I snapped to attention. Who were these people outside the gate? Survivors from the town?
Looking down at Shuai Shuai sleeping soundly beside me, and hearing my parents' soft snores, I noticed Second Brother dozing against the wall by the bed. I'd asked him to find a more comfortable room downstairs, but he refused—after last night, he wouldn't leave Shuai Shuai's side.
Quietly picking up my long blade leaning against the wall, I tiptoed out of the room. The moment I moved, Second Brother opened his eyes and mouthed, "Trouble?" I shook my head, mouthing back, "It's fine," then gently closed the door and headed downstairs.
Jianan and Sixth Brother were at the second-floor landing, about to go down. Seeing me, we exited the office building together.
Approaching the iron gate, I saw three men and one woman outside. The men were in their thirties; the woman was younger, around twenty-three or twenty-four. All carried backpacks and looked around nervously.
"We're from the town," the woman said quickly. "We've been hiding at home. We saw you arrive. Could you take us with you? We're running out of food!"
Town survivors! We quickly unlocked the gate and let them in.
Back inside, they thanked us profusely. My husband settled them in a first-floor office for the night. I returned to the third floor.
From my room, I kept staring at the dark iron gate. Where are you three rascals? Get back here now!
Suddenly, a soft knock—the kind made with knuckles.
Someone was looking for me? I opened the door to the young woman we'd just taken in.
"Sis Duo, got a moment?" She was alone; the three men weren't with her.
"How'd you get up here?" I didn't trust her—she was a stranger. Erbao and Bai Zhu were guarding the stairwell—how'd they let her pass?
"I told them I needed to borrow some feminine products. They let me up," she said.
Inside, my parents and Shuai Shuai were still asleep. Second Brother watched her intently from the room—did he ever sleep deeply? The slightest noise woke him.
I stepped out, closing the door softly, and faced her in the corridor.
"What's your name?" I hadn't looked closely before. Now I saw she was quite pretty—no wonder Erbao and Bai Zhu had let her pass.
"I'm Momo. Sis Duo, are all the rooms up here for women?" Momo glanced around at the closed doors.
"Mostly elders and children. What did you need?" Though pretty, she had shrewd eyes that made me uneasy.
"Children? You're not all adults… Oh, I needed sanitary pads. My period came," Momo said, her eyes flickering.
"Wait here." I went back in, grabbed a pack, and handed it to her.
But she didn't leave immediately. Hesitating, she seemed to want to say something, then turned and went downstairs without a word.
My unease grew. They say women have strong intuition—mine was screaming.
Momo and her group were on the first floor; Sixth Brother, Jianan, and A-Ze were on the second. I decided to go see them.
They were talking softly, not yet asleep. When I entered, they sat up.
"Sixth Brother, I think those townsfolk are suspicious. That woman came up asking for things, but it felt like she was scouting us out," I said.
Sixth Brother pondered. "It's possible. The school ambush, the road blockade—I wondered if zombies were getting smarter. But this feels more like human sabotage. Whether it's them or not, we can't be sure. What should we do?" He looked at A-Ze.
A-Ze, a former cop, was skilled at interrogation. Sixth Brother was subtly passing the baton.
Pretty humble, I thought. A former gangster surely knows how to extract confessions—probably better than the police!But Sixth Brother always deferred to others' strengths.
A-Ze, deep in thought, took charge. "If it's them, there are more than four. My guess: they have allies outside. They haven't attacked directly because they're outnumbered. We should set a trap and see what they do tonight."
We agreed. Without evidence, interrogating them outright would be futile—they'd just deny everything. Could we torture them? No.
A-Ze arranged the ambush. Sixth Brother told me to rest, but I was too wired. I joined Jianan in a Land Rover near the gate. Other vehicles hid people in the darkness.
The night was silent—no whispers, just eerie stillness.
Qin Goodluck and Ruowang guarded the office entrance. As planned, after 1 a.m., they pretended to doze, Ruowang even snoring softly.
Four shadows slipped out from a first-floor office. As they passed the "sleeping" guards, Goodluck and Ruowang tensed—if these four tried to slit their throats like in the movies, the act would be over!
Luckily, they weren't that ruthless. They quietly opened the building door and crept into the courtyard.
Honestly, we'd never have only two guards if we weren't setting a trap. What era did they think this was?
Deceived, the four hurried to the gate, picked the lock, and opened it.
As they worked, I worried they'd let in a zombie horde. But my husband held me back. "Relax—no zombies outside. They're letting in humans."
Sure enough! About twenty shadows slipped through the gate. In the dim moonlight, I saw Momo speaking to a tall figure. Then they crept toward the office building.
Time to strike! Our people emerged from all sides, surrounding the twenty-plus intruders.
"Freeze! You're surrounded!" A-Ze led the way, his gun aimed at the tall man Momo had spoken to.
The rest of us aimed our guns too—we'd left our blades hidden.
Truth was, our guns had no bullets. We'd run out during the compound siege. But guns were hard to come by, so we kept them. Now they were props in our bluff.
It worked—the twenty-plus invaders raised their hands and weapons without resistance.
Thankfully, we'd bluffed. If we'd used blades, we'd have been the ones surrendering—because they had guns too!
"Yan Quan! Don't worry! Their third floor is full of elders and kids—they won't fight hard!" Momo shouted to the tall man.
"Kids?" So the leader was named Yan Quan (Smoke Ring).
"Yes! I scouted the third floor. It's their weak point!" Momo said calmly.
"Don't move! We can easily take you out and feed you to the zombies!" Sixth Brother said grimly.
He disarmed Yan Quan, patted his arm, and said, "Come on, let's talk."
We escorted Yan Quan into a Land Rover. From inside, we could see out, but no one outside could hear us.
"You're Yan Quan? These are your people?" Sixth Brother asked.
"Yeah. I'm caught. Do what you want," Yan Quan said bitterly.
"The zombie ambush last night, the roadblock today—that was you, right?"
"What ambush? I don't need tricks to get food!" Yan Quan denied it!
"Own up to it if you've got the guts!" Sixth Brother was angry.
"I own what I do! If you're pinning this on me, just shoot me!" Yan Quan was hot-tempered too!
"But we didn't want to hurt anyone! We just need food. We've been out for days. The city's crawling with zombies, and the town's picked clean. You looked well-supplied, so we thought we'd… borrow some," Yan Quan said, as if it were obvious.
"Borrow? With guns in the middle of the night?" A-Ze slapped Yan Quan's gun against his face.
"The guns are empty! We're out of ammo! It's impossible to get more here! We brought them to scare you off if needed!" Yan Quan said helplessly.
A-Ze checked the magazine—not a single bullet.
"Their guns are empty too?" I looked outside.
"If we had one bullet, it'd be mine!" Yan Quan actually sounded proud!
We almost laughed—what a situation! Two groups pointing empty guns at each other. Was this fate?
But it made sense—getting guns here was hard enough; ammo was a myth unless you were military.
If Yan Quan's group wasn't behind the attacks, who was?
Sixth Brother and A-Ze checked all their guns—all empty, as Yan Quan had said.
Of course, we didn't admit we were bluffing too. No need to say, "Hey, we're out of ammo as well!"
Now the question was: What to do with Yan Quan's group?
Let them go? That'd be like releasing tigers back to the mountains.
Take them as prisoners? Too troublesome.
Kill them? No—they were just survivors like us. We couldn't do it.
We were at a loss.