"I'm not."

The disease-changed man's voice was tight through the walkie-talkie speaker. "You're really not with the Black Blood Group?"

"I'm not."

"Then you're Eastern Theater Command?"

"Survivor from another region."

"You're the one who just drove that big vehicle past? You're really not with the rat-catching unit?"

"All of you, come up. I have questions. Stop stalling — my patience has limits, and you don't want to find out what happens when it runs out. Answer my questions and you get supplies. That's as generous as I get within those limits. Understood?"

The carrot-and-stick approach seemed to land. Or perhaps they simply knew they couldn't stay hidden. Either way, they emerged from the subway station one by one, slow and reluctant.

Then they saw Great Vajra. And Shen Cong standing beside it in the Half-Activated Armor, dark-silver and imposing. The area was clear — no threats visible, only six disease-changed individuals who posed no danger whatsoever.

He put the toy car away.

"I need to ask you some questions," he said, facing the six of them.

The one who'd been speaking — apparently the leader — said immediately: "Do you have any food? We haven't eaten in two days."

"Answer the first question, then you get food." Shen Cong looked at the six of them — skeletal, barely holding together — and kept his voice even. "Names. What you did before the apocalypse."

"Me first." One of them stepped forward. "Huang Muxi. I'm from Nanjing. I was a senior high school student. Third year."

The rest followed. The leader's name was Gao Jinyue — had worked at a securities firm before the apocalypse, originally from Jiangxi Province working in Nanjing. The other four: Yao Jiang, Xu Yadong, Xue Hu, Li Haiwei — ordinary people with ordinary jobs before everything ended.

Questions answered. Shen Cong went to the vehicle and brought back cooked evolved meat — it was effectively unlimited for him; even in this abandoned district, the drone had already spotted evolved beasts in several locations.

The six of them weren't just disease-changed. They were also desperately unwell, weaker…