Chapter 119

Chapter 119

The night passed peacefully, and everyone had a restful sleep.

After breakfast, they drove straight to the hospital. Along the way, they ran into a few stray zombies now and then, which were taken out instantly.

Entering the city, the roadblocks were numerous, and the car couldn’t move too fast. Tang Yi used a drone to scout ahead, allowing them to turn around or replan the route immediately if things looked dicey.

Fortunately, despite the pothole-riddled road, the journey forward was relatively smooth.

However, as the drone’s feedback showed the nearing hospital, Tang Yi’s worried voice came through the walkie-talkie:

“There’s been an earthquake around the hospital area—looks pretty severe. The main building’s heavily collapsed and tilted.”

“Find a place to park when we get closer. We’ll move in on foot,” Cheng Jing responded. He hadn’t planned on driving straight into the hospital anyway.

Tang Yi: “Understood.”

“…”

Jiang Nian frowned, gazing ahead thoughtfully before saying,

“Let’s conduct a thorough survey first after parking. No rushing in. If it’s too dangerous, we don’t have to force it.”

In his past life, Jiang Nian hadn’t heard Xia Weiwei mention severe earthquake damage to the hospital, assuming the outer areas were only affected by the spread from the city center.

It seemed that either the information he’d heard in his past life was incomplete, or the butterfly effect had altered things over time. Either way, known intel had to be weighed carefully now.

Ever cautious, Cheng Jing nodded seriously at his words:

“Yeah, recon first. We bail if it’s unsafe.”

After speaking, he picked up the walkie-talkie and relayed the plan to Tang Yi and the others.

Zhao Lei, driving at the front, and Liao Yu in the passenger seat also nodded in understanding.

At exactly 8 a.m., they reached their destination. From a distance, the blue-and-white structure looked modern—pity it was ruined.

They parked the car on the main road about 300 meters from the hospital, and Lu Ningzhou set up a cover barrier.

After Cheng Jing briefly organized the team and explained the situation, they headed toward the hospital’s half-caved-in, slanted entrance.

A fairly significant earthquake had indeed struck here. Tilted high-rises were everywhere nearby, and jagged cracks zigzagged the ground like gruesome scars.

No zombies were in sight, but blackened, dried blood and scattered, mummified limbs were everywhere. Even through their protective masks, the rotten stench seemed to linger.

Dust choked the air, blurring everything in a gritty haze. The entire city was blanketed in the apocalypse’s gloom, exuding an air of bleak despair.

The drone circled overhead a few times but found no zombies or suspicious activity.

Once the team entered the hospital, Tang Yi recalled the drone and passed it to Cheng Jing, who stored it in the ring space.

Due to the earthquake, most of the hospital’s main structure had tilted, with large sections sunken underground. However, most of the building had sunk as a whole, holding a precarious but stable suspension.

They had no intention of sweeping the whole hospital—just the pharmacy and med storage.

“…”

They spent over an hour surveying the area with the map and confirmed that the earthquake was not recent—it occurred during the extreme cold or just before it. The area is now in a stable phase.

However, the outpatient pharmacy on the first floor was partially above ground and already emptied.

Only the main drug storage was left.

The hospital warehouse building, where the drug storage was located, was separate at the southeastern corner behind the outpatient building, adjacent to the hospital's perimeter wall. It had seven above-ground floors plus a basement level, had elevators, but they were dead now.

Each floor covered about 500 square meters. Floors 7, 6, 5, 4, and 3 held medical equipment, lab supplies, and surgical supplies.

The second floor stored both traditional Chinese and Western medicines, while the first floor contained temperature-controlled and refrigerated storage.

Their primary target was the second floor, followed by the medical equipment and supplies.

As for the first floor, with the prolonged power outage and the earthquake, anything in the fridge units was probably ruined.

Though the warehouse building normally had few people, no telling what was lurking underground after the earthquake.

Especially since they hadn’t run into a single zombie from the moment they entered the hospital until now.

That couldn’t be good. If there were none above ground, they were probably below—and the team needed to venture down there.

Of the seven floors, five were tilted and buried, with plenty of gaps for air to pass through.

Compared to extreme rescue environments, this wasn’t too deep, nor was oxygen lacking—though they still carried portable O2 tanks.

After careful assessment, Lu Ningzhou and Zhao Lei used their Earth and metal Superpowers to test the area, confirming it was safe to explore.

"Zhou Rongbin, Tang Yi, Jian Cheng—you three stay aboveground to cover us in case of trouble. The six of us will go down."

Since the original plan hadn’t accounted for going underground, Cheng Jing discussed with the team and decided to leave three people above as a precaution.

Tang Yi handled the drone, Jian Cheng was the sniper, and Zhou Rongbin’s Superpower—illusion-making—perfect for holding the line in such an environment.

If anything happened, the three could hold their own or buy time.

Cheng Jing had considered keeping Jiang Nian above as well, but the latter’s death stare shut that down fast.

"Understood," the three replied in unison.

The entire team climbed to the rooftop. Tang Yi took the drone back from Cheng Jing, while Jian Cheng and Zhou Rongbin positioned themselves to monitor the surroundings.

The other six prepared their gear, strapping on NVGs and searchlights. Zhao Lei used his metal manipulation to wrench open the roof door, and they began descending from the top floor.

Zhao Lei led, followed by Lu Ningzhou, Liao Yu, Huang Qian, Jiang Nian, with Cheng Jing taking the six.

They headed straight to the second floor before checking the other levels.

The building’s structure remained relatively intact. Whenever they spotted unstable cracks, Huang Qian tossed vine seeds and made them grow fast to shore things up.

If exposed steel bars appeared, Zhao Lei bent the metal to lock it in place—they played it safe every step of the way.

"..."

The temperature aboveground was high, but underground, the air turned chilly and stifling. Fortunately, their bright lighting tools cut through the claustrophobic gloom.

The Purification Ability reacts to zombies, and Jiang Nian will use it when the situation calls for it.

It can serve as a method for scouting and alerting—even if just for peace of mind.

While descending from the 7th to the 6th floor, they heard the intermittent, sharp scraping sound of someone dragging a sharp or hard object across the tiled floor, so sharp it made their ears hurt.

Zhao Lei threw up a hand signal from point position, and everyone grew alert.

On the 5th floor, they encountered the first two zombies since entering the hospital—a man and a woman, their faces gray and decayed, eyes milky white, wearing bloodstained white coats.

The man held a fire axe, while the woman was missing her left arm from the shoulder, leaving only her right hand gripping a crutch.

The two zombies dragged their "weapons" as they wandered the slanted corridor, creating the awful scraping sound they had heard.

Startled by the Purification Ability and the searchlight beams, the zombies stiffly turned their heads, then opened their mouths wide and charged with guttural howls.

Despite appearing like long-turned undead, their movements were sluggish, looking fierce but moving like early-stage zombies from the apocalypse's beginning.

There was an eerie dissonance to it.

But no one let their guard down. The others immobilized the zombies while Cheng Jing handled their permanent retirement.

They initially assumed these low-level zombies wouldn’t have energy cores, but surprisingly, both did.

However, when Huang Qian used vines to retrieve the cores, she freaked out and recoiled the moment she held them, flinging them to the ground:

"Holy shit what the—"

She swore while backpedaling fast.

"Sister Qian—"

"Qianqian—"

"Huang Qian—"

"..."

The others crowded around anxiously, only calming down when confirming she was unharmed.

Then, they stared in momentary bewilderment at what she had thrown—

The two cores had crumbled into fine grayish-black dust.

This was the first time they had encountered such a situation, so even level-headed Huang Qian was startled—after all, nobody could've predicted the cores would turn to dust at the slightest touch.