Chapter 5
Chapter 5: Protecting at the Cost of Life
Ma Tao tightened his grip on Yun Rou’s hand without thinking. She gasped in pain, and he blinked, startled by his own strength. He loosened his hold and forced himself to focus.
“One by the gate,” he said quickly. “I’ll lift you. Step on it and climb. Get inside first.”
There were fewer zombies in the yard. Behind them, there were dozens.
He couldn’t fight that many.
Yun Rou swallowed hard and nodded. “Okay.”
They rushed the gate. Ma Tao braced her, and Yun Rou stepped on a zombie’s skull like a rung. She climbed the one-and-a-half-meter electric gate and flipped over, landing lightly inside the courtyard.
Ma Tao exhaled, relief sharp enough to hurt.
He planted his foot on the zombie’s head to climb over—
Pain exploded in his ankle.
He looked down.
A zombie missing half its body had dragged itself close and clamped rotten teeth into his ankle.
Ma Tao choked on a sound. Blood spilled.
And that blood was a dinner bell.
More zombies turned toward him immediately.
Snarling, Ma Tao drove the steel handle down into the half-zombie’s skull, pinning it. He tore his foot free, but not before flesh ripped away. Blood poured into his shoe.
The yard zombies stirred, huffing louder, crowding closer.
Yun Rou saw the bite. She saw the darkening flesh. She also saw her only shield.
“Brother Tao!” she called, voice urgent and trembling. “Hurry!”
Ma Tao gritted his teeth and hauled himself over the gate, limping toward her.
Yun Rou was small and quick, dodging claw-swipes and snapping jaws, but her strength was draining fast. The dizziness that came with evolution crept up on her, turning her limbs heavy.
Ma Tao saw her stumble. Rage and panic twisted together.
He grabbed a folding chair from the gate guard room entrance and swung it like a hammer. The chair cracked, bent, and finally broke, but it bought him space. He cleared a path to the building entrance and dragged Yun Rou through it.
They yanked open the building’s security door and slammed it shut behind them.
Outside, the zombies didn’t drift away this time. The thick smell of blood kept them frenzied. Nails scraped metal as they clawed at the door, trying to get to what they wanted.
Yun Rou stared at Ma Tao’s ankle through the torn leg of his work pants. The bite was turning black.
“Brother Tao… you’re hurt. You have to bandage it.” Her voice quavered.
Ma Tao sucked in a sharp breath, face tightening, veins bulging at his temples. He looked frightening now—half pain, half something else.
Yun Rou swallowed her fear and asked, “What floor? You can’t keep bleeding like this.”
“Sixth,” Ma Tao rasped. “Lian Yi rents 602. The spare key is under the doormat.”
“Then we move,” Yun Rou said. Her eyes flickered once—calculating. “You’ll hold for a little while.”
Ma Tao limped up first, forcing himself step by step, keeping Yun Rou behind him.
On the fifth floor, two zombies wandered the stairwell. Ma Tao glanced at their ruined faces and recognized them—Lian Yi’s neighbors.
To reach the sixth, they had to deal with them. In a tight stairwell, there was no slipping past.
The blood smell turned the zombies toward them. They tried to rush down the stairs—but their bodies didn’t know how. They tumbled, rolling down in a jerking mess.
Ma Tao raised the broken chair frame and smashed it down onto the zombie that used to be Wang Qiang. After a wet burst of gore, it went limp for good.
Then came Wang Qiang’s wife, hair wild, face smeared with blood, hissing as she shuffled toward Yun Rou.
Ma Tao stomped down hard.
Her skull burst under his foot.
Silence snapped into place.
Behind peepholes, neighbors held their breath, terrified by the violence, afraid he might turn on them next.
Yun Rou stepped closer, supporting Ma Tao, voice low. “Brother Tao, we should hurry. Don’t draw attention.”
Ma Tao’s mind was already slipping. He nodded like a puppet and climbed.
At last, they reached Room 602.
Yun Rou knelt and searched under the doormat.
Nothing.
She flipped it, checked again, fingers shaking.
Still nothing.
“Brother Tao,” she whispered, lip trembling. “No key.”
Ma Tao’s unfocused gaze fixed on the door. He lurched forward and yanked the security door—and it opened. He pushed the old wooden door behind it, and it swung inward easily.
The moment the way opened, Ma Tao’s body gave out. He collapsed face-first on the threshold, unconscious.
Yun Rou stared at him.
Then the fear drained from her face as if someone had poured it out.
She rubbed her temple. The dizziness was getting worse—thick, heavy, pulling her down. Second evolution. A ticking clock.
She looked at Ma Tao again, eyes cold and sharp.
She didn’t rush inside.
Instead, she dragged him out into the hallway.
Then she pried the warped folding stool from his hand and raised it high.
Ma Tao had been bitten. He would turn sooner or later.
Better to end it now.
The stool came down.
Once.
Twice.
Again.
Dull thuds echoed down the corridor.
Lian Yi, asleep behind barricades, knew none of it—didn’t see how Ma Tao really died. Not by zombies, not by heroism, but by the delicate little vine he’d shielded with his body.
When Yun Rou finally stopped, she clung to the stair railing and gulped air. Her vision swam. Her limbs felt like they were filling with lead.
She bit her tongue hard enough to taste blood and stay awake a little longer.
Then she hauled Ma Tao’s corpse to the stairwell and shoved it in.
Using the last of her strength, she staggered into Room 602, pulled the security door shut, closed the wooden door, and slid down against it.
Her eyelids sank, heavy as stone.
In the final sliver before darkness took her, she saw the room clearly.
Empty.
Nothing. No furniture. No supplies. Not even a chair.
“Bastard…” she hissed.
Then her eyes closed, and she went limp.
Before the next sunrise, more people began to burn with fever and collapse into the second evolution.
But no one understood what it meant yet. They only knew some sleepers woke up as monsters. In fear, some ruthless people dragged the unconscious into hallways and threw them outside. Others couldn’t abandon family, so they locked loved ones away in separate rooms, praying they’d wake up human.
In every corner, humanity showed its hundred faces.