Pestilence Zone

As the first glimmer of dawn shone through the gaps in the clinic's reinforced windows, everyone opened their eyes in unison.

Accustomed to the peace of their old everyday lives, Lei Heng felt nothing but despair the moment he woke.

A dim, gray mist drifted in from outside, carrying a terrifying sense of the unknown.

"We... we have to go."

Lei Heng came to his senses, remembering the plan for the day.

That man—the one called Zhou Zhi.

Was that guy really a Plague Exterminator?

Lei Heng shuddered.

Nearby, the man sitting on the edge of the bed had woken earlier than the rest of them.

Although his face was youthful and he was only sixteen or seventeen, there was an indescribable air of maturity about him.

Zhou Zhi gripped a scalpel in his right hand with the practiced ease of someone wielding a bow, then tucked it into his waistband.

His gaze swept over the crowd.

Everyone wore a different expression.

"We'll leave in ten minutes."

Zhou Zhi spoke. "The earlier we set off, the more time we'll have."

Daytime was not necessarily safe, but nighttime was definitely a dead end.

Everyone understood this, and no one objected.

For the few minutes they had left, Lei Heng and the others searched Bai Xiu's Clinic. They stuffed a few unidentified medicines into their pockets, and, after confirming there were no other supplies left behind, waited outside the clinic.

Meanwhile, Xia Yu handed out masks made from curtain cloth and helped Xiao Nan look after the patients.

Lei Heng watched the patients with a cold expression but didn't make a move.

"All right, Mr. Zhou Zhi."

Xia Yu's lovely eyes flickered. "We have enough supplies for now. If we avoid danger and ration them, they should last at least three days."

Clearly, if Zhou Zhi hadn't shown up, the disagreement between Lei Heng and Xia Yu's groups would have boiled over within three days.

The supplies left at Bai Xiu's Clinic had been limited to begin with. With more than twenty people to feed, there was no way they could hold out until the authorities arrived.

Zhou Zhi, meanwhile, had a proper mask—not the kind Xia Yu had made from curtain cloth.

[Low-quality mask].

[Can effectively prevent pathogenization caused by influenza].

[Current condition: Perfect].

Zhou Zhi slowly put on the mask.

"Let's go."

The man spoke in a low voice.

The time had come to witness this world with his own eyes for the first time.

A whole new world.

Behind him, Lei Heng and the others stiffened.

They had wanted to leave the clinic all along, but now that the moment had truly arrived, all they felt was fear and dread of the unknown.

"I'm scared..." Xiao Nan whispered.

Xia Yu's expression was just as conflicted.

"We'll survive."

The clinic's door had been reinforced. Its barricades were slowly removed.

The bolt and door groaned like an old man, the sound more like the creaking of rotting branches as they shed their dead leaves.

Someone swallowed.

Everyone knew that beyond the door lay a world like hell.

Whoosh.

The door swung open.

What Zhou Zhi felt was a cold wind.

It rushed straight at him.

It was somewhat different from what Zhou Zhi had imagined.

This wasn't the view through a window. He was looking outside for real.

The sky was gray and hazy. The first glimmer of dawn had seemed like a dream.

The outskirts of the place called Qingshi Town were eerily quiet.

There wasn't a sound.

A thin layer of mist hung in the air, making Zhou Zhi feel as if something were scratching his skin.

[Infected environment].

[Prolonged exposure to this environment carries a risk of pathogenization].

So that was how it was.

Zhou Zhi walked outside.

Seeing Zhou Zhi lead the way, Lei Heng and the others exchanged glances, then followed him out.

Their hearts were pounding, but they still managed to step forward bravely.

Xia Yu followed close behind.

They tried to slow their breathing as much as possible, to keep the pathogenization from worsening.

The outskirts of the northeastern corner of Qingshi Town.

This was Xiao Nan's home.

Xiao Nan remembered how lively it used to be here.

The little square had always been crowded with people.

Neighbors wandered up and down the streets, their voices flowing through this corner of the small town.

But now...

There was nothing here.

A deathly silence.

No people, but the houses were intact.

Zhou Zhi walked along the stone steps, his right hand gripping the handle of the scalpel at his waist.

Aside from Xia Yu, Xiao Nan and the others in Xia Yu's group were all locals from this part of Qingshi Town.

Lei Heng was a thug from the neighboring district.

As for Xia Yu, she was a student at Blue Stone Central School.

That meant Xiao Nan and the others would serve as their guides for now.

And the first thing they needed to do was gather supplies.

Five minutes earlier, Uncle Liang, one of the group's elderly and infirm members, had coughed twice and raised his hand.

"My family runs a shop. There should be supplies there."

"I also want to... want to see how my wife is doing..."

When the Pestilence struck, Uncle Liang had been out making a delivery, and he'd been separated from his wife.

He didn't know if she was alive or dead.

Zhou Zhi knew, of course, that Uncle Liang still held out hope. It didn't conflict with their plan.

As they descended the steps, Zhou Zhi saw that the buildings in Qingshi Town were quite low, not much different from the old apartment blocks he'd seen in his Past Life.

But Zhou Zhi looked toward the distance over the rooftops.

Beneath the mist.

At the center of Qingshi Town.

A building taller and more refined than the others.

Above it was a symbol of a scalpel and a heart.

It looked extremely eerie in the thin mist.

"That's Blue Stone Town Central Hospital."

At Xia Yu's words, Zhou Zhi turned his gaze away.

If the mist here was relatively thin, then around the center of Qingshi...

The mist there was much darker.

So dark it was almost black.

From a distance, it looked like a black giant standing in the very center of town.

"They say a true Plague Exterminator works at Blue Stone Town Central Hospital. A doctor, in other words."

Zhou Zhi thought it over.

Unlike him, who only claimed to be one.

The person Xia Yu and the others pinned their hopes on.

"It's just ahead, in this district. Cough, cough, cough..."

Uncle Liang's face was covered in strange fungal patches as he pointed toward a gloomy alley ahead. Zhou Zhi took a closer look.

The Pathogenization Index had already passed forty. So this was what it looked like.

A strange smell drifted through the air.

Like the stench of something rotting.

Strange slime covered the ground.

Splurt.

One of Lei Heng's underlings stepped right in it.

His expression changed at once.

"This slime..."

He looked ahead.

White mold spread along the walls and through the narrow alley.

The ground was covered in sticky liquid. To Zhou Zhi, it looked more like...

[snot].

"What is this..."

"These are the traces those monsters leave behind!"

"Boss... there are monsters here!!"

The underling spoke in a hoarse voice, his body trembling.

Gurgle, gurgle.

The slime made a bizarre, grotesque sound, as if hands were stirring it.

"It's just ahead."

Uncle Liang smiled, as if he hadn't even seen the slime on the ground.

From ahead came the sound of something crawling over a sticky surface.

At first, there were only a few.

Then the sounds multiplied, dozens of them overlapping.

Xiao Nan's face turned deathly pale with fear.

She could barely speak.

At the end of the street.

Heads as white as corpses began to emerge one after another.

Their eyes were unfocused, like countless human mannequins.

Every last one of them.

"[Mucus Man]."

"[A Disease Seed that can form when an ordinary human is infected with influenza and their Pathogenization Index exceeds forty]."

"[It looks disgusting, and it really is disgusting]."