The next morning, two gunshots cracked down the hallway like oversized firecrackers. Zhang Yi glanced at the surveillance—his bounty had worked. The promise of full meals for a week had turned fear into frenzy; people who would never have risked a bullet were suddenly willing to die for a chance at food.
On the feed two young men lay motionless in a pool of blood. Chen Zhenghao stood against a wall, gun in hand, shaken: he'd intercepted water-seekers and been hit in the scuffle. One of his underlings shouted that he'd been stabbed in the back. Only when Zhang Yi zoomed in did he notice the rent in Chen's down jacket—a long tear, thirty centimeters—blood soaked the inner layers but was hidden by the black fabric and the cold.
Chen Zhenghao, feeling the wound and the sting of panic, phoned Zhou Ke'er in a fury. "Doctor Zhou, I'm hurt—come bandage me!" he barked.
Zhou Ke'er arrived with her medical kit, face set with disgust. She hated the man—his threats, his brutality—and yet duty forced her hands. The scent in the stairwell hit her like a physical thing: the sharp, metallic tang of blood, but under it was something fouler. Hospital instincts flared; she'd smelled this stench before in places you never wanted to remember. When she realized what it meant—evidence that corpses had been stripped and consumed—her stomach turned. She recoiled and refused the food Chen offered.
Chen Zhenghao's expression flickered between anger and panic. He'd kept Zhou Ke'er close not for tenderness but out of need—her skill was a resource in a world without functioning hospitals. He'd coveted her for longer than he'd admit; worse, if she left, he would lose the one thing that could tend to the wounds that would otherwise kill him. So he forced her to stay, half by threat and half by the implicit bargain: he would let her live if she kept treating his men.
While Chen plotted to move closer to Zhang Yi's apartment—stalking the 24th floor, positioning his men as a thorn in Zhang Yi's side—Zhou Ke'er slipped into the bathroom and sent Zhang Yi a quick message. She told him what she'd seen and that Chen planned to shift camp next door.
Zhang Yi read it and, unsurprisingly, laughed. He'd never planned to leave. He told her to keep watching, keep feeding him intelligence. Chen Zhenghao and his crew moved into the 24th-floor unit that adjoined Zhang Yi's—guns and bruises in tow—while the neighboring couple huddled in fear, knowing the fight for survival had just grown more dangerous and more personal.