"Can you hold on?" Chuncao asked without turning her head.

After several hours of a tense delivery, Doctor Zheng was on the verge of collapse. Yet, holding the wailing infant in his arms and carrying the faintly breathing new mother on his back, the heavy weight seemed to give him endless courage, and he affirmed, "I can!"

Si Nan said softly, "Stay alert. Upstairs."

Chuncao took the lead, the doctor was in the middle, and Si Nan brought up the rear. Using the brief window as the zombies moved from the first to the third floor, they did their best to move to a higher level.

However, even at full speed, this small survival team had no real speed to speak of. The dragging footsteps of the zombies below grew closer and closer. Finally, a wail sounded from the corner at the end of the corridor—the zombies had caught up!

Si Nan: "Fire!"

Chuncao spun around, aimed, and they both pulled the trigger at the same time.

Doctor Zheng was, after all, a civilian from an era of peace. He screamed in terror at the sudden hail of bullets, vaguely feeling someone pulling him forcefully in the chaos. But in this dark environment with bullets flying everywhere, he couldn't even tell if it was a person or a zombie, and could only subconsciously protect the child.

"Run! Run, run, run!!" A few seconds later, he finally heard someone roaring in his ear. It was Chuncao: "Stairs! Go up!!"

Doctor Zheng ran for his life with the new mother on his back, while Chuncao and Si Nan suppressed the zombie horde with heavy firepower, dragging him to the stairwell. But just as they were about to go up, Chuncao's distorted shriek suddenly rang out: "There are zombies here too! Be careful!"

Si Nan stood in the stairwell, unleashing a torrent of bullets at the zombies in the corridor on this floor while glancing at the lower staircase to his left.

In the flickering light of the constantly firing muzzles, another group of zombies was howling and staggering their way up!

The situation instantly became a pincer attack; their luck couldn't have been worse. Si Nan turned his gun to spray the zombies downstairs, forming a back-to-back defensive posture with Chuncao, while ordering Doctor Zheng without turning his head: "Up! Run upstairs!"

However, Doctor Zheng was carrying one on his back and holding another. Amidst the roaring gunfire and flying bullet casings in the dark, and not being young himself, he nearly tripped after just two steps, almost tumbling and falling down the stairs.

Wang Wen struggled to open her eyes.

It was clearly very dark, but with the wild gunfire behind her and a sliver of moonlight leaking from somewhere, she could still see her daughter's face.

The baby was so small, so delicate, her face flushed red as she constantly struggled with her hands and feet, wailing.

She smiled, struggling to reach out her hand.

'This is my baby's little face.'

'This is my baby's little hand.'

'This is my baby's leg, kicking so strongly.'

'It's so good,' she thought. 'My baby will definitely grow up strong, unlike her useless mother who, at death's door, is still dragging down so many capable, kind-hearted people in this world.'

Doctor Zheng grabbed the handrail and managed to climb the last step. Before he could even steady himself, he suddenly felt a cold hand pat his back.

It was actually a bit terrifying, but in the heat of the crisis, he didn't even have time to react before he heard Wang Wen's hoarse, weak voice right next to his ear say two words: "Run fast."

Immediately after, the weight on his back lightened—Wang Wen had struggled off.

"Don't—" Doctor Zheng realized what was happening and roared in a choked voice, only to see a dark figure lean over and plunge straight down from outside the waist-high stair railing!

Chuncao whipped her head around: "No!!"

With a thud, Wang Wen fell heavily into the horde of zombies!

The fresh blood and flesh momentarily halted the swarm of zombies rushing upstairs. Chuncao and Doctor Zheng were both stunned.

"...Run, run fast," Si Nan's trembling roar sounded. "Don't look, run fast—!"

A brief half-second of paralysis, and then the three of them scrambled up, taking advantage of the gap while the zombies fought over the bloody meal, and rushed upstairs in one go!

The dormitory had ten floors. Doctor Zheng staggered along, holding the child, with Si Nan and Chuncao practically flanking and supporting him as they ran, quickly reaching the top.

The zombies' speed was ultimately no match for the living. By the time they reached the top floor, they could barely hear the shuffling footsteps of the zombies anymore, only hollow howls echoing from all directions, lingering in the stairwell for a long time.

The top floor might have been the former dormitory for the Fertilizer Plant's leadership, with an iron gate blocking it off from the stairwell. Si Nan shot the lock open, let Doctor Zheng and Chuncao go up first, then quickly moved debris from the stairwell to block the iron gate as best he could.

"Si Nan, quick! Over here!"

Chuncao opened a dorm room in the middle of the corridor. Inside was a fairly large suite, even with a sofa and a potted plant. As soon as Doctor Zheng entered, he collapsed from exhaustion, slumping to the floor with the baby in his arms, too weak to even get up.

Si Nan locked the door from the inside, and he and Chuncao pushed the sofa, furniture, and other items into a messy barricade against the entrance.

"Waa... Waa..."

After things quieted down, the baby's cries became particularly distinct. Before Doctor Zheng could even try to soothe her, Chuncao plopped onto the floor, and tears she could no longer hold back fell in streams. "Why did she have to jump?"

Si Nan slumped in a corner, panting heavily, and covered his eyes.

"Why would she kill herself? She just gave birth to her child, how could she bear to do it?"

The baby seemed to have caught the adults' sorrow and despair, waving her arms and kicking her legs, crying herself hoarse. Chuncao hugged the child tightly, overcome with grief: "We were willing to protect her, why did she have to kill herself? Maybe she could have lived, we weren't at a dead end yet!"

Doctor Zheng covered his face, his shoulders shaking continuously. After a long while, he lifted his tear-streaked face and sighed deeply: "If the zombies come up later, I... let me go lure them away. You guys take the child and run. You're soldiers, more useful than an ordinary person like me. You have a better chance of survival..."

"What nonsense are you talking about!" Chuncao retorted fiercely. "You're a doctor, more people need you, you know?!"

Doctor Zheng said dejectedly, "I'm a useless doctor. If I had helped her deliver faster, if I had run faster carrying her, this wouldn't have happened. In the end, it's because I'm useless, I..."

"By that logic, shouldn't I be the first to die?" Si Nan suddenly said coldly from the corner. "I'm not even anything, just a volunteer."

Doctor Zheng and Chuncao shouted at the same time: "Stop it!"

"So don't say things like that until the very end. Maybe Zhou Rong will come for us later." Si Nan let out a breath and reminded them, "Hurry and quiet the baby."

'Will your Captain Zhou really come back, in a situation like this, with a mountain and sea of corpses?'

Doctor Zheng's lips moved, but he didn't voice the question. His attention was immediately drawn to the wailing infant.

It was actually a good thing that a thirty-two-week premature baby could cry so powerfully, but zombies retained basic biological instincts and would chase sounds and the scent of blood. If she kept crying like this, it was only a matter of time before they were drawn here.

A large horde of zombies could knock down the iron gate on the ground floor. How long could the debris in the stairwell and a locked door hold them back? Once the zombies followed the sound, the three of them and the child would undoubtedly be trapped and waiting for death!

Doctor Zheng became anxious. He took the baby from Chuncao's arms and paced back and forth, constantly coaxing her in a low voice: "There, there, don't cry, go to sleep, go to sleep, be good..."

However, the child hadn't had a single drop of milk since birth. The more he coaxed, the more hoarsely she cried, almost to the point of passing out. With such a small baby, they couldn't just stop her from crying—covering her mouth would surely suffocate her. Doctor Zheng was trembling like a leaf in the wind, caught in a dilemma.

"They're coming up," Si Nan said in a low voice, lifting his head after pressing his ear to the floor.

"Waaah... Waaah waaah..."

The baby's urgent wails became everyone's death knell. Doctor Zheng and Chuncao looked at each other, the situation growing more desperate with each passing second.

"Give her to me," Si Nan said.

Doctor Zheng instinctively asked, "What are you going to do?!"

Si Nan pulled down a bedsheet, tore it into strips, and in a few swift moves, tied the baby to his chest with a dead knot. He pushed open the window and looked down.

The open space in front of the dormitory building was densely packed with zombies; it was impossible to see how many there were. In the distance, the entire factory complex had become an ocean of zombies, a force that seemed to number in the tens of thousands, still surging southward.

Si Nan turned his head to look up. Above the window was a drainpipe, and above that was the protruding rooftop.

"Too... too dangerous..." Doctor Zheng said, his voice trembling.

Si Nan tightened the strap of his firearm, securing the submachine gun to his shoulder and back. He spat into his palm and rubbed his hands together.

"Stay in the room, don't make a sound. Chuncao, take care of the doctor." He commanded simply, "Everyone, wait for Zhou Rong to come back and save us."

Then, under the nervous gazes of Chuncao and the doctor, he leaned halfway out the window, hooked his hand onto the drainpipe, tested its weight-bearing capacity, and then did a powerful pull-up.

Doctor Zheng: "Ah!" then immediately clamped his hand over his mouth.

Chuncao leaned out the window, ready to reach out and catch him at any moment. But Si Nan twisted his waist in mid-air, bent his body sideways, and with his outstanding flexibility, hooked his foot onto the rooftop railing. Then, supporting his body with the strength of that single foot, he used the drainpipe above the window to launch himself up!

Thump!

His hand also grabbed the rooftop railing, and he vaulted over it!

For a moment, he and the baby were completely airborne, their only point of support being the ankle hooked in the gap of the railing. Chuncao's heart nearly stopped, only letting out a sudden breath of relief when Si Nan's voice came from above: "Made it!"

"Don't be afraid!" Si Nan shouted from the rooftop. "Keep the door shut, and don't make a sound!"

The baby was crying so hard in his arms she could barely breathe. Si Nan didn't know how to comfort her, so he could only politely rub her little belly with two fingers as he strode toward the only passage between the top floor and the rooftop—the skylight.

The skylight was covered with a wooden plank. Underneath it was a wooden ladder. The facilities in the workers' dormitory were old; the janitors who usually cleaned the rooftop used this ladder to get up and down.

The horde of zombies poured continuously into the building and was already very close to their floor. The baby's loud cries were like a dinner bell, and more and more zombies scrambled upstairs, staggering and crowding toward the wooden ladder, reeking of rot and blood.

Si Nan raised his submachine gun. A moment before pulling the trigger, he suddenly remembered something else, tore a corner from his own clothes, rolled it into two small balls, carefully stuffed them into the baby's ears, and then broke the ladder with a single shot.

"Roar—"

"Roar, roar, roar—!"

The two sections of the wooden ladder fell squarely on the zombie horde, who roared in frustration and waved their hands desperately upward.

Under the glare of numerous living dead, Si Nan slammed the wooden plank shut with a thud and breathed a sigh of relief.

Fortunately, the old building was truly outdated. He had noticed earlier that there was no safety ladder from the stairwell to the rooftop. Otherwise, unless he strangled the baby, everyone would have been finished today.

It was already four-thirty in the morning, the darkest hour before dawn. The moon had set in the west, the stars were hidden, and the earth was like an abyss with its bloody maw wide open.

Si Nan shivered from the cold. He checked his multi-function military watch: minus six degrees.

The baby had no thick swaddling clothes and was already turning blue from the cold, her cries much weaker. He held the child, found a corner that offered some shelter from the wind, and sat down, curling his body as much as possible, pressing the baby's small body against his chest and abdomen. He wrapped his arms around her, trying his best to use his body heat to sustain the fragile life in his arms.

At thirty-two weeks, her gastrointestinal, heart, and lung functions weren't fully developed. After experiencing so many hardships right after birth, it was hard to imagine if she could even survive.

"You have to live," Si Nan murmured. "Your mom is watching us from heaven."

He glanced at the top of the baby's head, covered in soft lanugo, and thought, 'Is this little girl hungry?' But he didn't dare to shout down to Doctor Zheng, fearing that any sound they made would attract the zombies. After pondering for a long time, he couldn't think of a better solution. He was in a situation where he couldn't make something out of nothing. He could only lick his own ring finger clean, a makeshift sterilization, and then offer it to the baby to suck on like a pacifier.

A newborn has a strong survival instinct. She actually sucked on it twice, but when nothing came out, she felt deeply deceived and let out a "Waa!", crying even more fiercely.

'Oh, for crying out loud,' Si Nan thought, 'This little girl is quite picky.'

He steeled himself, bit his own index finger, squeezed out some blood, and offered it to the baby again.

This time, there was at least a warm liquid. The baby's little mouth moved, sucking a couple of times, and then she started to "Waa—" but the sound of her crying seemed a little softer, at least not as heart-wrenching as before.

Si Nan had no other choice but to pray for the girl's digestive system while continuing to squeeze out blood. Soon, he couldn't get any more from his index finger, so he switched to his little finger, then the ring finger of his other hand. The baby sobbed as she latched onto his fingertip, as if suckling her mother's breast, and gradually quieted down, even seeming a bit docile.

Blood at least had some nutrients and should be able to stave off hunger for a while, but it certainly wasn't a long-term solution. Si Nan was afraid the baby might not have issues from drinking the blood, but would get gastroenteritis from the bacteria on his hands, which would be troublesome. So every time before feeding her, he would first carefully lick his own finger clean, which resulted in his mouth tasting of gunpowder.

Five-thirty in the morning.

The night sky had lightened slightly, the sky turning a dim gray. Looking down from the top of the building, the mountain and sea of corpses from last night became slightly clearer, and the devastated factory complex revealed a hazy outline.

Si Nan's consciousness was a bit hazy. He shivered and pressed the baby closer into his arms.

Would Zhou Rong come back?

In truth, he wasn't entirely sure.

The motive for Zhou Rong to return was actually flimsy, but there were many reasons for him not to. He had to deliver the antiviral data and the serum to the South Sea. He had to lead his team to protect the safety of the two vehicles of survivors. He was a special forces squadron leader who could save more civilians if he lived... To put it bluntly, any person with a bit of sense really shouldn't come back at this moment.

But he was Zhou Rong.

He was the Zhou Rong who was boisterous and unrestrained, tyrannical and overbearing, the one who carried hope forward in this dark world, the one who made everyone in the team obey him with their lives.

Si Nan let out a long breath of white vapor, raised his head to gaze into the distance, his eyes wandering aimlessly through the ocean of zombies.

This was an action he had repeated countless times over the past hour. This time, however, his gaze suddenly froze.

At the end of the distant road, bright headlights suddenly flashed, approaching with the roar of an engine. The horde of zombies was mangled under the chassis before they could even dodge, a long road paved with rotten flesh and bone fragments stretching endlessly behind the vehicle.

The front of the vehicle pointed directly at the isolated island of the Fertilizer Plant, completely surrounded by the vast sea of zombies. Then, the window rolled down, and the dark muzzle of a shoulder-fired mortar emerged—

BOOM!

Where the shell landed, the zombie horde exploded, and countless living dead were torn apart and thrown into the air!

The flames were like magnificent fireworks blooming in the night sky, pushing forward against the overwhelming tide of corpses. Amidst the spreading gunpowder smoke and flying shrapnel, the headlights were like a sharp blade from the edge of the long night, cleaving through the sea of death and flesh, overcoming all obstacles between heaven and earth, invincible.