Rainy Night

Xiao Fan followed Xu Qiang onto the elevator to the 7th floor of the inpatient building, then the two of them climbed a metal ladder embedded into the exterior wall of the building from the window.

From here they could directly access the rooftop, which was originally a maintenance passageway.

After getting to the roof, they climbed onto the roof of the ventilation shaft, which was the highest point of the hospital.

Then Xu Qiang handed Xiao Fan a telescope, which was part of his scout's equipment.

"Commander, take a look down there."

Xiao Fan took the telescope and started observing carefully.

He couldn't help but gasp at what he saw!

Previously from the ward window he had only seen a smaller street, completely jammed with traffic.

At that time he thought the main streets would be better, surely there would be other routes in such a big city.

But at this first glance, Xiao Fan was dumbfounded.

In all directions, every street was the same, completely littered with abandoned vehicles, and there were countless zombies densely moving back and forth between the vehicles, wandering around on instinct looking for anything they could eat.

The whole city looked like a battlefield that had just ended fighting, with thick smoke everywhere, and under the overcast clouds the atmosphere seemed even more gloomy and oppressive.

Collapsed buildings, zombies howling, as far as the eye could see there was endless despair.

In this situation, leaving the city normally with Xiao Fan's current forces would be nearly impossible.

With a population of over 100 million, even tens or hundreds of thousands of zombies roaming the streets would be nothing surprising for a city this size, let alone groups of hundreds or thousands, which could be seen everywhere.

No wonder there was no rescue, how could anyone rescue this?

Xiao Fan felt anxious, but as he surveyed the area he happened to notice a brighter patch to the west of the city that seemed relatively calm.

"That must be Bao River," Xu Qiang responded immediately. "Yes Commander, that's Bao River, it flows from the northwest through Shenhai City into the ocean."

Xiao Fan nodded and looked again at the river.

He had a vague idea, but it wasn't fully formed yet, and there were still some key points he couldn't get around.

If they couldn't get out of the city smoothly, given his current situation even with the Red Alert system it would be extremely difficult to survive in the city.

But how to get out?

With heavy thoughts he returned to the cafeteria, also somewhat at a loss.

Outside the window the wind started blowing at that time, gust after gust of cool wind reminding that this summer was cooler than previous years.

Perhaps without factory emissions and car exhaust the weather itself was starting to change.

After a while, a heavy rain began to fall.

Xiao Fan lay down on the bed in his private room, soon falling into a dazed sleep.

He didn't know how much later, but a loud thunderclap suddenly jolted him awake.

Looking at the time, it was already midnight.

Outside the window was pitch black, only the pouring rain could be heard pelting down.

Xiao Fan had too much on his mind to fall back asleep, so he got up and opened the system to see if any supply boxes had refreshed.

He needed gold and silver, but these sorts of things weren't easy to come by. To say there were places with gold and silver in the city, there were basically only two: national big banks with gold reserve vaults, and jewelry shops.

But both places were deep in dangerous zombie-infested city centers, certain death with his current abilities if he tried going there.

Only once his forces grew stronger, with a powerful troop under him, could he consider attacking the city center to seize gold and silver.

In day to day life he could only collect gold and silver from ordinary zombie bodies or rural residences in the outskirts.

So supply boxes were good things now, he had to seize any he found.

But opening the system he was disappointed, there were no refreshed supply boxes detected within 100 meters. Looked like spawns were completely random, not on-demand.

Just as he was about to close the system in disappointment, Xiao Fan suddenly paused.

"Hm... feels like something is off!"

Xiao Fan carefully examined the radar screen for anomalies. After a while he noticed the issue.

Previously all the red dots on the radar representing zombies were moving. Normally zombies wouldn't stand motionless in one spot, even indoors they would wander around. Outdoor zombies even more so, thus the radar dots were always shifting.

But now, while dots inside the hospital building were still moving, the outdoor zombie dots were completely stationary.

"What's going on here? Could all the zombies be affected by a paralysis spell or something?" Xiao Fan wondered to himself.

Just then another thunderclap sounded outside the window, and Xiao Fan was suddenly struck with realization!

"That's it, it's the rain!"

"That must be why. Although mutated, zombies still rely primarily on three things to hunt prey - sight, hearing, and smell."

"The rain has blurred their eyes, but without much intellect they don't know to wipe them clean, so they can't see."

"The sound of rain from all directions has muffled their hearing, so they can't make out distinct sounds and thus don't move."

"The rain washing over them has also covered their sense of smell, so they can't detect scents. Blind, deaf and unable to smell anything, of course they'd stand motionless like statues!"

"So if we want to escape the city, now is the best chance!"

With no weather reports available, Xiao Fan didn't know how long this rain would last. As soon as it stopped the outdoor zombies would surely regain mobility, and by then even if they wanted to go it'd be impossible.

Time waits for no one, they had to take action immediately.

Xiao Fan leapt out of bed and promptly issued commands to the system.

"Annie, notify everyone to get cars from the parking garage right away and load up the prepared food, we leave now!"