Mu Shan heard the sarcastic undertone in the Main God System’s description.
“Trash Sorting… what a truly trash skill.” Mu Shan smiled self-mockingly.
She keenly noticed a small [Page Turn] icon below the dialogue box.
The second page read:
【Player Unlocks Skill: Hoarding Addiction
(Active) Player unlocks Card Album, randomly obtain up to 3 cards of props from experienced instances per day
Cards divided into [Environment Cards], [Character Cards], [Item Cards]
Per instance, max 3 of each card type stored; stops refreshing when full, tradable, discardable
“If I save up for a hundred years, I can become the world’s richest person.”】
This skill did not seem to be attack-type either. Mu Shan really wanted to summon the [Card Album] right now and study it carefully, but with the survival time ticking away second by second overhead, she had to switch positions quickly.
Many shops along both sides of this small street had closed.
Mu Shan found a small diner, but the place reeked terribly, the rotting ingredients smelling like biochemical weapons, with spray-like unidentified black stains on the walls.
She covered her mouth and nose, ignored the mosaic-like swarms of mosquitoes and flies around the kitchen and dining tables inside and out, and rummaged under the counter to find a few packs of napkin paper.
There were plenty of disposable chopsticks, but they were all moldy, so Mu Shan did not take them.
Her biggest haul was the white porcelain tableware from the disinfection cabinet; she picked the clean ones and took some bowls, plates, and spoons.
The street was littered with serial rear-end collisions of sedans that completely blocked the intersection. Mu Shan crouched behind the flower bed at the shop entrance and carefully surveyed the street ahead and behind.
In the distance, another group of zombies shambled over, letting out low roars.
The remaining survival time for the current scene dropped by 2 minutes at once.
Mu Shan gripped her iron bar tightly and swiftly retreated with her body against the wall. Before obtaining more survival supplies, she needed to find a temporary shelter first and operate with the shelter as the center.
The moment this idea emerged, a virtual dialogue box appeared.
【Player’s Safe House has been activated. Click to view [Map]】
Mu Shan was shocked—the Main God System actually provided a Safe House!
She quickly concealed herself and observed the map.
The system only marked two small green dots at her current position and the Safe House, without even labeling the surrounding buildings or street names.
But it was enough to roughly make out; she was four intersections away from the Safe House, and even the shortest distance without danger was 2 kilometers. Relying on foot power was a bit of a stretch in terms of both speed and safety.
Mu Shan made a snap decision: she had to grab a car.
In this city that had been fairly prosperous in peacetime, the roads now only had various vehicles crashed head-to-tail, and it got worse the closer to the city center.
Under an old residential building sat a white SUV with the driver’s door wide open. The originally white paint was splattered with dried blood, turned pitch black.
The driver in a suit and shirt gripped the steering wheel with both hands, his head swaying left and right from time to time, rotten eyes rolled upward, throat emitting “Grr, grr” sounds.
“Thud thud—”
Suddenly, something knocked on the passenger-side door, making a crisp sound.
The driver zombie was instantly drawn, flailing his hands and twisting his whole body forcefully to the right. Unfortunately, his body was strapped in by the seatbelt and could not move.
“Over here.”
Someone suddenly spoke beside the driver’s seat. The zombie driver whipped his head around, opening his gaping maw toward the fresh flesh inches away.
This was the moment Mu Shan had waited for. She gripped the iron bar with both hands, aimed at the zombie’s mouth, and without hesitation thrust one end of the bar into it.
A human skull was too hard; with her strength alone, she probably could not smash it to death. But the mouth was the softest spot, leading straight to the vitals!
The iron bar pierced the male zombie’s mouth and deeply embedded into his throat.
But it did not die immediately. Black-nailed hands reached out, scratching at the cardboard on her arm, making “scrape scrape scrape” sounds.
At such close range, Mu Shan could clearly see the zombie’s hollowed-out, devoured abdomen, with rotten innards spilling out.
She had no time to think. Gritting her teeth, she used all her strength to drive the iron bar even deeper downward.
Until this force nailed the zombie dead
to the seat, and it gradually stopped moving.
Mu Shan did not forget to finish it off. She slightly withdrew the iron bar, changed the angle, and thrust again—three times in a row.
Soon, the zombie was completely still.
Mu Shan breathed heavily. She stared at the zombie’s mangled throat with no fresh blood flowing out, her eyes bloodshot.
Her hands gripping the iron bar trembled slightly, cold sweat soaking her forehead bangs, the surroundings silent except for her panting.
Thump thump thump—her heartbeat like a drum.
Mu Shan pulled out the iron bar. The end was covered in zombie slime, broken in half, unusable now.
She unbuckled the seatbelt, calmly pushed the twice-dead driver’s corpse out of the car, stripped off the seat cover stained with zombie blood and grime from the driver’s seat, and threw it on the ground. She sat down and closed the door.
Only then did she grip the steering wheel, slumping as if exhausted, trying to calm her racing heart.
Mu Shan covered her mouth with her elbow, letting out a series of muffled coughs. Once she finally eased up a bit, she silently cursed.
[Crappy alien system!]
Cold wind howled outside the car window.
After a few deep breaths, when she lifted her head again, calm had returned to Mu Shan’s eyes.
【Player’s First Zombie Kill
Gold Coins +1
Perfect Kill: Gold Coins +1, Strength +1
Quiet Kill: Mental +1】
The system’s prompt was clear: players had to actively kill monsters in the instance to earn rewards.
Mu Shan roughly checked the car’s condition; fuel and battery were sufficient to hit the road.
The back seat was empty, but she made a big find in the trunk: a small water-based fire extinguisher and two 1.5L bottles of mineral water.
The glove box on the passenger side was full of the owner’s odds and ends—ID, wallet, notebook, used tissues, etc. Mu Shan only took a folding umbrella.
She settled back in, twisted the key, and started the car.
The engine of this sedan, parked who knows how long in the apocalypse, let out a muffled rumble.
A few distant zombies turned their heads. Mu Shan floored the accelerator before they could approach.
“Bzzz—” With a roar, the car sped off.
The main road was almost completely blocked by traffic accidents. She searched around for a long time before finding this undamaged vehicle with no nearby threats and the keys still in it.
To maintain mobility, Mu Shan drove on the bike lane, occasionally mounting the sidewalk and green belt directly.
—The apocalypse allowed such recklessness.
She drove while checking the system map for directions, staying alert for attacking zombies, and keeping an eye on surrounding resource points—one mind, three tasks.
“Awoo awoo!”
A ragged-clothed zombie lunged. Mu Shan’s expression did not change as she simply accelerated.
“Bang—” With a loud crash, the zombie left only a black bloodstain on the passenger door.
【Gold Coins +1】
She occasionally spotted living people, mostly in groups of three or five, calmly observing each other. Mu Shan saw a survivor team sneak into a large supermarket, with both men and women in the group.
This was a global chain supermarket; even after being looted several times, places like this always had ‘fish that slipped the net.’
But after some inner struggle, she decided to loot safer, smaller dead-angle shops first.
—People really can’t admit they’re weaklings.
【Player Unlocks Skill: Hoarding Addiction II
(Passive) Can observe positions of all collectible supplies in current scene
“There are always people who choose to eat chaff and swallow veggies when faced with a Manchu-Han Imperial Feast.”】
Mu Shan: ?
She seemed to get the alien system’s vibe a bit.
So far, none of her three skills were direct attacks. It looked like the superpowered route of summoning wind, rain, thunder, and lightning from mainstream novels had nothing to do with her.
Feedback from this [Hoarding Addiction II] skill came quickly. Mu Shan vaguely sensed things scattered around: yellow, blue, brown, multicolored like a spilled paint box—chaotic color blocks.
It was probably distance-related; the closer, the stronger the feedback.
She guessed brown was likely food or similar.
Thanks to this weird support skill, Mu Shan found a fire extinguisher box at the entrance of some office building, containing a pristine fire axe!
The red-painted axe blade gleamed coldly, one side sharp for chopping, the other pointed for prying—the strongest weapon she had obtained so far. It greatly alleviated her sense of “firepower shortage.”
It was just heavy; with Mu Shan’s frail body, swinging it was quite taxing.
Midway, she shook off pursuing zombies and found an empty spot for a brief rest. She took the chance to summon the [Hoarding Addiction I] Card Album for study.
The album was a thick brown leather book, but she could only open the first page.
At the top of the first page was a crudely abstract green zombie head drawing. Below were three rows of nine card slots, with one card each in the first row of each.
Respectively: [Item Card: One Green Pea]
[Environment Card: Empty Office]
[Character Card: One Scrawny Zombie]
Mu Shan was speechless. In a zombie instance, zombies were the least scarce; what was the point of summoning an extra one with the skill? As reserve forces?
After grumbling for a while, Mu Shan could not bear to discard any cards. She decided to hoard them all until she filled nine slots, no matter how trashy.
The car hit the road again.
Though the map showed the shortest route, reality always threw up obstacles. Mu Shan had to detour around zombie hordes and accidents.
As she rounded a corner, her peripheral vision caught something.
At first, she did not react. The next instant, Mu Shan jerked her head sideways.
Not far away, smack in the center of a basketball court stood a small house, with a huge row of yellow text hovering in midair—impossible to miss.
【Wang Chuxin’s Safe House】
No concealment whatsoever.
Mu Shan could not help but pull over and observe the small house from afar. So this was another player’s Safe House… The system directly revealed players’ names and positions.
Half of the small house was a sunroom; she could see the ceiling glass glinting. The owner seemed to have planted trees inside, with some green leaves creeping onto the roof.
The other half had concrete walls, obscuring the interior.
Wang Chuxin’s Safe House had only one iron door facing outward, flanked by barbed wire and fences, looking quite secure.
Mu Shan did not linger long. She resolutely headed toward her own Safe House on the map.
Just before the two green dots overlapped, she arrived at a vast forest park. Mu Shan parked the car in a spot, pulled the keys, and proceeded on foot to the target.
【Mu Shan’s Safe House】—the same yellow text hovered in midair.
But standing under the text, looking around, she saw only a grassy hillside—where was the house?