Chapter 16: The Woman on the Stage

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With Wang Meng’s timely assistance, no one present doubted Sun Xiaoyan’s ability to pay anymore.

At once, all the suppliers surged forward, eagerly presenting their business cards in the hope that Sun Xiaoyan would remember them and favor them with more orders in the future.

As for Mr. Zhang, the middle-aged man, he stood there looking utterly dejected, his expression vacant. Everything that had happened had left him completely stunned.

Smiling, Sun Xiaoyan accepted all the business cards. Seeing that the matter had been settled, she instructed her assistant to pay the suppliers who were willing to deduct ten percent from their invoices. The remaining suppliers would be paid in full at the end of the month.

At those words, the suppliers who had caused the disturbance all pulled long faces, but resigned themselves to the outcome. After all, this was what they themselves had demanded, and with two police officers watching from the side, they could no longer make a scene even if they wanted to.

The other suppliers, meanwhile, wore relieved expressions. They bade Sun Xiaoyan farewell one after another and left. Seeing that the matter had been resolved satisfactorily, the two police officers also took their leave.

Well versed in human relations, Sun Xiaoyan had her female assistant prepare two red envelopes and force them into the officers’ bags, thanking them repeatedly before seeing them out.

After arranging a delivery date with Wang Meng, an exhausted Sun Xiaoyan returned to her office and sank into the leather executive chair, secretly counting herself lucky.

If not for the lottery ticket Qin Zhong had given her, she might never have made it through today’s crisis. In that case, the pharmaceutical factory her grandfather had left behind might truly have been ruined in her hands.

At the thought of such a consequence, Sun Xiaoyan felt a chill run through her body. Her heart filled with sincere gratitude toward Qin Zhong, the man who had come from ten years in the future.

Rubbing the ring on her finger, Sun Xiaoyan wondered silently, “I wonder what Qin Zhong is doing right now. Could he still be trapped by zombies?”

…

In the apocalypse, inside an underground parking garage.

The very Qin Zhong Sun Xiaoyan had been thinking about was crawling inch by inch through the darkness of the underground garage.

He was getting closer and closer to the emergency exit when a sudden, piercing pain shot through the ring finger of his left hand. A large foot had stepped directly on it. Qin Zhong clenched his teeth, not daring to make the slightest sound.

The zombie was cruelly unfortunate in its choice of footwear, as though it were wearing hard-soled leather shoes. If the entire palm had been crushed beneath its foot, the pain might not have been so intense. Instead, it had happened to step only on the fingertip.

There was an old saying that the ten fingers were connected to the heart. The pain made Qin Zhong’s face twitch uncontrollably, yet he could only endure it with all his strength, afraid to utter a sound. The zombie remained there for at least three seconds before finally wandering away.

As soon as it had gone, Qin Zhong ignored the agonizing pain in his finger and continued crawling. Before long, he reached the emergency exit and slowly pushed open one of the fire doors.

Beyond it was pitch-black. Qin Zhong could see nothing, and his heart pounded nervously. He could only pray that he would not run into something he should never touch in this dark, silent stairwell.

Gritting his teeth, Qin Zhong knew that moving forward was his only chance of survival. He slipped inside, probing ahead with his knife, and climbed three or four steps with his back pressed against the wall before pulling a flashlight from his backpack.

After taking a deep breath, Qin Zhong confirmed that the parking garage could not see the light from this position. Only then did he cover the flashlight with all five fingers and switch it on.

The beam reddened his fingers, and a few thin rays slipped through the gaps, illuminating the area nearby. The moment he saw what lay before him, Qin Zhong’s whole body shuddered, and he nearly cried out in alarm.

Lying half-reclined on the steps directly in front of him was a zombie. If Qin Zhong had taken one more step upward, he would have planted his foot squarely on its stomach.

It was the zombie of a grown man, broad and powerfully built. His face was bluish gray, his expression dull, and a cold glint occasionally flickered in his eyes. From his elevated position, he looked down on Qin Zhong. Although Qin Zhong had a knife in hand, dispatching him quickly would hardly be easy.

At that moment, Qin Zhong suddenly had an idea. He spread his fingers and shone the flashlight directly into the zombie’s eyes.

Something strange happened. The burly zombie, built like a bull, let out only half a groan before standing rigidly still.

The discovery sent Qin Zhong into a frenzy of delight. He had learned this trick from one of the survivors he had rescued earlier, but this was his first time trying it. Fortunately, the survivor had not lied to him.

Keeping the flashlight trained on the zombie’s eyes, Qin Zhong slipped past it, withdrew his hand, and bounded up several steps. By the time the zombie recovered, Qin Zhong had already dashed onto the first floor.

The exertion triggered another sharp pain in his chest. The scrape on his knee had bled quite a bit, but it was ultimately only a superficial injury. By comparison, the internal damage to his chest was clearly far more serious.

The impact from the earlier car crash had been tremendous. Despite the combined protection of his seat belt and airbag, Qin Zhong still felt waves of pain radiating through his chest.

But there was no time to rest. Escaping with his life was the only thing that mattered.

Peering through the gap between the two fire doors, Qin Zhong looked outside. To his surprise, the place was a vast shopping mall built around an open atrium. Tall buildings rose on all four sides, and because the skylight above had not been sealed, sunlight poured down from overhead.

The atrium covered several thousand square meters and had been arranged as a courtyard garden. Trees flourished, flowers and grasses grew thickly, and green vines hung from the surrounding circular walkways like cascading waterfalls. Walking through it would have been like entering an urban jungle.

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Yet now, as Qin Zhong looked out, he could see the hunched silhouettes of zombies moving among the trees and flowers of the atrium garden.

After observing for a while, Qin Zhong reasoned that a large shopping mall like this could not possibly contain only the zombies he could see outside. Most likely, when the outbreak had begun, the customers had fled desperately toward the exits, leaving comparatively few zombies inside the mall.

Even so, a shopping mall of this size must contain at least a hundred zombies by a conservative estimate. Qin Zhong certainly did not dare provoke so many of them.

After thinking quietly for a while, he concluded that the higher the floors, the fewer stranded zombies there should be. He decided to continue upward through the fire stairs.

Perhaps because of his injuries, or perhaps because of the strain on his mind, Qin Zhong constantly felt cold drafts brushing over him as he walked through the enclosed stairwell. Gooseflesh covered his skin, even though outside the autumn sky was clear, the air crisp, and the sunlight bright.

When he reached the fourth floor, Qin Zhong’s steps suddenly faltered.

Two women lay collapsed on the landing around the corner, both with their backs exposed. They appeared to have fled there after being attacked. Their clothes had been torn into strips, and their bodies were covered from head to toe with scratches and bite marks.

Qin Zhong narrowed his eyes and shone the flashlight toward them. One of the women was still rising and falling faintly, as though she had only a breath of life left.

After a brief hesitation, Qin Zhong raised his saber and approached slowly, uncertain whether she was still alive or in the midst of turning into a zombie.

At that moment, the woman suddenly rolled over.

Her face was covered in blood, but her eyes still held a distinctly human light. In a feeble voice, she pleaded, “Help me… please. Help me.”

Qin Zhong watched her with a slight frown but made no move to help. She was so gravely wounded that, quite apart from having no way to treat her, even if he managed to save her, she would almost certainly be unable to escape the fate of becoming a zombie.

If that was inevitable, why waste his strength trying to save her? More importantly, he could barely protect himself. How could he possibly have the ability to save anyone else?

After weighing the matter, Qin Zhong hardened his heart and continued up the stairs. Then, almost unconsciously, he glanced back.

The woman’s lips were cracked and dry. She gazed at him pleadingly.

Qin Zhong hesitated. A faint compassion stirred within him, born of recognizing a fellow sufferer. He let out a deep sigh and thought that even if he could not save her, at least he could keep her from feeling alone at the moment of her death.

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