“The surname’s Zhou. Rong, as in warfare, not the ‘Rong’ in Huang Rong.”

“We've been stuck in this godforsaken T City for over half a month, haven't seen a cent of our field allowance, and our bullets and provisions are hitting rock bottom. In all this chaos, even getting gas feels like we're thieves.”

“How do you think this virus broke out? A mutated rabies virus? Or some deranged genetic warfare waged against our country by American imperialists and the Western powers? A couple of days ago, the guys and I were still watching the National News, but as of last night, even the TV signals and shortwave radio broadcasts are gone. A shame, I've been following 'The People's City Guard Team' and 'The People's Bureau of Radio and Television' for over half a year without missing an episode. But the biggest shame is…”

With a click, Zhou Rong lit a cigarette and took a deep drag. Looking back, he saw his squad members trembling. The side window of the vehicle was wide open, and wind was whistling in.

“G-gone,” a younger squad member said. “He just climbed out the window…”

“When did he leave?”

“Around the time of the National News.”

Zhou Rong was silent for a moment, then said with no small amount of regret, “A pity. I was just about to recommend season eight of 'The People's NDRC' to him.”

·

The Zombie horde had been lured to the southeast, so now only a dozen or so Living Dead were roaming the street. The young man landed nimbly on his feet, hugged the corner of a wall in a few steps, and then slipped into a ransacked pharmacy.

An incandescent light flickered overhead. The walls were covered in splattered blood, and a few dismembered bodies had crushed a glass counter. One could only imagine the horrific scene that had taken place here during the outbreak.

With growing calls for racial and gender equality, the ban on Omega Pheromone Inhibitors had been lifted in many countries, though they remained strictly controlled prescription drugs. The young man held a carbine at the ready, circled around the body of a pharmacist slumped over a counter, and smashed the glass case with the butt of his gun. Upon seeing the familiar vials, he let out an imperceptible sigh of relief, quickly prepared a dose, and injected it into a vein in his arm.

The pharmacy had likely been looted several times, but some supplies remained in a corner—protein powder, nut bars, energy drinks, and the like. He picked up a blood-soaked canvas backpack from a corpse, swept everything he could carry into it, and also managed to find two packets of water purification tablets.

After doing all this, he looked up and saw himself in a shattered mirror by the counter.

His motorcycle helmet and jacket reeked of rust, his jeans were stained beyond their original color, and his high-top boots were caked with dried, rotting flesh.

He suddenly noticed something, tugged his zipper down slightly, and pulled a pendant out from his collar.

It was an ordinary brass locket, the size of a pocket watch. Inside was an old photograph, pressed under a thin sheet of crystal.

A young couple holding their five- or six-year-old son smiled out from it. The wife was Caucasian, with flaxen hair and amber eyes; her exceptional beauty was clearly visible, even with the limited photography techniques of years past. The husband was distinctly Asian, with clear, refined features and a scholarly air, and a face that was incredibly familiar.

—His own face.

The young man closed his eyes, his breathing ragged as fragmented images flashed through his mind like lightning: a violently shaking aircraft cabin, horrific screams, mutilated corpses, flying shell casings, a silver briefcase that glinted coldly…

The perspective abruptly pulled back. Under a cold, gray morning sky, military boots stomped through grass and dew, and a harsh voice barked, ringing in every soldier's ears: '…There is no tomorrow, no hope. Rescue will never come. A single mistake means eternal damnation…'

'You will be the last living people on this planet to fight the undead!…'

The young man shook his head subconsciously and went to rub his brow, but his hand hit the hard surface of his helmet.

“Watch out!”

A powerful force slammed into him from the side, tackling him to the ground with a loud thud. The young man instinctively went to grab his attacker's neck, but in the next moment, deafening gunfire erupted in the room!

A swift storm of bullets blew the storeroom door in the corner off its hinges. The few Living Dead behind it collapsed in a heap, twitching and convulsing, until a moment later they became a motionless pile of flesh and blood.

Zhou Rong lowered his gun, spat out his cigarette butt, and casually ground it out with his foot. “You two alright?”

The young man shoved his “attacker” away, sat up, and pressed his fingers to his brow, his head splitting.

“Hello, we just came in and saw the Zombies pushing open the storeroom door…” Yan Hao got up, extending a hand to the young man on the floor. The latter took his hand to stand up, then lifted off his motorcycle helmet. “Thanks.”

Yan Hao: “…”

“?”

The handsome Mr. Yan looked away. Despite his instinctive attempt to hide it, the blush on his fair face was quite obvious. He gave a deliberate cough and said, “It's… it's nothing.”

Zhou Rong found this quite interesting. He stroked his chin for a moment and asked with a grin, “Brother, you here looking for food?”

—If the masses in this apocalypse voted on a top ten list of the worst pickup lines, that one would definitely be number one.

The young man didn't answer. He picked up his backpack, slung it over his right shoulder, and holding the carbine he'd swiped from Yan Hao with its muzzle pointed loosely toward the ground, he moved around the two men and headed for the door.

But as he passed by, Zhou Rong grabbed his arm. “Hey there…”

“You were following me?”

The two men stared at each other at close range. In the trashed pharmacy, an invisible bowstring seemed to draw taut. After a long moment, Zhou Rong gave a humble smile. “What are you talking about? Such hurtful words…”

“…When I'm clearly just being responsible for the lives and property of the people.”

The young man sized Zhou Rong up again carefully, feeling he had misjudged him before. This man couldn't be from the local troops; he had to be a veteran scoundrel who'd been discharged and was now illegally using military equipment.

“Stop sizing me up and come with us. No one's after your two bags of crackers.” Zhou Rong casually flicked a piece of splattered flesh off the young man's shoulder, not seeming disgusted at all, and said, “We're heading to the city center shelter to meet up with our teammates, pick up civilians, transmit a location signal, and get the local government to send a helicopter to pick us up—T City is going to be cleansed by a nuke tomorrow. Here, these are my papers.”

From his chest, Zhou Rong's bloodstained, fingerless-gloved hand carefully took out a kraft paper envelope. He opened it to reveal an official letter of introduction from a military unit, stamped with a red seal.

He brazenly waved it in front of the young man's face before carefully tucking the official letter back inside his protective vest. “You won't get anywhere on your own,” he said. “Individual heroism is out of the question. It's best to accept the organization's arrangements… What was your name again?”

There was silence. The young man's gaze fell to the ground, where an overturned medicine box lay by his feet. On it were the words, “XX City Si Nan Chinese Herbal Medicine Co., Ltd. (Yue 2011XXXX).”

“…Si Nan,” the young man said hoarsely.

“‘Nan,’ as in south.”

·

Half an hour later.

“Their bodily fluids are highly toxic. A bite results in 100% infection and death, followed by mutation. The mutation speed varies from person to person. The shortest observed mutation time is fifty seconds, counted from when the infected's heart stops. The longest exceeds twenty-four hours, during which time the speed of rigor mortis and decomposition is no different from that of an ordinary corpse.”

Si Nan lifted his eyelids. “Where did you get your observation subjects?”

“Several of my squad members,” Zhou Rong said, taking a sip of water.

On both sides of the vehicle, seven or eight special forces soldiers sat in rows, constantly being jolted from side to side as the front of the vehicle rammed into Zombies blocking the road.

Beside Zhou Rong, Yan Hao pulled a paper bag from behind him and gestured for Si Nan, who was sitting opposite, to take it.

—Inside the paper bag were a few high-protein chocolate bars and military-issue compressed biscuits.

Si Nan casually tossed the bag back to him, pointed to his own backpack to indicate he had his own, and immediately asked Zhou Rong, “Are you the local garrison?”

“When the virus first broke out, some experts thought it was a mass rabies outbreak, so the first batch of infected were sent to be monitored by the army. As a result, the local garrison was logically wiped out.” Zhou Rong spread his hands in a gesture of perfunctory mourning and said, “If you go to the military barracks now, you'll find tens of thousands of armed Living Dead locked inside, packed together and writhing… It's truly a hell for anyone with a fear of dense crowds.”

“Then why did you come to T City?”

“On a mission,” Yan Hao said quietly from the side.

Si Nan glanced over. Yan Hao was staring intently at the swaying floor of the vehicle, his lips pressed into a thin, tight line.

“We came here on a mission. Had some bad luck, ran into the Zombie outbreak, so we temporarily changed our objective to rescuing civilians at the shelter.” Zhou Rong asked casually, “What about you, little bro?”

Si Nan didn't answer. “How did your mission go?”

He had thought this squad's objective was the same as Tang Hao's group—to seize Omegas from the war-torn area, these so-called precious strategic resources. To his surprise, Zhou Rong sighed and said melancholically, “I had some bad luck this time… The mission target is dead. I'm probably going to get disciplined when I get back…”

“Not necessarily dead,” Yan Hao suddenly said again in a low voice.

The other squad members all looked at the two of them. Zhou Rong retorted, “You think you could survive a free fall from nine thousand meters?”

Yan Hao fell silent.

“Rong-ge!” the driver shouted from the front. “The latest road map is up, come take a look at the route!”

Zhou Rong got up and went to the driver's cabin, clapping Yan Hao heavily on the shoulder as he passed.

Si Nan suddenly realized that whenever he spoke with Zhou Rong, Yan Hao would often appear, handing something over or interjecting, seemingly trying to make his presence known, whether intentionally or not.

Why, though?

Yan Hao suddenly coughed into his fist and offered a pack of soft Chunghwa Cigarettes. “Smoke?”

Si Nan's features were distinctly Asian, but his pupils, like his mother's, were amber. When he stared at someone motionlessly like that, it often gave the illusion of an inorganic, cold quality.

He stared at Yan Hao like this for a good ten seconds before shaking his head. “I don't smoke, thanks.”

“…”

Yan Hao seemed a little nervous. He gave him a smile and took out a cigarette for himself, but didn't light it. He just fiddled with it, turning it over and over in his fingers, as if using the motion to alleviate some kind of emotion.

A moment later, Zhou Rong returned to the rear cabin with a gear bag, sat down with his legs spread wide, and sighed as he took out his equipment. “This really isn't easy—at our current speed, we'll reach the shelter in another two hours. I just don't know what the Zombie density is like in the city center streets. In a bit, I'll get on the vehicle-mounted machine gun and lay down some covering fire along the way. You guys get some sleep… What is it, little bro? Why are you looking at me?”

Zhou Rong opened a metal box of gun parts, casually took a ruby earring stud from one of the tool slots, and fastened it to his right ear.

Si Nan: “…”

Si Nan, sitting opposite them, shifted his gaze from Zhou Rong's ear to Yan Hao's ear. Two identical rubies glinted in the dim light of the cabin.

In that instant, his confusion was resolved. He felt he understood something.

“My apologies,” Si Nan said sincerely. He stood up, patted Yan Hao's shoulder, and without a backward glance, slipped into the front cabin and sat in the passenger seat.

Yan Hao: “…???”

An eerie silence fell over the rear of the vehicle.

However, Si Nan's intentions were entirely benevolent. He ignored it, gave the driver a nod to apologize for the intrusion, and then closed his eyes to feign sleep.