Half an hour later.
The three ultimate experts—Public Flasher, Impotent, and Closeted Gay—sat shoulder-to-shoulder on the edge of the rooftop.
The three of them stared into the middle distance with utterly dead, lifeless eyes.
After a torturous eternity, Fu Hu, sandwiched in the middle, spoke in a hollow, wooden drone. "Cheng Du... you only had one basin of water. How come you don't reek of shit?"
"I used my fire to bake myself dry. Heat sterilization."
"Then what about you, Director? How come you actually smell like perfume?"
"I scrubbed deeply," Su Jin answered, his face completely devoid of emotion.
"Why am I the only one who still smells like a septic tank?!"
Cheng Du agonized for a long moment before craning his neck past Fu Hu to look at Su Jin. He probed tentatively, "Director... about what you screamed earlier..."
"Piss off!" Su Jin erupted, his voice cracking with rage. "Just destroy everything! Nobody gets to live!"
Cheng Du shrank back like a kicked puppy, not daring to squeak another syllable.
Fu Hu sighed heavily. "Cheng Du... when did you catch the gay? Why didn't you ever go to a hospital to get it looked at?"
"Ever since I was little..."
"Is that a fucking disease to you?!" Su Jin groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. "God, you're uncultured. Isn't that just perfectly normal? Sending him to a hospital for that would just give a healthy person mental issues!"
"Director, you really understand me?" A glimmer of profound hope flashed in Cheng Du's eyes.
"Piss off!" Su Jin barked again, then immediately snapped his head toward Fu Hu. "Old Fu, you're barely in your early forties, how did you end up impotent? Why didn't you go to a hospital to get it looked at?"
"Wait... don't you have the Hardening Ability? Can't superpowers cure erectile dysfunction?"
"I have to actually get some shape to it before I can harden it. Without any form, what the hell am I supposed to harden, a wrinkled silkworm cocoon?" Fu Hu grumbled, his face turning black as coal.
"Couldn't you just lie face-down on a set of parallel bars, wait for gravity to let it hang, and then activate the hardening?"
"You want me to strip butt-naked at an outdoor park, find some parallel bars, and then waddle back home? Even then, the hardening would only hold a third of its mass... Look, Director, can we please drop this?" Fu Hu paused, the indignity of the conversation finally sparking genuine anger.
"The rest of my body is hard enough, I don't have any major problems. My physical condition just hasn't been great these past few years. I just need to recuperate."
"Then how about I swap your wife out for Jiang Yu?"
"Oh, Jiang Yu would definitely do the trick... wait, no! The three of us have completely lost our dignity today anyway, what difference does it make if I'm limp or not?!"
"Fair point..." Su Jin scratched his chin, and the trio plummeted back into a synchronized, depressing silence.
After a long beat, Su Jin exhaled a heavy breath. "Alright, let's talk business. The situation out here is getting way too volatile. We have no idea how many more Disguised Infected like that succubus are lurking in the city. We were targeted by four of them—two are dead, one is crippled, and one is still at large."
"That bitch probably won't show her face again anytime soon, but I'm worried she'll link up with the last one to call in reinforcements. I want you two to spread the word: pack all the Supplies onto the transports immediately. We're rolling out at first light!"
"Director, we still haven't located that giant fleshy orb. If we send our people outside to load the trucks, they'll be sitting ducks," Fu Hu warned.
Su Jin pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets, a blinding migraine pulsing in his skull.
In the chaos of the feces-bomb, he had completely forgotten about the grotesque parasite that had slithered off to god knows where.
"Then we play it like this. Zhang Wan has two rosters..." Su Jin's voice dropped an octave, turning cold. "Have the civilians with no combat skills handle the heavy lifting outside. Keep the useful ones stationed inside the building as guards."
The heavy implication hung in the air. Neither Fu Hu nor Cheng Du said a word, retreating into grim silence.
"I know it sounds heartless. I don't want to throw people to the wolves, but sometimes executive decisions have to be made," Su Jin muttered, staring down at his bruised hands with a hollow ache in his chest. "The world ended. We have to ruthlessly weigh our options now. We can preach about equality and human rights all day, but those monsters out there won't give us a chance to vote on it. We have to survive, and we have to ensure the survival of as many high-value assets as possible."
"Fuck it... let's get moving! I'm not going back inside just yet, you two handle the interior logistics. I'll stay out here, get some fresh air, and oversee the perimeter." Su Jin slapped his knees, hauled himself up, and vaulted down to the first-floor scaffolding.
...
With the immediate crisis resolved, the survivor camp rapidly mobilized to capitalize on the remaining daylight.
Over seventy low-tier survivors were drafted, nervously funneling out of the community center to haul cargo outside.
The core group remained clustered in the center of the main hall, diligently laying down a fresh, thin perimeter of white flour to track invisible movements.
Under Su Jin's watchful, paranoid gaze, the external loading procedures operated like a well-oiled machine.
The activity center was severely cramped, so the vast majority of their Supplies had been stashed on the ground floor of the adjacent residential block.
Moving the cargo only required a short, albeit tense, sprint across the courtyard.
Just as the sun began to dip below the skyline, the bulk of the heavy lifting was done.
Seeing that only a few stragglers were left tying down the tarps, Su Jin finally stepped back into the activity center.
Peering through the cracked glass doors, the very first thing he met was Fu Qingdai's painfully apologetic puppy-dog stare.
Su Jin forced a tired smile and waved it off, before catching Fu Hu's eye and jabbing a thumb toward the upper floors.
Fu Hu caught the signal, pushing himself up and trudging toward the stairwell.
Standing back on the now-dry rooftop, Fu Hu gave Su Jin the rundown. "Logistics are green. Vehicle manifests and passenger assignments are locked in. Whatever Supplies are left, we'll just grab and go in a single wave right before we roll out."
"Director, there's a tactical issue you need to be aware of. That succubus bitch? Her Ability is way more potent than we realized. The area-of-effect is massive, and it penetrates solid walls. While we were fighting up here, every single male survivor down on the ground floor started feeling it. Luckily, the concrete and the sheer distance diluted the pheromones enough to prevent a total riot."
"Things got a little tense downstairs for a minute, but Elder Sun managed to talk everyone down from the ledge."
"Elder Wei said he couldn't scientifically analyze the telepathic mechanics behind it. He seriously suggested making everyone wear iron cooking basins over their heads like tin-foil hats to block the psychic waves."
"A succubus Professor X... God help us," Su Jin groaned, aggressively massaging his temples. "Understood. Keep your guard up. Those two old men are our lead R&D. If they say wear pots on our heads, we wear pots on our heads."
"There's one other thing..."
Before Fu Hu could finish his sentence, a bloodcurdling chorus of screams erupted from the center of the main hall below.
Su Jin and Fu Hu’s faces drained of color. They vaulted down the stairwell, rushing the hall from two different angles.
Su Jin violently kicked the double doors open, his pupils shrinking to pinpricks at the sight.
Elder Wei De was collapsed in the center of the crowd, his face contorted in horrific agony as he convulsed. Sun Ya was desperately cradling the old man's twitching body, his face pale with panic.
"Sitrep!" Su Jin bellowed, parting the terrified crowd like the Red Sea.
Sun Ya gritted his teeth, his voice trembling. "Get him to quarantine first, then I'll explain!"
Su Jin didn't hesitate. He scooped Wei De’s frail body into his arms and sprinted up to his private, makeshift office on the second floor.
Fu Qingdai and the core combat team rushed up the stairs behind him, leaving only Zhang Wan behind to physically hold the perimeter and stop a mass panic.
Kicking the office door open, Su Jin bypassed the cheap folding desk and headed straight for the bare mattress on the floor.
He laid Wei De down as gently as possible and rounded on Sun Ya. "What the hell hit him?!"
"The parasite!" Sun Ya gasped, his eyes wide with leftover terror. "That fleshy orb just dropped out of nowhere and burrowed straight into Old Wei's chest!"
"How is that even mathematically possible?! The perimeter was dusted with flour! We built in a massive buffer zone so you'd have time to react!" Su Jin barked.
"It bypassed the floor entirely! It must have climbed along the rafters," Sun Ya said, his voice cracking with guilt. "It didn't even land on Old Wei. It dropped onto the crowd, someone panicked and bumped into him, and before I could even blink, I watched that grotesque thing melt right through his sternum!"
"Qingdai!" Su Jin snapped his head toward her. "Didn't your radar pick up its heat signature?!"
Fu Qingdai’s face was ashen. "I felt it, but it only spiked my perception the exact second it launched its attack. Its biological signature was incredibly faint, and it moved too fast. By the time my brain processed the warning, it was already inside him."
Su Jin stopped asking questions. He grabbed the collar of Wei De’s shirt and violently ripped it open.
Beneath the shredded fabric, a bloody, pulverized hole the size of a golf ball was gouged directly over the old man's heart. Horrifying, crimson veins were already spider-webbing across his entire chest, pulsing with a sick, parasitic rhythm.
Staring at the gnarly, invasive wound, absolute dread seized Su Jin’s stomach.
This wasn't a gunshot wound or a laceration. This was deep-tissue alien parasitism. They barely had bandages, let alone a surgical suite capable of extracting a bio-weapon from an elderly man’s thoracic cavity.
"Elder Wei, stay with me! How do you feel?!"
"It burns..." Wei De choked, tears of pure agony streaming from his clouded eyes. His trembling hand reached out, weakly gripping Sun Ya’s sleeve. He shook it feebly, then extended a single, shaking finger, pointing desperately toward the northern district. "Uh... ah..."
"What is he trying to say?" Su Jin demanded urgently.
"I know. I understand, you old fool," Sun Ya sobbed, gripping Wei De’s trembling hand tightly. He looked up at Su Jin, tears carving tracks through the grime on his face. "Old Wei was terrified he wouldn't survive the outbreak. He documented everything. The schematics and operating manuals for the heavy weaponry... he hid the notebooks back at his apartment."
Wei De’s lips moved in a silent, exhausted whisper. His grip faltered, and his hand slipped quietly from Sun Ya’s sleeve, falling dead against the mattress.