However, Si Nan was not asleep.

He tried to let his mind enter a state of complete void, like a fish in the deep sea, slowly sinking into meditation, capturing the fragmented, cotton-like broken pieces swimming in the depths of his memory.

“...A natural-born weakling, must be supervised...”

“Run, run fast!”

“The humiliation endured today will surely be repaid twofold in the future!...”

A silhouette stood before the tall iron gate in the wind. "Tell your commanding officer to come out," he said indifferently. "I have something to discuss with him."

The next moment, a man with an obscured face walked towards him. Before he could even open his mouth, he was punched hard, blood gushing from his nose and mouth as he fell backward!

Running, cursing, the clamor of voices was deafening. Countless soldiers tried to stop him from the sides, but to no avail. Suddenly, the scene changed. A faint light filtered through the narrow crack of the confinement room's window, outlining the cement platform with a cold shadow. He sat on the edge of the bed with a jacket draped over his shoulders, palms pressed together, fingertips touching his brow. Suddenly, the sound of hurried running and the crisp jangle of keys came from outside the door.

He stood up. The door opened.

“An internal... an internal outbreak. The lab couldn't contain it... The cordon has collapsed. The car is waiting for you outside, hurry and follow me...”

He took a titanium alloy cryo-box and walked out of the confinement room. The faint light at the end of the corridor turned into stars, a long journey under his feet, a dazed trek that seemed to have no end.

Never reaching the end...

The armored vehicle slammed on its brakes. Si Nan's body lurched forward, and he woke with a start.

Instantly, he was face to face with the dense horde of Zombies outside the window. He heard the driver roar, “We've reached the destination! Quick, quick, clear a path and break through! People inside, get ready to receive us—!”

The vehicle-mounted machine gun on the roof spat blinding tongues of flame. Zhou Rong had taken off his jacket and was wearing only a black tank top. His heat-resistant gloves were getting terrifyingly hot from the barrel of the gun as he fired in bursts, forcing back the Zombies at the crossroads.

However, there were simply too many crowded Zombies on the downtown commercial street. Wave after wave was mowed down, yet as far as the eye could see was a sea of Zombies. All the team members had climbed onto the roof to provide fire support, but they could only clear a few meters of empty space, allowing the armored vehicle to inch forward through the mountain of bodies.

This driving speed, comparable to morning rush hour, was extremely dangerous. The vehicle was nearly overturned several times by the endless tide of Zombies. Several team members cried out, almost getting their ankles grabbed and dragged off the vehicle by the Zombies.

Zhou Rong roared into his headset, “Yingjie, get up here and provide fire support! I'll drive!”

The driver responded, opened the roof hatch, and scrambled onto the roof. Zhou Rong took the opportunity to slide into the driver's seat and stomped on the gas pedal!

With a roar, the armored vehicle shot forward dozens of meters, pulling countless living dead under its wheels. Just then, with a crack, the driver's side window was smashed!

“Aargh—” Several withered hands reached through the window at the same time, grabbing for Zhou Rong.

Zhou Rong dodged to the side. Si Nan cooperated in a timely manner, firing several shots from the side to repel the Zombies. “Where's the shelter?”

“Below!”

“Where?!”

Zhou Rong couldn't free his hands and jerked his chin forward.

Several hundred meters away, a shopping mall stood at the end of the central street. A banner with large characters for 'Grand Opening Sale, Shockingly Huge Discounts' fluttered in the air.

Si Nan shot a Zombie's head to pieces and dodged back at the same time. Foul-smelling, grayish-black brain matter splattered all over Zhou Rong. He was heard cursing loudly, “Fuck!”

Si Nan: “Fuck who?”

To Zhou Rong's left were Zombies scrambling to climb through the window; to his right was the armed-and-dangerous Si Nan. After weighing his options, he cursed, “...This damn mall is gonna be the death of me. Why the hell did it have to have a sale? No wonder there are so many people outside! Fuck its ancestors!”

Just then, the radio above crackled to life, the sound very clear in the cockpit where bullet casings were bouncing around. A sharp female voice came through: “0011 calling command! Calling command!! Do you require support? I repeat, do you require support?!”

“Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!” Zhou Rong pushed Si Nan down, slammed on the brakes, and switched on the rooftop intercom. He used nearly all his strength to let out a deafening roar: “Everyone get down—! Seal the roof, now—!”

Before his voice faded, a light suddenly flashed from the top of the distant mall building.

The next moment, a white light shot into the sky, descending like a blanket. A torrent of fire and intense light instantly swept across the land!

The armored vehicle was like a kite with a snapped string in the explosion, instantly thrown more than ten meters. The windows shattered in unison, and everyone let out inaudible roars during the terrifying somersault.

An unknown amount of time passed, seemingly a long century. Si Nan gasped for breath as he regained consciousness. He vaguely felt that something was wrong and struggled to prop up his upper body to look.

In front of his nose was Zhou Rong's camouflage pants... his crotch.

Zhou Rong propped his forehead up with one hand, his mouth twitching. His voice trembled with excruciating pain:

“If I'm crippled, don't you even think about running...”

The team members groaned as they got up. Outside the window, a single rocket launcher had wiped out the Zombies in more than half the city block. The sight was too horrible to look at, and thick smoke shrouded the once-bustling commercial street.

Crackle... crackle... The female voice appeared, coughing, “Hello everyone, are you still alive? I repeat, is anyone still alive?”

Zhou Rong asked, “Chuncao, let's make a deal. Next time, how about we discuss it before you fire? Do you know that your Rong-ge was almost rendered heirless just now?”

Chuncao said, “It's not like you use it anyway, might as well just cut it off.”

Si Nan glanced at Zhou Rong with a strange look.

“What are you trying to say?” Zhou Rong was extremely sensitive to any stimulus at this moment.

“...Nothing.”

'I didn't expect that pretty boy surnamed Yan to be the top one,' Si Nan thought, 'you really can't judge a book by its cover.'

·

Thanks to the rocket launcher, the riddled armored vehicle finally stumbled through the block and reached its final destination—the shelter.

It was the underground warehouse of the shopping mall. In the mid-20th century, it had been an air-raid shelter and possessed an excellent military-grade construction foundation. It had resisted several waves of attacks from the army of the living dead when the infection broke out.

Right now, this underground shelter housed over a thousand people, most of them shoppers and employees from the mall. There were men and women, young and old, and suppressed sobs echoed everywhere.

Zhou Rong finally linked up with his teammates, exclaiming enthusiastically, “Cao'er!”

Chuncao: “Captain!”

Si Nan dodged quickly. Chuncao dashed past, brushing close to his side. The two of them hugged and spun. Zhou Rong effortlessly picked up the girl, who was only as tall as his shoulder, and swung her around twice. If this were a manga, there would definitely be thick, noodle-like tears scattering 360 degrees in all directions right now.

“We're out of bullets,” Chuncao's eyes were filled with desperate, hot tears. “Last night, I took Da Ding, Xiangzi, and the others out to clear the corridors, and we used up all the bullets. That shot from the rooftop just now emptied our last rocket launcher... Luckily, we have enough food. I had the property management people barricade all the warehouse doors and windows, just in case the Zombies charge in again. We can't go up there and fight them hand-to-hand...”

Zhou Rong patted her head and said lovingly, “Call me dad.”

Chuncao immediately: “Dad.”

Zhou Rong ejected two bullets from his gun, grabbed his cheap daughter's hand and opened her palm, placing both bullets in it, then thought for a moment and took one back.

“The last two bullets for the whole squad.” Zhou Rong smiled. “Save it for finishing yourself off.”

Chuncao immediately disowned him as her father and walked away with a cold expression.

At the beginning of the chaos, a total of two to three thousand people had fled to this shelter, but there were already infected individuals among them. After entering the confined space, they turned into Zombies and quickly infected the majority of the survivors.

Fortunately, a few of Zhou Rong's team members contacted the local government and promptly escorted a medical team here. After several rounds of purging, only over a thousand living people remained, all of whom had undergone preliminary tests to confirm there were no potential infected individuals left.

So Chuncao led a few teammates, panting and grunting as they dragged the slain Zombies out to be incinerated and cleared out the Zombies wandering inside the mall and in the safe corridors. Their food hadn't run out, but their ammunition had, so they could only wait anxiously for Zhou Rong to come to their rescue.

“Ahem,” Zhou Rong stepped onto a milk crate, almost hitting his head on the ceiling lamp, and quickly shielded his head.

The dense crowd on the floor watched him blankly. The sobs of women and children could be heard intermittently, but they quickly subsided.

“Are you here to save us?” someone asked, mustering their courage.

“I am the Captain of the Unit 118 Secret Brigade, Sixth Squadron, under the B Military Region.” Zhou Rong took out the already somewhat crumpled official letter again and solemnly showed it to the crowd. Under the lights of the underground warehouse, the bright red official seal was particularly conspicuous.

As if gaining some sort of confidence from that red color, the crowd grew slightly excited.

“My superiors sent me here with a positioning device to confirm the safety of the people, maintain social order during the epidemic outbreak, and simultaneously transmit a positioning signal to my superior unit. The government will soon organize forces to come rescue everyone.”

“During this time, please remain calm. Do not panic, do not believe in rumors, maintain a regular schedule, and consciously measure your body temperature at regular intervals...”

“What's going on outside? Are those monsters Zombies?” a man in the front row asked shrilly.

Zhou Rong said, “That is just a type of mutated rabies virus. Please do not believe or spread rumors. Next.”

“What about... what about,” a girl asked, crying, “what about our families?”

“Yeah, my kid is still at school...”

“My wife, she...”

“My mom is over eighty! ...”

Under the light, the line of Zhou Rong's cheek tensed slightly, giving him a grim, cold-steel-like appearance.

But then he smiled. Although it was just a brief curve of his lips, it was very calm and convincing, and his tone was adjusted to a very steady state. “The army will not abandon any citizen. Please rest assured.”

The stirrings of panic subsided slightly. Having no other choice, the people chose to believe. More questions popped up: “When will the rescue come?”

“Where will we be taken?”

“When will the plague be over? Will the government send us back?”

...

Si Nan leaned against a shelf, staring at Zhou Rong who was patiently answering questions one by one. There was a faint, barely noticeable crease between his brows.

Not far behind him, Chuncao had her arm slung over Yan Hao's shoulder, slouching without any proper posture. She whispered, “Why do you keep looking over there? That guy is filthy, and he's a Beta.”

“I didn't.”

“Ew— Yes, you did.”

Yan Hao smiled and said, “The helicopter is coming tomorrow to pick up the masses. We will also...”

Before he could finish, Si Nan turned, walked past the two of them, and headed for the back door of the warehouse.

“Si Nan!” Yan Hao followed a few steps behind him and asked, “It's not safe outside. Where are you going?”

Si Nan answered politely, “To take a shower.”

In the simple bathroom of the warehouse staff lounge, hot water gushed down. White steam rose quickly, blurring the grimy transom window.

Si Nan stood under the showerhead with his eyes closed, feeling the stream of water wash away the caked-on dust, dirt, and bloodstains. His skin gradually became smooth again. The water slid over his naked body down to his heels and flowed into the drain with a gurgling sound.

He himself didn't know how long it had been since he'd last showered. Right now, he felt as if every pore was opening up, his muscles and bones simultaneously releasing their last traces of soreness. If his skin could make a sound on its own, it would probably be singing praises.

After a while, he turned off the water, hastily dried his body, and casually wiped the steam from the mirror's surface. Finally, a face unobscured by mud and dust was reflected before him.

In most people of mixed Asian and European descent, the Asian genes are usually overwhelmingly dominant, and Si Nan was no exception. But if one looked closely, one could still see his mother's era-defying, breathtaking beauty in the corners of his eyebrows and eyes, and in the contours of his cheeks.

However, the moving gentleness of a woman was completely absent in him. In its place was a kind of hardness and decisiveness, as if he had been coarsely polished by fate for many years.

Si Nan bent over to pull on his pants and picked up his shirt. Just as he was about to put it on, he suddenly glimpsed something in the mirror, and his movements froze.

“...”

He turned his body, almost inch by inch, staring intently at his right back shoulder. He suddenly understood why he had been unconscious before—

On his smooth shoulder blade, there was a shocking palm-sized bite mark. The flesh was torn open, already dried, and had turned a startling purplish-black.

—Those were the teeth marks of a Zombie.

“Rong-ge just sent the location signal. The airship is coming tomorrow afternoon to take this batch of survivors to B Military Region...” In the hallway, Chuncao had her arm around Yan Hao's neck. Her voice suddenly stopped, and she stared straight behind her.

Yan Hao casually asked, “What's wrong with you?” He turned his head and was stunned as well.

A young man pushed open the bathroom door and came out. His hair, damp with water, was exceptionally black. The half of his face that was visible in profile was a bloodless, cold white, tinged by the steam.

He turned and saw Yan Hao. For a few seconds, he didn't speak or move. Deep within his pupils, a pair of bright amber jewels seemed to be hidden. After a moment, he gave a brief smile, unslung the carbine rifle from his shoulder, and tossed it back.

Yan Hao caught it instinctively. He heard him say, “Returning this to you.”

“Si Nan...” Yan Hao subconsciously tried to stop him, but saw Si Nan turn and walk towards the warehouse.

He had excellent proportions. The hem of his shirt was casually tucked into the back of his pants, which hung on his hips. When he walked, one could see the sharp and agile skill in his movements. Chuncao nudged Yan Hao's arm, covering half her mouth as she whispered, “...Do you guys also check faces when you're saving people?”

Zhou Rong finally broke away from the crowd. After dealing with the snot-and-tears-covered mall manager who was clutching his hand, he looked up and saw Si Nan standing in the shadows behind the door, one hand in his pocket, staring at him without a word.

Zhou Rong sized him up for a moment, rubbing his chin with ill intent. “What's up? Here for a hookup?”

“...”

“No hookups during work hours. We can consider it after we get back to base... What are you doing?”

Si Nan undid his third button, pulled his collar open slightly, and gestured for him to look at his back shoulder. In the shadows, a clear corner of the Zombie's bite mark was revealed.

“...I might be infected,” he said hoarsely.

Zhou Rong's face turned ashen. He stood frozen in place for a long time.