I grabbed the handsome guy just as he was about to hurl the decorative stone downstairs.
“Go up first—save that, we’ll need it later.”
Sure enough, once those people reached the sixth floor, they immediately noticed the row of rooms.
Just as we ran up, we saw one of the doors slam shut with a bang.
Hearing the walkers growling below, we didn’t rush over right away.
Instead, we worked together to drag two small cabinets from the corner and block the elevator entrance.
Only then did we turn and run toward the room where those people were hiding.
On the way, Han Xue seemed to hear the commotion and opened the door to peek out.
I gestured for her to go back inside and pointed toward the other room.
She understood immediately, nodded, and retreated.
Reaching the door, I knocked, half exasperated. “Open up. We’re not walkers—we can help you get out.”
The people inside were clearly panicking.
At the sound of knocking, there was even a small startled cry.
After quite a while, someone finally came to open the door.
Grabbing the handsome guy, we slipped inside the moment it opened.
I looked around at them and skipped introductions altogether. “Did you come up from the first floor?”
They glanced at each other, and the young boy nodded. “Yeah…”
“What’s the situation downstairs?”
The middle-aged woman looked us over repeatedly before answering in a trembling voice, “The exits have all been sealed. They won’t let us out. Team D said they’ll send people in after an hour.”
“Sealed?” The handsome guy’s face changed.
I nodded—when I saw the elevator had stopped earlier, I had already guessed the place was locked down.
“About how many people are down there?”
“Quite a lot… probably dozens,” the woman replied.
“Dozens? Then what was that sudden wave of screaming just now? Did the walkers rush in?”
“Y-yes! It nearly scared me to death! When they bite, they tear chunks of flesh off—it was horrifying. If Xiao Yu hadn’t reacted quickly and dragged us up here, we’d probably have been bitten too.”
I glanced at the boy—so he was Xiao Yu.
I gave him a thumbs-up in approval, then thought for a moment and asked, “When you came up, about how many people had been bitten?”
“Oh my, who could tell? We were scared out of our wits—who had time to count that?” the older woman said, still shaken.
“Didn’t Team D say they’d come in an hour? Let’s just wait here,” the handsome guy said.
But just as he finished speaking, a scream suddenly came from the next room—as if in response.
It startled me badly.
As soon as I reacted, I turned and ran toward the source.
I tried the handle—the sound was coming from the room where Lili and the others were.
The door was locked, and screams were still coming from inside.
I pounded on the door and shouted, “What’s wrong? What happened? Open the door!”
The screaming continued, and Xuanxuan had been woken up again, crying loudly.
Her wails mixed with the screams, creating a chaotic, unsettling noise.
I started banging harder. “What’s going on? Open the door!”
Still no response.
The handsome guy ran up beside me and said, “Kick it open.”
He pulled me aside and lifted his leg.
Just as he landed the first kick, there was a click from inside—the door unlocking—and it swung open.
Before we could step in, the people inside rushed out in a panicked flood.
Lili came out last, holding Xuanxuan, who was crying so hard she could barely breathe.
They were all terrified.
Beer Belly and Baldy, in particular, didn’t stop even after getting out—they shouted as they bolted straight toward the stairwell.
Before anyone could react, we heard the stairwell door slam shut—they had already run down.
There was no time to calm the others.
I immediately turned and rushed into the room.
The moment I saw what was inside, I finally understood where the screams had come from…
One of the two middle-aged shop attendants who had been with the handsome guy lay on the ground, eyes wide open.
The other… or rather, the other thing… was crouched over her, gripping her arm and tearing into it with savage bites.
Chunks of blood-soaked flesh were being ripped off and devoured rapidly—she didn’t even bother chewing.
Had she been infected earlier?
Sensing my presence, the feeding walker turned its head toward me.
It opened its mouth wide with a hoarse cry, then shakily stood up and staggered toward me.
Seeing her clothes completely soaked in blood, I instinctively took two steps back.
But when I heard the people behind me cry out in fear as the walker approached, I gritted my teeth, took a deep breath, and stepped forward—driving a kick straight into it!
I couldn’t even remember how long it had been since I’d properly dealt with a walker.
Now everything felt rusty.
The force of my kick wasn’t what I expected, and my whole body felt off—nothing like the smooth, natural movements from before.
That kick didn’t land solidly—it only made her stagger back two steps.
At the same time, I hurriedly swung the mop—more for courage than anything—down hard toward her head.
As expected… a flimsy mop couldn’t possibly knock her down.
Seeing her closing in again, I quickly kicked once more—but what happened next was something I never could’ve anticipated… honestly, it was almost laughable.
My shoelace had come undone.
At some point while backing up, the loose lace had gotten caught under my other foot.
The moment I lifted my leg to kick, I lost my balance completely and crashed to the ground with a thud.
As I hit the floor, my head spinning, I still managed to curse the heavens.
That fall was brutal—I was completely dazed.
The walker was already close, and it seized the chance to pounce.
Just as it lunged, I twisted to the side and barely avoided it.
Without thinking, I lashed out and kicked it hard—somewhere, anywhere.
When it finally collapsed fully onto the ground, I rushed forward and stomped down hard on its head.
Gritting my teeth, I stomped several more times until it finally stopped moving.
I let out a deep breath.
Before I could even turn to leave, I heard Han Xue shout, “Chen Yang! Watch behind you!”
Before I could turn, I caught a blur of movement—Taozi rushed in, let out a sharp scream, and kicked hard at something behind me.
It took me a couple of seconds to process what had happened.
When I turned around, I saw the woman who had been lying there, half-eaten, now opening her mouth wide, her body twitching as she tried to get up.
The handsome guy rushed in with the stone in his hand and smashed it down hard onto her head.
In an instant, brain matter splattered everywhere—the walker’s head was crushed into a pulp.
The three of us looked at each other—and couldn’t help but laugh foolishly.
The room was now covered in blood and gore, completely unfit to stay in.
The family of four from earlier, hearing the commotion, refused to open their door no matter what.
With no other choice, we moved into another room.
Lili finally managed to calm Xuanxuan, who had been crying nonstop.
Taozi, shaken by his own sudden outburst of courage, was still trembling with lingering fear.
He had always been well protected by Zhou Wen and had never been close to walkers before.
The fact that he reacted instantly to save me just now was genuinely moving.
Han Xue and Lili sat close to me, both regretting over and over that we hadn’t checked our luck before going out today.
Everything had happened so suddenly—without any warning.
And after living in relative peace for so long, the psychological defenses we once had had been worn down by the calm, uneventful days.
After all that chaos, I leaned my head against Han Xue’s shoulder, too exhausted to even lift my eyelids.
If another walker showed up now, I definitely wouldn’t have the strength to deal with it.
The room fell into silence.
The two girls huddled together without speaking, and the security guard sat in the corner, his face full of worry.
Xiao Rong had recovered a bit mentally—she could at least help Lili from time to time, playing with Xuanxuan to keep her distracted.
After a long stretch of silence, just as I was about to drift off, the security guard finally spoke hesitantly, “Outside… is there some kind of noise?”
My hazy thoughts snapped back instantly.
I froze, then lifted my head and glanced around the room before focusing on listening carefully to what he meant.
A few seconds later, I realized what he was talking about.
The two cabinets that Handsome Guy and I had used to block the elevator were wooden—and the sound we were hearing now was walkers scratching and slamming against them.
“…Nobody make a sound. The walkers are up here.” Forcing myself up, I walked to the door and pressed my ear against it, listening quietly.
There was a series of messy, chaotic noises outside.
If I wasn’t mistaken, all those dozen or so walkers had followed us up.
The cabinets weren’t very big—if they kept pushing forward, it wouldn’t take more than a few minutes for them to force them aside.
Handsome Guy had clearly realized the same thing.
His face changed immediately as he asked, “What do we do?”
I gestured for him to stay quiet and whispered, “Hide. Don’t move.”
Under normal circumstances, letting a group of people hide in one place while being surrounded by walkers was a terrible idea.
It meant placing all your chances of survival on whether or not someone from the outside would come to help.
But looking around the room now, there wasn’t a single person capable of going out and properly dealing with the walkers.
As for me—even standing steadily for ten minutes was questionable in my current state, let alone fighting them.
— The end of the Chapter–
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