A new discovery

The two walked along the main road in the middle of the town.

The road surface was cracked in several places, and the grass growing from the cracks was withered and yellowed, pressed against the asphalt by passing wheels. Several vans were parked by the roadside, one of which had its door open, and a dirty work jacket was thrown on the driver's seat, its cuffs dragging on the ground and covered in dust.

Song Yunzhong walked ahead, his pace slow, his eyes fixed on the intersections on both sides.

Lu Heng followed behind him on the right, about half a body length away.

Where are the most Zombie?

Song Yunzhong didn't turn around. "A cluster of residential buildings."

He pointed southeast, "There are three or four six-story residential buildings over there. They have many residents; when the outbreak occurred, most people didn't escape and were stuck in the stairwells."

Lu Heng nodded.

"Then came the town's school." Song Yunzhong withdrew his hand. "The walls are high, the gate is narrow, the Zombie can't escape, they're all crowded between the playground and the school building."

"Anything else?"

The town's central hospital is located at the north end of the town.

Lu Heng didn't reply.

He'd been to the residential building and the school. He'd personally cleared both places, and he knew the level of the Zombie inside—too low to be of any help in unlocking Song Yunzhong's Corpse-Control Ring.

The hospitals are different.

He had previously searched through all the pharmacies on the streets of the town, but most of them had already been looted, with empty shelves. Occasionally, he would find a few boxes of expired cold medicine or a few strips of damp painkillers, scattered and disorganized.

But township hospitals are different. Antibiotics, hemostatic agents, anesthetics, and surgical supplies are harder to find than bullets these days. Even if the hospital doesn't have high-level Zombie suitable for Song Yunzhong to unlock his abilities, the sheer volume of medicines alone makes the trip worthwhile.

"I've been to the hospital, I've been to other places," Lu Heng said. "You lead the way."

Song Yunzhong turned and walked north.

The two walked straight along the main street for about ten minutes, and a small supermarket appeared on the right corner.

The storefront was small, sandwiched between a barbershop and a hardware store. Half of the signboard was missing, leaving only the two characters "Convenience" crookedly hanging on it. The glass door was broken in half, with the other half hanging on the frame, creaking in the wind. The inside was dark, with several rows of shelves overturned and plastic bottles and packaging bags scattered on the floor.

It looks very ordinary.

It's so ordinary that you'd think this kind of small shop had probably been completely looted long ago, and there's nothing worth the risk.

Lu Heng stopped in his tracks.

He raised his hand and placed his palm on Song Yunzhong's shoulder, stopping him.

Song Yunzhong turned to look at him.

Lu Heng didn't look at him, his gaze fixed on the half-shattered glass door. "Don't go near it."

Song Yunzhong frowned. "What's inside?"

"I've been inside."

Lu Heng's tone was very flat.

"It's not what you think."

He didn't explain further, withdrew his hand, took two steps back, and increased the distance between himself and the supermarket.

Song Yunzhong stared at him for two seconds, nodded, and walked around the supermarket side, continuing to walk along the left wall.

The two people walked past the supermarket entrance, one after the other.

Nothing happened.

There was no sound, no strange phenomena, the smell in the air remained unchanged, and the dust on the ground didn't move.

Song Yunzhong slowed his pace.

His gaze shifted slightly to the right, landing on the dark entrance of the supermarket.

His steps changed direction.

Very light, very slow.

Song Yunzhong himself was unaware of it.

Lu Heng walked behind, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Song Yunzhong's shadow shift.

He didn't shout.

He took a step forward, grabbed Song Yunzhong by the back of his collar with one hand, and put the other hand under his knees, hoisting him onto his shoulder.

Then he started running.

I ran north along the street.

Lu Heng ran for nearly two hundred meters before stopping.

He put Song Yunzhong on the ground.

The moment Song Yunzhong's foot touched the ground, he shuddered. He blinked twice, his face completely blank.

"What are you doing?"

Lu Heng didn't answer, but glanced back in the direction he came from.

The supermarket is long gone.

Song Yunzhong rubbed his aching shoulder, took a breath, and asked in a strained voice, "What... what happened?"

He stared at the supermarket in the distance, his brows furrowed.

"I remember we went around that store," he said. "Then... then my mind suddenly went blank, like someone had blindfolded me. When I came to my senses, you had already picked me up."

He paused for a moment, then looked down at his hands.

"My body wouldn't obey me." His voice trailed off. "I wanted to go that way, but I didn't. You know that feeling? It's like... like when you dream of running, but your legs won't obey you, except it's the other way around—my legs wanted to run, but my brain didn't give the command."

He looked up at Lu Heng: "What exactly is in that shop?"

Lu Heng remained silent for a few seconds.

"I've been inside," he said. "It's haunted, very eerie. I've been inside once."

Song Yunzhong opened his mouth, but no words came out.

He looked down at his hands, then looked up at the supermarket in the distance, his Adam's apple bobbing.

"It seems tempting to ordinary people," Lu Heng said. "Your state just now wasn't fear, nor was it distraction. Your body simply wouldn't listen to you."

Song Yunzhong remained silent.

He clenched his fist, then released it, as if to confirm that his fingers were still obedient.

"Let's go." Lu Heng turned around, "The hospital."

The two set off again.

Suppressing the eerie feelings evoked by the supermarket, Song Yunzhong steadied himself and continued to lead the way.

The Town ruins were deathly silent, with abandoned buildings standing along the way, and the air was thick with the smell of decay. The entire area was so quiet that not a single sound of a living person could be heard.

Walking along the dilapidated streets and alleys, it takes a kilometer or two.

Midway, the two bypassed the wide main road, where abandoned vehicles blocked the road haphazardly, making visibility extremely poor and the risks unknown. They tacitly chose the side road, steadily advancing along the shadows of buildings, remaining vigilant about their surroundings the entire time, not daring to relax for a moment.

After walking a while longer, a neat, multi-story old building finally came into view at the edge of the field of vision.

The gray-white exterior walls were covered with a thick layer of dust, most of the window frames were broken, and the glass was almost completely shattered, giving the whole building an air of desolation and death.

It's the town's hospital.

Before he even got close, Lu Heng keenly detected the faint sounds coming from inside—dull, restless, and intermittently accompanied by low, hoarse roars.

There is definitely something there.

The two walked even more quietly, quickly approaching the hospital's main entrance.

The iron gate was half-open, rusty and mottled, with withered weeds and bits of trash scattered around the entrance. As soon as they stepped into the area, the scene of the guardhouse on the side came into direct view of them.

The small duty room had intact glass windows, but the door was tightly closed.

A Zombie is trapped in a tiny room, its body constantly slamming against the door and glass windows.

Its limbs were stiff and it thrashed about wildly, its head repeatedly banging against the door, making dull thuds. Sensing the presence of living people outside, the Zombie instantly went berserk.

His body struggled violently, his fingertips frantically scratching at the door, his nails scraping out a piercing creak. His dark, murky pupils were fixed on Lu Heng and Song Yunzhong, and hoarse, murky roars kept escaping his mouth. His face was contorted with rage and ferocity, but he could not find a way to open the door and could only be trapped in the small space, futilely furious.

Upon seeing this, Song Yunzhong subconsciously paused slightly and looked at Lu Heng.

"Why not just resolve it? It's an easy task, not much trouble at all."

Lu Heng glanced indifferently at the Zombie struggling wildly in the duty room, and walked straight into the hospital without stopping.

"Need not."

His tone was calm and even, without the slightest fluctuation.

"It can't get out and poses no threat to anyone, so there's no harm in leaving it. There's no need to specially clean up this spectacle."

Song Yunzhong paused and stared for a few seconds, then nodded in sudden realization.

That's absolutely true.

With the doors and windows intact and the room locked, the Zombie was completely trapped in the guard room. In the apocalypse, no one would be so foolish as to deliberately open the door and let an out-of-control Zombie out; that would be tantamount to courting death.

Having figured this out, Song Yunzhong completely put his mind at ease and quickly followed in Lu Heng's footsteps.

The two walked one after the other through the hospital's main entrance, stepping completely into the abandoned hospital interior, and steadily heading deeper into the central area of the hospital.