Flowers in Bloom at the End of the World: They Walk Over Corpses

Three months after the red fog descended, the city lies in ruins.

Veterinarian Shen Yanqiu carries her medical kit through hordes of corpses. Whenever her scalpel cracks open a zombie’s skull, she remembers the afternoon she last put a pet to sleep. Back then, she still didn’t know that “mercy” would become the most extravagant luxury in the apocalypse.

Former special police officer Yue Ling swings a fire axe through a security door. Her eyes, behind her goggles, are cold as ice. The little girl in her arms is chewing on half a ration bar, the one Yue Ling rescued from a human traffickers’ den. Now, she’s Yue Ling’s reason to keep going.

Botanist Wen Tang grows potatoes between the supermarket shelves, vines winding around rotten cans. With soil on her fingertips, she whispers to the seedlings, “Grow quickly. We need you to fight.”

When these three exceptionally capable women meet in an abandoned hospital, Shen Yanqiu’s anesthetics, Yue Ling’s tactics, and Wen Tang’s mutant plants become weapons against the “red fog infected.” They’ve seen their own kind kill each other over half a bottle of water, and they’ve rescued supposed allies hiding poisoned needles. Still, they never let go of one another’s hands.