Zhou Chenghai heard it first.
He was halfway through suggesting another film when his head turned toward the window, his expression shifting from relaxed to alert in the space of a heartbeat. The kind of shift that came from years of training, from instincts that didn't turn off even when you wanted them to.
"What?" Zhenlan asked, already moving toward the front windows.
"Movement," Chenghai said, standing. "Outside. And they don't seem to be zombies."
That got everyone's attention.
Jian Yuche was on his feet immediately, crossing to the window with Wei Lingyun following quickly behind him, his expression tense. Zhenlan moved to the other side, pulling the curtain back just enough to see without exposing their position.
I stayed on the couch, the wasabi peas forgotten in my lap.
"How many?" Zhenlan asked, narrowing his eyes.
Chenghai counted silently, his eyes tracking figures in the distance. "Fifteen. Maybe twenty. Hard to tell—they're spread out."
"Are you sure they aren't infected?" Jian Yuche's voice was tight as his hand moved to the gun at his shoulder.
"Can't be." Chenghai's tone was certain. "They're moving deliberately and they are carrying things, including each other."
"They must be survivors of some kind or other," Lingyun said quietly. "I wonder where they came from."
The words hung in the air.
I set the snacks aside and stood, moving to the window. The men shifted to give me space, and I looked out at the approaching group.
They were still a few hundred meters away, moving slowly along the road that led to the property. Even from this distance, I could see the exhaustion in their movements—the way some limped, the way others leaned on each other for support, the careful deliberation of people who'd been walking for days.
"They're heading straight for us," Jian Yuche observed.
And he was right. Their path was direct, purposeful. They'd seen the house—the intact walls, the sealed windows, the obvious signs of security and preparation—and they were coming toward it like it was salvation.
"Look at them," Zhenlan said, his voice tight. "They're in bad shape."
I could see it. Their clothes were worn, mismatched, full of holes, and dirty. They had visible injuries—bandages that looked improvised, limps that suggested untreated sprains or worse. One figure near the front was being half-carried by two others, their head lolling forward in a way that suggested fever or exhaustion or both.
Near the middle of the group, a woman carried a child—small, maybe five or six, wrapped in a blanket that looked too thin for the weather.
"There's an old man at the back," Wei Lingyun continued, his voice slightly strained. "He can barely walk."
I shifted my angle slightly. He was right. An elderly man, supported by a younger woman, his steps unsteady and slow. His face was gaunt, his clothes hanging loose on a frame that had clearly lost weight recently.
"They must have been traveling for days," Chenghai said. "Look at their shoes. The wear patterns. They didn't come from nearby."
"And they couldn't have come from the same place," Yuche added. "Look at the clothing styles... some are from name brands while others are cheap. They're not from the same neighborhood, they must have found each other on the road."
The group was close enough now that I could see faces, see the exhaustion, fear, and desperation. And underneath it all, hope—fragile and desperate, but there.
Hope that this house, this fortress, would let them in.
"They need help," Zhenlan said.
I turned away from the window. "Not happening."
Four heads turned toward me.
"What?" Lingyun demanded, his voice was sharp.
"We don't open that gate," I repeated, my tone flat as I went back to the couch and picked up my snack. "We don't let them in."
Zhenlan's expression tightened. "Rouxi—"
"We don't know them," I snapped, cutting them off. "I don't want anyone in my house that I don't know. I don't care who they are."
"They're survivors," Zhenlan said, his voice firm. "Look at them. They're not a threat. They're desperate."
"What does that have to do with anything? They are strangers, and I don't want them here," I repeated. Normally I couldn't be bothered to say this much, but I was putting my foot down. I will not have those people in my house.
"Look, Princess, there's a child out there and an old man who can barely walk. Do you really expect us to just leave them and let them die?" Chenghai growled, his voice rising as he narrowed his eyes at me. This wasn't his normal look, the one where I annoy him and he 'protests'.
Apparently he was putting his foot down, too.
"What does any of that have to do with me?" I sneered back. "They aren't family, and even if they were, we don't owe them anything. I don't want them inside my house."
Chenghai looked at me with a blank face. "If we went by that, Zhenlan never would have taken you home when you were 16 and desperate. He didn't owe you anything. You aren't his family. You have nothing to do with him. You wouldn't have this life if he didn't take you in. How are you any different from them?"
I froze for a moment, letting his words wash over me. I, personally, wasn't affected by his words, but my heart was breaking and I could feel my eyes fill with tears.
Chenghai's attack didn't hit me, but it did hit whatever was left over of the original body's soul. I felt her heart break, I felt her anger and her grief. And then I felt nothing at all.
Anything that remained of her was gone... destroyed by Chenghai.
And the worst part was that Xu Zhenlan didn't say anything at all.
Instead, he was watching me, his expression unreadable. "We have supplies. More than enough for five people. We can afford to share some with the rest of them."
"We have supplies for five people for months," I pointed out, my voice dry and flat. "Add twenty more and we have supplies for twenty-five people for weeks. Maybe. And that's assuming they don't bring disease, don't cause conflict, don't attract more attention from other survivors or the zombies still out there."
"So we just turn them away?" Yuche's tone was careful, analytical. "Let them keep walking until they collapse?"
"Yes," I replied simply with a shrug of my shoulders. I really didn't see what the big deal was. Bringing them into the house wasn't going to help them learn to survive, bringing them into the house wasn't going to keep everyone safe.
But no one else seemed to see it that way if their silence was anything to go by.
That was fine. I was used to being a bitch.
Zhenlan turned back to the window, his jaw tight. The group was closer now, maybe a hundred meters from the gate. The man at the front—older, weathered, carrying himself like someone who'd been in charge before everything fell apart—raised his hand in a gesture that was half-wave, half-plea.
"We can help them," Zhenlan announced quietly. "We have the resources. We have the space. We can afford to give them what they need to survive."
"And when more come?" I asked. "When word spreads that there's a house with supplies and security and people willing to share? How many do we let in then? Fifty? A hundred? Where's the line?"
"The line is humanity," Lingyun said, his voice hard. "The line is not becoming the kind of people who watch others die when we could save them."
"Survival isn't about being kind," I said. "It's about making the hard choices that keep you alive."
"That's cold," Yuche said.
"That's realistic."
Zhenlan turned away from the window, his expression conflicted. "These people need help. They need food, water, medical attention. We have all of that. We can spare it."
"You're not thinking long-term," I said. "You're thinking about right now, about the child and the old man and the injured people at the gate. You're not thinking about what happens in two weeks when our supplies are gone and we're the ones starving."
"We won't starve," Chenghai said. "We have months of supplies."
"For five people. Not twenty-five."
"Then we ration more carefully," Zhenlan said. "We make it work."
"You're being naive," I said flatly. "You're letting emotion override logic. You want to be the hero. You want to save them. But you're not thinking about the cost."
"The cost of what?" Lingyun's voice was almost angry now. "Of being human? Of not turning into monsters? You don't know what is going on out there. You don't understand what they are facing. You are too sheltered, too..." his voice trailed off... but I knew what he was trying to say.
They all thought I was a spoiled brat, that without them, I would never survive.
Fine, if they wanted to be like that... I would give them one last chance before I washed my hands on whatever happened next.
"The cost would be our own survival," I said letting out a long breath. "You let them in, you're gambling with our lives. And I'm not willing to take that bet."
Zhenlan looked at me for a long moment, his expression tight. Then he looked at the others. "What do you think?"
Chenghai was silent for a moment, his gaze moving between the window and me. "I think... we have the resources. And I think those people need them more than we do right now."
"Yuche?" Zhenlan asked.
Jian Yuche's expression was conflicted, uncomfortable, but he nodded anyway. "We can't just leave them out there. Not when we can help."
"Lingyun?"
"We let them in," Lingyun said immediately. "We help them. That's what we do."
Zhenlan turned back to me and I guess I should be grateful that he was even giving me a vote. "Rouxi?"
"No," I said. "This is a mistake."
"Four to one," Zhenlan said quietly. "We're letting them in."
I stared at him. At all of them. At the certainty in their expressions, the conviction that they were doing the right thing, the moral thing, the human thing.
They didn't understand. They thought I was too sheltered, but they had been protected too well, insulated from the reality of what survival actually meant. They thought resources and good intentions were enough. They thought being kind was the same as being smart.
They were wrong.
But I was outvoted.
"Fine," I said, my voice flat. "Do what you want."