In the depths of winter in 2026, a sudden, unknown virus swept across the globe. The infected lost their minds and became bloodthirsty walking corpses, while civilization collapsed amid screams and cries of agony. Hancheng, a major industrial city in the north, was sealed off by both snow and zombies, becoming a dead city cut off from the world.
There are no supernatural powers, no cultivation, and no saviors descending from the heavens. There is only a group of ordinary people trapped by fate in Hancheng: Chen Mo, a former mechanic, trying to survive with his younger sister in an apartment building without water or electricity; Zhou Weiguo, a retired criminal investigator, using a lifetime of experience to search the ruins for a chance at survival; Lin Xi, a recent college graduate, forced to learn to wield a weapon amid fear and despair; and truck driver Zhang Tiezhu, pharmacy clerk Su Qing, wandering singer A Jie, and others. They were strangers, but the instinct to survive forced them to band together. They searched for food and water among the rubble, looked for a way out while pursued and surrounded by hordes of corpses, and struggled to make choices as humanity was put to the test.
The bitter cold could freeze their limbs, zombies could tear their flesh apart, hunger could devour their reason, and betrayal could pierce their trust. They had to fight not only the ever-approaching tide of corpses, but also the freezing thirty degrees below zero, dwindling supplies, the constant threat of infighting, and the darkest corners of human nature after the fall of civilization. From holding out in a single apartment building, to fighting over a neighborhood, to breaking out of the entire city, they searched for a glimmer of light amid the ashes and protected one another in desperate circumstances, just to live through another dawn in this dead city.
This is no hero's epic, only a record of ordinary people struggling to survive. Every step is taken through blood and despair, and every breath could be their last.
