As Han Xue collapsed and lost consciousness, Suo Tian quickly stepped forward and caught her, preventing her from hitting her head.
Seeing this, Zhou Wen also rushed over to help support her limp, unconscious body.
He patted her face a couple of times and called out, “Hey… Han Xue? Wake up…”
After handing Han Xue over to Zhou Wen, Suo Tian lifted his head and looked at Aunt Qing, who was still standing there without moving. “What did you put in the water?”
At that, Aunt Qing suddenly let out a soft laugh.
Adjusting her nightclothes, she said to Suo Tian, “The girl probably got sick from being caught in the rain. What does that have to do with my water?”
Her demeanor clearly showed no intention of denying what she had done, yet her tone remained teasing, almost mocking.
…
After Taozi and Lili went missing, Suo Tian and Han Xue also disappeared one after another.
Zhou Wen, who had gone out to look for them, hadn’t returned for a long time either.
Uncle Gazi stood at the doorway, craning his neck to look, but not a single person came back.
As the time reached 9:30 p.m., Uncle Gazi—who had previously insisted with good reason that no one should go out—finally couldn’t sit still anymore.
After putting Tingyun and Xiao Hu to sleep, he had Yangyang, Xu Shu, and Chen Pu stay behind to look after the house, while the rest of us grabbed flashlights and umbrellas and headed out to search.
At this late hour, with several people missing, we had no idea who to turn to.
Aside from going out ourselves to look for them, there was no other option.
Originally, Uncle Gazi and the others didn’t want me to go.
Although they had their concerns, I couldn’t stand staying at home, doing nothing but waiting.
Besides, Xu Shu wasn’t in the right state of mind to go out, and I was the only one who knew the location.
Dressed in enough layers, wrapped in a raincoat, and holding an umbrella, I was reminded countless times to be careful of the slippery ground.
Only then did we finally set out.
Before leaving, we all put back on the equipment we hadn’t used for a long time—the gear we used to fight off walkers outside.
Even though we didn’t know who we might be facing, everyone was already prepared for a fight.
We first went to the park where we had stayed earlier.
As expected, it was completely empty—not a single person in sight.
Then, relying on memory, I led everyone toward the place Han Xue had taken us before.
Although we knew it was empty, the fact that Han Xue had led us there in the first place meant it must be somehow connected—at least slightly—to Taozi and Lili’s disappearance.
Moreover… as far as we knew, aside from checking that place, the only other option would be to conduct a house-by-house search.
And for a group like us—old, weak, and injured—searching occupied villas in the middle of the night would more likely get our legs broken than yield results.
As we got closer to the abandoned villa area, the lights grew dimmer, until only a few distant households cast faint light that barely reached us.
Jundi and Shen Feng had trained for quite some time, and being men, they weren’t easily frightened.
With them around, it didn’t feel quite as scary.
When we arrived at the door Han Xue had brought us to earlier, I immediately noticed that the villa directly across from us—dark and unlit—had its front door wide open.
Uncle Gazi and the others clearly noticed it too.
The group instinctively drew closer together, slowly pulling out their daggers and gripping them tightly.
After reminding us to stay alert, Shen Feng took the lead and approached the door.
As the lights were turned on, the first thing we saw were the messy footprints on the floor, extending all the way to the second floor.
After a brief pause, Jundi asked in a low voice, “Should we go up and take a look? There are signs of activity here.”
Uncle Gazi nodded in agreement. “Let’s check it out. It might be our people.”
I crouched down and examined the footprints for a moment, then waved my hand at the three of them. “No need to go up. This place is empty.”
“How do you know?” Jundi asked.
I pointed at the footprints. “When I came here earlier, the door was closed. Now it’s open—that means someone went in and out during that time. Look at the footprints—four people came in, and four people left.”
The three of them looked down and counted carefully.
After confirming it, Shen Feng turned to me and asked, “If no one’s here, then where would they be?”
I glanced toward the second floor and shook my head. “I don’t know.”
We didn’t linger in the house.
It was almost time for lights out.
We opened our umbrellas again and left the door as it was—wide open—before heading out.
After wandering aimlessly for a while, we eventually reached the back row of the villa area.
Suddenly, Uncle Gazi pointed toward a cluster of houses even farther back and waved at us.
“Hey, come take a look—is that a light over there?”
Hearing that, we quickly turned to look.
Faintly, it seemed that a light was indeed coming from one of the villas in the back row.
“Let’s go check it out.”
Once we confirmed it, we immediately turned and ran toward that direction.
In the pitch-dark, uninhabited villa area, a single house lit up—it didn’t matter whether it made sense or not.
To us, at this moment, it definitely didn’t feel normal.
As we approached the villa, we could already see from a distance the thick, overgrown vegetation at the entrance.
It almost completely covered the lawn in front of the house, leaving only a narrow path leading to the door.
Shen Feng gestured for Uncle Gazi and me to stay by the roadside and wait.
Then he and Jundi quickly stepped forward.
When they reached the front door, the two of them leaned in and listened for a moment.
Instead of knocking, Shen Feng suddenly lifted his foot and kicked the door hard.
The doors in this villa district weren’t made of flimsy material—one kick wouldn’t bring it down.
After several more kicks, Shen Feng finally remembered to try the handle.
Not knowing what was going on, Uncle Gazi and I hurried forward to ask what had happened—why they were kicking someone’s door right off the bat.
But just as we rushed up, Jundi managed to fumble with it and actually got the door open.
What we saw inside froze all four of us in place.
The floor was scattered with large shards of broken glass.
On the wall, only half of a mirror remained.
But that wasn’t the most shocking part.
The missing half of the mirror didn’t reveal a wall behind it—as expected—but instead exposed a hidden room of considerable size.
Inside that hidden room was an operating table.
Lying on it was a young woman, completely naked, her limbs restrained.
It was obvious she was no longer alive.
Because her abdomen… had been split open outward.
From her neck all the way down to her lower abdomen, her body had been cut open in a single long incision.
Her internal organs were completely gone.
At that moment, the girl—reduced to little more than skin and bones—lay on the operating table, letting out low, guttural growls toward the mirror room outside.
She had become a walker. She wanted flesh. She wanted blood.
In a corner beside the operating table, there was a pile of what appeared to be discarded human limbs and organs.
Forcing down the wave of nausea, we looked away.
Compared to the horrifying scene inside the mirror room, the situation in the main room was what truly demanded our attention.
Inside the room, Suo Tian stood leaning against the wall.
Zhou Wen and Han Xue lay unconscious on the floor.
And there were two Aunt Qings—nearly identical in appearance.
Each held a gun.
One had her weapon aimed at Suo Tian.
The other, clearly as a threat, had the muzzle pressed against Han Xue’s temple.
Our sudden appearance didn’t seem to alarm them at all.
They casually glanced at the four of us.
I couldn’t tell which one was the Aunt Qing we had met earlier in the park—but at this point, it didn’t matter anymore.
The one crouching on the ground looked up at me, then pointed.
“You—come over here. We can return the two people on the ground to you completely unharmed.”
I hadn’t expected to be singled out the moment we arrived.
I froze for a second.
Meanwhile, Suo Tian—who had been frowning—tightened his expression even further when he saw us.
The moment he heard what the crouching Aunt Qing said, I saw his right hand flip, and several steel throwing knives he always carried appeared between his fingers.
Before he could make a move, the two of them noticed.
The one on the ground cocked her gun with a sharp click, her expression turning fierce as she spoke to Suo Tian:
“I’ve long heard of Captain Suo’s skills. You’d better behave and put those things away. If I fire, I won’t hesitate for even half a second.”
Suo Tian didn’t comply.
He simply stared at the two of them for a moment before speaking:
“You think I care?”
At that, their expressions shifted slightly before returning to normal. “Don’t try to bluff us.”
Suo Tian raised the hand holding the throwing knives and said:
“The twin sisters, vice-captains of Team A—your reputation is well deserved. But you probably don’t understand… I don’t care about anyone else’s life or death.”
The moment Suo Tian said that, the two women froze for a split second—but quickly regained control.
In that brief opening, Suo Tian suddenly burst into motion and hurled his throwing knives at them.
However, his targets weren’t their vital points.
Instead, every blade was aimed at their hands.
The gun in the standing woman’s hand was instantly knocked to the ground.
Seizing that critical moment, Shen Feng—who was standing by the door—rolled forward and swept his leg, kicking the fallen gun far away.
As for the one crouching on the ground, Suo Tian was clearly still wary of harming Han Xue.
After all, even a slight mistake could cost her life.
So his blade only grazed past the woman’s wrist, barely missing.
After kicking the gun away, Shen Feng turned and tried to seize the other weapon from the woman.
But he hadn’t expected that the standing woman was far from easy to deal with—she was clearly trained.
She threw a powerful punch straight at Shen Feng, the force behind it obvious.
Even I, a complete outsider, could tell her strike was highly professional.
— The end of the Chapter–
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