Raise a Baby in an Apocalypse 26

She didn’t know the practical purpose of this sparkling gem that looked like a diamond. Nevertheless, she picked it up and tucked it into her pocket, continuing her ascend to the upper floors. This time, An Ran did not sheath her knife back into her pocket, she decided to carry it openly.

Outside the emergency staircase on the fifth floor, An Ran was already exhausted. For the sake of accessing the neonatal unit in better condition, she sat on the ground and prepared to take a brief rest.

The floor was chilly, causing An Ran’s lower back to ache immensely. In theory, she shouldn’t be torturing herself like this, having given birth less than 24 hours ago. However, there was no choice given the current circumstances. She couldn’t afford the luxury of proper postpartum care. Right now, discussing postpartum recovery was an extravagance.

As she weakly rested her head against the door, An Ran began to silently shed tears again. She desperately missed her ex-husband. Even though Zhan Lian might not have been of much help in her current situation, he had been a part of her life for a whole year, despite only being present for a few days. At least for that year, she had contemplated growing old with him and then facing death together.

Unconsciously, tears had blurred An Ran’s vision, and she wiped them away from her face using the back of her hand that held the knife. The contact of her hand with the tears made her wince in pain, and the hallway was so dark that she couldn’t see the condition of her hand. After the pain subsided, she felt an intense itch, but she dared not scratch for fear of making it more painful by scratching off the skin.

Suppressing the burning itch on her arms and hands, An Ran sat up and gazed at the small glass window on the emergency door. She could now see several zombies inside the neonatal unit on the fifth floor, who had already completed their transformation.

The people in the neonatal unit were gathered in the hallway, and in the pitch-black night, the flickering lights on the corridor appeared as if they were about to go out. At one end, there was a blue light room, and at the other end, an intensive care unit. There were also some doctor’s offices, facing the emergency door. Apart from the doctor’s offices and the hallway, no one was allowed to enter or exit the neonatal unit freely, including family members.

Although many family members were crowded here, driven by their longing for their children, the fifth floor was about to be overrun with zombies. However, one good thing was that the doors to the neonatal unit were not ordinary doors; they were sturdy metal sliding doors.

When An Ran had just given birth, her daughter had shown symptoms of jaundice and a slight fever, like all the other children in the same room. They had all been transferred to the neonatal unit, and An Ran had followed the nurse carrying her baby in the elevator. After paying the hospitalization fee for her child, the doctor had told her that she had wrapped the baby too tightly, which might have caused the slight fever.

The doctor recommended exposing the baby to blue light for 10 hours, and then they would observe the situation after.

So An Ran’s daughter should be in the blue light room right now.

She gently opened the emergency door. In the silent corridor, a faint “creak” echoed distinctly, and a few nearby zombies were drawn towards the sound. An Ran paused her movement to leave a slight gap in the door and watched as the closest zombie approached until it was just inches away from her. 

Standing in the emergency corridor, An Ran positioned herself to the side, allowing the zombie to push halfway through the door. She then positioned herself behind the zombie, quickly closed the door, and trapped the zombie inside. With the thick emergency door against her back, she raised the knife and thrust it forcefully into the zombie’s skull.