Yang Mu observed Chu Hong’s face, flushed as if boiled crab, and felt a certain amusement, sipping his water and laughing heartily.

“How can you still laugh at a time like this?” Chu Hong questioned, incredulously.

“Crying lasts a day, and laughing lasts a day. I exhausted my tears before I was ten. After that, no matter how dire the circumstances, I choose to laugh.”

“Did you cry often before you were ten?”

Yang Mu did not answer, choosing instead to eat a little and then lean against the wall, closing his eyes to regain his strength.

Chu Hong, unable to suppress her irritation, licked her lips, growing thirstier. She perceived Yang Mu as stingy, mentally chastising him.

At this moment, a commotion of footsteps and shouts echoed from below.

“Head to the rooftop! Quickly, quickly!”

The ladder was a vertical fixture embedded in the wall, requiring a climb of about five meters.

Yang Mu opened his eyes and gripped his axe tightly.

Soon, three men and two women ascended.

“That was close, almost caught by zombies!”

“They can’t climb up here, right?”

“No, they can’t. They don’t manage vertical ladders, but we still need to keep watch.”

Yang Mu frowned slightly, realizing that these people were pursued by zombies. The staircase below was likely blocked by them.

As he pondered, the group noticed Yang Mu and Chu Hong in the corner.

The three men were momentarily stunned. A beauty of Chu Hong’s caliber was rare in reality, despite her presence on screens and the internet. Her innate air of nobility was undeniable; even in distress, she retained an air of regality.

One man stayed behind to watch the zombies, while the other two men and two women approached.

“Hello, I’m Liu Dongfeng. This is my wife, Wang Yunzhi. This is Hu Die, and her boyfriend, Gu Dachen. And that’s my brother-in-law, Wang Liang.”

Seeing Yang Mu’s eyes closed again, seemingly disinclined to speak, Chu Hong smiled and greeted them, “Hello, I’m Chu Hong, and this is Yang Mu.”

“Chu Hong, that’s a lovely name. Since we’re all in this predicament together, let’s join forces. There’s strength in numbers.”

“Alright...” 

Chu Hong nodded but then realized she wasn’t the one making the decisions.

She turned to Yang Mu and softly asked, “What do you think?”

“We’ve severed our cooperation. Isn’t there a helicopter coming for you? You can stay with them; we’ll part ways.”

The mention of a helicopter made the four in front of them light up with interest.

The two women, initially dismissive of Chu Hong’s beauty, were now eager to befriend her upon learning of the helicopter, immediately grasping her hands.

“Hey, you’ve got a helicopter coming for you? What do you do? That’s impressive.”

“Yeah, darling, you seem great. Let’s chat over there.”

If it were any other time, Chu Hong would have been incensed by the advances of these unfamiliar women. But after fleeing with Yang Mu and facing numerous dangers, she was too frazzled to react with anger.

As the two women led her away, Chu Hong glanced back at Yang Mu, who remained unmoved.

The dilemma was clear: should she stick with Yang Mu, who had shown little regard for her, or join this seemingly enthusiastic and numerous group?

Chu Hong hesitated. Although she preferred to stay with Yang Mu, his negative traits made her indecisive, leaving her passively separated from him.

The rooftop was spacious; Yang Mu was on one side, and the group was on the other.

The men in the group were reluctant to have Yang Mu stay, feeling that a delicate girl like Chu Hong would be better off without him.

Yang Mu napped intermittently, a skill he had honed from a young age, always alert to anyone approaching within ten steps. This vigilance stemmed from a childhood fear of being abducted.

Upon waking, he stretched and looked outside. There were no visible survivors, only a street full of zombies.

It had been roughly three hours; Chu Hong’s father’s helicopter had not arrived, suggesting it might not come through.

Chu Hong had recently received a call from her father, revealing that the entire ancient city district was under air traffic control, barring civilian helicopters.

Her father, unable to do anything else, sought connections to assist him, given his status as a significant taxpayer and contributor to society.

The decision was made to deploy special forces via military helicopters to extract key survivors from the quarantine zone and relocate them to a safer camp outside the area, free from zombies.

However, with six hundred people on the list and only three helicopters available, only eighteen elite special forces members were assigned to the mission, divided into three teams. It was uncertain when they would arrive in Baidu Hua City.

Chu Hong, after hanging up, bit her lip in contemplation. No wonder Yang Mu dismissed her father’s helicopter; he might have anticipated this situation.

Nearby, the oily Liu Dongfeng and his brother-in-law Wang Liang persisted in conversing with her, speaking aimlessly.

Chu Hong found their flattery irritating, feeling a growing sense of curiosity. Despite Yang Mu’s lack of courtesy, she felt a stronger inclination to be with him rather than this overly accommodating group.

As time passed slowly, Chu Hong briefly dozed off. When she looked up again, Yang Mu had vanished, which alarmed her greatly.

Yang Mu, adept at scaling down from rooftops, had quietly descended to a lower floor’s balcony. After checking the vacant room, he smashed the window with his axe and entered. The house was empty, likely because its occupants had gone to work.

After searching the house, Yang Mu returned to the previous one, charged his phone, and browsed the internet.

The news was chaotic and confusing, but it confirmed that the ancient city district was sealed off, with entry and exit barred. The outer perimeter was even being fortified with walls.

With around eighty to ninety thousand people in the ancient city district, were they really planning to trap everyone there?

Yang Mu pondered with a rueful smile. If the goal was to contain the zombie virus, confining an entire city would be a mere starting point.

As he contemplated, he heard shouting from outside.

“Yang Mu! Where are you? Yang Mu, come back!”

It was Chu Hong... This fool, surrounded by zombies and with no other living beings around, her cries could carry far.

Yang Mu hurried to the balcony to look out.

Indeed, zombies were converging on the building from the surrounding area.

“Yang Mu!”

Chu Hong, clinging to the wall above, saw the man on the balcony below and was overjoyed, nearly jumping down.

“I couldn’t find you and was so worried.”

“Are you out of your mind? Why are you shouting?”

“It’s fine, we’re so high up, the zombies can’t reach us, right?”

“Roar!”

Just as she finished speaking, a deafening roar echoed from a nearby rooftop, startlingly close, only about five meters away...