Outside, the zombies slammed and scratched at the door with frenzied violence, but the thick insulation of the cold storage muffled the sounds almost entirely, leaving only faint thuds, as if filtered through several layers of blankets.
The dim yellow light of the warehouse was completely cut off.
Inside the cold storage, it was pitch black—so dark she couldn’t see her own hand.
Only the icy cold pierced her thin clothes like countless tiny needles, searing into her bones.
She shivered violently, her teeth chattering uncontrollably.
“So…so cold…”
She groped along the wall, trying to find the light switch.
Her fingertips brushed a cold button, and she pressed it firmly.
“Click.”
A frosted incandescent bulb flickered above, then glowed dimly, casting a cold, weak light even paler than the warehouse’s emergency lamps, barely illuminating the small space.
The cold storage wasn’t large, only about ten square meters.
The walls and ceiling were covered with thick white insulation, coated in a layer of frost.
The floor was a cold metal grid, likewise dusted with thin ice.
In the corners, some frozen cardboard boxes—probably expired frozen food—lay stacked stiff and frost-covered, emitting a strange, stale scent mixed with ice.
Cold… cold to the bone.
Su Qianqian exhaled and watched her breath instantly turn to mist.
She lowered her gaze to Lin Chen, whom she had dragged inside.
He lay on the ice-cold metal grid, his body shivering violently in unconscious reflex.
His already pale face looked even more lifeless under the harsh white light, his lips a ghastly blue-purple.
The thick bandages on his injured right arm seemed even more rigid in the cold, the dark bloodstains frozen into deep brown crystals.
He furrowed his brows, as if his body instinctively recoiled from the extreme cold even in unconsciousness.
“No… too cold… he’ll freeze to death,” Su Qianqian panicked.
The radiation threat was temporarily blocked by the heavy metal door—she prayed it would hold—but the subzero cold was itself a deadly killer.
Especially for Lin Chen, severely injured and weakened from blood loss.
Her gaze swept the cold storage, landing on the frost-bound cardboard boxes in the corner.
She dashed over, fumbling to tear apart the frozen, stuck-together cardboard.
Her fingers quickly turned red and numb from the cold, but she ignored it, dragging a few relatively flat sheets to lay under Lin Chen, providing minimal insulation from the freezing metal grid.
Then, she removed her bloodstained and dusty but somewhat thick sports jacket—soaked with sweat and dirt, yet better than nothing.
She carefully draped it over Lin Chen, trying to cover his torso.
Watching his body still shivering violently, Su Qianqian’s heart tightened.
She was freezing too, wearing only a thin T-shirt, goosebumps rising along her arms.
She hugged herself, curling up next to Lin Chen, trying to give him a sliver of warmth with her own body.
“Hold on, Lin Chen… Radiation… Radiation will be here soon. Just hang on, just hang on…”
Her teeth chattered as she spoke in broken whispers, comforting him, but also herself.
At that moment, her phone vibrated lightly in her pocket.
Su Qianqian jolted, hastily pulling it out.
On the screen, the radiation alert countdown glared scarlet:
【00:03:21…00:03:20…】
The edge of the scarlet radiation shadow had already reached the supermarket’s coordinates!
It was coming!
Almost at the moment the countdown hit zero!
“Vvvrrr—!!!”
A low, ear-splitting hum, as if from deep within the Earth, penetrated the thick walls of the cold storage, ignoring the insulation entirely, striking directly at Su Qianqian’s eardrums and brain.
The sound didn’t seem external—it felt like it resonated in her very soul.
Her head felt like it was being smashed by an invisible hammer.
Pain!
Dizziness!
Nausea!
Her vision was instantly flooded with blinding white light, her ears filled with sharp buzzing.
“Ah—!”
She let out a short, pained scream, curling up, hands clamped over her ears, but the sound and eerie light seemed internal, impossible to block.
Her consciousness felt hurled into a violent whirlpool, countless chaotic fragments colliding and tearing at her mind.
Teammates’ jeers in the game, her mother nagging about marriage, the grotesque faces of zombies, Lin Chen’s pale face, the cold radiation warning…
All images, sounds, and emotions blurred together, spinning into madness.
Just as she felt her soul might be shredded by this storm, an indescribable, icy, violent aura erupted beside her like a sudden volcanic blast.
It was Lin Chen!
Even unconscious, his body tensed abruptly, as if struck by high-voltage electricity.
From his throat came a suppressed, primal roar of agony, like a dying beast.
His tightly closed eyes snapped open!
But those eyes…
They were completely changed!
No longer the vulnerable confusion of unconsciousness, nor the sharp focus of alertness, but…
An unnatural, icy blue!
Within his pupils, it was as if polar storms swirled and condensed!
Cold!
Hollow!
Exuding a destructive, violent aura!
The metal grid beneath him seemed to radiate this cold life: frost rapidly spread outward in visible waves, freezing the cardboard, climbing the stacked boxes with “crackling” sounds.
The cold storage temperature dropped sharply in seconds.
Tiny ice crystals formed in the air, like falling snow of death.
“Lin Chen?!”
Su Qianqian was frozen in terror by the sudden change and bone-piercing cold, momentarily breaking free from the torment of the soul storm.
She stared at Lin Chen’s icy blue, inhuman eyes, at the rapidly spreading frost beneath him, a chill from the very depths of her soul instantly seizing her.
What… what was happening?!
Radiation’s effect?
Or…
Had the virus inside him fully erupted?!
Just as she feared she would be frozen into an ice sculpture by this uncontrollable cold—
Lin Chen’s icy blue, violent eyes suddenly turned to her!
The gaze, like millennia of ice, carried pure, destructive intent, locking onto her instantly!
“Destroy… don’t want to live!”
She had struggled to drag him inside, writhing in pain herself, and now this man looked at her with a killing intent…
Cursed luck…
Where was the preemptive strike she had hoped for…?