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The young man was exceptionally handsome, dressed in a white shirt and jeans, with neck-length hair and a tall, slender build. He looked very clean. A small travel bag rested on his back. He headed downstairs as though he had not seen the three of them, but after passing Nan Shao, he doubled back and flicked a finger against Nan Shao's sword-wielding wrist. Nan Shao felt his wrist go numb, and the Tang sword was already in the young man's hand.

"Nice sword. You can't hold on to it, so you might as well give it to me." Leaving those words behind, he vaulted over the stair railing and landed lightly on the floor below. In just a few movements, he vanished, his voice still echoing in their ears. He had not even bothered with the scabbard.

He moved so fast that none of the three had time to react. Once Nan Shao recovered, his expression darkened for an instant, but it soon turned impassive. He did not lose control and start cursing. After what had happened with renting a place, he had fully recognized his situation. He knew that unless he became strong enough, things like this would keep happening, and anger would accomplish nothing.

"Let's see if there are any weapons we can use here first," Zhang Yi said after a moment, offering no words of comfort. As a man himself, he naturally knew that any consolation would sound like mockery at a time like this. It was better to think of a solution.

"Mm." Nan Shao gave him face and responded.

The three walked through the open door and found the body of a female zombie lying on the floor. It looked freshly killed, no more than two days ago at most. There was a small hole between its eyebrows and no wounds anywhere else. It was clearly one of the first batch to mutate at the start of the apocalypse.

Zhang Yi crouched down and smashed open the zombie's skull, but even after digging around for a long time, he could not find a Corpse Crystal.

"The Corpse Crystal is gone." He looked up at the other two, who were searching the rooms, and a chill rose in his heart. He absolutely did not believe it was because this particular zombie was special. The only explanation was that someone had taken the Corpse Crystal.

Nan Shao and Li Muran came over and searched through the somewhat dried and hardened brain matter again. They indeed found no milky-white Corpse Crystal.

"What kind of ability is this?" Li Muran asked with a sharp intake of breath. Even the more powerful ability users had to split open a zombie's head to retrieve its Corpse Crystal; they were simply much faster than ordinary people. Taking one out through nothing more than a small hole was unheard of. Of course, none of them could answer that question. She looked at Nan Shao. "Brother Shao, I don't think him taking that Tang sword was actually a bad thing. Otherwise, it might have gotten us killed. He was a bit overbearing, but he didn't bear us much ill will. Otherwise, even the three of us together wouldn't have been a match for him."

Nan Shao gave a slight nod to show he understood. Naturally, he could think of what Li Muran could. But as a man, having a weapon snatched from his hand was an immense humiliation, whatever the other person's intentions. Until he personally took the Tang sword back from that man, he would never be able to let this go.

"He doesn't live here." There was only so long they could study a zombie whose brains had already been sifted through twice. Zhang Yi stood up, examined the apartment, and reached his conclusion.

Apart from signs that someone had slept in the guest bed, everything else was covered in dust. Clearly, the young man had only stayed here temporarily. Most of the things in the apartment had been left untouched. There was also some rice, flour, convenience food, and snacks such as preserved plums and pickled-pepper chicken feet, just enough to fill the three of their backpacks. Li Muran found a pack of women's underwear and several packs of sanitary pads and put those away too. As for clothes, she did not take a single piece.

Nan Shao could not find even a reasonably usable weapon, so he took a kitchen knife, though he knew its only purpose was to give him a little comfort.

"Let's check the other apartments..." Zhang Yi said. He actually felt somewhat guilty toward Nan Shao, because his failure to think things through had nearly led to disaster. But it was already too late for apologies. It would be better to find a way to make it up to him.

"The zombies are coming up!" Li Muran suddenly pointed through the open doorway, her eyes widening as she shouted in alarm and cut him off.

Zhang Yi and Nan Shao looked over at her shout. Sure enough, a zombie's slowly climbing figure came into view on the stairs. Both were startled and immediately guessed that the young man had let these zombies in when he left.

"Go! Up to the roof!" Zhang Yi said, with no time to concern himself with anything else. He had Nan Shao, who had no lethal weapon on hand, run ahead, with Li Muran second and himself bringing up the rear.

Fortunately, the zombies moved slowly, and after running up two floors, they left them behind. An iron door blocked the way from the seventh floor to the roof. Zhang Yi went over and opened the lock in a few quick movements. Only after all three had gone through and locked it again did they breathe a sigh of relief.

The run had made Zhang Yi's leg start hurting again, so he could only sit down for a brief rest. Although Li Muran had awakened an ability, her stamina was still no match for an ordinary man's, and she lay down, panting. Only Nan Shao circled the rooftop, checking whether the iron doors to the other stairwells were securely locked before leaning over to inspect the situation below.

"There are about fifty or sixty zombies downstairs. More are gathering from elsewhere, but not many." He returned and sat beside the other two. "There might be a few dozen in the stairwell too. If we want to escape, we'll have to use another stairwell. But I suggest we stay here and practice killing zombies." At this, his phoenix eyes narrowed slightly, an indescribable menace in them. Clearly, having his weapon taken had finally made him unwilling to keep muddling along.

Zhang Yi lowered his eyes and thought for a moment, then nodded in agreement. As for Li Muran, she had no particular objections, as usual. The three quickly discussed a plan. Before the zombies could climb up, Zhang Yi opened an iron door-not the one they had come through, but the one to the last section of the building, so they could leave quickly if they could not hold out. They believed that even if zombies climbed up that way, there would not be many, and they could deal with them easily.

"We'll take turns resting and using the weapons." Zhang Yi glanced at the zombie that had already thrown itself against the iron door and was drooling and rasping at them. "Nan Shao, you go first." As he spoke, he reversed the machete in his hand and offered him the handle. His leg hurt, so he did not try to act tough.