Chapter 19

"That's our doctor's voice!" one of the nurses exclaimed, a mix of shock and joy in her tone.

She was about to walk over when Officer Robert stopped her. "If he's still alive, why didn't he answer when we called him earlier? He's probably dead... just like his fiancée."

The nurse hesitated, shrinking back.

Just then, Lin Tu walked past her and moved forward. At the end of the sound was a tightly shut door.

"We're out of tissues at home again! Remember to stop by the convenience store and buy some on your way back from work! Otherwise, we won't even have paper to wipe our butts!" A woman's voice came from behind the door.

"That's Sister Ling's voice..." the nurse murmured.

"Don't hurt her!" The voice changed to the doctor's, this time high-pitched and tearful. "I can save her! I will definitely save her! Give me a chance! I'm close! I know what this virus is!"

His voice was fraught with despair and pleading, as if history were repeating itself. The nurse behind covered her mouth in disbelief. But Lin Tu was completely unaffected—she knew exactly what was behind that door. Taking a deep breath, she gripped her gun and kicked the door open.

What met her eyes almost made her lower the gun in shock.

It was an isolation room, its door tightly sealed. A bone zombie was trapped inside, pacing back and forth restlessly. Sounds emanated from its cranial cavity, an attempt to lure prey in this highly deceptive manner.

At its feet lay torn, blood-stained white cloth, splattered blood, and human remains—silent testimony that a living person had once been here.

"Come here, Xiao Ling..." The voice turned calm again. "How ridiculous—as a doctor, I couldn't save the one I loved most. I hate this profession. Good thing this is my last experiment."

"This is my only chance. If there's any active ingredient in this medicine, if I can inject it into you, everything can go back to the beginning... Xiao Ling, I know you're still in there. Can you hear me? Please, God, I've saved so many lives—open your eyes and look at me, bring my Xiao Ling back."

"Rise, my love... Argh! No! Xiao Ling!"

"Shut the door! Hey, A-Bao! Close the isolation room door!"

That agonized, time-traveling scream abruptly vanished.

In the silence, a mechanical voice sounded from above—the lab's built-in AI: "A-Bao here... Closing the isolation room door for you... The isolation room door is now closed."

"Ding-dong~"

Then all was silent, but the voice had been so vivid that for a moment, Lin Tu felt dazed. She looked at the bone zombie locked in the isolation room and suddenly understood—that was Xiao Ling and the doctor, and perhaps others too, because the bone zombie switched to another voice and started speaking again.

"So this is what Sister Huadan meant... about scientists not appearing out of thin air?" Han Yu said from behind, his expression complex. As someone others considered a top student, he had seen more and understood the difficulty of scientific research better than most.

Out of millions, even hundreds of millions, only one might emerge; across centuries, even millennia, only one might appear.

He could tell the doctor had been close to developing a cure for the zombie virus. Unfortunately... he was just a step short.

What if the doctor had been that one-in-a-billion person in this world? If he had emerged, would this world have been spared becoming a disaster world?

The nurse covered her mouth, sobbing. Officer Robert stood as if his soul had left his body, staring blankly into the room.

Lin Tu quietly closed the door.

This... this doctor, worthy of respect, had even after death found another way to lock himself inside the isolation room door, time and again. To his last breath, he still thought of not harming others. Yet those who had harmed him enjoyed the peace he brought without a second thought.

The lovers and the mutated zombie would pose no threat to anyone now. For twenty points, Lin Tu couldn't raise her gun.

She locked the door again, ensuring a double defense.

"Let's go." Lin Tu adjusted her gold-rimmed glasses, forcing herself to stay as calm as if she'd been filleting fish in a supermarket for thirty years.

The others followed, each lost in thought, none speaking.

When they reached the backup elevator, the power was on, but the doors wouldn't open no matter what they tried.

Lin Tu had a flash of inspiration. "Hey, A-Bao, open the elevator doors."

Sure enough, the mechanical voice responded: "A-Bao here... Opening the elevator for you..."

The group quickly reached the basement.

Compared to the first floor, there were far fewer zombies in the basement. Lin Tu didn't let Officer Robert fire a shot; she took the crowbar herself, determined to make up for the twenty points she'd just lost.

Using the method she'd used to find the little pickup truck, the group quickly located two more vehicles in the basement with zombies in the driver's seats. After dispatching the zombies, the keys were either in the cars or on the zombies.

"Alright, goodbye. Let's part ways." Lin Tu had no desire to see Officer Robert again.

"Wait," Officer Robert said hastily. "Aren't you planning to go to North Falls Sea Safe Base?"

Lin Tu certainly wasn't, but when she glanced at the other players and Karen, she saw they had stopped in their tracks.

"If you're suggesting we go together, forget it," Dong Huadan said.

"That's not what I meant. Have you heard this morning's radio broadcast?" Officer Robert asked. "Word is nearly a thousand zombies attacked North Falls Sea Safe Base, but our troops beat them back. The base held."

The players exchanged glances—they hadn't known. They'd spent the morning dealing with Luo Yongzhi's illness and had missed the broadcast entirely.

"North Falls Sea Safe Base broadcasts twice a day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. I heard this afternoon they're going to share their experience repelling that thousand-zombie horde, and experts will analyze zombie behavior," Officer Robert said. "The sky suggests it's almost time. Why not stay a bit, listen, and then leave, so you don't waste this rare opportunity."

Free experience-sharing... Lin Tu and the others were tempted, but after what had just happened, they really didn't want to interact with the hospital's other survivors.

The nurse was perceptive and noticed their reluctance. "Officer Robert, we have two hand-cranked radios. They helped us leave the hospital—surely we can spare one."

Officer Robert readily agreed.

So Officer Robert went upstairs to fetch the others, while the rest waited in the basement.

Earlier, Lin Tu had used the [Basic Plant Affinity Coupon], which could slightly reduce the death rate of nearby plants. As the saying goes, "many grains of sand make a mountain, many drops of water make an ocean." With her mere 0.3333% survival rate, she couldn't afford to look down on even a slight reduction in plant mortality.

So, Lin Tu planned to drive a car to the front gate and bring her first special item to her side.

Worried about the many zombies outside, the players volunteered to go along. They crammed so tightly into one car that, besides Lin Tu, six people were squeezed in. It was a good thing they ate nothing but rye bread all day and weren't bulky—otherwise, they never would have fit.

The car wobbled toward the front gate.

Unknown to them, on the rooftop, several heads peeked over and saw the car preparing to leave. Panic was plain on their faces.

.

The zombies outside the hospital were indeed numerous; killing them all in a short time was impossible.

Fortunately, this was Slough near the Arctic Circle, where temperatures were extremely low, and ordinary zombies moved slowly. The group drove around making noise, luring the zombies away from the little pickup truck, then quickly returned to it.

Lin Tu and Karen immediately got out and climbed into the pickup, while Zhang Zisheng slid into the driver's seat as fast as he could.

"Huh?" Just as they completed this maneuver, with the two vehicles parked side by side at the hospital entrance, a car suddenly burst out of the basement and sped between the two vehicles.

"Screw you all!" At the wheel was Rita. She raised her middle finger high, gleefully flipping it at Dong Huadan and the others on the right. When she saw that familiar, hateful face wasn't there, she quickly turned left and pointed right at Lin Tu, flipping her off several times with relish before finally looking satisfied.

The car sped off, roaring through the hospital gates.

If Rita had backed up and returned, she would have seen that the two carloads of people she'd just flipped off—especially Lin Tu, whom she hated most—weren't angry or furious, but stunned, even speechless.

"She..." Zheng Yangyang didn't know what to say. As a high schooler, he hadn't seen much of the world. It was the first time he'd witnessed someone bring instant karma upon themselves, and he was a bit amazed—

"Doesn't she look back?"

The others were stifling laughter, because they could clearly see that in the back seat, Rita's husband was already showing signs of turning into a zombie. He must have been bitten at some point, but given his timid nature, he hadn't told anyone.

So now, while Rita was busy flipping them off and the other survivors were panicking over the dense crowds of zombies outside, no one noticed his gradually empty, soulless eyes.

The group watched the car speed away. Sure enough, moments later, it veered wildly like a mad bull, crashing headlong into a building as if it had found a red cloth, charging without hesitation.

A small burst of flames and thick black smoke rose from the vehicle. No one emerged for a long time.

"Let's go."

When they got back, Officer Robert had a grim look on his face.

After questioning, they learned that those people, seeing Lin Tu's car from the rooftop and thinking they were making a run for it, had taken it upon themselves to open the lab door and chase after them. As luck would have it, they'd run into that zombie.

The zombie wasn't particularly tough, and there was only one. But those people had never faced a zombie up close, so casualties were heavy. Only four remained when Officer Robert barely managed to rescue them.

Then, when they came downstairs and said they'd wait for Lin Tu and the others, these survivors, spooked by the ordeal, seized an opportunity when Officer Robert wasn't looking, jumped into a cleaned-out car, and sped off.

The players exchanged glances, at a loss for words.

"It's starting!" the nurse exclaimed, cranking the radio by hand.

Sporadic, faint words came through the radio—

"We regret to inform you that North Falls Sea Safe Base has completely fallen. Attention! North Falls Sea Base has completely fallen! This is not a joke. This is real. Do not go to North Falls Sea Base! Do not go to North Falls Sea Base!"

"I am currently in the North Falls Sea Base broadcast studio. I know that the moment I speak, the loudspeakers outside the door will sound, and the zombies will find me. But I must do this. I must be here on time. This is the last thing I can do."

"Dear listeners, dear compatriots, if you can hear this, please do not go to North Falls Sea Base! I sincerely wish you all peace and good luck! If possible, at least don't be as unlucky as me. I wish... I wish I were just an ordinary announcer."

"Goodbye, Mom. Goodbye, Dad."

"Bang!"