By noon, all the steel-pipe frames in the stairwell had been dismantled.
Su Jin emerged from Fu Hu's apartment again, now holding a list.
Naturally, it contained information on the people living in the building.
Fu Hu knew practically every resident in their section of the building, apart from a handful of renters.
After a quick scan of the list, Su Jin had a good idea of the situation.
The proportion of older residents in this complex who had worked in the military or government seemed quite high.
What he lacked most right now was fighting strength. He needed to bolster security.
The resident across from his storage room on the fourth floor had been a soldier. His name was Wang Song.
He was slightly younger than Fu Hu, in his early forties.
By ordinary reasoning, soldiers were disciplined and capable fighters. A man in his forties should still be in decent physical shape.
There was no better place to start recruiting.
Taking the Adhesive Remover, Su Jin went straight to the fourth floor and started spraying.
After waiting a dozen or so minutes, he pounded on Wang Song's door.
The person inside might have turned into a zombie. A simple sound would be enough to tell.
But even after he had knocked for ages, to the point that people downstairs started calling for help, there was still no response from Wang Song's apartment.
After a moment's thought, Su Jin took out the Silver Spear.
He had already tested this gun the previous night.
Once all nine rounds had been fired, it would automatically reload itself after half an hour.
The items supplied by the company really were extraordinary. This cheat was incredibly powerful.
He aimed at the peephole and fired!
The entire peephole was blasted through, its parts spraying into the apartment.
Su Jin stepped back and peered inside through the hole.
A pool of blackened blood covered the floor. Two bodies lay on the ground, both covered with white cloths.
Just as he was about to look more closely, a faint voice came from inside.
"Who is it?"
"I'm your neighbor. Are you Wang Song? Are you hurt?" Su Jin darted aside, planted his feet on the stairs, and pressed himself beside the door, gripping the gun with both hands.
"Does it matter whether I'm hurt? Just go."
Su Jin frowned.
The two bodies inside had probably been killed after becoming infected. Judging by the bloodstains, they had been dead for some time.
The man was still rational. Even if he might be infected, it was still relatively safe for now.
At that thought, Su Jin swung the muzzle toward the lock.
The Silver Spear was powerful, and there was no need to worry about ricochets. Just two shots shattered the locking mechanism.
Gently pulling the door open, Su Jin copied the movements he had seen in movies and slowly slipped inside sideways, sweeping his gun left and right.
"Wang Song, are you in there?"
"Who the hell are you? How do you have a gun?"
Hearing the voice coming from the bedroom, Su Jin slowed his steps and moved toward it.
He couldn't help letting out a breath of relief when he entered.
A middle-aged man in his forties was sitting in the window, apparently hesitating over whether to jump.
Su Jin closed the door behind him and lowered his gun.
"Wang Song, calm down. Don't jump."
Wang Song turned back from the window. He was almost frozen stiff, his face deathly pale and his teeth chattering.
"You... have a gun? You're not my neighbor. Who are you?"
"Who I am doesn't matter! Get down right now and close the window. Don't give up hope. We can talk this through!"
Grief filled Wang Song's face. "What hope is there left? The country's gone... It's raining all over the world. Look at this world. Do you think it can still be saved?"
"A country starts with its families. As long as we're alive, there's hope. Come down first, then we'll talk." Su Jin kept trying to gently coax him.
"My family... My family's gone too. You must have seen them. My mother... and my wife turned into monsters. My son's away from home... There's probably no hope for him either." Wang Song's voice was barely a whisper, his expression dazed. "It'll be my turn soon. Just go. Don't worry about me."
"I have to worry about you. A lot of people have lost their families now, just like you. So have I." Su Jin stayed close to the wall, watching him. "Don't be so pessimistic. There's still hope for the future."
Wang Song shakily turned back around and lifted his shirt, revealing a chest wrapped in bandages. Looking down at the large expanse of gray skin exposed on his abdomen, he smiled bitterly. "Look... ugh... hrr..."
Bang!
A gunshot rang out. Wang Song's bitter smile froze on his face, and his body fell to the bottom of the building.
Su Jin slid down against the wall and sat, clutching his chest and gasping for breath.
I killed someone... I killed someone... It's okay. It's okay. I killed a zombie!
He was losing the ability to speak... He was at least on the verge of turning.
I helped him out, didn't I?
After reassuring himself for quite a while, Su Jin pushed himself up against the wall, approached the window with lingering fear, and closed it.
Then he returned to the living room, found a mop handle, and used it to lift the cloths covering the bodies.
At the sight of their wounds, Su Jin swallowed, then thrust the mop handle inside and stirred it around a couple of times.
An attack by a zombie might not guarantee infection, but this was definitely not the time to test that.
So Wang Song had to die.
The two zombies on the floor had definitely fought Wang Song. Their clothes were torn to shreds.
Knife wounds covered their necks, chests, and abdomens.
But the most noticeable wounds were on their chests: deep, severe gashes... Those were the fatal injuries!
Together with his earlier experiment on the rat, this showed that a zombie's weak point really was its heart!
This trip hadn't been entirely fruitless.
With that thought, Su Jin took a deep breath and found a quilt in the apartment.
Using the quilt to keep from touching the body, he picked it up and threw it out of the nearest window.
After tossing out both bodies, he returned to the stairwell, still shaken.
Picking up the list again, Su Jin set his sights on the sixth floor.
That experience had been genuinely frightening. He hadn't been nearly cautious enough.
No more looking for young, strong men for now. Two old men live on the sixth floor. According to Fu Hu, they both used to do research and had served in the military.
But they're both pushing seventy. Even if they've turned, they shouldn't be too dangerous.
After all, turning into a zombie won't change the condition of their bones.
Sun Ya in 601 lives alone. I'll check on him first. Even if an old man turns, he won't have much ability to attack...
On the sixth floor, he followed the same routine: remove the adhesive, then knock.
Su Jin waited quietly, gun in hand.
Before long, a voice came from behind the door. "Who are you?"
"A neighbor from downstairs."
"My door's been sealed shut. From what I heard, it seems the people downstairs were sealed in too. How did you get out... Are you hurt?"
Hearing this, Su Jin raised an eyebrow.
The old man inside was no ordinary person. He had a sharp grasp of the situation!
"I was the one who sealed the doors. They can be opened now. I'm not hurt. What about you?"
Instead of an answer, he heard the sound of the door being opened.
Someone seemed to push it from inside, and it slowly swung open on its own.
Su Jin edged forward. The moment he saw what was behind the door, his whole body went rigid!
A faint candle flame flickered in the darkness.
Behind the candlelight, a lean old man held a hunting gun, glaring at him with the barrel aimed squarely his way!
"Don't move. Stay right there."
"Don't shoot." Su Jin raised both hands and forced himself to remain calm. "I mean no harm. I'm here to save you. There are still a lot of people in the building. I just want to bring everyone together so we can support each other."
"Fu Hu downstairs told me about you. You're Mr. Sun, right?"
"Support each other?" Sun Ya gave a bleak smile that looked especially chilling in the candlelight. "The country's gone. This world is beyond saving. What good will supporting each other do?"
"How do you know it's beyond saving? What matters most right now is organizing ourselves to fight outside threats. If we give up on ourselves now..."
"Enough!" Sun Ya snapped. A moment later, his voice became subdued again. "There's no chance of turning this around anymore!"
"That rain didn't just infect people. It infected animals too. Infected creatures are driven by instinct to attack living things."
"Almost all the major military bases are out in the wilderness. There are plenty of wild animals out there, and lights stand out at night. Military bases around the world must have come under attack by infected creatures that very night the rain fell. Once small animals got indoors, the troops couldn't effectively fight back. If they went outside, they had no choice but to get caught in the rain, making the problem even worse."
"The cities weren't the first to take the hit. The military was! The armed forces might have been wiped out right at the start!"
Before you continue