The Apocalypse Solution Provider

Chapter 40: Night Talk by Candlelight

Having executed both suspects, Su Jin briskly made his way back up to the sixth floor.

He shot a quick glance at the quarantine room holding Cheng Du and Sister Liu. Seeing they were both safely inside, he headed back to his own apartment across the hall.

At this point, nobody had the stomach for lunch.

The group had already gathered in the living room, sitting in a tight circle waiting for his return.

The moment Su Jin walked in, Sun Ya leaned forward. “How did it go? Which one was the monster?”

“Both of them. I killed them both,” Su Jin replied, his face an emotionless mask. He pulled out his phone and held it up for the room to see.

On the screen, Cao Chengping and Li Kai were convulsing violently on the floor, clawing at their throats as if undergoing a Zombie mutation.

After a few agonizing seconds of thrashing, two sharp gunshots rang out, ending their misery.

Zhang Wan clutched her chest, still visibly shaken by the sheer brutality of it.

Fu Qingdai pursed her lips, shooting Su Jin a complicated, unreadable glance.

Tucking the phone away, Su Jin spoke up. “I need the room. Just me, Elder Sun, and Elder Wei. The rest of you go find something to do. I’ll need you later.”

Catching the hint, Fu Hu quickly ushered his wife and daughter out of the room.

Only the three men remained in the living room.

Sun Ya opened his mouth to ask the obvious question, but Su Jin cut him off.

“The one on the left was the actual killer. The other was clean. Furthermore, the mutation doesn’t root in the heart. It targets the brain. Based on what we saw with the rats, this strain of infection alters their base temperament, causes some physical enhancements, and might even grant special Abilities.”

“But when it comes to taking damage, they are nothing like Zombies. Biologically, they’re still just regular flesh and blood. Decapitation, massive blood loss, poison… it all kills them just the same.”

The faces of the two elderly professors instantly turned a sickening shade of gray.

“Meaning…” Sun Ya rasped, his voice heavy. “You poisoned them. You couldn’t actually tell which one was infected. But then… how do you know the infection is rooted in the brain?”

Su Jin looked down at his hands, then back up. “Autopsy. I took them apart from head to toe.”

He casually lit a cigarette before pulling a heavy bottle of baijiu from his tactical bag.

Snatching an empty tea bowl from the table, Su Jin splashed the cheap, high-proof liquor into it and downed it in a single, burning gulp.

He immediately poured himself another.

Ever since arriving in this apocalyptic nightmare, he had forced himself to maintain absolute, ruthless clarity. Today, for the very first time, he chose to drink.

Sun Ya and Wei De sat in stunned silence. Their eyes carried a profound sorrow as they watched Su Jin quietly drown his demons in alcohol and smoke.

They were brilliant men. The moment they witnessed the rats seamlessly disguising themselves among their own kind, they understood the horrifying implications.

This was a threat that defied conventional resistance.

The sheer terror of the Disguised Infected didn’t lie in their lethality or their transmission rate.

It was the fact that their mere existence systematically annihilated the single pillar of human survival.

Trust.

Sun Ya’s eyelids drooped, his face carved with absolute bitterness.

The pieces finally fell into place.

Even setting aside the possibility of a total military wipeout, the government must have identified this mutation early on. It had likely infiltrated the highest levels of command.

The initial rainstorm had covered far too much ground. Combine that with human paranoia and bureaucratic cover-ups, and containment was impossible.

They lacked the time, the resources, and the capability to effectively screen the population.

The entire governmental structure collapsed overnight, snapping the chain of trust in an instant.

Perhaps a few fragmented units were still fighting a losing battle, desperately launching missiles into the quarantine zones.

But against a threat that looked exactly like your brother-in-arms, all the artillery in the world was completely useless.

The emergency broadcast had warned them not to trust… it meant not to trust anyone.

Behind a thick veil of cigarette smoke, the heavy liquor hit his bloodstream. A faint, uncharacteristic gleam of moisture gathered in Su Jin’s eyes.

A single storm had forcefully atomized society, severing every conceivable path toward rebuilding civilization.

Strategies drawn up in the morning became obsolete death traps by the afternoon.

This suffocating despair perfectly mirrored the raw shock he felt when he first watched the government collapse.

Humanity’s true apocalypse wasn’t the loss of resources or the roaming Zombies. It was each other.

And he had just started to see a glimmer of hope…

Every time he carved out a small sliver of optimism, the world violently crushed it—a dull knife slowly carving away his sanity as he waited for death.

But the darkest punchline of all? He was busting his ass for an omnipotent, reality-bending corporation.

Yet after throwing him a few scraps of initial assistance, the “company” had completely ghosted him, leaving him to rot like a discarded pawn.

The hours bled away. Su Jin sat alone in the living room, a small mountain of cigarette butts and empty bottles piling up at his boots.

Beyond the windows, the world had plunged into pitch black.

Sun Ya quietly returned, carrying a lit candle, and sat across from him.

Seeing Su Jin slumped back in his chair, the professor spoke softly. “Are you going to give up?”

“Give up?” Su Jin sat up. He let out a bleary, intoxicated chuckle, but beneath the haze, a furnace of pure, unfiltered rage burned in his chest.

A rotting, putrid wasteland.

A corporation that treated his life like a disposable toy.

He had already clawed his way through the hardest part of the tutorial. Why the hell would he quit now?

He was going to get his revenge. He was going to survive this hellhole, drag Fu Qingdai out alive, and personally slaughter the bitch who dropped him here.

“I am never giving up again… no matter how rigged the game is.” The candlelight flickered violently in Su Jin’s eyes. “…This time, I’m not just fighting men. I’m fighting the heavens themselves!”

Sun Ya stared at him, profound respect shining in his ancient eyes. “I truly hope that isn’t just the liquor talking.”

“It’s not,” Su Jin countered smoothly. “But what about you two? Can you handle the pressure?”

Sun Ya offered a faint smile. “You are the leader. You are the core of this operation. As long as you refuse to quit, we have no right to throw in the towel.”

“Logistically speaking, the risks associated with recruiting and expanding our team have just gone through the roof. Even if we secure heavy artillery, we can’t trust anyone enough to arm them. But every lock has a key. We verified human infection today, and we still have the Rat 3 sample. Old Wei and I will tear into the research tomorrow.”

“Do it. Study the mechanics, map the traits, build a protocol. Going lone-wolf is a guaranteed death sentence; we still need the numbers.” Su Jin exhaled a long cloud of smoke. “The answer probably lies in those Fleshy Orbs. You saw the rats—the mutation pool is massive. Maybe the universe will throw us a bone and drop an Ability that lets us sniff out the traitors.”

“Precisely. We have to trust the scientific method.” Sun Ya chuckled, grabbing the half-empty bottle of baijiu to pour himself a modest bowl.

“You know, there is one specific trait of yours I highly admire.”

“Oh?”

“Your sheer, terrifying adaptability. I saw it the day you started casually butchering corpses. Today, you couldn’t verify the killer, so you ruthlessly executed both suspects and vivisected them fresh… Tsk!” Sun Ya took a sip of the burning liquor, sucking in a sharp breath.

“A normal human psyche would snap under that burden. If I didn’t know for a fact that your ultimate goal was keeping us all alive, I would run as far away from you as physically possible.”

“Was that a compliment or an insult?” Su Jin tilted his head, a dangerous, squinting smile playing on his lips.

“Take it as a compliment. Chaos breeds heroes, but you? You’re a ruthless warlord. You have the exact psychological profile to conquer this world. I’m certain of it.” Sun Ya nodded firmly, before his tone shifted. “However… men like you usually end up as tyrants.”

“A tyrant…” Su Jin scoffed. He raised his bowl, clinking the ceramic against Sun Ya’s.

He downed the liquid fire, his gaze as stagnant and cold as deep water.

“You’re right. This world desperately needs a tyrant… but it won’t be me.”