The Absolute Favorite in the Apocalyptic Rebirth

"Ah—"

A terrified scream shattered the early morning tranquility. Lou Ling frowned. The sound was quite distant, but it was enough to chase away her sleepiness. She opened her eyes, momentarily disoriented.

Soon, more screams followed, one after another. Such blood-curdling cries were rare in a high-end residential area like Rose Garden. Something must have happened. Lou Ling, now wide awake, hurriedly threw off the quilt and got up, only to find herself completely naked. The faint, ambiguous bluish-purple marks on her fair skin reminded her of what had happened last night. Her face flushed, and she quickly grabbed the clothes folded on the bedside table and put them on. She rushed to the window. When she saw the scene below, it felt like all the blood in her body had turned to ice.

A gruesome and terrifying scene was unfolding below. A person with half of their face a mangled mess of flesh and blood was pouncing on a woman, desperately biting at her flesh. The woman screamed incessantly but couldn't break free, only able to let out cries of agony. The cannibal greedily devoured the fresh human flesh…

Lou Ling covered her mouth, staring fixedly at the scene. It felt like the whole world had changed. Looking around, similar bloody scenes were happening all over the community. After those terrifying humanoid monsters finished eating, they would stagger around stiffly, searching for fresh flesh, attacking living people, and banging on the doors of some houses. From some of the houses, screams rang out one after another. It was as if the whole world had been plunged into a state of panic.

A thick, bloody smell wafted in the air, making her want to vomit.

Lou Ling watched for a long time. Although she felt terrified, she forced herself not to look away. It was only when those monsters finished eating and continued to wander around the community that Lou Ling closed the window in a daze. She stumbled back to the bed and felt a chill run down her spine. She couldn't help but hug herself tightly.

"Xiao Ling, are you up? Breakfast is ready," a gentle, clear male voice sounded as the door opened.

Lou Ling looked up at him in horror. Seeing that he was still the same refined and noble young man, not one of the humanoid monsters below, she almost burst into tears of joy. She rushed to him, grabbed his hand, and spoke incoherently, "Down there… there are monsters. Monsters are eating people… It's terrifying, just like the zombies in Resident Evil…"

Lou Dian looked at her quietly until she calmed down. He bent down slightly and kissed her face. He half-helped her up from her collapsed position on the floor and said calmly, "Xiao Ling, those monsters are indeed a type of creature called zombies."

"Zombies?" she repeated, staring at him blankly.

"Xiao Ling, the apocalypse has arrived!" he said in an even calmer tone.

Lou Ling gasped, wondering how this man could still be so calm. "The… apocalypse?"

"Yes, welcome to the apocalypse!"

He gave a strange and eerie smile, but to Lou Ling, it seemed as terrifying as a demon's. She couldn't help but shiver.

Like a wooden doll, Lou Ling was led downstairs by the hand. He sat her down at the dining table, where a steaming bowl of preserved egg and lean meat porridge, toast, fried breadsticks, and sliced salted duck eggs were already laid out. A pair of chopsticks appeared in her hand.

Lou Ling stared at him blankly. Meeting his calm gaze, she suddenly felt at a loss.

Anyone would find it hard to accept waking up to such a horrifying scene. What was even harder to accept was being told that the apocalypse had arrived, so let's have a good meal and go out to kill some zombies…

Lou Ling looked at him for a long time, then finally lowered her head and began to eat her breakfast at a rapid pace.

"Xiao Ling, eat slowly. We're not in a hurry."

"…"

No, she wasn't in a hurry. She was just venting, venting the fear in her heart, so that she could accept this situation and plan for the future. The apocalypse… just hearing those words filled her with despair. How could she not be anxious?

At that moment, Lou Dian turned on the TV with the remote control. The TV signal seemed to be poor. After flipping through several channels, he finally found one with a relatively clear picture. However, what was playing on the screen was a scene as bloody as the one in reality. A reporter who was conducting an interview at a hospital was pounced on by a rotting monster in a hospital gown. The camera shook violently, and soon the picture was gone.

Lou Dian seemed to want her to see clearly what the world had become. He kept flipping through the channels, stopping at any that showed clear and real reports of monsters eating people, forcing her to watch. Lou Ling couldn't take it anymore and ran to the bathroom to throw up.

When she came back after rinsing her mouth, a new breakfast had been set out. Lou Ling had no appetite and sat there in a daze, digesting all the bloody and terrifying scenes she had seen since waking up.

However, Lou Dian didn't let her digest it for too long. He cleared the breakfast, pulled her up, and handed her a light Tang sword.

Lou Ling stared at him blankly and asked, "Where… where did you get this?" She never knew he was a fan of cold weapons.

"I found it in the storeroom at home. It was something Dad collected before."

As he spoke, Lou Dian smiled at her. His smile was like that of a demon. Then he pushed the still-dazed Lou Ling out the door.

Lou Ling stood there like a fool, Tang sword in hand, until a nearby wandering monster smelled fresh flesh. It let out a hoarse groan and shuffled towards her stiffly like an elderly person. Only then did she realize her situation – Lou Dian, her abnormal older brother, had actually pushed her out the door to face those terrifying monsters!

Lou Ling quickly turned around. Through the iron gate, she looked at the man standing in the courtyard behind the gate, hands casually tucked in his pockets, elegant and composed as if admiring the scenery in a picturesque place. The autumn wind blew, lifting his soft fringe and brushing past his dark, jade-like eyes that seemed to hold a chilling indifference. His gaze never left her. The smile on his face was gentle, and his eyes softened slightly when they landed on her face. But when he looked away, one could feel that inorganic coldness again.

"Xiao Ling, be careful!"

Lou Ling instinctively turned around. The stench of death and decay hit her in the face, almost making her throw up again. She turned her head to see a badly decomposed face. Her mind went blank. Driven by the instinct to survive, Lou Ling subconsciously swung her hand. The Tang sword in her hand slashed forward. The sharpness of the Tang sword was beyond her expectation, and the monster was obviously newly turned. Its neck was equally fragile. With a swing of the Tang sword, the monster's head flew off, and she was sprayed with foul-smelling blood.

Lou Ling threw up again.

Of course, she eventually got used to it!

Because of her appearance, the nearby zombies were all attracted. Lou Ling trembled in fear, her back pressed tightly against the door. She cried out, "Let me in! Lou Dian, open the door!"

"Xiao Ling, kill them!" Lou Dian's calm voice came from behind the door. "You can do it."

She could do it, but… it was too disgusting! Especially when she recognized many of the rotting faces of the monsters as residents of the community, she couldn't suppress the feeling of guilt, as if she was killing people – no, these things couldn't be called human anymore.

Lou Ling quickly regained the feeling she had when she used to fight with Lou Dian. But at least back then, she was facing Lou Dian's handsome, almost feminine face, and she could even pin him down and look down at him condescendingly. But now – fighting with real swords and real knives, chopping off a head with each swing, even if their reactions were slow enough for her to chop at will, the visual impact was still hard to bear.

Half an hour later, the door finally opened.

As if he couldn't smell the stench of blood on her, Lou Dian pulled the staggering Lou Ling into his arms. He wiped her face clean with a wet tissue, then kissed her lips. With a gentle smile, he said proudly, "Xiao Ling, you were amazing!"

He really was a freak. She was so filthy, and he could still bring himself to kiss her.

"No matter how smelly you are, you're still my Xiao Ling." He smiled as if he possessed the whole world.

Lou Ling was too exhausted to care about his comforting tone, which sounded like he was talking to a child. She took a deep breath, then hurried to the bathroom to wash off the bloodstains. She scrubbed her body several times with shower gel until her skin was red before she came out of the bathroom.

The first day of the apocalypse ended with Lou Ling being ruthlessly kicked out by Lou Dian to kill zombies – in his words, to train and to help her digest the arrival of the apocalypse.

It wasn't until nightfall that Lou Ling's stiff brain remembered her good friend at school. She hurriedly picked up her phone and tried to call Lin Bao Bao, but the call wouldn't go through. All she got was a busy tone. Was the signal down now?

Soon, as if she had realized something, Lou Ling looked at the man sitting beside her, slowly combing her hair with a comb. She pursed her lips and lowered her eyelids.

It seemed that his behavior had been very strange since she woke up this morning, and he had deliberately made her forget to call Lin Bao Bao. If she had called earlier, when there was still signal, she might have been able to reach Lin Bao Bao, but at that time, she had been so scared that she had forgotten everything, even that her phone was turned off…

Night fell, and the world was dark and quiet. The water and electricity were still running, but they didn't dare turn on the lights. Even if they did, they would have covered the windows tightly, afraid that the light would attract the monsters.

Lou Dian's hand ran through her hair, leaving a very comfortable feeling on her scalp. He looked at the girl curled up on the sofa beside him, nibbling on her nails with a troubled expression. He twirled a strand of her fine, black hair around his finger, then reached out and pulled her whole body into his arms. He easily lifted her up and said gently, "Xiao Ling, it's time for bed."

"…"

The corner of Lou Ling's mouth twitched. After a whole day of stimulation, she really didn't have the energy to deal with the blackened, chuunibyou Lou Dian. After lying down on the bed and finding that he was just holding her to sleep and didn't do anything else, she directly pulled the quilt over her head.

Sleep, sleep. She needed sleep to soothe her heart that had been frightened all day! She hoped that when she woke up tomorrow morning, she would find that everything today was just a dream!

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