Chapter 5: Same Road

After passing through the small park, there were far fewer people around.

The huge park held only a scattering of figures. A few elderly people were gathered in the pavilion, looking at their phones and exchanging messages from time to time. The children's play area at the other end was empty, with only the swings moving gently in the wind.

Lin Wan walked along the outer edge toward the south of the city.

Eden's guidance kept pointing to this area.

It couldn't pinpoint a person's location directly; it could only infer that Gu Chen was most likely to appear here from the available data.

Whether she would actually run into him, there had never been a definite answer.

The farther she went, the worse the traffic became.

Several main roads near Lianchuan Road had already been restricted, and a huge number of diverted vehicles had flooded into the surrounding neighborhoods.

The narrow streets quickly filled with cars. Horns blared one after another, some people tried to U-turn, others simply pulled over to check their navigation, and a few motorcycles rode straight up onto the sidewalk, squeezing past the line of cars.

Lin Wan detoured around a sedan parked crosswise on the sidewalk.

She didn't know how long she would have to keep searching, and she didn't know whether the person who only existed in her memory would really pass through here today.

Gu Chen.

When she first read Doomsday Dawn several years ago, she had been just one reader among countless others.

Back then, Gu Chen had been nothing more than words on a screen, a character who made choices in the story, got hurt, lost his companions, and then kept moving forward with the people who remained.

She knew he would become one of the first awakened ones, knew he would later build a large survivor base, and knew that in the first volume of the original novel, many people had lived because of his choices.

But none of that had happened yet.

Right now, Gu Chen was just an unknown person in Qinghe City.

Ahead was a commercial street.

Most of the shops were already open, but very few were actually doing business. A crowd had gathered in front of the pharmacy, and people were constantly going in and out of the supermarket, their carts packed with mineral water, instant noodles, and toilet paper.

Obviously, some people had already realized something was wrong and had started stockpiling supplies ahead of time.

A police car drove slowly past the intersection, and the loudspeaker on its roof kept repeating the same broadcast.

"Please avoid the area around Lianchuan Road for now. If you discover anyone behaving abnormally or acting aggressively, keep your distance and call the police immediately..."

People on the street all looked up, and the sound of conversation quickly drowned out the music from nearby shops.

Lin Wan passed along the edge of the crowd.

Just then, a burst of arguing came from near the supermarket exit.

"I said we don't need to go to the hospital!"

A man in his forties was sitting beside a flower bed, violently shaking off the woman's hand beside him. A coat was wrapped around his left calf, the fabric already soaked through with blood. He was breathing fast and hard, sweat beading continuously at his temples.

The woman squatted beside him, her voice shaking with urgency.

"You were just bitten like that by that person. At least let us deal with the wound first. We can't get an ambulance through, so we'll call a car ourselves and go to another hospital."

Lin Wan's steps halted.

Bitten.

Her gaze fell on the man's injured calf.

The scene in the convenience store immediately surfaced in her mind. She didn't know how long it took from injury to corruption, but the man's condition in front of her already made her feel an instinctive unease.

Just as she was about to warn the woman, a line of white text suddenly appeared in her vision.

【High-relevance individual detected.】

Lin Wan froze.

Almost at the same time, a man a few meters away also stopped because of the argument here.

She looked over in that direction.

The man was tall, his black short hair neatly trimmed, wearing only a plain black T-shirt and dark pants.

His shoulders and back were broad, and while his build under the fabric wasn't exaggerated, it showed the tight, compact lines left by long-term training.

He stood at the edge of the crowd, a small black backpack hanging from his right hand, looking no different from any other passerby.

And yet Lin Wan's gaze froze on him.

【Cross-checking public records.】

【Matching individual identity information.】

After a brief wait, new text appeared.

【Name: Gu Chen.】

Lin Wan's breathing caught slightly.

She stared at the man.

Of course there was more than one person with the same name, but this was exactly the area Eden had inferred from the data model.

【The real-world individual's data overlaps highly with the host's stored memory information.】

【Comprehensive match result: highly consistent with the 'Gu Chen' individual in the host's memory.】

The horn blaring, the chatter, and the police car's broadcast were still all mixed together, but Lin Wan stood rooted in place, forgetting for a moment to look away.

Doomsday Dawn.

Corroders.

Gu Chen.

The clues she had been piecing together bit by bit since waking up were finally landing in reality.

She really had been thrown into that novel.

Not some world that just happened to suffer a similar disaster, and not some story her fear had forcibly overlaid onto reality from memory.

The living, breathing man before her was the Gu Chen from the original novel.

The man seemed to notice her stare. His gaze crossed the crowd and landed on her. Those eyes were calmer than she'd imagined, lingering for only a brief moment before turning back to the injured man beside the flower bed.

Lin Wan quickly pulled herself back together, too.

This wasn't the time to think about that.

The man beside the flower bed had his head lowered, both hands braced on his knees, his fingers twitching uncontrollably. The woman was still looking down while making a call, completely unaware that the person beside her had already become wrong.

"Keep a little farther away from him first."

The woman blinked.

"What?"

"Something's wrong with him. Don't get too close yet."

But just then the man lifted his head.

Lin Wan saw that the whites of his eyes had already started turning red.

"Back off!"

The woman was startled by the sudden sharpness in Lin Wan's voice. Before she could even stand up, the man beside her jerked violently and bent forward from the waist.

"What's wrong with you?"

The woman reached out on reflex.

Another figure was already moving in ahead of her.

"Don't touch him."

Gu Chen's voice was low, and the woman's hand stopped for a beat.

In the next second, the man suddenly raised his head.

The expression that had still held pain and agitation had completely changed. Thick, chaotic breaths forced their way out of his throat, and without warning his whole body lunged up from beside the flower bed.

The woman didn't have time to react at all.

Gu Chen gripped her arm and yanked her straight back.

The man lunged into empty air, his shoulder slamming hard into the shopping cart beside him. The metal frame let out a shrill crash as it slid several meters across the ground.

A burst of cries went up around them.

The onlookers who had still been crowding around all retreated at once. The woman staggered but managed to steady herself, her face already completely changed.

"Back up."

Gu Chen stood in front of her.

The man got back up.

Lin Wan's hand was already wrapped around the crowbar.

The man lunged at Gu Chen again, the nearest target.

Gu Chen sidestepped, caught the outstretched arm, and used the momentum to throw him to the ground.

The heavy impact made the people around them instinctively retreat even farther.

The man's shoulders and back slammed hard into the floor tiles.

For an ordinary person, that blow would have been enough to knock them out of action for a while.

But he almost immediately started struggling again.

Gu Chen's movements paused for a beat.

"Don't let him bite you."

He looked up at Lin Wan.

The man was already bracing himself on the ground and getting back up.

This time, Gu Chen didn't try to pin him down again. He casually grabbed the shopping cart nearby, and when the man charged again, he shoved it forward hard.

The other man crashed head-on into the metal frame and was forced back. The wheels caught on the edge of the flower bed, the whole cart tilted violently, and the man lost his balance and fell into the bushes behind it.

"Go."

Gu Chen turned to look at the woman.

The woman stood frozen in place, her face drained of all color.

"But how could he..."

"Leave here first."

The branches in the flower bed were already rustling again.

A middle-aged woman who knew the woman beside him hurried over and pulled her away, and the onlookers nearby began to scatter as well.

Lin Wan backed away with them.

A sudden crack of breaking branches came from the flower bed.

The man slammed out from inside.

He didn't distinguish between anyone at all and lunged straight at Lin Wan, the nearest person.

She immediately dodged to the side.

His hand brushed past the front of her body, and his own body lurched forward from missing the target. Lin Wan raised the crowbar, but she didn't rush after him recklessly.

The next second, Gu Chen had already seized the back collar of the man's shirt and, using the moment before he had regained his footing, yanked him hard to the side.

The man crashed into a trash can, scattering garbage across the ground.

"Go."

This time, he was speaking to Lin Wan.

She didn't try to be stubborn.

The two of them quickly left the supermarket entrance and crossed the intersection ahead. Screamers were still going off behind them, and people had started calling the police. The chaotic sounds were thrown farther and farther behind as the distance grew.

It wasn't until they turned into another street that Gu Chen slowed down.

Lin Wan also stopped.

The two of them stood a few steps apart.

Gu Chen first glanced at the crowbar in her hand, then moved his gaze to her face.

"How did you know just now?"

"I ran into someone who'd been bitten early this morning," Lin Wan said. "Later he suddenly started attacking people too."

"Like the one just now?"

"Very similar."

She paused.

"There were similar things in the news these past few hours too. Someone was injured, sent to the hospital, and later attacked the medical staff. I was just guessing it might have something to do with the bite."

That explanation wasn't complete, but at least every part of it could be supported by reality.

She couldn't possibly tell Gu Chen that she knew what would happen after being bitten by an eroded one, let alone tell him that she even knew what this chaos in front of them would eventually become.

Gu Chen was silent for a moment.

"How long until it turns into this?"

"I don't know."

That part was true.

The original novel had never given a fixed time. She knew what being bitten meant, but she didn't know how long it took for corruption to set in.

Gu Chen didn't press any further.

Lin Wan, however, suddenly didn't know what to do next.

She had found Gu Chen.

Or more accurately, she had reached the area Eden had calculated and actually run into him.

The vision in front of her was quiet and still.

Gu Chen was already preparing to leave.

Lin Wan waited a few seconds before the white text finally appeared.

【Guidance complete.】

Only four words.

She waited a little longer.

There was no follow-up.

Gu Chen had already walked some distance away.

Logically, she should go back now.

She still had the supplies she'd organized at her place, and at least for the moment, nothing dangerous had happened there.

Gu Chen was indeed the male lead of the original story, but following a complete stranger who didn't know her at all was obviously not something that could be directly equated with safety.

What's more, she knew that not everyone who stayed by Gu Chen's side in the original novel survived.

Just as Lin Wan was about to leave, a burst of urgent horn blasts suddenly came from ahead.

A black sedan shot past the intersection at high speed, turning into another alley so close to the parked cars along the curb that it nearly scraped them.

Two motorcycles followed right behind it. One of the riders kept looking back, the bike wobbling several times until it nearly lost balance.

Farther ahead, a disturbance was rapidly spreading down the street.

At first only a few people were running.

Very quickly, more people burst out from the corner.

"Something's happened up ahead!"

"Run!"

A woman carrying a child was running so fast that she nearly fell by the roadside. The people who had been standing at the shop entrances watching noticed that something was wrong and all backed into the stores, while several nearby shops began lowering their metal shutters.

Gu Chen only glanced in that direction once.

"Leave here first."

Lin Wan had no intention of staying behind to confirm anything either.

The two of them left along the street on the other side, avoiding the crowd surging straight toward them.

The noises behind them grew more and more chaotic. Screams, horns, and crashes all mixed together. Several cars were jammed at the intersection, and it was no longer possible to make out exactly what was happening there.

Gu Chen soon turned into a narrower street.

Only after Lin Wan followed him in did she realize this wasn't the direction back to Yong'an Road.

If she turned back now, she'd have to cross the intersection where the chaos had just begun all over again.

She could only keep going forward for the time being.

After walking some distance, the surrounding noise finally quieted down a little.

Gu Chen stopped and turned to look at her.

"Where are you going?"

"Yong'an Road."

He gestured in the direction behind her.

"Wrong way."

"I know."

"Then why are you following me?"

Lin Wan was silent for a moment.

She couldn't exactly say, because you're the male lead of this novel and some mysterious system thinks staying close to you will improve my survival rate.

She could only glance toward the direction they'd just come from.

"That way isn't passable right now."

"There's a fork ahead."

Gu Chen clearly had no intention of arranging where she should go next.

Lin Wan hadn't expected him to.

She thought about it, then asked, "Where are you going?"

"South of the city."

"Home?"

Gu Chen looked at her.

"Mm."

The answer was very short.

Lin Wan also realized she'd asked a bit too much. They didn't even know each other's names yet, and from Gu Chen's perspective, this stranger's behavior since just now really was a little odd.

She was just about to end the conversation when Gu Chen spoke first.

"Gu Chen."

Lin Wan's steps paused for a beat.

He was already turning to continue forward.

"My name."

She looked at his back.

She had obviously known it all along.

But when those two words actually came out of his own mouth, it still felt completely different.

"Lin Wan."

Gu Chen nodded once.

No handshake, no extra pleasantries.

Lin Wan followed a few steps behind him.

She had originally planned to find her way back at the next fork, but when they entered a more run-down residential area ahead, Gu Chen suddenly stopped.

"Wait."

Lin Wan followed his gaze.

A bus was parked diagonally at the intersection ahead.

Its front end had slammed into a signal pole on the right, and the windshield was split by a huge spiderweb of cracks. The doors stood open, a few dropped personal belongings scattered nearby, but there was no sign of any passengers.

An off-white tote bag lay overturned beside the door.

A phone, a wallet, and half a bottle of water were scattered across the ground.

There was also a shoe stained with blood.

The whole road was quiet in an unnaturally ominous way.

Gu Chen stood more than ten meters away and first checked both sides of the road before looking into the bus interior again.

"Detour."

Lin Wan had no objection.

The two of them had just turned to leave when a dull thud suddenly came from inside the bus.

It sounded as if someone had crashed into a seat.

Both of them stopped at the same time.

Then there was another one.

Thud.

Through the windows, several figures could be seen moving between the seats. Their movements were stiff and chaotic, and they kept bumping into the handrails and seat backs.

Lin Wan quickly counted at least three.

"Not just one."

Gu Chen had obviously seen them too.

"Go."

Just as the two of them took a step back, a louder crash suddenly came from inside the bus.

A figure staggered into view at the front door.

The person's clothes were soaked in blood, and half the face was almost completely red. He gripped the doorframe for only two seconds before lifting his head.

His eyes were bloodshot.

Stiff, chaotic movements.

Lin Wan retreated almost at the same time as Gu Chen.

But the commotion on the bus seemed to have alerted the others.

The figures scattered throughout the carriage began moving toward the front door.

The first Corroder to appear misstepped and tumbled out of the bus, his shoulder smashing hard into the ground.

The next second, he was already bracing himself on the ground and getting back up.

And behind him, a second figure had also pushed its way to the door.