The Apocalypse Solution Provider

Chapter 37: Moral Decay, Human Nature Collapses

A single gunshot shattered the lock of Room 301.

Su Jin stood motionless, his gaze sharp as a hawk, pistol raised and ready.

Moments later, the door creaked open. A lifeless face appeared from the shadows, only to collapse instantly.

Crack. Crack. Two rapid shots echoed, and two Zombies inside the apartment hit the floor, their hearts blown out.

His firearms experience was limited, but within fifteen feet, he was confident he could blow out a heart without missing.

After waiting for a beat with no further movement, Su Jin stepped inside and crouched to carve open their chests.

Just as his knee hit the floor, a completely naked, four-foot-tall child darted out from the periphery.

In the dim light, Su Jin’s newly enhanced agility flared to life.

Sensing the ambush, he threw his weight backward, rolling directly into the hallway.

Still coiled in a crouch, he kicked off the ground and slammed his shoulder hard into the door.

With a sickening thud, the heavy door crushed the child’s skull, its eyeballs popping from their sockets and rolling across the floor.

Without missing a beat, Su Jin slipped the gun barrel through the crack in the door and fired a point-blank round into its spine.

The happy family of three was finally reunited.

Su Jin kicked the door wide, staring down at the mangled corpses with a sour twist to his lips…

Wait. He just realized a glaring issue.

The Fleshy Orb was lodged right behind the heart, and he was center-massing every target. What if the bullet shattered the Orb? That would be a massive waste.

A Zombie’s critical weak point and its loot drop were in the exact same spot, making farming these Fleshy Orbs a massive pain in the ass.

Using a blade would be safer for extraction.

Whatever. What’s done was done.

Su Jin knelt in the gore and carved open their chests. Unfortunately, he found no trace of a Fleshy Orb inside any of the three Zombies.

He shook his head in annoyance and peeled off his bloody gloves.

Time to play savior first. He could harvest the Supplies in this unit later.

Turning to face Room 302, Su Jin pounded on the door. He knocked for thirty seconds and barked out a few warnings, but received dead silence.

Once again, he let a bullet pick the lock.

He waited in the corridor for three full minutes. Nothing moved, so Su Jin nudged the door open and slipped inside.

The living room was empty. It wasn’t until he breached the master bedroom that Su Jin finally lowered his weapon, a look of profound disbelief crossing his face.

Three youths occupied the room. A woman lay on the bed, her shirt violently torn open, wearing a sock on only one foot.

Two men were slumped in opposite corners, stripped down to their boxers, both staring into the void with half-dead expressions.

Judging by the acidic stench and the mess on their chests, both men had just violently vomited.

They briefly glanced at his gun. One instinctively curled into a fetal position, while the other just continued to stare blankly at the wall.

Su Jin shifted his gaze back to the bed… noticing thick smears of brown grime rubbed all over the sheets…

Taking a deep breath, Su Jin wiped a hand over his face. “Did you three decide to open a mud-wrestling spa on the mattress?” he asked, genuinely baffled.

“Wahhh!!!” Li Fang abruptly burst into hysterical sobbing.

“Just pull the trigger! Spare us the damn small talk!” Cao Chengping squeezed his eyes shut, his voice trembling with sheer terror.

The local psycho killer had finally breached their room… To think he was going to die before he could even get his rocks off one last time.

But he couldn’t blame himself. The bitch smelled so unimaginably rancid that he couldn’t even force an erection.

Su Jin scratched his forehead with his pinky finger, completely at a loss for words.

He couldn’t parse the situation, and none of these three were reacting like normal human beings.

Even if they mistook him for a raider, what the hell was this setup? They were way too apathetic about an armed man breaking in.

Su Jin leveled a cold glare at the woman. “Hey. Explain what I’m looking at. If you keep wailing, I’ll put a bullet in you.”

Li Fang didn’t answer, merely continuing her dry, grating wails.

Su Jin’s patience vanished, his voice dropping to a terrifying chill. “Answer the question. Keep your mouth shut, and I’ll rape you first, then kill you.”

“Tch.” Cao Chengping scoffed, turning his head away in disdain.

Su Jin snapped his gaze to Cao Chengping, a deep knot forming between his brows.

The logic wasn’t tracking. He needed to untangle this mess… What the hell was going on here?

Just as Su Jin’s brain was frantically trying to process the crime scene, Li Fang choked off her sobs. She twisted around, her face contorted with pure, venomous hatred as she glared at Cao Chengping and Li Kai.

She pointed a trembling finger at the two men. “Them!! They tried to rape me! Kill them! Kill them both, and I’ll let you do whatever you want to me!”

“Did I even succeed?! Did I?!” Cao Chengping craned his neck forward, roaring back defensively. “You putrid bitch! You fucking slut! You actually dared to drink your own piss behind our backs!”

Spitting a final volley of curses, Cao Chengping glared up at Su Jin and sneered. “Go ahead, do it. A bitch matches a dog, and dogs eat shit. You two are a match made in heaven!”

Su Jin stood completely frozen, his expression cycling through a dozen different shades of disbelief.

It finally clicked. He never imagined such a straightforward attempted assault could be executed in such a bafflingly pathetic way.

He broke in to save them, and somehow ended up getting verbally abused by the would-be rapist. His anger just evaporated into sheer exhaustion.

Resting his hands on his hips, he let out a heavy sigh and stepped over to Li Kai.

He opened his mouth to interrogate him, but his eyes locked onto two crumpled, soiled wads of tissue on the floor. The confusion instantly returned.

Su Jin nudged Li Kai with his boot. “You were in on this too, right?”

Li Kai remained silent. He simply sat up straighter against the wall, tilting his head back to expose his neck, fully resigned to his execution.

“I’m asking you, what the hell is with the tissues on the floor?”

“Heh, he just jerked himself off. Fucking useless trash,” Cao Chengping mocked.

“I don’t get it. If you were already committed to the bit, couldn’t you just hold your breath?” Su Jin leaned forward, genuinely intrigued. “How can you be this pathetic? Is this some sort of extreme fetish?”

It was incredibly unprofessional, entirely inappropriate, and horribly insensitive considering the victim was sitting right there…

But he just had to ask. It held the morbid fascination of a car crash.

Li Kai’s eyes flickered guiltily toward Li Fang. Hearing Cao Chengping’s grating laughter echo in the room, his chest tightened with shame.

It was physically impossible to hold his breath against a stench that foul… But the apocalypse had gotten to his head; he just wanted to experience it one last time before dying.

Now, the adrenaline had faded, leaving only bitter regret. He couldn’t bring himself to force himself on Li Fang—she was a woman he used to love, for God’s sake!

Still, he couldn’t just completely throw away his male dignity right before taking a bullet to the head…

Li Kai looked away and delivered a deadpan lie: “I get motion sickness from 3D games. I can’t handle first-person.”

“Hah! Damn, aren’t you a fucking comedian,” Su Jin laughed, his dark amusement snapping back into cold anger as he kicked Li Kai hard in the ribs.

He wheeled on Cao Chengping, voice dripping with contempt. “You two degenerate pieces of trash. The world is ending, you’re half-naked and covered in puke, and you still have the energy to crack jokes. You really are brainless.”

He took two steps back, his demeanor abruptly shifting into icy professionalism. “I am done listening to your bullshit! You clearly have a severe misunderstanding of my intentions, but for the record, I broke in here to rescue you, not execute you!”

The words hung in the air. All three of them stared at Su Jin in absolute, stunned silence.

Su Jin continued, “Originally, I should have helped you relocate to a safe place, but given your previous performance, I’ve decided to postpone that for now. Later, I’ll bring you food and water. You’ll stay put in this room and await further instructions!”

These three were in a terrible state—no discipline, no morals, poor hygiene, and mentally unstable.

Rushing them back might negatively impact the existing team.

How to handle them would need to be discussed with Old Sun and Old Wei. In any case, the core team definitely wouldn’t include these three.

Su Jin turned and walked toward the door, saying as he went, “I warn you, if anyone dares to step outside this door, I’ll chop them to pieces!”

As soon as the words fell, Cao Chengping flashed forward and knelt before Su Jin, pleading, “Brother, I was wrong! I’m sorry for cursing at you earlier… From now on, if you tell me to go east, I won’t go west.”

“Do as I say, and you won’t suffer. Get back!”

Kicking Cao Chengping aside, Su Jin walked out the door.

He was about to head upstairs, but glanced back at the unlocked door and turned toward the opposite apartment.

He dragged out a sofa and firmly blocked the trio’s door before feeling secure enough to go upstairs.

He realized he hadn’t asked if any of them had been exposed to the rainwater… Better safe than sorry.