"What is it! Old He!" Wang Zhi asked urgently.
"All the surrounding Zombies are gathering towards this area!" Old He said fearfully while standing by the window.
Everyone walked to the window. On the visible streets, Zombies were continuously converging toward the hospital. The endless stream of Zombies made it impossible for Wang Zhi to even estimate how many there were.
These Zombies were clearly all drawn by that massive roar from earlier.
Wang Zhi's mind worked rapidly, contemplating how to evacuate. The Zombies on the first floor were already starting to climb up, and outside, there were endless hordes of them.
"Fatty! You take Zhang Ming to the rooftop first! The rest of you follow me to find the medicine!"
Wang Zhi planned to have Fatty take the injured Zhang Ming to a safe place first, while he and the others found the medicine during the time it would take the Zombies to ascend.
After Wang Zhi spoke, he began running across the twelfth floor. Finally, Su Muying found a room at the far end labeled "Clinical Virology Lab."
Su Muying kicked the door open, and Wang Zhi followed her in as they searched various locations for the target medication.
By now, Wang Zhi could feel the floor trembling.
"Found it!"
Just as he was about to give up on the medicine and prepare to retreat, Su Muying discovered medication labeled Neomycin inside a cabinet somewhere.
The medicine was contained in several small glass vials. Without hesitation, Su Muying reached out and swept all the nearby vials into her backpack.
With the medicine secured, the four of them had barely stepped out of the lab when countless Zombies appeared at the other end of the corridor, blocking the only path to the stairs.
The leading Zombies reached the Mutated Zombie corpses first and began tearing at them greedily, instantly surrounding the bodies!
The Zombies behind, seeing they couldn't get to eat the Mutated Zombie, all charged toward Wang Zhi and the other three.
Wang Zhi immediately slipped into a nearby office, closed the door, and pulled a desk in front of it to brace it shut.
"Fatty! Did you guys get up there yet? Fatty?" Wang Zhi shouted into the radio.
Wang Zhi and the other three strained against the desk, preventing the Zombies from breaking in.
"We're up here! Where are you?" Fatty's voice also sounded somewhat anxious.
"Hurry up and get to the far east side of the rooftop! I'll toss you a Grappling Hook in a bit; we're trapped in the room!" Wang Zhi yelled.
"Okay, okay! I'm coming right away," Fatty replied while running.
"Jia Liuli, you go out the window first and toss the Grappling Hook up," Wang Zhi said.
The Zombies outside slammed against the door loudly, while Wang Zhi and the other two continued to push the desk with all their might.
After a short while, Fatty's voice came over the radio again: "All set, Captain Wang, I've secured the Grappling Hook!"
"Sister Ying, you go first! Once you're up, lower another rope down for me and Old He."
After Wang Zhi finished speaking, Su Muying didn't hesitate; she decisively let go, went out the window, grabbed the rope, climbed up a short way, used a slight thrust of her waist, and flipped onto the rooftop.
Wang Zhi and Old He held on for a while longer. Seeing the second rope lowered, Wang Zhi and Old He exchanged a glance and nodded. They simultaneously let go of the desk. The door, now unobstructed, was immediately burst open by the surging Zombies, who lunged toward the two figures outside the window.
After grabbing the rope, Wang Zhi quickly climbed upward. Wang Zhi looked down at the large number of Zombies constantly falling from the twelfth-floor windows, and a cold sweat streamed down his back. He was lucky he had let Fatty go up one step ahead.
Once all six reached the Rooftop, Wang Zhi went to the opening where Fatty and the others had climbed up. Since Z Hospital did not have a Rooftop, climbing to the top floor required a ladder.
Seeing the opening below the ladder crowded with Zombies, who were forming a human ladder to climb upward, Wang Zhi immediately drew his pistol to stop them from continuing their ascent.
The five men reached the opening and continuously fired downwards, while the Zombies kept swarming toward them.
"We're done for! We're done for! We're going to die here! It's all my fault for not leaving. If only I had listened to Captain Wang, Xiao Ming wouldn't have lost an arm right now," Fatty said, his voice thick with tears.
"Fatty, why are you crying! Aren't we not dead yet!" Old He frowned and said, looking at the wailing Fatty beside him.
"Why can't I cry? In this situation, can we run away! Are we supposed to fly out of here?" Fatty choked out.
Old He stopped talking after hearing that. Since it was his own choice, he could only silently bear the consequences.
When Wang Zhi's final spare magazine ran dry, he retreated to the side, grabbed a handful of the remaining hundred-plus rounds from his backpack, and began reloading quickly. He looked out at the streets below the hospital; the zombies still hadn't stopped gathering, and the entire building was shuddering from the trampling of thousands of infected. The situation was just as Fatty had said: unless they could fly away, there was no hope of survival, whether they held out on the rooftop or jumped.
Wang Zhi reached up and touched the Parent-Child Pendant that Jie Xi had given him. He didn't know if Jie Xi could rush over to help him now, nor did he know if they could hold out until she arrived, but Wang Zhi had no retreat left; no matter what, he had to try.
With that thought, Wang Zhi yanked the pendant from around his neck and threw it to the ground. *Bang!* Wang Zhi chambered a round in his pistol, then shot the Parent-Child Pendant on the floor, shattering it.
"Wang Zhi! What are you doing? Load up and get back over here!" Su Muying saw Wang Zhi squatting off to the side and shouted.
"Coming! Everyone, hold on—I've called for support!"
Wang Zhi said; at that moment, he had to give them hope.
"Support? Where is the support?" Hearing of support, Fatty instantly felt a surge of hope, his eyes widening as he asked Wang Zhi.
"Don't worry, let's hold the line for now. I transmitted our distress signal to Jie Xi; she should be coming," Wang Zhi explained the situation to the others.
"All of you die!" After hearing Wang Zhi had truly sent out the distress signal, hope reignited in Fatty. He gripped his submachine gun and swept the area below.
After several rounds of firing, the corpses below the cave entrance had piled up into a mountain. Except for Zhang Ming and Jia Liuli, everyone else was running on empty. Old He quickly retrieved Zhang Ming's Laxington from its spot and resumed firing at the Zombies struggling to climb up. Meanwhile, Liu Li handed her pistol over to Su Muying, while the others worked tirelessly beside them, continuously reloading spare magazines for the two shooters.
Twenty minutes had passed since Wang Zhi sent the signal. The ammunition they currently held amounted to barely a hundred rounds shared between two people.
Wang Zhi stared below. At this rate, in less than five more minutes, the Zombie Corpses would stack high enough to reach the entrance. At that point, the Zombies wouldn't need to climb; they could simply step over the pile to reach them.
Just as Wang Zhi was desperately loading the final few bullets, a dark shape appeared in the distant sky. Seeing it, Wang Zhi immediately grabbed his binoculars; in his view was a helicopter!
"Now we can actually fly away!" Wang Zhi shouted joyfully. He lowered the binoculars, pulled a Signal Flare from his backpack, and fired it toward the sky.