Episode 3

At 7:30am on January 20th, 2013, the alarm on Zhang Xiaoqiang's phone awakened him. He got up and went to the living room to check the remaining supplies. The cabbage he risked his life for five days ago was still half full, there were four or five pounds of rice left, and he ran out of cigarettes yesterday. Not having cigarettes made him, a seasoned smoker, very uneasy.

Then he heard a "bang" sound coming from the security door. Ever since five days ago, the zombies outside the door have been relentlessly attacking the iron door, driven by their thirst and greed for flesh. They stood outside his door like loyal dogs.

The smell of the room became stronger, but Zhang Xiaoqiang had gotten used to it. Sometimes he even thought subconsciously that this was the normal smell. The past was fading away slowly, leaving only the instinct to survive.

He walked into the kitchen and turned on the induction cooker. He poured the leftover bacon fried rice from yesterday into the frying pan with chopped cabbage and boiled it with water. He divided it into two portions, one for breakfast and one for dinner.

After breakfast, like usual, Zhang Xiaoqiang went to the window of the computer room and looked at the zombies outside, the end of the highway, and the gloomy and heavy sky with opaque clouds and chilly air. The depressing feeling made it difficult for him to breathe.

How he longed for a convoy to suddenly appear at the end of the road, carrying camouflaged army vehicles with rows of soldiers in the back, sweeping away the despair of the world with their steel guns, and driving the stinking zombies back to hell, returning him to his old days.

Fantasy is still just fantasy. Zombies are still wandering around and Zhang Xiaoqiang still has to worry about food. He returns to the living room, hands clutching his head, preparing for his physical training for the day. Being a shut-in for too long has made his body weak. To survive, he must desperately improve his physical fitness, even if it's just a bit. "Forty-seven," "Forty-eight"... "Fifty." Zhang Xiaoqiang exhales heavily, his hands still on the ground. He's exhausted. It's been a long time since he's exercised this much. He thinks of the zombies outside, guarding the house with little food left. He takes a deep breath and resumes his training, hands still clutching his head.

He places the eight-pound hammer in the corner and picks up a towel to wipe off the sweat on his face. Two thousand frog jumps and five hundred swings of the hammer have left him tired. His breakfast has been digested, and his stomach is growling again. Sitting on the sofa, Zhang Xiaoqiang ponders how to deal with the six zombies outside. He can't fight them without a defensive weapon like his shield, which he left outside. The security door opens outward, so he can't barricade himself inside. He can't take on six zombies one by one, even with the strength he's gained from his recent dry food diet.

Unable to come up with a solution, Zhang Xiaoqiang scratches his head with his fingers. He's thought of every solution and still doesn't have a plan. He looks at the box of Huangguoshu cigarettes on the coffee table, habitually reaching for it. He shakes it, only to remember that he finished the last cigarette yesterday. He looks at the cigarette butts in the ashtray, takes a white paper and carefully removes the remaining tobacco, stacking it neatly on the paper into a roll.

He lit the lighter and took a puff. Leaning back on the sofa, he stared at the landline phone at home, wondering how many months it had been since he paid the bill. Was it three or four months? That beautiful girl at the telecom office must have turned into a zombie by now. He had contributed more than 80 yuan in phone bills to the telecom company on his mobile, but had he lost more than he had gained? His mind was full of random thoughts, and Zhang Xiaoqiang's gaze unintentionally shifted towards the phone line.

"Wait a minute."

The telephone line? Zhang Xiaoqiang shifted his gaze back to the telephone line, and a flash of inspiration darted through his mind, but he couldn't figure it out.

He stared blankly at the telephone line, and his brain quickly started working. Besides making phone calls, what else could the telephone line be used for? Hanging clothes, airing blankets, tying things up... Suddenly, he had an idea. "It can be used as a rope!" He stood up and paced around, looking for a rope to tie one end to the door handle of the anti-theft door and the other end to a fixed point. Then, he could open the door a crack and take care of the zombies outside one by one.

He acted on his thoughts and found a thin hemp rope in the storage room. He tied one end to the iron railing on the window and left the other end about ten centimeters long to tie to the door handle. It was impossible to use a hammer as a weapon, as the space was too small to use it effectively. Zhang Xiaoqiang found a galvanized water pipe about 1.5 meters long and gestured that he thought it was not powerful enough to deal with the zombies.

Continuing to search his father's toolbox, he couldn't help but sigh. Fortunately, his father was skilled in everything. In the 1960s, he went to the countryside to dig irrigation canals, and in the 1970s, he was the factory director of an electric motor factory. Although there were only a dozen people, it was still a collective enterprise, and he held an official position. In the 1980s, he opened a restaurant and became one of the earliest millionaires in the small town.

Unfortunately, his father liked to play, fishing and hunting, and had no interest in business. Otherwise, he could have made a small fortune. His father made his own fishing rod and hunting rifle. During the period when China cracked down on guns, his father was scared and threw the handmade flintlock rifle into the Yangtze River. Although his father had passed away, all those tools were still there.

"Found it."

He found a triangular file. The file was over a foot long and had been stored for a long time, but the triangular file body was still black and had not rusted much. The tool steel from the 1970s was well made. He used a knife to shave the wooden handle of the file until it could fit into the water pipe. After trying it out, he was afraid it was not secure enough, so he nailed the pipe and wooden handle connection securely with an iron nail, so he wouldn't be in trouble when it mattered most.

Everything was ready. Zhang Xiaoqiang stood behind the door and checked his equipment. His military coat had been washed clean but unfortunately, it was going to get dirty again today. The tap water had already been cut off, and he wasn't even hoping to drink it now, let alone washing clothes! He carried his homemade iron spear in his left hand and opened the door with his right hand.

"Bang."

Zhang Xiaoqiang closed the door again, it was too stinky. The smell of the rotting zombies he had killed a few days ago was so strong that he couldn't even open his eyes. There were no masks at home, so he found a woolen scarf and covered his nose and mouth. He sprinkled some mosquito repellent on the scarf, it was a bit better now.

Opening the door once again, a black claw reached for his face with great force, its owner pushing to squeeze through the crack in the door. This time he was prepared and not frightened. He carefully examined the zombie and the flesh on its claw, which was tightly pulled inward, revealing protruding bones, like an eagle's talon, pointing towards him. The sharp nails extended and retracted, accompanied by dry and shriveled fingers. The zombie desperately tried to force its head through the crack in the door, and its face looked just like the claw, with sunken eye sockets and cheekbones rubbing against the iron door, seemingly attempting to sharpen its head and squeeze through.

Zhang Xiaoqiang raised the iron spear with both hands, and the triangular file end stabbed into the zombie's eyes mercilessly. He clenched the water pipes tightly and used all his strength to push outwards. Although he couldn't control the strength of the iron spear, he only knew to thrust outward. His mind was dazed, but he burst out with a deep-seated bloodthirstiness from within, feeling as though all the zombies were at his mercy, and he could kill them all.

Two more claws reached for him through the crack in the door, shaking in front of him, and he immediately sobered up. He pulled out the spear tip, and the zombie's eye sockets turned into deep black holes, with black, viscous blood slowly flowing out. First, the zombie fell onto the adjacent zombie, then slowly tilted to the ground - its head facing him with one eye white without a pupil, while the other eye socket was a black hole flowing with dark bloodstains. The extreme contrast between the two made Zhang Xiaoqiang shiver.

"There are still five of them," he muttered to himself, not bothering to look at the dead zombie anymore.

He had never used a long spear before, nor was he skilled in controlling his strength. With his incredibly rudimentary spear technique, he ground down the remaining five zombies until the last one fell to the ground with a "clang" sound. Zhang Xiaoqiang could no longer hold on to his iron spear and let it drop to the ground.

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