Rain turned white under the headlights, streaking across the glass in thin, endless lines.
Pei Wan stood at the counter, but she didn't respond to Lin Wu's let's keep talking right away.
Instead, she glanced outside first.
Her people were still standing beyond the edge of the barrier. Weapons lowered. Flashlights dimmed. No one touched the golden boundary again.
Only the ruined scanner remained in the floodwater—
black, dead, useless.
Then she looked back at the counter.
The access card. The injection kit. The route map. The authority fragment.
All laid out in a neat row.
Like the price she had already paid just to knock on the door.
"What exactly are you selling?" Pei Wan asked.
Lin Wu flipped through her ledger, tone calm.
"Water. Food. Hemostatic spray. Anti-infection meds. Temporary stay rights."
Pei Wan's brow moved slightly.
"Stay rights?"
"Exactly what it sounds like." Lin Wu looked up. "If your team keeps searching outside, you'll draw infected, lose people, and drag trouble to my doorstep. So instead, you can pay for ten minutes of safety. Regroup. Recover. Then we keep talking."
Pei Wan went quiet for half a second.
She had to admit—
it was useful.
Ever since they arrived, the surrounding blocks had already felt unnaturally quiet. Not because there were no monsters.
Because they couldn't get in.
Ten minutes inside this zone—
right now, in this city—
was worth more than a full crate of water.
"How much?" she asked directly.
Lin Wu liked cooperative customers.
"Six people." She tapped the ledger with the tip of her pen. "Two crates of water, twelve cups of instant noodles, four hemostatic sprays, one box of anti-infection meds, plus ten minutes of outside stay rights."
Pei Wan didn't agree immediately.
"Too high."
"It's supposed to be high." Lin Wu leaned against the counter, voice easy. "Cheap places aren't open tonight."
Not polite.
Not remotely.
But Pei Wan didn't argue.
Because it was true.
Every pharmacy they'd passed had already been looted. Every convenience store was either shuttered, smashed open, or full of corpses.
A lit store that still sold medicine and came with guaranteed not getting mauled by infected?
There was exactly one of those.
"I can do one and a half crates of water, ten cups of noodles, four sprays, and one box of anti-infection meds," Pei Wan countered. "And I'll add one extra piece of information."
Lin Wu's eyes shifted.
"What information?"
Pei Wan didn't answer right away. Instead, she placed a hand over the route map and pressed down on one location circled in red.
"The underground cold storage beneath the old CDC building in North District hasn't fully fallen yet."
"There's still a shipment of basic medicine and refrigerated vaccines down there that never got moved."
She lifted her eyes.
"That was supposed to be our second objective tonight."
Behind the counter, something flashed in Lin Wu's gaze.
That wasn't just information.
That was a resource node.
A real one.
A place that could fill one of her biggest weaknesses—medical supply.
The system evaluated it at once.
[High-value intelligence detected: North District former CDC underground cold storage.][Potential result: Significant increase in local medical inventory.]
Good.
Very good.
Lin Wu clicked her pen cap back into place.
"Deal."
For the first time since entering the store, Pei Wan let out half a breath.
Only now did it feel real—
like this shop wasn't just a trap full of rules.
It was a place where you could actually buy something.
Lin Wu moved quickly. She pulled full crates of bottled water from storage, then set out instant noodles and sprays one by one. Her motions were calm, unshowy—
but that only made it stranger.
Items kept appearing.
One after another.
Even outside, the recovery team's expressions shifted.
Pei Wan saw it too.
But she didn't ask.
Some questions weren't forbidden.
They were just priced so high they weren't worth starting.
Once everything was laid out, Lin Wu still didn't pass it over.
Instead, she said, "Now it's my turn."
Pei Wan looked at her.
"What level of thing is actually inside that case?"
The store went quiet for two full seconds.
Inside the rest pod, Xie Lin's fingers tightened.
Pei Wan fell silent too.
Light cut across her face, sharp along the bridge of her nose, but her eyes darkened slightly. It wasn't that she didn't want to answer.
She was weighing whether the answer was worth selling.
At last, she spoke.
"It isn't a virus."
That was the first line.
Su Yu visibly relaxed.
If it had been some airborne sample, she probably wouldn't have dared sleep at all tonight.
"It's not a finished weapon either," Pei Wan continued. "But it is related to the infection source."
Lin Wu didn't interrupt.
She just listened.
"To be specific…" Pei Wan lowered her voice. "It contains an induced sample."
"On its own, it may not kill immediately. But if the seal fails, it can cause abnormal attraction and stimulation in nearby infected."
Then she lifted her eyes to meet Lin Wu's.
"In plain English—"
"It calls them."
At the shelves, He Qing's face went pale.
Even Qi Ye straightened slightly.
Lin Wu's expression didn't change, but in her mind, several things instantly linked together.
That was why the system had kept warning her about rising resonance.
Why the recovery team was chasing so hard.
Why Xie Lin had been pursued all the way here by faster, mutated infected.
What he had carried into her store—
wasn't just valuable.
It was bait soaked in blood.
"How long can the seal still hold?" Lin Wu asked.
"Under normal conditions? Twenty-four hours." Pei Wan stared at her. "But right now, I'm not sure."
The moment she finished speaking—
something beneath the counter gave a soft vibration.
A very soft one.
Like someone had tapped a fingernail against metal.
Knock.
Only Lin Wu and Pei Wan were close enough to hear it.
Both their eyes dropped at the same time.
Pei Wan's expression changed first.
Lin Wu recovered first.
She calmly pushed the medicine and water forward another inch.
"Take your goods first," she said, as steady as ever. "As for the rest of the answers and information, that'll be the next round of pricing."
Pei Wan didn't move.
She stared at Lin Wu, voice low.
"The case is here."
Not a question.
A judgment.
Lin Wu looked back at her, the corner of her mouth lifting just slightly.
"Captain Pei."
"That's the fourth sentence."
Pei Wan: "…"
It had been a long time since anyone had blocked her this cleanly.
And the worst part?
She couldn't even get angry.
Because at that exact moment, hurried footsteps sounded from outside.
The short-haired man carrying the compact rifle rushed to the edge of the barrier and spoke in a low, urgent voice.
"Captain. Activity's building in the north alley."
"The count is rising."
"It's close—this isn't scattered infected anymore. They're turning this way in groups."
Pei Wan's expression darkened instantly.
She turned sharply toward the northern end of the street.
In the rain-dark distance, a shifting mass had already begun to take shape.
Not ten.
Not fifty.
A broader, denser black tide, moving slowly between the buildings like floodwater finding a path downhill.
They weren't close yet.
But the pressure got there first.
Inside the store, the system notification appeared without a sound.
[Mid-scale infected swarm approaching.][Current trigger source: Special item resonance leakage.][Recommendation: Process sealed case immediately.]
Lin Wu lowered her eyes to the warning, then tapped the counter lightly.
Once.
When she looked up again, her gaze settled on Pei Wan.
"It looks like," she said evenly, "your order isn't finished yet."
Pei Wan stared back at her.
The last trace of testing in her eyes was gone.
What replaced it was colder.
More direct.
Completely serious.
"Set the price."
Outside, the rain intensified.
And in the dark distance—
the black mass moved one street closer.