Surviving the Game as a Zombie - Chapter 1

“Tang Yu, please cooperate with the arrangements…”

“…Two warnings. If you dare to defy orders again, your life will be in danger!”

In a daze, Tang Yu heard someone mention her name, speaking words she couldn’t understand.

She wanted to open her eyes, but a force prevented her from doing so. Her consciousness felt like it was trapped in a swimming pool filled with cement—heavy and suffocating. Voices came from above, buzzing and indistinct.

An unbearable, piercing pain shot through her brain, a gut-wrenching agony. In excruciating pain, Tang Yu snapped her eyes open. The midday sun flooded her vision unexpectedly, forcing her to squint.

Tang Yu discovered she was lying in the middle of a crossroads.

It was eerily quiet all around. Scattered papers swirled in the sky. The tall buildings on both sides were overgrown with vines, and countless crashed cars blocked the road, creating a desolate and terrifying scene.

The strength in her limbs hadn’t returned yet. Tang Yu waited a while before managing to climb up. Her temples throbbed with a swollen, aching pain, and for a moment, she couldn’t make sense of her situation. The place was too quiet. The once-bustling city had long since fallen into ruin, showing no signs of human activity.

She wanted to raise her hand to press her temples and ease the pain, but as she lifted it, she noticed something was wrong. Beneath the grimy skin on the back of her hand, thin black lines spread faintly, resembling veins, yet they were starkly different from healthy ones—abrupt and jarring. Looking at her clothes, she saw they were covered in what was either bl00d or some other brown stains, making her look just like a beggar.

With a sense of shock and suspicion, Tang Yu looked around. A nearby office building was covered in dust, but its glass windows were still reflective. Tang Yu walked toward the tall building, using an intact window to examine herself. One look was enough to make her almost cry out in shock.

She didn’t look human, or rather, not a living human.

The glass window reflected a tattered, disheveled figure. Her eyes were sunken, her face was a bruised purple, and her mouth was stretched into a bizarre grin, with some dried bl00d smeared at the corners. Furthermore, her shoulder-length black hair was matted, looking as if it hadn’t been washed in a month.

Tang Yu was having an internal breakdown. What a monstrosity! Did she always look like this? Aside from still having facial features and four limbs, she had absolutely no other resemblance to a human.

Ding. A soft chime suddenly sounded from her wrist. An electronic screen popped out from her left wrist, displaying a line of large text in front of her.

“Zombie identity triggered. Basic objective: Survive. Do not be eliminated by humans or your own kind. Special reminder to player Tang Yu: Your life is linked to reality. If you die in the game, you will also die in reality. Please be sure to follow the game rules.”

Game? What game? Tang Yu was full of questions. Her mind was a chaotic mess; aside from her name, she couldn’t remember anything about herself.

And what was this zombie identity? She was a zombie? Tang Yu was speechless for a moment. She checked her left wrist but couldn’t see anything unusual. The electronic screen disappeared automatically after ten seconds.

Tang Yu subconsciously touched her face. The sticky sensation of mixed bl00d nauseated her, and her body emitted a rotten smell, making her desperately want to find a place to wash up.

Tang Yu randomly chose a direction and started walking. Fortunately, her gait was relatively normal. Under the cover of a tattered T-shirt and cargo pants, this zombie body was still intact, which gave her a slight sense of relief.

The entire city seemed to have been deserted for a long time. Many parts of the streets were covered in grass, and wild animals occasionally passed by. Deer and rabbits, which originally lived in the wild, had flooded the abandoned streets. They didn’t seem flustered upon seeing Tang Yu, apparently not considering her a threat.

Just as Tang Yu was about to crouch down to observe a passing rabbit, she suddenly heard abrupt footsteps. The next moment, a human shout reached her ears. The rabbit at her feet instantly bolted as if facing a great enemy and disappeared from sight.

She looked up toward the source of the sound. A man holding a gun appeared at the street corner. Upon seeing Tang Yu, he was also taken aback.

Tang Yu was about to greet him but found that he had already raised his gun and was aiming at her.

“Damn it, I forgot I’m a zombie.” Tang Yu hadn’t gotten used to her zombie identity yet. She let out a strange cry and scrambled toward a nearby building.

Her bizarre posture was identical to a zombie’s. The first bullet from the man’s gun had already been fired, landing right by Tang Yu’s feet.

As Tang Yu ran, she tried to explain, “Big brother! I’m a good citizen!” But when she opened her mouth, she found that all that came out were whimpering sounds.

The man across from her chuckled and muttered to himself, “Well, well. First time seeing a zombie that can whimper and even run away. The kill score for this one should be pretty high.”

“Kill your ass,” Tang Yu cursed inwardly. Her survival instinct made her disregard her pathetic state as she dodged through a shattered glass door and ran into an office building.

The man behind her pursued relentlessly, firing two more shots. A bullet grazed Tang Yu’s arm, leaving a deep gash, but no bl00d gushed out, and the pain was unusually dull.

Tang Yu breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed the zombie body wasn’t all bad. She nimbly vaulted over the office building’s security scanner and rushed toward the stairs.

But the next moment, Tang Yu discovered in despair that the door to the stairwell was blocked and wouldn’t open.

Tang Yu screamed silently in her heart: Heavens!

By now, the man had caught up. The dark muzzle of the gun was pressed against Tang Yu’s forehead. The man gave a provocative smirk, ready to pull the trigger.

A thought flashed through Tang Yu’s mind: Wait, why am I running? I’m the zombie. The human should be the one running, right?

The instant the thought formed, she suddenly lunged, grabbing the muzzle of the smug man’s gun. Using the leverage, she pulled him toward her and bit down on his arm.

The man, seeing her only focused on fleeing, had long since let his guard down. Caught off guard by the bite, his pupils dilated abruptly. He then frantically shook his arm as if he had been contaminated by something terrifying.

Tang Yu watched as his arm rapidly turned black, the darkness spreading over his body at a visible rate.

Soon, with a ding, a notification sounded in Tang Yu’s mind: “Player Du Xiao has been assimilated by zombie Tang Yu. Game eligibility lost. Host body will now exit the game.”

As the electronic voice faded, it was as if something had been drained from the man. He fell to the ground, silent and motionless.

Based on the information she had, Tang Yu figured out the current situation of the game. She was indeed a zombie and could infect normal humans. Infected players would be eliminated immediately. That was the rule of the game.

She pried open the man’s fingers, picked up the gun, and weighed it in her hand. It was a single-shot firearm. Tang Yu didn’t know how to use it, but she was currently unarmed, so it was good to have for self-defense.

After slinging the gun over her back, Tang Yu prepared to leave. Just as she lifted her foot, a hand grabbed her ankle. She gasped in fright. Looking back, she saw the man on the ground clutching her ankle, pulling himself up in a bizarre posture.

Trembling, Tang Yu pulled out the gun and aimed it at him, shouting, “Stay back!” But only whimpering sounds came out, her imposing manner instantly deflating.

The zombie across from her hesitated. It leaned in to sniff Tang Yu, and after confirming she was one of its kind, it took a step back. However, seeing her aggressive posture, it stepped forward again.

After this happened a few times, Tang Yu realized what was going on. This guy had lost his independent consciousness and become a zombie. Her aggressive stance was making her own kind suspicious. She carefully lowered the gun and slung it onto her back. Seeing that the other zombie had stopped moving but was still staring at her, Tang Yu got annoyed and glared back fiercely.

At that moment, Tang Yu’s contorted expression was being magnified and broadcast to the terminals of interstellar audiences everywhere. Some swiped past without a second glance. Some, who stumbled upon Tang Yu’s hideous face, screamed in fright. And then there were the bolder viewers who, out of morbid curiosity, clicked into the live stream.

The number of viewers in the live stream room went from 0 to 10, then dropped to 5 three seconds later. Among the many streams with millions of viewers, this was exceptionally pathetic.

A round-faced girl with short, rainbow-colored hair sat in front of a screen, her eyebrows knitted into two knots. “Boss, didn’t you say this stream would be a huge hit? You said she’s the first real zombie in the game 【Dark Earth】. How are the numbers this bad? I’ll be broke next month.”

Her dyed-green eyebrows were furrowed together, looking just like two caterpillars.

“And why does this player seem to know nothing? She’s going to die any minute now.” The girl squirmed excitedly in her chair. She was a live streamer whose main job was to broadcast live gameplay for a holographic game company. Some companies had dedicated partnerships with streamers from her agency, but as a new intern with no background or connections, she could only get assigned random tasks.

If the stream she was responsible for didn’t get any views, she would be eliminated next month for poor performance. Although she could go back to hanging out with those hooligans on the fringe planets, living hand-to-mouth, she felt it would be a disservice to the mysterious benefactor who had sponsored her.

The man next to her, addressed as “Boss,” shot her a glance. “Xiao Zhao, didn’t you read the file? She’s not an ordinary player. She’s a criminal from Planet 879. These kinds of players are different.”

Hearing this, Xiao Zhao shrank back sheepishly. She indeed hadn’t read the file.

Back at her workstation, Xiao Zhao tapped on the control screen in front of her and opened Tang Yu’s file.

A profile picture, seemingly cropped from a larger photo, popped up. It showed a young woman with a high ponytail and an exposed forehead. She was laughing heartily while looking off to the side, her eyes bright with a hint of playfulness.

Xiao Zhao was shocked. So this is what the zombie really looked like. She was so beautiful.

The information next to the photo detailed the woman’s identity: “Tang Yu, twenty-three years old, a resident of Planet 879. Arrested by the Main Star General Administration for repeatedly violating Main Star entry regulations and placed into the interstellar live stream game, 【Dark Earth】. Note: This player has repeatedly failed to comply with game rules. As a penalty, her original memories have been erased, and she will serve as the sole zombie player.”

This star region was highly developed. With material needs met, hundreds of millions of people indulged in interstellar live streams or games daily. Some serious criminals, before their execution, would be placed in survival games as cannon fodder for public entertainment.

The game Tang Yu was in, 【Dark Earth】, was set in a world based on the historical zombie apocalypse on Earth. It was currently the most popular holographic game, its selling points being no save files, one life, and realistic sensory feedback. It attracted many thrill-seekers from the Main Star, and it didn’t matter much if these rich kids spent their days living in a game anyway.

Everything in the game progressed at a normal time flow. Eligible players would enter the game with their consciousness, playing as humans fleeing the apocalypse. If they died in the game, they would lose their eligibility and could never enter again. This scarcity marketing, paradoxically, made the game incredibly popular.

But someone like Tang Yu, entering the game as a zombie character, was a first.

Unlike ordinary players, if a criminal player died in the game, it meant true brain death, directly replacing their execution. In their world, which increasingly sought stimulation and had little regard for human rights, this was considered nothing special.

“Since when was violating Main Star entry rules such a heavy sentence?” Xiao Zhao muttered. “As expected, interns only get these thankless, crappy streams.” Xiao Zhao pushed aside the strange feeling in her heart and frowned in thought. A moment later, she slapped her forehead, changed all the stream titles and taglines, and put Tang Yu’s original photo in a small corner.

“100 Million Players Want to Kill Her! Can This Real Zombie Survive a Single Day?”

“Unconscionable! Former Beauty Becomes Unrecognizable, Turns into a Zombie?”

“Tragedy! This Player Is About to Die! This Stream May Only Last a Day! Watch Now Before It’s Too Late!”

After changing to clickbait titles, Xiao Zhao watched the viewer count rise from 5 to 50. She shook her head smugly. A good start is half the battle.

Tang Yu was completely unaware of all this. She was currently in distress. After the man named Du Xiao turned into a zombie, he had been following her relentlessly. When she walked onto the street, the zombie followed. When she entered an abandoned store, the zombie followed.

Tang Yu understood. Unlike her, this guy had no independent consciousness. After the player left, he had well and truly become an NPC.

But miraculously, this NPC reacted to her actions. If she raised her gun in an aggressive stance, he would bare his fangs, ready to counterattack at any moment.

After a few tests, Tang Yu patted the zombie’s shoulder. “Your name is Du Xiao, right? You’re my first underling now!”

Du Xiao didn’t react. It only heard Tang Yu making whimpering sounds.

Tang Yu didn’t mind. She found a backpack in a store and packed some food. She was feeling hungry. But all that was left in the store were some low-energy, expired food items in odd corners. Tang Yu sighed. Well, it’ll have to do.

She went into the back of the store, trying to find a bathroom to wash herself. The stench was truly disgusting. But unfortunately, the bathroom had long since run out of water. The city’s entire infrastructure had collapsed, so Tang Yu had to give up.

With Du Xiao in tow, Tang Yu walked several more blocks searching for supplies. Along the way, she encountered a few more wandering zombies. Du Xiao, unsteady on his feet, accidentally got jostled into their group. Tang Yu pushed the other zombies aside and pulled Du Xiao out.

As a result, these zombies, for some unknown reason, also started following behind Tang Yu with their twisted arms and crooked legs. Soon, the pair became a group of ten—or rather, ten zombies—shambling majestically down the street.

Tang Yu felt a bit strange. Had she become their leader? Although she was technically a squad leader, looking at this group of freaks missing arms and legs just felt so awkward.

Just as she was thinking this, human voices suddenly came from the corner up ahead.