Chapter 37: Red Rain from the Heavens
“No need. We’re leaving.” Zhan Yun had no intention of staying here long. Dawn was about to break, and if they delayed any further, they would inevitably waste an entire day here. With that time, they’d be better off staying comfortably in the small villa. What’s more, there were people here whom Su Ruizhe didn’t want to see.
“Huh?” Zhang Maorong hadn’t expected Zhan Yun to leave so soon. He hurriedly spoke up, trying to keep them. “There are so many zombies outside—it’s extremely dangerous. You may be highly capable, but there are so few of you, and you’re even traveling with women and children. It would be safer to stay here.”
Zhan Yun guessed that Zhang Maorong must have read too many wuxia novels. There was a streak of reckless bravado about him—once he gained a bit of power through his ability and became stronger than ordinary people, he started feeling like he could take on the heavens themselves.
Still, considering that Zhang Maorong had managed to set up a small safe zone, take in a group of survivors, and was willing to charge to the front when danger arose, Zhan Yun didn’t have a bad impression of him. So he decided to give him a reminder.
“We have our own matters to attend to.” Zhan Yun walked over to him and warned in a low voice. “Relying on just one iron gate isn’t secure enough. You should think of ways to reinforce it. Also, abilities aren’t omnipotent. Aside from you, everyone else needs to learn how to fight as well. You can protect them for a while, but you can’t protect them for a lifetime.”
After saying that, Zhan Yun gestured for everyone to get in the car.
Just as Su Ruizhe was about to get into the vehicle, someone suddenly called out to him.
“Wait! Little Zhe!”
The only person here who could call Su Ruizhe by name was clearly none other than Chen Huizhen.
Su Ruizhe sneered inwardly and turned to look at her.
Chen Huizhen swallowed. She noticed the icy look in Su Ruizhe’s eyes, but quickly steadied herself. After all, she had watched this child grow up and knew his personality well—simple, introverted, soft-hearted. Judging by his clothes and complexion, he clearly hadn’t suffered much these days. Who knew what kind of luck he’d stumbled into, managing to latch onto such powerful backers… These people even brought women and children along; surely taking them as well wouldn’t be too difficult, right?
“Little Zhe, I’m your eldest aunt! Where have you been these days? I was worried sick about you.”
“Heh. Worried?”
“Yes, yes… You suddenly disappeared, and I was terribly worried. I even went to the police station looking for you!”
Heh… more like going to the police to frame him, wasn’t it? Shameless beyond belief.
Even after starting over, this woman’s talent for twisting right and wrong was still as sharp as ever.
“Oh, I heard about that. Didn’t you ask the police to put out a warrant for me, and demand the three hundred thousand we’d agreed on back then?” Su Ruizhe said mockingly.
Chen Huizhen’s expression stiffened. She hadn’t expected Su Ruizhe to know…
“Th-that was all a misunderstanding…”
Su Ruizhe didn’t bother listening to her nonsense. Without giving her the slightest courtesy, he shut the car door directly.
With a sharp bang, the sound of the closing door was like an invisible slap across Chen Huizhen’s face. Under the probing gazes of everyone around her, she lowered her head in humiliation, her eyes filled with venomous resentment.
Zhan Yun then started the engine. The young man from earlier hurried to open the gate for them, carefully watching as they left the factory.
The car had been driving for only a short while when a sudden clap of thunder rang out.
“Huh? Thunder? Is it going to rain?” Zheng Jiahe’s face lit up with excitement.
For days now, daytime temperatures had exceeded forty degrees Celsius, with nights still close to thirty. Not a single drop of rain had fallen, and the heat had withered the trees and flowers lining the streets. It was unbearable. If a heavy rain could bring even a bit of coolness, that would be wonderful.
Rumble—
The thunder grew louder, and strong winds picked up.
“Haha, looks like it really is going to rain.” Song Chengshu reached out to open the window, wanting to let some cool air in.
“Don’t open the window!” Su Ruizhe and Zhan Yun shouted at the same time.
Only then did everyone notice the gravity on their faces, and no one dared move.
Their luck was terrible. They had just exited the industrial zone and turned onto the main road when the thunder started. The nearest building around was a local hospital.
Knowing full well that a hospital would be crawling with zombies, they nevertheless had no other choice. Zhan Yun clenched his teeth, yanked the steering wheel, and charged straight through the hospital gate.
Countless ferocious zombies rushed toward them head-on. Zhan Yun crushed them all without hesitation, and just as the rain began to fall, he barely managed to ram the car into a two-story building. The reason for choosing this building was simple—only two floors meant fewer zombies.
The car smashed straight through the wall, leaving a massive hole behind. The violent impact deployed the airbags, and everyone in the vehicle felt miserable.
Once they recovered, everyone got out one by one. Before they could even ask why Zhan Yun had done this, what happened next left them utterly stunned.
Blood-red raindrops poured down from the sky. The zombies charging out of the building ran straight past them and into the rain. The zombies that had been chasing them from outside also stopped, threw their heads back, and howled in unison. When the red rain fell onto them, it seemed to be absorbed directly through their skin.
More and more zombies gathered in the streets from all directions. Even the zombies trapped in the outpatient building at the back smashed through the glass windows and leapt straight down. Their bones shattered on impact, yet they still howled toward the sky.
This red rain was like a blood-soaked carnival for the zombies…
Zhan Yun and Su Ruizhe knew that only now had the apocalypse truly begun.
“A-Liang, seal the opening. Little Zhe, put the car away. Everyone else, upstairs!” Zhan Yun said after quickly glancing at the directional signs on the wall. They were lucky—they had entered the hospital’s emergency department. This was only a tertiary hospital with a relatively small scale. For ease of management, the outpatient and inpatient buildings were at the back, while the emergency department was separated out, consisting of only two floors: the emergency hall and consultation rooms on the first floor, and operating rooms on the second.
Zhang Shuoliang immediately used his earth-type ability to seal the huge hole in the wall, reinforcing it layer by layer. Su Ruizhe stored the car away, and everyone rushed up to the second floor together.
The dark stairwell was thick with the stench of blood, littered with severed limbs—evidence of how brutal the outbreak had been on the first day. Almost all the zombies in the building had already run outside, leaving only those with crippled limbs crawling on the ground and howling, all of which were swiftly dealt with by Zhan Yun’s group.
In the end, they found a doctor’s lounge in a corner. It was relatively clean, so they stopped there to rest for the time being.
“A-Zhan, what’s going on?” Song Chengshu asked, looking through the window at the red rain outside and the increasingly bizarre zombies.
Zhan Yun sighed. The reason he and Su Ruizhe had stayed in S City for nearly ten days without leaving for A City was precisely because of this red rain.
The viral concentration in this rain was extremely high. Almost anyone who was drenched in it would turn into a zombie—ability users included. Fortunately, the color of the rain was so abnormal that most normal people would instinctively stay far away, so not too many humans were transformed by it.
However, after being drenched in the rain, the zombies themselves underwent changes. Originally, zombies were merely walking corpses, still fundamentally similar to humans. But after this red rain, it was as if they had been upgraded—their bones became harder, their strength increased, and their speed improved accordingly, making them far more difficult to deal with. At the same time, most of these zombies developed crystal cores, and people would gradually discover their existence and function.
In his previous life, when the apocalypse had just begun, Su Ruizhe had been panicked and terrified, utterly at a loss. He couldn’t remember the exact date the red rain fell, only a rough time frame. Not long after the red rain, the government’s rescue teams arrived.
With the world in such chaos, train stations and airports had surely become hell on earth. If they wanted to leave the province or go to another city, driving was the only option left.
Under normal circumstances, the highway from S City to A City took only eight hours. But the apocalypse had arrived too suddenly—zombies had appeared on the highways, causing multiple traffic accidents. There was no way they could take the highway anymore. Taking detours would mean encountering countless zombies and obstacles, not to mention the abnormal daytime heat.
Thus, after discussion, Zhan Yun and Su Ruizhe decided to wait—wait for the red rain to pass, and wait for the government’s rescue teams to arrive. The incident had been sudden; transportation and communications had completely collapsed, and the affected area was nationwide. No matter how fast the government reacted, it couldn’t organize rescues as quickly and efficiently as before the apocalypse. Not to mention, the government also had to establish safe bases and prepare to shelter survivors—the military’s rescue mission was extraordinarily arduous.
Fortunately, perhaps due to soldiers’ generally strong physiques, fewer than twenty percent of the military had transformed into zombies on the day the apocalypse began.
Now that the red rain had arrived, the government’s rescue forces wouldn’t be far behind.
It was just that the road ahead had become even more difficult.
Thank you for reading 🙂 I hope you all liked my translations. If you enjoyed my work, please consider buying me a Ko-Fi 😉
