After shooting the two suspects dead, Su Jin hurried back to the sixth floor.
He checked the isolation room where Cheng Du and Sister Liu were staying, and only returned to the room opposite after seeing that both were inside.
With things having reached this point, no one had any appetite left.
The others were already seated in a circle, waiting for Su Jin to return.
As soon as Su Jin appeared, Sun Ya leaned forward. "Well? Who was the murderer?"
"They both were. I killed them both." His face cold, Su Jin took out his phone and held it up for them to see.
On the screen, Cao Chengping and Li Kai clutched their necks and convulsed on the floor, looking as though they were turning into zombies.
After a few spasms, gunshots rang out, killing them.
Zhang Wan patted her chest, seemingly still shaken by the fright.
Fu Qingdai pressed her lips together and gave Su Jin a strange look.
Putting away his phone, Su Jin said, "I need to speak with Mr. Sun and Mr. Wei alone. Go take care of your own things for now. I'll need you later."
Fu Hu tactfully left with his wife and daughter.
Only the three of them remained in the living room.
Sun Ya opened his mouth to ask a question, but Su Jin spoke first. "The man on the left just now was the real murderer. The other wasn't. And the murderer's infection and mutation weren't in his heart, but in his brain. Judging from the rat, this type of infection should cause changes to the body, beyond its original temperament. It might even give them special abilities."
"But when it comes to taking damage, they're completely different from zombies. They're closer to ordinary living creatures. Decapitation, blood loss, poison... all of those can kill them."
Both old men's faces immediately darkened.
"So..." Sun Ya said dejectedly, "you poisoned them. You had no way of telling which one was infected. But how did you know the infection was in the head?"
Su Jin lowered his head, then raised it again. "Dissection. I took him apart from head to toe to look."
He lit a cigarette, then pulled a bottle of liquor from his bag.
Su Jin picked up a tea bowl, emptied it, filled it with liquor, and drained it in one gulp.
Then he filled another bowl.
In this unfamiliar world, he had to demand constant vigilance of himself... yet now, for the first time, he chose to drink.
Neither Sun Ya nor Wei De spoke. Pain mingled in their eyes as they silently watched Su Jin brood over his liquor and cigarettes.
Both were intelligent men. The moment they saw the rat's unusual mutation, its perfect disguise among its own kind, nothing more needed to be said.
This was a force almost impossible to resist.
Not because of how infectious the enemy was, nor because of how powerful its mutations were.
It was because the very existence of such creatures... severed the foundation on which humanity depended for survival and development.
Trust.
Sun Ya lowered his eyelids, his face full of bitterness.
Now everything made sense.
Aside from the possibility that the military had been wiped out, the government had discovered this unusual type of mutation early on. It might even have spread to the decision-makers.
The torrential rain had affected far too vast an area, compounded by sinister human motives and cover-ups at every level.
There had been almost no time, resources, or means to distinguish the infected.
Organizations had collapsed from top to bottom, and the chain of trust had snapped in an instant.
Perhaps some people were still making a final, desperate effort, launching Cold Sky into the city.
But against such an overwhelming tide, no weapon could make any difference.
The broadcast had said not to trust... so it had meant not to trust anyone.
Through the curling smoke, slightly drunk, Su Jin's eyes glistened.
A single downpour had reduced the entire world to an atomized society, then cut off every path toward new organizations and the rebuilding of civilization.
A strategy devised one moment was destroyed the next, reduced to empty talk.
This despair was just like the shock he had felt when he first witnessed Cold Sky erupt and the state cease to function.
What truly plunged humanity into an apocalypse was not the loss of weapons or the resources needed to survive, but one another.
But I'd only just glimpsed hope...
Every time he found hope, it was immediately crushed-a dull knife slicing flesh, a bitter wait for death.
The most ridiculous part was... he was running errands for a company that was almost omniscient and omnipotent, beyond all ordinary reason.
Yet after giving him a tiny bit of help, the company had vanished, leaving him like a discarded pawn.
Time trickled away. Eventually, Su Jin was alone in the living room, liquor bottles piled at his feet and cigarette butts scattered across the floor.
It was already dark outside.
Sun Ya returned with a candle and sat down opposite Su Jin.
Seeing him lying back, he asked softly, "Are you giving up?"
"Giving up?" Su Jin straightened and chuckled, his eyes hazy with drink, though anger and pent-up frustration still burned inside him.
A rotten, stinking world.
A company that toyed with me however it pleased.
I've already made it through the hardest part-the beginning. How could I possibly give up?
I should take revenge! Survive in this world, keep Fu Qingdai alive with me, then kill the bastard who sent me here.
"I'll never give up again... no matter how hard it gets." Candlelight danced in Su Jin's eyes. "...This time, I'm fighting people, and heaven itself!"
"I hope that isn't the drink talking." Sun Ya looked at Su Jin with open admiration.
"Of course it isn't. But what about you?" Su Jin asked. "Can you still hold on?"
Sun Ya smiled faintly. "You're the leader. You're our core. If you don't want to give up, we have no right to."
"As things stand, the difficulty and risk of building and expanding our team have become extremely high. Even if we get heavy weapons, we can't safely entrust them to other people. But that doesn't mean there's no solution. We saw an infected human today, and we still have the sample from Rat No. 3. Old Wei and I will study it again tomorrow."
"Then study it. Whether it's their traits or the mechanism behind them, we have to devise a solution. Whatever happens, we can't fight alone. We have to rely on the majority." Su Jin sighed wistfully. "One solution might lie in those flesh balls. You saw the rat too. There may be all kinds of mutant abilities. Perhaps heaven will lend us a pair of eyes that can spot the traitors among us."
"Exactly. We should still have faith in nature." Sun Ya smiled, picked up the half-empty bottle on the table, and poured himself a bowl.
"Actually, there's one thing about you I really admire."
"Oh?"
"Your adaptability is simply unmatched. You could see the signs in how you went from dissecting corpses at first to actively dissecting large numbers of them. Today, you weren't sure who the murderer was, so you simply killed both living men, then cut one open and peeled him apart... tsk!" Sun Ya took a sip of the fiery liquor and hissed at the burn.
"Most people could never go that far. If I didn't know you were doing it for everyone's sake, to lead people toward survival, I'd stay well away from someone like you."
"Are you praising me or insulting me?" Su Jin tilted his head and smiled through narrowed eyes.
"Praising you, I suppose. Troubled times breed heroes, and you're more of a ruthless conqueror. You'll accomplish something. I'm certain of it." Sun Ya nodded firmly, then changed tack. "Still... if someone like you succeeds, you might become a tyrant."
"A tyrant..." Su Jin scoffed and lifted his bowl to clink it against Sun Ya's.
He drank the strong liquor, his gaze as calm as water.
"That's right. This world needs a tyrant... but it won't be me."
Before you continue