Chapter 002: The Strange One!

“I’m sorry my child has caused you trouble.”
Inside the ramen shop, a strikingly beautiful woman with snowy white skin approached Su Cheng and apologized with impeccable courtesy. If not for the savage, crisscrossing scars marring her delicate features, and the horrifying corpse maggots and black centipedes crawling from her nose and ears, Su Cheng might have been inclined to forgive her.
Since when were zombies so polite?
“To show my regret, I will eat you, piece by piece, and make you a part of me.” As she spoke, black hairs suddenly sprouted from her pale skin. Her fingernails darkened and lengthened, transforming into savage talons capable of tearing flesh from bone.
With a guttural roar, a flash of blood-red light shot from her pitch-black pupils, and foul-smelling saliva sprayed across Su Cheng’s face. The next moment, the female zombie lunged, her jet-black claws stabbing viciously toward his heart.
The transformation was so abrupt that Su Cheng barely had time to curse before narrowly dodging her deadly attack.
Rip!
She was so fast that her claws grazed Su Cheng’s chest, slicing open his shirt and skin, fresh blood welling from the wound and staining his white shirt crimson. If he hadn’t reacted in time, she would have ripped open his chest and torn out his heart.
“It hurts!”
A searing pain radiated from the wound—so vivid and excruciating that it was impossible to dismiss as a dream or hallucination. This was reality.
How could this be? Was it because of that bizarre horror game?
There was no time to ponder. Kicking away the zombie child still gnawing at his leg, Su Cheng seized a bowl of ramen crawling with corpse maggots and hurled the scalding broth into the female zombie’s face without hesitation.
Seizing the moment when she lost her sight, Su Cheng summoned every ounce of courage, barreled through the zombie patrons, and sprinted for the door at breakneck speed.
Three meters, two meters, one meter!
The ramen shop was small; at a normal pace, it would take less than five seconds to reach the door from the counter.
But just as Su Cheng thought he’d made it, he found the wooden door jammed by some unseen force—no matter how he pulled, it refused to budge.
“Why won’t it open?”
Panic soaked him in sweat as he planted his heel and kicked the door with every bit of strength, yet it didn’t move an inch.
A wet drop plopped from the ceiling. The stench of blood filled the shop. Looking up, Su Cheng’s eyes narrowed in horror: thick, scarlet blood was oozing from the ceiling, walls, and the very door itself. He might as well have been trapped inside a scene from a horror film.
Danger!
A warning bell rang in his mind. At the very instant he jerked his hand back, the ceiling and all four walls transformed into a mass of throbbing, fleshy tissue.

This grotesque flesh seemed to possess its own life and will, devouring anything that strayed close. Su Cheng watched as the zombie child, in a single instant upon touching the wall, was swallowed whole—skin, bone, and all—by that monstrous tissue.
“Damn it, the game is real after all.”
Su Cheng pulled out his smartphone. The sinister black skull and the countdown timer continued to tick.
8 minutes and 56 seconds left.
That meant only a little more than a minute had passed since the patrons had turned to zombies. He had just under nine minutes to find a way to escape this zombie-infested eatery. If he failed to escape within the time limit, he would inevitably become their next meal.
Call the police—he needed to call the police!
He tried to exit the game interface and dial for help, but his phone seemed infected with a virus, frozen on the countdown with no way out.
Meanwhile, the zombie patrons, having fixed on Su Cheng as prey, rushed at him in a frenzy, jaws snapping for his flesh.
Tokyo’s shops were always cramped; a dozen patrons packed this little family-run ramen shop, leaving hardly any room to move. As all the zombies surged forward, there was nowhere left for Su Cheng to dodge.
“Get away from me!”
Under the shadow of death, Su Cheng’s nerves steadied. Grabbing a chair, he swung it with all his might, smashing it into the nearest zombie’s head.
With a sickening crash, the unlucky zombie’s skull burst open, black pus and brains splattering across the floor—a corpse truly beyond saving.
“I just killed someone?” Su Cheng stared in shock, then realized, “No. It was a zombie, not a person.”
As an old hand at horror games, Su Cheng quickly regained his composure. He realized that, for all their terror, these ramen shop zombies had no more strength or speed than ordinary people. They were not as formidable as he’d feared.
Still, as their zombification progressed, who knew if they would grow stronger?
Regardless, he had to escape within ten minutes, or something even more dreadful might befall him.
Kicking aside a female zombie whose arm had rotted away to bare bone, Su Cheng vaulted over the counter and burst into the ramen shop’s kitchen.
He hadn’t come to the kitchen to hide, but to search for something—any tool that might break through the wall of flesh outside, a kitchen knife perhaps.
“Strange, where’s the owner?”
He’d seen the shop owner bustling in the kitchen earlier—where had he disappeared to?
Suspecting the owner’s family might also have turned into zombies, Su Cheng stayed on guard as he searched the kitchen with utmost caution.

Everywhere he looked, the ramen shop’s kitchen resembled a slaughterhouse: the cutting board was strewn with bloody, unidentifiable hunks of meat, and a large pot simmered with a meaty broth.
His gaze fell upon the steaming pot, where a human head floated amid the soup, boiled to a pulp.
A chill seized his spine. That face looked eerily familiar—after a second glance, he realized it was the owner’s daughter.
She was the same girl who had brought him that bowl of blood-tinged ramen. Who had cut off her head and tossed it into the pot to boil?
As Su Cheng stared in stunned horror, the boiled head’s eyes suddenly snapped open—two dead, hateful fish-eyes glared at him, as if blaming him for her death.
At the same time, the mouth twisted into a ghastly grin, unleashing an eerie, cackling laugh.
“Hehehehe, I’m going to eat you!”
Bang!
Before she could finish, Su Cheng slammed the lid down on the pot.
Clearly, the owner’s daughter had turned as well, but with only a boiled head left, she posed little threat. He doubted she could leap out and bite him now.
At that moment, a shadow flickered behind him.
Su Cheng spun around to see a blood-soaked middle-aged woman standing in the doorway. He instantly recognized her as the ramen shop owner’s wife—her hand gripping a heavy cleaver meant for chopping bone.
Noticing the bloodstains on the cleaver, Su Cheng realized with a jolt: it must have been this woman who decapitated the girl and threw her head into the boiling pot.
The woman stared fixedly at Su Cheng, then suddenly opened her mouth.
A bright red tongue, long as a whip, shot from the zombie’s mouth, snapping toward Su Cheng’s throat.
A mutant—one of those long-tongued zombie women?
Su Cheng’s heart lurched. He snatched the sharp carving knife from the cutting board and swung it down at the tongue, three or four meters long and glistening red.