Picking Up Special Marine Creatures While Going to the Sea [Apocalypse]” - Chapter 1

The first chapter is super long, like 4.5k words. Prolly the longest ch1 I’ve edited. Didn’t go to split it since it’s the first chapter. Further chapters will be split if word count goes beyond 3.5k.

Chapter 1 – The Days of the End Times

It’s exactly the 32nd day of the zombie virus outbreak, and it’s sunny.

Waves crashed onto the beach, taking with them grains of sand that shimmered with a fine golden luster as they receded. Seagulls circled over the intertidal zone, swooping down from time to time and rising again with tiny, slender fish clutched in their long beaks.

The seaside village was bathed in golden sunlight. As the sun rose higher, there was no movement in the village, as if everyone was collectively immersed in a dream that continued from the previous night.

With a squeak.

The gate of a courtyard quietly opened a crack, and an eye peeked out from the crack.

The pupils are extremely black, the eyelashes are long and slightly curled, and the tails of the eyes are slightly raised.

The almond-shaped eye quickly looked around, confirming that there was no “person” on the path in front of the house, before opening the door further and stepping out.

The person was wearing a very simple outfit: a white long-sleeved sweatshirt on the upper body and a pair of black sweatpants on the lower body, with the trouser legs tucked into mid-calf rain boots.

In his left hand, he held a red plastic bucket, in which were placed upside down a pair of red-handled eel tongs and an oyster hook. A pair of worn work gloves, marked by age, were casually draped over these two tools that were used to catch fish.

His right hand was tightly gripping a shovel, with veins bulging on the back of his white hand, indicating that the owner of the hand was ready to pick it up and swing it as a weapon at any time.

Su Ran was on guard. As soon as he took a step, he felt something pressing against his right leg.

Looking back, he saw a large dog with fluffy silver-white hair pressing its nose against his calf, panting heavily, its tail wagging excitedly, as if it was trying hard to squeeze out of the door.

“Shh! Go back!” Su Ran lowered his voice and waved his right hand, “It’s too dangerous outside, don’t follow me out!”

The big dog made a soft whimpering sound, and its tail was wagging so hard that its butt was shaking.

Su Ran frowned and said, “If you don’t behave, you won’t have meat to eat today, okay?”

“Woo–” The big dog stomped its feet, as if it still wanted to “argue”.

Seeing that Su Ran was not affected at all, the dog compromised and retreated back to the yard, looking at him eagerly.

“Stay home obediently,” Su Ran slowly closed the door, hesitated for a moment, and then whispered, “Don’t bark if you hear any noise… understood?”

The big dog exhaled.

Su Ran just assumed that it had understood.

There was nothing he could do if the dog didn’t understand.

He closed the door, then turned around, facing the path outside his house, took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly.

He took a step out into the sunlight.

•|•

More than a month has passed since the zombie virus outbreak.

There were originally more than 200 people in their village, but now including him, there are only two families left, with a total of six people.

However, this was also the situation from a week ago. His next door neighbour had told him this before he left. For more than a month, Su Ran had been staying at home with no contact outside, passively receiving information from the outside world. Today was his first time going out.

A week had passed, and no one knew whether the two families were still safe.

Su Ran walked cautiously on the village path, paying close attention to the movements around him.

The sun was quite strong, and after walking for a while, a thin layer of sweat had already appeared on his back.

Although Lu’an Island is an island, it has four distinct seasons, and it is not usually this hot in March.

Su Ran suddenly came to his senses – he was too nervous, his whole body was so tense that he broke out in a sweat.

He took another deep breath and let it out slowly, relaxing his muscles.

•|•

Daytime is the time for zombies to “rest”.

They would follow the habits of their previous life, return to their respective homes, curl up in the shadows and hibernate, and will not be easily lured out.

Therefore, it is relatively safe during the day.

Su Ran tried his best to make his footsteps light, like a kitten slipping around a corner, leaving no trace.

His house is close to the beach, only about ten minutes away by foot.

But out of selfish motives, he took a long detour today and visited the homes of the two surviving families.

One of the families was Aunt Li’s, who used to love chatting with people at the village entrance.

Aunt Li and her husband live here. The couple had no children and were dependent on each other for survival.

Su Ran was peeking at their door.

The door was closed and the curtains were drawn. Su Ran looked for a long time but could not see anyone.

Aunt Li is famous for hoarding vegetables and complains every day that the refrigerator at home is full. They should be able to hold up their stock, and since they also grow some vegetables in the yard… there shouldn’t be any problem.

Su Ran then left and continued moving forward.

He turned left at the corner ahead, then turned right, and at the end of the path was another survivor’s home, Sister Zhao’s home.

Sister Zhao divorced her husband last year and returned to the island to work as a tour guide.

Her parents initially urged her to go on blind dates, but later, when they saw that her career was flourishing and her life was getting better and better, they gradually came to terms with it and stopped caring about it.

The three of them lived together. In the past, when Su Ran passed by their door, he could always hear Sister Zhao’s hearty laughter and the sound of her phone calls. But at this moment, the yard was so quiet that it seemed as if no one was there.

Su Ran stood in silence for a while, then turned and left.

He was alone, walking through the quiet village and came to the beach. When his feet stepped on the soft sand, the depression in his chest was finally released.

The sea breeze blew towards him, bringing with it a salty smell.

The seagulls cried out and circled over the sea surface which had already retreated a lot.

Just looking at this sight, it seems as if the end of the world has never come.

It seemed as if the world was still peaceful. Even on a beach like this that only the villagers knew about, tourists would come chatting and laughing after a while.

Su Ran was in a daze for a long time. He shook his head to get rid of all the chaotic thoughts, took out the work gloves from the bucket, put them on, and stepped out.

After the zombie virus broke out, global signals soon had problems, various infrastructures were destroyed, and human civilization regressed by several levels.

Of course, there is no internet available now, and there is no tide table that one could easily find. Fortunately, as a child who grew up by the sea, Su Ran knew how to calculate the time of high tide and low tide.

He had come at the perfect time today.

It was twelve o’clock noon, the tide had receded by half, and it would recede to the bottom around 1:30 in the afternoon and then start to rise.

He was the only small figure on the endless beach. No longer worried about his footsteps attracting zombies, he ran out and began to look for seafood under his feet.

It’s just two days after the fifteenth day of the lunar calendar, and there’s still a high tide today, so there should be a lot of seafood.

After a while, Su Ran found a small bulge on the beach.

He quickly squatted down and shoveled the sand, and in a few seconds he dug out a clam half the size of his palm.

It’s a good sign.

Su Ran threw the clam into the bucket and started to get excited.

He dug up more than a dozen clams nearby, some big and some small.

The tide continued to recede, and he followed the tide. After digging up half a bucket of clams, he stood up, stretched his shoulders and neck, and thought, ‘let’s get some big stuff, some fish, crabs, or octopus… After all, it was a high tide!’

Unfortunately, things don’t always go as planned.

Su Ran searched for a long time, but all he found were clams. Apart from that, he also picked up a lot of snails and mussels from a reef.

The initial excitement quickly wore off, and he raised his arm to wipe the sea water that had splashed on his face, feeling a little puzzled.

Was there a breathing hole in the sand that he had overlooked? Apparently not.

He wandered around until 2:30 in the afternoon and went home regretfully.

In summary, this trip was both smooth and not smooth.

•|•

After arriving home, Su Ran immediately moved the abandoned wooden wardrobe left next to the door to prop it up behind the door.

Although it seemed that zombies would not consciously bang on the door at the moment, it is still safer to reinforce the door.

Fortunately, his father did not sell this old wardrobe after he bought a new one two months ago.

Su Ran took a breath, took off his work gloves and threw them into the bucket, then squatted down and started to rub Xue Tuan, his dog.

Xue Tuan is a local dog. Although many people have mistaken it for some kind of wolfdog, it is indeed a genuine second-generation local dog. Su Ran’s mother adopted it from a friend’s house whose dog had given birth and raised it since it was a pup.

She is three years old this year and loves to act like a spoiled child and is smart, but it is heartless and cannot be a watchdog. The whole family treats it like a child.

For more than a month, Xue Tuan and Su Ran were the only one and a half people at home, relying on each other. It only took them two or three days to get used to it.

Su Ran gave Xue Tuan enough emotional value, stood up, patted his trouser legs, picked up the bucket and went to work. Xue Tuan followed him with his tail wagging.

Su Ran’s home was a three-story house with a yard of more than 60 square meters.

After entering the gate, there was a car parked on the left side of the yard, with a lot of dust accumulated on it. His father usually drove this car, but he didn’t drive it often. Instead, he liked to ride an electric bike when he went out.

The day before the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, his father sent his younger sister, who was in her second year of high school, to school. The two of them took a taxi to the other side of the island and then took a bus.

His mother is a nurse and works in a city hospital on the other side of the island. She usually lives in a rented house near the hospital, walks to and from get off work, and only comes home occasionally.

His brother is 26 years old and also works in another city. This year he was only at home on New Year’s Eve and the first day of the New Year, and left on the second day.

In short, it just so happened that when the zombie virus broke out, only Su Ran and Xue Tuan were at home, so they are the only ones guarding the house until now.

Let’s talk about the yard.

The car was parked there and no one touched it for years.

There was a flower bed nearly one meter wide next to the wall behind the car, extending from the beginning to the end of the wall. The front half was planted with roses, and bamboo planted by his grandfather many years ago grew in the back half.

Growing on the wall is a navel orange tree that was also planted by his grandfather many years ago.

In the aisle between the pile of bamboo at the back and the house, his mother placed tables, chairs and parasols in a very romantic way. Whenever guests came, she would invite them to sit there.

On one side are bamboo, and on the other side are hydrangeas planted along the corners of the house. If you come here at the right time, you can feel the breath of nature in your own yard.

On the right half of the yard, there are two rectangular plots of land, each measuring 1 meter by 3 meters.

Both the land and the flowers are usually taken care of by his father. These two plots of land are always used to the fullest extent and are planted with various crops in the spring.

Of course, the time has not yet come, and many spots on this land still remain empty after the soil has been turned over. The seedlings that Su Ran had grown in the past month are still in the simple seedling shed on the wall.

He poured all the clams, snails and mussels he picked up from the sea into his own seawater tank – it used to be used to raise ornamental fish, but later the fish died, so his father gave up completely and turned into a seafood stall owner in the vegetable market. He only kept the food he would eat in the next two days in the tank – letting them spit out the sand and waiting to be eaten tonight or tomorrow.

Then he washed his face and went to the field to dig potatoes and black cabbage.

Xue Tuan followed him in and out all the time.

The potatoes and black cabbage were planted before the New Year and they had been eating them for a while.

The potatoes were dug out, and there were eight or nine in a bunch. The smallest was only the size of a quail egg, and the largest could not be held in one hand. Except for one that was eaten by insects, the others were all good.

The black cabbage is green and growing vigorously. If he doesn’t eat it now, it may sprout after a while.

After washing the vegetables, Su Ran went to the induction cooker in the kitchen.

The gas supply is no longer there, but the electricity is still there.

As early as five years ago, when various natural disasters began to occur frequently, people gradually learned some things.

Those who have the conditions to install photovoltaic power generation equipment should install it.

If one had the conditions to purchase multi-functional water filtration equipment, they should definitely do so.

Su Ran’s mother had the foresight to buy a complete set of photovoltaic power generation equipment five years ago. The photovoltaic panels are now still on the roof of their house and are operating continuously.

Hidden in the kitchen cabinet is a small multifunctional household water filter that suddenly came on the market three years ago. It can purify and filter rainwater and seawater into drinkable water and supply it to the whole house.

The water filter is usually connected to the tap water pipe. After the zombie virus broke out and the tap water supply stopped, Su Ran connected the other end of it to the water tank that they bought home three years ago.

This water tank used to be placed under the stairs on the first floor, but now it has been moved by Su Ran to the outside of the kitchen window and placed next to the hydrangeas. It can store up to 5 tons of water, is 2.2 meters high and 1.8 meters in diameter.

It’s not pretty to be next to the hydrangeas, but it’s the end of the world, so who cares.

Su Ran steamed the potatoes neatly, then cut the black cabbage and the lean meat that had been thawed in the refrigerator last night, and started to stir-fry them.

After the oil is hot, add the lean meat first, then the vegetables.

After stir-frying, take it out of the pan and cook the remaining lean meat without adding salt. It is specially used to mix with Xue Tuan’s dog food.

Xue Tuan sat there with his eyes wide open, his saliva dripping from his mouth.

After a simple lunch was ready, Su Ran walked through the house, came to the door, put down the dog bowl, sat on the steps in front of the door, picked up the bowl and started eating.

Xue Tuan eats in a hurry and always makes a gurgling sound. Just listening to it can make people imagine how quickly he eats.

Su Ran grumbled to himself as he ate a potato: “I don’t know how long the meat in the refrigerator will last. Eat it slowly and savor it, okay?”

Xue Tuan: “Huluhuhuhuhu!”

“You’ll have no food to eat after this one, you little idiot.”

“Purrrrrrrrrr!”

“You clearly don’t know how to cherish.”

Su Ran nodded at Xue Tuan’s head with disdain, then his expression softened and he gently smoothed its fur with the back of his hand.

One dog and one human ate their meal quietly.

After eating and washing the dishes, he picked up the mobile phone on the windowsill and sat back down on the steps.

When he turned on the screen, the upper right corner still showed “No signal”.

When he opened WeChat, all the messages were before February 12.

At the top is the news from his mother. His mother went back to work before the Lantern Festival. On February 12, knowing that he was alone at home and it was the Lantern Festival, she transferred some money to him and asked him to order some takeout.

But there was really nothing delicious on the island, so Su Ran picked some vegetables from his own garden and ate some. As for the money, he planned to return it to his mother after the Lantern Festival.

Su Ran’s eyes dimmed a little.

The second message was from his younger sister. On February 11th, Su Yixin had just stepped onto the bus when she remembered something urgent and sent him a message: “Ahhhh, brother, the millet I bought has been delayed. I forgot to change the address to the school. Can you please sign for it and record an unboxing video? [Kitten Crying.jpg]”

What a pity, that box of grain is probably stuck on the road forever.

Then there are his college roommate’s, his brother’s, his father’s…

Su Ran is 19 years old and a sophomore in college.

He returned home during the winter break, only to be completely stranded on by the zombie virus.

He silently looked at the chat history for a while, then switched to the call history page. The top two call records caught his eye.

One was on March 9th, a week ago, at 23:55. That night when his neighbour left the village, his father called and they spoke for a minute.

The other one was on February 13, the day the zombie virus broke out. His mother called him at 11:23 am. The call was only 12 seconds long.

Su Ran stared at these two records for a long time.

“Wuwuwu…”

Xue Tuan arched his arm restlessly, trying to bury his head in his arm.

Su Ran put down the phone, hugged its head, and murmured softly: “We must wait for them to come home… Be obedient…”

After taking a nap in the afternoon, Su Ran started to think after waking up.

Although the harvest today was not great, the smooth round trip is a good sign.

——He could go out.

Of course, it is not impossible to stay at home. Even if the meat in the refrigerator is eaten up, he could survive by eating only vegetables. But from a personal point of view, Su Ran didn’t like to lock himself up at home like this.

The more than one month of shutting out the world was a sign of decadence, not cowardice or escape.

Even if it is the end of the world, he still wants to explore a lifestyle that is close to “normal life”.

And once he finds a new way of life, maybe he could also help Aunt Li and Sister Zhao’s family…

His thoughts stopped here.

Su Ran closed his eyes and continued thinking.

There is a high tide today, but it will probably be a medium tide tomorrow.

After that, there will be low tides and dead tides, and the seafood will become less and less. He will have to wait for another half a month for the next high tide.

Did he want to go out again tonight while there is still a low tide?

The beach he went to during the day is not suitable. He can try walking to the south. There are more reefs in the south, and there are more things hidden in the cracks of the reefs.

The low tide in the evening will start around 7:30, and it will definitely be dark by then, and the zombies will become active.

But if there aren’t any zombies wandering around the road from his house to the beach after dark, then it’s not impossible…

Wouldn’t that be a bit too reckless?

Su Ran touched Xue Tuan’s furry head and thought secretly.

•|•

Dusk filled the sky.

After dinner, Su Ran still didn’t give up and went to the window of his bedroom on the third floor, looking out the door.

In fact, he had observed for some time before. On the road from his home to the beach, the families along the way were relatively “homebodies”. They spent most of their time wandering around in the yard, and would only push the door open and come out when they heard the meow of a cat or the chirping of a bird.

The reason he was so nervous during the day was that it was his first time going out after the zombie virus outbreak.

At this moment, he could see Fang Bo’s house across the street. Fang Bo and Aunt Fang have already come to the yard and are dancing with their heads shaking.

Their son also works in another place. He went away before the Lantern Festival and his life or death is unknown now.

Looking further away, the doors of the two households were only slightly ajar as usual, and no strange figures emerged from them…

Su Ran’s heart was pounding.

Should he not go out?

If his parents were home, they would definitely hit him hard on the head.

His dad is a taciturn person who doesn’t speak much and would just stare at him. His mom would yell angrily, “Why are you leaving?”

But unfortunately, there is no one at home now.

Su Ran’s eyes flashed brightly in the darkness. After a while, he turned around and went downstairs.

•|•

“Wuwuwu…”

Xue Tuan stuck to his feet as usual and followed him all the way to the gate.

Su Ran raised his index finger to his lips, signaling it not to make any sound.

The big dog with silver-white hair sat down with a wronged look on its face, its two front paws still stomping on the ground.

“I’ll be right back if things get bad. Don’t bark when I’m gone, okay?”

“Wuwuwu…”

“Xue Tuan is the best and smartest, right?”

Su Ran stroked the big dog’s head twice, signaling it to sit still, then quietly opened the door. Just like during the day, he carefully looked around and made sure there was no danger before going out with the bucket.

At night, the street lights in the village are no longer on, and it is pitch black everywhere. In theory, one can’t see one’s own hand in front of yourself.

But a week ago, Su Ran discovered that his night vision had suddenly improved dramatically.

Even in the dark without a light, he could clearly see what was in his field of vision.

He held his breath and ran on tiptoe past the door of Fangbo’s house.

After quickly passing two houses, he reached a corner and turned right. Su Ran glanced towards the avenue on the right, and his heart beat faster—no zombies! The zombies really didn’t come out!

He quickly ran through this long road, turned left at the next intersection, and there were still no zombies. He ran all the way to the beach!

Finally, he arrived safely!

He let out a sigh of relief.

The fishy and salty sea breeze blew, and there was an even more boundless darkness ahead. Only a slightly incomplete moon hung in the darkness, illuminating the sea in the distance.

When Su Ran was a child, he would often go to the beach with his grandfather in the middle of the night. Every time he stood in this vast dark world, he always felt a sense of fear as if an indescribable giant was pressing down on him.

However, now, when he saw this vast world again, he only felt a full sense of security in his heart.

Su Ran walked a little further along the beach, and only stopped and looked ahead after confirming that the distance was safe.

The tide had just started to recede, so he would have to wait a little longer before he could start going into the beach.

It just so happened that he had to go south and walk a little further.

So he turned around, stepped on the sand, and walked south step by step, making a crunching sound under his feet.

The wind was quite strong at night. If he hadn’t worn long pants in the summer, his calves would have been stung by the sand blown up by the wind.

Su Ran walked quietly for about ten minutes and felt that he was almost there. Just as he was about to sit down, he suddenly noticed something lying on the beach in front of him, reflecting the light.

…a big fish?

It seems… it’s a super big one!

The tide had just started to recede and he already found such a large stock?!

Su Ran was excited and ran over immediately. When he took a closer look, he was stunned.

Lying on the beach in front of him was a creature that was half fish and half human. It looked so typical that Su Ran wondered if he hadn’t even left the house and was instead sleeping and dreaming by the window on the third floor of his house…

It was a… mermaid.