Shen Wanqing began to have a fever.
At two o’clock in the night, Lu Chen was woken up by Old Feng.
The wound on her left arm was swollen and shiny, with a dark red line beneath the skin.
She felt so hot that she was like a piece of charcoal.
After taking Lingquan, the fever subsided for half an hour, but it came back again before dawn.
“It’s an infection,” her voice was hoarse.
“Lingquan can treat the outside but not the inside.
We need antibiotics and a stitching thread – genuine ones.”
“Which pharmacy has them?”
“All the ones on the main street are empty,” she paused.
“The old city area, the specialized pharmacy behind the Third Hospital.
I got the medicine from there when I used to work the night shift.”
The old city area.
Those three words made the room fall silent for a moment.
“I’ll go,” Lu Chen said.
Su Wanran stood up from her chair and slung her gun over her shoulder: “I’ll go with you.”
Lu Chen looked at him: “You guard the supermarket.
Lock the door tight.
Anyone who knocks on the door at night, assume it’s a pack of wolves.”
Old Feng nodded and placed the old flashlight on the table, as if making a vow.
Shen Wanqing, supporting the table, wanted to stand up: “I’ll go with you – I know the way inside better than you.”
“Your fever like this, you can’t walk more than two streets.” Lu Chen interrupted her, stuffed the water bottle into her hand, and his tone was firm: “You stay here and keep your life.
As long as you’re alive, there will be another chance.”
She stared at him for a long time, slowly sitting back down.
At four o’clock in the morning, the fog was the densest.
Lu Chen, Su Wanran, and A Gui from the basement.
A Gui was in his thirties, thin, and spoke little.
He had delivered goods to the old city area before and knew those alleys.
The three of them pressed against the wall, heading east.
The closer they got to the old city, the stronger the smell in the wind – that sweet and fishy rotten smell, layer upon layer, so thick it could stick to the tongue.
The city entrance was a street fence that was rusted half-open.
Lu Chen stopped outside the fence and listened for a minute.
There were no footsteps or groans.
But in this place, silence was the scariest thing.
Su Wanran took off her gun, loaded it, and with a click of the chamber, she peeked inside.
Her eyebrows immediately tightened – the street was covered in a layer of grayish-red fog, and beneath it, the figures were piled up layer upon layer, crowded like a wheat field.
“It’s not right.” She said.
“There are several times more here than elsewhere.”
Lu Chen also saw it.
He didn’t retreat, only pulled out the crowbar from behind his back and clenched it with both hands.
Just as he was about to turn sideways and crawl through the fence, Su Wanran suddenly pulled his sleeve and raised her chin to point diagonally across.
Behind the second-floor window of an old residential building across the street, a tiny reflection flashed – a mirror.
Someone was leaning against the window, staring at them as they walked in.