As soon as the door opened, a faint smell of blood reached the tip of his nose.
The hallway was extremely quiet. The doors to every room were tightly closed, yet all kinds of miscellaneous things were scattered across the floor—clothes, quilts, and cleaning tools. On the red carpet, there were faintly visible patches of blood, along with traces where blood had been dragged across the floor.
Quan Xiaoyu’s room was located at a corner of the hallway. After turning right and walking past two rooms, the elevator was there. He cautiously stuck his head out, wanting to see what was beyond the corner.
Who would have thought that the moment he poked his head out, an object would suddenly pounce toward him?
The reflexes he had developed through three years of training in the apocalypse, combined with his suddenly enhanced and unusually sensitive body, caused Quan Xiaoyu to swing the water pipe in his hand at the first instant.
With a loud smack, the flying object made a sound like a watermelon splitting apart before crashing heavily to the floor.
It was a zombie wearing a hotel employee uniform. Judging by its appearance, it seemed to have been a hotel worker, probably someone who had been cleaning rooms here when the apocalypse broke out and subsequently mutated. The bloodstains on the floor were most likely created by it.
However, what surprised Quan Xiaoyu the most was the strength he had just unleashed.
With a single swing of the pipe, he had instantly smashed the zombie’s head apart. Even in his previous life, he had never possessed such strength.
Could it be that his ability had changed in this life, transforming from an elemental ability into a strength-type ability?
Regardless, this was certainly not a bad thing.
Before he could think any further, another zombie suddenly lunged around the corner.
It was a woman wearing a bright-red top. One of her arms and half of her face were already gone. There was a gaping hole in her abdomen, yet she still dragged herself toward Quan Xiaoyu.
Quan Xiaoyu used the same method and eliminated it with another swing of his pipe. When he reached the elevator, he found that it had already stopped operating, with the malfunction light flashing nonstop.
Quan Xiaoyu had no choice but to give up on leaving the hotel by elevator. He steeled himself and prepared to go down the stairs.
Fortunately, the hotel was only on the fifth floor, so getting out would not be difficult.
“Wait! Please, wait!”
The sudden voice startled Quan Xiaoyu. He tightened his grip on the pipe and assumed a defensive stance.
At that moment, the door to the room on the right opened, and a girl cautiously poked her head out.
“You… can you take us with you? There are all these monsters outside. We… we haven’t had anything to eat for two days, hiding in the room.”
The girl’s beautiful face was filled with fear and pleading.
Just the day before yesterday, a strange phenomenon had inexplicably appeared in the sky. At first, she had excitedly dragged her boyfriend to the window to watch it. But afterward, things became increasingly abnormal. People on the streets began collapsing. Drivers fell unconscious, causing cars to crash into one another and triggering a chain reaction of accidents.
Then, like a disaster, the accidents began spreading. Several cars even exploded, and thick smoke billowed across the streets.
At that moment, her boyfriend, who had been staring outside with her in stunned disbelief, suddenly collapsed as well. The girl was so frightened that she did not know what to do. She could only close the doors and windows and carry her boyfriend onto the bed.
The girl tried calling the police and attempted to dial emergency services, but her phone had completely lost its signal. She could not get through to any number, not even the hotel’s front desk.
She wanted to leave the room and ask someone else for help, but horrifying screams came from the hallway.
Through the peephole, the girl saw a hotel cleaner dragging a woman in red, pinning her to the floor, and then…
Tearing open her abdomen!
The woman’s hands were already gone. A long trail of blood had been dragged across the floor. The woman let out a miserable scream, her desperate and helpless eyes staring in the direction of the girl’s room.
Perhaps she had been hoping someone would come out and save her.
The girl was completely terrified. She locked the door and never dared to open it again. Guarding her unconscious boyfriend, she spent two days in a daze.
During that time, she also saw through the peephole that people had tried to take the elevator out, only to be attacked by that cleaner.
The most frightening thing was that she saw the woman whose abdomen had been torn open trembling as she crawled up from the floor and joined the attackers.
She did not understand what had happened. She had only come out on a trip with her boyfriend, so why had what was supposed to be a happy and enjoyable journey turned into a hellish nightmare?
She wanted to go home. She missed her parents, but there was nothing she could do.
Until, after the hallway had remained silent for nearly a day, sounds came from outside once again.
The girl gathered her courage and pressed her face against the peephole once more.
She had no idea what kind of person would die this time, she thought numbly.
Then she saw a shocking scene.
A handsome young man was holding a water pipe, smashing the terrifying monsters one by one like someone playing whack-a-mole. The entire thing seemed to take no more than ten seconds.
The despair in her heart finally gave way to hope.
She gathered her courage, opened the door, and begged the young man for help.
Completely unaware that he had been mistaken for a young man, Quan Xiaoyu looked at the girl’s pleading face. After hesitating for a moment, he nodded.
The apocalypse had only just begun. Most people still retained their humanity and were not yet like those people in the later stages of the apocalypse, who had absolutely no bottom line.
Taking one person out with him was not particularly difficult, so he did not refuse.
“Follow me. Don’t wander off. I’ll only guarantee that I’ll get you out. I can’t guarantee anything else,” Quan Xiaoyu said expressionlessly.
The girl nodded, then stammered, “My boyfriend… he’s unconscious. I… I can’t leave him behind.”
She nervously bit down on her lower lip, extremely afraid that Quan Xiaoyu would refuse her.
Unconscious?
Quan Xiaoyu frowned.
Taking an unconscious man outside and taking a girl who could run and jump were two completely different matters.
“Please, I’m begging you. I can’t leave him behind. Please, please!”
The girl pleaded desperately.
Quan Xiaoyu sighed. Without saying anything else, he walked straight into the girl’s room.
Forget it. Saving one more ability user would give humanity one more ray of hope!
Yes, an ability user.
After the girl’s unconscious boyfriend woke up, he would gain an ability.
When the apocalypse erupted, the people who collapsed during that initial wave would either become those monsters or become ability users after waking up.
Those who were unfortunately attacked or eaten by zombies while unconscious would later become zombies possessing abilities. They were the prototypes of Level Two zombies.
The girl was very clever. Knowing that Quan Xiaoyu had agreed, she quickly stepped aside and followed him into the room, helping him move her boyfriend.
It was not until he had slung the girl’s boyfriend over his shoulder that Quan Xiaoyu realized things were not as difficult as he had imagined.
His increased strength was not merely reflected in combat. It also affected every aspect of daily life.
For example, he was now carrying a man weighing more than a hundred pounds, yet he did not feel the man’s weight at all.
He wrapped an arm around the man’s waist, placed the man’s right arm over his shoulder, and said to the girl, “Let’s go.”
The girl nodded and quickly followed him.
Who would have thought that the moment they reached the doorway, they would run straight into a group of people?
There was a bald, middle-aged man with a huge beer belly. His neck was covered in gleaming gold chains, and his fingers had not been spared either, being covered in gold as well.
His right hand was tightly holding a woman.
The woman wore heavy makeup, making it impossible to tell her age. She merely appeared extremely glamorous.
When the two saw Quan Xiaoyu, they both put on flattering smiles, as though they had been waiting outside his room specifically for him.
Behind them followed a middle-aged couple who looked to be in their thirties. The man was holding a three- or four-year-old boy in his arms, and the boy was sound asleep.
There was a trace of hesitation and a trace of wariness in the man’s gaze as he looked at Quan Xiaoyu.
The woman, meanwhile, half hid behind the man, not daring to make eye contact with anyone.
“What is it?”
Quan Xiaoyu tilted his head and asked them, looking somewhat displeased. They had practically blocked the way out.
The middle-aged man rubbed his hands together and gave an awkward laugh.
“Little brother, it’s like this.”
He chuckled twice before continuing, “Could you escort us home? Looking at your skills, you seem very capable. Don’t worry, my home is in this city. We’ll get there very quickly. I guarantee that as long as you get us home safely, I won’t shortchange you! As for how much money, just name your price.”
Quan Xiaoyu rejected him without even thinking.
“I’m busy.”
In his eyes, every word this man had said was nonsense, merely wasting his time.
“I have a lot of money, really. As long as you—”
The bald man showed no intention of giving up. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and continued speaking.
“Move!”
Quan Xiaoyu’s tone began to turn stern.
“Hey! Kid! Do you know who he is? How dare you talk to him like that? Believe me, once we get outside, you’ll regret it!”
The glamorous woman beside the bald man spoke impatiently, her tone carrying a hint of arrogance.
The flattering smile she had worn moments ago seemed to have been nothing more than a clumsy disguise. Within just a few sentences, she had already lost her patience.
Quan Xiaoyu glared at her, his eyes sharp.
The glamorous woman shrank back slightly, then immediately glared back at him.
It seemed that she was accustomed to throwing her weight around and absolutely refused to back down.
Just then, a black shadow suddenly pounced from the left side of the hallway, heading straight for the bald man’s head.
In the blink of an eye, Quan Xiaoyu did not even blink. His right hand instinctively swung the water pipe outward.
“Smack! Thud!”
The sound of a watermelon splitting was accompanied by the heavy sound of something hitting the floor.
As brain matter splattered through the air, a zombie’s corpse landed on the ground.
Because the bald man and the glamorous woman were closest to the zombie, brain matter splashed all over their faces.
By the time they understood what had happened, the bald man was trembling uncontrollably.
He wanted to wipe the brain matter from his face. He raised his hand, but did not dare actually touch it. His face flushed a dark liver-like red, and his entire body trembled so violently that he nearly collapsed to his knees.
The woman, meanwhile, clutched her head and screamed.
Quan Xiaoyu frowned and shouted, “Shut up!”
The end of the water pipe, covered in brain matter and blood, pointed directly at the glamorous woman’s mouth.
The woman immediately covered her mouth in fright.
Only now did she truly feel fear toward the seemingly slender and handsome boy standing before her.
The boy in the man’s arms seemed to have been awakened by the woman’s scream. In a daze, he called out,
“Dad.”
The middle-aged man hurriedly hugged the child tighter, unwilling to let him see the bloody scene.
He glanced at Quan Xiaoyu, whose face was filled with killing intent, then silently took his wife’s hand and stepped back a few paces.
Originally, he had seen Quan Xiaoyu killing zombies through the peephole and agreeing to help the girl, which was why he had decided to bring his wife out and ask Quan Xiaoyu for help.
But after seeing how cold and ruthless Quan Xiaoyu was, he no longer felt comfortable entrusting the lives of his family of three to him.
Therefore, he decided to give up and find a way to take his wife and child away himself.