After parking the vehicle, Suo Tian was the first to get out.
He cut down two wandering walkers nearby before stopping to survey the building ahead.
It was obvious from the moment we entered the city that this must have been a small third- or fourth-tier city.
Though the building before us bore the name "Second City Hospital," it was clear from a glance that it was old and worn-down.
Suo Tian instructed Uncle Gazi and Chen Pu to stay in the vehicle with the three children and Yiyi for now, then told Yangyang and Jun Di to remain behind to guard them.
Only after making sure of that did the rest of us get out of the bus with the black-clad men.
Following our usual routine, the next step was to clear the building.
I counted roughly ten floors.
The structure stretched a long distance on either side, which meant each floor probably contained many patient rooms.
My hand rested on the dagger pouch at my waist — I couldn't help feeling tense.
More rooms meant more beds, and more beds meant… more walkers.
I swallowed hard, silently hoping that the walkers inside had already wandered off over the past few months.
Perhaps because of the uncertainty of what lay within, Suo Tian decided not to split the team this time.
Instead, everyone would move together, clearing the building floor by floor.
Several of the black-clad men were armed with guns instead of daggers and joined us as we entered the hospital.
The front doors were already open.
The men spread out in a fan-shaped formation to cover all angles — ensuring nearly every corner of the area was visible.
Shen Feng, Xu Shu, Zhou Wen, and I stayed in the middle of the formation, gripping our daggers and scanning our surroundings cautiously.
The lobby held only a small glass booth for patient registration; the rest of the space could be taken in with a single glance.
While Suo Tian's team checked the booth, the four of us stepped forward and quickly took down several walkers in hospital gowns wandering in the hall.
By the time Suo Tian's group emerged from the booth, we had already fallen back into formation.
The hospital had clearly been without power for some time — the elevators were dead.
That meant we'd have to use the stairwell.
Ever since that terrible experience back at the shelter, I'd developed a deep, instinctive fear of stairwells.
As we followed Suo Tian toward the stairway, I couldn't shake the feeling that a horde of walkers might burst out from behind the door at any moment.
And sure enough, that's exactly what happened.
Just as the bearded man reached for the handle, a powerful force slammed the door open from the inside, knocking him several steps back.
A moment later, several walkers — dressed in nurse uniforms and patient gowns — lunged out from the stairwell.
It had likely been quiet for so long that our sudden arrival drove them into a frenzy.
The bearded man barely had time to steady himself before they were already on him, snarling and reaching.
But he was trained — even off balance, he twisted sharply to the side, narrowly dodging the first attack.
Seeing this, Suo Tian stepped forward with lightning speed, kicking the lead walker square in the chest and sending it sprawling.
He then spun, grabbed another that was rushing him, and in one smooth motion drew his dagger and drove it straight through the walker's skull.
Zhou Wen and Shen Feng, who were closest, quickly moved to assist.
Zhou Wen was strong but his strikes weren't very precise; still, he was clever enough to focus on knocking the walkers down while Shen Feng finished them off with clean stabs through the head.
In just a few seconds, the skirmish was over — the walkers lay motionless on the floor.
Without wasting time, Suo Tian peered briefly through the open stairwell door, then gestured for us to follow.
He rushed in first.
It seemed there had only been a handful of walkers inside; by the time we reached the landing outside the second floor, we hadn't encountered any more.
Having learned from the earlier ambush, the bearded man was much more cautious this time.
Before opening the next door, he glanced back at Suo Tian for confirmation.
When Suo Tian nodded, he braced himself and shoved the door open in one strong motion.
The black-clad men with guns rushed in first, and we followed right behind Suo Tian.
Just as we had suspected, the first floor of the hospital had a very long corridor—about twenty wards on each side.
A few walkers at the far end noticed our movement and began shambling toward us, but halfway down the hall, a wheeled stretcher blocked their path.
Suo Tian glanced at them, then gave a series of quick, complex hand signals to the men.
They nodded in understanding, immediately splitting off in groups of three to start clearing the wards.
Seeing that, Shen Feng, Xu Shu, Zhou Wen, and I formed our own small team to check the other rooms.
Each ward had three hospital beds and a small bathroom near the door.
It seemed my earlier hope had been right—the walkers that once occupied these rooms had long since wandered off.
We cleared several wards in a row, all of them empty.
The ones that had been in the corridor were already dealt with by Suo Tian, and the stretcher had been pushed aside.
The black-clad men worked far faster than we did—by the time we finished our fifth room, they had already cleared the entire hallway and both restrooms.
There were still eight floors left to go, and time was tight.
Suo Tian, likely still uneasy about Uncle Gazi and the others outside, sent two men back to guard the entrance before leading the rest of us up to the third floor.
The third floor was much like the second.
The hallway stretched long and narrow, and the windows on either end did little to help with lighting.
The middle of the corridor felt especially gloomy, every scattered newspaper and discarded hospital gown adding to the oppressive atmosphere.
We cut down a few walkers wearing nurse uniforms—girls who, judging by their small frames, had probably been young when they died.
There was no time to mourn.
As soon as the last one fell, we moved up again—to the fourth floor, then the fifth, then the sixth.
By the time we started climbing toward the seventh floor, I was completely spent.
Exhaustion was my greatest enemy.
Clearing each floor took so much energy, and though two men were now stationed outside to protect Uncle Gazi and the others, I still couldn't stop worrying.
Not wanting to slow everyone down, I grabbed the stair railing, waved weakly toward Suo Tian and the others, and said between breaths, "You… you go on ahead. I… I need… a rest."
Clearing buildings was grueling work.
Just the tension before opening each new door could drain most of your strength.
Suo Tian turned his head to look at me, then glanced down the stairwell—probably assessing whether the lower floors were secure.
After a brief thought, he nodded.
"Be careful," he said simply.
I waved him off, trying to look reassuring, and then sank down onto the step, leaning my head against the cold metal railing.
The veins at my temples throbbed violently.
As I listened to the echo of their boots fading upward, I silently made yet another promise to myself: no matter what, I had to get stronger.
In times like these, a weak body could cost your life.
A heavy thud echoed from above—probably the sound of a door closing.
That meant Suo Tian and the team had reached the seventh floor.
I steadied my breathing and focused on listening.
Aside from the faint creaks of opening doors as they cleared each room, I heard nothing else.
Suo Tian was strict about silence—when he gave the "absolute quiet" signal, his men would walk heel-to-toe, making not even the slightest sound.
After a while, when it seemed nothing unusual was happening upstairs, I leaned my head back against the railing again.
Back when I used to live comfortably with Yangyang, I'd often suffer from insomnia—lying awake for hours for no reason at all.
But after the apocalypse, life had a way of burning that softness out of you.
The sleepless nights had mostly stopped.
Except for last night, I hadn't had trouble sleeping in ages.
Now, after all the tension and adrenaline of clearing floors, my body finally relaxed.
My limbs went heavy, and before I knew it, drowsiness began to creep in.
Half-asleep, I vaguely heard the sound of light footsteps.
My thoughts were drifting between dream and reality, and upon hearing the sound, I instinctively opened my eyes slightly.
I subconsciously remembered that Suo Tian and the others were on the seventh floor, so I looked up in that direction—only to be so startled that I nearly fell down the stairs!
Standing on the steps just above me was a figure dressed entirely in black.
Their face was deathly pale, with eyebrows that looked like two awkward black smudges.
Their narrow eyes carried a dull, eerie stillness—and most terrifying of all, those long, slanted eyes that stretched almost to the temples had no pupils at all!
The moment I saw that "person," I froze completely.
The sudden surge of fear wiped everything else from my mind.
My mouth hung open as I stared upward, blank and numb.
After meeting my gaze for barely a second, the white-faced figure abruptly turned around and floated soundlessly up toward the eighth floor.
As the faint sound of footsteps faded, my brain finally regained control of my voice—
and I let out a long, piercing scream: "Aaaaaaaaahhhhhh!"
For thousands of years, humanity has harbored a fear of ghosts and spirits that seems etched into our very bones.
Even though modern science has advanced rapidly in recent times, most people still treat tales of the supernatural with a cautious, "believe it if you want to" attitude.
I've always been deeply afraid of such things—probably because of those twisted Japanese horror films that left a mark on me.
After Xiao Xue's death, I hadn't been afraid at the time, but for many nights afterward I refused to sleep without clutching Suo Tian tightly in my arms.
And now, when that white-faced figure suddenly appeared before me in the moment I was least prepared, it awakened the deepest, purest terror buried inside me.
Within seconds of my scream, hurried footsteps echoed from the quiet seventh floor.
The door was flung open, and Suo Tian burst out first— he practically leapt down the stairs in just a few steps and reached me, wrapping his arms around me without a word.
The moment I saw them, my whole body began trembling uncontrollably.
My mind tried desperately to stop it, but it was useless.
It felt like my body was no longer under my control, my head completely filled with the image of that white-faced figure.
Xu Shu, Shen Feng, and the others came rushing down with the black-clad men.
Everyone looked around cautiously, scanning every corner.
The bearded man even led a small team to search the sixth floor again, just to be sure.
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