The Snail Zombie King and Her Head Chef

Li Qiu is a recent university graduate who spends her days taking civil service examinations across multiple provinces. During one such exam in Chilan City, a catastrophic zombie outbreak strikes the testing center. The proctor turns into a zombie, and candidates are forced to flee through windows to escape the horde. Li Qiu, who lacks physical fitness, falls behind and is bitten on the neck. Instead of dying, she reanimates as a zombie. For nearly a month, she wanders with mindless zombie hordes, starving because she cannot compete with faster, stronger zombies for human prey. Her hunger eventually drives her to eat the remains of a fellow zombie killed by human espers. This act restores her human consciousness and memories, revealing that she has become a D-rank Intelligent Type zombie with the ability to think and retain her personality.

Upon regaining her sanity, Li Qiu realizes she is no longer human but still possesses her memories and desires. Her primary goal becomes returning home to her parents in Bailin City, located 768 kilometers away. She begins scavenging for supplies in the abandoned streets of Chilan City. During her search, she encounters Zhou Jinshi, a powerful esper and leader of a survivor squad who wields an ancient saber and possesses water-based abilities. Zhou Jinshi and his team have just cleared the area of zombies. Li Qiu hides in a convenience store, narrowly avoiding detection by suppressing her zombie instincts and resisting the urge to attack the living humans nearby. After Zhou Jinshi’s team departs, she consumes the leftover zombie corpses to satisfy her hunger, which temporarily restores her strength.

Li Qiu’s journey is complicated by her dual nature. While she retains her human morality, her zombie body demands constant consumption of flesh to maintain her consciousness and physical strength. She captures a mindless F-rank zombie she names Li Dong, tying him up to use as a shield against human espers and as emergency food. As she travels, she encounters another group of survivors led by Zhao Siyuan, which includes Fang Qi, a Level 2 ability user. Fang Qi is secretly infected after being scratched by a zombie. Realizing she will turn, she attempts to leave the group to avoid burdening them, but Zhao Siyuan and the others ambush her at a lakeside location. Their true motive is not mercy but greed; they intend to kill her to steal her crystal cores and supplies.

Li Qiu witnesses this confrontation from the reeds. She observes Fang Qi cutting off her own infected flesh to delay transformation, while Zhao Siyuan’s team closes in. The story highlights the brutal moral landscape of the apocalypse, where humans are often more dangerous than zombies. Li Qiu must navigate her growing hunger, the threat of human hunters, and her own deteriorating humanity. She struggles with the temptation to eat living humans or even her companion Li Dong, constantly fighting to preserve her identity. The narrative follows her determination to survive and reach home, despite the physical and ethical challenges posed by her new existence as a conscious zombie in a world dominated by espers and mindless undead.