Two Worlds in the Apocalypse: Each journey through the modern world lasts 60 seconds.

The group of survivors who had managed to escape into the town were now hiding in the ruins of a two-story shop facing the street. The front door on the first floor was broken, and they had barely managed to block the entrance with the broken furniture they could find, but they still felt unsafe. Everyone was slumped on the dusty floor, panting heavily, their faces a mixture of relief and fear from surviving the ordeal.

The team leader was a middle-aged man named Zhang Hao. He was tall, but he looked quite disheveled at the moment. His face was covered in snow and sweat, and his eyes were full of fatigue and solemnity.

Instead of resting immediately like the others, he forced his exhausted body to move carefully behind a broken window on the second floor. Using the wall as cover, he cautiously looked towards the entrance of the town, his brows furrowed.

He was waiting, or rather, fearing, the appearance of that enormous figure. That incredibly strong, almost invulnerable monster had caused his team immense casualties and psychological trauma.

Footsteps sounded softly, and the woman with the neat ponytail who had been holding the rear guard with a gun at the back of the column walked over. Her name was Lin Wei, and her face was also stained with blood and snow, her eyes sharp yet unable to conceal her sorrow. She walked to Zhang Hao's side, followed his gaze and glanced outside, then spoke in a low voice, with a barely perceptible tremor:

"Brother Hao, I've helped Xiao Chu get rid of this burden."

Zhang Hao's body stiffened slightly. He didn't turn around, but his fingers gripping the window frame turned slightly white from the pressure. He remained silent for a few seconds before asking in a hoarse voice, "When did this happen?"

"Just now, in the corner downstairs," Lin Wei's voice lowered, "the color of the wound on her leg was off, and the blood had a strange smell. When we dragged her into town, she started talking nonsense, and her pupils were changing. I knew there was no hope; rather than let her become one of those things..."

She didn't continue, but her meaning was clear. The young girl in the group named Xiao Chu had been injured by zombies during their previous escape. Although she had barely made it into the town, the virus had begun to erode her body. To prevent her from becoming a new zombie and threatening others, Lin Wei had to make the cruelest but most necessary choice.

Zhang Hao took a deep breath of the cold, polluted air and slowly exhaled, as if trying to expel the pent-up frustration and pain in his chest. He turned around and patted Lin Wei's shoulder, the movement somewhat heavy.

"It's not your fault, you did the right thing." His voice carried a deep sense of powerlessness. "It's better this way, at least she left relatively peacefully, unlike Da Liu and Xiao Zhao..."

He paused, not continuing, but Lin Wei and the other team members who had vaguely overheard the conversation all wore expressions of pain and lingering fear. They recalled their teammate being caught and torn apart and devoured alive by that powerful zombie; the agonizing screams and bloody scenes were etched into their minds like a nightmare. In comparison, Xiao Chu's fate might truly be considered "merciful."

The atmosphere grew even heavier.

Another half hour passed, and outside the window, there was still only the howling of the wind; the expected destructive sounds and terrifying roars did not materialize. Zhang Hao's tense nerves relaxed slightly, but he still dared not be careless.

He walked down the stairs, looked at his teammates who were slumped on the floor, their faces pale and ashen, cleared his throat, and tried to make his voice sound calm: "Don't just stand there, it's getting dark. Find something to cook and get something hot to eat. That way, even if we die, we'll die with our fill, right?"

His words were blunt, even somewhat cruel, but they effectively dispelled some of the stagnant atmosphere of despair, and the instinct for survival spurred them into action. Several team members struggled to their feet and began rummaging through the ruins. Someone else carefully took out a small iron pot from their backpack, scooped in some clean snow, added a few pieces of compressed rations and the only remaining small bag of dried meat, preparing to cook a pot of porridge.

When a faint flame flickered in the makeshift stove, dispelling some of the darkness and chill, a glimmer of life seemed to return to everyone's faces. The allure of food and warmth temporarily overcame their fear.

As darkness fell completely, the area near the town's entrance remained deathly silent. The terrifying, powerful zombie had still not appeared.

Standing at the second-floor window, Zhang Hao gazed at the dark outline of the ruins outside, and a guess gradually formed in his mind. He went downstairs and said to his team members, who were nibbling on the scalding hot porridge:

"The zombie didn't follow us in." He tried to make his tone sound certain. "It probably went after the pack of wolves, which is good for us."

This hypothesis makes perfect sense; the wolf pack and they all came from the same direction, and the mutated zombie was likely distracted by the wolves. Hearing this analysis, the team members' eyes lit up with hope, as if a huge weight had been lifted from their hearts.

"Everyone, take a break and conserve your energy. I'll be on the first shift tonight," Zhang Hao instructed. "Lin Wei, you'll be on duty for the second half of the night. Everyone else, eat and go to sleep immediately. Nobody's allowed to delay!"

No one objected; after a day of life-or-death escape, everyone was exhausted, both physically and mentally. They huddled in a corner, wrapped themselves tightly in whatever they could to keep warm, and soon fell into a deep sleep, perhaps restless even in their dreams.

Zhang Hao sat alone behind the furniture blocking the door on the first floor, his old hunting rifle tightly gripped in his hand, his ears perked up, trying to catch any sound outside.

Late at night.

Suddenly, a faint, long, and mournful wolf howl came from outside the town on the wind.

Zhang Hao's spirits lifted, and instead of being afraid, he became even more convinced of his judgment.

"Just as I thought! That monster must have gone after the wolf pack. Judging from its howl, it might have already succeeded..." he muttered to himself, his last trace of worry fading away. In his view, this was the best outcome; the wolf pack had drawn the mutated zombies' attention, giving them a precious chance to catch their breath.

He had no idea that the wolf pack, whom he considered his "saviors," were currently devouring the very corpse of the powerful zombie that had nearly wiped them out. And all his assumptions were based on a beautiful misunderstanding.

At the same time, Xu Mo, who was in the shelter a few hundred meters away, also heard the wolf howl. Hearing the sound, he paused for a moment, then understood.

"Pretty efficient," he commented casually, as if it were a trivial matter unrelated to him. Xu Mo could naturally guess that the wolf pack was "cleaning up the battlefield," treating the strength-type zombie he had sniped that afternoon as a feast that had fallen from the sky.

The next day, just as dawn broke, Xu Mo, as usual, observed from the rooftop and made a point of looking at the spot where the strength-type zombie had fallen the day before.

Sure enough, the snowfield was completely clean. Apart from a few messy marks from being trampled and dragged, there wasn't a trace of blood or bits of flesh to be found. The wolves had taken everything they could, as if nothing had ever happened there.

Nature's cleaners are always so efficient and thorough.

In another building, Zhang Hao and his team members, after a relatively peaceful night, gradually awoke. Looking at the morning light streaming through the windows and the still-quiet, desolate town, their hope for survival was rekindled.

Little did they know that this temporary peace was not a stroke of luck, but rather the result of a "neighbor" they had never noticed, hidden deep within the ruins, who had casually eliminated the imminent threat.