A single gunshot shattered the lock of Room 301.
Su Jin stood motionless, his gaze sharp as a hawk, pistol raised and ready.
Moments later, the door creaked open. A lifeless face appeared, only to collapse instantly.
Crack. Crack. Two rapid shots echoed, and two zombies inside the apartment hit the floor, shot through the heart.
His firearms experience was limited, but within five meters, he was confident he could hit the heart.
After waiting for a beat with no further movement, Su Jin stepped inside and crouched to carve open their chests.
Just as his knee hit the floor, a naked child about 1.3 meters tall darted out from the periphery.
In the dim light, Su Jin's newly enhanced agility flared to life.
Sensing the ambush, he threw his weight backward, rolling directly into the hallway.
Still coiled in a crouch, he kicked off the ground and slammed his shoulder hard into the door.
With a sickening thud, the heavy door crushed the child's skull, its eyes falling out.
Without missing a beat, Su Jin slipped the gun barrel through the crack in the door and fired another shot into its back.
All three members of the family lay dead.
Su Jin kicked the door wide, staring down at the mangled corpses with a sour twist to his lips...
Wait. He just realized a glaring issue.
The fleshy orb was lodged right behind the heart, and he was shooting each zombie in the heart. What if the bullet shattered the Orb? That would be a massive waste.
The zombies' weak point and the thing he wanted were in the same place. Getting a fleshy orb would be difficult.
A blade would be safer.
Whatever. What's done was done.
Su Jin crouched and cut open their hearts. Unfortunately, he found no trace of a fleshy orb inside any of the three zombies.
He shook his head in annoyance and peeled off his bloody gloves.
He should save the others first. He could collect the supplies here later.
Turning to face Room 302, Su Jin pounded on the door. He knocked for thirty seconds and called out several times, but received dead silence.
Once again, he shot the lock.
He waited in the corridor for three full minutes. Nothing moved, so Su Jin nudged the door open and slipped inside.
The living room was empty. It wasn't until he entered the main bedroom that Su Jin lowered his weapon, looking helpless.
Three youths occupied the room. A woman lay on the bed, her upper clothes disheveled, as if pulled about, wearing a sock on only one foot.
Two men were slumped in opposite corners, stripped down to their boxers, both staring into the void with half-dead expressions.
It looked as though both men had recently vomited on their chests.
They briefly glanced at his gun. One instinctively curled into a fetal position, while the other just continued to stare blankly at the wall.
Su Jin shifted his gaze back to the bed... noticing streaks of brown filth across the bed...
Taking a deep breath, Su Jin wiped a hand over his face. "Were the three of you scrubbing each other on the bed?" he asked, genuinely baffled.
"Wahhh!!!" Li Fang abruptly burst into hysterical sobbing.
"Just pull the trigger! Spare us the damn small talk!" Cao Chengping squeezed his eyes shut, his voice trembling with sheer terror.
The killer had entered the room... To think he was going to die without ever managing to have sex.
But he couldn't blame himself. The smell had been too much for him to respond.
Su Jin scratched his forehead with his pinky finger, completely at a loss for words.
He could not make sense of the scene, and none of these three were reacting like normal human beings.
Even if they mistook him for a killer, what the hell was this setup? Their reactions were strangely subdued.
Su Jin leveled a cold glare at the woman. "Hey. Explain what I'm looking at. If you keep wailing, I'll put a bullet in you."
Li Fang didn't answer, merely continuing her dry, grating wails.
Su Jin's patience vanished, his voice dropping to a terrifying chill. "Answer the question. Keep your mouth shut, and I'll rape you first, then kill you."
"Tch." Cao Chengping scoffed, turning his head away in disdain.
Su Jin snapped his gaze to Cao Chengping, a deep knot forming between his brows.
He was more confused than ever... What the hell was going on here?
While Su Jin tried to make sense of it, Li Fang choked off her sobs. She twisted around, her face full of hatred as she glared at Cao Chengping and Li Kai.
She pointed a trembling finger at the two men. "Them!! They tried to rape me! Kill them! Kill them both, and I'll let you do whatever you want to me!"
"Did I even succeed?! Did I?!" Cao Chengping craned his neck forward, roaring back defensively. "You putrid bitch! You fucking slut! You actually dared to drink your own piss behind our backs!"
Spitting a final volley of curses, Cao Chengping glared up at Su Jin and sneered. "Go ahead, do it. A bitch matches a dog, and dogs eat shit. You two are a match made in heaven!"
Su Jin stood completely frozen, his expression shifting.
He understood what had happened, though they had made a simple matter look impossibly complicated.
He had come to save them, only to be cursed at.
He put his hands on his hips and sighed and stepped over to Li Kai.
He was about to ask a question when he saw two used wads of tissue on the floor. The confusion instantly returned.
Su Jin nudged Li Kai with his foot. "You were in on this too, right?"
Li Kai remained silent. He simply sat up straighter against the wall, tilting his head back to expose his neck, as if waiting to be killed.
"I'm asking you, what the hell is with the tissues on the floor?"
"He did it himself. Useless fool," Cao Chengping mocked.
"I don't get it. If you had already gone that far, couldn't you just hold your breath?" Su Jin leaned forward, genuinely intrigued. "How can you be this pathetic? Is this some sort of extreme fetish?"
It was crude and insensitive, especially with the victim right there...
But he just had to ask. It held the fascination of looking for a UFO.
Li Kai's eyes flickered guiltily toward Li Fang. Hearing Cao Chengping's mocking laughter, his chest tightened with shame.
It was physically impossible to hold his breath against a stench that foul... But he had been carried away and did not want to die with regrets.
Now he felt only regret. He could not hurt Li Fang again—she was a woman he used to love, for God's sake!
Still, he couldn't just completely throw away his male dignity before he died...
Li Kai looked away and said without expression: "3D makes me dizzy. I can't handle first-person."
"Hah! Damn, aren't you a fucking comedian," Su Jin laughed and kicked Li Kai over.
He wheeled on Cao Chengping, voice dripping with contempt. "You two degenerate pieces of trash. The world is ending, you're in this state, and you still have time for nonsense. You really are brainless."
He took two steps back, his voice turning stern. "I am done listening to your bullshit! You may have misunderstood me. I came to rescue you, not hurt you!"
The words hung in the air. All three of them stared at Su Jin in absolute, stunned silence.
Su Jin continued, "Originally, I should have helped you relocate to a safe place, but given your previous performance, I've decided to postpone that for now. Later, I'll bring you food and water. Stay here until I decide what to do!"
The three of them were in poor shape: rude, immoral, unwashed, and drained.
Bringing them upstairs now might harm the group.
How to handle them would need to be discussed with Old Sun and Old Wei. In any case, the core team definitely wouldn't include these three.
Su Jin turned and walked toward the door, saying as he went, "I warn you, if anyone dares to step outside this door, I'll chop them up!"
As soon as the words fell, Cao Chengping rushed forward and knelt before Su Jin, pleading, "Brother, I was wrong! I'm sorry for cursing at you earlier... From now on, if you tell me to go east, I won't go west."
"Do as I say, and you won't suffer. Get back!"
Su Jin kicked Cao Chengping aside and walked out.
He was about to head upstairs, but glanced back at the unlocked door and turned toward the opposite apartment.
He dragged out a sofa and firmly blocked the trio's door before feeling secure enough to go upstairs.
He realized he hadn't asked if any of them had been exposed to the rainwater... Better safe than sorry.