February 10, 2013, Sunday.

Today is the Spring Festival, the first Spring Festival Zhang Xiaoqiang is experiencing in the post-apocalyptic world, alone.

I remember when I was young, on this day, the family would prepare the New Year's goods early. Zhang Xiaoqiang would take a hot bath and put on new clothes, watching his parents prepare ingredients for the New Year's Eve dinner.

A rooster, drained of blood, lay weakly on the ground, flapping its wings feebly. Feathers scattered and drifted leisurely in the air. Mother carried a bucket of hot water to scald the rooster's feathers. Zhang Xiaoqiang and his sister sat nearby, cracking melon seeds while watching. Mother held the two chicken feet, the rooster's head hanging lightly, and blood droplets fell from its beak, drawing a red line on the ground. The rooster's wings flapped inside the bucket, overturning the boiling water outside, splashing all around. Zhang Xiaoqiang and his sister screamed and dodged. This attracted Mother's scolding, reminding them loudly not to dirty their new clothes.

Father, who is usually serious, had a rare smile on his face. He held a plate of spring rolls he made the day before, watching the oil temperature by the frying pan, humming an off-tune tune. Zhang Xiaoqiang and his sister shouted and made a fuss by his side. Pedestrians on the street hurriedly headed home, hoping to return to their families as early as possible to celebrate the New Year together.

At night, Father took out a long string of red firecrackers and hung them under the eaves. Zhang Xiaoqiang followed Father like a little tail, while his sister hid behind the door, covering her ears as she looked outside.

"Crackling!" The firecrackers sounded, and the family of four gathered together. The table was filled with abundant dishes. Father poured himself a glass of white wine and sipped it slowly. Mother held a bowl and kept nagging, reminding everyone to wake up early tomorrow and visit Grandma in the countryside. Zhang Xiaoqiang and his sister buried their heads and ate mouthfuls of food while their eyes wandered between the plates on the table.

After the New Year's Eve dinner, Mother cleared the table, and Zhang Xiaoqiang and his sister sat by the charcoal brazier, eating melon seeds and peanuts while watching the "Spring Festival Gala" on TV. Father sat in the middle, holding a teacup, occasionally taking a sip of strong tea. When Chen Peisi's bald head appeared on the screen, Zhang Xiaoqiang and his sister burst into laughter, and their parents' faces were also filled with smiles.

Recalling the past and the current situation, a sense of desolation pervades the heart.

During the post-apocalyptic Spring Festival, Zhang Xiaoqiang felt exceptionally lonely. Looking at the makeshift cellphone by his pillow, he hoped someone would send him a Lunar New Year greeting message, even if it was just a spam advertisement. The phone remained silent, and despair grew in his heart. The increasing loneliness drove him mad, and he angrily threw the phone onto the tiled floor.

"A crack..." The phone shattered into three pieces as it hit the ground: the body, battery, and back cover bounced and rolled to the side. Zhang Xiaoqiang sat on the edge of the bed, holding his head, gazing blankly at the broken phone on the floor.

After some time passed, his mood gradually calmed down. He picked up a plastic bottle next to the computer, shook it, and watched the cockroaches happily crawling inside. Zhang Xiaoqiang's mood started to improve again.

At least he was still alive. At least he could leisurely play with cockroaches while standing here. At least he was luckier than ninety percent of the world's population, still able to breathe the less-than-fresh air.

"Hehe!" Zhang Xiaoqiang laughed at himself. How did he, a proud middle-aged otaku, become so sentimental in the apocalypse?

Today was the Spring Festival, the most important festival for Chinese people. Why couldn't he celebrate it alone?

With the thought in mind, Zhang Xiaoqiang glanced at the watch on his wrist. It was already noon. He started to get busy, heating a pot of water on the electric stove with a bucket, indulging in the luxury of taking a bath. It was his first bath since the apocalypse began. Feeling refreshed, he changed into clean clothes. He poured out the dirty bathwater, black and murky, and went to the kitchen.

A bowl of spicy boiled fish, a plate of braised pork, a steamed egg, and a large bowl of cabbage soup were laid out on the table. Three sets of chopsticks and bowls were placed on the table, representing his parents and younger sister. Besides his father's chopsticks, there was a wine glass filled with liquor. Zhang Xiaoqiang poured himself a glass of "Great Wall Jie Ban Na" dry red wine and savored it slowly.

Unconsciously, he finished a bottle of dry red wine. Still feeling melancholic, he wanted more alcohol. He picked up a bottle of "Daohua Xiang" white liquor and poured it into his mouth. Half a bottle of white liquor went down his throat, and in his drunken haze, he seemed to have returned to the past, with his family sitting around, his mother talking about trivial matters, his father ignoring everything and slowly sipping his wine while occasionally picking up a bite of food and washing it down with white liquor, and his sister clamoring for a new pair of shoes.

Intense headache woke Zhang Xiaoqiang up abruptly. He lifted the blanket and stumbled out of bed. The chilly air sent shivers down his spine. He grabbed the water bottle and drank it all in one breath, relieving the dryness in his mouth from the night before.

He heated the leftover soup and rice from yesterday using the electric stove, eating it as breakfast. He had drunk too much wine last night, leaving a bitter taste in his mouth. He couldn't even discern the flavor of the breakfast in his mouth.

After completing the morning tasks, Zhang Xiaoqiang took a break and stood on the windowsill with his MP9 military sniper crossbow, practicing aiming at the zombies below. He wasted half of the 80 steel balls he had under the guise of practice, but he didn't want to use any of the six crossbow arrows because they were hard to retrieve once shot. After dozens of shooting practices, his accuracy had improved significantly, and he no longer missed his targets.

Using the crosshair of the MP9 sniper crossbow scope, he aimed at an agile evolved mutant zombie. As the zombie wandered, his MP9 followed its movements. The zombie in the scope became restless and pounced in a certain direction.

"Something's happening?" Zhang Xiaoqiang put down the crossbow and picked up a 10x magnification telescope, focusing his gaze on it. In his line of sight, the zombie attacked another agile zombie, and the ordinary zombies around them began to gather around.

"The zombies are fighting each other?" Zhang Xiaoqiang held the telescope dumbfoundedly. He observed the attacked zombie through the telescope.

It was an agile mutant zombie that appeared stronger and more agile than the average one. It was around 1.4 meters tall, a whole section shorter than regular zombies, hunching its back and moving quickly. Other zombies couldn't catch up to it no matter how they lunged, and it held something in its hands, feeding it into its mouth.

At first, Zhang Xiaoqiang couldn't see what it was holding. It was only when it faced him that he saw a rat's tail sticking out from its hands.

 The rat was small, so the commotion didn't last long. After the rat was eaten, the zombie returned to calmness.

Watching the slightly stronger agile mutant zombie below return to the opposite side of the street, where there was a row of old tiled houses and a gutter at the corner, Zhang Xiaoqiang realized that the rat must have run out from the gutter.

"Could it be that the D virus only affects humans?" Zhang Xiaoqiang pondered, recalling the power-type mutant zombie he killed two days ago.

"D virus + flesh + rainwater = zombie evolution?" Zhang Xiaoqiang began to understand the reason behind the zombie's evolution.