Chapter 27: He's Good, Everyone's Good! (Seeking follow-up reads, la la la)

"I bought an electric hot pot before. It was supposed to be delivered yesterday..."

Zheng Xin said pitifully. She had made very sufficient preparations for the challenge.

"Electric hot pot... right!" Zhong Xiaoshan's eyes lit up, and she pointed upstairs: "902 has a microwave and an induction cooker!"

Zhang Su made a decisive decision: "I'll go!"

Water, electricity, coal, and communication—now only electricity was stubbornly maintaining itself. God knew when it would be gone, but since it could be used now, they had to use it quickly.

Zheng Xin just wanted to say she would go together, but suddenly thought that things were different now. She couldn't let the newcomer Zhong Xiaoshan watch over so many supplies at home, so she nodded and turned to help Zhang Su find equipment.

"When you go to 902, pay more attention to the situation on the ground. It's easy to trip over things. Also, be very careful of that zombie uncle. He's not wearing shoes, so he walks without a sound..."

Zhong Xiaoshan stood to the side, reminding Zhang Su, who was putting on arm guards.

"OK!"

After speaking, Zhang Su didn't linger. He observed the situation outside, and after confirming there was no abnormality, he opened the door and left. Someone had already opened up new territory for him, so he felt a little relieved but still remained vigilant.

"Sister Xin, you're so lucky to be with such a reliable person like Brother Su."

At the door, Zhong Xiaoshan said to Zheng Xin, who was looking outside through the peephole.

Zheng Xin's body stiffened slightly.

Are they together?

If it weren't for this sudden catastrophe, would the two have ended up together?

They would probably have been exploited by that unscrupulous black-hearted landlord forever!

"Does Nurse Zhong have ideas about Brother Su?"

Zheng Xin turned her head and asked bluntly, looking at Zhong Xiaoshan without avoiding her gaze.

The straightforward question made Zhong Xiaoshan quite embarrassed. Her eyes darted around, and she laughed awkwardly: "What is Sister Xin saying? I've known Brother Su for less than a day, how could I have any ideas."

"It wouldn't be strange if you had ideas. At a time like this... we can't have conflicts that make Brother Su unhappy. As long as you can make him happy, we'll all be good."

Zheng Xin had a strange expression on her face. After speaking, she continued to aim at the peephole.

Zhong Xiaoshan looked at Zheng Xin with some disbelief, but after a moment, she understood the thought in her heart. In this environment where life was precarious, many things had changed—changed from before.

In the face of survival, all internal conflicts must be avoided and resolved, and all external conflicts must be eradicated and solved!

At the same moment, in 502 of the same unit, two men were talking in low voices.

"Brother, brother... we can't get out, we can't rush out. There are so many zombies downstairs!"

A thin man kept shaking his head, his face full of panic, his hair messy, and his eyes bloodshot. If someone saw him at night, they would definitely mistake him for a zombie.

"No, we must leave here!"

Duan Wuhu's attitude was very firm: "Water and gas are cut off. God knows how long electricity can last. The remaining things we have, even if we eat two meals a day, only have enough for three or four days!"

"After there's no food, our state will be even worse. By then, we won't even have the strength to run if we want to!"

Compared to his younger brother Duan Sihai, the older brother Duan Wuhu was burly. He wasn't the purely fat kind; one could see he had a solid foundation. While speaking, he looked at the bedroom direction with sorrow.

"Brother, even if we want to leave here, then..."

Duan Sihai also looked toward the master bedroom, his eyes gray: "What about Mom and sister-in-law?"

If one listened carefully, one could hear the sound of teeth grinding that made one's teeth ache from the bedroom. The sound wasn't loud, but it always made one's heart feel cold, as if a man-eating demon was hiding behind the door.

Hearing his brother mention his mother and his own wife, Duan Wuhu couldn't help but recall yesterday's nightmare.

Like any normal morning, as a junior high school PE teacher, he got up before six. After finishing his morning run in the complex, he returned home to see his wife preparing breakfast, while his mother was watering flowers by the window, and only his otaku younger brother was sleeping in.

Duan Sihai, who had just graduated from college, hadn't found a job and was in a confused period of life, but that didn't prevent the family from loving each other.

Everything looked so warm and beautiful, but the arrival of the disaster didn't make sense at all!

Duan Wuhu forgot the specific time. He only remembered walking out of the bathroom after using the toilet. Looking at the kitchen, the soup pot with noodles on the gas stove was overflowing, while his wife was standing in place, twisting her neck mechanically, ignoring the overflowing pot.

He hurriedly stepped forward to ask, but when he saw his wife's face, his heart skipped a beat.

On her gray cheeks, blood vessels were faintly visible, her eyes were bloodshot, and without a word, she opened her big mouth and pounced on him...

Duan Wuhu reacted flexibly, picking up the rolling pin on the rack to hold it across his chest for the first time, narrowly escaping a disaster. Then he took a roll of plastic wrap to wrap his wife, which allowed him to escape. But before he could catch his breath, his mother came behind him with the same mechanical steps!

Facing his mother, who had lost her mind and was pouncing on him to bite, Duan Wuhu felt like he had been struck by lightning. In the blink of an eye, without much time to think, he followed the same method to control his mother!

Watching the two most important women in his life fall to the ground and twist frantically, with various roars like wild beasts in their mouths, Duan Wuhu's heart was in chaos.

Immediately after, the entire complex was in chaos. He knew something big had happened!

"If the experience you learned from the videos is correct, your sister-in-law and Mom are already beyond saving..." Duan Wuhu choked up, sighed, and said: "We have to live!"

He was a sentimental person, but also a rational one. He understood the principle that the dead were gone.

Duan Sihai grabbed his messy hair, his face slightly distorted: "But what if... what if there's hope to cure Mom and sister-in-law? If we just leave like this, wouldn't they, wouldn't they have died in vain!"

"There's no hope of seeing order restored in a short time. Water is gone, gas is gone. We can't last more than a week. Of course, I also hope Mom and Xiaolan can get treatment, but... do you think it's realistic?"

Duan Wuhu knew his younger brother's personality. He was completely using these reasons to find excuses for his own cowardice and fear of rushing out, nothing more!

As long as one was a rational person, one could see the current situation clearly. Let alone researching how to defeat the virus, even finding a safe place to settle down was difficult.

"Fine! Brother, even if you're right, but... even if we go out, where can we go? The gun and artillery fire last night was so intense, and it all went silent. Can we be more powerful than the army?"

Duan Sihai's expression was a bit hysterical.

Due to the floor issue, the Duan brothers' view wasn't as good as Zhang Su's, so they didn't know it was special police clearing out zombies, thinking it was the army.

"We're not going to confront those ghosts head-on. If we can't afford to provoke them, can't we hide? I want to take you to live, live, understand?"

Duan Wuhu anxiously persuaded his younger brother, who had no fighting spirit.

The group has started to form. Perhaps some readers will feel that some behaviors subvert their worldview, but readers who often read apocalyptic novels shouldn't be constrained by ordinary universal values, heh...

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 28 =====