The man's name was Zhang Ming, 32 years old.
Before the apocalypse, he ran a cake shop.
The cake shop was thriving, with an excellent reputation and beloved by customers.
He had a wife, five years younger than him, who was the female zombie that Su Ling had just dispatched with a single sword stroke.
The apocalypse struck just as his cake shop was at its peak.
Everyone fell into a deep sleep, and Zhang Ming was the first survivor to wake up in the shop.
Upon waking, he sensed something was wrong. The people who had been fine before he fell asleep were now displaying pale blue faces, bulging veins, and visible blood vessels.
The veins on their eyelids, in particular, made his scalp tingle.
Of course, some were like him, normal and without any anomalies.
Zhang Ming's greatest hobby was watching foreign zombie movies.
And, listening to doomsday novels.
He discovered the truth, and that his wife, who had been at the cash register, also seemed to have changed into something different from him.
Zhang Ming saw a vision: these people, currently in a coma, would soon awaken and transform into emotionless zombies that attacked anyone they saw.
On impulse, Zhang Ming felt he should take measures.
So, he moved the unconscious customers from the shop to the backyard.
After everything was handled, he carried his wife upstairs and placed her in a room.
He closed the door and quickly went downstairs to lock the cake shop.
Zhang Ming was cautious, separating the comatose customers who were showing abnormalities from those who appeared normal.
To prevent the customers from endangering him when they woke up, he bound them securely together with ropes.
With everything in order, he grabbed a cleaver from the kitchen and waited for the customers to wake up.
What happened next was self-evident.
Zhang Ming dealt with all the customers who had turned into zombies.
As for the customers who did not mutate into zombies, Zhang Ming gagged them with towels and kept them confined in the yard.
He did this because his wife was the same as those mutated guests.
Having watched doomsday movies and read novels, Zhang Ming loved his young wife and couldn't bear to kill her.
And as he looked at the surviving customers, a bold idea began to form in his mind.
When the survivors were all fed to his mutated young wife, Zhang Ming had to seek out new survivors to satisfy her appetite.
To make survivors come to him willingly, he left the cake shop door ajar, stocking it with cakes to lure them in.
Su Ling and Gu Shangse were his first catches.
Zhang Ming, who had intended to act as soon as Gu Shangse entered the shop, saw a vision.
In that vision, his wife, confined in the room, had her head severed by a woman with her back to him.
This vision carried a certain ominous suggestion, much like the premonition he received at the beginning of the apocalypse.
Because of this vision, Zhang Ming didn't make a move on Gu Shangse. Concerned for his wife, he immediately returned to his room to check on her.
Influenced and disturbed by the premonition, Zhang Ming slipped on the stairs as he went up, falling down with a loud crash. This noise exposed him and attracted Su Ling and Gu Shangse.
Su Ling looked at Zhang Ming, who seemed to be seeking death, her eyes devoid of warmth. "You deserve to die."
"But not by my hand," Su Ling said, then she looked at Gu Shangse and coldly asked, "Can you carry him downstairs?"
Gu Shangse thought Su Ling was going to say something else and chuckled at her request. "Yes, I can."
Su Ling nodded. "Then carry him downstairs."