Chapter 37: Alive? Zombie?

"Stone!" Zhao Qiang's voice was slightly choked with emotion. He reached out to push the door open, but his hand stopped mid-air. The others did the same, standing at the threshold in a state of hesitation, neither advancing nor retreating. Aside from the sound of breathing, the entire corridor was dead silent.

Hesitating for a few seconds—though it felt as long as a few centuries—Zhao Qiang finally let out a long breath and forcefully pushed the door open.

The emergency room was in disarray, with various medical instruments scattered across the floor. The hospital bed was empty; there was no sign of little Stone.

"Where is he?" Zhao Qiang's vigilance spiked instantly. He had personally placed little Stone on this very bed, and all the resuscitation efforts had taken place around it. Logically speaking, if the medical rescue failed, the body would remain where it was. An empty bed could only mean one thing.

*Clack!* The synchronous sound of bullets being chambered echoed sharply. After a split second of shock, almost everyone realized what had happened.

There was no wind in the emergency room, yet the white sheet hanging down from the hospital bed was trembling slightly. The movement was minor, but in the eyes of everyone present, it was infinitely magnified. With his gun gripped in one hand, Zhao Qiang cautiously approached. The team members naturally formed a circle around the bed, their muzzles slightly raised and their pistols ready to fire at a moment's notice.

No verbal commands were needed. Having lived and died together, the team members only needed a single glance to enter full combat readiness. Little Stone was already gone; two professional doctors had verified this. Since the corpse was not where it should be, there was only one possibility.

Zhao Qiang violently ripped the bedsheet away. The soaring sheet instantly exposed everything hidden beneath it. There, underneath the bed, was little Stone's terrified face. Aside from a complete lack of color and a trace of bewilderment, his clear eyes showed no signs of turning into a zombie.

"Thank God, you're still alive!" Zhao Qiang holstered his gun and bent down, intending to pull little Stone out from under the bed.

"Don't come over!" little Stone screamed in terror. Like a frightened rabbit, he shoved Chen Ergou aside and bolted into the corner, cowering and refusing to raise his head.

"Stone! It's me, you're safe now!" Zhao Qiang said, completely baffled, unable to understand why little Stone was reacting this way.

"Don't come near me!" Seeing Zhao Qiang walking toward him again, the terror on little Stone's face intensified. "I won't join you!"

"What's going on? Doctor Mei said you were already..." Zhao Qiang abruptly stopped in his tracks. Little Stone had returned from the dead, and he did not want to cause him too much agitation at this moment.

"Stone, it's me, Doctor Mei." Hearing that little Stone was not dead, both Mei Qiu and Military Doctor Chen wore expressions of profound astonishment. Whether someone was truly dead or only appeared to be, professional doctors would not make such a rudimentary mistake. Yet now that little Stone was alive and standing right before them, Mei Qiu needed to know why. "Let me examine you, okay? Don't worry, I'm a doctor; I won't hurt you."

"Get away, get away..." little Stone sobbed, as if he were looking at something terrifying.

"Be a good boy, Stone. Let me check you, all right? It doesn't hurt at all." Mei Qiu's voice was as gentle as when she coaxed little Zhang Yu into getting an injection, and she stepped forward slowly, inch by inch, toward little Stone.

"Don't come over." Little Stone was sobbing, his tone lacking its previous firmness. "Stay away from me."

"Wait." As Mei Qiu passed by Zhao Qiang, he grabbed her wrist. "Something's not right." There was nothing unusual about little Stone's face, but a strange, discolored patch on his arm caught Zhao Qiang's attention—it looked precisely like postmortem lividity.

"Let go!" Mei Qiu said with surprising firmness. "I am a doctor, and he is my patient. In this ward, everyone listens to me."

"Little Stone is my brother, but I also have to ensure the safety of all of you." Zhao Qiang stated plainly. Lividity and grayish-blue skin only appeared on zombies. Little Stone might still be alive right now, but he could turn into a zombie at any second.

"Get away! I won't join you!" little Stone cried out, his withered hands suddenly clamping around his own throat.

Zhao Qiang suddenly realized that the terror on little Stone's face was not feigned. Furthermore, he might not even know where he was right now; his current state strongly suggested he was sleepwalking.

Back at Yuelu Mountain, after being attacked by zombie rats, the situation Zhao Qiang had encountered was strikingly similar to little Stone's current state. In that bizarre dream, one was left utterly alone, surrounded by countless zombies, with nowhere to run. The zombies had circled him, incessantly whispering and trying to persuade him to join them in their eerie tongue. Though he couldn't understand the words, he knew what they meant: *Join us, and you will gain eternal life.*

Little Stone's eyes were open, yet his gaze was completely hollow. What unfolded before him was a boundless wasteland, filled with vague, shifting shadows. Blood-red leaden clouds rolled just overhead. Where was this? Hell? Little Stone felt a chill in his heart. According to the elders in his hometown, Hell looked precisely like this: vengeful ghosts, pools of blood...

Why had he come here? Little Stone suddenly remembered being bitten by a zombie, after which all memories went blank. Was this truly Hell? Little Stone pulled up his trouser leg; the wounds inflicted by the zombie had vanished, leaving only large, dark greenish patches reflecting a bizarre light under the blood-red illumination.

No! Little Stone saw his current appearance reflected in a puddle of bloody water: chaotic, turbid eyes, saliva continuously dripping from his mouth, and muscles throughout his body that refused to obey his will. Everything was telling him that he had now become a zombie—a zombie that somehow retained human consciousness.

He wanted to escape, but no matter what he did, he could not leave the tiny hill beneath his feet. The distant ghost-like figures were growing closer, and he could already hear their characteristic roars. Little Stone wanted to hide from those monsters, but he could only retreat into a small cave at the base of the hill—a cave so cramped it barely allowed him to curl up inside.

The phantom figures drew nearer, then abruptly fell silent. But just as little Stone peeked cautiously outside, he realized he was already surrounded by a massive horde of zombies, and the one closest to him was already stretching out withered, ghostly claws toward him.

"Don't come near!" Little Stone tried to fight back, but his body refused to obey his commands. He mustered every ounce of his remaining strength, shoved past a zombie blocking his path, and retreated to the very depths of the cave.

"Join us, pathetic human, and we shall grant you eternal life!" The zombies growled in low tones, stepping closer by the inch. Little Stone could not understand their roars, yet he understood the message they conveyed. "Stay back!" Little Stone had run out of road; a massive horde of zombies blocked every possible exit.

"Join us, and eternal life shall be yours!" Other zombies joined in the chorus of persuasion. Their deep growls were paradoxically gentle and sweet, feeling almost like a mother's heartbeat.

The zombies crept closer. Little Stone woke up with a start. The figures before him were nothing but monsters. Though he had no idea why he had ended up alone in such a terrifying place, his horror at the prospect of becoming a zombie far outweighed his fear of death. *Even if I die, I will never become one of you!*