The flashlight's beam forced the man outside to squint against the light.
He wore a short-sleeved T-shirt and jeans.
Even in winter, when smells don't carry as easily, the pungent stench of urine clinging to him was unmistakable.
Filthy and emaciated, his bony frame looked like it could snap in the wind.
His clothes bore multiple shoe prints—such a wretched sight was unusual even in this shelter.
Probably another unlucky soul bullied by the local thugs.
"Have we met before?" Huang Jin couldn't shake the feeling that the man looked familiar.
"Y-yes… we were classmates."
The man gave a bitter smile, revealing a missing front tooth.
That miserable, almost tearful expression finally jogged Huang Jin's memory.
"Class Monitor?"
"Th-thank you… for remembering me…"
The man was none other than Zhang Lei, Huang Jin's former class monitor.
Huang Jin had a decent impression of him—especially since he'd often lent him homework to copy.
"Come in, quick. Why are you dressed so lightly?"
Huang Jin hurriedly opened the door and ushered the shivering man inside.
But it was precisely because of his thin clothing that Huang Jin could be sure he wasn't armed, allowing him to let him in.
"I-it got torn off… in a fight…"
"Did you lose your tooth in that fight too?"
"Yeah…" Zhang Lei forced another pained smile.
"You were never strong to begin with. Why pick fights? Who did this to you?"
"B-Baldie."
"Damn, you really are unlucky."
Huang Jin grabbed a heavy coat and tossed it to Zhang Lei, who sat hunched on the tattered sofa.
"Th-thank you…"
Zhang Lei quickly wrapped himself in it, his trembling gradually subsiding.
"So… why did Baldie beat you up?"
Baldie—a muscular man in his early thirties, the shelter's second-in-command. The top boss was his older brother.
A pair of human trash.
Huang Jin waited for an answer, but Zhang Lei fell silent at the question.
After a long pause, he finally spoke:
"C-can I not say?"
"Sure."
Huang Jin smirked, pouring a cup of water from the dispenser.
"As long as you're not here to cause trouble, I don't need to know the details."
Zhang Lei hesitated again, as if wrestling with himself, before finally forcing out the truth:
"Xia He… Xia He is dead…"
Huang Jin froze mid-sip.
Then, he walked over and handed the water to Zhang Lei.
"Th-thanks…"
"How?"
"Baldie and his men… they killed her…"
"Where's the body?"
"Dumped in the trash pit outside the shelter… naked…"
Huang Jin fell silent.
He could already piece together what had happened.
For scum like them, this kind of thing was routine.
"We… we only got here yesterday… saw the shelter and thought we could take refuge…
But then Baldie…"
Zhang Lei began recounting the events.
It all traced back to the zombie outbreak two years ago.
Back then, City A had descended into chaos. But Xia He—the class beauty—came from a wealthy family.
In the early days of the outbreak, her family sent a helicopter to evacuate her from school.
But Xia He wasn't there at the time. Instead, she'd risked her life to go to the hospital—
Because Zhang Lei had been hospitalized with acute appendicitis.
In the end, she found her boyfriend.
But by then, the helicopter was long gone.
After that?
They were forced to flee like everyone else.
And yesterday, they stumbled into City C.
The two had tried to seek protection at the shelter.
But the shelter demanded "rent."
They had nothing to offer and were about to leave—
When Baldie happened to spot them.
He took one look at the beautiful Xia He and ordered his men to drag her away.
Zhang Lei fought back, of course, but against a gang of thugs, what chance did he have?
The result? A beating so brutal it knocked out his front tooth.
Baldie had made his terms clear:
"Want her back? Bring me ten pounds of food. Do it in a day, and I swear nothing will happen to your girl."
With no other choice, Zhang Lei had no choice but to believe him.
He spent the entire day scavenging—but came back empty-handed.
In desperation, he stuffed a bag with garbage, hoping to trick Baldie.
His plan was simple:
Propose a trade—the bag for Xia He.
The moment Baldie handed her over and reached for the bag, he'd grab her and run.
But reality was cruel.
While filling the bag with trash, he stumbled upon a naked corpse in the dump.
A closer look revealed it was Xia He.
Her face twisted in agony.
Her body… bore the filth of multiple men.
The sight shattered Zhang Lei.
Blind with rage, he charged back into the shelter to confront Baldie.
But life wasn't an anime.
A lone man against a gang only earned him another beating—and humiliation.
They knocked him down, stripped him, and pissed on him.
All while laughing about Xia He's body—how she'd struggled, how she'd screamed.
Every word was gasoline on the fire of his fury.
Somehow, despite his exhaustion, Zhang Lei found the strength to stand again.
This time, he didn't lunge blindly.
Instead, he kicked Baldie square between the legs mid-piss.
Then he ran for his life.
With Baldie and his men—now doubled over in pain—chasing after him,
He barely managed to hide in a garbage pile deep in the shelter's dead zone.
Too afraid to move during the day, he waited until nightfall.
Only when the shelter fell silent did he dare seek out Huang Jin.
He'd learned about Huang Jin from a fellow scavenger—an old man who'd once stayed at the shelter.
The scavenger, who called himself Old Third, had been kicked out for failing to pay rent.
Zhang Lei recognized the description—it sounded just like his old classmate.
So he took a chance.
And luckily, it paid off.
"What was the scavenger's name?" Huang Jin asked, now fully caught up.
"He called himself Old Third. A man in his sixties."
"Him, huh…"
Huang Jin nodded. He did know the man.
Then he studied Zhang Lei—once the envy of their male classmates—and said:
"You didn't come here just to drag me into your mess, did you?"
"I… I want you… to help me kill someone…"