The corpse of the girl in the shared hospital room was quickly taken away.
Xie Yanhan’s right arm cast needed to be redone, but due to the hospital incident, all doctors and nurses were overwhelmed and had no time to deal with minor injuries like this. So Jiang Sui decided not to replace the cast for now.
In just a short span of time, two infected cases had already appeared in the hospital, resulting in seven or eight deaths and injuries. Fortunately, some soldiers had come to the hospital for treatment today and promptly dealt with the infected—otherwise, no one knew how many more would have died.
The hospital was no longer safe. They needed to leave as soon as possible.
Jiang Sui pushed a wheelchair into the room. She had originally been worried about how to move Xie Yanhan, a tall teenager over 1.8 meters, onto it—but he simply supported himself with crutches and sat down with ease.
She looked at the muscles and veins bulging in his arms from exertion, suddenly remembering how he had just wrapped his arm around her waist to dodge the infected earlier.
Xie Yanhan was not as weak as he looked.
On the contrary—he was quite strong.
Because of the sudden incident, everyone realized how unsafe the hospital was. Many people were rushing to be discharged, and the elevator was packed.
After a long wait, they finally squeezed into the elevator and reached the first-floor lobby.
From afar, Jiang Sui spotted Huo Linchuan again. He was standing by a pillar on the phone, with several teammates beside him. A group of tall, well-built young men in black military uniforms stood together, exuding an intense sense of power and armed violence.
People passing by couldn’t help but glance at them repeatedly.
So did Jiang Sui. She looked for quite a while—and almost tipped Xie Yanhan’s wheelchair over.
“Sorry,” she said awkwardly.
Xie Yanhan had no expression. Cold. Silent. He said nothing.
Due to the citywide lockdown, Jiang Sui couldn’t get a car at all.
Some people leaving the hospital had their families pick them up, others called friends. The rest, like Jiang Sui and Xie Yanhan, were left standing helplessly in the street.
In the end, a hospital security guard pointed them in a direction.
“Go through that building and you’ll find shared electric bikes. See if you can still unlock one and ride back yourselves.”
The bikes were still usable.
Jiang Sui managed to scan one. Then she found a rope, letting Xie Yanhan hold on while she rode in front, pulling his wheelchair behind her.
And so they set off.
According to navigation, their rented apartment was over 20 kilometers away. Quite far—and along the way, they would pass the Great Century Mall, where the outbreak had first occurred.
If they detoured, the distance would be even longer.
But Jiang Sui wanted to take the risk and check something.
Her car had been parked outside Central Park when the chaos started, right before the area was sealed off.
So there was a high chance it was still there, untouched.
If so, she could recover a lot of supplies.
Thinking of this, she suddenly became energized and unconsciously sped up.
The sealed streets had no traffic, and they traveled smoothly until they reached the outskirts of the locked-down Great Century Mall.
Because the lockdown area was huge, not every intersection was guarded.
Jiang Sui glanced back at Xie Yanhan, unsure whether to bring him along or leave him by the roadside and return later.
Both options carried risk.
Noticing her gaze, Xie Yanhan slowly raised his eyes and met hers—calm, distant, and indifferent.
The weather was fairly good. Sunlight fell on his pale, handsome face. His expression remained cold and still, like a motionless pool of water—but that unsettling, eerie chill about him seemed much weaker today.
Without realizing it, Jiang Sui relaxed a little.
Better to bring him along, she thought. Movies always said it—being alone gets you attacked.
They crossed the blockade and quickly moved inside.
The closer they got, the more wrong the air felt.
Jiang Sui now understood why: the air here was filled with contaminated mushroom spores.
Not everyone who inhaled spores became infected. Humans had varying resistance levels.
Those with high resistance could survive unless exposure was too intense. Those with low resistance would mutate even from slight contact—like the recent mushroom disease cases.
This apocalypse was like a massive selection process.
The weak were eliminated at the start. Only the strong survived.
The original host and the villain both had high resistance and survived until near the end of the story, so Jiang Sui wasn’t worried about herself being infected.
What she feared were rampaging infected beings.
But the surrounding residents had already been evacuated, so the chance of encountering one was low.
As expected, they did not encounter any infected.
They safely bypassed the park and found her damaged car.
Everything inside was still there.
Jiang Sui’s eyes lit up as if she had found treasure.
She dug through the messy items and pulled out a stuffed backpack, unable to contain her excitement.
“I packed compressed biscuits, chocolate energy bars, medicine, and a bunch of emergency tools… and even super tasty candy!”
She opened the bag and showed him, her expression lively and radiant. Her bright eyes sparkled with excitement.
At that moment, she looked even more dazzling than the warm autumn sun.
Xie Yanhan watched her quietly, his dark eyes absorbing all the light.
“Take this. There’s more in the trunk,” she said.
She placed the backpack on his lap and went to pry open the jammed trunk.
After great effort, it finally opened.
Her eyes lit up even brighter.
Inside were spare clothes, a box of 24 bottled waters, half a box of instant noodles, half a box of canned meat—and most importantly, the compound bow she had desperately wanted.
If she had had this in the hospital earlier, she wouldn’t have been chased around by the infected.
“Xie Yanhan!” she called happily, her voice full of excitement.
“Look at this!”
She showed him the compound bow she had spent a fortune on.
Black, sleek, and sharp—like a winged bat. The metal arrowheads were triangular and razor-sharp, capable of piercing riot shields.
Excited, she lifted it and pulled the string back—no arrow loaded, just aiming.
Her arm muscles tensed and trembled slightly from the force. That feeling of strength strangely reassured her.
“With this bow, we won’t have to worry about infected anymore,” she said, releasing the string. “At least we’ll have a fighting chance.”
Xie Yanhan lifted his gaze—but he wasn’t looking at the bow.
He was looking at her.
The slender girl who looked bright and innocent had now tightened her expression, bracing her thin arms as she drew a deadly compound bow.
A surge of strength and sharpness burst from her.
Like the sun itself—bright, dazzling, and impossible to ignore.