Chapter 6: Saving Elliot

After loading the bullets, Fang Qingzhou picked up the can of first aid spray once more.

There was a green cross in the center of the can, and the Umbrella Corporation logo was visible on the back. It was clearly an Umbrella Corporation product.

Seeing that Umbrella Corporation logo left a foul taste in Fang Qingzhou’s mouth.

Back in his past life, when watching Resident Evil movies and game streams, he’d thought a premier company like Umbrella Corporation was pretty badass.

Now, though, he wanted nothing more than to dig up the ancestral graves of Umbrella Corporation’s executives. It was this godforsaken company that had dragged him into this mess, not to mention that damn system for dumping him into this world.

“Still, it’s an item authenticated by the system, so there shouldn’t be any issues. Besides, it’s not like it’ll infect me…”

After hesitating for a moment, Fang Qingzhou sprayed it onto his shoulder anyway. After all, enduring the constant ache was miserable.

The instant Fang Qingzhou pressed the nozzle of the first aid spray, a fine mist settled evenly over the wound on his left shoulder.

A soothing chill instantly penetrated his torn flesh, as if an invisible hand were gently smoothing away the wounds.

Looking down, he watched the mangled wound knit together at a speed visible to the naked eye. The torn flesh gradually drew closed, the dark red blood dried into scabs, and in the end, it was reduced to a faint scar.

“This effect is ridiculous…” Fang Qingzhou rotated his left shoulder. Aside from a faint, lingering soreness, he could hardly feel any discomfort.

This was practically a miracle drug. Anywhere in the world, people would scramble for it, or even stockpile it as strategic supplies.

In fact, that was truly the case. In the lore of Resident Evil, before their development of biological weapons came to light, Umbrella Corporation had been a world-leading tech enterprise.

They were also the top pharmaceutical company on the planet, truly wealthy enough to rival nations. Even money presses couldn’t churn out cash as fast as they raked it in.

The medicines they developed had saved countless lives. Loaded with both wealth and fame, they had commanded legions of devoted supporters.

Yet their executives had lost their minds and pivoted to bioweapons. How could that crap make money faster than selling pharmaceuticals? And to make matters worse, the damn virus ended up leaking.

“Too bad this miracle medicine can’t fight off the virus…” Fang Qingzhou sighed.

The spray could only treat external injuries and couldn’t resist the T-Virus. Otherwise, Raccoon City would never have ended up like this.

Fang Qingzhou set down the empty can. This first aid spray had already been used before, with only half a bottle left, just enough to heal his shoulder.

“System, does this count as completing the first checkpoint?” Fang Qingzhou asked. He vaguely recalled from watching gameplay videos that the police station was the first save point.

【Not yet. Host, please continue progressing through the story.】

“Bullshit… can’t even give me a single save point…”

Fang Qingzhou continued cursing eighteen generations of the system’s ancestors in his head, but he still obediently checked his surroundings. After all, his own life was at stake.

Soon, he spotted a glowing laptop ahead. It was connected to the police station’s surveillance cameras, though the monitors showed nothing but empty halls.

Just as Fang Qingzhou was about to shut the laptop, a figure appeared on the bottom-most camera feed.

A police officer was sprinting down a corridor with a zombie right on his heels. He fired over his shoulder as he ran, but five shots in a row failed to take the zombie down.

“Brother, how is your aim even worse than mine…” Fang Qingzhou couldn’t help but complain, feeling a pang of heartache over those wasted rounds. If only those bullets had been given to him instead.

After surviving the battle at the gas station, he had developed a severe phobia of insufficient firepower.

Soon, the officer ran directly beneath the camera, held up a small notebook toward the lens, and shouted.

“David! Marvin! Are you there?! I found a way out! Back me up immediately! I’m in the East Hallway!”

Shoving off the lunging zombie, the officer bolted forward and quickly vanished from the camera’s view.

“Did I just trigger a main quest? I have to find that guy right away!” Hearing the officer say he’d found a way out, Fang Qingzhou knew what he had to do next without a second thought.

He pulled up the map on the laptop for the location the officer had mentioned and immediately sprang into action.

This was the real world; he didn’t have the luxury of taking his sweet time looting other rooms for supplies. If he was even a little too slow, there wouldn’t even be scraps left of that cop.

Soon, he arrived before the entrance leading to the East Hallway. It was an electric shutter door with a large paper sign reading “DO NOT ENTER” taped across it, practically screaming that danger lurked beyond.

Still, there was no alternative; saving the officer meant taking this exact path. He hit the switch for the shutter door, but after opening just a sliver, the mechanism jammed.

“Damn it…” Fang Qingzhou gauged the gap beneath the shutter. It was just wide enough for him to crawl through, though pitch-black darkness swallowed everything inside.

Faced with the situation, Fang Qingzhou had no choice but to bite the bullet and crawl under. He had barely wriggled forward a short distance when his hand touched something sticky.

He pulled out the flashlight he had grabbed back at the convenience store. Flicking it on, he discovered the floor and walls past the shutter door were coated in blood. A vicious battle or an outright massacre had clearly taken place here, sending chills down his spine.

Fortunately, neither corpses nor zombies were in sight, sparing him an immediate ambush. Gritting his teeth, he quickly scrambled under the shutter door.

Holding the flashlight tight in one hand and gun raised in the other, Fang Qingzhou crept forward on high alert.

A thick, pungent stench of blood washed over him. Viscous streaks of dark red dripped down the walls, pooling into blackened puddles across the floor that squelched nauseatingly beneath his feet.

The flashlight’s pale beam wobbled in the gloom, illuminating the long, oppressive East Hallway ahead. Most doors on either side remained firmly shut, while the few standing ajar revealed utter chaos, with overturned desks, chairs, and documents strewn across the floor.

The surroundings were eerily quiet, so silent that only his own heavy breathing and footsteps echoed through the dark.

Fang Qingzhou didn’t rush to open the surrounding doors. His primary objective right now was to find the police officer calling for help, not to scour the area for supplies.

Although Li Sanguang’s instincts made his hands itch every time he saw a door, reason told him that time waited for no one.

Without the slightest pause, Fang Qingzhou pressed forward toward the officer’s location. Before long, he heard the man’s shouts.

“Help! Open the door, quick!”

The cries came from behind a shutter door, accompanied by the crack of gunfire.

Fang Qingzhou hit the shutter switch at once, but just like before, it ground to a halt as soon as it opened enough for a person to crawl through.

“What is with these damn doors?!” Fang Qingzhou cursed, unable to hold back his anger. Just then, the gunfire on the other side fell silent. The officer had clearly run out of bullets; any longer, and the zombies would tear him apart.

Fang Qingzhou couldn’t afford to hesitate. Dropping flat, he stuck his head under the shutter. The moment he took in the scene on the other side, he drew his handgun and aimed at the zombie lunging for the officer.

From such an awkward position, his aim was off, and the shot only struck the zombie in the torso. Even so, it bought the officer enough time to scramble under the shutter on hands and knees.

Fang Qingzhou instantly yanked his head and hands back, then sprang to his feet to close the shutter.

“Thanks for the help. I’m Elliot.”

The officer slumped on the floor with his back against the wall, his head tilted back as he gasped for air, his voice weak and trembling with the relief of having just cheated death.