The Apocalypse Solution Provider

Chapter 43: The Longshan Medical University Strategy

A map of Longshan City lay spread across the table.

The three men gathered around it.

Su Jin leaned his weight onto his hands against the table, glancing between the two old men. “Only the three of us know about the Disguised Infected. It’s not convenient to brief the others just yet. We’ll hammer out the broad strokes, you two can refine the details, and I’ll handle briefing Fu Hu and Cheng Du.”

The two men nodded.

“Before we begin, we have a logistical bottleneck,” Su Jin said. “Covering this much distance requires a car. What happens when we find a ride but no keys?”

“What kind of amateur question is that?” Sun Ya scoffed. “Do you think Old Wei and I are just dead weight? Who needs a key to hotwire a car?”

“Fair enough.” Su Jin offered a dry smile. “One more problem… I don’t know how to drive. You’ll need to give me a crash course, but I’m a fast learner.”

Technically, he meant he didn’t know how to drive the cars of this specific world.

The basic mechanical structure was likely identical.

But when gambling with his life, even a single slipped gear could mean a gruesome death.

“A minor issue. Let’s cut to the chase.” Wei De clicked a pen. “Longshan Medical University is an old campus, situated close to the downtown core. When the Cold Sky erupted in the city center, the temperature drop there was far more catastrophic than here. The ice hasn’t thawed. But our biggest obstacle… the downbursts from the Cold Sky undoubtedly leveled countless fragile buildings. Entire streets of paving stones might have been ripped straight out of the dirt.”

“So my previous estimate was slightly off. The shortest route is about four miles, but the backstreets are likely choked with frozen rubble. You can’t use them. We have to detour down the Central Avenue. The road will be clearer, but it tacks on an extra mile and a half each way.”

Wei De scanned the map and dragged a heavy line across the paper.

He then circled a choke point near the midpoint.

“This is Longshan Third Middle School. You must floor it when you pass this sector! The torrential rain kept most people trapped indoors, but you might run into a massive horde of Zombies out in the open here.”

“Why?” Su Jin frowned.

Wei De hesitated. “That day… a colleague called me. His grandson was at the school for an anniversary celebration. The entire student body would have been packed onto the sports field.”

“During a torrential downpour? They didn’t cancel?” Su Jin’s eyes widened in sheer disbelief at the bureaucratic stupidity.

“City officials were present for the opening ceremony.”

“It was a damn hurricane! And they still forced it? Are school boards really run by literal sociopaths?” Su Jin slapped the back of his hand into his palm.

“The VIP rostrum had a roof, didn’t it?”

“That doesn’t…”

“Doesn’t matter! The VIPs braved the rain in their luxury cars. Making the students soak in the mud builds character, right?” Sun Ya snapped impatiently. “Does it matter? Just listen and lock it in your brain: expect a massive Zombie cluster here.”

“…Fine.”

Wei De resumed drawing. “About a half-mile past that, the roadside landscaping used to be incredibly dense. Those old trees were probably uprooted by the downbursts and thrown into the street. If the road is completely choked, you’ll need to recalculate on the fly. Start from here…”

Mid-sentence, Sun Ya abruptly jammed his finger onto the map.

He shot a glare at Wei De. “Old Wei… isn’t this where you get your heart medication? Did you ever pick up your last prescription?”

“Ignore that. There’s no operational value in wasting time and compounding our risk.”

“Wrong. It’s necessary. It’s a simple side objective,” Su Jin cut in smoothly. “Old Wei, what’s the pharmacy’s name? What’s the drug?”

Meeting Su Jin’s cold, unyielding stare, Wei De managed a strained smile.

“Longxing Pharmacy. It’s a massive store, impossible to miss from the street. My medication is always a special order. They keep it by the second-floor entrance, bottom shelf of the first medicine cabinet. I’ll pass you the empty box later. Don’t push your luck, though. If you don’t spot it immediately, abort and keep moving.”

Su Jin gave a curt nod.

“Moving on. Past this point is Longshan Medical University. You’ll be transitioning to indoor CQB. The university had a massive population. Once the infection hit, those hallways became meat grinders. You need to be paranoid. As for navigating the interior, Old Sun is the expert.”

Sun Ya took over the briefing. “I brokered the acquisition of two machines for their labs and gave a few guest lectures. I know the layout.”

“I’ll sketch out a tactical floor plan. I’ll also draft a spec sheet on where to find the Sodium Fluorescein and the Portable UV Light.”

“Aside from that, do you have any specific procurement requests for us?”

Staring at the map of Longshan, Su Jin’s eyes narrowed in calculation.

“A combustion engine is an acoustic nightmare. If the streets are littered with debris, a collision is statistically guaranteed. That noise will trigger a chain reaction among the Zombies.”

“We can outrun them in a vehicle. My primary concern is that a massive horde will track the engine noise all the way back to our base.”

“I need a high-decibel acoustic decoy. Something like a bomb… Can you two manufacture explosives?”

“Explosives…” Wei De rubbed his chin, gears turning in his head.

Sun Ya chimed in. “Do you still have the shotgun shells I gave you?”

“I do.”

“Child’s play,” Wei De stated flatly. “We can cannibalize timing circuits from microwaves and washing machines. Resistive heating wires are easy enough to rig. Pack that with the gunpowder from the shells, and you have an improvised time bomb. The failure rate will be high, though. We’ll need to wire redundant timers to ensure detonation, which makes deploying them a bit tedious.”

“The blast radius of something this crude in an open street is negligible. Given Zombie biology, it won’t yield effective kills. But as an acoustic lure to redirect a horde? It’s perfect.”

“It’s that easy?” Su Jin’s eyes gleamed with pragmatic greed. “Can you manufacture firearms? Even pipe guns would do.”

“Do I look like a genie to you?” Sun Ya rolled his eyes. “Anything else for your wishlist?”

“Nothing immediate. I need to run simulations in my head. I’ll leave the granular logistics to you two. I haven’t frequented that area; you have the home-field advantage.”

What a load of corporate bullshit! ‘Haven’t frequented’… you’ve never stepped foot on that campus!

The two old men grumbled internally.

“When is the launch date?” Wei De asked.

Su Jin tapped his fingers thoughtfully. “Five days. That gives us adequate prep time. Starting today, I’m taking the team to systematically sweep the complex. We exterminate the Zombies, run a census on the survivors, and manage a preliminary distribution of Supplies.”

“The buildings are still swarming. Statistically, there’s a high probability of harvesting another Fleshy Orb. If Fu Hu and Cheng Du consume them and mutate like I did, our operational security skyrockets.”

“Furthermore, the survivors in the adjacent blocks are running out of the clock. You can hoard all the food in the world, but without potable water, biology takes over.”

“Veto! That timeline is too bloated,” Sun Ya snapped. “The ambient temperature is climbing. Once the environmental ice and the frost plating on the Zombies thaw, their mobility will spike. Your mortality risk will compound exponentially. A blitzkrieg run takes half a day. Get in, get out.”

“Denied. Farming indoor Zombies to secure a Fleshy Orb takes priority. Upgrading our genetic immunity and combat specs is non-negotiable,” Su Jin countered, his tone absolute. “Logically, if we are in a vehicle, enhanced Zombie mobility is irrelevant. Actually, the ice on the roads is a bigger threat to traction. The true bottleneck is the indoor CQB—that’s where the fatality rate peaks.”

“If we breach Longshan Medical University and Cheng Du or Fu Hu take a scratch and get infected, I lose a vital asset. I cannot afford that margin of error. My roster of entirely loyal core personnel is currently at two.”

“This topic is closed. Low temperatures mandate one set of tactics; a thaw simply provides different strategic variables.”