033 The Survivors! (Handsome men and beautiful women, please follow along!)

Page (1/3)

“Brother Su, c-could I take this passbook with me?” Zhong Xiaoshan asked timidly.

Zhang Su looked at her in confusion. “You don’t actually want the money in it, do you? Gold isn’t worth a damn anymore, and you don’t even know the password.”

“No…” Zhong Xiaoshan shook her head. “They just… reminded me of my grandparents. When I was little, they also lived frugally and saved up a dowry for me…”

“All right, all right, you can keep it!”

Zhang Su waved his hand and hurriedly cut her off. If she went on, both women would start crying. He quickly said, “Come on, let’s check the apartment across the hall.”

After looking through the peephole at the situation outside, Zhang Su pulled open the door and stepped out of Apartment 1102.

“1101 is locked. How are we supposed to get in?” Zhong Xiaoshan followed him, her emotions still caught in sorrow. Her voice was nasal as she asked the question.

“Let’s search outside first. A lot of people have a habit of hiding spare keys.”

As he spoke, Zhang Su opened a narrow wooden door beside him.

Locks had grown increasingly complicated and precise, making them harder and harder to pick. Most of the time, people could only force them open, and after paying for a replacement lock, several hundred yuan would be gone. Many residents simply hid a spare key somewhere outside, saving themselves quite a bit of money when the need arose.

Zhang Su himself had the same habit, though he kept his key hidden in the Yileiwen convenience store.

The two women did not question him and began searching through the stairwell.

The stairwell appeared spacious and tidy, but there were actually plenty of places to hide a key. Besides the traditional spots, such as the doorframe or beneath the doormat, the complicated, pitch-black meter rooms and heating-pipe compartments were even better hiding places.

If one was truly worried that someone might find the key and break in, it could be hidden on another floor—or even in another building unit altogether.

“Found it!”

Zheng Xinyu’s voice carried a trace of delight. She held up a complex fourth-generation anti-theft lock key.

Zhang Su, who had been rummaging around in the heating-pipe compartment, withdrew and nodded inwardly. As expected, “Good Fortune” was no empty boast. There was a reason it had been singled out for special mention.

“Where did you find it?”

Zhang Su took the key from Zheng Xinyu and examined it, then looked toward the keyhole of Apartment 1101. He was now almost certain.

Zheng Xinyu turned and pointed beside the elevator doors. “On top of the fire cabinet. I climbed up using the heating pipe and found it there. It was covered by several advertising flyers, but I still spotted it. Pretty impressive, right?”

She looked as though she had accomplished something extraordinary, raising her chin proudly with an expression that plainly said, Praise me already.

“Very impressive, very impressive. You were lucky. Keep it up from now on.”

Page (1/3)

Page (2/3)

The key pinched between his fingers, Zhang Su offered the praise with extreme insincerity before walking solemnly to the door of Apartment 1101.

The doormat beneath their feet was covered in blood plasma that had dried into a hard crust. Each step cracked it like a thin sheet of ice, and the strange sound mixed with the stench of blood, making them deeply uncomfortable, as though they were walking through the infernal realms of the dead.

Without opening the door rashly, Zhang Su pressed his ear against it and listened quietly. The room beyond was utterly silent, but that did not necessarily mean the apparent silence reflected reality.

Knock, knock, knock.

As usual, Zhang Su struck the door of Apartment 1101 with his axe.

Aoooo…

The knocking still echoed when a wet, sticky howl came from behind the door, faint and indistinct through the wood.

Zhang Su’s brow lifted, and he quickly stepped back.

Bang!

A tremendous force slammed into the door. The frame shuddered from the impact, creating an oppressive sense of menace.

Bang, bang, bang.

The familiar pounding made Zhong Xiaoshan’s face twitch involuntarily, but this time she did not make a sound. She remained much calmer.

“See? The method of making noise works perfectly. Don’t ever forget this procedure.”

Zhang Su took the opportunity to give the two women a practical lesson.

Zheng Xinyu and Zhong Xiaoshan both nodded, committing the simple method firmly to memory.

“So what do we do now? If it keeps guarding the door like this, can we still get inside?” Zheng Xinyu asked with some concern.

Zhang Su rubbed the key in his hand and pondered for a moment. “There is a way. We could lure it into the stairwell and use the steps to make it tumble head over heels. But there’s no need to take that risk. Come on, let’s go upstairs first. We’ll wait until it quiets down.”

Amid the zombie’s irregular pounding, the group retreated into the stairwell and slowly climbed to the twelfth floor—the top floor. Above it was another flight of stairs leading to the roof, guarded by a heavy metal door.

Zhang Su turned the handle of the emergency exit and frowned slightly. “It’s locked.”

“Someone must be living up there!” Zheng Xinyu said, her expression complicated. She wanted to find living people, but she was also worried they might harm them. She was torn.

Zhong Xiaoshan, by contrast, had a more optimistic view of things. With a hint of delight, she said, “Living people are always better than zombies, aren’t they, Brother Su?”

Zhang Su neither agreed nor disagreed. He took Brother Li’s house keys from his bag, selected one that seemed roughly compatible with the emergency door’s keyhole, and poked it inside. After twisting it around for more than ten seconds, the lock cylinder finally gave a click.

Page (2/3)

Page (3/3)

“Damn, Brother Su! No wonder you managed to buy a place outright at such a young age. So you have a talent for this kind of thing! No wonder, no wonder!”

Zheng Xinyu looked at Zhang Su strangely, praising him in a rather peculiar manner.

Zhong Xiaoshan said nothing, but she too stared at Zhang Su awkwardly. She was probably thinking much the same thing as Zheng Xinyu.

“Do you two have rocks in your heads? If I were really good at breaking into houses and picking locks, why would I have gone to all that trouble looking for the key to 1101? And as for this emergency door’s lousy lock—put bluntly, it’s nothing more than a cheap trick by the developer. You could open it with practically any scrap of metal!”

Zhang Su offered the explanation in a low voice, then slowly pulled the door open a crack. The entire corridor beyond was clean, but the doormat outside Apartment 1201 showed obvious signs of use. Someone was probably living there.

He moved around the wall and looked toward Apartment 1202. Its unfinished entrance was still covered by a tattered, old plastic sheet, making it obvious that no one had visited in a long time.

Even though the place appeared perfectly safe, Zhang Su still tested it. Only after receiving no response whatsoever from inside Apartment 1202 did he finally relax.

“Xinyu, go check things out.”

Zhang Su raised his axe and pointed toward Apartment 1201.

Zheng Xinyu did not hesitate. She nodded and walked to the door, copying Zhang Su by pressing her ear against it. There was no sound at all. Then she struck the door with her baseball bat.

Knock, knock, knock.

Clang…

When the door reverberated, no zombie’s characteristic growl came from inside. Instead, they heard the sound of a stainless-steel object hitting the floor.

All three of them changed expression at the same time.

Zhang Su said to Zheng Xinyu, whose face had lit up with excitement, “If the surroundings are complicated, keep knocking in a steady rhythm so the people inside know we aren’t zombies. In this situation, we can speak softly through the crack in the door to communicate.”

“Okay!”

Zheng Xinyu answered and immediately leaned toward the gap beneath the door. “Hello, we’re your neighbors from downstairs. Could you open the door so we can talk?”

“There’s nothing to talk about. Go away!”

A man’s voice soon came from behind the door. He sounded to be somewhere in his forties or fifties, and he did not seem far away—perhaps only two or three meters from the entrance.

Then the man inside added, “Lock the emergency door when you leave. Thank you.”

The three people outside exchanged bewildered looks. They had thought they had found a survivor and would at least be able to meet him and exchange a few words. They had not expected him even to refuse to open the door.

Page (3/3)