Apocalyptic Crazy Kitty

Chapter 13: The Birth of an Actor

At Zuo Chen’s gesture, Erzi, overcome with gratitude, served himself a bowl of century egg and lean pork congee. After blowing on it to cool it down, he immediately took a big, satisfying sip. The aroma of the preserved egg, combined with the scents of luncheon meat and beef, shot like a bolt of lightning down his throat and straight into his stomach. Erzi immediately felt a wave of comfort wash over his entire body, and tears of emotion welled up in his eyes once again. Three meals a day! And breakfast, too! In recent years, he’d been lucky to get just one meal a day! And this is preserved egg and lean pork congee! “Beep… Host detected cooking food. Measuring the eater’s pleasure level… Pleasure level has reached Level 6, exceeding Level 5. Meets reward distribution criteria. Recording food molecular composition. Beginning random distribution of Level 6 rewards.” Zuo Chen couldn’t help but roll his eyes. He really didn’t have any good ingredients, and since Erzi had already eaten his cooking twice before, a pleasure level of six this time was actually pretty good. He figured next time it would drop below level five, making it impossible to trigger a reward. I’ve got to improve my cooking skills ASAP, meow! I wonder what this Level 6 reward will be. Even though the level isn’t very high, surely it won’t just be another random pile of useless paper money, right? Zuo Chen was still looking forward to it. The bell shot out another ring of light, and the tiny wormhole materialized in the void. Immediately afterward, exactly one hundred bundles of 100-yuan bills flew out and piled up. One million RMB was piled into a small pyramid, topped with a large red silk flower symbolizing the reward… Erzi had learned his lesson by now. As soon as the first bundle of 100-yuan bills appeared, he immediately tilted his head back and gulped down his rice porridge, swallowing the entire bowl in one go like a sewer drain, before cautiously glancing at His Majesty the Beast King. The Orange Cat stared motionlessly at the money. Silence fell; it was as if the air had frozen. “Meow!” The Orange Cat roared furiously, extended its bony claws, pounced on the bills, and tore those brand-new 100-yuan bills to shreds… “Zhou! Off to the Bihai Grand Hotel!” I want to learn how to cook! Two hours later, a burlap sack caked in blood appeared at the entrance of the Bihai Grand Hotel. The burlap sack, used as a disguise, was pulled aside, revealing a guy with a Mohawk and yellow hair wearing a suit, and an Orange Cat sporting a large gold chain and a small watch. Erzi was once again covered in blood—after all, compared to saving his own life, style and composure were worth nothing. Zuo Chen, however, remained spotless, crouching atop Erzi’s head like a big yellow hat. “Showtime,” the Orange Cat commanded. Erzi immediately held up six with his left hand and seven with his right, then limped into the lobby of the Bihai Grand Hotel, looking exactly like Wu Laosan from his home village, who’d suffered a cerebral thrombosis. In a way, the zombie’s gait bore a striking resemblance to that of Wu Laosan as he remembered him. “Left, right, left, left, right…” Zuo Chen held the reins to control Erzi’s steps as the cat and the man slowly made their way through the hotel lobby. Inside the hotel lobby, there were at least thirty zombies wandering aimlessly. Their strategy had worked! The stench of blood on Erzi and his manner of walking had clearly fooled the surrounding zombies. As for the Orange Cat perched on his head—which looked like a giant yellow hard hat—it hadn’t caught the zombies’ attention either. “Stay calm,” Zuo Chen whispered. He didn’t feel anything out of the ordinary, but Erzi had already started sweating. After all, they had now reached the center of the lobby—if the zombies spotted them, they’d be devoured until nothing was left. And the more he sweated, the easier it would be for the zombies to spot him. Erzi knew this too, so he tried his best to slow his breathing and steady his heartbeat. It took them nearly five minutes to cover the distance of a few dozen meters, but they finally managed to outwit all the zombies and reached the elevator. The digital display on the elevator was still lit, clearly indicating it was still in working order. This was precisely why Zuo Chen had chosen the Bihai Grand Hotel. The hotel promoted energy conservation and environmental protection, with many of its facilities powered by solar panel arrays. While this didn’t seem like much of an advantage under normal circumstances, in the apocalypse, it had become the last beacon of hope in the darkness. Just like the billboards outside, the elevators at the Bihai Grand Hotel were powered by solar energy and operated on an independent system. Otherwise, climbing the stairs to the 50th-floor revolving restaurant would have been exhausting enough to kill them—even if the zombies didn’t get them first. Erzi continued to hold up his left hand with six fingers and his right hand with seven, then pressed the elevator button with his left pinky. The elevator was currently stopped on the twentieth floor or so. After he pressed the button, the elevator indicator light began to flash rapidly, and the elevator soon arrived at the first floor. “Ding—” The elevator doors opened, and four stinking zombies burst out! “Holy shit!” Erzi hadn’t expected there to be zombies inside the elevator. Startled, he let out a scream just as the zombie in the lead was about to pounce on him! Zuo Chen swung his tail, piercing the lead zombie’s skull with a “thud,” then swung it repeatedly—all four zombies were wiped out in the blink of an eye. Erzi hurried into the elevator, frantically pressing the buttons, his eyes wide with terror as he stared out the doors. That single scream had drawn every single one of the dozens of zombies in the entire lobby. They’d now realized that this guy—with six on his left hand and seven on his right—was human, and that the thing on his head wasn’t a hat at all! It was fresh flesh and blood! “Hurry,” Zuo Chen said, narrowing his eyes as he watched outside, his tail slithering at his side like a snake, ready at any moment to pierce the first zombie to charge at him. The elevator doors had barely begun to close when the nearest zombie had already charged up to the entrance! “Thud!” A bone spike pierced the zombie’s eye socket, instantly destroying its brain before being withdrawn just as quickly. As the elevator doors closed, Zuo Chen’s tail retracted, returning to its original fluffy form. “Your Majesty, I’m sorry—I’ve brought shame upon myself…” Erzi hurriedly apologized for his earlier lapse in composure, which had nearly ruined everything. Zuo Chen said nothing, leaving Erzi feeling anxious and uneasy. Little did he know, however, that Zuo Chen had no time to dwell on such trivial matters. Zuo Chen was intently studying the poster inside the elevator, trying to commit the man’s appearance to memory. The poster featured a middle-aged, heavyset man wearing a chef’s hat, his arms crossed and a smile on his face—he was the head chef of the Bihai Grand Hotel. “Find him,” Zuo Chen said, pointing at the head chef’s photo to make his meaning clear to Erzi. The elevator moved quickly, and the numbers kept changing. …47, 48, 49, 50. “Ding!” The elevator doors opened, revealing the rotating restaurant on the top floor. So many zombies! The room was surrounded by curved floor-to-ceiling windows, and sunlight flooded the space, illuminating it completely. There were easily several hundred zombies wandering aimlessly through this massive space spanning over a thousand square meters. Hearing the sound of the elevator, all the zombies nearby immediately turned their heads toward the elevator entrance. Erzi had already assumed his pose again—left hand holding a six, right hand holding a seven—and stepped out of the elevator with a lopsided grin and a limp. He walked extremely slowly, even letting the elevator doors bump into him slightly to make himself look clumsy, before holding his breath as he entered the dining hall. The smell of blood on him and his movements fooled the group of zombies, whose minds were no better than those of beasts; they turned away and paid him no further attention. In his heart, Zuo Chen was quite impressed with Erzi’s acting skills. The fact that this kid had managed to survive all these years in the ruins of the city clearly showed he had his own abilities—at the very least, his talent for acting was truly rare. Most of the zombies in the revolving restaurant were men in suits and ties, while the women wore luxurious evening gowns—they had clearly been in the midst of some grand banquet. There were even quite a few zombie beasts—once pet dogs and cats—roaming about inside. Judging by their attire and physiques, everyone here was either wealthy or noble, possessing high social status. However, in this post-apocalyptic world, they now share a single identity: zombies. There was no time for sentimentality. Riding on Erzi and standing amidst the horde of zombies, Zuo Chen began to rapidly scan the faces of the zombies present. He needed to find the head chef as quickly as possible, devour his brain, and then get out of there. The space here was too confined, and there were simply too many zombies; if he were attacked by the horde, not to mention Erzi, even he would be torn to shreds. Soon, Zuo Chen had scanned every zombie in the area but still hadn’t found the head chef. Logically, he should have been able to spot him just by his clothes, but Zuo Chen didn’t take any chances; instead, he examined every zombie with a similar build. If he wasn’t here, then he must be at the back of the revolving restaurant. He guided Erzi as they cautiously made their way through the horde of zombies toward the other side of the restaurant. Erzi’s acting had become increasingly masterful by now; from the outside, he looked exactly like a zombie—one that had been dead for several years, at that… Combined with the masking scent, unless they were extremely close, practically touching him, the zombies would have a hard time detecting him. And even if one or two zombies sensed something was off, Zuo Chen would immediately silence them with a flick of his tail. Turning a corner, they arrived at the other side of the restaurant. What met their eyes was, to their horror, a blood-red hellscape! Unlike the side they’d just been on, this side of the revolving restaurant was completely devoid of zombies—yet the floor, ceiling, and floor-to-ceiling windows were all smeared with red blood! No, it wasn’t just blood—it was a pulp of flesh and blood, hacked to pieces! The two sections of the circular revolving restaurant presented two completely different scenes! Erzi froze in place, still holding his left hand up to six and his right to seven, while Zuo Chen stood there, equally dumbfounded. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be in the script! It’s completely different… It was as if an invisible wall separated the two sections; the zombies in this area would automatically turn around the moment they reached the boundary. Only then did Zuo Chen realize that although these zombies lacked consciousness, they seemed to have an innate… fear of this blood-red zone! There was a large hole in the ceiling of the blood-red section, clearly created when the meteorite struck. The surrounding floor-to-ceiling glass walls were completely smeared with a mixture of blood and flesh, covered in blood-red handprints. Sunlight streamed in only through the hole in the ceiling, bathing the area in a blood-red glow that made the scene even more spine-chilling. “What the hell is this place? Is the head chef not here…?” Zuo Chen thought. Just then, a series of heavy footsteps suddenly echoed from downstairs, accompanied by the sound of shattering glass and faint, agonized screams. Someone was running up the exterior wall of the building! A few seconds later, a figure landed with a heavy “thud” on the ceiling of the upper level, then leaped through the gaping hole with another “thud.” It was a massive zombie; its legs had been replaced by a pair of broad, sharp bone blades, making it look like a monster composed of giant blades. Perched atop its head was a tall chef’s hat, though its original pristine white had now turned completely blood-red.