The emergency exit door opened.
A sliver of light leaked into the pitch-black stairwell. Two zombies originally standing in the corner suddenly let out guttural noises, twisting their heads one hundred and eighty degrees.
One had an empty eye socket, its eyeball dangling down, still attached by blue and red blood vessels.
The other looked intact, but when it completely turned around, it was revealed that its face had been bitten beyond recognition, oozing red and yellow fluids.
It was hard to confirm what had caused it.
Chu Liuyue let out a sharp gasp from her throat, but the man in front of her still heard it.
Zhou Yu'an turned his head slightly.
"Stand behind me."
"Mhm." Chu Liuyue hid behind him.
She watched as his gaze remained calm. He raised the steel pipe and pierced it accurately into the throat.
Pfft—
Dark black liquid splattered out.
A normal person's reaction would be to raise a hand to block it, but Zhou Yu'an did not react, allowing his fair and handsome face to get dirty.
Chu Liuyue's hand shrank back a little. She lifted an empty section of her cuff, wanting to wipe the blood off his face for him.
Zhou Yu'an, however, tilted his head slightly.
"No need."
Chu Liuyue had to obediently put her hand down.
In her heart, she couldn't help but mutter: Didn't they say Zhou Yu'an was a germaphobe?
This didn't seem like it at all. Could it be that the investigation results were inaccurate?
Moreover, Zhou Yu'an's acceptance was too good. From discovering that the patients had turned into zombies to taking action, there wasn't a single shift in his emotions.
Or perhaps it was because medical students always had to do dissections for experiments.
So he could act so calmly.
"What are you thinking about? Keep up." Zhou Yu'an quickly walked up the stairs. Seeing her still standing there blankly, he frowned slightly.
"If you get caught by the zombies, I won't save you."
Though he said that.
He still stayed in place, waiting until Chu Liuyue also stepped onto the stairs before continuing upward.
From the third floor to the executive sixteenth floor.
They had to climb a full thirteen floors.
Even under normal circumstances, one would be out of breath climbing that.
Not to mention that right now, a few zombies would occasionally pop out from different floors, making it impossible to defend against.
When they reached the ninth floor, Chu Liuyue bent over slightly, propping one hand on her knee, her head down, panting heavily.
She felt her lungs frantically drawing in air.
Sweat was faintly seeping out of her back.
She was bending over quite a bit, and since she was wearing a tight-fitting, off-the-shoulder cardigan, her voluptuous figure was on display.
Her chest heaved violently.
Faintly revealing glimpses of white.
"Dr. Zhou, I... I can't do it anymore. I really can't climb any further." She panted while struggling to spit out the words.
Zhou Yu'an's gaze swept over her, pausing for a second.
He looked at her quietly.
Then, without saying a word, he pulled open the emergency exit door and turned to leave.
"Hey, Zhou Yu'an!" Chu Liuyue called out his full name from behind, but saw that his footsteps didn't even pause.
The emergency exit door closed again.
And completely cut off the last ray of light.
Chu Liuyue stood in the shadows, her face hidden in the dark, her expression unreadable.
Her panting gradually quieted down.
The gentler a person appeared on the surface, the colder they actually were. It seemed Dr. Zhou was also like this.
Gu Man's husband didn't seem to be a good person.
As she was silently criticizing him.
Suddenly, the emergency exit door was pulled open again.
Zhou Yu'an's white coat was stained with even more dark black liquid. His amber pupils landed on her, seemingly confirming that she had recovered.
"Chu Liuyue, can't climb anymore?"
"Mhm."
"Then we won't climb." Zhou Yu'an glanced at her again and said in a deep voice, "Follow me!"
With that, he pulled the emergency exit door open a bit wider.
Chu Liuyue followed his line of sight and saw quite a few twisted zombie corpses lying behind him.
She quickly followed.
Only then did she realize what he had done when he left.
Good heavens, he had wiped out all the zombies roaming the ninth-floor corridor.
The two successfully arrived at the elevator.
Zhou Yu'an's fingers were long and slender like bamboo. He pressed the up button without hesitation.
"Take... take the elevator?" Chu Liuyue's tone carried a hint of uncertainty.
Zhou Yu'an slightly turned his head to look at her, his tone gentle.
"Didn't you say you couldn't climb anymore?"
"Yes, we'll take the elevator," he repeated.
But taking the elevator is even more dangerous, okay.
Zhou Yu'an seemed to read her eyes and explained, "There are very few people on the eleventh-floor executive level. Zombies don't know how to take the elevator up by themselves."
Chu Liuyue took a deep breath.
"Are you sure?"
The elevator slowly ascended from the first floor to the ninth floor.
"Ding-dong—the elevator has arrived." Along with the electronic female voice, the elevator doors slowly opened.
A group of snarling zombies was crowded at the elevator, frantically gnawing at the metal doors of the elevator car. As the elevator slowly came to a steady stop.
They turned their heads in unison.
Those pure white pupils simultaneously landed on the man and woman before them.
"Run!"
Zhou Yu'an remained calm, though he raised his volume a bit when he said this.
Without a second thought, his large hand abruptly grabbed Chu Liuyue's palm, pulling her to run quickly toward the corridor they had just passed through.
From behind came a flurry of guttural noises and the roars of zombies colliding and scraping against each other.
They ran all the way to the emergency exit in one breath.
He didn't stop.
Pulling Chu Liuyue along, he didn't break his stride and climbed two more floors.
They finally reached the eleventh floor.
The two were still holding hands tightly.
Before they could even separate, a shrill female voice rang out from the corner.
"Zhou Yu'an! Is this how you treat me?"
She rushed out from the shadows aggressively.
Gu Man's gaze fell like a knife on their clasped hands, and she forcefully pulled them apart.
After scolding Zhou Yu'an, her gaze slowly shifted, landing on Chu Liuyue's face and body.
She sneered coldly and said:
"So slutty, you even came to the hospital to seduce men?"
"Do you know that Zhou Yu'an is my man!"
Chu Liuyue raised her eyes, meeting Gu Man's arrogant, domineering, and insufferably haughty face, which seemed to gradually overlap with the images in her memory.
...
"Chu Yue! If you're ugly, you should at least have some shame. Do you think looking like that, Senior Yan would fall for you?"
"He's our student council president. Even if he wanted to find a girlfriend, he wouldn't look outside."
"Even writing love letters, you're quite something! Hit her... tear her clothes off for me, let me see what kind of capital she has to seduce people!..."
The abusive voices overlapped.
Gu Man hadn't changed at all.
She was even more arrogant.
As she raised her palm and a slap was about to fall, Chu Liuyue shrank back toward Zhou Yu'an and said fearfully:
"Dr. Zhou, is this your girlfriend?"
"She's so fierce, and she wants to hit people. I... I'm so scared..."
Just as Gu Man's slap was falling, Zhou Yu'an raised his hand, gripped her wrist, and threw it away heavily.
"Don't make a scene." His voice was very cold.
After speaking, he looked at the woman shrinking behind him.
He said calmly, "She's not my girlfriend. She's my arranged marriage partner, Gu Man."
Meeting Gu Man's fiery eyes, his tone was unhurried.
Like a glass of warm water.
No one could disrupt his rhythm.
"This is my patient, Chu Liuyue."
