In the pitch-black darkness where one couldn't see their fingers, Su Ling, clad in black, stood at the villa's entrance.
Within her line of sight, she saw Xu Yu, lying unconscious on the ground, and the luxury car that had been reduced to scrap metal.
Without acknowledging either of them, Su Ling turned and walked towards the villa's exit, proceeding through the utterly dark night.
Not long after she left, her villa suddenly erupted in flames.
The fire spread rapidly, engulfing the entire house in a short time. The crackling sounds drew survivors from their rooms, emerging onto their balconies to watch.
The inferno blazed, dyeing the sky above the villa area red and illuminating the entire neighborhood.
Amidst the fiery glow, thick smoke billowed into the sky and dissipated with the wind.
Some of the survivors, with their conscience still intact, remembered Xu Yu, who lay at Su Ling's villa entrance, his fate unknown. They ventured out of their homes at risk, arriving outside Su Ling's villa. Indeed, they found Xu Yu lying there.
After dragging him away from the villa to a safe zone, they observed the eerily silent surroundings. Seeing no immediate danger, they left Xu Yu and returned home alone.
Su Ling emerged from the villa and, in the darkness, mounted her bicycle, departing along the route taken during the day.
Night was the prime time for activity; she needed crystal cores, as many as possible.
With no one else active, the night was undoubtedly the best time for her to collect crystal cores.
Although operating at night carried greater risks than during the day, who could resist the freedom from being watched that came with nighttime excursions!
Just as Su Ling's bicycle disappeared around the corner of an alley, a saber-toothed tiger drove from the side of the road and headed straight for her villa area, following the terrifying glow of the fire.
Su Ling quickly arrived at the alley where she had wreaked havoc during the day. She stowed her bicycle into her space, donned a white mask, and drew her Tang dao, "ambushing" zombies in the darkness. They moved more slowly and stiffly in the dark than during the day.
Soon, the sounds of falling corpses echoed one after another in the alley.
This continued for a long time, until Su Ling had cleared all the zombies lingering around the alley.
In the darkness, Su Ling sat on the ground, exhausted.
Her hand, wrapped with a black wristband, was damp. She had just rinsed it clean. From her space, she retrieved a fried chicken meal and a bottle of ice-cold cola, beginning to enjoy the rewards of her hard labor in the dark.
After finishing the fried chicken meal, Su Ling drank the last sip of cola and then took out another item from her space: a fruit tea made with water from her space and fruits grown within it.
The heat and strenuous activity made her crave the cool, refreshing fruit tea.
Just fruit tea wasn't enough for Su Ling. She took out a serving of braised delicacies and continued to eat.
Full and re-energized, she bagged her trash and disposed of it in a bin. Picking up her Tang dao, she stepped over the fallen zombie corpses and pressed onward, continuing her next round of crystal core harvesting.
For Su Ling, the night was no different from the day.
However, for zombies, nighttime activity was far less agile than their daytime movements.
Affected by the light, their nocturnal movements were stiff and slow, and their sense of smell was significantly reduced.
However, these were only the early-stage zombies of the apocalypse. As time went on, after enduring extreme weather, zombies would undergo repeated evolutions.
At that point, zombies would have a strict classification of levels.
The most basic were the ones from the early stage of the apocalypse, slow-moving and of moderate destructive power.
Evolved zombies would be faster, more agile in their movements, possess a keener sense of smell, and their destructive power would be greatly enhanced. They would even evolve intellectually, gaining a certain degree of cognitive and reactive ability. In the later stages, ultimate zombie kings would emerge.
However, that was something that would happen five years into the apocalypse.