RIACMET chapter 119

 

The night passed peacefully, and everyone slept soundly.

After breakfast, they immediately set out for the hospital. Along the way, they ran into a few lone zombies roaming the streets, but they were quickly dealt with.

The city’s roads were riddled with obstacles, making it impossible to drive quickly. Tang Yi used the drone to scout ahead, enabling them to reroute or backtrack at the first sign of trouble.

Fortunately, although the journey was bumpy, it went relatively smoothly.

However, as they got closer, Tang Yi’s worried voice came through the intercom, triggered by images from the drone.

“There was an earthquake in the hospital area, and it looks like a serious one. The main building has collapsed and is leaning badly.”

“Find a place to park when we get close. We’ll go in on foot,” Cheng Jing responded. Driving straight in was never an option for him.

“Understood,” Tang Yi replied.

“…”

Jiang Nian furrowed his brow, staring ahead as he thought for a moment, then said,

“Let’s park the car and carefully survey the area first. There’s no need to rush. If we can’t go in, we’ll leave.”

In his past life, Xia Weiwei had never mentioned that the hospital had suffered this kind of major earthquake damage. He had assumed that only the city center had been affected.

Either the information he’d heard back then had been incomplete, or the butterfly effect had already begun to alter events over time. Whatever knowledge he had, he’d need to use it carefully.

Cheng Jing had always been cautious. Hearing this, he nodded seriously.

“All right. We’ll scout first. If it doesn’t look good, we’ll retreat.”

He then picked up the walkie-talkie and relayed the plan to Tang Yi and the others.

Zhao Lei, who was driving, and Liao Yu, who was in the passenger seat, both nodded to signal that they understood.

They arrived at their destination at exactly 8:00 a.m. From a distance, the white-and-blue building looked brand new. What a shame.

Lu Ningzhou parked the car about 300 meters from the hospital and used his superpower to raise a hidden wall to cover the vehicle.

After Cheng Jing regrouped the team and explained the situation, they walked toward the tilted, half-collapsed hospital gate.

There had definitely been a serious earthquake here. Leaning buildings loomed all around them, and massive cracks carved terrifying scars across the ground.

There were no zombies in sight, but blackened dried blood and scattered twigs littered the ground. Even through protective masks, the stench of rot clung to the air.

Dust filled the sky, and the world around them looked shrouded in the doomsday aftermath—despairing and oppressive.

The drone circled overhead several times but didn’t spot any zombies or anything else suspicious.

Once inside, Tang Yi recalled the drone and handed it to Cheng Jing, who stored it in his dimensional ring.

The main hospital building had partially sunk due to the earthquake. Many floors had collapsed into the ground, yet the structure had maintained some level of stability, surprisingly.

They weren’t planning to search the entire hospital, only the pharmacy.

“…”

After studying the map for over an hour, they confirmed that the earthquake wasn’t recent. It had been caused by the extreme cold season some time ago. The area was now relatively stable.

However, half of the first floor of the outpatient clinic, where the pharmacy was located, had sunken underground and was empty.

Only the pharmacy storage building remained intact.

The hospital’s medical supply warehouse was a standalone building located in the southeastern corner, behind the outpatient building. It was connected to the exterior wall of the hospital.

The warehouse had seven floors above ground and a basement. There was an elevator, but it was no longer usable.

Each floor was approximately 500 square meters. Floors seven through three were used to store medical equipment, disposable testing materials, and surgical supplies.

The second floor stored Chinese and Western medicine. The first floor was used for cold storage and low-temperature materials.

The second floor was their main target, followed by the medical supply and equipment storerooms.

The prolonged power outage and quake damage had rendered the cold storage on the first floor basically useless.

Normally, there wouldn’t be many people in the warehouse. However, no one knew what the conditions underground might be like after a major earthquake.

Also, they hadn’t encountered any zombies since entering the hospital grounds.

This was not necessarily a good sign. If there were no zombies on the surface, it probably meant that they were underground. They would have to go deep underground to find it.

The building had seven floors, five of which were now tilted and partially sunken into the earth. This left gaps around them for ventilation.

Compared to some of their other rescue missions, this one wasn’t too deep, and there was plenty of oxygen. Still, they brought oxygen tanks just in case.

After a careful scouting mission, Lu Ningzhou and Zhao Lei used their earth- and metal-based superpowers to confirm that it was safe to proceed.

“Zhou Rongbin, Tang Yi, and Jian Cheng, you three stay up top and be ready in case of emergency. The six of us will go down.”

Since they hadn’t expected to go so far underground, Cheng Jing discussed it with everyone and decided to leave three people on the surface as a backup team.

Tang Yi would monitor with the drone, and Jian Cheng would act as a sniper.

Zhou Rongbin could create illusions, which was perfect for defending the area in a situation like this.

If anything went wrong, the three of them could hold out or delay long enough for help to arrive.

Honestly, Cheng Jing also wanted Jiang Nian to stay behind, but he gave up when someone warned him with their eyes.

“Understood.”

All three responded firmly in unison.

The team climbed up to the roof. Tang Yi retrieved the drone, and Cheng and Zhou Rongbin found vantage points to guard the area.

The other six geared up, finally donning night vision goggles and headlamps. Zhao Lei used his metal powers to pry open the roof entrance, and they descended into the building.

Zhao Lei went first, followed by Lu Ningzhou, Liao Yu, Huang Qian, Jiang Nian, and finally, Cheng Jing.

They headed straight for the second floor, planning to check the upper floors afterward.

The building was still relatively intact. When Huang Qian spotted risky cracks, she tossed vine seeds into them. The vines quickly grew to reinforce the structure.

If a steel bar was exposed, Zhao Lei would control the metal’s deformation to correct it and make everything as stable as possible.

“…”

The temperature underground was high. The air turned colder and heavier the deeper they went. Fortunately, their lighting gear was strong enough to cut through the oppressive darkness.

Jiang Nian’s purification power responded to the nearby zombies. He used it as the situation required.

It served as a means of scouting and detecting danger, as well as calming his nerves.

As they moved from the seventh to the sixth floor, they suddenly heard a scraping sound, like something sharp or heavy being dragged across tile. The sound was intermittent and shrill enough to make their ears ache.

Zhao Lei gestured ahead, and the group quickly went on alert.

When they reached the fifth floor, they encountered two zombies—one male and one female.

Their skin was gray and lifeless, and their flesh was rotted. Only the whites of their eyes remained, and they wore bloodstained lab coats.

The male zombie dragged a fire axe, while the female zombie, who had lost her left arm at the shoulder, used her remaining hand to grip a pair of crutches.

The two zombies were dragging their “weapons” down the sloped corridor. That was the source of the sound.

Startled by the purification energy and the beam of their flashlights, the zombies slowly turned their heads, then charged with their jaws agape and roared.

Although they appeared to be older zombies infected long ago, they moved incredibly slowly. They looked strong, but their movements resembled those of zombies from the early days of the apocalypse.

There was something off about them. Something was out of sync.

But no one let their guard down.

While the others focused on taking the zombies down, Cheng Jing ensured everyone’s safety with his shielding ability.

They had assumed that these two low-level zombies wouldn’t have any crystal cores, but they were surprised to find that both did.

However, when Huang Qian used her vine to pick up the crystal nucleus, she was so scared that she dropped it once she had it in her hands.

“Oh my god—what is that?!”

The nation’s precious flower screamed and took a few steps back.

“Qian-jie…”

“Qianqian…”

“Huang Qian…”

“…”

The others rushed to her immediately, concerned, and only breathed a sigh of relief once they confirmed she was unharmed.

But when they saw what she had dropped, they all fell silent for a moment.

Two crystal cores had crumbled into a fistful of fine, dark gray powder.

This was the first time they had encountered something like this.

Even though Huang Qian was usually calm and steady, she was still startled. After all, no one expected a zombie’s crystal core to shatter like that.