The road was quiet. Not peaceful—never peaceful—but hollow, like the world itself was holding its breath.
Ash clung to their clothes. Rui still had soot on her cheek. Chen Yu walked with a jaunty limp, humming something broken and tuneless, while Li Wei led the way with silence so thick it pressed against their backs like fog. Behind them, the memory of fire still flickered.
They had destroyed Shuijingzhen. The bodies left behind, the betrayal uncovered, the blood. It wasn't justice. It wasn't revenge. It was necessary.
"Three days," Chen Yu muttered, licking his lips. "Three days since our little barbeque. You think they'll give us a medal if we make it to the capital?"
"No one's giving medals anymore," Li Wei said without turning his head.
"Right, right," Chen Yu chuckled. "Silly me. We're all just one bad breakfast away from becoming a beast. Ain't that right, sweet Rui?"
She didn't answer. She had stopped talking much.
Rui walked with a small hunting knife tucked into her belt now. She had learned how to slit a throat without making a sound. It had been Li Wei who taught her. Or maybe it was just the world.
Four days later
A forest swallowed the road ahead. Tall pines. Their needles were blackened with ash, and a smoky haze hung low between the trunks. Somewhere in the distance, a generator buzzed faintly—alive, mechanical, and wrong.
"There's power here," Li Wei said. He squatted beside the track, feeling the ground. "Tracks. Heavy ones. Military, maybe."
Chen Yu grinned. "A party, then."
Li Wei stood. "We avoid it."
"Or we take it," Chen Yu said, not joking.
Rui looked up. "We don't even know what's there."
"That's why we look," Chen Yu said. "Besides, it's boring just walking. Let's go steal something dangerous."
Li Wei didn't respond, but he started walking—toward the sound.
At the edge of the pine forest, they found the remnants of a checkpoint. Barbed wire. A sentry tower half-collapsed. A trail of empty shell casings glittered like gold teeth on the ground.
"Think anyone's still here?" Rui asked quietly.
"Hope not," Li Wei said.
"I hope so," Chen Yu said at the same time.
They advanced in formation now—something that had become instinctive. Rui was always slightly behind and to the left. Chen Yu scouted ahead in zigzags, like a dog waiting to bite something fun. And Li Wei moved straight, cold, without hesitation.
Inside the checkpoint were two things: silence and rot.
A mass grave behind the tents, covered with a single tarp, still wriggled. Flies lifted in waves.
Rui turned her face away. "Why cover them if they weren't going to bury them?"
"Guilt," Li Wei said.
"Efficiency," Chen Yu countered. "That's how the army works. Fast solutions. No answers."
Inside the largest tent, they found maps—one showing red zones, outbreak clusters, quarantine failures. And scribbled on the margins: "Unit 08 moved north. Rendezvous failed. All supplies scavenged."
"Whoever was here ran," Li Wei said.
"Or got eaten," Chen Yu muttered, eyes gleaming.
That night, they camped beside an overturned vehicle that looked like it once belonged to a news crew. Blood had dried across the windshield in broad strokes, like someone had tried to write a warning and failed.
Rui sat with her knees pulled to her chest. Her fingers worked a piece of twine into knots, over and over again.
Li Wei sat beside her but didn't speak. After a while, she broke the silence.
"Do you think we'll ever stop running?"
Li Wei thought about it. "No."
She nodded slowly, as if the answer was what she expected—and somehow needed.
"I don't mind anymore," she whispered. "I think I like this better than before. At least now… people are honest about what they are."
Chen Yu let out a cackling laugh from the other side of the fire. "Ha! Listen to our little corpse princess! You'll be worse than us soon."
"I already am," Rui said, not smiling.
Chen Yu clutched his chest, mock-wounded. "And here I was, trying to protect your innocence."
"You're the one who taught her how to make tripwire grenades," Li Wei reminded him.
Chen Yu shrugged. "Details."
The next morning, Rui was gone.
Li Wei noticed first. Her sleeping bag was still warm, but empty. No sound, no prints. Just that feeling—the one that made his skin crawl, the one he had trusted ever since the world ended.
He didn't call her name. Calling names was for before. Instead, he scanned the forest, found a broken twig and a subtle depression in the moss. She'd gone east.
Chen Yu was still asleep, sprawled like a corpse, snoring softly through his nose. Li Wei left him there.
He found her twenty minutes later.
Rui stood alone in a clearing deep in the forest, where wild bamboo bent gently in the breeze. The sun filtered through the stalks, gold and green. It would've been beautiful if not for the thing at her feet.
A wooden marker. Handmade. Slanted. Weather-worn.
She was whispering something in front of it. A song—low, mournful. The dialect was thick, old, and unplaceable. Not Sichuanese. Not Mandarin. Something northern. Cold.
Li Wei didn't interrupt. He watched from the shadows.
Rui finally turned, and her eyes met his. For the first time since he'd met her, she looked frightened—not of him, not of the world, but of being seen.
"How long have you been there?" she asked.
"Long enough," he said. "Who is it?"
"No one."
"That marker's hand-carved. Someone cared."
Rui was silent. Then she said, quietly, "It's my sister. This is where she died."
Li Wei frowned. "You told me you were an only child."
"I lied."
The wind picked up. Leaves rustled like paper.
"She was… different," Rui said. "Smart. Strong. Braver than me. They took her because she fought back."
Li Wei stepped closer. "Who?"
Rui didn't answer. She knelt beside the grave, running her fingers over the wood. The bark had been peeled back to reveal burned-in characters. Not a name—just two numbers: 0107.
Li Wei crouched beside her. "That's not a name."
"No," she said. "It's what they called her."
He didn't press her. Not yet.
But in that moment, a part of Rui shifted in his mind. Not just a survivor. Not just a lost kid with a sharp blade. There was history behind her. Darkness. Perhaps even deeper than his.
Later, back at the fire, Rui said nothing about the morning. Chen Yu didn't ask. But she was different—more alert, more detached.
Chen Yu noticed. "What, did the birds insult you this morning?"
"No," Rui said. "Just thinking."
"That's dangerous."
"You should try it."
Chen Yu laughed. "I like her more every day."
Li Wei watched her. That song was still in his head. And the number: 0107.
Two nights later, while camping in a rusted-out train car on a hill, Chen Yu came across an old government file tossed under a seat.
"Look what the gods have gifted us," he said, waving it around. "One of those psycho experimentation logs. Remember those rumors? Zombie vaccines made from kids and ghosts?"
He was joking—half-joking.
The folder was half-burnt, but inside was a list. Names. Codenames. Testing zones.
Li Wei flipped through it, his eyes narrowing. He stopped at a page.
Subject 0107 – Female – High neuroplastic response under duress. Memory suppression noted.
No name. No photo. Just that number.
He didn't say anything.
But across the car, Rui's body stiffened.
And Li Wei realized—she remembered more than she let on.
Three days later.
They arrived at a settlement too clean to be real.
It was nestled in an abandoned ski resort northeast of Chongqing, where the cold bit sharper and the sky stretched wide. Tall pines lined the perimeter, and spotlights atop rusted pylons swept across the darkened road like lazy eyes.
A man greeted them at the gate with a flashlight and a smile too perfect for this world.
"Travelers?" he asked, his Mandarin clipped and rehearsed. "Lucky you found us. Safe lodging. Hot meals. Quiet beds. We're called The Ascendancy."
Li Wei didn't like it. Neither did Chen Yu. But Rui was tired. Her steps had been getting slower each day, her silence deeper.
Li Wei scanned the fences. Too straight. Too new. No zombies. No blood.
Places like this always had rules.
They entered anyway.
Inside the compound, everything felt… staged.
Children played with clean toys. Adults smiled too long. Even the food—simmering stew with real chunks of meat—felt theatrical. Li Wei ate, but tasted nothing. Chen Yu joked, but kept one hand near his hidden blade.
Rui sat stiffly at the edge of the long mess table, not touching her food.
The leader introduced herself as Dr. Qian. White coat, high heels, glossy hair tied in a tight bun. Her voice was melodic, almost hypnotic.
"We're rebuilding," she said. "We believe order must come from those who understand chaos."
She turned to Rui. "And you… are special."
Silence.
Rui's spoon clattered against her bowl.
"What did you say?" Li Wei asked.
Dr. Qian smiled. "Her face is familiar. I have a strong memory for data. And we had many subjects before the fall."
Chen Yu stood. "She's not a subject. She's a person."
Dr. Qian raised her hands. "Of course. I meant no offense. Stay. Rest. You'll find we are… welcoming."
That night, Rui couldn't sleep. Neither could Li Wei.
"I want to leave," she whispered.
"Tomorrow," he said. "Before dawn."
"What if they don't let us?"
Li Wei looked at her. "Then we kill them."
At 3:17 a.m., a soft knock tapped on the train car door they'd been given as sleeping quarters.
Li Wei opened it with his blade already drawn.
The person on the other side wasn't one of the residents. It was a young man with wild hair, dirty fingernails, and panic in his eyes.
"You need to go," he hissed. "She recognized your girl. I was in Lab Four. I know what they did to people like her. She wasn't a patient. She was a prototype."
"What kind of prototype?" Chen Yu asked, now fully awake.
But the man only said one word:
"Weapon."
Then his head exploded—sniper shot, clean and fast. Blood sprayed the door.
Li Wei didn't flinch. He yanked Rui and Chen Yu up. "We move. Now."