The sewer was filled with a dead silence, only the sound of dripping water echoed faintly.

Si Nan tilted his head slightly.

From a dozen meters away, Zhou Rong could see the shadows outlining the sharp contours of his side profile, from his straight nose to his lips and chin, like a silhouette.

"You guys go on," he suddenly said. "I'll go back to the surface entrance and drive the old car back."

Before Zhou Rong could try to persuade him, he heard the clang of the iron gate being shut, followed by the click of the lock.

Zhou Rong was furious. He rushed over and grabbed the iron bars: "Si Nan!"

The iron gate rattled loudly a few times, and before the echo faded, Si Nan had already waded back several meters through the water, saying coldly, "What are you doing?"

"It's too dangerous for you to be alone, come with us!"

"Don't worry about me!"

Zhou Rong looked at his handsome, cold face, which was covered in bloodstains, finding it simply incomprehensible.

The Si Nan who had actively leaned in to whisper in his ear when they came in, who had immediately burst into tears upon seeing him at the bottom of the pit, who had flown into a furious rage after seeing Zhang Yingjie's body being taken away—had suddenly reverted to the state he was in when they first met in T City: distant, cold, and even wary, constantly maintaining a distance of more than ten meters.

It was as if after experiencing a life-and-death situation, all his vivid and even intense emotions had vanished completely, and he had retreated back into an invisible, cold shell.

Si Nan's illogical wariness towards Alphas gave Zhou Rong some very bad speculations, but he was unwilling to dwell on them. He could only take a deep breath: "Comrade Xiao Si, it'll take at least two hours to get to the entrance from here. You're all alone, and you don't have a weapon..."

Si Nan held out his hand. "Give it to me."

"?"

"Gun, car keys."

"You!" Zhou Rong pointed at his nose from a distance, enraged. "Know your limits! You don't even trust your own comrades?! You..."

"Not giving them?" Si Nan said coldly, turning as if to leave.

Zhou Rong immediately unslung the Uzi Submachine Gun and pulled out the keys to the old hazmat vehicle they had driven into B City from the back of his waist. "You, come here!"

But Si Nan refused to yield. "Toss them over."

Time ticked by, and Si Nan's attitude was as unyielding as solid ice. Zhou Rong pondered for a moment, but seeing no other way, he had to toss the car keys and the submachine gun through the iron bars.

He thought for a moment, still worried, and added, "The base's drainage system is complex. There might still be Zombie Gorillas near Area E. You wait here, I'll go up and get a Signal Flare. If you run into danger, immediately..."

Before he could finish, Si Nan picked up the car keys and the submachine gun and turned to leave. A lump of frustration immediately lodged in Zhou Rong's throat. "Hey! Where the hell are you going?!"

Without looking back, Si Nan said flatly, "See you at the Fertilizer Plant."

Listening to the footsteps fading down the tunnel, Zhou Rong finally let out a breath in exhaustion.

'The distance between people really is like this,' he thought self-mockingly. 'Endless pursuit on one side only leads to a more urgent and wary retreat on the other.' He turned to walk back the way he came, but suddenly sniffed, catching a strange scent.

The stench that had been brewing in the sewer for years was rich and lingering, mixed with the rust of the iron gate and the mildew on the walls, like an atomic bomb of various odors repeatedly assaulting his nasal mucous membranes. But amidst this indiscriminate bombardment, from the spot where Si Nan had just been standing, there was a faint, indescribable scent.

He couldn't describe what it was, only that it made his heart flutter.

But he paused for only a moment before the overpowering stench of the sewer covered it up again.

"Rong-ge!" Chuncao's voice called from a distance. "Where are you? Are you okay? Where's Si Nan?"

Chuncao couldn't wait any longer and was coming down to find him. Zhou Rong snapped back to his senses and coughed.

"I'm fine... I'm here, come give me a hand."

Working together, Zhou Rong and Chuncao carried Zhang Yingjie up. Si Nan had jumped into the sewer early, so Zhang Yingjie's body hadn't suffered too much damage, but his eyes were still wide open. Zhou Rong tried to close them, but they wouldn't shut.

Ding Shi said that back in his hometown, there was a saying that people died with their eyes open because they still had lingering worries. So Zhou Rong squatted on the ground, looked at Zhang Yingjie, and mumbled, "Yingjie, ah, Yan Hao survived, we all survived. We're preparing to take the data and the Antibody to the South Sea. After the mission is done, us brothers will steal a helicopter and go to the Northeast to bring your wife and kids to a shelter. From now on, as long as I have a bite to eat, your wife and kids will have food. As long as I'm breathing, your wife and kids will have a good life..." After he finished mumbling, he reached out and wiped his hand over them, and Zhang Yingjie's wide-open eyes slowly closed.

Seven people had entered, joking and bantering, but only four were left standing, one was unconscious, and another would never wake up again. Zhou Rong's group first returned to the central area and then headed up, encountering a few waves of zombies along the way. But Yan Hao's group had brought a large supply of ammunition, and a few rounds of strafing plus grenades cleared them out completely.

They reached the surface half an hour earlier than they had estimated. Zhou Rong saw the armored vehicle and let out a "Heh." "Not bad, you guys. You managed to drive this thing up?"

Guo Weixiang said, "We had to manually blast open a few doors to get to the surface. We were originally planning to turn back and steal a helicopter, but then, well, we got caught by zombies."

"So this is a case of biting off more than you can chew. You should have just waited patiently at the designated spot. But you guys can really run, all the way from the south district to the north. It's truly a loss for our country's track and field team that we didn't send you to the Olympics... Yoho, and a mortar too!"

Chuncao said, "Give it a rest, Rong-ge. You're practically drooling."

Zhou Rong smiled, shouldered the mortar to test its weight, then tossed it back into the vehicle's rear compartment with a backhand motion and slammed the door shut with a bang. "Let's move out!"

The armored vehicle turned around on the spot, roared through the base's parking lot, sent the barrier gate flying with a loud crash, and sped straight south.

At six in the morning, the light was dim, a gray haze covering the blood-colored earth. Zhou Rong rounded a bend along the perimeter of the wire fence. Ahead was the sewer entrance they had used to enter the base. The dilapidated hazmat vehicle they had driven here was still parked on the side of the main road.

A figure was leaning against the car door, and turned their head at the sound.

Si Nan had clearly changed and washed up. He had found a riot police uniform from somewhere, was wearing thick-soled black leather short boots, and had an Uzi Submachine Gun slung over his shoulder.

He looked as if he was waiting for sunrise, or perhaps just resting. The dried blood on his handsome cheek had been washed clean. Dressed all in black, his face was starkly, coldly white in contrast. As the armored vehicle passed by, their eyes met calmly through the window.

Zhou Rong looked down at him from his higher vantage point, a scrutinizing look in his eyes. In the next moment, Si Nan's figure was left far behind the vehicle.

In the rearview mirror, Si Nan slipped into the car, and the hazmat vehicle finally pulled slowly onto the main road.

·

The two vehicles stayed less than two hundred meters apart, one following the other. Every time Zhou Rong looked up, he could see the silhouette of the car behind them in the distance. The sky gradually brightened. Along the way, Zhou Rong would stop at every large supermarket and gas station, taking people down to search for supplies and replenish their food and water. Si Nan would also stop, but he wouldn't get out, simply sleeping in the driver's seat.

Zhou Rong rummaged through the messy shelves, tossed miscellaneous items like batteries, salt, soap, and paper clips into a cardboard box, and walked out of the supermarket with it in his arms, kicking a stumbling zombie flat on its back as he passed.

He pulled out some anti-inflammatory medicine and tossed it to Ding Shi, motioning for him to give it to Yan Hao. Then he turned and saw Chuncao standing on her tiptoes, leaning against the hazmat vehicle's window, craning her neck to talk to Si Nan.

Zhou Rong felt a sour taste in his mouth. He mulled it over for a moment, went back into the supermarket, picked off a few zombies with his gun, went around to the food section, and found a few bags of preserves which he tucked into his jacket.

"Daughter!" Zhou Rong shouted from between the two vehicles, holding up the preserves and shaking them.

Chuncao looked up and, as expected, said with disgust, "It's all sticky and sweet! Who would want to eat that!"

Zhou Rong clearly saw Si Nan's throat move, as if he had swallowed.

"Then forget it," Zhou Rong said with disappointment, and strolled away with the preserves in his jacket.

They stopped seven or eight times along the way, raiding more than ten supermarkets within the Third Ring Road, and managed to haul out over a ton of rice, flour, oil, and grain, as well as dozens of boxes of daily necessities, all by hand. A truly remarkable haul.

Yan Hao's condition didn't worsen, but it didn't improve either. He remained unconscious and even developed a slight fever in the evening. Zhou Rong wanted to raid a hospital pharmacy, but public hospitals were zombie hotspots. They only had four fully capable fighters, plus Si Nan who would likely slack off and leech EXP, making it four and a half. They had a Tank but no Healer, so they really didn't have the strength to take on the public hospital "dungeon" and had to give up on the idea.

Fortunately, before night fell completely, they found a private cosmetic surgery hospital. The doctors and nurses had all turned into zombies and fled. So Zhou Rong took his "bargain-bin daughter" and swaggered into the pharmacy. He didn't care whether he recognized the medicines or not; if he saw it, he took it all back with him.

"Stop trying!" Zhou Rong said, his face a mask of agony. "It's hopeless for you in this lifetime, don't even think about it!"

Chuncao craned her neck, standing in front of a mirror, holding a pair of silicone breast implants and sizing them up against her own chest.

"You think maybe we could rescue a plastic surgeon or something along the way?" Chuncao said thoughtfully. "Don't they say most female Alphas are busty? How come my chest isn't doing anything? I think I might be a fake Alpha..."

Zhou Rong said helplessly, "The development of your secondary sexual characteristics in another area says otherwise."

Chuncao said, "It's not like I have any use for it, and I can't post a selfie to get likes either."

Her words made so much sense that Zhou Rong was speechless. He could only comfort her, "Next time you take a selfie, post it to a specific group on your Moments, and we'll give you a like."

The two of them, each carrying two first-aid boxes, with Chuncao's silicone implants hanging around her neck, walked out of the plastic surgery hospital. They saw Ding Shi standing guard with his gun, Guo Weixiang peeing under a utility pole by the road, and behind them, the back of the armored vehicle was open. Si Nan was leaning inside, seemingly looking for something.

Zhou Rong: "Ahem!"

Si Nan immediately stopped searching, casually grabbed a bottle of water from the compartment, and walked quickly towards the rear vehicle while drinking.

"...Are you two really not talking anymore?" Chuncao asked in a low voice.

Instead of answering, Zhou Rong asked, "What were you two whispering about over there just now?"

"It... it was nothing. He doesn't like Alphas, feels suppressed by their Pheromones, says it's not safe... I said my Pheromones are weaker than yours, he said yes, and that was it."

Zhou Rong nodded without a word. Chuncao said sympathetically, "I think Si Nan might have been through something traumatic before. If the virus hadn't broken out, he'd actually be suited to start something like a Beta Rights Promotion Association, advocating for human rights equality and doing charity work..."

Night fell, and everyone returned to the armored vehicle for dinner.

Because they had accumulated a lot of supplies, the stingy Zhou Rong was finally generous for once. He opened beers and more than ten cans of meat and vegetables, eating them with bread dipped in Lao Gan Ma. Si Nan was still hiding in the hazmat vehicle, unwilling to come over. Chuncao took some food and drink to him, returning a moment later to say, "He doesn't want beer. He asked if there's any Lao Gan Ma left."

"Is he really breaking up with us?" Guo Weixiang said, disappointed.

Zhou Rong said, "You tell him, if he breaks up with us, there's no Lao Gan Ma."

Chuncao went off to deliver the message and returned quickly this time. "'If there's none, there's none, just you wait; I want two blankets for sleeping tonight.'"

Zhou Rong was about to say that if they were broken up, there would be no blankets, but everyone in the vehicle stared at him with condemning eyes.

Zhou Rong: "...Give him three!"

·

The late October nights in the north were already very cold. The group huddled together on makeshift beds deep in the armored vehicle's rear compartment. Only Zhou Rong slept at a distance from the others, in the outermost spot by the door.

In the dead of night, the moon was bright and the stars were few.

The car door slid open without a sound. Si Nan, completely wrapped in a blanket with only his right hand sticking out, was rustling through the cardboard box of food by the door.

He was quieter than a hunting feline, but his intended target wasn't in the box. There weren't even any other snacks. Only the dregs were left in the Lao Gan Ma jar, and the plastic bag was filled with plain, unfilled soda crackers and small buns bought in bulk from the supermarket.

Si Nan's gaze shifted. Zhou Rong was facing away from him, snoring steadily. Something seemed to be bulging in the pocket of his camouflage pants, revealing the pointed corner of a package.

Si Nan: "...?"

Without making a sound, Si Nan extended two fingers and pinched the corner.

Just as he was about to gently pull the package out, Zhou Rong suddenly rolled over, his hand shooting out to grab Si Nan's lower back. In a flash, he pulled Si Nan in, wrapped him up, and pinned him underneath!

Thump! Si Nan's head hit the makeshift bed, making a dull sound.

Not far away, Guo Weixiang scratched his butt, rolled over, and mumbled a few unintelligible words, something about braised pork.

Si Nan's brow was tightly furrowed. In the moonlight, his pressed lips had a reddish tint. He stared at Zhou Rong without a sound.

They remained motionless in their overlapping position. A few seconds later, silence returned to the surroundings.

Zhou Rong gazed into Si Nan's amber pupils, a superior smile appearing in his eyes, the corner of his mouth hooking up. Then he pulled the bag of Apple Preserves from his pocket, shook it, and leaned down to whisper slowly in Si Nan's ear, "You little..."

Before he could finish his sentence, his hand was empty. The preserves were gone.

Si Nan gave him a push, snatched up his blankets with a whoosh, and rushed back to the hazmat vehicle, falling silent.