"Then tell me what else I'm supposed to do!! What can I do?!" Fu Hu roared, his sanity fracturing. "Get the hell out of my house! Whatever happens, leave my daughter out of it! I don't want to hear your psychotic bullshit!"

"Dad!" Fu Qingdai cried out, tugging anxiously at the hem of his shirt.

"As long as it keeps us breathing, we do everything!" Su Jin seized Fu Hu by the shoulders, his eyes wide and burning. "If the country is gone, we build a new one! If the army is gone, we form our own! If we can't hide, then we stop hiding and take the fight to those rotting fucks!!"

"Everyone in this complex knows each other. You sent your daughter to a psych ward because of her doomsday dreams—plenty of people must know about that, right?"

"That right there is our recruitment pitch. Qingdai is their only hope. She can be an emperor, a prophet, a goddamn cult leader for all I care—but I will absolutely not let you drag her down with you!"

Fu Hu was instantly stunned into silence, staring blankly at Su Jin.

The world was literally ending... and this guy wanted to draft a private army to counterattack? Using Qingdai?

"Old Fu, I know you want to protect your kid, but sticking with you right now is a death sentence," Su Jin said coldly. "I'm not going to stand by and watch you march her off a cliff."

"I've grown attached to the kid these past few days. But if you're going to be this hopelessly stubborn, I'd rather give her a quick end right now than watch her get ripped apart by Zombies because of your incompetence!"

The moment the words left his mouth, Su Jin drew his Silver Gun and aimed it straight at Fu Qingdai.

"You don't get time to think. You either stay here and rot, or you work with me. Yes or no!"

Fu Qingdai stared down the dark abyss of the muzzle, swallowing hard.

Then she squeezed her eyes shut, pressed her lips into a thin line, and leaned her forehead against the cold barrel.

"No!!" Fu Hu reached out, his voice cracking in terror. "I agree! I agree with you... I'll do whatever you want."

Su Jin took a step back and holstered the Silver Gun.

Seeing the weapon lowered, Fu Hu practically tackled his daughter, pulling her behind his broad back as he glared at Su Jin like a cornered animal.

Su Jin let out a long sigh. "Old Fu... I never intended to hurt either of you. But we have no other options. This is the only path forward. Your threat assessment is dangerously naive, and I needed to shock you into reality before it got you killed."

"Since we're on the same page, I will put my life on the line to keep her safe, and I expect you to do the same. I've already stashed a cache of Supplies for her up on the fourth floor. I gave her the key earlier."

Fu Hu glanced over his shoulder at his daughter.

When Fu Qingdai gave a small nod, some of the tension finally bled out of his posture.

"Zhang Wan is in severe shock, right?" Su Jin continued. "She's not going to recover freezing in this apartment. I've got honeycomb coal briquettes and a cast-iron stove stockpiled on the fourth floor. Grab the sheet metal and planks from this room too. We'll have to smash a window to rig an exhaust pipe. Take whatever else you need."

With that, Su Jin slumped onto the only intact sofa left in the room and waved him off.

"Hurry it up. I'll hold down the fort. We can finish this debrief once the stove is operational. Don't let your wife freeze to death."

Fu Hu looked from his unconscious wife to his daughter. Hesitating for only a second, he turned and led Fu Qingdai downstairs.

Ten minutes later, the father and daughter returned.

The sight that greeted him immediately stopped Fu Hu in his tracks.

Zhang Wan was still unconscious on the couch, but Su Jin was standing in front of the living room window. He was methodically blacking out the glass with a bucket of thick black paint and a brush he had procured from god knows where.

"Director... what are you doing?"

"Get the stove running first," Su Jin ordered, not even bothering to look back. "That freak rain didn't just compromise humans; it infected the local fauna too. I ran field tests with mice, but there's a high probability avian carriers are compromised as well. Infected biologicals exhibit extreme hyper-aggression toward uninfected targets."

"Hiding inside isn't a foolproof security measure. Blacking out the windows... at least minimizes our visual footprint."

Fu Hu remembered the mountain of prepped Supplies upstairs, and his daughter hadn't stopped singing Su Jin's praises the entire trip down.

Hearing this cold, clinical tactical breakdown, a grudging sense of respect swelled in the big man's chest.

Grunting an acknowledgment, Fu Hu got to work.

He rolled the sheet metal into a cylinder, secured it with heavy wire, and sealed the joints with aluminum foil tape. In no time, he had rigged a functional, modular chimney.

After shattering a window pane and boarding it up around the exhaust pipe, their off-grid heating system was officially online.

The windows were pitch black, but the flickering flames inside the stove finally cast a warm, life-saving glow across the living room.

Fu Qingdai took a kettle up to Su Jin's apartment to chisel some ice for drinking water.

Downstairs, Su Jin and Fu Hu sat across from each other in front of the crackling fire.

They stared into the flames, a heavy silence settling over the room.

Finally, Fu Hu broke it. "Director Li... did you weld all the doors shut in the stairwell the day the rain started? Did you shut off the main water main too?"

"Affirmative."

"Aren't they going to die of thirst locked in there? It's been almost a week."

"Unlikely to be lethal just yet. Most households have pantries, and there's always reserve water in the toilet tanks."

"Ah..." Fu Hu relaxed slightly, the moral weight lifting a fraction. "How did you know about Qingdai, anyway?"

"A coworker has a kid at the same school. I caught wind of the rumors and tracked her down."

"Director Li, is there really no other backup plan? Has the National Key Risk Bureau really not mobilized any task forces? And you said the prophecy revolves around my daughter—what comes next?"

Irritated by the interrogation, Su Jin pulled out a cigarette, craving the nicotine.

He was just about to light it when he glanced at the unconscious Zhang Wan. Sighing, he shoved it back into the pack. "No mobilization. It's a bureaucracy full of desk jockeys and pencil pushers. The intel just confirmed a cataclysmic extinction event and flagged a 'savior' who could predict it. End of file."

"But my daughter is a child! Because of some cryptic fairy tale... what the hell is she supposed to do against this?!" Fu Hu's voice spiked in pitch.

"Because she's a child, we need to get off our asses right now and shoulder the operational burden for her!" Su Jin snapped, his voice dropping to a dangerous rumble. "Old Fu, lose the delusions. Even if the actual military is deploying rescue choppers as we speak, standard protocol dictates we establish a secure foothold first. The two aren't mutually exclusive."

"I will carry the tactical load. Qingdai is just our figurehead. She doesn't have to lift a finger or expose herself to the field."

Fu Hu gave a muffled grunt and fell silent.

Recognizing the dip in morale, Su Jin pivoted. "Old Fu, do you have any other next of kin?"

A violent shudder wracked Fu Hu's massive frame. "My old man..." his voice trembled. "The lines went dead a few days ago. I couldn't get through."

With that admission, the imposing, tower-like man finally broke. Tears spilled over his cheeks in a silent, jagged flood.

He didn't move until Fu Qingdai trotted back into the room with a kettle full of chipped ice. Fu Hu hurriedly scrubbed at his face, forcing his expression back into a semblance of stoic calm.

Taking a seat between the two men, Fu Qingdai looked back and forth, sensing the heavy atmosphere.

Fu Hu took a ragged breath. "Director, what's our next objective?"

"Next?" Su Jin stared into the glowing coals, a dark, calculating glint in his eye. "Next, we conduct a talent acquisition drive and build our roster. You're a veteran tenant here. You know the demographics of this building, right? Draft me a personnel file with their backgrounds. I'll unlock their doors, one by one."