Lou Jiu was true to her word.
Jiang Yao woke up early and no longer needed Shang Ci or Gao Bai to carry her. Although her body was weak, her foundation was still there. The five of them entered the hospital without any major incidents. Shang Ci and Jiang Yao organized the survivors in the hospital, quarantining those who needed it, treating the injured, and contacting the base.
Meanwhile, Lou Jiu taught Wen Qianshu how to use some of the equipment.
She found a new roll of anti-bite straps in the hospital for Wen Qianshu to practice with. “Don’t wrap it too tightly, but it can’t be loose either.”
She lowered her head to wrap it for Wen Qianshu. Her fingertips, cool to the touch, would occasionally brush against Wen Qianshu’s arm, but her movements were swift. “Something like this.”
Wen Qianshu was now in a state of painful bliss.
On one hand, she wanted Lou Jiu to teach her a few more times, to talk to her more; on the other, she was afraid that pretending to be dumb would make her seem genuinely stupid and leave a bad impression.
Wen Qianshu’s memory and observation skills were astonishing. She wasn’t afraid of heights, zombies, or hardship. These things were truly no challenge for her.
After they finished their tasks and checked the quarantine wall, Shang Ci rushed to take a shower. When he came out, comfortably smoking a cigarette with a jacket draped over his shoulders, he saw a zombie on the floor.
Shang Ci: “…”
Then he saw their team’s doctor with one foot on the zombie’s neck, fitting a discarded restraint device onto the “kaka” snapping zombie. She then wrapped several thick layers of cotton gauze around the metal restraint. Next, she took a pair of discarded gloves and managed to put them on the zombie, sealing its fingernails.
The zombie, pinned firmly under her foot, struggled relentlessly. The restraint device hit the ground with a muffled thud. Seeing that the noise couldn’t be stopped, Lou Jiu simply twisted its head with a crack, using her knee to keep it from touching the ground. She then reached out to wrap its gloved hands with several more layers of cotton gauze and tied them with a rope.
For a moment, Shang Ci was in a daze, unable to distinguish which of the two humanoid species was more like a zombie.
After tying it up, Lou Jiu stood up.
She was only wearing a tank top. She said to the side, “Come here.”
Shang Ci watched as the “little white flower” their team had picked up trotted over and asked obediently, “Sister, did I wrap it correctly?”
Lou Jiu glanced at the anti-bite strap on her arm. “Yes.”
She draped her own jacket over Wen Qianshu, helped her put it on, and then zipped it up. “Go try.”
Lou Jiu lifted her foot. The zombie struggled to its feet and rushed towards her, but she kicked it, redirecting it towards Wen Qianshu.
Wen Qianshu wasn’t scared at all. With a swift move, she plunged her knife into its forehead. Unfortunately, Qin Shu’s body was weak, and the blow didn’t penetrate the skull. But Wen Qianshu reacted extremely quickly, lunging forward and using her own body weight to press down, driving the knife through the zombie.
Her entire body pressed down on the zombie’s head, pinning it to the ground.
The zombie stopped moving. Wen Qianshu tilted her head, watched it for a moment, then casually pulled the blade out and wiped it on the ground. Afterwards, she looked up, her back to Lou Jiu and facing Shang Ci, and gave a smile.
It was quite sweet.
If not for the circumstances.
Lou Jiu asked, “Are you still afraid of zombies?”
Wen Qianshu nodded. “Not anymore.”
Shang Ci: “…”
One really dared to ask, and the other really dared to answer.
The corner of Shang Ci’s mouth twitched. He glanced at the zombie with pity and said, “Don’t practice too late. We have to set off tomorrow morning.”
Then he yawned and went back to his room.
Tonight, Gao Bai and Jiang Yao were on watch duty—one had slept enough on the road, and the other had been lying down for too long and was too preoccupied to sleep.
The search team always squeezed into one room to sleep, so they could look out for each other.
When Lou Jiu pushed the door open, Shang Ci was already asleep. Captain Shang was a good sleeper—no snoring, no teeth grinding, just lying there properly, not moving at all.
Lou Jiu told Wen Qianshu to go shower first, while she bent down to make a bed on the floor. Wen Qianshu removed the anti-bite strap, her eyes lowered as she smiled at Shang Ci on the floor, her gaze rather meaningful.
But before she could expose Captain Shang’s feigned sleep, a small bag was stuffed into her hands.
Lou Jiu: “A change of clothes.”
“They’re mine, might be a bit big.”
For a woman, Lou Jiu was not short, a good half-head taller than Qin Shu.
Wen Qianshu froze for a second, then ignored Captain Shang and went to take a shower, holding the clothes.
Lou Jiu watched her leave and asked, “What’s wrong?”
Shang Ci sat up. “How can both of you tell?”
Lou Jiu: “I figured it out from her reaction.”
Shang Ci: “Tsk.”
He had wanted to pretend to be asleep to see what this two-faced little girl was after. Unfortunately, his attempt was quite a failure.
He ran a hand through his hair and asked, “You still want to pull her into Team 5?”
Lou Jiu: “Yes.”
She took off her restraint device and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “She has a sharp eye for things and reacts quickly—our reconnaissance is a weak point.”
Team 5’s two scouts were injured last time and weren’t with them now. The three of them were taking turns with reconnaissance for the time being. But Shang Ci and Lou Jiu had other priorities, so the heavy responsibility of scouting fell on Gao Bai.
And Gao Bai just wasn’t cut out for it. He had already messed up at the temporary stop, only discovering the zombies after they had crept up on them.
Shang Ci: “But she’s too ruthless.”
If that needle had really gone in, Wen Qianshu would have been dead or half-dead. Shang Ci didn’t really like this kind of unorthodox team member; he always felt they were uncontrollable.
Shang Ci sighed. “If only nothing had happened to Jiang Yao’s team. Her team prefers this style more.”
“It’s fine,” Lou Jiu said. “Qin Shu is ruthless, but she’s quite obedient. She’ll be fine with a bit more teaching.”
Shang Ci: “?”
Quite obedient?
Who’s obedient?
The so-called shower was really just a quick rinse to get clean. After rinsing off, Wen Qianshu rummaged through the bag for the clothes and put them on—a faded camouflage t-shirt, a pair of long pants, and disposable underwear.
After getting dressed, Wen Qianshu walked out, shaking her wet hair. As she passed Shang Ci, she couldn’t help but glance at him a few more times, raising an eyebrow.
Back when Wen Qianshu was sick in bed, she would listen to her parents argue, listen to her mother ask for money, and suffer from fever, headaches, and body aches. She often had sleepless nights, one after another. To make matters worse, her mother had been scammed into believing her insomnia was caused by a mischievous ghost and insisted on spending a fortune on talisman water for her to drink.
Pushed to her limit, Wen Qianshu simply learned to feign sleep. She would be in pain all night, awake all night, yet pretend to be sound asleep.
Wen Qianshu was truly a person of peculiar talents; even feigning sleep, she could become an expert. She observed the others in the hospital ward—turning over, snoring, every action was outstandingly natural. Shang Ci pretending to be asleep right under her nose was no different from showing off one’s meager skills before an expert.
Unfortunately, Captain Shang was committed to the act and ignored Wen Qianshu, pulling the covers over his head to sleep.
Wen Qianshu sat down cross-legged next to Lou Jiu. Just as she was about to mercilessly expose Shang Ci with a “Stop pretending, aren’t you tired?”, a cloth was placed over her head. “Dry your hair.”
Wen Qianshu was stunned. She subconsciously raised her hands and started drying her hair with the cloth, but she realized the other person’s voice had changed. It was no longer muffled, but rather cool and slightly hoarse, very pleasant to hear. Wen Qianshu lifted the cotton cloth from her head and looked up to see Lou Jiu’s side profile.
Her side profile without the restraint device.
So beautiful.
Wen Qianshu couldn’t take her eyes off her and immediately forgot about Shang Ci.
Lou Jiu took off her jacket, wearing the tank top that was damp with sweat.
Long-term training on the high-altitude frames had made every line of her body graceful and fluid, just right—nothing excessive, nothing restrained.
As she stood up now, Wen Qianshu could see her back—a frosty expanse, dotted with beads of sweat. When she lowered her head slightly, her beautiful spine and shoulder blades were visible.
Following the line of her shoulder blade outwards, there was a scar on her shoulder.
It seemed to be a bite mark left by a zombie, a menacing, slanted mark—forming a hooked crescent moon.
Like a shimmering lake, its surface reflecting the moonlight and the moon itself.
Wen Qianshu was stunned.
Perhaps sensing Wen Qianshu’s gaze, Lou Jiu tugged at her tank top and said, “You should sleep first.”
Wen Qianshu: “Okay.”
She lay down and closed her eyes, but her mind was filled with the moon.
The moon in the sky, the moon on earth.
The moon at the corner of her eye, the moon on her shoulder.
Wen Qianshu let out a long breath and covered her eyes with her hand.
But the moonlight was pervasive, flowing into the room, onto the bed, impossible to avoid.
Apocalyptic novels are a very peculiar genre. Peculiar in that no matter how well-prepared you are, you will definitely encounter unexpected situations. If there are zombies, there’s zombie infection. If there are monsters, monsters eat people. Even if everything is fine, humans will inevitably stir up some conflict among themselves.
Wen Qianshu was sleeping soundly when she was dragged up by the collar.
Wen Qianshu: “…”
She opened her eyes, and sure enough, it was Gao Bai.
The tall man was extremely anxious. While talking to them, he grabbed a restraint device and tried to put it on Wen Qianshu’s face. “The door downstairs was opened!” Because he was tall, he misjudged Wen Qianshu’s height and put the restraint right over her eyes. Lou Jiu, who had turned around, saw this, took it, and put it on her properly.
Shang Ci hastily threw on his jacket and pulled on his boots. “How could it have been opened? Weren’t you two watching?”
Gao Bai grew anxious. “We were watching! Who knew a bunch of zombies would just climb over the wall, and someone was mixed in with them and took the chance to open the door!”
Shang Ci: “What?”
“How could a living person be mixed in with a horde of zombies?”
Gao Bai: “I don’t know—I didn’t see clearly—”
Gao Bai: “Captain Jiang led them away and told us to quickly get the people upstairs out of here.”
Even Shang Ci’s vision went dark for a moment. He gritted his teeth, and Lou Jiu’s words inexplicably came to mind—“our reconnaissance is a weak point.”
Just today, Jiang Yao had said that this batch of zombies was strange, yet Gao Bai still wasn’t being more vigilant!
Shang Ci chanted silently in his heart: “Gao Bai is not a scout, not a scout, he’s only responsible for transport and communications—”
Shang Ci laughed in anger. “Gao-zai, Daddy is so disappointed in you.”
Gao Bai: “?”
Shang Ci strode outside, wrapping an anti-bite strap on and putting on his restraint device. “Follow Xiao Lou upstairs!”
His gaze was heavy as he scanned the corridor outside.
The long, dark night, the cold lights, the damp air.
For some reason, the wind had picked up outside, gusting against the windows.
But Wen Qianshu didn’t listen to him. Instead, she went to the window and suddenly said, “Captain Jiang is over there.”
Shang Ci was taken aback. He saw that a fierce wind was blowing outside the window, and a figure was running along the top of the wall. Jiang Yao’s movements were agile; she would land and take off again almost instantly, like a silent cat on the wall.
Shang Ci watched her with a frown, but then he heard Wen Qianshu say, “She might be trying to lure the zombies into the basement and lock them in.”
Shang Ci: “The underground parking garage? That can’t be sealed.”
Wen Qianshu: “Not the underground parking garage. This hospital has an orthopedics department on the first basement level. Their department was under renovation, so they temporarily moved it there.”
Wen Qianshu: “I saw it when I passed the information desk downstairs.”
Shang Ci’s frown deepened.
He had passed that information desk twice today and had glanced at it, but he hadn’t seen that.
Wen Qianshu: “It was taped to the desktop.”
Shang Ci froze, staring fixedly at Wen Qianshu.
Lou Jiu stood behind Wen Qianshu, her light-colored eyes looking at him, and she nodded.
Our reconnaissance is a weak point—
Shang Ci suddenly laughed and said to Lou Jiu, “You were right.”
With that, he took a cigarette case from his pants pocket and tossed it to Wen Qianshu, who was closest to him. “Little lunatic, go upstairs with Xiao Lou. Have her protect you.”
“I’m going to help Captain Jiang.”
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