On the other side, Yan Cijin had only just turned left from the middle corridor when she caught sight of a big white iron gate not far ahead. For a moment it looked like a way out, like something solid and safe standing in front of them, but the feeling did not last long. Behind them, in the corridor they had just come through, there were still five or six zombies wandering around, and those things had already locked onto Bai Li and Yan Cijin. Their stiff steps and empty eyes made it clear that once they had picked up the two of them, they were not going to let go so easily. The air in the hospital felt tight and dirty, and every second spent there made the danger feel closer. Bai Li did not hesitate at all. She rushed forward, opened the large iron gate, and the moment it swung wide, she saw that the hall beyond it was not safe either. At least five zombies were in there, moving around like broken dolls with no real aim except to reach them. If they got attacked from both sides, then she and Yan Cijin would be trapped again, and that was the last thing Bai Li wanted. She immediately pulled Yan Cijin behind her and backed up to the wall on one side of the hall, trying to make sure they would not be surrounded so easily. At the same time, she put away her Tang sword for a moment, because in a space like this, speed and range mattered more.

Then Bai Li took off her backpack, opened it, and pulled out a compound crossbow. With just a thought, bolts appeared in her hand, ready to use. There was no panic in her movements, only the kind of calm that came from forcing herself to stay sharp when things were ugly. She loaded the first bolt quickly and fired at one zombie that was only two or three steps away from them. The bolt hit true, and the zombie fell right to the ground without making much of a fight. Bai Li kept moving without stopping. Her hands worked fast, almost like she was doing something she had done many times before. She loaded again and fired the second arrow, then the third. One by one, the zombies got hit, and the hall that had seemed full of danger just a moment ago started going quiet little by little. After Bai Li fired all twelve arrows, the area finally settled down again, and the only thing left was the faint noise of movement far away and the hard breathing of the two living people.

By then, Bai Li only had a little over thirty arrows left in her storage space. That number sat in her mind like a warning. She and Yan Cijin still had not escaped the hospital, and there was no telling what waited on the floors below. Bai Li gritted her teeth and put her backpack back on. She could feel that the wounds on her body, which had already started to improve a little yesterday, had opened again. The pain was there, dull and sharp at the same time, the kind that got worse the more she moved. Even so, she did not put the compound crossbow away. She kept it in her left hand and picked up her kukri again with her right hand, choosing to hold both weapons so she could react in whatever way she needed. Then she moved toward the stairwell with Yan Cijin beside her, each step careful but quick.

Yesterday, because of the interdimensional market, all the zombies in jinghua City had rushed into Jinghua City First Hospital like crazy people. It had been chaos, the kind of mess that made no sense and left everything soaked in fear. After one full night passed, most of the zombies had finally drifted away again. After all, by then there were hardly any living people left inside the hospital, so the zombies naturally lost interest. They were drawn by noise, by fresh life, by movement. Without those things, many of them had nothing to hold them there. Still, the building was far from safe. As Bai Li and Yan Cijin came down the fire escape from the tenth floor, their progress was surprisingly smooth at first. They made it all the way down to the sixth floor without running into any other zombies in the corridor, and that small stretch of quiet felt almost unreal. It was the kind of quiet that made a person even more alert, because in a place like this, silence often meant something ugly was waiting around the corner. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

When Bai Li descended from the sixth floor, several more zombies showed up in the corridor. A quick look told her there were about six of them. They were all wearing hospital gowns, and most of them were older zombies with gray hair, their bodies hunched a little and their movements slower than some of the others they had faced before. Bai Li glanced at the sign on the fifth floor. It read the Gyanocology Department, and that explained why there were so many elderly zombies here. The sign felt like a small, ugly joke in the middle of all this danger, but it also gave her useful information. After checking the space and the shape of the stairs and corridor, Bai Li pulled the crossbow bolt back into her spatial storage. She decided she did not need to waste any more bolts here. Being on the higher side gave them a better angle and lowered the chance of being rushed from nowhere, so these zombies should not be too hard to handle. She needed to save as much as she could for later, because survival in the apocalypse was never about winning one fight only. It was about lasting through the next one and the one after that. With that thought, Bai Li tightened her grip on the kukri and led the way down the stairs.

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TO BE CONTINUED.