Mu Shan carefully sensed the location and pointed him in a direction.
“There’s a small cluster of dense metal parts to the northeast, possibly an auto repair shop, about 500 meters in a straight line. I don’t know if there are any turns.”
Feng Wei let out a sigh of relief. “That’s enough. Thanks.”
Seeing his decent attitude, Mu Shan asked, “Big Bro, what exactly is this Main God System? How do you survive in the instances? What happens if you die? How do we get back?”
The Old Driver seemed unable to stay idle. He began rummaging through the other items in the front desk cabinet.
“Big shots guess that the Main God Space is some kind of alien high-dimensional civilization. This is my second instance. My newbie trial was a horror one, similar to ‘The Grudge.’ If it wasn’t aliens, how could they pull off stuff like this?”
The words “The Grudge” made Mu Shan shudder violently. Zombies were monsters modern people could somewhat accept—with a bit of courage, one could fight them. But ghosts? Thinking about it that way, her luck was pretty good.
But Feng Wei clearly had no intention of saying more about the horror instance.
“My personal experience is limited, but what I can tell you is that death in an instance means real death. As for how to leave an instance… if I knew, I wouldn’t still be here.”
“Completing the main quest survival task is a must, but within your abilities, you should try hard to complete side quests too. The system rewards are very generous. Once the instance time is up, you’ll be teleported to the Blank Zone for a day of rest, then sent to the next place.”
Mu Shan was a bit dazed. Currently, the system had only issued her a main quest to survive 20 days, with no side quests.
Feng Wei dug out two hairdryers but didn’t take them, leaving them where they were.
“There aren’t just monsters in instances—there are natural disasters too. I suggest stocking up on supplies for extreme heat and cold environments.”
Seeing he didn’t take the hairdryers, Mu Shan pocketed them and put them in her backpack.
Feng Wei glanced at her, understanding this “pick up anything you see” behavior—every newbie went through a scavenging phase where they took whatever they could.
In essence, players weren’t opposed to each other. Their goals were the same: survive and get home.
And when facing countless crises, one more friend was always better than one more enemy.
Feng Wei added, “In instances, you have to watch out not just for monsters, but for people too.”
He stopped there, saying no more. Mu Shan nodded to show she understood.
“There’s a player-run Trading Market in this instance, in the hall of the Citizen Service Center in the southern suburbs. Most supplies can be bought there. Go check it out if you need anything.”
Feng Wei’s eyelids drooped. Saying so much in one go seemed to tire him out; he even panted a bit.
He pulled a cigarette from his pocket, sniffed it without lighting it, and tucked it behind his ear, exuding the loneliness and world-weariness of a middle-aged man.
Mu Shan said sincerely, “Thanks, Big Bro.”
“You’re support too?”
“Something like that.”
Feng Wei: “I’m pure tech support—my profession is tied to vehicles. Let’s add each other as friends. We can team up next time if there’s a chance.”
He reached out and operated something somewhere. A system prompt popped up in front of Mu Shan.
【Player [Feng Wei (Old Driver)] requests to add you as a friend. Agree?】
Mu Shan clicked yes, and the Friend Interface gained its first friend.
She could chat with friends, initiate item trades, or transfer gold coins.
She could even see Feng Wei’s “friend circle” posts.
[Tomorrow 8 AM, five-man team, targeting Walmart. Need a ranged DPS. Males only.]
[Grinding proficiency lately. Can do long-range fieldwork, overnight OK.]
[High price for emergency meds!]
The profile picture was a default headshot of Feng Wei, clearly a system snapshot of him yawning with his mouth open.
Once he was gone, Mu Shan went out, rebolted the iron door from the inside, and quickly returned to the hotel lobby.
This chain hotel wasn’t large—just three floors total. Veteran players knew chain hotels usually didn’t provide meals, so they hadn’t even bothered searching upstairs.
But almost everything Mu Shan needed was here.
The first floor had no guest rooms: employee break room, finance office, laundry room—all there.
She opened a door, and a laundry worker zombie lunged at her. The bloodstained axe chopped cleanly, splitting half its head and spraying out dried red and white bits. A few drops splattered on her helmet.
Mu Shan kicked the zombie away. In the laundry room, she found half a cabinet each of laundry powder and liquid, plus several large bottles of disinfectant.
A mountain of dirty bedsheets and duvet covers stank in the corner. Mu Shan didn’t linger. She looted the employee office, finding a sewing kit and scissors for guest mending.
Quick hotels had no cafeteria, but in the storeroom, she found cases of bottled water and even dozens of tubs of braised beef instant noodles!
These were standard room supplies.
Mu Shan was starving, seeing stars. She’d only eaten one pack of chips in two days. Junk food she wouldn’t have glanced at before was now hard currency people fought over.
She stored all the water and instant noodles in her backpack.
Bottled water took 1 slot: 50 cases (2 bottles per pack).
What she’d thought was a trash skill at first was now totally OP.
Up to this point, Mu Shan’s haul today already satisfied her greatly, but people never stopped when opportunity knocked!
This chain hotel was now her exclusive resource point. Mu Shan pushed her limits, rushing up to the second-floor guest area. She smashed open the janitor tool room and took out the two cleaning ladies who had long turned into zombies.
Her movements grew more skilled; her neck chops more precise. She was even forming simple conditioned reflexes, like ducking or circling behind.
【Player unlocks title: Axe Gang Member
Single weapon (axe) proficiency reaches standard
+1 Strength
+1 Life
“Support is your lie.”】
【Player unlocks achievement: Axe After Axe
Kill 10+ zombies with single weapon (axe)
+1 Strength
+1 Life】
These two prompts appeared, and Mu Shan felt her originally fatigued, sore arms could barely hold up again.
Supplies were her greatest motivation.
In the janitor tool room, she picked a new mop, three sets of clean white bedding. She took seven or eight decent towels and bath towels.
She grabbed four or five toothbrushes and combs; the disposable toothpaste and soap were so small she just swept handfuls into her backpack.
The system helpfully categorized these sundries as 【Toiletry Kit】 in one slot.
The hotel shampoo and body wash were low quality, but in this world, beggars couldn’t be choosers. Mu Shan took some anyway.
Finally, she found the janitor’s master keycard and started opening guest rooms one by one.
Some had zombies inside, which she one-axed in the head. Others were empty.
Mu Shan took two glass cups to use as drinking and rinsing cups back home. She took all the electric kettles from unoccupied rooms.
She thought the room furnishings were pretty nice and even hauled off a round wooden side table and matching wooden armchair.
Guest rooms had two bottles of mineral water stocked; she gathered over 30 scattered across the floor.
In one occupied room, she found a fruit knife in a rotting apple fruit bowl.
Its owner lay peacefully on the bed, still covered by a blanket.
The room reeked, flies buzzing everywhere. Mu Shan glanced, snatched the fruit knife, and shut the door.
She took a deep breath in the hallway outside and silently recited “Amitabha” for the person inside.
The third floor was the same routine: swipe card—kill zombie—gather bottled water.
Notably, Mu Shan found an unlocked guest room, very clean inside with an open suitcase on the bed. The owner must have fled in a crisis, abandoning everything.
The suitcase belonged to a man: just two pairs of spare men’s underwear, tank tops, and a few socks—who knew if clean. She left them.
But she took the empty suitcase and a hyaluronic acid moisturizing spray inside, about 2/3 full. She skipped the opened face creams, fearing viral contamination.
After looting all three floors of guest rooms, 40 minutes had passed. Though Mu Shan had run nonstop without rest, staying too long in one spot felt extremely unsafe.
With nothing left to loot, she headed back to the safe house.
It was around 11 AM then, sun blazing—peak time for players heading out.
Mu Shan cut the lock on a bicycle and pedaled toward her destination.
She saw a clearly modified army-green truck barreling down the street, smashing through obstructing trash. The people on top were fully geared, unbridled.
They obviously spotted her too. Both sides eyed each other for several seconds, but soon the modified truck roared past.
…
Mu Shan looked down at her huffing, puffing self on the struggling bike, compared to their badass setup.
Probably her “rags” outfit gave them the impression she was harmless.
The forest park area remained quiet. Mu Shan followed the path back to the safe house on the small hillside.
Taking advantage of the strong midday sun, she found a pull-up bar, hung the newly scavenged bedding, sheets, and towels to sun-dry and sterilize.
She patrolled nearby, checking for approaching zombies.
The sunlight warmed her cozily, briefly dispelling end-times panic. The stuffed backpack eased the tension in her heart a bit. But Mu Shan didn’t slack off. About 30 minutes later, she took in the now-fluffy sun-dried bedding and entered the basement.
Back home, enduring full-body muscle aches, she forced herself to strip off the filthy casual clothes and meticulously washed her face and hands.
Wearing just thermal underwear was chilly, but zombie virus transmission was strong. In this disaster instance, hygiene protection mattered more.
After all that, Mu Shan had no time to sort her loot and collapsed straight onto the bed.
She sprawled on the soft bedding, unable even to twitch a finger.
The safe house was so small, dim yellow light illuminating one corner, but it was her only survival spot in the endless horror instances.