Before the apocalypse, Xizhou City had a population of about four to five million. While not particularly large, the city center boasted numerous skyscrapers and bustling streets, and the alleys and neighborhoods were full of the warmth of everyday life. On the streets, cars and people came and went, repeating the cycle of day and night.

The wind blew through the city’s greenery, carrying the scent of seasonal flowers.

But now, with less than half a year remaining before the apocalypse, the floral scent had turned into a sour, musty stench permeating the air. The once-vibrant signs had faded and leaned crookedly, lying on the ground after being pierced by unknown creatures.

The sky is still a clear, crisp blue, with white clouds drifting through it, yet the city, enveloped in greenery, holds nothing but death and a looming end. But this is merely from a human perspective.

From the perspective of the mutated creatures, Xizhou City is currently experiencing unprecedented prosperity.

A mutated bird with a wingspan of over two meters soared overhead, gazing down from above at the new figure entering the city. Aim, spread its wings, and dive!

Whoosh!

Several vines appeared out of thin air in an instant, wrapping around the mutated bird. The vines tightened, and the sound of cracking bones echoed—click, click, click. The mutated bird managed to squeeze out a hoarse cry from its throat, but its body was already pierced by blood vines. Countless vines appeared to entangle it, forming an impenetrable ball of vines in midair.

The ball of vines slowly wriggled and shrank until it loosened, and a few feathers fell through the cracks. All returned to calm.

After this, the vines simply ran up Jiang Le’s arm, with a few settling on his shoulder, deterring the other mutated creatures lurking in the shadows—eager for fresh human flesh—from daring to approach any closer.

The once-smooth road was now torn open in large sections, jutting abruptly into the middle of the path like a mound of earth that had suddenly risen from the ground, waiting for people to climb over it.

Jiang Le led the way at the front, guiding the group behind him around the loose, dangerous sections and along the open areas on the city’s outskirts. By taking the detour around the city’s perimeter, they could likely cross this built-up area in less than half a day.

But as they walked, Jiang Le began to notice something was off.

Although they had occasionally encountered clusters of zombies before, they were usually in groups of three or five, and dealing with them wasn’t difficult.

After kicking another zombie aside, Jiang Le suddenly sensed something was off as he looked out at the now-silent street. He motioned for everyone to be quiet.

Zhang Haiyang had just pulled back the wooden stick he’d swung at a zombie’s head and was still catching his breath. Seeing this, he quickly suppressed his breathing and looked at Jiang Le with a hint of unease.

A faint scraping sound could be heard. The sound itself wasn’t particularly alarming, but when it rang out from all directions at once, something was clearly wrong.

Jiang Le quickly scanned his surroundings, using the blood vine to scale the wall of a tall building. After confirming that the structure was still relatively sturdy and its stability hadn’t been significantly compromised, he leaped down lightly. He entered the building through a shattered first-floor window, dispatching a few zombies wandering aimlessly inside before turning to let the others follow him in.

The building had once been a shopping mall.

The first floor was still littered with discounted clothing, piled haphazardly on the floor and covered in blood and rotting black sludge, making it impossible to discern their once-vibrant appearance.

The air inside was stifling. The elevators had long since stopped working, and corpses lay scattered everywhere—some reduced to bare bones, others freshly killed by Jiang Le, their rotting flesh emitting a strange stench.

In the dimly lit mall, one could still make out the children’s play areas on either side, along with various shops—children’s clothing, women’s wear, and snack and bubble tea chains—all now half-shrouded in darkness. Bathed in the sparse natural light filtering in from outside, they resembled a page of history that had been turned.

Jiang Le led the group up the stairwell to the fifth floor, where they finally stopped.

After clearing out the zombies on the fifth floor, Jiang Le had someone barricade the stairwell entrance, then walked over to the window to look down at the street where they had been just a short while ago.

Feng Yun followed Jiang Le’s gaze downward. He wouldn’t have thought much of it had he not looked—but the sight nearly scared the life out of her.

The once-deserted street was now swarming with zombies pouring out from alleys in every corner; the sheer density of them was enough to send a chill down anyone’s spine.

With zombies this densely packed, if they’d arrived just a moment later, they might have been surrounded and torn to pieces.

Though they were the lowest-level, mindless rotting flesh, Feng Yun believed that with such overwhelming numbers, only Jiang Le might have a chance of escaping through speed and terrain.

As a superpower user among a group of ordinary people, he had no choice but to wait for death.

Fortunately, the zombies outside the building hadn’t detected their presence. They continued to shuffle aimlessly through the streets, jostling against one another, occasionally lifting their heads to gaze at the sky as if chasing birds.

Feng Yun nearly made eye contact with one of them and quickly ducked his head in fright, clutching his pounding heart, afraid that the sound of his own heartbeat might attract the attention of the zombies below.

“Brother Jiang, what do we do now?” Zhang Haiyang asked, at a loss.

“It’s fine. It’s probably just a large wave of zombies passing through. They won’t linger here long. We’ll set off once they’ve left,” Jiang Le said.

The mall was spacious. The floor they were on used to house only a movie theater and a well-known chain hot pot restaurant; not a single wandering zombie was in sight.

There was a row of massage chairs in the hallway. Feng Yun brushed off the dust on one and sat down. Hearing Jiang Le’s words, the others relaxed as well, gathering around him to find a place to rest.

However, safety came first, so Jiang Le led Zhang Haiyang and the others to search every nook and cranny of the movie theater and hot pot restaurant. Sure enough, they found two very weak zombies in some of the corners.

Once they confirmed it was safe, Li Jiajia even took Tangyuan to the playground outside the hot pot restaurant—the very area originally meant for children to play in.

Although Tangyuan had been living in the tense environment of the apocalypse for a long time, she was still just a child. Now, with her parents by her side and in the warmth and safety of the building, she broke into a smile and happily played on the playground’s slides and other equipment.

Since it wasn’t convenient to cook indoors, Jiang Le took some ready-to-eat food directly from his storage space and handed it to Zhang Haiyang to distribute. Moonlight had replaced the sunlight.

Taking advantage of the cover of darkness, Jiang Le leaned out to look down, only to discover that the hordes of zombies crammed onto the street hadn’t diminished and showed no signs of leaving. On the contrary, judging by the sounds from all around, more zombies were constantly surging toward them.

Something was very wrong.

They waited there for another day. By the second night, the streets were so packed with zombies that movement was impossible; rotting flesh piled upon rotting flesh, surging forward as the masses jostled against one another.

Jiang Le climbed to the top floor, using the blood vines to leap and climb between several buildings. After reaching a building high enough, he was finally able to see the scene more clearly.

Their street wasn’t even the center of the zombie gathering; it was merely an outer ring, with zombies still streaming endlessly toward this area.

If they couldn’t figure out what was attracting these zombies, they would simply be trapped here, never seeing the light of day.

Jiang Le’s expression grew grave.

But Xiao Lang was still in the midst of evolving. Without him, Jiang Le was effectively missing an arm; even if he had a plan, he’d have to wait until Xiao Lang regained consciousness.

Fortunately, there was no shortage of food in his system space. If they really couldn’t leave, he had enough supplies to sustain everyone here for not just ten days or half a month, but even half a year.

Finally, on the fourth day after entering the mall, Xiao Lang completed its evolution from Level 3 to Level 4.

Jiang Le received a notification. As soon as he entered the system space, he was tackled by a giant wolf with a faint silver sheen in its fur, landing him in the soft soil.

The young wolf’s fur, which had originally been entirely jet-black, now contained streaks of silver and flecks of gold after this evolution, creating a dazzling yet majestic hue.

It was unclear whether this silver hue was the result of fusing with Meng Changming’s ice-based ability.

The cub’s physique had also evolved once more; even without transforming, it was now as large as a full-grown tiger, and the paw pressing down on Jiang Le’s chest was as big as his own head.

The massive wolf’s head leaned close to Jiang Le, sniffing his scent. Its aqua-blue eyes had turned an even deeper icy blue, radiating a gaze that was both bloodthirsty and indifferent.

After locking eyes with Jiang Le for a few seconds, that glint faded. The wolf’s head nuzzled the side of Jiang Le’s ear—a subtle gesture, yet one that clearly conveyed a sense of affection.

Jiang Le pushed the little wolf away and stood up, first checking its stats. As expected, the “Frost” skill had appeared under its abilities, though there was a cooldown between this skill and “Blaze,” so he couldn’t use them consecutively just yet.

At the same time, a new term had appeared on the skill interface: “Scale.” Jiang Le stared at the word for a moment before asking the little wolf, “Does ‘Scale’ mean you can get bigger or smaller?”

Xiao Lang glanced at him. Under Jiang Le’s eager gaze, he seemed to sigh in resignation and slowly shrank his body until he was the same size as when Jiang Le had first discovered him.

Jiang Le couldn’t help but laugh as he bent down to look at the little wolf cub, which could now fit completely into the crook of his arm.

If Jiang Le were to be honest, the shrunken cub looked no different from a little black dog, especially after its fur color had changed. The golden and silvery strands of fur had gathered above its eyes and at the tip of its tail as it shrank.

At first glance, it looked exactly like the common, four-legged little mutt he used to see.

Jiang Le couldn’t help but reach out to pick it up.

At first, the little wolf found Jiang Le’s smile at that moment highly suspicious, sensing something odd behind it, but once Jiang Le cradled it in his arms, the little wolf went completely still.

It even wriggled its body quite contentedly, shifting its position to find the most comfortable spot. It showed no sign of defensiveness or objection even when Jiang Le cupped its belly with his hand.

Jiang Le held the little wolf, secretly indulging in the pleasure of cuddling a dog for a while, until the little wolf’s stomach began to growl.

Xiao Lang felt a bit embarrassed. He squirmed a little in Jiang Le’s arms, then glanced at his belly with a hint of dissatisfaction. But Jiang Le understood; after all, evolution itself was extremely energy-intensive.

Reaching Level 4 brought varying degrees of improvement in attack, defense, speed, mental power, and intelligence, but the hexagonal icon representing Little Wolf remained lopsided and uneven, with some sides longer than others—a clear indication of severe imbalances.

It still needed fine-tuning.

However, no matter how its physique changed, many of the little wolf’s habits remained the same. For instance, it still had absolutely no resistance to goat’s milk.

Jiang Le retrieved a basin from the warehouse—about the size of a child’s bathtub—and brought out a bucket of farm-produced goat’s milk stored in his spatial pocket. He poured out a full two buckets, which Xiao Lang devoured in the blink of an eye.

This scene, combined with the little wolf’s current puppy-like build, was truly jarring.

Jiang Le then fed the little wolf a basin of mutated wild boar pork—the last of what was left—deciding to let it eat it all in one go.

Perhaps due to the physical strain of its long evolution, the little wolf still seemed unsatisfied after finishing that. Jiang Le then took a freshly slaughtered lamb from his own meat reserves. Only after devouring that did the little wolf finally settle down.

Jiang Le explained the current reality of the outside world and the dangers they might face to the little wolf, and warned it that the people outside were on their side and must not be attacked.

The little wolf showed no reaction, and it was unclear whether it had taken the words to heart.

But Jiang Le believed that its lack of reaction meant it had definitely taken it in; otherwise, given the cub’s temperament, it would never have been able to control its emotions. After transforming the cub into a size that wouldn’t cause panic among the people outside, Jiang Le led it out of the spatial pocket.

The moon hung high in the sky, its light slanting through the window.

Having been trapped here for several days, but with food and drink available, everyone was a bit tense but not overly panicked.

Seeing Jiang Le reappear, accompanied by a black wolf, Zhang Haiyang and Feng Yun—who had met the little wolf before—remained relatively calm, while the others couldn’t help but sneak glances at the little wolf.

Tangyuan even reached out toward the little wolf while calling out, “Big doggie!”

Of all of them, Tangyuan had actually been the most relaxed these past few days. Children are unaware of the dangers outside, and with time to play every day, she felt much more at ease than when she was at the base.

What the adults saw as terrifying beasts, the child couldn’t tell the difference between a wolf and a dog.

Li Jiajia and Zhang Haiyang were a step behind in their reactions, but Feng Yun still remembered the gaping wound the blood vine had torn in his hand.

Although he didn’t know the exact temperament of this mutated wolf, he realized that since it had appeared, the blood vine—which had previously popped its head out from time to time—had retreated as quietly as a mouse. He knew immediately that this wolf couldn’t be a friendly creature.

He immediately grabbed Tangyuan’s hand and pulled her back to him.

The little wolf’s gaze swept indifferently over the crowd, lingering briefly on Tangyuan. It seemed to decide that she was simply the weakest human it had ever seen and not worth bothering with.

The night was deep, but it was the perfect time to conceal their movements. Jiang Le slipped quietly through the window into the night, and together with the young wolf, they moved silently through the darkness, weaving their way through the city’s skyscrapers and past countless obstacles, finally coming to a halt at an intersection.

The man and the wolf stood on the balcony of what had once been a landmark building in Xizhou City, watching the dense swarm of zombies converging around the intersection.

If one looked closely, there were still many zombies lying on the ground, their rotting flesh trampled into a mangled mass. Were they searching for something hidden underground?

After traversing the city, he quietly slipped back through the window.

The others were already asleep by this time. Jiang Le silently found an empty spot beside them, resting his head on his hand as he lay down. Through the window, he could see the twinkling stars in the night sky. Even after surviving two apocalypses, Jiang Le would sometimes, in moments of such tranquility, momentarily feel as though the world he inhabited was still normal.

Until Xiao Lang lay down beside him, blocking Jiang Le’s view of the window. Jiang Le reached out to ruffle Xiao Lang’s fur, then rested his head on the dog’s body.