"Listen carefully. My supplies are mine. I bought them before all this because I had the sense to prepare. You want to survive? Then go find your own way to survive. If you come here again, I will not be as patient." One of the men who had once shouted the most loudly was now trembling with both anger and fear, but even that did not stop him from trying one last ugly line. "You think you can act so proud just because you are strong? Women like you are always like this until a real man teaches you a lesson." Bai Li looked at him very slowly. Then she walked up and slapped him hard enough to make his head turn. The room went still. The slap was not brutal in a bloody sense, but it was humiliating. It was quick, sharp, and clean, and the silence that came after it was worse than any wound. "Say that again," Bai Li said softly. He did not. He could not. The words had already died in his throat.

She could have gone further. She knew it. The thought passed through her mind as she watched the mess of people in front of her, all their pride leaking out in sweat and fear. She could have broken more bones. She could have made them all crawl. Part of her wanted to, simply because they had been stupid enough to come here in the first place and loud enough to deserve it. But Bai Li had already seen the CCTV footage of the lower floors. More zombies were entering the building now, drawn by the earlier noise and the movement outside. The commotion she had made earlier when coming back on her bike with Yan Cijin had already caused enough disturbance to wake more of them. She had seen them on the cameras drifting toward the stairwell, piling in from the lower entrance, some already trying to move upward. If these fools stayed in the building with broken hands and bruised pride, the zombies would do the rest. Bai Li did not need to kill them personally. Nature and stupidity would handle that very soon. So she stepped back and looked at them with a level face. "You should leave now," she said. "If you keep hanging around here, you will die in the stairs before you reach your floor." The building manager stared at her with a face full of shame and fear, as if he wanted to say something and could not. The others were not in much better shape. One of the men clutched his wrist. Another held his knee. One woman was still rubbing her arm where Bai Li had shoved her away. The most talkative ones now had almost nothing left to say. Their mouths had run out before their bodies had.

The group began to retreat, not all at once, but in small clumsy steps, as if nobody wanted to be the first to turn their back fully. Bai Li watched them with a cool and steady expression, not chasing them, not fearing them, just waiting until they accepted that this little act had failed. One of them muttered something about calling the police, though it sounded weak and useless even to himself. Another said this would not be the end of it. Bai Li did not respond. She did not need to. Their words no longer had weight. They were just people trying to save face while stumbling backward from a fight they had started and lost. A few of them limped. One man could barely put pressure on one foot. Another kept holding his hand, wincing each time he moved. Bai Li had done exactly what she intended. She had not killed them, but she had made the cost clear. If they did not die from the zombies now, they would die later from wounds they could not treat. Either way, their chance had already slipped away. She stood in the doorway until the last of them had gone from sight, then looked toward the stairwell camera one more time. As expected, the sounds and motion had already brought more zombies into the building. Some were gathering below. Some were already climbing. The commotion had done its work. Bai Li had no interest in pursuing the foolish group further. The building itself would punish them soon enough.

Once the hallway was quiet again, Bai Li turned back to the door she had just come through. She had one more thing to do before she could rest. The stair security door on this floor had already been damaged by their tools, and she was not about to leave it that way. She moved back into the small storage space near the apartment entrance, took out a heavy chain and a strong lock, and returned to the damaged door. The metal frame still bore marks from the hacksaw and the force they had used, but it had not been enough to matter. Bai Li wrapped the chain around the door handle and the fixed bar beside it, pulling it tight with one strong motion. Then she put the lock through the loop and snapped it shut. The sound was firm and satisfying. She checked it once, then again, and when she was satisfied, she let out a quiet breath. The door was locked now. The floor was sealed. If they wanted to come through again, they would need a new plan, a better tool, and a lot more courage than they had shown today. Bai Li looked at the chain for one more moment and then turned away with complete calm. The group had come with greed, pride, and a bunch of useless talk. They left with bruised egos, broken pride, and a much shorter path toward death. Bai Li was not bothered by any of it. In fact, she thought it was almost neat how naturally the world sorted out such people. She had simply helped the process along.

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TO BE CONTINUED.