After a quick rinse of Zhao Long’s abdominal gunshot wound, they found a plastic bowl, cleaned it, placed it over the injury, and secured it with tape—a makeshift solution for the time being.Internal bleeding demanded surgery, but their current location offered no such facilities.Thus, they circled back to the predicament at hand.
Jing Lan was the first to voice the critical question:
“What do we do now? As I mentioned earlier, without further intervention, our comrade police officer will surely perish.”
Keke rose with a frustrated sigh, her gaze sweeping her surroundings and herself, desperately seeking inspiration—an idea, any idea, that could save the man before them.
She shared no particular connection with this officer.
Yet, if he died, then… ‘Then we can eat him!’ a voice, like a devil’s whisper, slithered into her ear.
“Get lost!” The short-haired girl instinctively lashed out with a punch into the air, startling both Jing Lan and Little Ye beside her.
Forcing herself to calm down, Keke then moved to examine Officer Niu, who had been knocked unconscious.
His scalp was swollen, and there was a possibility of a linear skull fracture, but regardless, his condition was far better than Zhao Long’s.
Still, he remained unconscious.
Perhaps the loss of his son had inflicted a secondary psychological shock.
Touching his forehead, she found it already burning with fever.
“No aspirin left either?”
“We’re completely out of medicine,” Old Li stated, holding a bottle of purified water nearby.
Keke stood up, wiping her hands on the nearby whitewashed wall before turning to her cousin and the white-haired girl.
“We need to go find medicine.”
Perhaps to bolster her argument, she added, “It’s not just about saving these two. Without medicine, even a minor ailment could turn fatal for anyone.”
“But our bullets are essentially gone now; all we have left are these sticks,” Old Li said, referring to the rebar spears.
“What about gasoline? How much is left?”
“There’s still one barrel in the van those two drove off with.”
“I do know of a few private gas stations,” Jing Lan offered, “but Keke, you’d know they’re not close by. So the main issue right now is…”
“The primary problem is combat effectiveness… I’ve said it before: basic necessities aren’t that hard to find. Our country has vast strategic reserves; as long as we know where they are, we’d have enough for several years, even without working.
“However, the current issue is our inability to venture beyond the iron gate. The zombies are too ferocious. We were fine when we had firearms, but now that our bullets are depleted, engaging them in close combat is extremely perilous.”
“Even with Keke’s strength, it’s not enough?” Little Ye timidly inquired.
“What a joke! The strongest person in close combat here right now is probably you.”
“Huh, me?”
Keke let out a wry chuckle.
“It truly is ‘lonely at the top,’ isn’t it? I honestly don’t know who your master is, but they must have trained you so well that no one around you could even spar with you, which is why you probably think your skills are nothing special. Still, even so, how did you feel when you were killing zombies just now? How many do you think you could kill?”
Hearing Keke’s words, Little Ye sighed wearily.
“I actually almost got bitten. And even with quick reflexes and good skills, my stamina depletes very quickly. At the most optimistic estimate, even with a better weapon, I could only kill a dozen or so zombies before getting exhausted, and that’s not even considering this dark, cramped space.”
“And that’s not even mentioning everyone else,” Keke added, sweeping her gaze across the listless survivors on the floor. “In fact, I think killing a dozen zombies might be overly optimistic.”
Jing Lan chimed in, “I believe our team is about to face a divergence, one rooted in the current ferocity of the zombies. That is, should we prioritize maintaining the safety of the shelter, allowing everyone to huddle securely inside, or should we activate a combat mode, mobilize everyone to enhance our fighting capabilities, expand our living space, access resource points, and gradually re-establish order?”
“Do you have an answer, then?” Keke asked.
Jing Lan chuckled slyly.
“I’d like to hear Little Ye’s opinion.”
Noticing several pairs of eyes on her, Little Ye blushed slightly and pulled her neck back.
“I… I actually don’t like fighting and killing. Maybe when I was practicing martial arts, I thought I did, but it wasn’t until today, seeing such bloody scenes, that I realized how difficult it is to defy one’s physiological instincts.”
A silence fell over them.
“But I also know, Sister Keke, and…” She suddenly found herself unsure how best to address Jing Lan.
Calling him “senior” again would make her too much like the former Ling Yechen.
Calling him by his given name felt too informal—though why did it need to be friendly?
“Lan…”
It turned out she just used his single-character name.
“I know you two are actually the most suited to living in this apocalyptic world—ah, ah, I don’t mean you’d *like* the world being destroyed, perhaps ‘adapt’ is a better word… Yes, adapt, you two are more adapted. So, I intend to follow your lead; your choice will be my choice.”
Keke blinked one eye.
“Little sister, is your sense of self-agency truly so weak? I always thought children who’ve trained in martial arts and endured hardships were typically strong-willed and opinionated.”
“That’s not necessarily true,” Jing Lan countered. “If every martial artist were overly strong-willed, no one would dare hire them as bodyguards, would they? Little Ye’s master, it seems, was a retired bodyguard.”
“Are you implying you think Little Ye is suited to be a bodyguard? Taking it a step further, you wouldn’t be thinking of making such a cute girl your maid or something, would you?”
“What kind of slippery slope fallacy is that…”
As the siblings inadvertently began to bicker again, Little Ye quickly interjected, “Um… what I actually meant was…”
The siblings: “Hmm?”
“I just want to be your bodyguard.”
Keke: “Huh?”
Jing Lan: “But Keke is also very skilled; she might not really need a bodyguard.”
Keke punched her brother.
“Are you saying *you* need one?”
Jing Lan unhurriedly rubbed the back of his head.
“Well, relatively speaking, there are others who need a bodyguard more, like that Old Wu over there.”
“Ah, no, I wasn’t saying my wish is to protect others. That’s actually *your* wish, isn’t it?” Little Ye replied, waving her hand. “I was trying to answer the initial question about whether to adopt a more conservative or a more aggressive survival strategy.
“I believe this question itself shouldn’t be viewed as a literal multiple-choice problem. It’s like asking someone, ‘Do you plan to be the CEO of an IT company in a major city like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, or Shenzhen, or do you intend to stay in a border province and run a tobacco company?’ The premise for such a question to be valid is that the person being asked already possesses the qualifications of an entrepreneur. Otherwise, the question is meaningless, or at least meaningless in guiding practical reality.
“Therefore, I don’t think I lack agency; rather, I feel that in my current state, I’m not suited to directly answer such a question. Those suited to answer are Keke, Little Lan (she spontaneously added ‘Little’ to his name), and perhaps even Teacher Cao—he remained unflustered earlier and would undoubtedly make a good leader. But not me; this has nothing to do with my personal abilities.”
‘I’m a child who has been told what to do and given tasks by others since I was young,’ Little Ye thought silently. ‘Even with a different body, I wouldn’t have the courage to face this dreadful world alone.’
“So, I believe my best choice is to assist you. Of course, that doesn’t mean unconditionally agreeing with everything you do, but rather protecting and helping you as you explore suitable options. Ultimately, the choice you arrive at will undoubtedly also represent my choice.”
The siblings exchanged a momentarily stunned glance.
Keke cleared her throat.
“I retract what I said earlier. Alright, then from now on, the team’s safety and defense responsibilities will likely rest heavily on your shoulders.”
Immediately after, the short-haired girl cast a sidelong glance at her cousin.
“But *you*, you’re not allowed to boss them around. Otherwise, I’ll beat you to death.”
“Am I really that bad?”
“Oh, it’s really fine, Sister Keke!”
Little Ye secretly nudged closer to Jing Lan.
“Actually, I mostly just want to act with Little Lan.”
Keke’s eyes widened, and then she hit her cousin on the head again.
“Were you secretly manipulating this little sister while I was sleeping?”
“I wasn’t. This is simply Little Ye’s agency.”
Since they weren’t entirely relaxed yet, Keke didn’t want to argue further.
“Fine, whatever. But if that stinky Lan-zi bullies you, you absolutely *must* tell me.”
“Oh, no need. I can crush his stinky ‘basket’ myself.” Little Ye tried to use a homophone for a curse word.
“Don’t be so scary,” Jing Lan rolled his eyes.
The discussion then returned to the main topic—the team’s future strategic direction.
Little Ye could somewhat perceive Jing Lan’s true intention in raising this question now, even with Zhao Long bleeding heavily beside them.
But for an INTP like Jing Lan, the thought process always began with strategy before action.
He intended to make one point clear: the team *must* get accustomed to a life of combat, and *must* consciously expand beyond the camp.
Once that point was established, it would immediately lead to an action: leaving the camp at once to find medicine.
Just then, Old Cao and a few others arrived, allowing the discussion to continue.
After listening to their summary, Old Cao nodded.
“I generally understand the problem you’re trying to solve. In essence, it’s the ‘left versus right’ dilemma within our team.”
“There’s no need to generalize it like that,” Jing Lan said. “You make it sound as if the zombies are going to launch five encirclement campaigns against our parking lot base.”
“However, if we’re desperate to save Zhao Long now and need to leave the camp for medicine, does that necessarily mean we’ll have to leave the camp every time an opportunity arises in the future?” Old Cao asked.
Jing Lan shook his head.
“My thinking isn’t like that. It’s not that because we need to save Zhao Long this time and leave the camp, we can cite this instance in the future.
“Rather, we *should* have been fighting our way out of the camp all along, reclaiming control of the county town street by street, little by little.
“Now, it just so happens that Zhao Long needs assistance, providing us with a reason to leave the camp—”
Jing Lan swallowed the word “excuse” that had been on the tip of his tongue.
“It provides a legitimate reason. We can use this to establish a precedent for the team: actively seeking solutions outside the camp. What are everyone’s thoughts?”
“I completely agree, of course,” Keke said, her shoulders trembling.
The phrase “reclaiming control of the county town” resonated with her on a profound level.
As a child with a deep emotional connection to her hometown, she knew every street, every alley.
She had once fantasized that if she ever wanted to confess to someone she liked, she would use the words Chitanda Eru said to Houtarou Oreki in the last episode of *Hyouka*: “I want to introduce my hometown to you.”
Now, witnessing her homeland transformed into a zombie-infested hell, she found it utterly unacceptable, deep in her heart.
“I also agree. I have another perspective,” Little Ye said, raising her hand. “Hiding out indefinitely in the camp is a strategy only acceptable if two conditions are met.”
In fact, this very question had been pondered a week prior by Ling Yechen (when she was still a boy), Jing Lan, and Lui Si at Old Feng’s roadside home.
“First, that zombies can starve to death. Second, that rescue personnel will arrive. At least one of these conditions must be true. Otherwise, hiding in the camp would absolutely not be a good idea.”