Washed clean, looks much more appetizing

2: Washed clean, she looks much more appetizing.

Xie Li’s brain went blank for a moment.

Right, the heat cycle. She had almost forgotten that in this world she had transmigrated into, humanity was divided into six genders.

Alphas had rut cycles, and Omegas had heat cycles. But she hadn’t been here long, and she hadn’t even fully adapted to her own identity as an Alpha, let alone grasped the nuances of ruts and heats.

So, this head-smashing heroine... is she an Omega?

Xie Li struggled to recall the physiological knowledge about AOs she had frantically crammed earlier, trying to organize her thoughts as she asked, 'Heroine, do you need an Inhibitor for your heat cycle?'

Jin Zhaoye lifted her eyelids, casting a lazy glance at her.

The small Alpha leaning against the doorway looked vigilant. Her white shirt was stained with blood and greenish-gray grime, a few green leaves were caught in her hair, and her face was covered in bloody scratches. She pressed her back against the door panel, looking like a startled little rabbit, ready to bolt at any second.

'Ordinary Inhibitors are useless on me.' Her voice was incredibly hoarse. As she spoke, that faint fragrance grew a few shades richer.

Xie Li felt the back of her neck grow even hotter, and the blood in her body seemed to be boiling. Her head began to swim, her gums felt itchy, and she had an inexplicable urge to bite someone.

Noticing her own abnormality, Xie Li shrank her head back in a panic, feeling helpless. She tried to recall if she had been scratched by a Zombie while running earlier—surely she wasn’t mutating, right?

It was over. She was definitely the protagonist who had died the fastest in history.

Watching the small Alpha’s panic, Jin Zhaoye braced herself against the wall and slowly straightened up, walking toward the door with unsteady steps.

'Heroine...' Xie Li panicked, raising her hands in a gesture of surrender, her voice trembling. 'Don’t come over here, I... I...'

She stuttered for a long time, but Xie Li couldn’t manage to get a coherent sentence out.

She really wanted to shout, 'Stop right there, if you come any closer I’ll fight back!' but she was too cowardly; the way this woman smashed heads earlier showed she really didn’t hold back at all.

Jin Zhaoye walked up to Xie Li and stood still, staring at her for a few seconds before saying in a raspy voice, 'Don’t worry. I can still hold it back; I won’t do anything to you.'

With that, she brushed past Xie Li, pushed open the storage room door, and walked out.

Xie Li leaned against the corner, her heart pounding like a drum. After a long while, she finally calmed her inexplicably agitated emotions and peeked out through the slightly ajar door crack.

In the aisle between the supermarket shelves, the woman sat on the floor, one leg bent with her elbow resting on her knee, leaning against a shelf. Beside her sat a bottle of Mineral Water and some packaged food.

She kept her head down, eating in small, slow bites, as if forcing herself to swallow. The emergency light fell upon her, tracing the outline of her slightly thin frame.

Watching her eat, Xie Li belatedly noticed the thirst in her own throat.

She hadn’t eaten breakfast that morning, and after running for so long in the public teaching building, terrified and exhausted, her stomach was completely empty.

After observing through the door crack for a while, the head-smashing heroine seemed much calmer.

Maybe the reaction from the heat cycle had passed? Xie Li guessed randomly, thinking that a heat cycle was probably similar to a menstrual period—a bit painful when it first starts, but it should be fine after a while.

After hesitating for a moment, Xie Li crept out of the storage room.

Jin Zhaoye heard the movement and looked toward her.

'Um... I want to get some food too.' Xie Li raised her hands in surrender once more, saying cautiously.

Jin Zhaoye retracted her gaze without a word, lowering her head to continue eating. She had only pulled this small Alpha in to be safe, just in case; the situation wasn’t so dire that she needed to do anything else.

Seeing that the other woman ignored her, Xie Li wisely shut her mouth. She picked out some ham sandwiches and other food from the refrigerated cabinet, grabbed two bottles of milk, and hugged the items as she hurried back to the storage room.

Only after closing the door did she quietly let out a sigh of relief.

She sat down against the wall, twisted open a bottle of milk, and took a large gulp. As the cold liquid went down her throat, Xie Li felt much more alert. She lowered her head, tore open the sandwich packaging, and began to eat in large bites.

Once her stomach was full, Xie Li thought of Lan Ran and wondered if she had made it back to the dormitory safely.

She pulled out her phone and sent a message to Lan Ran: [How are you? Did you make it back to the dorm?]

Just as the message went through, a voice call from Lan Ran came in.

The phone rang only once before Xie Li answered immediately.

'Gift!'

Lan Ran’s voice came through the receiver, carrying a hint of relief at having survived a disaster. 'I made it back to the dorm. Are you okay? I just called my mom, and she said people back home are going crazy and biting others too. I told her to hide at home and not go out. Where are you? My roommates haven’t come back, and I don’t know if something happened to them.'

Xie Li waited for her to finish before lowering her voice. 'I’m hiding in the small supermarket by the Auditorium. There’s a storage room here, so it’s safe for now. You stay hidden, don’t run around, and wait for me to find a chance to bring food and save you.'

'Don’t come! The dormitory building is a mess too; there are so many Zombies blocking the hallways. Don’t come here to die. I’ll find a way to escape on my own. Let’s meet at the Parking Lot, take your car, and hide at my place in the countryside—there are fewer people there.'

Hearing this, Xie Li seemed to recall something and gasped, 'Oh no.'

'What? What is it?' Lan Ran’s voice grew tense.

'The car keys...' Xie Li closed her eyes in frustration. 'They’re in my backpack.'

She had been in such a rush to escape the classroom that she had only thought about running; she hadn’t remembered to grab her bag. That backpack with the car keys was likely still in the lecture hall.

'Ah...' Lan Ran’s voice also held a hint of frustration. Xie Li’s car was a four-wheel-drive SUV, which was very practical in the current environment; it was a shame to lose the keys.

'Forget it. We’ll talk about the car later. We don’t even know how many days we’ll survive. Protect yourself first, hear me?'

'Mm, you too.'

The two chatted for a few more minutes, confirming that both were relatively safe for the time being and not lacking food supplies, before hanging up.

Looking at the darkened screen, Xie Li exhaled softly and opened her social media app, wanting to see what the situation was like outside.

The trending list was full of entries about Zombies: hospital riots, tsunamis in coastal areas, plane crashes, official appeals for citizens to stay home and hide, the end of the world...

She clicked on a video. In the shaky footage, a passenger plane plummeted from the sky, crashing into a cluster of city buildings. Flames shot into the sky, and even through the screen, one could feel the destructive impact.

Swiping her finger, the next video showed the emergency room of a hospital. Dense crowds of people were screaming and fleeing; some were tackled and instantly swallowed by the tide of people, some were desperately pushing toward the exit, and others were blood-stained, ferocious Zombies biting into the crowd.

Xie Li’s hands trembled slightly. With the population density of a hospital, once a riot broke out, it was unlikely many people would make it out.

On the phone screen, the videos continued to play automatically, one after another, as the entire country fell into chaos.

The Apocalypse had truly arrived.

Xie Li buried her face in her knees and took a few deep breaths, cheering herself on in her heart: Don’t panic, don’t be afraid.

Think about the Zombie shows she had watched in the past; killing Zombies wasn’t actually that hard. As long as you gathered the courage to pick up a weapon and smash down hard on their heads, that was enough.

After adjusting her emotions, Xie Li looked up and glanced out through the door crack.

That beautiful woman was still maintaining her previous posture, her fair, slender fingers holding the Mineral Water bottle, her face turned to stare at the supermarket entrance as if lost in thought.

Outside the glass door blocked by the shelves, many swaying figures could still be seen. The Zombies hadn’t left as they had hoped.

Xie Li withdrew her gaze and checked her phone again. The signal was still there, but she didn’t know how long it would last. She sent another message to Lan Ran: [If we can’t meet up at school, go to my place; I have other transportation there.]

Lan Ran quickly replied with an OK.

Xie Li tucked her phone into her pocket, patted her bottom as she stood up, and paced back and forth in the storage room.

The ten-square-meter space was piled with many things, mostly shelf-stable drinks and Mineral Water stacked in boxes in the corner, along with several cardboard boxes containing unknown items.

Her gaze fell on a utility basket containing several rolls of tape, a utility knife, and small items like toothpicks and sticky notes.

Xie Li picked up the utility knife and opened the cardboard boxes in the storage room one by one. She found several work uniforms—blue, printed with the supermarket’s logo. The fabric felt sturdy; they would be useful.

She set the clothes aside and continued opening boxes. The second box contained packs of disposable paper cups, which she didn’t need for now.

When she reached the last box, she had an unexpected stroke of luck.

It was a full box of Baseball Bats. Xie Li reached out and took one, weighing it in her hand. The alloy bat was light, the grip had a non-slip texture, and the weight was just right.

Too heavy would affect her speed in escaping, and too light wouldn’t be able to crack a Zombie’s skull. This was perfect.

With a weapon, Xie Li felt much more at ease.

She pushed the door open, walked over to the head-smashing heroine, and handed her the Baseball Bat. 'I found these inside. You should take one for self-defense.'

Jin Zhaoye looked back at her, reached out to take the bat, and gave a hum, looking as if she didn’t want to talk.

Xie Li walked away silently, found a sturdy backpack on the shelves, and began collecting supplies.

She took some shelf-stable, high-calorie food: Compressed Ration, chocolate, ham sausages, energy bars, and some softer bread with a shorter shelf life. Finally, she stuffed essentials like lighters, a flashlight, and Inhibitor patches into the gaps, only stopping once the entire backpack was stuffed to the brim.

After packing, Xie Li placed the backpack at the entrance of the storage room and followed the signs to find the supermarket restroom.

She turned on the faucet and cupped water in her hands to wash her face. The cold water washed away the bloodstains, causing her wounds to sting intensely.

After wiping the water from her face, Xie Li straightened up and looked in the mirror. Her face was covered in small cuts that were inflamed and red, and her hair was messily plastered to her forehead. She looked like a complete wreck.

She took off her blood-stained shirt, used a clean part of it to wipe the water from her face, and tossed it aside. Wearing only her white undershirt, she continued to wash the blood off her arms.

Clear water flowed down her arms into the sink, swirling with a faint red. Outside the window, the roars of Zombies could be heard faintly, as if they had caught the scent of the blood coming from the restroom.

Xie Li’s movements paused, and she pricked up her ears for a few seconds. The sounds didn’t seem to be getting closer, so she set her mind at ease and sped up her cleaning.

Once she was clean, she looked in the mirror and gathered her messy hair into a high ponytail.

The person in the mirror finally looked less disheveled, even if the wounds on her face still looked rather pitiful.

Patting her cheeks, Xie Li braced herself, pushed the door open, and walked out of the restroom. She walked a lap around the supermarket to ensure there were no hidden dangers before returning to the entrance of the storage room.

After hesitating for a moment, Xie Li asked, 'Do you want to pack some things too? I found the back door; we can get out from there.'

Jin Zhaoye looked up at the sound, her gaze landing on Xie Li. The small Alpha had tied her hair up, revealing her smooth forehead and that beautiful, wounded face.

The dirty shirt was gone, replaced by a form-fitting white undershirt. Her arm lines were beautiful, her shoulders and neck were slender, and a plump, green Wushi Plaque hung against her chest, making her skin appear even fairer and more translucent. She looked much fresher.

A flash of satisfaction seemed to cross Jin Zhaoye’s eyes.

Washed clean, she looks much more appetizing.