Apocalypse Ground Zero: Refusing To Leave Home

Gu Han had spent the entire morning preparing for Shen Rouxi’s arrival.

The reports from the outer streets had come in before sunrise. Zombies were shifting east again, turning toward the marked subjects even after the vehicles stopped. The men he had stationed near the old commercial road had seen more dead leaving the city centre than at any point in the last month.

Everything was working.

Not perfectly, but well enough.

Rouxi had finally left her mansion.

Gu Han stood in front of the largest house in the cul-de-sac with twelve armed men behind him and more watching from the rooftops. The street had been cleared. The bodies had been removed. Everyone without a weapon had been ordered indoors before the SUV arrived.

He wanted Rouxi to see order.

Walls.

People who followed instructions.

A settlement that could survive because one person made the decisions and everyone else understood their place.

Instead, she stepped out of the SUV and asked, "Where did you put the bitten people?"

No greeting.

No surprise at the size of his settlement.

She didn’t even look at the men behind him.

Gu Han kept smiling.

He had expected her to be difficult. Every report he had ever received about Shen Rouxi described the same kind of woman. Spoiled. Selfish. Unwilling to cooperate unless the situation benefited her directly.

Even before the apocalypse, she had refused him something as small as embroidery thread simply because she could.

The thread had never mattered.

The refusal had.

People didn’t tell Gu Han no and then walk away as though the conversation was finished.

Rouxi had done it more than once.

Behind her, Xu Zhenlan stepped out of the passenger side. Zhou Chenghai came around the front of the SUV and stopped near Rouxi’s shoulder.

Jian Yuche opened the rear door.

Wei Lingyun climbed out more slowly than Gu Han expected, one arm braced against the vehicle while Yuche stayed close enough to catch him. A reinforced vest covered most of his torso, but the careful way he moved made the injury obvious.

Good.

One of them was already weakened.

Gu Han’s men noticed too. Several shifted their weapons.

Lingyun looked toward the rooftops.

The corner of his mouth lifted.

Gu Han suddenly wished his men had remained still.

Rouxi walked away from the SUV. Chenghai moved with her immediately, while Zhenlan stayed close on her other side.

Neither man looked toward the workers, houses, or barricades Gu Han had prepared for them.

They watched her.

That was disappointing.

Gu Han had expected Xu Zhenlan to understand what he was seeing. The man had commanded more territory, people, and resources than anyone left alive. Zhou Chenghai had helped him hold it together.

They knew what survival required.

They knew scattered groups had to be brought under one command before they wasted everything fighting over scraps.

Gu Han had assumed they would see the same need here.

Instead, Zhenlan reached for Rouxi’s hand.

Gu Han’s smile tightened.

"The bitten people are contained," he said. "They aren’t a danger to anyone inside the settlement."

Rouxi kept walking until only a few meters separated them. "That wasn’t what I asked."

Her voice remained flat.

She didn’t sound angry.

That bothered him more than shouting would have.

Gu Han spread one hand toward the houses around them. "We have more important things to discuss. You came because you understand the problem now. The city is changing, and separate settlements won’t survive what comes next."

Rouxi looked past him toward the largest house.

The plants in the overgrown yards shifted.

But only slightly.

Gu Han almost missed it.

Zhenlan didn’t.

His gaze moved toward the cracked pavement near the curb, then returned to Gu Han.

"We’ve already established secure roads, food production, medical space, and housing," Gu Han continued. "Your property has stronger natural defenses, but it lacks room. Mine has people, supplies, and access routes. Combining them is the obvious solution."

Rouxi finally looked at him again.

"Combining them."

"Yes."

"With you in charge."

Gu Han had planned to explain the structure carefully. Rouxi didn’t understand leadership. She had spent months hiding inside her mansion while other people built the roads and protections around it.

The four men had done the real work.

She had only benefited from it.

"There would be shared authority," he said. "Xu and Zhou would oversee defense and expansion. Jian can manage internal security. Wei’s people already control the black market, which gives us access to supplies and trade."

Lingyun leaned against the SUV.

His smile widened.

Gu Han ignored him.

Rouxi stopped directly in front of Gu Han. Chenghai’s hand settled against the back of her neck.

She didn’t look trapped between them.

She looked comfortable.

"And me?" she asked.

"You would remain at the residence."

That was generous.

Gu Han had no intention of removing her from the mansion immediately. The plants were tied to her, and the barrier might be as well. As long as she stayed cooperative, she could keep whatever rooms she wanted and continue pretending the property belonged only to her.

Over time, the workers would move closer.

Then the guards.

Once enough people depended on the mansion, Rouxi’s opinion wouldn’t matter.

Gu Han kept his voice calm. "You would have protection, supplies, and whatever personal space you need. No one expects you to handle daily operations."

Chenghai’s fingers stopped against her neck.

Zhenlan looked at Gu Han as though he had already become a body that needed moving.

Gu Han had misjudged something.

Rouxi scratched lightly at the old scar on her calf.

"Did you really think they would work for you?"

"They understand what leadership requires."

"No. They understand what you want them to do."

Gu Han’s men moved behind him.

Yuche shut the SUV door and guided Lingyun away from it. Lingyun straightened despite the injury, fire flickering once along his fingers before disappearing.

Gu Han raised one hand.

His men stopped.

This could still be corrected.

"You don’t know what the city looks like outside your walls," he told Rouxi. "People are starving. Shelters are collapsing. Roads are blocked. Someone has to organize what remains."

Rouxi looked around the cul-de-sac.

At the armed men.

The clean street.

The curtains moving in the windows.

At the houses beneath which Gu Han had placed the marked subjects.

"You mean you," she said.

"I’ve kept these people alive."

"You fed three shelters to zombies and stole what was left."

The words struck harder than they should have.

Gu Han’s attention moved toward Zhenlan’s tablet.

Head Luo’s records.

He should have destroyed them himself.

"Those shelters were failing," Gu Han said. "Their supplies would’ve been wasted."

Rouxi’s plants moved again.

This time, every dead lawn in the cul-de-sac shifted.

Roots travelled beneath the dry grass without breaking the surface, spreading from yard to yard as though they had been waiting for her feet to touch the street.

Several of Gu Han’s men noticed.

Weapons lifted.

Zhenlan’s lightning flashed.

Chenghai moved half a step in front of Rouxi.

Yuche’s metal spread beneath the road with a low grinding sound, reaching the barricades before anyone could run toward them.

Lingyun stayed near the SUV, one hand pressed against his ribs while fire curled around the fingers of the other.

Rouxi didn’t look at any of them.

She kept her eyes on Gu Han.

"Where are they?"

Gu Han held her stare.

He had men, guns, walls, and enough supplies to last through the year. She had come into his settlement with only four people, one of them injured.

She should have been the one surrounded.

Then something struck a metal door beneath the nearest house.

The sound travelled through the ground.

Once.

Twice.

The roots beneath the yard turned toward it.

Rouxi looked down.

Gu Han’s stomach tightened.

She could feel them.

He had known she would.

That was why he sent the first marked man to her mansion.

That was why the records said the old bite on her leg mattered.

He had only expected the connection to pull zombies toward her.

He hadn’t expected her to follow it back.

Rouxi lifted her head.

The smile had disappeared from Gu Han’s face before he noticed.

She pointed toward the house behind him.

"Open the basement."

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