That night, they didn’t sleep.
Lu Chen used the closet and desk to block the window and door into a slanted “defense line”, leaving only one opening for vision.
He placed the crossbow on the gap and sat at the base of the wall, saying nothing.
The woman leaned against the inner wall, untying the bandage on her left arm by herself, using the remaining battery power of her phone to check the wound – a not very deep but very dirty cut, the fabric soaked with blood and dust, the edges turning white.
She took out a small roll of gauze and a small bottle of iodine from the pocket of her white coat, moving very quickly, disinfecting while speaking: “Shen Wanqing, Emergency Department of No.
1 Hospital of the City.” Pausing, “Thank you.”
“Lu Chen.” He stared out the window.
“Don’t thank yet.
Before dawn, we’re not considered alive yet.”
Shen Wanqing didn’t respond.
She silently re-tied the wound, then took out a long-handled clamp and a mop handle from the inner room, weighing them, and placed them beside her.
The advantage of an emergency doctor is that they are accustomed to seeing life and death, and their hands don’t tremble.
At the quietest moment of the early morning, Lu Chen suddenly noticed something.
These zombies are less sensitive at night than during the day.
Their eyes are almost useless in the dark and rely entirely on hearing.
While humans, as long as they don’t speak, can walk past them in the darkness without being noticed.
**Lesson Two: Night is cover, sound is life.
**
In the late night, it began to rain.
The red mist was pushed down a bit by the rain, and a small patch of normal gray appeared outside the window.
The raindrops hit the iron sheet on the balcony, effectively covering all the sounds inside the house.
The zombies wandered around downstairs for a while, then gradually dispersed.
When the rain stopped, the sky began to turn white.
At that moment, Lu Chen’s body moved.
It wasn’t pain.
It was a feeling of something swelling out from the joints.
First, his limbs felt hot, as if someone had lit a small fire inside them and it gradually spread throughout his entire body; then, he heard the heartbeat in his chest become steady and powerful, like a drum that had been tightened again.
The old injury on his back – one he had suffered when he was discharged from the army – suddenly no longer felt sore.
He tried to clench his fists, and the pressure in his palm was a little more than it was the night before.
Just a little bit, but this person, he had an almost obsessive sensitivity to “a little more”.
The right shoulder that had been numbed by the impact on the top window last night also loosened.
“Whoa…” Shen Wanqing suddenly spoke, her voice very low.
She had been leaning against the inner wall to watch him, and now her eyebrows knitted together.
“What happened…?”
“What’s wrong?”
“There’s light on you.”
Lu Chen lowered his head.
There was nothing.
But he knew himself, in that instant, something truly did grow a little bit inside his body.
**Day One.
**
The sky outside the window was completely bright.
The sunlight shone obliquely in, falling on the back of his hand.
He looked at that ordinary white light, and a nearly absurd thought slowly rose in his mind.
If, every day at sunrise, he could be stronger by one degree…
He didn’t dare to think any further.
Thinking about this now was too extravagant.
What needed to be solved now was how to survive.
He stood up and walked to the window frame.
He looked out.
The several zombies downstairs in Building 2 were still there, including that tyrant.
It was bumping into a fallen electric bike, making a “ding-dong” sound, slowly and deliberately, as if in a fit of rage.
“Let’s deal with that big guy first,” Lu Chen said in a low voice.
“Otherwise, we won’t be able to get out of this neighborhood.”
“Then how are you going to deal with it?” Shen Wanqing stood up and walked beside him.
“Last night, you gave it a push, and your shoulder almost got injured.”
“It was last night.”
Three words, spoken simply.
Shen Wanqing glanced at him and didn’t catch the hidden meaning.
Lu Chen’s plan was simple: **Introduce, Divide, Eliminate.
**
He placed Shen Wanqing in a safe position in the hallway, while he himself went downstairs from the other side, deliberately tipping over a metal bucket.
With a “clang” sound, most of the zombies in the neighborhood rushed in that direction, including several runners.
He retreated into a narrow alley in the shade and brought the two fastest ones over, shooting them one by one – the first one, the arrow hit; the second one, he didn’t use an arrow; he sidestepped its attack and hit it on the back of its neck with his elbow.
There was a crisp “click” sound.
He himself was stunned.
What he needed a crossbow to hold last night, today he managed to break the neck bone with just an elbow strike.
He didn’t even feel it was a lot of effort.
When that zombie relaxed, he stared at his elbow for a second.
**One day, just one day.
**
At the entrance of the alley, that tyrant slowly followed.
It had thick skin and tough flesh, and an arrow couldn’t penetrate its front shoulder; it only pierced half an inch into the flesh.
It was enraged and “aw”了一声, charging into the alley, knocking over the plastic shed and the clothesline along the way.
Lu Chen didn’t confront it head-on.
He led the tyrant into the inner alley, where there was a section of collapsed brick wall.
He kicked the wall down with a swift kick, causing half of the wall to collapse and fall down onto the tyrant’s shoulder, pinning it to the ground with its single knee.
He rushed over, leaped up, and a steel arrow pierced into its back neck, pressing down with all his weight.
The steel arrow broke.
But he didn’t panic.
Instead, he drew out the multi-functional knife from his waist, stabbing fiercely into the tyrant’s most vulnerable spot – the bone gap at the back of its neck.
He twisted.
Blood spurted out, a pungent smell.
The tyrant convulsed a few times and fell down.
Lu Chen stepped back two steps, supporting his knees, and took a deep breath.
Sweat soaked through his back, and his hands were trembling slightly – not out of fear, but excitement, and a strange feeling of being “reset” in his body.
What was once a desperate situation yesterday, today, he alone, solved it with the most clumsy method.
“Lu Chen!”
Shen Wanqing’s voice came from the entrance of the alley.
She must have followed him at some point and stood there, looking at him, her usually calm face showing the first sign of fluctuation.
“Your elbow strike just now,” she said, her voice slightly strained, “You broke its cervical vertebra.
That’s not something an ordinary person could do.”
“I was a reconnaissance soldier before I retired.” Lu Chen straightened up, wiped his face, and didn’t elaborate.
He bent down and extracted a fingernail-sized, dark red crystal from behind the tyrant’s neck, the texture was warm and slightly hot.
He didn’t know what it was, but he felt it resonated with the “extra stuff” in his body.
He put the crystal in his pocket.
**This too will be recorded.
**
“We have to go,” he said.
“The noise is too loud.
There will be more coming soon.”
They didn’t go back to Building 2.
Lu Chen led Shen Wanqing around to the back door of the community, which was adjacent to a row of street-front shops.
The first one was an abandoned outdoor equipment store – his own store.
The rolling shutter door had been pried open, and most of the shelves had fallen over.
There were still jackets for outdoor activities, climbing bags, knives, ropes hanging on the shelves.
Without a word, Lu Chen quickly put the most important things on himself.
Then, he stopped at the door and did something that Shen Wanqing couldn’t understand.
He lifted the folding water bucket in one hand and raised the other hand feebly –
The water bucket vanished into thin air.
Shen Wanqing’s eyes suddenly widened, and she took a step back.
Subconsciously, she raised the mop handle in her hand.
“Don’t be afraid,” Lu Chen reached out his hand, spread it out, and the water bucket reappeared in his palm.
“This is something that appeared on me after I woke up last night.” A…
The place for storing things.
It can hold them, and others can’t see them or take them away.”
He actually only grasped a little bit of the trick.
That space was not large, dark and gloomy, like a small room without any lights.
But as long as he thought of “store”, the things would go in; and when he thought of “take”, the things would come out.
It was very quiet inside, so quiet that one could hear one’s own breathing.
Shen Wanqing stared at him for a long time.
As an emergency doctor, her professional habit made her suppress her fear first and asked the most practical question: “How much can be stored?”
“I don’t know.” Lu Cheng told the truth.
“It should increase.”
“Will…
will it also become stronger?”
Lu Cheng didn’t answer.
He put the last box of bandages, a few boxes of antibiotics, and a stack of energy bars from the shelf into the container, then turned around and looked at the street.
At the end of the street, the sunlight shone down, and the city was terrifyingly quiet.
There were smoke, fire, and low growls that didn’t belong to this world.
He remembered the steady heartbeat in his body at sunrise.
“Yes.” He said, his voice very soft, but it was to himself.
“Every day.”
Shen Wanqing looked at him.
At this moment, she didn’t know that this silent man standing in front of her would, in the following days and days, turn into something that no one could stop in this world.
She just instinctively felt that following him might help her survive.
And a few hundred meters away, on the top floor of an office building with emergency lights on, there were two eyes, looking at the male and female entering and leaving the row of shops through a telescope.
The owner of those eyes put down the telescope and said four words to the person behind him:
“Keep an eye on them.”