Compared with the tomb where Qin Zhen had lived before, the air-raid shelter had slightly better facilities. But essentially, both places were underground, and they shared many similarities. Most notably, changes in time and temperature occurred silently, as though they were completely cut off from the outside world.
These days, Qin Zhen had either been immersed in various cases or playing computer games, and she had paid no attention to the passage of time. When she stepped out through the air-raid shelter’s entrance, the scorching sunlight fell upon her, giving her the feeling that she had passed into another lifetime—just as she had the first time Fu Qi led her out of the tomb.
She turned to look at Fu Qi. He had already returned to his usual demeanor and was looking at his phone.
The phone kept flashing, as if it were being bombarded with messages.
The air-raid shelter was almost completely sealed off, and apparently there was no signal underground. Qin Zhen had not seen Fu Qi check his phone even once over the past few days.
Curious, she leaned closer and asked, “What’s wrong?”
Fu Qi had just sent a message. He quickly turned the phone facedown and said, “Nothing.”
“Then let me play with it for a while!”
They couldn’t take the computer with them, but surely they could bring a phone. Qin Zhen wanted to contact Chen Xiang and the others and tell them about their latest discoveries.
“No.”
As Fu Qi refused, he swiftly injected himself with the last dose of zombie interference agent. Afterward, he glanced westward and said, “First, we’re going to the No. 1 High School staff housing. We only have two hours.”
He had already used the interference agent, leaving Qin Zhen not even a moment to play with his phone.
There was still one dose of the agent in Qin Zhen’s shoulder bag, but it could save a life at a critical moment, so she couldn’t waste it. Besides, Fu Qi’s expression had returned to normal, but his mood clearly had not. He seemed so stiflingly depressed that Qin Zhen didn’t feel comfortable fooling around with him.
She could only sigh and follow Fu Qi toward the western part of the city.
Fine. She would comfort him first.
Fu Qi held her hand as they wove through the mass of zombies. They had not gone far when she heard a buzzing overhead. She was about to look up when Fu Qi pulled her into a corner.
“Drone surveillance,” Fu Qi explained. “It’s very dangerous. If you run into one in the future, make sure you avoid it.”
Qin Zhen had never seen one before and wanted to take a better look, but Fu Qi led her onward by the hand.
The closer they got to No. 1 High School and Haiyin Hospital, the more dilapidated the surrounding buildings became. There were more and more drones overhead, and several nearly crashed into their faces. Fortunately, there were also plenty of zombies, providing the two of them with perfect cover.
The western part of the city was an old district dating back several decades. After something went wrong at Haiyin Hospital, and after the economic center and school district were relocated, the area gradually fell into decline. Before the apocalypse, almost no one lived there except the elderly.
Along the way, they saw large red characters reading “Demolish” painted on many buildings. The old campus of No. 1 High School was no exception.
Fu Qi led Qin Zhen over the wall and into the school.
The old campus was crude. Across the athletic field from the classroom buildings stood the staff housing. After years without anyone to maintain it, the exterior walls had long since been overtaken by vines. From a distance, the lush Boston ivy seemed almost sentient, covering the staff building and reaching toward them with clawlike tendrils.
The outside was frightening enough, but the inside was even more gloomy and dark. It was like stepping into the belly of some enormous monster. Now and then, a zombie lurched past. Fortunately, their destination was the second floor, and they reached it after only a few steps.
The rusty lock was easily opened. Qin Zhen entered first and patted her chest.
“Even creepier than my tomb!”
Before she had finished speaking, something beside her made a loud thud. Qin Zhen turned her head and saw that she had accidentally knocked over a wooden picture frame on the entryway cabinet with her elbow.
She reached out to pick it up, but Fu Qi had already grabbed it. After seeing that the frame was empty, he gently set it down and reminded her, “Be careful.”
Qin Zhen stared at him as if he were a ghost.
Throughout their journey, they had been staying in empty houses along the roadside. They never deliberately damaged anything, but they had never been this careful either. Once, Fu Qi had even left an entire floor covered in blood. Why had he suddenly changed his ways?
Could he have been so traumatized that his personality had completely changed?
Fu Qi had already begun surveying the interior. He looked around once, then told Qin Zhen, “Stay with me. Don’t touch other people’s things.”
Qin Zhen was worried about his mental state. To humor him, she obediently said, “Oh.”
The house was old, and the balcony was also concealed beneath vines. Inside, it was very dark. Since the place had been vacant for many years, dust covered the dining table and floor, while thick cobwebs filled the corners. Qin Zhen had only taken a few steps when a grasshopper jumped onto her shoe.
It was a three-bedroom apartment with a living room, two bedrooms, and a study.
The furniture, bedsheets, and other belongings were still there, but the wardrobes were somewhat disordered. The photo albums on the tables were empty too. It looked as though the family had left in a hurry, taking only valuables and things of sentimental importance.
Fu Qi led Qin Zhen around the apartment. He stopped at the study and asked, “What do you think?”
Qin Zhen replied, “A family of th-three. They like studying.”
Not only was there a study, but it was crammed with books: textbooks, lesson plans, professional volumes, literary works, and even some brightly illustrated novels. A few calligraphy copybooks hung on the wall.
It wasn’t difficult to imagine the peaceful life this family had once led.
“What else?” Fu Qi asked softly.
“Nothing much. Just a n-normal family.” Qin Zhen thought he was acting strangely. She looked him over a few times before asking, “Sweetie, is this the home of that f-friend of the Crazy old lady? Did you see what her n-name was?”
“Why do you ask?”
“So when we see the Crazy old lady again, we can tell her.”
An inscrutable gleam seemed to flicker across Fu Qi’s dark pupils. He lowered his eyes and said, “Her name was… Qin Xiaobao.”
“Hahaha, Qin Xiaobao…” Qin Zhen burst out laughing. After two laughs, she remembered that this was the name of a victim and hurriedly covered her mouth. “Er… It’s pretty c-cute. And she has the same surname as me.”
But it was much more old-fashioned than hers.
It was indeed a very ordinary, very old-fashioned name. No wonder Academician Jiang couldn’t remember it.
Fu Qi said nothing. He still looked weighed down by grief.
Qin Zhen assumed he was upset because she had made fun of the girl’s name. She tugged lightly on his finger and said, “I’m s-sorry…”
“You don’t have to apologize,” Fu Qi said quietly. “I’m going to look around the study. You… find somewhere to rest. Just don’t touch anything, and don’t make a mess or break anything in someone else’s home.”
That really annoyed the zombie. The way he put it made her sound like some kind of vandal.
If they were being honest, Fu Qi was the real vandal. If not for him, her zombie tomb wouldn’t have been blown apart, and her coffin probably wouldn’t have been smashed into pieces.
Qin Zhen badly wanted to retort, but when she saw the unshakable gloom in his eyes, she felt that he looked rather pitiful.
She decided to be a little more patient with this fragile human. Obediently, she said, “Got it.”
Qin Zhen turned to look around elsewhere, but after taking a step, she stopped and turned back.
“Sweetie, how old was Qin Xiaobao when she d-died?”
Fu Qi’s eyes shifted. He turned his face away so quickly that the tendons in his neck bulged and throbbed. Only after a moment did his muffled voice come through.
“…Twenty-one.”
“Oh.” Qin Zhen could hear that something was wrong with him. She walked over, tugged at his hand, and asked, “Sweetie, are you… are you going to c-cry?”
“No. I just think…” Fu Qi’s voice faltered. “I just feel sorry for her. She was so young.”
Qin Zhen: “……”
That was the phrase she had used last time!
He wouldn’t take the initiative to show concern for her, but he would show concern for someone else?
However, that “someone else” was a pitiable person, and Qin Zhen felt too embarrassed to compete with her. She reminded him indirectly, “Sweetie, going by the current year, she’d be six—sixty-something by now. She’s old enough to be your grandmother…”
Fu Qi’s body visibly stiffened. After a few seconds, he slowly relaxed and turned around. His gaze fixed on Qin Zhen’s face as he asked in a tone tinged with intimidation, “…So?”
He was going to get angry!
Was it really because she had merely pointed out the age difference between them?
Qin Zhen felt a little unhappy. “You—you can’t like her! You two are different species, and it’d be an old-wife-young-husband, grandmother-grandson romance. People would l—laugh at you… Just have a little Platonic relationship, but d—don’t take it seriously!”
Fu Qi: “……”
The corner of his eye twitched violently several times. He seemed to want to say something, but in the end, nothing came out.
Still, the heavy emotions had dissipated considerably after being interrupted by this silly girl. Fu Qi let out a deep sigh, rubbed her stiff zombie head, and said helplessly, “Go play.”
Qin Zhen worried about Fu Qi.
She felt that Fu Qi was mistaking his sympathy for this twenty-one-year-old girl for love.
Love might be free, but was falling in love with a corpse that had been dead for more than forty years taking that freedom a little too far? Wasn’t it somewhat perverted?
Their dignified captain was both immoral and perverted. What would happen to the reputation of the First Team of the Apocalypse?
Qin Zhen still wanted to say something to Fu Qi, but he had already entered the study and picked up a dusty, shabby textbook.
Perhaps because the room was so dark, his tall, slender back looked rather desolate and lonely, making Qin Zhen’s heart ache as well.
She stood there for a while, then decided that if Fu Qi was still this abnormal after they left the house, she would contact Chen Xiang and tell him that their captain had become a pervert. Then they could hold an internal election and choose a new captain.
Her identity was illegal, so she didn’t dare have any contact with the authorities. She couldn’t become captain, but she could vote for Chen Xiang and help her good online friend and teammate get promoted!
With her little scheme in mind, Qin Zhen went to look around the other rooms.
Meanwhile, Fu Qi flipped through the old textbooks and test papers on the bookshelf, remembering Academician Jiang’s words as he searched the study for the medical records.
He searched the shelves and drawers, but found nothing. Then, without meaning to, he knocked a photograph down from somewhere.
The photograph had faded slightly. In it was a six- or seven-year-old girl wearing a taekwondo uniform with a red-and-black collar. A black belt was tied around her waist, and she was captured in the middle of a kicking pose, her mouth open as if she were shouting, “Ya!”
The girl had deliberately put on a fierce expression, but unfortunately, her cheeks were plump and rosy, making her look not frightening in the slightest.
Fu Qi detected a hint of familiarity in her features and smiled. So she had studied taekwondo when she was little. She must have practiced for quite a long time…
No wonder her punches hurt so much.
Fu Qi still wanted to know how old she had been when she fell ill. He put the photograph away and searched again, but was unable to find any other photos or medical records.
He remembered that Academician Jiang had said the family had gone “abroad for treatment.”
Perhaps someone had told them at the last minute that this was their only chance. In a panic, the family of three had packed their luggage and medical records and hurried away with that person, without even having time to deal with the house. They had temporarily entrusted it to a distant relative.
For some unknown reason, that relative named Bai Yunbian had never come to take care of the house, leaving it vacant for forty years.
Fu Qi looked around the study for a while longer. After calculating how much time remained on the zombie-disruption agent, he left the room and found Qin Zhen in the secondary bedroom.
It was obviously a girl’s room. There was a single bed draped with a gauze canopy and a small desk. Several books sat on the desk, all in a similar style: brightly colored romance novels.
The large, well-lit window had a rattan chair beside it. At that moment, Qin Zhen was lying in the chair, her feet naturally propped up on a small round stool beside it, completely absorbed in the book in her hands.
Fu Qi had noticed that little stool the first time he came over. He genuinely hadn’t expected it to be used as a footrest.
With his arms folded, he leaned against the doorway and watched Qin Zhen lose herself in the novel. He could almost see what the room had been like forty years ago.
Back then, there had probably been a young girl just like this, lazily reclining in the rattan chair. Sunlight had streamed through the window and fallen over her, while students ran and shouted in the street outside. Someone inside would have called out to her to move around more and stop hiding in her room all the time.
She had probably answered with a perfunctory “Okay,” then continued lying there lazily.
“We’re leaving,” Fu Qi said.
“Oh, okay,” Qin Zhen replied, but her eyes remained fixed on the novel. She showed no sign of getting up.
Fu Qi smiled and was about to say something else when a voice suddenly came through a loudspeaker.
“Hello, hello—can you hear me?” It was a woman’s voice, not too far from them. “Ahem, everyone, I can’t get away. I’ll do my best to lure the zombies with this loudspeaker, so find a chance to escape!”
The voice pulled Qin Zhen out of her book. Curious, she went over to the window and tried to look outside. The moment she pushed aside some of the ivy covering it, several buzzing sounds came from nearby. A drone circled around and flew into view, startling her so badly that she froze and didn’t dare move.
Fu Qi came over and said quietly, “It’s fine. It can’t see you from that angle.”
Only then did she relax. Together, she and Fu Qi leaned out and looked through the vines. In the distance, they could vaguely make out a figure on the roof of a dilapidated building. It appeared to be a woman, though her features were indistinct. The only thing that stood out was the bright yellow helmet on her head.
“Since we’re going to die anyway, I’ll sacrifice myself to save you!” Yellow Helmet continued shouting through the loudspeaker. “No need to thank me, and don’t ask my name either. Promise me this: if you ever see a zombie wearing only a yellow helmet, send her off quickly and cleanly!—This godforsaken world… I’ve had enough of living in it!”
“What is she doing?” Qin Zhen asked.
“Several people were probably trapped here together,” Fu Qi said. “She had no way to survive on her own, so she decided to sacrifice herself and buy the others some time.”
Qin Zhen knew that after more than five years of the apocalypse, the survivors had seen all kinds of people, both good and bad. By now, everyone had become quite united. The little girl who had turned into a zombie earlier had been the same way.
But that wasn’t what she wanted to ask.
“Isn’t this a d—dead city?” Qin Zhen asked in confusion. Then she noticed something else. “Where’s Chen Xiang? Weren’t they l—luring the people from Country A away? Why can’t we h—hear anything anymore?”
In fact, ever since they had left the bomb shelter, they hadn’t heard a single sound of gunfire.
Qin Zhen had been distracted by the drone and only remembered it now.
Fu Qi’s expression darkened. He pressed his lips together and didn’t answer.
“Chen Xiang…” Qin Zhen’s expression gradually changed. She asked incredulously, “Chen Xiang couldn’t have d—died, right?”
Fu Qi: “…He’s not dead.”
“If he’s not dead, then c—contact him!”
“……”
Fu Qi remained silent for a moment before taking out his phone. The screen lit up, and message after message flashed across it in rapid succession. No one could tell how many had piled up.
Qin Zhen leaned over to take a look, but Fu Qi raised his phone high and kept it out of her reach.
He dialed directly. Chen Xiang picked up almost at once, his anxious voice immediately ringing through the phone. “Captain, did you see what I sent you? Those people have gone crazy! How’s Little Qin? Is she all right? Are you two—”
“Are there any other people in Linxiang County?” Fu Qi interrupted.
Chen Xiang clearly hadn’t expected that question. He fell silent for a moment, apparently saying something to someone beside him, then answered, “Seems to be a few wandering survivors. They probably noticed something happening here a few days ago and wanted to take advantage of the chaos to come looking for medicine.”
As soon as he finished, his tone changed, and he hurried on, “They’ve made everything public. Now everyone is looking for you two. The base—”
Before he could finish, Fu Qi hung up.
Qin Zhen wanted to see what Chen Xiang had sent, who was looking for them, and what had happened at the base. She had just raised her hand when Fu Qi’s eyes darkened. His lashes lowered and lifted, and the phone shot out the window like a bird.
A crisp impact was followed by the sound of shattering glass.
Qin Zhen nearly went berserk.
“Fu Sweetie!” she demanded furiously, eyes wide. “Are you addicted to smashing phones?!”
“...We’ll talk about it later.” Fu Qi took her hand. “It’s time to go.”
“Go to hell!”
Qin Zhen was genuinely angry. Back when they were in the tomb and he’d smashed her watch, he had at least asked whether she wanted to watch a movie first. Now he didn’t even ask—he just smashed it!
He could have at least let her say goodbye to her best friend!
Fu Qi casually picked up the novel from the wicker chair and stuffed it into her hands. “I told you to bring a novel. There, are you satisfied?”
Qin Zhen glared at him angrily. “Don’t think you can—”
“Take a hair clip too.” Fu Qi interrupted her. He picked up a pink pig hair clip from the desk, wiped the dust from it, lifted the loose hair from her forehead, and clipped it right on top of her head.
Qin Zhen punched him on the spot. “That’s n-not how you wear it!”
She huffed as she removed the clip, smoothed her hair, and carefully fastened it above her ear.
“That does look much better.” Fu Qi bent down to examine her and said, “If you put on a little more weight, you’d look even more like a pink pig.”
“I-I’m too lazy to b-bother with you!” Qin Zhen said sharply. “I’ll remember this. Once we’ve rescued those people, I’ll settle the score with you!”
Fu Qi asked, “You want to rescue them?”
“Of course!”
They had clearly seen people trapped in there. If they didn’t lend a hand, what kind of end-of-the-world’s top squad would they be?
“Team honor, d-do you understand?” Qin Zhen scolded sternly.
Fu Qi was becoming more and more undisciplined. He absolutely had to be reprimanded and educated!
“Something happened outside, and a lot of people are looking for me now. We have two choices.” Fu Qi’s voice was slow and measured. After explaining the first option, he continued, “First, we leave without making a sound. Once we’re out of Linxiang, the world is wide enough for us to disappear. When things settle down, I’ll take you to see Chen Xiang and the others.”
His voice lowered slightly. “Second, we go rescue those people. But if we do that, the drones will definitely spot us. To shake them off, you and I may have to separate for a while.”
Qin Zhen said, “Why are you w-wasting time? Rescuing people is m-more important!”
So what if they had to split up? It wasn’t as though they had never done that before.
Every time, Fu Qi had been responsible for luring those people from Country A away. Qin Zhen was already used to it.
Besides, she was much smarter now. No one would ever bully her again.
Fu Qi lowered his head and gazed at her intently. With utmost seriousness, he asked, “Sweetheart, are you really sure?”
Qin Zhen said, “Stop nagging!”
Fu Qi was silent for a moment before saying, “Actually, I think the second choice is better too. There are some things I’d rather handle myself. I’ll feel more at ease that way. It’s just... I’m worried about you being out there alone.”
“Worried about what?” Qin Zhen frowned, her face full of disdain. “Why are you g-getting more and m-more timid? Useless!”
...Where had she picked that up?
The corner of Fu Qi’s mouth twitched. He closed his eyes and sighed. Then, as though he had made a momentous decision, his expression relaxed, and the gloom finally faded from his eyes.
“All right,” he said.
Problems had to be dealt with sooner or later. Leaving them to someone else could never be as reassuring as handling them personally.
Besides, Qin Zhen wasn’t afraid. What did he have to be afraid of?
