Tang Li Yue had once thought that clearing a path through a crowd of zombies would be simple.
After all, zombies were slow. They were stupid and unnecessarily filthy.
They lacked techniques, footwork, strategy, and any respectable sense of personal hygiene.
Unfortunately, they also had one deeply unreasonable advantage.
Numbers. There were too many of them.
By the time the warehouse entrance came into proper view, Tang Li Yue's arms felt like they had been beaten with iron rods.
Her breathing came unevenly, and her grip on the baseball bat had turned stiff from overuse.
Her body, this treacherous little noodle, was protesting loudly. It was probably almost with tears in its tendons.
Another zombie staggered toward her, jaw hanging loose, one eye missing, hands reaching.
Tang Li Yue flicked a needle through its remaining eye.
It dropped unceremoniously.
She couldn't help but stare at the body.
Then at the needle buried inside.
"My poor needle." She lamented.
Lu Chengran smashed the head of another zombie with the crowbar and glanced at her.
"You're mourning the weapon?"
Tang Li Yue pouted, "It served me better than most people."
"That's a low standard."
"It is a realistic standard." She argued.
The mutated chihuahua darted between their feet like a shadowy, red-veined rat from hell. It snapped at a zombie's ankle, causing the undead to collapse face-first onto the pavement.
Tang Li Yue immediately looked away.
The sound was already unpleasant but the sight was way worse.
"I still hate that it's being useful."
Lu Chengran kicked the fallen zombie's skull hard enough to finish it off. "It is very useful."
"Do not praise it. It will develop arrogance."
The chihuahua barked.
Tang Li Yue pointed at it with the bat. "See? Look at that attitude. It already has."
They had fought their way from the cover of the trucks to the warehouse side entrance inch by bloody inch. The road behind them was now littered with corpses, some properly dead, some twitching in ways Tang Li Yue refused to acknowledge.
She had long since stopped counting.
Counting meant recognizing effort.
And recognizing effort meant admitting she was tired.
And Tang Li Yue, former Saintess of the Sichuan Tang Clan, did not get tired.
She merely experienced temporary physical betrayal.
Lu Chengran, annoyingly, still looked steady.
He wasn't exactly untouched. His sleeves were torn. There was dark blood smeared along his forearm, none of it his, obviously.
His breathing had deepened, and sweat darkened the hair at his temples.
But he was still moving with that frightening efficiency.
Tang Li Yue narrowed her eyes at him between strikes.
A logistics worker, her ass.
If this man was logistics, then she was a gentle temple maiden who watered flowers and embroidered butterflies.
Another wave of zombies turned toward them from the side of the street. Drawn by noise, by movement, by the smell of living flesh.
Tang Li Yue almost wanted to cry.
Almost, that is.
Instead, she reached into her sleeve.
She froze when it came up empty.
"Oh, fuck me sideways with a rusty sword."
Lu Chengran glanced over sharply. "What?"
"I'm out of needles."
His expression shifted.
Tang Li Yue lifted her bat with the tragic air of a noblewoman forced to clean latrines. "It seems I must engage in barbarism."
A zombie lunged, she swung reflexively.
Crack.
Rotten blood splattered across the pavement near her boots.
Tang Li Yue's smile vanished from her soul.
"I fucking hate this world."
Lu Chengran moved closer, deliberately intercepting the next two zombies before they reached her. He did not say anything, but Tang Li Yue noticed.
Of course she noticed.
He had been doing it since the encounter with the mutated tree. Positioning himself half a step ahead and cutting off anything that came too near. Making sure nothing sharp, rotten, or root-like got close enough to draw blood.
Tang Li Yue's bandaged palm throbbed.
It was merely small scrape, a tiny wound.
But apparently, it was now a possible world-ending ingredient.
She gritted her teeth viciously.
How did she end up being both a survivor and a questionable alchemical resource?
It was ridiculous.
"Stop hovering," she snapped.
"I'm not hovering."
"You are hovering with military precision."
Lu Chengran's crowbar crushed another skull.
"Then stay alive with civilian cooperation."
Tang Li Yue almost choked.
Oh, this man was getting bolder.
"Once we are inside, I am poisoning that tongue of yours."
"You'll need needles."
She swung her bat into a zombie's temple with a furious snarl.
"I can improvise! Unlike you logistics people, I have quite the imagination."
The last few zombies near the entrance finally fell after what felt like an entire lifetime of unpleasant exercise.
Lu Chengran finished the final one with a clean strike to the back of the skull while Tang Li Yue leaned against a delivery van, breathing through her mouth.
Not because she was tired.
Because the air smelled like death and rotting garbage, it was utterly unpleasant.
The warehouse side entrance stood before them. It was made of thick metal, reinforced, with a keypad panel mounted beside it. The rolling gate was shut tight.
It had no windows and no other easy access.
Tang Li Yue looked at the door and then questioningly at Lu Chengran.
"Well?" She prompted.
He stepped forward and punched in a sequence of numbers.
The keypad blinked red and a harsh beep sounded.
Tang Li Yue stared.
Lu Chengran tried again.
Red. Beep.
He tried a third time, much slower.
Still red. Still the same beep.
Tang Li Yue crossed her arms.
"Your door dislikes you."
"The system has been disabled from inside." Lu Chengran explained, ignoring her jab.
She clapped, "Oh, seems like your men are alive."
"Possibly."
"Or it can be an undead with surprising technical ability." Tang Li Yue continued with pursed lips.
Lu Chengran gave her a look which she shrugged off.
"What? I'm considering all possibilities."
He stepped closer to the door and struck it with the butt of the shotgun.
Three knocks followed by a pause.
Then another two knocks, a pause and then one last knock.
Tang Li Yue raised an eyebrow.
A sound shifted from inside. It was muffled and careful.
Then a voice called out, rough and undeniably tense.
"Who goes there?"
Lu Chengran answered calmly. "Someone who dislikes paperwork."
Tang Li Yue blinked hard.
What kind of answer was that?
Before she could comment, the voice inside asked again.
"What does the captain hate most?"
Lu Chengran's expression did not change. "Unfiled expense reports."
Silence.
Tang Li Yue stared at him, then at the door, and then back at him. A snicker forming in her lips.
That was the secret code?
That?
Not a poem. Not an oath. Not some profound martial phrase passed down through blood and duty.
Unfiled expense reports? Talk about creative.
These so-called logistics people were truly strange.
The voice inside trembled slightly. "Captain?"
Lu Chengran stepped closer. "Open the door."
There was hurried movement inside. Metal scraped sharply against metal followed by the disengaging of locks. Then something heavy was dragged away from the entrance.
Tang Li Yue glanced at Lu Chengran.
His profile remained still, but there was something in his eyes.
Tang Li Yue surmised it to be relief.
Except, it was controlled so tightly that most people would have missed it.
Tang Li Yue did not miss it though.
Still, she respectfully looked away.
Each of them had their own secrets.
He had his hidden identity. She had her transmigration, storage ring, poisons, and the unfortunate possibility that her blood could create questionable creatures.
Truly, a wonderful and balanced friendship.
The door cracked open slightly.
A man inside peered out, weapon raised.
Lu Chengran pushed the door wider.
"Move." It was a command that was said so naturally.
"Captain!"
The door opened only enough for them to slip in.
Lu Chengran went first, then Tang Li Yue, then the mutated chihuahua tried to trot after them with great confidence.
The men inside slammed the door shut in haste.
The chihuahua yelped, aggrieved.
Its tail flicked forward with absurd speed just before the metal door clanged shut.
Tang Li Yue stared at the chihuahua which dumbly stared back.
For one long second, she imagined the tail getting stuck.
She would not have laughed.
Probably. Probably not.
The dog barked angrily at the door.
Tang Li Yue sighed. "Even your tail has survival instincts."
The interior of the warehouse was dim, lit only by emergency lamps and the faint daylight leaking through vents near the ceiling. The air smelled of gun oil, dust, sweat, and blood.
Not rotten blood, this one was more like fresh blood.
Tang Li Yue's eyes adjusted quickly.
Three men stood before them. They were all armed but also visibly exhausted.
They stared at Lu Chengran like ghosts that had suddenly become courteous enough to knock before entering.
One was tall and broad-shouldered with a bandage wrapped around his temple. Another was lean, with glasses cracked across one lens and a pistol held in steady hands. The third looked younger, barely keeping his expression composed, his knuckles white around a combat knife.
Behind them, near a stack of crates, lay a fourth man.
He was dead.
His body had already been covered with a tarp, but one arm had slipped free. The skin was gray, veins dark beneath the flesh. The skull had been caved in with deliberate force.
Tang Li Yue understood immediately.
He had turned and they had killed him.
The earlier commotion, the zombies pressing at the door, the disabled access system, it all ade sense now.