Zhou Yi hadn't slept all night, constantly pondering the feasibility of his plan. For his body, sleep was no longer a necessity; it was merely a habit.
However, when he dedicated his sleeping hours to meticulously studying his plan, he always uncovered some flaws.
These flaws weren't irreparable, but mending them would require a substantial amount of manpower and time—two things he sorely lacked.
His trustworthy personnel were extremely limited and couldn't be of much help here. As for time, it was even scarcer.
Sitting here, he could already witness some major covert operations by Umbrella, and the larger their movements, the closer the crisis loomed.
He didn't even need to think to guess that a terrifying crisis was about to erupt before his eyes.
Umbrella lacked the ability to stop it; otherwise, they wouldn't have evacuated most of their important personnel in such a short time.
This was sufficient proof that they judged the city to be hopeless in the face of the impending crisis. Otherwise, they would never abandon this city, a city they had built with their own hands.
The source of the crisis had completely erupted, and everything it caused was beyond Umbrella's control.
It would destroy this city and bring enormous consequences to the entire World. This was beyond doubt.
Zhou Yi had once considered whether he could destroy the source before it erupted, thereby preventing all of this. This was a method to save the city, but after careful deliberation, he rejected the plan.
It wasn't that he didn't know the source of the crisis. Ever since Alfred gave him information, he had investigated Raccoon City and was well aware of the existence hidden deep underground.
On the night he arrived in Raccoon City, he discovered the problem there. He knew that was the source of the crisis, yet he made no moves.
Because the true source was Umbrella; the Hive was merely the catalyst for this incident.
If Umbrella wasn't overthrown, his destroying one Hive would be meaningless. If there was a first Hive, there would be a second.
He could destroy this one, but he couldn't guarantee destroying every subsequent one. Treating the symptoms but not the root cause was meaningless.
So, he chose to let all of this happen. Only by exposing everything Umbrella had done to the World could all of humanity reject its existence.
Only then could its breeding ground be completely eradicated. It was precisely because of this that he conceived his current plan. Humanity had to taste pain to recognize the true danger.
All he could do was try to save some lives after this pain emerged.
Although some people would sacrifice themselves for this, it was worth it. Because their sacrifice was enough to save humanity from a devastating crisis.
From a holistic perspective, such a small loss was completely acceptable.
This was the cost of justice: for the greater good, you always had to choose to sacrifice a part of existence. And this was often what a hero had to pay.
You needed to weigh what needed to be abandoned and what needed to be saved.
This was not an easy choice to make, but it was a necessary one. Many heroes couldn't pass this test because they could never weigh their respective importance, unable to distinguish which one had to be abandoned.
And this was the most terrifying.
When your heart wavered, when you hesitated and doubted your decisions, or even felt regret, it often meant the decline of your power.
Not physically, but spiritually. This decline was even more terrifying; it could cause a person's spirit to sink, especially a hero's spirit.
And for a hero without a strong inner self, his doom was imminent.
Zhou Yi believed that although his inner self wasn't strong, he had made his choices in such matters. People grew, and he naturally did too.
From a hero's perspective, he was already a mature hero, for he had the resolve to bear pain and sin.
Only those who could bear these were true heroes. There were never perfect, flawless individuals or Saints in the World.
Never. Even if they existed, it was only in the most naive fantasies.
Another night passed like this.
The next day, as the first faint light of dawn appeared, Zhou Yi heard a strange sound.
It was hurried footsteps and the sound of rummaging. Just by hearing these sounds, Zhou Yi knew that the drunken woman must have woken up.
However, this woman still surprised him. Pushing open the bedroom door, Jill, wrapped in a bath towel, stormed out, her eyes practically spitting Fire when she saw Zhou Yi.
Without a word, she immediately raised the gun in her hand and pointed it at him.
"Did you strip me naked?"
"If there's no one else here, then it must have been me," Zhou Yi replied frankly, as there was no one else to take the blame for this.
Upon hearing Zhou Yi's answer, Jill's face darkened. Without a word, she pulled the trigger.
Bullets tore several large holes in the sofa, but none hit Zhou Yi. He had already darted into a corner of the room, hiding behind the wall and beginning to defend himself.
"Hey, are you crazy! I didn't do anything!"
"Go to hell, you damned bastard!" Jill's gunshots didn't stop. Zhou Yi was already too lazy to reason with this emotionally unstable woman.
He quietly crept from the corner to the kitchen bar and stealthily grabbed something.
The bullets quickly ran out. Taking advantage of the moment Jill started looking for a magazine to reload, Zhou Yi directly threw the apple in his hand.
The apple struck the pistol, and the force easily knocked the gun away. Without a gun, Jill naturally wasn't a concern for Zhou Yi.
Soon, he pinned the problematic woman onto the sofa.
"Will you give me a chance to explain? Seriously, I didn't do anything to you yesterday."
"Pah, you shameless fellow. You do something and don't even have the courage to admit it, you useless trash!"
"Nonsense! If you hadn't been throwing up all over the place last night, I wouldn't have bothered to clean you up like this! Do you think you're some kind of darling?"
Being constantly scolded by Jill, even Zhou Yi felt his temper rise. He wanted to hit the woman, but he didn't have a proper standing. So he could only retort with words.
Facing Zhou Yi's rebuttal, Jill turned her face away, a look of disdain on her face.
"I've seen too many scumbags like you. Let me go. At worst, I'll just consider it being bitten by a dog. Let go, do you hear me!"
What did she mean, 'bitten by a dog'? Zhou Yi's eyebrows furrowed.
He had done nothing, yet he was being blamed for such a huge misunderstanding; no one would be happy about that.
However, at this moment, he could only release this unreasonable woman. The situation was already urgent to a certain extent, and there was no time to dwell on such matters.
Free from Zhou Yi's grasp, Jill entered her bedroom with a cold face. Soon, she changed into a fresh set of clothes and came out.
Facing the displeased Zhou Yi, she cut straight to the point without further ado.
"Last night, that thing you mentioned. I need to know your detailed plan."
Jill didn't bring up what had just happened, which was good for Zhou Yi, as he also didn't want to get entangled in that messy affair anymore.
Since she wouldn't believe him no matter what he said, he would say nothing at all. Anyway, after this matter, they would have no further connection.
"My plan is simple. I need your identity, your connections. After all this erupts, you need to gather some police force to establish safe Sanctuaries in this city.
Protect the innocent civilians threatened by this crisis."
"Oh, you think too highly of yourself. Using my identity to mobilize the police force, do you think those monsters can be stopped by just anyone?
You're sending them to their deaths. If that's your plan, I won't agree to it. I'd rather flee with them than stay put in one place and wait to die."
"Miss Valentine, you should know. No place in this city is safe. We're not just facing those monsters, but also Umbrella.
Do you think they would allow you, an insider, to escape this city with a group of people who could expose their actions?"
Zhou Yi raised an eyebrow disdainfully, his tone full of mockery.
"I can assure you, if you don't die in the mouths of those monsters, you'll die under Umbrella's weapons. Unless you cooperate with me, Young Miss Jill.
Only by cooperating with me can we save this city and its residents."
"Cooperate with you?" Jill twitched her lips and laughed mockingly. "In my eyes, you're no different from Umbrella's people. You're all damned Vampires.
There's not one among people like you that can be trusted."
"It's fine if you don't trust me, but you need to know that you can only trust me now. Because only I, after knowing Umbrella's secrets, am willing to help this city.
Aside from me, you have nothing else to rely on."
At these words, Jill immediately fell silent. She looked at Zhou Yi coldly, with even a hint of resentment in her eyes.
This made Zhou Yi a little surprised; they had no common ground, so why was Jill looking at him like that?
However, Jill didn't give Zhou Yi much time to think, as she had already provided the answer.
"I can do as you say, but I need to know what you will do. If you do nothing, this plan is meaningless, and I won't listen to you and lead a group of people to their deaths."
"What do you think I'm doing here for?" Seeing Jill's stiff expression, he smiled, his face beaming with the satisfaction of a successful scheme.
"I've already found partners; they will use the Government's power to dismantle all of Umbrella's armed forces here as quickly as possible.
And I will take over everything Umbrella has here with the fastest speed. With our cooperation, Umbrella will not survive in this World for long."
"And without Umbrella, eradicating the monsters in this city will only be a matter of time. The root cause will no longer exist; they will simply be annihilated under humanity's offensive."