There's still someone alive?
Chu Yian glanced at the distance—it wasn't far. "Teacher Lu, should we check it out?"
Lu Qingyuan sat in the passenger seat with his eyes closed, resting. "Up to you."
On the third floor of a small house on the next street, there was someone still alive.
His name was Huang Zhide, the owner of the house.
When the outbreak hit, he was lucky—he had been asleep in his room and escaped the initial chaos. But his wife and children weren't so lucky. They'd all turned into zombies.
Those three worthless burdens. It wasn't just that they died—on their way out, they also managed to trap him inside a tiny bedroom. Since last night, he'd heard people and cars pass by outside again and again.
He wanted to call for help, but the noise would excite the zombies outside. So he could only watch helplessly as multiple cars sped away just across the street.
To his surprise, the van that had left earlier that morning had actually come back! Thinking fast, he started burning things, hoping the smoke would get their attention.
The van did stop!
Huang Zhide was overjoyed. He ran out onto the balcony, waving frantically at the van below. Then he rushed back inside to grab anything valuable, getting ready for rescue.
But Chu Yian had stopped the van by the side of the road.
"Come on!"
Huang Zhide grew anxious as he saw the van just sitting there. He couldn't help but shout toward it.
The noise riled up the three zombies outside his door. They started growling and clawing harder.
Chu Yian rolled down the window and scribbled a message on a sheet of paper, holding it up:
[Climb down yourself.]
They had no idea what the inside of the building was like. She didn't know this man, and they were strangers. Offering a hand was one thing—risking her life was another. If he could get himself down safely, she'd be willing to give him a ride to X City. That was the most she could offer.
"Sh*t!"
Huang Zhide saw the note and exploded with anger.
There were three zombies right outside his door. How the hell was he supposed to get past them without her help?
His face turned red with rage. He waved even more desperately at Chu Yian, muttering under his breath, "F**king hell, just get over here already!"
Chu Yian didn't hear him. She was already writing another message:
[If there are zombies inside, find curtains or bedsheets—tie them together and climb down from the balcony.]
Before she could even lift the paper to show him, an empty beer bottle came flying down from the third floor, crashing near the van.
"All you do is write, huh?! Don't know how to save someone?!" Huang Zhide shouted, his temper boiling over.
He had just finished the last of his morning beer, and now he was raging. He found seven or eight more empty bottles and started chucking them down one by one, aiming at Chu Yian below.
"Get your ass up here and save me! F**k you!"
Chu Yian's expression darkened. Her friendly demeanor disappeared, and her eyes grew cold.
Without a word, she pulled out her pistol and aimed directly at Huang Zhide on the balcony.
In the passenger seat, Lu Qingyuan opened his eyes and calmly watched her raise the weapon.
Bang—
She fired.
She missed on purpose. The glass beside Huang Zhide shattered.
Startled, Huang stumbled back a few steps. The gunshot scared him so badly he dropped the bottle he'd been holding.
Gunfire echoed louder than broken glass. Zombies all over the small town perked up and began moving in the van's direction.
Chu Yian didn't wait. She stepped on the gas and drove straight out of town.
"Hey! Hey!"
Huang Zhide shouted after them from the balcony, watching helplessly as the van disappeared down the road—while more and more zombies gathered around his building.
The three zombies outside his door were still banging away, and now they were joined by a new wave of undead drawn by the gunfire…
Back on the road.
Chu Yian was noticeably quieter.
She gripped the steering wheel tightly. She couldn't stop thinking about what she had just done—firing at a civilian out of anger. She glanced at Lu Qingyuan beside her.
What if he now thought she was heartless? Cold-blooded?
Would their fragile alliance fall apart before it even began?
She had always been a rule-following, law-abiding citizen. This was the first time she had done anything like that. Her mind wouldn't stop spiraling.
"Need to switch drivers?" Lu Qingyuan asked suddenly.
"Huh?"
She blinked in surprise.
Lu Qingyuan said flatly, "You're distracted. I'd feel safer driving myself."
Chu Yian understood. She pulled the van over, and they switched seats without another word.
As Lu Qingyuan restarted the vehicle, Chu Yian realized stewing in guilt wouldn't help. So she decided to ask him directly. "Teacher Lu, about earlier—I didn't save that guy. Do you…"
Before she could finish, Lu Qingyuan floored the gas, and the van surged forward.
She looked around, confused. But then she saw it—a roadblock of crashed vehicles just ahead.
A group of young men burst out from one of the smashed cars, waving frantically.
"Wait! Please stop!"
"Hey! Wait up!"
Lu Qingyuan didn't even glance at them. He drove straight through, cold and steady, even rolling over a few corpses on the way out.
"F**k you!"
"Asshole!"
The abandoned group shouted after the van, flipping them off as they shrank into the distance, then ducked back inside the wreck.
"This is your fault! If you hadn't been trying to race, we would've gotten out last night!"
"You're the one who said it'd be fun, dumbass!"
The survivors were the same group of street racers from yesterday. Their reckless joyride had drawn dozens of zombies. Out of a dozen people, only four had made it out alive—and even then, they crashed and ended up stranded on the roadside.
Now, stuck and hopeless, they could only blame each other.
In the little van, after shaking off the racers, Lu Qingyuan glanced sideways at Chu Yian.
"You were saying?"
"Uh… nothing."
Chu Yian remembered the way he'd ignored those pleading guys without blinking and felt a little more reassured.
Maybe he did understand her actions.
Still, she couldn't help but worry—Lu Qingyuan was ruthless and quiet. What if, in a moment of crisis, he decided she was disposable?
"Teacher Lu," she said tentatively, "we're allies, right? Like—solid allies?"
Lu Qingyuan gave her a sidelong glance. "If you have time to ask pointless questions, you could be checking how far it is to the highway."
Chu Yian quickly pulled out her phone and zoomed in on the photo of the map.
An hour later, they finally made it onto the highway via the rural backroads.
Right at the entrance, a large semi had overturned. Gasoline was spilled all over the ground. A few zombies lurked nearby.
As the van approached, the zombies caught the sound of the engine and immediately lunged toward them.
BAM BAM BAM—
The van shook violently as zombies slammed into it.
The side window next to Lu Qingyuan cracked under the impact, webbed with bloody lines.
Chu Yian gripped the ceiling handle with one hand, the other clutching her pistol. She took aim at a zombie just about to smash through the glass—bang, headshot.
The gunshot only made things worse.
Zombies farther away heard the sound and came charging in like a tide.
"Hold on," Lu Qingyuan said, pressing the gas pedal to the floor and jerking the wheel hard.
The van swerved, bumped, and finally broke through the encirclement—speeding onto the highway toward X City.