ago, Lincheng was still a prosperous city full of tranquility and peace.
There are no disasters, no death and disease, and no bloody and terrifying zombies.
Meng Fan remembered clearly that all the changes happened three months ago on that sunny and calm morning.
Over Lincheng, a large number of heavy rain clouds suddenly floated over, rendering the sky above the city gray.
No one knows where these clouds came from. After all, the weather forecast never warned of rain that day.
At first, people in the city did not take these rain clouds seriously. Many people who did not know the truth took the initiative to climb high-rise buildings and clearly photographed them with their cameras.
The clouds are pink, mixed with a hint of light red, which is gorgeous and very weird.
But soon, these strange clouds developed into a source of terror.
A large number of clouds accumulated, dyeing the sky a dark red. After the clouds were squeezed, they erupted into rumbling thunder and lightning. Even the thunder and lightning revealed a shocking blood-red color.
Heavy rain poured down, covering every corner of the city.
Only then did people discover that even the falling rain showed a strange dark red color.
The bloody rainstorm came too suddenly, because the weather forecast said it should be sunny, and no one had time to prepare. A large number of residents in the city were soaked in the rain.
Just when people were planning to send the information about the heavy rain to the Internet, they unexpectedly discovered that the place swept by the heavy rain was far more than just one forest city.
The heavy rain has already affected the whole world. No matter the land, ocean, or some plateau cities where heavy rain is impossible, they have all been baptized by it!
Of course, although the rainstorm came very suddenly and was even accompanied by that weird bloody color, it was not enough to arouse everyone's vigilance.
In recent years, the climate of Blue Star has always been strange and changeable, with various abnormal weather emerging one after another. People simply thought that it was just a simple heavy rain.
After the rainstorm ended, people returned to their normal lives, fully expecting that the impression of the rainstorm would be gradually forgotten as time went by.
But something really terrible happened soon.
In the city, affected by the heavy rain, the number of emergency fever cases began to increase day by day.
Almost one-third of the people who had been exposed to the rain experienced obvious discomfort the next day.
Various cases of colds and fevers intensified, as if a terrible plague storm swept through the entire city in a very short period of time.
All hospitals have become overcrowded with patients coming for treatment.
In this medium-sized city with a population base of three million, at least more than half a million people suffered from the same high fever symptoms in just two days.
Almost at the same time, news of this "high fever" disease began to spread across the country. Without exception, these people had been exposed to the red rain.
Meng Fan was undoubtedly lucky. Although he was caught in the rain, he did not have a fever. As an employee of the epidemic prevention station, he and his colleagues took many patients to the hospital.
This "plague" was truly terrifying. Preliminary statistics show that on the first day of the plague's spread alone, more than 8,000 people died suddenly due to high fever that persisted.
Only then did people realize the seriousness of the matter, and opinions began to spread on the Internet.
Some people say that this is a "natural punishment" coming from nature because of human beings' uncontrolled exploitation and destruction of nature.
Some people also say that the increasing greenhouse effect may have caused the Antarctic glaciers to melt, releasing many ancient pathogens hidden under the glaciers.
There is even a suspicion that the heavy rain was a germ warfare launched by a hostile country...
Meng Fan didn't pay too much attention to these Internet rumors. The number of deaths at the rescue station was increasing every day, and he was too busy every day.
The death of a large number of people brought the city to a near standstill. Even though the employees of the funeral home worked overtime, there was no time to deal with so many dead bodies.
And these corpses, which could only be temporarily parked in the morgue because there was no time to burn them, also showed more terrifying signs in a short period of time!
Corpses that had just died were strangely "resurrected".
To be precise, that is not called resurrection, but because of the invasion and infection of the virus, they mutated into another terrifying creature-zombie!
The first thing the zombies do when they wake up is to attack all living people crazily. Many doctors, nurses, and rescue station staff have all become victims of the zombies.
Meng Fan was lucky. When the zombies broke out, he was performing tasks outside the epidemic prevention station, so he narrowly escaped.
Later, the number of mutated zombies increased day by day, gradually occupying cities and streets, roads, shopping malls, including hospitals and schools. Horrible zombies with withered bodies and rickety walking could be seen everywhere.
In order to avoid zombies, Meng Fan followed a group of colleagues and hid in this abandoned factory.
A large number of people were gathered in the factory to avoid zombies. Relying on the terrain and environment of the workshop, they struggled to survive the first three months of the apocalypse.
In the process of avoiding the zombie wave, people were also shocked to discover that not everyone who has been exposed to the rain will definitely mutate into zombies.
Some lucky people actually awakened their superpowers and became "superpowers" that can only exist in apocalyptic novels.
As the name suggests, superpowers are a group of people with strong physical strength and explosive power. Some superpowers can even possess some special abilities.
For example, they can create flames and harden their bodies into steel. There are also people who have the ability to control water sources and can condense moisture in the air into drinking water at will...
Unfortunately, these have nothing to do with Meng Fan.
Although he has been exposed to rain and has not mutated into a zombie, he has suffered for three months in the apocalypse, but he has not evolved and is still a useless person who can only live in misery.
…
The past events flashed through his mind one by one. Meng Fan struggled to support his body, then weakly reached into his pocket and took out a light gray crystal that was only as big as a thumb.
This gray crystal was accidentally shattered by a zombie's brain when he was fighting the zombies just now, and it fell out from inside.
People in the apocalypse named it "Grey Crystal".
Gray crystals are born from the brain cores of zombies and are the source of energy for these terrifying creatures. However, not every zombie may have gray crystals. Only a very small number of zombies that have mutated more comprehensively have a small chance of forming this kind of energy.
crystal.
As for the meaning of its existence, it is very simple: it is a consumable product that stores a large amount of energy.
Those with evolutionary talents will have a very small chance of becoming a person with superpowers after swallowing this gray crystal.
But correspondingly, if gray crystal is forcibly swallowed by someone without evolutionary talent, it will have huge side effects and assimilate those who covet its energy into dirty and ugly zombies.
It can be said that risks and opportunities coexist!
But faced with this kind of opportunity, most people don't dare to try it.
The reason is very simple. In the end of the world, there are too few lucky people with evolutionary talents. At least 90% of them are ordinary people with mediocre qualifications like Meng Fan.
Meng Fan had witnessed with his own eyes a scene in which a person struggled in pain after swallowing gray crystals, and was eventually infected into a zombie.
It's really miserable. Losing consciousness and becoming a dirty walking zombie is simply more uncomfortable than death.
In the past, Meng Fan would rather die than take the risk of swallowing the gray crystal, because the price of failure was too heavy.
But now, he had to take this "big gamble".
The wounds that accelerated the disease caused his consciousness to gradually blur, and he was already on the verge of death.
Before stuffing the gray crystal into his mouth, Meng Fan's ashen eyes suddenly burst out with a strong sense of viciousness, "Wang Yu, I protect you with good intentions, but you made me become so miserable... If I am lucky this time
If you don’t die, I will cut you into pieces with a thousand knives!”
Gudu!
The gray crystal was forcefully stuffed into the body, and unlike what he imagined as being difficult to swallow, it actually melted in his mouth, giving Meng Fan a strange cold feeling.
But the next second, the severe pain that felt like his whole body was being burned by fire quickly overwhelmed Meng Fan's reason like a tide, causing him to fall to the ground and roll over, letting out bursts of miserable howls.
"Ah...it hurts so much."
The powerful energy impacted every inch of his muscles, and Meng Fan felt that his body was about to be roasted. The indescribable pain and strong burning sensation made every inch of his skin turn red, and even bursts of white smoke erupted.
This kind of pain was almost fatal and unbearable. Meng Fan was rolling on the ground, wailing in pain, feeling his meridians and internal organs being torn apart painfully, and his heart seemed to be about to melt.
"Did you fail..."
Before he completely lost consciousness, Meng Fan let out a feeble cry. He had witnessed the birth of a superpower, and he would never be in such pain as he was.
"It seems that I am destined to become an incompetent loser..."
Meng Fan closed his eyes in pain, unwillingly waiting for death to come.
But what he didn't know was that as the pain intensified, the torn meridians and internal organs in his body, including the scars scratched and bitten by zombies, were being gradually repaired by a powerful energy source and put back together perfectly.
Even the skin and bones are filled with a silvery light, making the meridians and blood vessels clearly visible...