"I didn't expect that even with soldiers stationed here, they still couldn't hold the line. Judging by this chaotic mess, there must have been a massive outbreak at the time!" Bai Ru strapped a riot shield onto her arm and followed closely behind Lin Tao.

  "Not necessarily," Lin Tao slowed his pace, turned to Bai Ru, and said calmly, "The strongest fortresses often fall from within. Just like this pgue—the truly terrifying thing isn't the zombies themselves, but the infectious nature of the virus. A minor scratch could turn a well-trained soldier into one of them. These soldiers stationed here might have had comrades or officers who were injured and brought in for treatment. Maybe the external zombies hadn’t even broken through yet when their own turned against them."

  "Sometimes, I feel like in this world, surviving is the greatest curse." Bai Ru paused, her delicate brows furrowing deeply.

  "Humans are born to survive. Never give up until the st moment. Even if life is painful, it's still better than dying a coward's death."

  Lin Tao let out a numb smile, then stepped onto the nding and kicked at the first wooden door. However, the door had rotted so badly that instead of breaking open, his leg got stuck in it. He withdrew his foot, sighed, and this time aimed at the lock. With a loud "crash," the entire door colpsed, shattering into pieces and kicking up a thick cloud of dust.

  "What kind of trash quality is this?" Lin Tao stared in shock at the shattered wooden door. He hadn't even kicked that hard, yet it had disintegrated completely. He quickly scanned his surroundings, relieved to see that no zombies had been attracted by the noise.

  "This looks like a decontamination room. The medicine probably isn't here." Lin Tao frowned as he examined the small space, which contained only two sinks and a wooden cabinet stocked with dried-out alcohol and iodine. As he expected, the supplies here were scarce—even basic medical equipment was cking.

  "Lin! The medicine is here, but there are zombies inside!" Bai Ru called softly from a nearby doorway. She pointed toward a room beled "Infusion Hall," where three zombies wandered aimlessly. The double doors were shut, and the undead inside hadn't yet noticed them. However, a gss window in the room bore the words "Pharmacy Pickup Window" in green lettering.

  Lin Tao grabbed a few rolls of gauze from the decontamination room, stuffed them into Bai Ru’s backpack, and peered through the gss panel in the hallway. After observing for a moment, he turned to Bai Ru. "The one near the pickup window is yours. I'll handle the other two."

  "Got it!" Bai Ru nodded without hesitation, positioning herself to the right of the door with her shield raised. She gnced at Lin Tao, who stepped forward, about to kick the door open—only to stop himself just in time. Seeing Bai Ru’s puzzled expression, he grinned sheepishly and instead gently pushed the door open with his hand.

  "GRAAHH!"

  As soon as the door creaked open, the scent of the living filled the air. The three zombies inside immediately turned rabid, lunging at Lin Tao like frenzied beasts. Lin Tao calmly stepped forward, waiting for them to come to him. Two of them rushed at him, while the third targeted Bai Ru.

  Lin Tao swiftly dispatched his foes with effortless precision, their bodies crumpling at his feet. Bai Ru, growing more adept at zombie combat, didn’t even bother blocking with her shield—she cleanly severed her opponent’s head with a single strike.

  She exhaled slightly, turning to Lin Tao for a word of praise, only to find him crouched over a corpse dressed in pristine clothing, his brow deeply furrowed.

  "What’s wrong, Lin?" Bai Ru stepped closer, staring at the decapitated zombie with confusion.

  "Don’t you think something’s off?" Lin Tao pointed at the corpse, cd in a faded blue denim jacket, then looked up at Bai Ru.

  "Off?" Bai Ru hesitated, scrutinizing the body before tentatively saying, "These zombies… they’re really clean. And they’re not that decomposed. Could they have been infected recently?"

  "Exactly. These zombies were turned less than twenty days ago." Lin Tao stood up, nodding in approval.

  "Then… what were they doing here?" Bai Ru’s expression darkened as she muttered, "They wouldn’t have come to this hospital for food… so that means—"

  "Yes. Just like us, they were searching for medicine," Lin Tao finished her sentence. He crouched down and rifled through the zombie’s jacket pocket, pulling out several blister packs of unwrapped antibiotics. He stuffed them into Bai Ru’s backpack and zipped it shut. "This means there’s definitely a survivor camp nearby. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have risked coming here for medicine."

  "A survivor camp?" Bai Ru repeated, though her face showed little excitement. She gnced around and pointed at the scattered weapons—machetes, iron spikes, and the like. "These must’ve been their weapons. But what killed them? The dried corpses here have been dead for a long time."

  "The answer should be in there." Lin Tao, having checked all three zombies’ pockets for medicine, looked up at a green security door marked "Restricted Access." To its left was the gated pharmacy pickup window.

  He gripped his knife and approached cautiously, using the bde to lift the blue curtain behind the window. Suddenly—

  "SPLAT!"

  A grotesque zombie lunged out from behind the curtain, its eye dangling loosely from its face. It braced itself against the gss, desperately trying to force its way through the narrow arched opening, its single remaining eye fixated hungrily on Lin Tao.

  Without hesitation, Lin Tao drove his machete into the zombie’s eye socket, twisting the bde slightly. The zombie spasmed, then went limp like a machine whose power had just been cut.

  "One of their companions?" Bai Ru stepped forward, staring at the zombie that had gotten itself stuck in the window.

  Lin Tao yanked his bde free, pulled aside the curtain covering the zombie’s neck, and peered inside. Shaking his head, he said, "No. This was a military policeman."

  After wiping his bde clean on the curtain, Lin Tao noticed a key inserted in the security door’s lock. He twisted it gently. With a soft click, the door unlocked.

  He pulled the door open slightly and peered inside. The room was well-lit, bathed in the golden glow of midday sunlight filtering through the windows. Three rows of white wooden medicine cabinets formed a “mountain” shape in the small space, some of them toppled over. Bottles and jars y scattered across the floor. A zombie, its neck half-severed, was pinned beneath one of the fallen cabinets.