Under normal circumstances, the lunch prepared by Shen Xia, consisting entirely of "pre-cooked food," would certainly not be presentable. Its cold texture and taste were even inferior to the pre-packaged meals on delivery platforms.
But in the apocalypse, where order had collapsed and supplies had been cut off for over thirty hours, this meal of salty meat chunks, which they could wash down with clean mineral water, gave them a long-lost sense of satisfaction.
"There are people in both apartments on the sixth floor. 601 is occupied by an elderly couple in their eighties, not much of a threat; 602 is a shared apartment, there might be four or five young people inside, so we need to prepare for a tough fight."
Xiang An carefully recalled the living situation on each floor, while Shen Xia wrote it down in a notebook.
If it were any other building, Xiang An would certainly not know the distribution of residents in each household as well as a grid worker, but he had lived in this building and unit for quite some time, so he generally had an idea of who lived there.
Accurate intelligence often meant a higher survival rate, and they were currently converting this advantage into a battle plan.
Fully armed, the two descended to the sixth floor. Xiang An pressed his ear against the mottled iron door, concentrating to catch any movement inside: "The sound is very close, a straight distance of less than five meters."
"How about trying to pick the lock?" Shen Xia suggested. "If the zombies are too close, breaking down the door will be very dangerous."
Xiang An shook his head, rejecting the idea: "Picking the lock makes more noise than removing the hinges."
Hearing this, Shen Xia said no more, bent down, and used a tie-down strap to create a tripwire between the door and the stairs—even delaying a zombie for one or two seconds might be the difference between life and death.
Compared to the morning, their work efficiency had clearly improved this time.
As the hinges snapped with a crisp sound and the door panel crashed inwards, Xiang An had already pounced into the room like a leopard.
The first thing that came into view was a male zombie wearing reading glasses; behind the lenses, his murky eyeballs seemed to retain some of the gentleness he had in life.
Xiang An tapped the ground with his toes, using the momentum to bring the metal entrenching tool down heavily on the zombie's skull, making its body halt in place.
The elderly female zombie on the other side let out a beast-like roar, her withered fingers clawing towards the young man's back, but she was struck in the back of the knee by the pry bar swept horizontally by Shen Xia.
"You take care of the old lady!"
Xiang An retreated with a low shout, his shoe sole stomping heavily on the male zombie's chest, knocking it to the ground.
Its slightly long fangs were exposed to the air, its furious low growl shaking people to their core. Although Xiang An's movements were swift and didn't allow the zombie to succeed, even a slight lapse in concentration would result in an unbearable price.
He adjusted the angle of the entrenching tool, and the sharp edge mercilessly chopped at the neck.
Half a minute later, in the living room of 601, black blood pooled on the floor, and the roars of the nearby zombies gradually weakened.
"Grandpa Gen, Grandma Fang, I'm sorry."
Xiang An stood up, his gaze sweeping over the faces of the two zombies, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and murmured.
Unlike Yang Zhiping, whom he had killed before, and the tenant across the hall, the old couple in Room 601 had truly been neighbors for over twenty years.
He was an orphan and had received a lot of care from the old couple when he was young. Although he knew they had long since become walking dead, putting them down with his own hands at this moment still brought a sense of sadness.
He picked up the reading glasses that had been knocked to the ground by the shovel at the beginning, wiped the blood off them with a tissue, and put them in his clothing pocket.
"You search for supplies in this room, I'm going upstairs for a bit," Xiang An said. "Be careful and stay safe."
Shen Xia stood up, panting, and seeing his low spirits, she naturally had some guesses. After thinking for a moment, she comforted him: "Don't be too sad, they were already gone when they turned into zombies. We're just helping them find peace."
"I'm not sad," Xiang An said without turning his head, waving his hand. "Dealing with two zombies simultaneously is already pushing it for us. The next room, 602, will be extremely difficult to clear. I'll try to lure them from the living room towards the window."
Shen Xia watched his feigned nonchalant figure disappear around the stairwell corner, then squatted down, closed the old woman's distorted eyelids, and muttered to herself with her head bowed: "...What's the point of being so stubborn?"
...
Xiang An extended his phone out the window and slowly lowered it with a rope to the height of the sixth-floor window ledge.
"Orchid fingers twirl through the fleeting world like water~"
The high-pitched opera singing instantly stirred the zombie horde. Dozens of walking corpses uniformly tilted their grayish-white faces upwards, their murky pupils reflecting the swaying light spots from high above.
After successfully luring the threat on the sixth floor by repeatedly adjusting the suspension position, Xiang An retrieved his phone and returned to the sixth floor, gripping the entrenching tool still stained with blood.
The lens of the reading glasses he had picked up earlier was broken, but he still wrapped them up and placed them in a drawer in the room.
"They have a lot of supplies in their home, and they haven't been significantly contaminated; the preservation is very high." Shen Xia knelt halfway in front of the coffee table, patiently sorting through the spoils. "Besides basic rice, noodles, grains, and oil, anti-inflammatory drugs, blood pressure medication, medical alcohol, and sutures are all important medical resources."
After transferring the supplies to the safety zone on the seventh floor, the two rechecked the tightness of their protective gear and returned to the sixth floor to continue their work.
"Oh, right, Xiang Ge, the iron railing you mentioned before, we can just use theirs, right?" Shen Xia suddenly stopped and pointed to the balcony of Room 601. "The anti-theft railing in 601 is an embedded structure, and the material is very sturdy."
Xiang An looked in the direction she indicated, secretly praising Shen Xia's meticulous observation. He had only focused on clearing out the zombies and hadn't had time to observe what other materials could be utilized.
"We have the iron railing. Next, we need to find rebar and chains, and then we can find an opportunity to seal off the ground floor..." He stroked his chin, calculating. "But rebar might be hard to find. We can't just dismantle the floor slabs."
"Haven't you read that guide carefully?" Shen Xia suddenly said.
?
"Discarded materials can all be dismantled and reassembled." Shen Xia recalled. "According to the instructions, most materials are actually quite similar. As long as the difference isn't too great, substitutes can be found, with at most minor differences in performance."
Xiang An couldn't hide his surprise: "That sentence is in there?"
Shen Xia sighed: "That's why you shouldn't skim when reading. I thought you knew already."
Xiang An considered himself to have a thick skin, but he still felt a bit awkward hearing this, rubbing his nose and chuckling: "After all, it's a confidential project, and the operating procedures are still being explored."
"Hinges cut with hydraulic shears can easily be shaped into what's needed for a railing through welding or drilling. And if the device's principle is truly based on nanobots, then we wouldn't even need to manually reassemble them."
Shen Xia pushed up her glasses.
"As for rebar, I've thought about it too. Construction rebar obtained from dismantling load-bearing walls or floor slabs would definitely have the best performance, but that's not realistic. Less ideal options include balcony iron railings, external metal awnings, or steel support frames from cars."
After saying that, she touched the frame of the anti-theft door in 602: "A door frame of this quality, I think, could also serve as a substitute."