The Zombie I Flirted With After Losing My Memory, Who Was Pretending to be an Alpha, Is Actually My Ex - Chapter 21

Chapter 21: Parting Ways

“Teng Xi? Teng Xi!”

Teng Xi was jolted awake by the crackling of the walkie-talkie. As she moved, a wave of soreness washed over her. She had fallen asleep slumped over the desk at some point last night, leaving her limbs numb and heavy.

“Teng Xi?”

Receiving no immediate reply, the person on the other end grew visibly more anxious.

“What is it?” Teng Xi fumbled for the walkie-talkie and glanced at the clock. It wasn’t even 5:00 AM yet. On the sofa, Xie Jinbing had also been woken up, sitting up with reddened eyes.

Hearing a response at last, Yao Zhi let out a breath of relief. “Can you see where He Qi and his men are?”

“He Qi? Isn’t he in the—” Teng Xi stopped mid-sentence. She realized that the group of men in suits was no longer in the reading room.

The lights in the reading room were now fully on. The patients looked groggy and annoyed at being awakened, but the men were gone. Teng Xi quickly minimized the main feed and pulled up all the camera thumbnails, her eyes darting across the screens.

“They left sometime during the night. It’s my fault for sleeping so soundly,” a doctor stood nearby, looking down in self-reproach.

Teng Xi quickly spotted them on one of the screens and double-clicked to enlarge it. “They’re on the fourth floor. It looks like He Qi rejected our cooperation and decided to go solo.”

On the fourth floor, He Qi was directing his twelve subordinates. They were armed with clubs and sticks, fighting off zombies, though the limitations of their weapons made them look somewhat clumsy.

“They took most of our food,” Cheng Shi’s cold voice came through the radio as she approached the others. Her expression was rare in its severity.

“D*mmit!” Hearing this, Si Qinghan cursed and bolted into the office. She only exhaled when she saw the hiking packs still leaning intact against the corner. Feng Sisi hugged her Miaodao tight, relieved the thieves hadn’t taken her blade. She had no idea they had actually targeted it first; unfortunately for them, the sword-obsessed Feng Sisi had practically tied her limbs in knots around the weapon even in her sleep.

The room fell into a temporary, heavy silence.

Yao Zhi broke it. “We were going to have to go out for food eventually. We should spend our time thinking of a countermeasure rather than dwelling on them.”

She was right. Scavenging was inevitable; He Qi had simply forced the timeline.

“My pack still has some food, but it’s only enough for one meal for the twenty-odd people here,” Si Qinghan said, glancing at Yao Zhi. Seeing no objection, she flashed a fox-like wink.

“Go to the second floor. I’ll guide you,” Teng Xi said, shifting out of her lazy posture. With a flick of her wrist, she brought up the cameras for the path leading to the second-floor vending machines. “Every floor has them near the stairs. When we passed through yesterday, we ‘bought’ everything inside to distract the zombies. The snacks are just lying on the floor waiting for you to pick them up.”

“Wow! She’s so rich!” A patient who had wandered over clapped excitedly upon hearing “bought everything.” The clapping triggered a small cheer from the others, momentarily brightening the atmosphere in the reading room. The doctors moved to soothe the patients as usual, though weariness was etched into their brows.

In a life-threatening apocalypse, maintaining a healthy psyche while caring for a group of psychiatric patients was a monumental task.

Cheng Shi, however, was an exception. She had yet to show a hint of impatience, treating the patients with a level of stability that commanded respect.

Teng Xi directed them: “Feng Sisi can go alone. There aren’t many zombies on the second floor; most were lured to the first.”

After a brief discussion, they decided to wait for full daylight. Feng Sisi followed the route Teng Xi and Xie Jinbing had taken the day before. With the floor relatively clear, she managed to scavenge the food and water over five trips without incident.

By noon, Cheng Shi granted the day’s hero, Feng Sisi, an extra half-box of cookies.

Feng Sisi stared at the cookies. This was the first time she had truly “earned” food through her own hard work, a process far more grueling than any inspirational book had described.

Meanwhile, in the monitoring room, Teng Xi was slurping instant hot-pot noodles while “live-streaming” He Qi’s progress to the group.

“And now, He Qi’s team sends out ‘Red Socks’! He’s taking his club through the horde, trying a flanking maneuver—oh! A zombie intercepted the iron bar! ‘Red Socks’ failed the breakthrough; his dodge stat is a bit low, but the spirit is there! The hope of breaking the line remains high. Let’s hear it for ‘Red Socks’!” Teng Xi used her left hand to pat the back of Xie Jinbing’s hand on the desk—slap slap—while the patients on the other end of the radio cheered along.

“I can feel the passion! Reporter Teng is back with the updates! ‘Red Socks’ isn’t staying down; he’s fighting harder! Now He Qi sends out ‘Side-swept Bangs.’ They’re daring to struggle! A pincer attack from left and right—it’s a hit! Together they’ve neutralized the zombie. The team is advancing!”

Teng Xi’s commentary was high-energy, designed to keep morale up, but as time passed, only a few noticed that certain nicknames stopped being mentioned. Teng Xi didn’t explicitly say what happened to them, but Xie Jinbing, sitting beside her, saw it clearly: He Qi’s team was not nearly as “valiant” as the commentary suggested.

They had started at dawn. By 2:00 PM, they had cleared the fourth floor, but at the cost of two men.

Compared to the lively atmosphere of Teng Xi’s group, He Qi’s team looked miserable, especially after having to personally kill two of their turned companions.

As they began setting up a safe zone on the fourth floor, Teng Xi turned her attention back to the third. Seeing Yao Zhi alone, she asked, “Yao Zhi, how is the pregnant woman?”

“No signs of turning yet.”

“And what’s Cheng Shi’s stance?” Without cameras in the office, Teng Xi was blind to the internal dynamics.

Yao Zhi didn’t answer immediately. She walked further away with the radio before speaking. “Cheng Shi is the same. She hasn’t refused us, but she hasn’t fully committed either.”

The expected result didn’t surprise Teng Xi.

“I’ve been meaning to say,” Si Qinghan added, standing near Yao Zhi while tinkering with a new weapon she was inventing. “That pregnant woman looks incredibly familiar to me.”

Yao Zhi gave her a puzzled look.

Teng Xi gasped, her voice projecting clearly through the radio: “Fox Si, that child couldn’t possibly be yours, could it?”

“Get lost!” Si Qinghan narrowed her eyes, trying to remember, but ultimately shook her head.

Since she couldn’t place her, they dropped it. Cheng Shi joined them to discuss a new plan.

“The back door is completely blocked. See if you can use the same method as yesterday to lure the zombies away,” Teng Xi said, pulling up the perimeter cameras.

The group considered it, but Cheng Shi spoke up with a frown. “The situation outside is dangerous. I believe waiting for rescue is the safest path. Aggressive moves might provoke a frenzy.”

This was the second time Teng Xi had heard this from her. “Director Cheng, have you been in contact with the outside? Do you really think an organization is coming to save us? Or do you think we can hold out until this ‘rescue’ arrives?”

With each question, Cheng Shi’s frown deepened. Finally, she managed only a defeated: “No. There is no way to contact the outside.”

“Then we need to save ourselves.”

Teng Xi wasn’t an extremist like He Qi, nor a total conservative like Cheng Shi. She wanted to push the problem toward a solution.

“But these patients aren’t suited for a relocation,” Cheng Shi argued.

Teng Xi opened her mouth to say they could have left in the hospital buses at the start, or that they could head to another town to find survivors, but she stayed quiet. Cheng Shi’s method was conservative, but it did protect the group’s immediate safety.

“We can cooperate to open one passage,” Teng Xi suggested instead. “That way, you can send people out for supplies whenever needed.”

Both sides finally agreed on this compromise.

In the afternoon, Si Qinghan led a group to throw tables and chairs from the third floor to lure the zombies. The noise worked, but a fatal flaw emerged. The library’s open balconies only faced the front entrance. Due to the central air conditioning, every other side had tiny windows, barely half a meter wide—too small for furniture.

“Should we break the glass?” Si Qinghan hefted a chair.

“No!” Yao Zhi stopped her. “The sound will attract every zombie in the building.”

“And the glass is reinforced,” Cheng Shi added. “It would take thirty minutes of smashing just to crack it.”

They were at an impasse again. Finally, they decided: Feng Sisi would escort a doctor to the monitoring room to keep the “live stream” going, while Teng Xi and Xie Jinbing—their two strongest fighters—would return to the front lines.

The next morning, Feng Sisi departed with her escort. Meanwhile, He Qi’s group had pushed to the sixth floor. Fortunately, they hadn’t lost any more men since the fourth.

Having tasted the rewards of the vending machines, He Qi was greedy to take the seventh floor and claim the upper levels as a private fortress. He ignored the tired whispers of his men who had done all the work.

“He really is a textbook capitalist,” Teng Xi said, biting into a sausage while watching He Qi wake his men early. “Wants the horse to run but won’t give it hay. Is he blind to how exhausted his men look?”

Teng Xi swallowed her snack and looked at the corn sausage in Xie Jinbing’s hand, which had only a few bites taken out of it. “Why aren’t you eating, Sister Xie?”

“Zombies don’t need much energy.”

That was why she ate so little. Xie Jinbing typed the note, took one last bite, and handed the sausage to Teng Xi. She had expected Teng Xi to hold out longer before eyeing her favorite corn sausage.

Evidently, she couldn’t.

Teng Xi swallowed hard. She really wanted that sausage. Looking at her favorite food and the hand holding it, she wasn’t even sure why she was salivating anymore.

A flurry of thoughts crossed her mind, only to be cut short by a sharp thwack to the back of her head. She yelped as a low, muffled chuckle vibrated from Xie Jinbing’s throat. The doctor pointed at the instant noodles in Teng Xi’s lap and mouthed: Quick, eat.

Teng Xi finished in a few bites. As she packed her gear to head out, she finally realized something. “Sister Xie, is your throat getting better?”

That chuckle didn’t sound like the raspy croak from their first meeting.

Xie Jinbing’s only answer was reaching for the door release button.