If anyone had been watching from a safe place, they would probably think she had lost her mind. In a situation where everyone was trying to run away and hide, Bai Li was doing the exact opposite, riding straight into one of the most dangerous areas in the city without hesitation. It really looked like she was courting death.

But she wasn’t.

She knew exactly what she was doing.

The motorcycle was fast enough that even when zombies appeared beside her or started running in the same direction, they couldn’t keep up. By the time they reacted, she was already gone, leaving them behind with nothing but the fading sound of the engine.

Soon, she reached the hospital building properly.

She slowed down slightly and glanced at the large sign near the entrance.

Jinghua City First Hospital.

There was no time to stop and think. Behind her, more and more zombies were gathering, drawn by the noise of her bike, their numbers increasing as they moved toward the main entrance. The front gate was already crowded, and going in from there was clearly a bad idea, even for her.

So she didn’t.

Instead, she rode around to the back of the outpatient building, where things were slightly less crowded. The moment she reached a relatively hidden spot, she stopped the bike and, with a thought, stored it back into her space instantly, making it disappear as if it had never been there.

The sudden silence felt strange after the loud engine.

She immediately shifted her focus and started scanning the building carefully, her eyes moving from one window to another, checking for an entry point. The main entrance was out of the question. Too many zombies were pouring in like a broken flood.

She checked the time quickly.

3:15.

Almost two hours left before the interdimensional market appeared.

Enough time, but not something she could waste.

Luckily, after a few seconds of observation, she spotted it.

An office window on the first floor, partially hidden by bushes, slightly open.

Without hesitation, she moved toward it.

She grabbed the edge of the window frame with both hands, her grip firm, then pushed herself upward. Her right leg hooked onto the sill, and with a small burst of strength, she pulled herself up smoothly, sitting on the windowsill in one clean motion

.

Meanwhile, inside the doctor’s cabin, the atmosphere was getting worse with every passing minute. What was already a tense and suffocating situation slowly started turning into something much heavier, like the air itself was pressing down on everyone inside. No one was sitting comfortably anymore. Some were pacing back and forth, some were clutching their phones tightly even though there was barely any signal, and some were just sitting there in silence, staring at the door like it might suddenly burst open at any moment.

Xian Moi had just come back from peeking outside through a tiny gap between the shelves, his face pale and clearly shaken. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand and muttered in a low voice, trying not to panic but failing anyway, "What do we even do now... I just looked outside again, and there are even more of those things now. It’s like they just keep coming out of nowhere. And the weird part is... they’re not even wandering randomly anymore, they’re all moving toward the building. Why? What’s even inside here that’s attracting them?"

His words made the others even more uneasy.

Li Sun, who had already been on edge for a while, couldn’t hold it in anymore. His tone turned sharp, almost blaming as he looked toward the two doctors in the room. "Then do something about it! Aren’t you two the doctors here? You work in this place, you should know a way out or at least somewhere safe! We can’t just sit here and wait to die, right?"

Zhang Xiao immediately frowned, clearly irritated by that tone. He let out a frustrated breath and replied, his voice not hiding his annoyance at all, "You think we don’t want to leave? You saw it yourself, the whole place is filled with those monsters. What do you expect us to do, fight them off and escort everyone out? We’re doctors, not soldiers. And honestly, at a time like this, everyone should be responsible for their own survival."

"Shut up and wait if you don’t want to alert the zombies and get us all killed," Yan Cijin said flatly, her tone calm but sharp enough to cut through the noise in the room instantly. She didn’t even bother looking at them properly when she spoke, her eyes still resting lazily on her phone as if nothing outside really mattered. But the moment her words landed, the room went quiet. Not completely silent, but enough that the constant panicked muttering stopped for a bit. It wasn’t just what she said, it was how she said it. There was no fear in her voice at all, no hesitation, just a kind of cold certainty that made people instinctively shut up.

Inside though, Yan Cijin was already getting tired of this. She had been stuck in this same room, with these same kinds of people, too many times to count. Every time it was the same. Panic, noise, blame, useless talking, and then things getting worse. If it wasn’t for the fact that she knew exactly what was going to happen next and what she needed from it, she would have left long ago. The only reason she was still here was because of two things. One was the stupid so called plot of this world that she had learned not to mess with too early, and the second, more important one, was the interdimensional market that was about to appear on the rooftop.

Yes, she knew about it. Not just a little, but in detail.

After living through this same life again and again, after dying, struggling, restarting so many times, there were very few things left that could surprise her. The interdimensional market was one of the biggest turning points in this world, and she had already used it multiple times in her past lives. Magical weapons, strange potions, enhancement items, even things that could directly increase her abilities or push her power to a higher level. That place wasn’t just useful, it was essential. Without it, surviving long term in this world was almost impossible, especially when things started getting worse.

She knew one thing very clearly.

This market would only appear for ten minutes.

Not one second more.

Not one second less.

Miss it, and you lose it.

That’s why she was still sitting here, tolerating these idiots.

Her thoughts drifted slightly, and just like that, memories from her very first life started coming back again, clear and sharp like it had just happened yesterday.

Back then, she had no idea about any of this.

No knowledge.

No preparation.

No advantage.

Just fear and confusion.

It was on this exact day, in this exact room, with these exact people, that everything went wrong. Those same men who were now arguing and panicking had shown their real faces back then. In that chaos, when the world was already collapsing outside, they didn’t think about survival or escape first. They thought about her. About taking advantage of her.

That memory made her expression turn colder for a brief moment.

They had tried to corner her.

Tried to touch her.

Tried to break her.

And she had no choice but to run.

She still remembered how her heart was pounding, how her hands were shaking, how her mind was filled with nothing but fear as she pushed the door open and ran straight into the corridor filled with zombies. At that time, she didn’t even think about survival properly. It was just instinct. Run. Escape. Get away.

That run... was hell.

She had stumbled, fallen, gotten back up again, barely managing to avoid getting grabbed or bitten multiple times. Every second felt like she was about to die. The sounds of growling, footsteps, screaming, all mixed together into something unbearable. And somehow, by pure luck and sheer desperation, she had made it to the rooftop.

But even there, it wasn’t over.

There were zombies there too.

She had been cornered, trapped near the edge, with nowhere else to go. She could still remember that moment so clearly, the smell of decay, the sound of their breathing, the feeling that this was it. That this was where it would all end.

And then...

The market appeared.

A strange, glowing machine, standing there like it didn’t belong in that world at all. It looked almost like a vending machine, but not really. It gave off a golden red glow, faint but noticeable, like it was alive in some way. She didn’t understand it at first. She just knew that the moment she stepped into that area, the zombies stopped.

They couldn’t enter.

There was a boundary.

Around twenty meters.

Anything outside stayed outside.

That was the first time she realized something was different.

She approached it slowly, confused, scared, but also curious. And then she saw the interface. The information. The explanation.

That was the first time she learned about crystal cores.

About zombies.

About mutated creatures.

About abilities.

About how this world wasn’t just collapsing, but changing into something completely different.

She learned that by consuming crystal cores, she could grow stronger. That she could awaken abilities. That she could survive.

But there was one problem.

She had none.

Not a single core.

And outside that safe area, there were dozens... no, nearly a hundred zombies gathered, waiting, moving, restless.

She remembered that moment very clearly.

The helplessness.

The frustration.

The feeling that everything was just unfair.

She had collapsed to her knees right there, her mind blank, her heart heavy. For a moment, she had really thought about giving up. Just ending it. Because what was the point? Struggling like this, only to die anyway?

But then...

A face appeared in her mind.

Her daughter.

Her little LiLi.

And her mother.

That image hit her harder than anything else.

She could still remember how small LiLi was, how she would cling to her, how she would call her mommy with that soft voice. And her mother, who had already spent so much of her life struggling, who still worried about her even now.

If she died...

What would happen to them?

Who would protect them?

Who would keep them safe?

Who would stand in front of them when those monsters came?

The thought alone was unbearable.

"No..."

She had whispered back then.

"I can’t die..."

Not here.

Not like this.

Not before making sure they were safe.

That thought turned into something else very quickly.

Determination.

A raw, almost desperate kind of will to survive.

She didn’t care anymore how hard it would be.

She didn’t care how much she had to suffer.

She just knew one thing.

She had to live.

She had to go back.

She had to keep that promise.

She slowly stood up, her body still trembling but her eyes no longer empty. There was something burning inside them now. Something that wouldn’t go out easily.

She looked around the rooftop, her breathing still uneven, her heart still racing, but her mind finally clear enough to think.

And then she saw it.

A broken steel rod.

Lying there, slightly rusted, probably part of some construction material that had been left behind.

It wasn’t much.

Not even a proper weapon.

But at that moment, it was everything she had.

She walked toward it slowly, her steps steady despite everything, and picked it up with both hands.

The metal felt cold.

Rough.

Heavy.

But she gripped it tightly.

Because she knew...

From that moment on...

If she wanted to live... 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

She would have to fight.

And she did. Even though her hands were shaking and her body felt weak, she forced herself to move.

.

.

.

To be continued.