After sleeping in a half-dream, half-awake state for over an hour, her body temperature dropped slightly around five in the morning, though a buzzing sound still lingered in her ears.
Song Jinhe struggled to put on her outer clothes and wore a mask before going to find Cheng Yan. “It reached 41.1°C at its highest, and it’s 39°C now. I already took medicine last night, it didn’t work.”
Cheng Yan took the thermometer and looked at the visible red blood vessels in the whites of Song Jinhe’s eyes, his tone heavy. “I’ve never seen an infected person with a fever over 40°C who can still think as clearly as you.”
Their understanding of the zombie virus was too limited, or rather, they simply didn’t have time to understand it.
“You should rest first and observe for a few more hours.”
“Mm, thank you.”
Song Jinhe took another dose of medicine. When she woke again, Zhang Yi had brought her freshly cooked porridge.
Hearing faint crying outside, Song Jinhe asked, “Wu Dayong and the others who went out yesterday still haven’t come back?”
Zhang Yi paused for a moment, then nodded. “Their families are asking about them and want us to go out and look for them.”
Song Jinhe took the stainless-steel lunch box just as heavy knocking sounded at the door.
“They only went out because you said there were supplies in the mall! Now that something’s happened, you’re just hiding in here and doing nothing? Open the door! If anything happens to my husband, how are my child and I supposed to live!”
“Xiao Song, I’m Sister Zhou. Just tell us what it takes for you to go out and look for them, we can discuss it. Please open the door, okay?”
“Sister Tian, you should know how dangerous it is outside,” Cheng Yan said. “No one can guarantee they won’t run into trouble. We have no obligation to go!”
It was the first time Cheng Yan had spoken so bluntly. Everyone, used to his usual gentleness, was instantly left speechless.
“Sister Tian, how can you blame Cheng Yan and the others? They don’t owe you anything,” Qiu Ling stepped forward and said. “We only managed to bring back food yesterday thanks to Cheng Yan’s information. Otherwise, we would have gone hungry today.”
Seeing that no one was on her side, Tian Hui looked helpless and left while crying and cursing.
Finally, peace returned. Leaning against the bed, Song Jinhe closed her eyes briefly. “You can go out. I’ll handle lunch myself, you don’t need to bring me food.”
Zhang Yi shook her head. “You need someone here. If anything happens, I can notify Cheng Yan immediately, and Brother Peng is in charge of cooking.”
Seeing Zhang Yi’s serious expression, Song Jinhe felt a bit complicated. “Aren’t you afraid? I might suddenly turn into a zombie like those people in the hospital.”
Zhang Yi was silent for a moment.
“I originally thought I would die in the hospital. When the signal hadn’t been cut off yet, I called my family. All I heard were their screams, telling me to find a place to hide and not go home. And the day before I ended up here, my mother died of cancer in her hospital bed.”
As she spoke, she forced out a faint smile. “When I escaped the hospital with you all, that was when I finally saw a glimmer of hope. If something happened to you too, I wouldn’t be able to face this world alone.”
“Joining the zombie ranks, growing stronger, and chasing people to bite them would still be better than ending up as just a pile of bones,” Song Jinhe said softly as she opened the lunch box. “That’s what I was thinking for a day and a night, locked in that cabinet.”
But a healthy body and life were too precious to her.
In her original world, her parents had a respectable divorce when she was young and both remarried, neither of them wanting her. However, they never lacked in providing her money. Even with a congenital heart condition, it never burdened anyone.
As for this parallel world, aside from not being born into wealth, her body was healthy, everything else was more or less the same.
In the hospital, “she” had also called her parents. One call went unanswered. The other connected while they were on their way to the shelter; after a sharp, piercing noise, there was only silence.
“Stop dawdling, move faster!”
“Y-yes, yes.” Wu Dayong shrank his neck and walked at the front, trembling.
From the dark, cold fire escape corridor, a hoarse roar suddenly rang out. When they looked closely, they saw a group of zombies pouring out from a side passage, tattered clothes, hungry expressions. Everyone’s pupils contracted in shock.
“Damn it! Are you trying to deliberately lead us into a zombie nest?!” the axe man roared in fury, grabbing Wu Dayong by the collar with one hand and raising his axe with the other.
“No! We didn’t! Really!” Wu Dayong’s face turned deathly pale as he trembled. “We’re in here too, how could we lead you somewhere with zombies? When we came through here before, there were none! I don’t know where they came from!”
The axe man scrutinized him. Seeing the fear in his eyes didn’t seem fake, and considering he was still useful, he let him go. Then, under the signal of the burly leader, he turned and swung his axe down on Fang Liang’ao’s neck, the man wearing glasses.
“Aaah!!!”
A scream echoed.
Bright red blood instantly sprayed onto Wu Dayong and Cao Ji’s faces. They froze in terror as the axe man kicked Fang Liang’ao’s body toward the zombies.
The smell of blood drove the zombies even more frenzied. They surged forward in a swarm, tearing open Fang Liang’ao’s body with urgency, biting into his organs in large, ravenous mouthfuls.
Wu Dayong and Cao Ji, panicked and shaken, followed the burly man’s group as they fled. When they finally stopped, the way they looked at each other had already changed.
Only one person is needed to lead the way. If they encounter a similar situation again, the one who dies will be one of the two of them. To avoid dying themselves, they would have to strike first and push the other into the zombies.
Under this constant mutual suspicion and extreme mental tension, Wu Dayong and Cao Ji led the burly man’s group forward for a while. Any scattered zombies they encountered were dealt with by the burly man’s subordinates.
“It’s that door up ahead,” Wu Dayong said, fear in his voice, though a hint of ingratiation had also crept in.
Before leaving, he had told his wife to wait by the door and open it for him, she wouldn’t dare disobey him.
The burly man pointed a gun at Wu Dayong’s head and stepped aside, signaling him to call for the door to be opened.
Wu Dayong nodded, adjusted his expression, and stepped forward. “We’re back! Open the door!”
After being shut down by Cheng Yan’s group, Tian Hui had brought her child outside to ask others for help, hoping someone would take pity on the child and go out to search for the missing people.
No one was willing to take on such a dangerous task. After going around asking, Tian Hui stood in front of the tightly shut iron gate, alternately cursing Song Jinhe and the others and then her own husband for not knowing where he had gone, using this to vent her anxiety and fear.
Wu Dayong’s wife, Shen Yingxiu, stood nearby with reddened eyes filled with tears, saying nothing.
Suddenly, a familiar voice came from behind the door. Shen Yingxiu froze, unable to tell whether what she felt was relief or regret.
“Open the door! Shen Yingxiu, what are you doing?!”
Wu Dayong slammed on the door, urging her on, his harsh tone carrying a trace of nervousness.
Shen Yingxiu instinctively flinched. Tian Hui rushed forward, moving aside the table and chairs, lifting the latch, and opening the door, only to see Wu Dayong, Cao Ji, and a group of unfamiliar faces.
Tian Hui’s excited expression cooled instantly. She already realized something, but still held onto a sliver of hope as she asked, “Where’s our Old Jiang?”