The Zombies Are Coming, I'm Lying Low at Home

Fu Erdie is a freelance illustrator living a quiet, ordinary life in a second-tier Chinese city with her dog, Mozhi. Supported by her family, she works from home in a sixteenth-floor apartment. On a sweltering June evening, the atmosphere shifts abruptly when strange noises and a car accident signal the onset of a zombie outbreak. Panic spreads through the city as people transform into aggressive, flesh-eating monsters. Fu Erdie’s best friend, Zhao Xiaolu, calls in distress, but Fu Erdie is trapped by the chaos outside. When an elderly zombie attacks her in the hallway, she is forced to kill it in self-defense, an act that leaves her traumatized but alive.

Initially, Fu Erdie attempts to contact her family, but her relatives, including her uncles and parents in another city, are unable or unwilling to risk rescue missions. Realizing she is abandoned, she decides to bunker down in her apartment, which has ample supplies of instant noodles, rice, and water. For the first few weeks, she survives in isolation, watching the city descend into chaos from her balcony. She observes survivors trying to escape, many failing and becoming zombies themselves. Fu Erdie’s physical and mental state deteriorates as she grapples with loneliness, fear, and the guilt of surviving while others perish. She also discovers that her potted plants have mutated, growing rapidly and developing the ability to decompose organic waste and purify the air.

A critical turning point occurs when an ability user, a man with mutated claws, breaches her apartment. He intends to steal her resources and harm her. Fu Erdie fights back, resulting in a brutal struggle where she sustains severe injuries, including a dislocated shoulder and broken ribs. In a desperate act of survival, she kills the attacker by biting his throat. Following the fight, she falls into a coma. During her unconscious state, her mutated plants and the apartment itself seem to heal her wounds and consume the intruder’s body, leaving no trace behind. When she awakens four days later, she discovers her apartment has gained self-repairing properties, sealing cracks and cleaning itself automatically.

Now protected by her mutated home, Fu Erdie enjoys a period of relative safety. However, the psychological scars remain. She suffers from nightmares and hallucinations, haunted by the violence she witnessed and endured. The temporary restoration of communication networks reveals that the world is in disarray, with safe havens established far away. Her parents promise to come for her, but Fu Erdie refuses to be a burden, knowing the journey is too dangerous. As her supplies begin to dwindle and the power fails, she faces the reality that her sanctuary is temporary. The story ends with Fu Erdie standing in the rain, desperately hoping to mutate and gain powers to protect herself, signaling her transition from a passive victim to an active survivor ready to face the new world.