Zhang Yi was willing to take Zhou Ke'er in — but she had to earn it. His conditions were simple: be useful, be non-threatening, and above all, not be a saint. He could judge competence; what he needed to test was whether she could be ruthless when the situation demanded. So he gave her a task.
Zhou Ke'er didn't reply at once. Her hesitation showed she was wrestling with something. Zhang Yi wasn't impatient — time was his ally. If she failed the test, he'd abandon her without a second thought. He was healthy, rarely left the apartment, and thus a low risk; Zhou Ke'er's future remained uncertain.
The next morning he slept until ten, tossed off his swan-down quilt, washed up, changed into exercise clothes, and ran on the treadmill for an hour until he was sweating. Good conditioning mattered in the apocalypse: it helped you handle danger and resist illness. After a hot shower — a luxury most people could no longer imagine — he heard a commotion outside.
Wrapping a towel around his waist, Zhang Yi checked the surveillance and saw Zhou Peng at his door, hacking away with two kitchen knives. "Zhang Yi, come out! You coward!" Zhou Peng yelled, voice raw. Zhang Yi smirked. "Fine, say whatever you want. What now?"
He noticed Zhou Peng favoring his left arm — the right arm was swollen and blackening from infection. Zhang Yi stood with his hands in his pockets and let the truth land like a blow. "Infection hurts," he said quietly. "Rusty bolts seed tetanus and gangrene. Your wound is a warm nursery for bacteria; they'll eat tissue, make it fester, and then spread. That soreness you feel is only the start."
Zhou Peng flinched; cold sweat ran down his face. His arm was indeed rotting. The realization gnawed at him; despair pushed him to one last, useless attempt. Nearby, one of Chen Zhenghao's men muttered, "Shall we just kill him?" Chen Zhenghao sniffed and replied, "He's dying anyway. Who wants to eat rotten pork?" — and they backed off.
Zhou Peng collapsed by Zhang Yi's door, panting and pleading. Zhang Yi's voice cut him down: "You're dying. Your wound's rotten. Do the one thing you never dared to do when you were whole." Despair turned to fury. Zhou Peng staggered back and, seeing Sun Zhichao fumbling to sterilize a knife over a candle — ignorant and barely coherent — made a frantic lunge for Fang Yuqing's locked room.
"Yuqing, will you marry me?" he demanded, voice cracking. Fang Yuqing recoiled in disgust. "No," she spat. In a terrible, final unravelling, Zhou Peng tore the bandage from his arm. The wound beneath was blackened, oozing necrotic flesh. In a last, deranged act he grabbed pieces of his decaying flesh and jammed them into Fang Yuqing's mouth.
Silence fell for a breath. People nearby heard the wet, horrifying sound and did nothing — they had already placed blame on Fang Yuqing for their ruin. Zhou Peng laughed then, a raw, hysterical sound, tasting a terrible, vindictive triumph in humiliating the woman he had once worshipped.