Chapter 9: An Unnatural Phenomenon
Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Over the next few days at the exhibition, Su Jin frequently snuck off to the other halls to look for supplies she could hoard.
After getting off from work on the third day, she pulled Assistant Zhang away, saying that she wanted to treat him to a meal. In actual fact, she led him to an empty warehouse in the outskirts. She had contacted the person in charge of the warehouse in advance and rented the warehouse at the last minute for a month, paying three times the usual price. She only asked for a month just in case, because she was planning to put away everything she was getting delivered here within five days.
Assistant Zhang drove to the place Su Jin entered into his navigation system. Once there, he watched as Su Jin paid up, signed the contract, and received the warehouse keys, all the whole feeling completely mystified.
Su Jin saw the utter confusion in his eyes and burst out laughing.
“I’ll tell you why later. Come on, dinner’s on me.”
That finally snapped Assistant Zhang back to his senses. Su Jin said she was buying dinner, but he was the one who chose the venue. After all, he knew the area better and could determine which stores were tastier.
Eventually, they settled on a local cuisine restaurant closer to Su Jin’s hotel. The place was relatively quiet too, without too much bustle.
Assistant Zhang’s full name was Zhang Chuyang. Over dinner, there were several times when he had to resist the urge to ask what Su Jin rented the warehouse for, but he held his tongue. He was waiting for Su Jin to broach the topic herself.
The roasted goose at the restaurant Assistant Zhang chose was just too delicious. Although the goose skin was thick and fatty, it was not cloying to eat and even tasted faintly of a fruity smoke. When Su Jin bit into it and reached the tender flesh underneath, she could feel her taste buds singing.
The way Assistant Zhang looked so hesitant to talk opposite her made the food taste even better. He looked just about good enough to gobble up.
Once she was about eighty percent full, Su Jin decided to put the man out of his misery. She gave him the story she had thought up in advance.
Su Jin told Assistant Zhang that she was planning to start a supermarket back at H City. Since she was in G Province now, she thought she might as well buy some stock in advance and store them in a warehouse, so she could move them to her supermarket once it opened.
It was a bit of a stretch, but to her surprise, Assistant Zhang seemed to buy it completely.
“I see, I see. So that’s why you’re in such a rush to go back, because you’re opening a supermarket soon. Then your store must be pretty huge, huh? You wouldn’t need such a big warehouse otherwise.”
“It’s not that big, but it is two stories tall. I can display plenty of stuff.” Su Jin was finding it easier to lie through her teeth these days.
“You’re richer than I thought. If I’d known, I would’ve asked you to treat me to a meal at a five-star hotel.” Assistant Zhang acted dismayed.
The two of them teased each other for a little longer, and Su Jin told Assistant Zhang that she would give him the keys to the warehouse before she left so he could return it to the owner on her behalf.
The truth was she knew that no one would care about a measly warehouse key a month later. Before that, she would leave some supplies in the warehouse for Assistant Zhang. Hopefully, he would be able to reach them, and she would be able to repay him for saving her life back then.
After the two of them were done eating, Su Jin secretly noted down the restaurant’s delivery hotline. The food tasted great, so naturally she had to take some away and share them with her family.
Back at the hotel, Su Jin called the bespectacled knife seller again, asking him to send her goods directly to the warehouse on the outskirts. It was in the same city and not that far away, so the bespectacled man repeatedly told her that it was “no problem at all”. What did she think he would say? She was his biggest customer, such a minor request was nothing to him.
Now that she had a warehouse to go back to, Su Jin became even more unrestrained with her buying. She bought a few paddy huskers, flour processors, and even some small-sized oil presses at the designated hall. At the AI-themed hall, she bought a few of the newest generators, the type that worked well on solar power alone.
With these, they would have electricity even in the dimension. She was happy just thinking about it.
After all that, she only had slightly over a million left from all the money in both her and Lu Hao’s savings. Su Jin sighed. Money was too easy to spend, and there were still a bunch of things she had yet to buy. Lu Hao mentioned that he had some stocks on the market, right? Once she got back, she would ask him to cash in on them, or else they would be reduced to scrap paper once the apocalypse hit.
Over the past few days, Wei Xiaoyan’s performance at the exhibition steadily improved. Someone must have given her advice, because she stopped slathering on the make-up and stuck to professional suits instead at work. Su Jin guessed that it was Wang Linda’s doing.
Anyway, that meant Su Jin barely had anything to do anymore. Whenever she had time, she would sneak off again to see what she could buy.
Finally, it was Friday, the last day of Su Jin’s work at the exhibition. On that day, even the ever-busy Wang He dropped by the exhibition and gathered everyone before the workday ended. Since they were off tomorrow, he said the company would treat everyone to dinner that night.
The atmosphere at the branch company had always been very relaxed.
It was probably because they had an open-minded general manager in Wang He. He was really lax in his management, all things considered, usually allowing his employees to work as they pleased. He even set up a reward system to encourage everyone to perform better, and every so often he would organize a routine dinner or karaoke session.
The branch company was relatively new, but their sales accomplishments were not lower than those of the HQ, which had a large factory behind them. Su Jin was certain that if it were not for the apocalypse, the branch would definitely be able to overtake the HQ in sales within a year. For that, Su Jin actually had a healthy amount of respect for Wang He.
As everyone was dismissed, Wang He purposely called out to Su Jin and asked her to attend the dinner that night.
Wei Xiaoyan was standing behind Wang Linda, her hands trembling as they gripped the hem of her clothes tightly. She had thought that the dinner would be to welcome her as the newest member of the team, but Mr. Wang had not even mentioned her name. It was so unfair!
The dinner was held at a seafood restaurant closer to the exhibition center. It was only two streets away, so everyone just walked there.
Su Jin walked with Assistant Zhang, who constantly chattered about how famous the restaurant was. He even listed out the celebrities who had eaten there before, showing Su Jin pictures of their signature dishes on his phone.
Su Jin truly felt that Assistant Zhang would make for a great travel and shopping bestie.
When they were almost at the seafood restaurant’s doorstep, they suddenly heard a loud crash followed by some screams. Su Jin immediately saw a man covered in blood collapsed on the curb.
The man lay face-down, one of his legs all mangled from his fall. He looked, for all intents and purposes, dead.
Some in the crowd screamed, others murmured among themselves, while yet others whipped out their phones to take pictures.
No one noticed that the man’s finger had twitched slightly.
Everyone from the branch company witnessed the gory scene too. The female colleagues had all turned white, but when Wang He happened to spy Su Jin’s expression, he noticed that she was shocked but not at all afraid.
Su Jin was indeed stunned. The man was covered in blood and wounds of all sizes. They were clearly bite and scratch wounds, too.
Were there already zombies this early?
Just then, the man on the ground suddenly began to stand up, his head lowered and his movements slow. Although he moved slowly and rather unsteadily, as though he would fall at any time, he still managed to get on his feet and take two steps forward.
Assistant Zhang was still wondering how he managed to stand on his broken leg.
All of a sudden, the man revealed his half-mutilated face and pounced at Assistant Zhang, his mouth wide open.
Behind Assistant Zhang, Wei Xiaoyan was so scared that her knees threatened to buckle. She was right behind him, so when she saw the man running toward their direction, she instinctively pushed Assistant Zhang.
Assistant Zhang stumbled forward from the force of the push and saw that the blood-covered man was just ten centimeters away from home. Without a word, Assistant Zhang closed his eyes. It was so unbelievably smelly and disgusting! This man was clearly going to bite him, but who had been heartless enough to push him?
Su Jin finally reacted. The man was undeniably a zombie. Although she did not know why one showed up this early, she could not just watch as Assistant Zhang was bitten.
All she had was her sling bag. She had no suitable weapons with her, so she just grabbed a red fire extinguisher from the roadside and swung it at the man!
The fire extinguisher smashed right into the man– no, the zombie’s head.
Su Jin had not used her full strength, only exerting about a tenth of her power. If she went all out, she was worried she would smash a hole in the pavement under the zombie’s feet.
The crowd screamed again, not because of Su Jin’s violence, but because the man was still trying to get back on his feet after his head was smashed in.
Assistant Zhang was frozen in fear, so Su Jin pulled him behind her and looked at the struggling zombie. She resisted the wood-type energy begging to be set free inside her body and picked up the hole around a fire reel next to the extinguisher. She then quickly ran to the zombie and wound the hose around him a few times, tying him up tightly with it.
As of right now, Su Jin did not dare to finish off the zombie just yet. She could already hear the police sirens in the distance and she did not want to be arrested as a suspect in a crime.
Seven or eight police officers, armed to the teeth, got out of the police cars and rapidly began maintaining the order in front of the crowd.
Next, an ambulance arrived at the scene. Two male doctors jumped out with a stretcher, as did a few female nurses.
One of the nurses saw the man covered in blood, tied up into a knot and gagged with the hose. She could not help but exclaim, “Who did this?”
The patient was already covered in blood, and yet here he was tied up so tightly. There was even a terrifying hole in his head. Who could have been so violent?
“It was her, she did it! She swung a fire extinguisher at the badly-injured man and even tied him up with the fire hose!” Wei Xiaoyan jumped out of the crowd and pointed at Su Jin.
“He was trying to bite me first. That’s why my friend tied him up.”
Assistant Zhang could not just stand by and let the nurse misunderstand Su Jin either.
“How could he bite you with his leg in that shape?” the nurse insisted.
Su Jin shrugged helplessly. The other people in the crowd had witnessed the scene too, and they knew that she had not harmed the man for no reason. Plenty of passionate passersby vouched for her.
Then there was that Wei Xiaoyan. Did she try to frame Su Jin? Hah, Su Jin was going to remember this!
The colleagues from the branch company had seen Wei Xiaoyan push Assistant Zhang, and then she had stepped out to accuse Su Jin, who had saved him. This newbie was way too cold-blooded. They decided to stay away from her from now on.
Even Wang He was starting to wonder if he should hire her after her probation. More than that, though, he was shocked at Su Jin’s fighting skills. She was definitely a trained martial artist!
Just then, one of the men holding the stretcher tried to break up the fight, and the nurse finally let it rest. The first thing she did, though, was to turn around and pull the hose away from the man’s mouth.
Su Jin could not stop her in time. Once the hose was removed, the zombie took a large bite out of the nurse’s face!
He ripped a huge chunk of flesh from her right cheek, and everyone who saw that took a sharp intake of breath. Even those who thought that Su Jin had gone too far earlier understood the wisdom of her actions now.
The nurse did not understand why the patient she had defended earlier bit her. She fell to the ground and yelled in pain. Meanwhile, although the zombie’s upper body was still tied up, he nevertheless stood up on his broken legs and tried to pounce at the others!
There was the sound of a gunshot, and the zombie finally collapsed. It was one of the armed cops who had shot the zombie squarely in the head.
Such great aim. Su Jin almost wanted to cheer for him.
The nurse who was bitten was now too worn out from the pain to yell anymore. Her medical colleagues hurriedly put her onto the stretcher and took her away.
Su Jin wanted to say something, but she knew that even if she told them that the nurse had been infected now, no one would believe her. That was why she wisely closed her mouth.
After that, the policemen asked Su Jin, Assistant Zhang, and the others to stay, while the rest of the crowd was dismissed.
The cop who had shot the zombie in the head approached them, biting the cap off his pen. He recorded testimonies from Su Jin and the others in a notebook, then he gave Su Jin one more long look before turning and leaving.
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