Probing for answers

Lu Heng, supporting himself against the wall, walked out of the door step by step.

Outside the door was a narrow corridor, with light streaming in from the window at the end. There was a faint smell of cooking in the air—not the stench of decay, nor the odor of mutated creatures, but the smell of burning firewood and heating food.

The taste of a living person.

Lu Heng followed the sound to the end of the corridor and pushed open the half-closed door.

In the courtyard, the man named Song Yunzhong was standing by the wall, talking quietly with a woman.

The woman was young, around twenty-five or twenty-six years old, with her hair in a ponytail. She had obvious signs of fatigue on her face, but her eyes were bright. She wore clean, old clothes with the cuffs rolled up to her wrists, and carried an aluminum basin, as if she had just come from the kitchen.

Lu Heng's appearance caused both of them to stop what they were doing.

Song Yunzhong spoke first, his tone tinged with surprise. "Why didn't you rest a little longer? You're so badly injured."

Lu Heng leaned against the doorframe and said calmly, "It's alright, I can handle it."

His gaze swept across the yard—it wasn't large, surrounded by walls on all sides, with some wooden planks and sheet metal piled up in the corners. A simple shed had been built against the south wall, under which were a few pots and half a bag of rice. The gate had been reinforced, with a protective net welded onto the outside using iron bars.

Simple, but orderly.

He finally asked the question that had been weighing on his mind since he woke up, "How did you all survive here?"

Song Yunzhong glanced at him but did not answer immediately.

He tilted his head slightly, exchanged a glance with the woman beside him, and then spoke, his tone flat:

"That's the question we were going to ask you."

He paused, his gaze falling on Lu Heng with a scrutinizing look:

"Please answer our questions first."

Lu Heng remained silent, waiting for him to continue.

Song Yunzhong's voice was steady and clear:

"Are you in the military?"

The moment the question was asked, the woman next to him's eyes lit up.

She turned sharply to look at Lu Heng, her eyes filled with an almost burning expectation. Her lips parted slightly, as if she wanted to say something but held back.

Song Yunzhong continued, "You're so skilled, last night under the bridge, that thing—" He paused, seemingly choosing his words carefully, "Was it under your control? Are you in the military? Were you part of the vanguard?"

The moment the last question was asked, the woman could no longer hold back.

"Yes! Are you here to retake the city?" Her voice trembled slightly, her eyes gleaming. "Did the army send you? Has a counter-offensive already begun outside?"

Her tone was filled with excitement, the kind of excitement that comes from long-suppressed feelings and the sudden glimmer of hope amidst despair— Lu Heng looked at these expressions and didn't know how to respond.

That's a rather cruel answer.

Lu Heng remained silent for a few seconds.

The courtyard was quiet, with only the occasional low growl of a Zombie coming from afar, blocked out by the wall, muffled like the city's ceaseless panting.

Looking into the woman's burning eyes, he knew very well that the higher her expectations, the more painful the fall would be.

But he still spoke up.

No.

Two words, spoken softly, yet like a bucket of cold water poured down.

The woman's expression froze.

Lu Heng continued, his voice calm. "I'm just an explorer."

He didn't explain further. The word "explorer" said it all—he wasn't an army, had no backup, no organization, and no plan to retake the city. He was simply living, walking, and killing alone in the apocalypse, nothing more.

The woman's excitement was like a flame that had been extinguished, dying out in an instant.

Her gaze shifted from burning intensity to emptiness. Her lips moved as if she wanted to say something, but ultimately nothing came out. She lowered her head, the aluminum basin in her hands tilting slightly, the water inside sloshing and reflecting her pale face.

Disappointment.

Pure, undisguised loss.

Lu Heng shifted his gaze to Song Yunzhong.

Song Yunzhong's expression didn't change much; he remained calm and composed. But Lu Heng could see that the faint light in his eyes had dimmed.

He suppressed it.

Unlike that woman, Song Yunzhong didn't wear his emotions on his sleeve. But Lu Heng could sense the same expectation in his voice when he asked the question, "Recapture the city."

That expectation was forcibly suppressed back into his heart at that moment.

Silence fell over the courtyard once again.

The wind blew over the wall, carrying with it a foul stench from afar.

Lu Heng leaned against the doorframe, looking at the two "natives" who had taken root in the apocalypse, and a strange feeling welled up in his heart.

They survived.

But surviving doesn't mean there's no despair.

They've just hidden their despair even deeper.

After a few seconds of silence, Lu Heng broke the silence, his gaze sweeping back over the iron bar netting on the gate, and asked, "How did you manage to defend this outpost?"

Song Yunzhong glanced at him and didn't hide anything. "The wall originally came from the courtyard of a residential house, and we reinforced it three times. The outer iron bars were taken from a scrapped van."

He pointed to an inconspicuous corner next to the courtyard gate. "There's an iron bolt behind the gate; you have to lock it before going to bed at night. I forgot once, and someone almost sneaked in in the middle of the night."

Lu Heng noticed that there was indeed a thick iron bolt in that corner, its surface polished to a shine—indicating that it was used every day, and frequently at that.

Once Song Yunzhong started talking, he showed no sign of stopping. He walked to the wall, squatted down, and drew a simple map on the ground with a twig.

"We're here now—the southeast corner of town." He drew a dot.

Then he drew a dot, placing it right in the center of the map. "The town center, a woman's territory."

He paused, his tone turning somber. "That woman is not to be trifled with. Several groups of people tried to go there to find supplies, but she killed them all."

Lu Heng listened without interrupting.

The woman, who had been silent all along, suddenly spoke, her voice still a little hoarse. "That woman I was talking about earlier— the Zombie Cat in her hand—that's the biggest problem."

Lu Heng looked at her.

The woman took a deep breath. "That cat wasn't an ordinary Zombie. It was incredibly fast; ordinary Zombie couldn't catch it at all. And it seemed to be able to smell the location of living people; no matter how well they hid, it could find them."

She paused, her tone turning somber. "We had a companion who hid in a closet on the second floor, with all the doors and windows sealed shut. That cat jumped straight up from the first floor to the second, smashed a window, and dragged him out."

Lu Heng's eyes flickered slightly. Able to accurately locate living people, extremely fast, and capable of breaking windows—this Zombie Cat's threat level was higher than he had anticipated.

Lu Heng did not respond immediately. He leaned against the door frame, his gaze fixed on the simple map that Song Yunzhong had drawn on the ground, his mind rapidly processing the information.

The woman in the town center—he's already killed her. The Corpse-Control Ring is in his possession, and the Zombie Cat is dead too. He's already cleared out the entire town center.

In other words, the "greatest threat" that Song Yunzhong mentioned no longer exists.

He didn't reveal this information. It wasn't that he didn't trust Song Yunzhong, but the timing wasn't right. He needed to observe the group's reaction first before deciding whether to disclose the true situation in the town center.

Lu Heng straightened up, his tone flat. "Thanks, this information is very useful."

Song Yunzhong looked up at him, seemingly trying to read something from his expression, but Lu Heng's face remained expressionless.

Song Yunzhong did not ask any further questions.

He gathered up the branches, stood up, dusted off his hands, and his lips moved as if he wanted to say something, but in the end he just glanced at Lu Heng in silence, turned around, walked to the wall, leaned against it, and lowered his head.

The woman didn't speak. She stood there, holding the aluminum basin, her gaze fixed on the water in it, motionless.

The silence in the courtyard returned.

The wind blew over the wall, and the distant, low growls of the Zombie remained muffled.

In the midst of the silence, a series of light footsteps suddenly came from the inner room.

Song Yunzhong and the woman simultaneously turned to look into the room.

A little girl, about seven or eight years old, peeked half her head out from behind the door. Her hair was messy, her face was dirty, but her eyes were bright. She was clutching a tattered rag in her hand, as if she had just been woken up from somewhere.

A smaller boy, about four or five years old, appeared behind her, huddled behind the girl, only showing half his face, timidly looking at Lu Heng.

Song Yunzhong's expression softened for a moment, and he beckoned to them. "Come here."

The little girl led her younger brother to the middle of the yard, but her gaze never left Lu Heng.

She tilted her head and looked at him for a few seconds, then suddenly asked, "Are you the new uncle?"

Lu Heng looked down at her but did not answer.

The little boy was even more shy, shrinking behind his sister and clutching the girl's clothes tightly with his fingers.

The woman walked over, knelt down, and gently tidied the little girl's hair, her voice so soft it was as if she didn't want to startle anything. "Don't disturb the guests."

The little girl wasn't afraid. She looked up at Lu Heng and suddenly asked, "Uncle, do you have any candy?"

Lu Heng was silent for a moment.

He looked into the little girl's pure eyes, so out of place in this apocalyptic world, and said nothing. He simply reached into his pocket and pulled out a flattened candy—one of the snacks he'd found a few days ago, which he'd kept in his pocket for convenience—and handed it to her.

The little girl's eyes lit up immediately, and she carefully took it, as if holding some rare treasure.

Song Yunzhong watched from the side, his lips moving as if he wanted to say something, but in the end he only whispered, "Thank you."

Lu Heng did not respond and turned to walk into the house.

Behind me, the sound of the little girl unwrapping a candy was very soft, yet exceptionally clear in the quiet courtyard.

The wind blew over the wall, and the distant, low growls of the Zombie remained muffled.

But in the courtyard, there was a faint warmth, the warmth of living people.