He tried to close his eyes, then open them, the excessive self-injection causing intense madness that severed his central nervous system, forming bizarre images before his eyes.
- He seemed to return to when he was very small, in a simulated training scenario where he couldn’t leave until killing all zombies.
Behind the wall were zombies, those on the ground were zombies, zombies in the distant ruins, and this blurry-faced figure opening his arms… was also a zombie.
Kill them all, the voice in his brain urged more urgently, making his head hurt unbearably.
Kill them all, or you’ll be electrocuted.
Kill them all.
Si Nan collapsed to his knees, struggling to move backward. The surrounding zombie grabbed his shoulder and lowered its head. Si Nan vaguely knew he was about to be bitten. He would be torn apart by rotten teeth, watching his flesh split open, blood splashing, tendons and blood vessels exposed like rotting meat.
He would pass over the collapsed church spire, ascending to a heaven where there would be no more hunger, loneliness, or pain under the gloomy gray sky.
Si Nan’s entire body convulsed, curling up, with the zombie now close to his ear. However, neither the expected warmth of blood flowing nor its coldness arrived. In his confused consciousness, that wavering, distant voice gradually became clear:
“Look… look at me…”
“Si Xiao Nan, don’t you recognize Rong Ge anymore?…”
Rong Ge.
Everything in Si Nan’s eyes was double, with distorted, mutated lines and chaotic black shadows alternating, like heroin stimulating the brain stem, transforming all scenery into jumping light points.
Yet in the dying clamor, something gradually became clear, like water revealing stones.
Rong Ge.
Zhou Rong.
“…Rong Ge didn’t abandon you…”
“Look at me…”
—In a haze, Si Nan felt a warmth on his hand.
Like scalding water droplets hitting his palm, painful enough to make him flinch.
“…Rong Ge is here to pick you up, look at me, my Si Xiao Nan…”
In the quiet forest night, the campfire flickered, and someone whispered in his ear: “Call me Rong Ge, and I’ll come rescue you from anywhere.”
“Si—Xiao—Nan—! Rong Ge is here to pick you up!”
“Sorry, Rong Ge shouldn’t have yelled at you… here, I brought you chocolate.”
Countless scenes and images swirled in his mind like falling snow, gently smoothing out the delirious, convulsing mental world.
Si Nan breathed wearily, his gaze scattered and blank, looking at the “zombie” kneeling before him.
They were so close, close enough to see each other’s faces.
“…” Si Nan murmured: “Rong Ge.”
He didn’t know what he was saying, couldn’t recognize the familiar, tear-stained face before him.
But from these two syllables, he gained a certain warm and powerful comfort, a strength to calm down.
“Rong Ge,” he repeated softly.
Amid all the unbelievable gazes, Si Nan reached out, completely exposing his soft, unguarded palm, which Zhou Rong tightly grasped.
The next moment, Si Nan lowered his head, like hiding in a safe cave in a dream, his wounded body nestling into Zhou Rong’s embrace.
The zombies swarmed in, gradually closing in on the small courtyard. Romuel coughed up blood, pulled out a sealed syringe from his chest, tore it open with his teeth, and injected the light red liquid entirely into his arm.
Then he flung it away.
The injection syringe traced an arc and shattered in front of the first zombie pushing into the yard.
The vehicle constantly jolted as it moved forward, running over zombies beneath its wheels, and finally burst through the smoke with an earth-shattering grenade explosion, speeding away along the endless highway.
Zhou Rong controlled the steering wheel with one hand and held the drowsy Si Nan in his arms, gently patting his shoulder: “Si Xiao Nan?”
Si Nan curled up silently.
Zhou Rong stepped on the brake, turned back and rummaged through the back seat, casually throwing out the miscellaneous personal belongings of those three Alphas and spotted a maple syrup bottle in the corner.
Zhou Rong unscrewed the maple syrup jar, rubbed Si Nan’s pale face with his thumb pad, and softly asked: “Have a couple sips, okay?”
Si Nan didn’t even have the strength to open his eyes, smelled the maple syrup, and barely turned his head.
His silent refusal was quite obvious, but Zhou Rong couldn’t indulge his inexplicable pickiness at this moment. He kissed his hair and coaxed: “Be good.”
Then Zhou Rong took a sip of maple syrup himself and mouth-to-mouth fed it to him, licking and coaxing at his tightly pressed lips.
For some reason, Si Nan was very resistant to the maple syrup’s taste, but moments later, his cold lips and tongue seemed gradually warmed by Zhou Rong’s breath, his jaw slightly loosening, opening a tiny soft gap.
The 48th hour after falling into the zombie city.
Zhou Rong’s eye sockets were slightly reddened, gazing at Si Nan’s peaceful sleeping profile, and again planted a gentle, lingering, honey-flavored kiss.
Zhou Rong stood on the overpass, holding Sinan in one arm and a telescope in the other, his mouth slightly twitching. The highway to the airport had become bustling overnight, with zombie hordes covering the mountains and plains, continuously extending to the distant civilian airport, numbering in the hundreds of thousands. Unless they grew wings, it was absolutely impossible to cross this horrifying zombie tide and steal a helicopter.
“We’ll have to drive south,” Zhou Rong rubbed Sinan’s face, very gentlemanly seeking his opinion: “Does Comrade Sinan have any objections?” Sinan remained in a semi-unconscious state, clinging loosely to Zhou Rong’s neck. Zhou Rong said satisfactorily: “Very good, the action plan is unanimously approved… Brother Rong is very democratic.”
Zhou Rong found several packets of high-protein chocolate powder, military field high-energy food, and mixed it with water into a paste, then carefully fed it to Si Nan, who was resting on his thigh.
Si Nan was extremely resistant to the paste-like food, eating with great difficulty, almost requiring various tricks to coax each mouthful down. After a few spoonfuls, he refused to eat anymore. Zhou Rong had no choice but to pick him up, slap him on the buttocks as punishment, and then ate the sweet chocolate paste himself.
Zhou Rong held a flashlight and rummaged for a long time, deeply dissatisfied with A-country’s military’s lack of innovation in food design. Finally, he found half a box of meat floss biscuits, treating it like a treasure.
“Very good, Comrade Si,” Zhou Rong muttered, “This will be your exclusive snack box from now on.” He threw the maple syrup cans, chocolates, and milk powder he found into the biscuit box and used a marker to write “Si Nan’s Exclusive” on the carton.
Fortunately, Si Nan had a higher tolerance for milk paste with maple syrup, eating half a bowl intermittently. Zhou Rong also took out dehydrated preserved cakes and large and small pieces of dried tofu from individual rations, feeding them all to Si Nan. Seeing his slightly reddened lips, he felt very satisfied.
“Do you like it?” he asked softly, wrapping Si Nan in a blanket and holding him in his arms.
Si Nan seemed to have a bit of consciousness and barely nodded: “Mm.”
“Are you from A-country?”
“…Mm.”
Zhou Rong thought for a moment, then carefully asked, “Why did they… those three people want to capture you?
Si Nan’s eyebrows furrowed as if experiencing some painful memory, making a weak struggling sound.
“Why did they capture you? Did you bring something?”
Si Nan forcefully turned his head away, struggling more intensely. Zhou Rong could barely hold him, wrapping both arms around him. He saw Si Nan becoming increasingly agitated, his chest heaving rapidly, then making a faint, sharp sound – he was about to vomit!
