The outer gate groaned open.
It was not a pleasant sound.
Tang Li Yue had personally supervised the reinforcement of that gate, and yet hearing it open toward strangers in the middle of the apocalypse made her feel as if someone had pried open the lid of her carefully organized medicine cabinet and invited muddy boots inside.
Unbearable.
Absolutely unbearable.
The first armored jeep rolled forward under Gao Jun's watchful eye. Its tires crunched over gravel and dried leaves, passing through the narrow opening with deliberate slowness. Major Lin walked beside it with both hands still visible, his face tense beneath the weak yard lights.
Tang Li Yue stood near the inner fence, barbed-wire bat resting against her shoulder.
She watched everything.
The driver. The soldier in the rear seat. The woman clutching the child. The old man with a blood-stained bandage wrapped around his forehead. The trembling teenage boy who kept both hands tucked beneath his blanket.
