Apocalypse: My Companions Are From The 3D District

"Ghost King? Heh heh heh." Gardenia's hand tightened slightly, and a crisp crack of bone echoed as the Female Ghoul fell silent.

"I'm not your king. I want you dead."

Wouldn't it be better to keep her alive to meet the contact and follow them back to the nest? Li Pu silently complained in his mind, but didn't dare say it out loud.

This White-Haired Sister seemed to suppress aberrations—or rather, was she an even stronger aberration herself?

Gardenia casually tossed the ghoul's corpse aside, speaking to Li Pu and Chun Li with a blank expression: "I'll say it again: leave this hospital as soon as possible. I can't kill the thing beneath my feet. Go."

"Well..." Chun Li hesitated.

Gardenia was in a foul mood: "Scram! Don't wait for me to change my mind! Keeping this thing suppressed is a pain in the ass!"

Li Pu quickly grabbed Chun Li's hand and bolted toward the stairs.

"Not even a word of thanks." Watching Li Pu not look back, Gardenia's mood soured even further.

The two reached the stairwell corner on the second floor and paused to catch their breath. After a life-or-death crisis, both Li Pu and Chun Li were still shaken.

"Master, let's climb out a window on the second floor. We can't stay in this hospital any longer!" Li Pu wiped the sweat from his forehead, pulled a bottle of water from his backpack, and handed it to Chun Li.

Chun Li pushed it back: "Put it away. Now's not the time to drink. We need to move. That so-called Angel Zombie—I can only hold it off for a moment at the cost of all my inner energy."

"Angel... huh?" Li Pu recalled when he first crossed over and got infected by the zombie virus. Looking outside, the sky was red, feathers drifted everywhere, and there were phantom images of angels.

Even the two zombies that charged out had blurred into normal people in his distorted vision.

"Slap!"

He slapped himself: "Now's not the time to think about the zombie virus. Let's get out of here first!"

But just as he and Chun Li entered the second floor and were about to climb out a window, something unexpected happened.

"Damn! Fuck your mother!" This time, the curse came from Chun Li, her voice low but still caught by Li Pu.

Hearing the Cantonese swear, Li Pu followed Chun Li's gaze.

A figure in a security uniform, back turned to them, walked toward the other end of the second-floor corridor.

But from behind, the guard had already grown a second pair of arms—insect arms.

His neck and legs had also turned into insect-like segmented limbs, his abdomen and rear grotesquely swollen, and he kept muttering: "...happiness... eat..."

A living, oversized flea.

The second floor was as silent as the third, the dried blood on the corridor still there.

"Another Patient Zero?"

"No, worse—he's still holding a Riot Shotgun." Chun Li pointed at the stock protruding from behind him.

Just then, the guard turned and walked toward them. Li Pu and Chun Li had no choice but to retreat silently to the junction of the second and third-floor stairwells.

The annoying part was that the stairwell had no windows either.

After they went up, a door on the second floor slowly opened, making no sound at all...

Above, Cockroach Patient Zero; below, the Flea Security Guard. The first floor was likely packed with corpses—a horde of zombies devouring each other would surely breed an even stronger Gu King. Three-way deadlock.

"I wonder how long that girl on the third floor can suppress it for us?" Chun Li worried, then fell silent.

That shotgun... a mindless zombie wielding a weapon, completely unpredictable. I could dodge it, but Little Pu...

I can barely hold off one Patient Zero of this strength. Two is beyond me.

Chun Li's mind raced in a fierce storm.

Li Pu was the same: "The second and third floor corridors are empty. The zombies must have been eaten by the two Patient Zeros as food for evolution."

"The most common things in a hospital are fleas and cockroaches, so the zombie virus absorbed the genes of these two insects?"

"Why didn't it gnaw on the potted plants? Photosynthesize during the day, stand still, and let us escape! Doesn't know a thing!" Things wouldn't go his way, of course. He peeked from the stairwell corner and saw that the flowerpots on the windowsills and in the corridor were completely clean.

"Sure enough, eating the plants let them survive through photosynthesis. Otherwise, they'd have starved like that doctor."

Li Pu thought for a moment longer: "Master, I have an idea."

Chun Li didn't expect her little rebellious disciple to come up with anything good and brushed him off: "Oh." Then she kept thinking.

"Like that thief game where you use line-of-sight to dodge patrolling enemies. We wait until the Flea Security Guard turns his back to patrol, then open the window bit by bit. Once it's open, we climb down. How about it?"

Chun Li shot it down on the spot: "This is reality, not a game. The enemy isn't a pre-set program. We can't afford to gamble."

"Let's gamble. There's no other way, Master. That White-Haired Sister upstairs might leave any moment. If we get caught between them, we're finished." Li Pu tried to convince her.

Chun Li stayed silent.

"Let's try first. If it doesn't work, we'll think of something else." Li Pu dropped the line, turned, and headed back to the second floor.

"Little Pu, wait." Chun Li stopped him urgently but quietly, then followed with concern.

The timing was just right. Li Pu crept to the corridor window, ready to open it.

The upper floors of this hospital all used sliding windows. You had to twist the latch 90 or 180 degrees for the window to slide up-down or left-right.

Li Pu cursed inwardly: Couldn't they just use simple windows like on the first floor!

"Little Pu, stop it. Come back." Chun Li watched the Flea Security Guard from behind, her heart pounding with tension.

"Crack, crack!" After ninety degrees, the window latch was triggered. The faint sound was especially jarring in the silent corridor!

"BOOM!"

The Flea Security Guard spun around with incredible speed on its thick flea legs, firing a spread of buckshot.

In a blur of dim yellow vision, feathers drifted down from the blood-red sky outside the window. The corridor was empty, not a single figure in sight...

Author's note:

Borrowed some elements from Zoya's story in Path to Nowhere.

Chapter 26: The Beautiful Doctor Sister

"Hap... pi... ness..." The eerie, absurdly ancient song looped endlessly in the Flea Security Guard's mind as it gazed enviously at the illusory angels and feathers drifting through the sky outside the window.

Gradually, it returned to normal and resumed its slow pacing back and forth along the corridor.

"Shh~"

After signaling Li Pu and Chun Li to stay quiet, the unfamiliar woman adjusted the gold-rimmed glasses on her delicate nose bridge.

Li Pu only remembered triggering the window's noise; the next second, Chun Li and this strange woman had pulled him into the room behind them.

It looked like an operating room, extremely messy inside.

The walls were bare and empty, a stark contrast to the glossy whiteboard in the corner.

A strong smell of disinfectant permeated the entire space. Surgical supplies were scattered across the operating table—somewhat dirty, but not as if they'd been abandoned for long. The storage cabinets held various surgical instruments neatly arranged; not long ago, this place must have received many patients.

Through the grimy window, sunlight filtered through the leaves, shifting in the air.

Li Pu slowly came to his senses and looked at the woman who had helped him.

A high ponytail, gold-rimmed glasses, her makeup and hair slightly disheveled.

Her white lab coat hung open, revealing a black, deep-U-neck, long-sleeved undershirt beneath, with an abyss of cleavage that was impossible to fathom.

What caught the eye most was the suspender stockings under her black pencil skirt—a pair of plump, elastic thighs, the soft flesh at the top bulging slightly where the garter straps pressed in.

That tantalizing pinch of squeezed flesh was indescribably alluring.

"You are? A doctor at this hospital?" Chun Li was the first to whisper.

The intellectual, beautiful high-ponytail doctor nodded and said coolly, "My name is Furukawa Ryomi. I'm the head of the gynecology department here."

"I'm looking for my sister. Have either of you seen a woman with yellow hair in a nurse's outfit?"

Li Pu muttered wearily to himself, "You're looking for your sister too?"

Ryomi gave him a strange look but ignored him.

"Let's talk outside."

With that, she gestured for them to follow, crouched down, and moved quietly, hiding against the wall beneath the window where it couldn't be seen from the door.

Under Li Pu and Chun Li's puzzled gazes, she crawled to the bottom of the door, pulled a small makeup mirror from her cleavage, and after repeatedly checking there'd be no glare, used its reflection to observe the movements of the approaching Flea Security Guard outside.

After more than ten minutes, she stood up and quietly moved to the operating room's window. Li Pu and Chun Li understood and followed.

Right beside the operating room window was a vertical ladder—a series of steel rungs embedded into the wall.

This was a passage meant for construction workers, equipment maintenance staff, and the like.

Due to its age, there was no safety cage, making the climb considerably more dangerous.

Chun Li was overjoyed at the sight and quickly pulled Li Pu onto the ladder.

"I should have observed the surroundings more carefully last night, then Little Pu wouldn't have ended up in danger." She was both delighted and self-reproachful.

Going down, Chun Li insisted on taking the lead at the very bottom, with Li Pu sandwiched between the two women.

The oppressive atmosphere vanished. The sky, the breeze, and the cicada chirping they'd been too tense to notice before.

And the wonderful view above his head.

As he descended, he watched the doctor sister's firm rear, thoroughly enjoying himself.

"Lace edges are really something~"

Chun Li reached the ground fastest, and after confirming the area was safe: "Little Pu, jump into Master's arms. I'll catch you down here."

Li Pu, still between the second and first floors, said nothing and kept climbing down.

"No, I'd rather be safe."

Finally, his feet touched the ground. The feeling of solidity returned.

Chun Li pouted: "Why won't you jump into Master's arms?"

Having just gone through two life-or-death crises, Chun Li's reserve had vanished entirely.

"If you want love, love boldly. If you die, there's no chance left!"

"I need to find a time to nail him, so he never dares defy Master's authority again." She looked at her increasingly handsome and charming rebellious disciple, her thoughts turning perverse.

The doctor finally climbed down step by step as well.

All three stepped onto solid ground.

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and spoke to the two of them with a hint of embarrassment: "You... could you help me find my sister, since I saved you? I've already looked on the third and second floors—she should be on the first."

Chun Li covered Li Pu's mouth before he could refuse, smiling as she agreed: "A life-saving grace must be repaid."

"But the third and second floors were so dangerous—how did you search them?" Chun Li asked, eyeing the beautiful female doctor with curiosity.

Nüyi Liangmei picked up a small branch and, while drawing on the ground, explained to Chun Li with poise: "On each floor, the two rooms near the vertical ladder—we'd already opened their windows. On the second and third floors, you only need to explore those two rooms with open windows."

"Only the first floor—once you get down to ground level, you can reach every room through the windows."

While listening to Liangmei's explanation, Chun Li's hands weren't idle. She grabbed Li Pu and kept kneading his face and fluffy little head.

Having a grand old time.

Li Pu indulged Chun Li and managed to speak: "On the first floor, when the outbreak hit, there would have been the most people. So when the zombies started devouring and evolving, it would also be the easiest place to raise a Gu and produce a Gu King."

He suddenly looked at the beautiful doctor Liangmei: "Do you know the situation with the zombies on the first floor, Sister? Speaking of which, what's going on with these zombies? Their evolution is way too fast."

Liangmei shook her head, her delicate earrings swaying with the motion: "This is only our second time coming downstairs. We've been taking shelter in the attic on the top floor the whole time."

"Don't you know about the Angel Virus? Before the disaster broke out, it was reported nationwide on all the TV stations."

Li Pu and Chun Li, both transmigrators, were completely baffled.

Liangmei adjusted her glasses with confidence: "Then let's talk while we search. I've studied it specifically."

The three of them carefully circled the hospital. Whenever they came across a poorly lit room, they had to turn on a flashlight to see clearly.

This made Li Pu and Chun Li's hearts ache—after all, who knew when they'd find batteries again.

"The virus initially..."

Li Pu suddenly interrupted Liangmei: "Wait, Doctor Sister, is that your sister?"