Eight p.m.

Night was just beginning to fall, but the city lights had not yet come on. Looking out the car window, the highway had become a giant, abandoned parking lot. The howls of Zombies could be heard from far across the open wilderness.

Zhou Rong held the steering wheel, his eyes bloodshot, not saying a word.

Si Nan climbed from the rear compartment into the driver's cabin. The heavy smell of nicotine rushed into his nose, making him cough. "Let me drive."

Zhou Rong shook his head.

"You've been at it for too long."

Zhou Rong didn't speak.

Si Nan was silent for a moment amidst the jolting of the vehicle, then gently persuaded, "You can't go on like this, Rong-ge. Dozens of people in two vehicles are counting on you. If you collapse, what will the others do? In the car behind us, Yan Hao and Chuncao have already switched drivers twice."

"...The hazmat vehicle is difficult to drive." Zhou Rong finally spoke, his voice hoarse. "The wilderness roads are hard to navigate. We have to be fast, the farther from T City, the better."

Si Nan was about to say something when the radio suddenly crackled, "Yan Hao calling the front vehicle, Yan Hao calling the front vehicle! Captain, give it a try. Our radio has gone silent. How about you?"

Zhou Rong's expression shifted slightly as he turned on the vehicle's radio.

An endless flood of crackling static poured out, all channels converging into the same dark sea.

—The shortwave radio had no signal.

In the rear compartment, the three special forces soldiers woke up alertly, as if sensing something, and got up to crowd forward. They saw Zhou Rong's expression turn extremely ugly. He reached out and, with a few sharp taps, tried to open the base communications. However, the command center channel was like a fish that had vanished into an ocean of radio waves; no matter how he adjusted it, there was only desperate silence.

Zhou Rong abruptly slammed on the brakes. After taking a deep breath, he opened the door and strode out.

The minibus behind them also stopped. The exhausted survivors were jolted from their sleep, and a dazed, buzzing discussion arose.

Yan Hao and Chuncao also jumped out of their vehicle. Traces of unconcealable exhaustion remained on both their faces, but Zhou Rong wasted no time with pleasantries, getting straight to the point, "The base communications are down."

The remaining team members gathered around, standing on the grass, exchanging terrified glances.

"...There's also no... sign of the nuke." Yan Hao said softly, "Weren't they supposed to launch it at eight? It's already ten past eight now."

"Could the plan have changed..."

"If the plan had changed, the base would have notified us." Yan Hao cut off Chuncao, explaining, "If it were postponed to nine, the base would have us set out to rescue more people, and they'd send another helicopter. More importantly, delaying the launch would allow the Zombies to spread from the city center to the surrounding areas. The nuclear cleansing was always meant to be done as early as possible."

Si Nan walked up from behind, stopping a few steps away, and watched them quietly with his arms crossed.

A terrifying thought gradually rose in everyone's mind, but no one said it. No one even moved, as if by staying silent, that horrifying possibility wouldn't exist.

The late autumn night was already very cool. In the darkness, the wilderness stretched on with rolling hills. In the distance, by the railroad tracks, the faint yellow glow of a streetlight was barely visible.

"Your base," Si Nan's calm voice came from behind them, "has met with disaster, hasn't it?"

Two or three special forces soldiers shouted in unison, "Impossible!"

"The B Military Region's facilities are comprehensive and impregnable. At the very start of the virus outbreak, a large number of armed police were dispatched to guard it; not even a fly could get in! Besides, the national government agencies, the general command headquarters, all the survivors in the entire North China Region, they're all, all..."

No one picked up where she left off, and Chuncao's sharp voice gradually faded.

Si Nan looked at her gently, "Even the strongest fortress cannot withstand an internal collapse. Once the virus breaks out from within, its downfall is just a matter of moments. You know that, don't you?"

Everyone thought of the civilians who had just been sent to the B Military Region Shelter by four helicopters that very afternoon, and a chill instantly ran down their spines.

"Yingjie," Zhou Rong said in a low voice, "Report our location."

The team member named Zhang Yingjie was holding a tablet computer. It wasn't any known commercial brand and must have been military-issue. "We took a detour. We're still fifty-seven kilometers from the outskirts of B City. The highway ahead is severely congested. I recommend we detour through the Industrial Zone. The nearest Industrial Zone is still eight kilometers away..." He thought for a moment and added, "There might be surviving residents."

Zhou Rong said slowly, "If B City has fallen, it will be nuked in two days at most. We can't go any further."

The people on the minibus couldn't hold back any longer. They stood up one by one, looking out from the vehicle's door, wanting to speak but hesitating.

Zhou Rong pondered for a long time. Under the gaze of dozens of pairs of eyes, he finally made a decision. "We'll make camp here. Take inventory of the supplies and arrange food and lodging for the civilians."

"Yan Hao," he ordered, "take a headcount of the survivors and prepare a rotation for the night watch."

The sound of the wind, mixed with a sharp, whistling noise, swept across the wilderness from all directions, like millions of wronged souls weeping as they rushed toward the sky.

Zhou Rong's proper arrangements at the start of their escape immediately showed their effect. The minibus was piled with rice, flour, oil, salt, canned meat and vegetables, and warm clothes, all of which he had personally led his men to carry, box by box, from the supermarket warehouse the previous night. There were also other supplies collected little by little, such as knives, medicine, and a generator, which were stored in the special forces' hazmat vehicle.

The survivors gathered in small groups, sharing canned food. Suppressed sobs and sighs could be heard from time to time. Si Nan sat on the steps of the hazmat vehicle's door, just picking up a bottle of yellow peaches in syrup, when Zhou Rong walked over and casually popped two fever-reducing pills into his mouth.

Zhou Rong's hands reeked of smoke, and his fingertips were slightly salty and covered in rough, chapped cracks.

"Captain." Not far away, Yan Hao suddenly called out.

Zhou Rong was just lowering his head, about to say something. Hearing the call, he waved a hand at Si Nan and turned to walk toward Yan Hao.

"The hazmat vehicle is low on high-energy gasoline. Diesel can be a makeshift substitute. We're planning to check the fuel tanks of abandoned vehicles on the highway after daybreak. Once we reach the Industrial Zone tomorrow morning, we'll try to send another positioning signal to the military region. If B City hasn't completely fallen, someone will definitely come for us."

The two walked side by side toward a spot sheltered from the wind. Zhou Rong asked in a low voice, "How many people are left?"

"Thirty-six survivors. Thirty men, six over fifty, two under fifteen. Six women, two in their twenties, four in their forties. All of them are Beta."

Yan Hao swallowed and stopped in his tracks.

"There are six of us left. You, me, Chuncao, Zhang Yingjie, Ding Shi, and Guo Weixiang."

"Everyone else is... gone."

The surroundings were quiet. The night wind carried the sound of soft, intermittent sobbing from the crowd.

Zhou Rong's jaw was clenched so tightly that his cheeks began to twitch. After a long moment, suddenly, bang! He smashed his fist heavily into a tree trunk!

The wood, thicker than a person's body, instantly cracked and let out a dangerous creak. Yan Hao reflexively took half a step back from the force of the punch.

"What are you doing!" Yan Hao hissed in a low voice, "What if you attract Zombies?!"

Red slowly seeped from between Zhou Rong's knuckles. The extremely powerful and intimidating Alpha Pheromone in his blood instantly broke through his Inhibitor, spreading in all directions like the roar of a wild beast.

Zhou Rong forced himself to take a breath, retracting his trembling fist.

Yan Hao took out a water bottle and quickly splashed water on the tree trunk. He was about to pour water on Zhou Rong's hand, but was silently blocked. Zhou Rong then began to lick his own wound, his eyes gleaming brightly in the shadows, like an alpha wolf trapped in a desperate situation but unwilling to give up.

"...We'll rotate in groups of three. We leave at six tomorrow morning for the Industrial Zone." After a moment, Zhou Rong said hoarsely, "If there's no word from B City within two days, I'll go into the city myself to scout it out."

Yan Hao wanted to dissuade him, but seeing Zhou Rong turn and walk away, he could only hurry after him.

Si Nan ate half a bottle of yellow peaches and traded the other half with a man on the minibus for half a pack of Baisha Cigarettes. The man gave the peaches to his wife and child. Si Nan pocketed the cigarettes and went to look for Zhou Rong. As he reached the edge of the woods, he suddenly stopped, sensing something.

The night air was faintly laced with a scent that made him uncomfortable.

The scent lingered in the air—potent, mature, and extremely aggressive. He subconsciously tried to find its source, but after standing there for a long time, his nerves suddenly twitched, and an indescribable dizziness slowly rose from the bottom of his heart.

...It was an Alpha Pheromone.

But how could there be an Alpha in the middle of nowhere? Could there be a corpse in the woods, killed by a Zombie?

Si Nan looked around. In the clearing, the car headlights were on, and the rested crowd was gradually getting back into the vehicles to spend the night. The woods on the other side were hidden in darkness, and the distant streetlights were dim, seemingly emitting an ominous aura.

"Are you okay?" a female voice suddenly asked from behind him.

Si Nan turned around to see Chuncao looking at him curiously.

"...Did you smell anything?"

"No?" Chuncao sniffed hard, then her expression went blank, her face turning strange.

Si Nan: "?"

The next second, Chuncao let out a world-shaking, ghost-wailing sneeze, spraying all over Si Nan.

"It must be the smell of rotting corpses!" Chuncao rubbed her nose in embarrassment, her face red as she rushed Si Nan back toward the vehicle. "Quick, quick, go back to sleep, don't worry about it! Go!"

Slightly bewildered, Si Nan was forcibly pushed back onto the hazmat vehicle.

·

That night, the special forces soldiers divided into three shifts. Chuncao and Ding Shi were on watch until midnight, Yan Hao and Guo Weixiang took over until three, and Zhou Rong and Zhang Yingjie took the final early morning shift.

Zhou Rong slept restlessly and woke up once, groggily, during the midnight shift change.

The seats in the rear compartment had been raised, and several special forces soldiers were sleeping on the floor in disarray, their snores rising and falling. He felt someone pressed close against his side. Looking by the halo of light from the headlights shining through the window, he saw it was Si Nan.

Si Nan's body temperature had dropped in his sleep, so he had subconsciously snuggled closer to the heat source, hugging one of Zhou Rong's arms. His deep, steady breaths puffed against the hollow of Zhou Rong's shoulder.

For a moment, Zhou Rong was in a daze.

Fragments of restless youth from his memory rushed back against the flow of time. Even now, in the dimness, that soft and handsome face, those closed eyelashes, silently overlapped with an image that had long since vanished into the past.

As if possessed, Zhou Rong raised his hand and tucked a stray strand of Si Nan's hair behind his ear.

Just then, the sound of footsteps came from outside, and the vehicle door was gently opened.

Zhou Rong immediately closed his eyes, feigning sleep, though he himself didn't know why he had this reflex. A few seconds later, he sensed someone getting into the vehicle, moving almost silently across the makeshift beds on the floor, and stopping in front of them.

Then, the person bent down and lifted Si Nan's hand with a light and careful movement.

Si Nan had taken fever medicine that contained a sedative, so he didn't wake up from this, only murmuring as he turned over.

Zhou Rong lay there motionless. After a moment, he finally heard the person speak softly, "Thank you, you saved my life."

—It was Yan Hao.

A slight tremor went through Zhou Rong's heart, and he squinted his eyes almost imperceptibly. In the dim light and shadows of the compartment, he saw Yan Hao lower his head, his breathing tense and rapid, and press a kiss to Si Nan's temple.

It was a fleeting kiss, as light as a dragonfly skimming water, both nervous and devout.

Zhou Rong's expression was indescribable.

Like a child who had secretly eaten candy, Yan Hao stood up, tiptoed out of the vehicle, and closed the door behind him.

The compartment returned to darkness. After a long moment, Zhou Rong remained silent and closed his eyes.