The Trembling World

Chapter 33: Galaxy

Deep into the night, Liu Gan walked silently from the balcony to the bedroom to wake up Pan Hua. LuLu was also alerted and woke up, seeing that Liu Gan was switching shifts with Pan Hua. Nervously, LuLu held her breath until Liu Gan had laid down in the spot where Pan Hua’s makeshift bed was. Trying her best to not make any noise, and because she was too tired, she drifted back into her sleep.

While she was sleeping, LuLu had a nightmare, so she was in a state of half dreaming, half awake. Until Pan Hua woke her up to tell her that it was her shift.

When LuLu woke up, she completely forgot where she was, and was overwhelmed by fear and blanked out. It took her awhile to re-adjust and recall where she was. Finally, she had to give up her bed to Pan Hua, walking gently past Liu Gan as she made her way to the outpost seat by the balcony.

Fatty Pan Hua was definitely a gentleman. The original plan was to wake LuLu up at 5am to switch shifts, but every time he peeked into the room, he saw that LuLu was sleeping soundly. He couldn’t bear to wake her up until it was 6am, when he couldn’t resist anymore, so he had to wake up LuLu. By the time LuLu was on duty, the sky was brightly lit up.

At night it was pouring rain, but by now it had stopped. However, there were puddles that hadn’t seeped through the ground. The water had the smell of rotting flesh mixed in with the water, which was somewhat distressful for LuLu.

Blowing into her face was the morning breeze. Looking below into the alleyway, LuLu still had the feeling that everything around her wasn’t real. It was only the afternoon of the day before yesterday, that she’d still been within the safety of her own home — looking forward to joining [The Trembling World], preparing to take notes on her perspective for the show. Then, by night-time, she would look forward to donations from her fans. Who would’ve known that she’d get trapped in this game, unable to return.

If she knew that this was going to be the ending, she would never have joined this game.

If she didn’t return soon, she was afraid her fans would forget her. It wasn’t easy to gain fame with people. Being a broadcaster takes a lot of effort, and the competition was fierce. LuLu had spent over a year to gain her fame, and if it went to waste because of this, she wouldn’t be able to accept it.

…

Meanwhile over by the plaza, the 100 stories high skyscraper.

“I’m sooo hungry.” A female woke up and started mumbling, as having not eaten anything had made her weak. The sky had just brightened from the morning sun, but it was obvious that she’d awoken from being too hungry.

[TN: OMG. NEW CHARACTERS]

The female was called ZhangYu, and the male was called Li Hui. Both of them were still wearing their white laboratory coats from before the disaster. Within the skyscraper, they worked together in the laboratory. On the night of the disaster, they’d been working a night shift and doing overtime in the laboratory, and after working all night the world around them had changed.

Their coworkers hadn’t gotten rained on by the blood-red rain, but mysteriously their coworkers were infected and became zombies. Only these two remained without the infection.

Being able to survive was not always a good thing, as with each and every passing day, it became harder to get up. Especially since they had eaten everything in the laboratory and office.

This morning, by the time ZhangYu woke up, her boyfriend LiHui was already awake. He stood by the window staring out at the parking lot below. It looked like he must have been hungry, a lot more hungry than she was.

“I watched for two days – everyday when it’s starting to get bright is when the zombie activity during the day is the weakest. To them, no matter what sound is created, they aren’t very sensitive to it.” LiHui said, walking away from the window and explaining to ZhangYu.

“Is that really the case?” Said ZhangYu, not quite believing what she was told.

“If you don’t believe me, go take a look.” LiHui took a cup and walked to the window, then called ZhangYu over. He then threw the cup at a nearby zombie. It landed a few meters behind the zombie and produced a loud noise. However, the zombie only turned back to give it a look, then it began its meaningless wandering.

“If it was later in the day, at a different time, when it heard the sound it would’ve had a very reactive. Even crazily rushing forward to step on the cup. However, it’s different when it’s in the morning.” LiHui explained.

“I see.” ZhangYu nodded.

“If you were to attack it, it’ll return to its natural state of being fully alert.” LiHui threw another cup down. This time it struck the body of the zombie, and the zombie instantly became alert. Left,right, front, and back, it turned its body and released a howl. The type of howl was enough to wake up a sleeping person.

After awhile, the zombie didn’t find any suitable prey, and returned to its previous state of walking slowly.

“Your observation is really accurate.” ZhangYu nodded her head. She’d just woken up, so she wasn’t exactly sure why LiHui needed to tell her that.

“The parking lot’s amount of zombies has decreased a lot since yesterday. It seems that most of them were attracted to the explosion far away. Now that they aren’t quite as sensitive to their surroundings, I want to take this opportunity to go downstairs to scavenge. Maybe I’ll be lucky enough to find food for us.” LiHui said, telling her the plan.

“No way! That’s too dangerous!” ZhangYu argued, holding back LiHui.

“I know it’s too dangerous, but this is a good opportunity. Otherwise, we’ll starve alive here.” Said LiHui shaking his head. Right now, while he still had energy, he wanted to look for food. If he waited too long, and starved, he might not have enough strength to even walk.

“We should think of a way to start ‘Galaxy’ — maybe it can go out and help us scavenge for food. That would definitely be a lot safer.” ZhangYu pondered for a little bit, and pulled out an ID card as she suggested this to LiHui.

This was the authority card that had clearance up to level 7. It was also this building’s highest level ID access card

Other than this authority card that had level 7 clearance, ZhangYu also used her skills of dissection to obtain a perfect sample of the executive’s eyeball and thumb. These would be used to open up the electric security door. She’d preserved the eyeball and thumb in a small bottle. The biological materials that could be preserved in this solution could last for a week before necrosis started. It would also allow the both of them complete access to this skyscraper. Even if it was the most secure location, she’d be able to enter.

However, the prerequisites of all this was reliant on the assumption that the skyscraper was able to operate with electricity, and that the building did not have any zombies.