Lin Chu, a 26-year-old rookie forensic scientist, awakens in a desolate road littered with dismembered bodies and wandering zombies. A mechanical system informs her that she has been selected for the Endless Apocalypse and must establish a shelter within 30 minutes using a provided key. During the initial 60-second protection period, Lin Chu observes the chaos with the calm detachment of a forensic expert, unlike other survivors who panic. When the shield drops, she swiftly grabs a femur bone from the ground and uses it to kill three zombies with precise, lethal strikes. She saves a twin-tailed girl armed with a spatula and leads her to an office building, where they find a restroom stall with an intact door to activate their shelters.
Inside her cramped Level 1 shelter, Lin Chu receives her system rewards, including a talent skill called Turn Trash into Treasure, which allows her to convert damaged or junk items into high-quality usable goods. She transforms her bloody femur into a durable Bone Club and acquires a spatial backpack with an 8-cubic-meter storage capacity. The system issues a survival mission to last 30 days and optional daily missions to collect zombie parts for points. A bonus mission requires her to kill five zombies within an hour to activate the world's security door, which protects her shelter from being forcibly ejected. Lin Chu completes this mission efficiently, expanding her shelter space by 3 square meters, which she uses to create a dissection area.
Her peace is short-lived when a man named Wu Yong attempts to ambush her in the restroom, hoping to rob her shelter. Lin Chu neutralizes him with her bone club, and the twin-tailed girl, whose shelter is in an adjacent stall, witnesses the event. Lin Chu warns the girl to activate her own security door before the newbie protection period ends. That night, Lin Chu ventures out to scavenge for supplies, discovering the location is a pharmaceutical tech park. She finds a murdered woman in a convenience store, whose gruesome appearance mirrors a case she handled a year prior involving a serial killer who was supposedly executed. Lin Chu identifies two men, Feng and his accomplice, who are returning to photograph the crime scene for their boss.
Using the darkness and a blood-stained plastic sheet for cover, Lin Chu ambushes and kills Feng, the first human she has ever slain. She pursues the terrified accomplice, who leads her to a group of armed survivors in an underground parking garage. Among them is a man whose face matches the serial killer from her past case, suggesting a connection between her selection and this individual. Lin Chu retreats to Building 8, a pharmaceutical warehouse, to stockpile medical supplies. She discovers that the group has restored power to the building using a diesel generator and is heading to the tenth-floor laboratory. Lin Chu sneaks into the monitoring room, disables the generator, and steals it along with various medicines, surgical tools, and tetanus vaccines. Her Turn Trash into Treasure skill also upgrades her damaged waist pouch into a 30-cubic-meter storage item. The chapter ends with Lin Chu having secured essential supplies and a portable power source, while the mysterious group continues their search in the dark laboratory.
