Chapter 43 Part 1

06:08 AM

The third morning.

Zhou Rong was sprawled on the eaves of the roof. At the moment the eastern sky turned the color of a fish's belly, he exhaled a puff of white air in exhaustion.

Twenty-one bullets left, four grenades, one tactical knife, one dagger, one assault rifle, and one pistol.

All food and water were gone.

Although he was at the end of his rope, he had somehow managed to survive two long nights in the city of Zombies. Even Zhou Rong felt that some unseen force was protecting him.

But was Si Nan still alive?

Looking out at the vast sea of corpses, which crack or corner of the city could he be hiding in?

Zhou Rong glanced at his watch. Thirty-six hours had passed since Si Nan went missing.

'Has he already lost heart, given up hope, or even... died?'

No, he wouldn't be—although he had no evidence, Zhou Rong inexplicably felt that Si Nan wouldn't be killed so easily. The most likely possibility was that he was unarmed and unable to break through, and had gradually lost faith that Squad 118 would return for him, now hiding in some nook or cranny wiping his tears; or perhaps he was packing up, preparing to force his way to the suburban heliport on foot.

'Just hold on a little longer.' Zhou Rong clenched his back teeth and forced himself to sit up.

If there were no results after searching for a full 48 hours, he would gamble on heading to the airport. Depending on the situation, he would either wait there for his target or drive the armored vehicle back into the city to continue the search.

"Hold on," he murmured. It was unclear if he was talking to himself or to the Si Nan in the void who was smiling and waving at him.

"As long as we hold on, we'll see each other again."

Zhou Rong tightened the bandage on his left thigh. The wound, larger than his palm, had been inflicted by a tree branch when he was forced to jump into a tree to escape a horde of Zombies. It had stopped bleeding now. Only dark, coagulated bloodstains remained on the dirty, yellowed bandage. It looked a bit frightening at first glance, but thankfully, it didn't affect his movements much.

Zhou Rong grabbed his megaphone and jumped off the roof tiles, ignoring the Zombies gathering just a short distance away. He leaped from the treetop onto the street, and just as he was about to shout again, he suddenly froze.

—In the distance, at a street corner, a person with their back to him was walking into a hardware store, taking out the Zombies that emerged from the shop, drawn by the sound.

The person was wearing a hoodie, their back figure incredibly burly. Zhou Rong sized them up and reckoned they were probably half a head taller than him. Moreover, that Yao Ming-like height was paired with Tyson-like muscles. Even from such a distance, it gave one the impression of watching a mountain of rock moving across a plain.

There were still other survivors?

Zhou Rong pondered for a moment, then followed silently without revealing himself.

·

"...Ah...!"

Rommel flipped over and pinned Si Nan down. "—Jane!"

The Female Alpha rushed into the room, pinned down one of Si Nan's legs, pressed his entire body to the ground, and cuffed his left hand to the bed frame. The series of actions was extremely practiced, as if it had been repeated many times over the past day and night.

Si Nan's brows were tightly furrowed. He tried his best to curl up, letting out a roar of pain. Rommel signaled for the Female Alpha named Jane to leave, then straddled Si Nan, suppressing all his struggles. He gripped his chin and roared, "Noah! Look at me!"

Si Nan turned a deaf ear.

"Noah!"

Rommel leaned close to his ear, repeatedly shouting the order. The volume was loud enough to wake the dead. After a full few minutes, Si Nan's inhuman, rasping gasps finally subsided, and he groggily opened his eyes.

"Look at me!" Rommel roared.

"..."

"What did you remember?" Rommel stared forcefully into his bloodshot eyes and asked, word by word, "How did you make contact with the C Nation military when you were at the White Eagle Base? Where is the Ultimate Antibody? Tell me!"

Si Nan's lips moved. But having gone without food or water for over ten hours, coupled with continuous high-intensity interrogations, had left him extremely exhausted. He could barely make a sound.

Rommel mixed a cup of sugar water with maple syrup, returned, and knelt beside him, saying condescendingly, "Drink it."

Si Nan turned his head away.

"Drink it!"

No response.

"Just like the chocolate, right?" Rommel finally gave up, asking coldly.

Si Nan had no intention of responding and closed his eyes.

This silent, iron-walled refusal left Rommel at a loss. He smashed the maple syrup cup violently, sending glass shards flying everywhere.

The humble room fell silent for a moment. A cold wind whistled through the cracks in the window. Other than that, only the sound of Rommel's breathing, forcibly suppressing his anger, could be heard.

The suffocating stalemate lasted for a full few minutes.

"...Alright, I admit it," Rommel spoke again. Unexpectedly, he wasn't furious; the end of his sentence was even calm and composed. He said, "Okay, I admit, I was wrong about the chocolate."

—In Rommel's entire life, the number of times he had said the words "I was wrong" could be counted on one hand. Even his own father might not have heard it twice.

But Si Nan remained unmoved.

"I shouldn't have made you use the electric shocker on yourself and used chocolate as an inducement when you were extremely weak, just to punish you."

"—But you know," Rommel paused, then continued coldly, "getting bitten by a Zombie in a test scenario is punishable. As specially trained soldiers, both you and I have been through it. Although the intensity of the simulation you underwent was indeed greater than anyone else in the White Eagle Troop, and you considered using food as an inducement to be an insult..."

Si Nan showed no reaction.

"Are you even listening to me?"

"..."

Rommel took a deep breath to control his emotions. "This childish persistence of yours is meaningless, Noah. Let's assume you're starving to death right now, and there's only a piece of chocolate in front of you. If you don't eat it, you'll die. Would you still insist on this pale, ridiculous persona in front of me?"

What he didn't expect was that Si Nan would actually open his eyes, turn his head, and smile. "I wouldn't."

—The two short words were so hoarse and distorted they were almost unintelligible, but the slight curve of his lips was real. Rommel was stunned.

"I started eating chocolate a long time ago," Si Nan said, his smile containing undisguised malice. "Someone gave me some two days ago. I ate a big piece."

Rommel was completely at a loss for words, frozen in place.

Si Nan sat on the floor, once again resting his head and neck on the edge of the bed, as if those two sentences had drained all his strength.

There was an extremely radical and incomprehensible side to Noah's true personality, Rommel had always known that. If he had to be compared to a normal person, in some ways he was very much like a child, a particularly immature and vengeful one at that.

He hated others, and he hated himself.

When unbearably hungry, he would develop an extremely strong craving for the inducement—chocolate—and be willing to accept Rommel's conditions, pressing the electric shocker himself, enduring the dual torment of physical pain and mental humiliation.

But afterwards, he would also develop a stress disorder, completely refusing chocolate from then on, even vomiting reflexively whenever he ate it.

Rommel had observed that his vomiting, much like some forms of anorexia, was initially forced upon himself out of self-punishment and self-loathing. But it soon evolved into a genuine stress reaction, to the point where he couldn't even touch anything chocolate-flavored.

—Paranoid, self-controlled, and obsessive. Once he set his mind on something, he would continuously reinforce it in his self-awareness, deeply branding it into his mind until it catalyzed into a part of his instinctual behavior.

This kind of personality usually doesn't change.

Rommel never expected that this so-called younger brother of his would one day be able to overturn his own self-awareness—if he wasn't lying.

Something stirred deep inside Rommel. He seemed to want to try something but hesitated.

After a while, he gave a complex cough, pulled down the zipper of his jacket, revealing the corner of a scarf underneath. "...Noah."

"Look at this, Noah." He gripped Si Nan's chin, making him look up, but this time his grip was intentionally much gentler. "Do you remember this?"

It was a very ordinary dark gray cashmere scarf, no pattern, very thin. Its edges were frayed from age, and it didn't really match Rommel's overall high-society elite aura.

Si Nan glanced at it.

"The year my mother passed away, I flew from New York to Los Angeles for her funeral. You were there too." Rommel said slowly, "After the funeral, I walked into the woods alone. It was raining. Suddenly, you walked over and gave me this scarf..."

"'Aren't you cold just standing here?' you asked me then. My response was to wave my hand, throw the scarf away, and angrily tell you to get lost. You didn't say anything else. You looked at me for a moment, then turned and walked out of the woods."

Many years later, Rommel could still clearly recall every detail of that scene, including his younger brother's pale face wrapped in a black overcoat, his eyelashes especially moist from the fine raindrops, and the arc his coattails made in the air as he turned and left without a word.

The reason it left such a deep impression was because that was the first time in Noah's life that he had proactively spoken to him with such a soft attitude.

But that was also the last time, so Rommel never got the chance to verify the conjecture he had replayed in his mind countless times—if he had responded with a completely different attitude back then, would many things have turned out differently?

"The next day, when I was leaving Los Angeles, I went back to those woods, picked up your scarf, and have kept it to this day."

Rommel took the scarf from his neck and stared at Si Nan's calm, waveless eyes up close. "I made a point of bringing it with me before coming to China this time, because I knew an unprecedented disaster had begun, and humanity would very likely become extinct. So today, as we reunite in the apocalypse, is there still a chance for the many things that ended before they could even begin to be rewound to before they happened, to start over?"

"—If you agree, tell me where the Ultimate Antibody is," Rommel whispered, his voice so soft it was almost a murmur. "After the vaccine is developed, humanity will build the ultimate safe haven, and you and I can be among the first to enter... I promise all the painful past events will become mere memories. I will give you a good life, a life so good you couldn't have even imagined it before."

"Really," he said solemnly, "as long as you believe me."

After a long silence, Si Nan said softly, "I've never believed you."

"I know." Rommel paused, then retorted, "But just like the chocolate, the things you thought you'd stick to until the end have also changed, haven't they?"

Si Nan raised his uncuffed right hand and touched the frayed edge of the scarf, worn from years of use, with two fingers.

Rommel watched him, his eyes filled with encouragement, and hidden within was a trace of parched anticipation that even he hadn't noticed.

"..." Si Nan suddenly gave a slight smile.

The smile, though weak, carried an unmistakable, strange meaning. Then, he let go and shook his head.

"What?" Rommel couldn't help but ask.