“Here!”
The flashlight beam illuminated a street-facing window on the corner.
Doctor Gu rushed over, attempting to push it open, but found it locked from the inside.
Though merely a standard glass pane, not the reinforced, red-barred security windows common in this urban village, the glass proved remarkably sturdy.
Doctor Gu’s attempts to smash it with his fists yielded no results.
“Stand back,” Jing Lan commanded, hurrying forward with a stone clutched in his hand.
He slammed it against the glass, and with a sharp, shattering crack, a web of fissures bloomed across the pane.
Disregarding potential injury to their hands, both men punched through the glass, forcing the window completely open, then scrambled and tumbled into the room.
It was a discount clothing store.
Its front door was inexplicably shut, despite the hour not being particularly late when the incident occurred.
A ladder, however, led to the second floor, typically serving as the owner’s living quarters.
The two men swiftly ascended the ladder, which was firmly fixed and could not be overturned.
Beside the second-floor entrance in the ceiling, a makeshift door fashioned from plywood was visible.
It was secured on one side by two simple bolts and on the other by a small iron ring, with a corresponding loop and tiny padlock on the floor nearby—likely a safety measure the owner employed when resting at night.
Doctor Gu, having followed closely, quickly fastened the small iron ring on the wooden door and clicked the padlock into place, heedless of how they might open it later.
No sooner had these actions been completed than the plywood door was subjected to violent impacts.
Dust billowed from around the edges of the bolts.
Jing Lan swept his flashlight around the cramped attic.
In the small, partitioned bedroom, the bedding was neatly folded, suggesting the shop owner had gone out.
It was fortunate that the second-floor wooden door could only be locked from the inside, meaning the owner hadn’t secured it upon leaving.
Otherwise, the two would now be trapped like turtles in a jar.
The pounding on the wooden door persisted for several minutes before finally ceasing.
It was unclear whether the zombies had forgotten their ascent or if their heads had simply grown sore from the incessant banging.
However, the zombies on the clothing store’s first floor showed no signs of dispersing.
Their low growls lingered, refusing to fade.
Perhaps they were, in fact, drawn by the scent of ammonia and thus reluctant to leave?
Speaking of ammonia, Jing Lan realized he no longer noticed the scent on himself.
This was partly because his nose had grown accustomed to the foul odor, and partly because the slaughterhouse street, teeming with Nightfiend nests, had recently assaulted his senses with a stench of decaying flesh far more repulsive than ammonia.
He had initially thought his reality had become *The Walking Dead*, then *Train to Busan*, but now, it seemed more akin to *Alien*.
In an instant, that foolishly brave Kong Cheng had fallen outside.
All told, two innocent lives had been lost in the attempt to save that police officer—a truly losing venture.
No one could say what other horrors lurked outside.
His memory of encountering what appeared to be bloodsucking blankets in the mountains a week prior had grown somewhat hazy, but recalling it now, he wondered if such creatures were no longer uncommon.
Extending this line of thought brought a profound sense of helplessness.
Jing Lan sighed, then lay down on the attic owner’s bed.
Glancing sideways, he saw Doctor Gu kneeling before the attic window, murmuring prayers.
“I truly admire you.
To be a chief physician in the emergency department, a highly educated individual no less, why do you believe in such fanciful notions…?”
Doctor Gu slowly rose, turning his head as faint moonlight filtered through the frosted window behind him.
“To tell you something you might not believe: there are quite a few theists in some local hospitals.
I once heard a theory that in departments like neurosurgery and clinical psychology, more people believe in God.
I don’t know if it’s true or not, but gradually, I’ve come to understand a few things.
“That is, one cannot always rely on empirical evidence.”
As a half-baked philosophy enthusiast, Jing Lan felt a flicker of argumentative impulse, but it instantly faded into disinterest.
Doctor Gu spoke as he slowly approached.
Out of politeness, instilled in him since childhood, Jing Lan quickly sat up from the bed.
Doctor Gu unzipped the backpack full of medical instruments he carried, pulling out a leather wallet.
“Take a look at this.”
Inside the wallet was a photograph of a small girl.
“Your daughter?”
Doctor Gu raised his eyebrows slightly.
“I was afraid of being hacked to death by a disgruntled patient, so I thought I could pull it out and look at her one last time before I died.
That’s why I always carry her picture with me.”
Doctor Gu returned the wallet to his bag as he spoke.
“There’s no need to be so dramatic.
Most people are good.”
“Now, I don’t know if she’s safe.
My home is far from the hospital, and with no power or internet, I can’t contact my family.
Yet, I think of my daughter every single moment.
One voice in my heart tells me she’s still alive, while another warns me not to harbor illusions.
This constant torment is driving me mad; I just want to smash my head against a wall and die.
“It was then that I remembered the scripture my Lord bestowed upon me… a scripture that accurately predicted the time of the disaster’s occurrence.
The end of the world happens once every tens of thousands of years; what are the odds of a text predicting it precisely to the day?
Indeed, even with such accuracy, the scripture’s authenticity still cannot be verified through deductive reasoning.
“But if I must speak plainly, even if God Himself appeared directly before you, how would you determine it wasn’t a dream or a hallucination?
“No matter how much you seek empirical proof, there will always come a time when you can only choose to believe.
Otherwise, you will drown in an endless sea of doubt.
“And my Lord has promised that as long as I fulfill my duties, believe in the Way, and do good deeds, I will be reunited with my daughter.”
“What if your daughter ultimately dies?” Jing Lan retorted, mercilessly.
“Then we will be reunited in the Hall of Ten Thousand Glories!
That is the eternal paradise our Lord has prepared for us.”
A sharp, resolute light suddenly gleamed in Doctor Gu’s eyes.
“The universe is infinite; there will always be a parallel world where elements aligning with my faith can manifest.”
“But within that infinitude, elements that deny a faith can also arise.”
Jing Lan sighed.
“Never mind, perhaps arguing with you about these things is pointless… I took electives on this in school.
When playing simulation games, I even tried inventing a religion, crafting various rhetorical traps to ensnare people, predicting the world’s destruction…”
Jing Lan abruptly fell silent mid-sentence.
Doctor Gu, unable to discern his face and oblivious to his altered expression, continued speaking to himself: “Of course, I know there are many false prophets in the world, but returning to our earlier discussion, there are many things we can only choose to believe, striving to find certainty amidst uncertainty.
“Let me ask an offensive question.
Little Jing, do you truly believe your mother is no longer among the living?”
This was indeed an offensive question.
“The river fish that consumed her body back then have probably spawned over ten generations by now.”
“Oh, come now, don’t speak such bitter words.
When you were talking about your mother with Doctor Hui earlier, you clearly wavered when you said the word ‘gone.’
You weren’t quite sure how to describe your mother’s state.
“Did you ever believe in a small possibility that she was actually still alive?”
Jing Lan swallowed hard.
‘This was likely something he could not deny.’
Doctor Gu shouldered his backpack once more and sat on the edge of the bed.
“It’s the same principle, really.
Her being alive and my God genuinely existing—both are simply matters of our individual beliefs.”
‘Talking to this fellow was truly uncomfortable.’
‘However, considering he needed Doctor Gu’s help and they were still in danger, it was probably better to be more diplomatic.’
“Very well, I respect you.
May your Lord bless you.”
“What do we do next?”
Doctor Gu’s mind moved quickly, immediately jumping to another question.
“What else can we do?
We wait until dawn.”
“Then the person you want to save probably can’t be saved.
As you can see, I only brought a bag.
I can stop his bleeding, and I can perform an emergency transfusion, though that would, of course, require a matching blood type on site.”
“How do we confirm blood type?”
“Combination test cards.
I brought them.
Three minutes, and it’s done.”
Jing Lan noticed that the doctor became invigorated whenever the topic of saving lives arose.
The fleeting excitement in his eyes, mixed with a not-so-intense religious fervor, churned together like oil and water.
“Do you truly want to save people that much?”
“By saving others and fulfilling my mission, I can hear my Lord’s approval.”
‘You’d better be able to.’
Doctor Gu added, “I believe you are also someone destined to encounter the Lord.
After all, you are willing to go to great lengths for the safety of strangers.”
Jing Lan fell silent.
‘It now seemed the rescue operation for Zhao Long had initially failed.
It had implicated and led to the deaths of an innocent civilian and one participant, and the current attempt to return to the parking lot had also failed.
How annoying.’
‘Before, there was the granary battle, stealing weapons from the Northeast Young Master, hijacking a plane to save his cousin…’
‘These actions had been driven by intense emotions, undertaken without fear of death.’
‘But what about now?
Did he truly want to save that police officer so badly?’
‘Indeed, even if the injured person hadn’t been a police officer but his own kin, would anything truly change?
The city remained fraught with peril at night.
This was not something that could be altered by the intensity of personal feelings.’
As these thoughts swirled, he found himself squinting, on the verge of drifting to sleep.
****
The instant the sound of shattering glass erupted, Jing Lan’s eyes snapped open.
He saw two figures grappling by the window, moonlight streaming through the broken pane.
“They’re coming through the window!”
Doctor Gu shoved away a zombie lunging at him, stumbling to the floor himself.
From the shattered window, yet another zombie prepared to clamber inside.
“Why are they so certain we’re here?!”
“Who knows!”
Doctor Gu frantically reached for the wooden door on the floor, only to realize a force was pushing against it from the other side.
“My Lord above!
Are you calling me?!”
“Calling a dog’s head!
I haven’t lived enough!
I don’t even have a girlfriend yet!”
Jing Lan cursed, snatching the small bedside lamp to smash against the fallen zombie’s head.
The lamp’s lethality was clearly limited, and outside the window, four or five more zombies had already climbed up, pressing together, eager to get in.
“Stop praying!
Find a weapon, quickly!”
There wasn’t much in the attic.
The two men, unarmed, found their lives hanging by a thread.
Doctor Gu’s body stiffened, and he tilted his head, as if listening intently.
“First floor!
Someone’s on the first floor!”
“There’s only zombies on the first floor!”
“No!
It’s a girl’s voice!”
Just then.
“Senior!”
It was Xiao Ye’s voice, muffled by the wooden floor.
Fortunately, the key was still in the lock.
The two twisted it open and leaped down the ladder.
In the narrow first floor of the clothing store, three zombies lay on the ground, all killed by stabs to the eyes.
The young girl held a small flashlight in one hand and a boning knife in the other.
The beam illuminated her Firefly cosplay outfit, already stained with blood.
Xiao Ye exchanged a brief glance with the two men who had descended.
Without a word, she tossed a folded cloth bag to Jing Lan.
Inside were some fruit knives.
“These can be throwing knives for you.”
Without further exchange, the three immediately leaped out through the window they had broken earlier.
The cul-de-sac still teemed with zombies.
“I’ll run in the opposite direction and draw the zombies away.
You two try to climb over that door.”
Xiao Ye pointed to the door that was completely blocked by an illegally parked car.
“How can you?
Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
“I… I won’t die.
My skills are better than yours; being scared earlier was purely an accident.
And next time, don’t leave me behind to run alone.”
Jing Lan drew a knife and sent it flying in a diagonal arc, the blade embedding itself in the neck of an approaching zombie.
At present, there seemed to be no other way out of danger.
“Alright then, run back to the hospital as fast as you can.
And… thank you.”
A faint smile suddenly graced the girl’s usually impassive face.
“You two go to Keke’s place.
I’ll take a detour and find you there.”
“But you don’t know where her house is…”
“I do.
No, I should say, I know where *you* are.”
Jing Lan stiffened, and suddenly, everything seemed to click into place.
He touched the stone in his jacket pocket, the one his Japanese teacher had given him.
In his panic earlier, he had instinctively pulled out that very object to smash the clothing store’s first-floor window.
“This is getting interesting,” he murmured.
“Indeed.
See you later.”
With those words, the young girl once again charged toward the zombie-infested slaughterhouse street.