Prioritizing Benefit

Jiang Chu softly murmured his name. His condition looked truly terrible; his body was covered in countless wounds, large and small, constantly oozing blood. His clothes were torn to shreds, with cuts, burns, and all sorts of injuries. Surviving until this moment was truly a miracle.
She glanced over; this was an examination room, and there happened to be a small examination bed. Outside, zombies were frantically attacking the flimsy door. Undeterred, she stood behind him, placed her hands on his shoulders, and prepared to pull him onto the bed.
She thought Zhao Jing Yao had been knocked unconscious by her, but unexpectedly, at the moment she lifted him, his lips twitched slightly, and his hoarse, broken voice interrupted, "Just leave me here; you can't move me up."
After all, he was one meter ninety tall, and the examination bed was one meter off the ground; it would be very difficult for her to pull him up.
"Alright, then lean against the wall for now. I'll help you with your wounds." Jiang Chu looked at his shoulders and legs, which were still bleeding profusely, feeling a little guilty because she had stabbed him.
She pondered, then asked, "You weren't bitten or scratched, were you?"
Zhao Jing Yao spoke with difficulty. He struggled to lift his eyelids and said coldly, "If I had been, I wouldn't have been able to pull you in here."
"Why are you here?"
Jiang Chu didn't answer. She poured some water, casually washed her hands, and stood between his legs, which she had separated. She took scissors from her climbing backpack, bent down, and cut away the torn fabric from the wound on his shoulder. His shoulder and back were a bloody mess.
She immediately used a sanitary pad to stop the bleeding; his blood soaked the entire pad.
Zhao Jing Yao leaned against the wall. The pain made him gasp, his head thrown back. His eyes were filled with endurance, still retaining some rationality, and his head tilted slightly to one side.
Due to the explosion, his vision was somewhat blurred. He could only see her bending down, her expression serious, helping him clean his wounds.
The zombies continued to frantically pound on the clinic door. With life and death hanging in the balance, he was terrifyingly calm.
Feeling Zhao Jing Yao's body leaning forward, his breathing ragged, Jiang Chu frowned in dissatisfaction and applied a little more force with her hands, "Don't move."
She narrowed her eyes. Saving Zhao Jing Yao wasn't out of overflowing sympathy. Firstly, he was a well-known military officer in the safe zone, and his status was naturally not low. There would surely be times when she needed him later, so it was better to let him owe her a favor.
Secondly, the signal flare was in his hands. If he was critically injured and activated the signal flare, she wouldn't have time to collect core crystals. Having an ability didn't mean she wasn't afraid of bombs.
These two points were crucial. For her, benefit was paramount; she wouldn't do anything useless.
Thirdly, Zhao Jing Yao wasn't beyond saving. Considering he had warned her and pulled her into the examination room, helping him with simple wound treatment was merely "sending charcoal in snowy weather," hardly worth mentioning.
His physique was truly excellent, with broad shoulders and a slender waist, though his uniform had been cut to tatters by her. She searched for items in the examination room, found a bottle of saline solution and iodine alcohol in a drawer, opened them without hesitation, and poured them directly onto his wounds.
"Hiss..." Zhao Jing Yao gasped, but still endured. The corners of his eyes were red, revealing a hint of alluring beauty. Noticing the commotion outside, he frowned, "You can still leave now; that door won't hold much longer."
Jiang Chu applied iodine alcohol to his shoulders and back, casually bandaging the most severe wounds with sterile gauze. Time was pressing, and his wounds were too numerous; she could only try to clean the most easily infected and life-threatening ones.
"Do you think you can leave now?" She pointed at the window. "The explosion was too loud; zombies from several miles around have been drawn here. If you want to live, don't resist me."
Zhao Jing Yao fell silent for a moment, his eyes dim. The "Big Boss" upstairs hadn't even made a move, and their side had already lost more than half its manpower.
He pointed to the bag at his hip, wanting to say something, but found his throat was hoarse, almost unable to make a sound.
Jiang Chu stood up and stared at him, rarely seeing such weakness in this man.
Jiang Chu poured alcohol onto a tissue, quickly covered his mouth and nose, and stepped on his hand, preventing him from resisting. Before long, he passed out.
She softly "tsk"-ed, opened the door to let two zombies in, quickly locked the door again, and then killed those two zombies to collect their core crystals.
Afterward, she directly stripped off Zhao Jing Yao's clothes and gave him a cursory glance. His once attractive body was now tragically scarred beyond recognition. She casually performed some preliminary treatment, applied bandages to easily infected areas, then helped him put his clothes back on. She then smeared zombie blood on his clothes and uninjured skin, and also applied some to herself.
She took the signal flare from his person, along with seven core crystals from his waist pouch.
Zhao Jing Yao had underestimated her too much. Jiang Chu had survived in the apocalypse for so many years, relying on her intelligence and strength, absolutely not a fragile "hothouse flower."
If she hadn't been plotted against by someone she trusted, she could have lived much longer.
She pulled Zhao Jing Yao under the examination bed and used a curtain to shield all four sides.
The cabinet next to the examination table wasn't actually large. She found a way to pull it down and place it in front of the bed.
She could only do so much. Whether Zhao Jing Yao survived or not was all up to fate.
His core crystals, she would definitely return them to him if he was still alive after she went downstairs.
At this moment, the zombies outside had broken into the examination room, but they couldn't smell any living humans. They restlessly paced inside, baring their teeth.
Jiang Chu, covered in zombie blood, quickly ran up to the fourth floor. Glancing over, she saw someone seemingly watching her silently from behind a window.
Unexpectedly, the fourth floor was completely empty; not a single zombie had come up, nor was there any sound, as if it were an independent area.
The silence all around created a stark contrast to the chaos below.
This was certainly not a good sign. She silently circulated her core crystals, ready to act at any moment. Like this, both sides of the hallway were sealed laboratories, yet there was not a single sound.
A few fresh bloodstains were scattered on the ground, their color still very vibrant, indicating they had dripped not long ago, possibly even within the hour.
She was currently outside. In the darkness, there might be Tier 2, or even Tier 3 zombies waiting for her, in addition to that doctor in his prime.
Jiang Chu pretended to walk carefully to the last room, her hand on the doorknob. Just as she was about to open the door, a streak of fire blocked the escape route downstairs.
Immediately after, her combat uniform suddenly burst into flames. The fire was dazzling, the heat scorching. In an instant, the hallway ignited into a towering inferno. The fourth floor could be incinerated at any moment, and the fire showed signs of spreading downwards. Smoke billowed, making her breathing difficult.
Jiang Chu scoffed, she had long anticipated this.
Ice abilities countered fire.
A stream of flames separated from the sea of fire and came towards her.
An endless stream of water surged from beside her, instantly extinguishing the sparks on her body. The ground immediately froze, and ice extinguished the large fire next to her.
Her eyes were calm, and her fingertips moved slightly. The water sphere at her fingertips quickly condensed into the shape of a crystal ball. She threw the water sphere, and endless ice and ice walls slowly lowered the temperature. In less than a minute, the fire was extinguished.
The hallway was scarred, the walls scorched black.
But she was completely unharmed, only a bit of fabric on her clothes was burned.
"Is a Tier 2 ability user's core crystal still not enough to attract you? You should show yourself." Jiang Chu's gaze locked onto the last laboratory room at the end of the long hallway.