Chapter 5

After two months of staying indoors, the geological disasters began to subside. The sky gradually cleared, and the earth grew still again.

Yet as human activity resumed on a limited scale, the virus swept across the world faster than ever.

I knew from my previous life that it infected only humans. A victim’s blood oxygen level would plunge, followed by total organ failure. It was extraordinarily contagious, and the illness progressed with terrifying speed.

Some called it divine punishment.

Bodies already littered the world outside.

So far, Zhangjia Village had recorded zero infections. Fortunately, the elders had managed to curse and nag nearly all the young people working away from home into returning.

The village chief held a general meeting and counted everyone. All who could come back had done so.

Then he made a decision: every entrance to the village would be barricaded and protected with an electrified fence.

“What happens to the fence when the power goes out?” I asked.

According to my memories, the grid would fail the following month.

The village chief waved a hand. “We’ve got generators—solar, wind-powered, all kinds. More than enough to keep the fence running.”

I stared at him. “Uncle, you prepared all that?”

He puffed out his chest. “The village used to lose power all the time, so I told my son to set up a system. Never thought we’d need it like this.”

Of course. His son, Zhang Wenshu, was a brilliant physics student at B University.

The chief’s own name suddenly struck me as funny. He was called Zhang Tianxuan—a name that sounded like “chosen by heaven.” Considering our good fortune, it suited him perfectly.

The atmosphere in Zhangjia Village was completely different from my previous life. Back then, it had not been particularly safe. Everyone hid in their homes and endured their hunger one day at a time.

Now, with the electric fence installed in advance, the village suddenly felt secure.

As expected, the power failed a month later. Our local generation system could only prioritize the fence, but country people were used to losing electricity and internet every few days. No one cared much.

Everyone simply returned to a more primitive way of life.

With nothing better to do, I sometimes accompanied Zhang Pingping on walks or went with her to gather firewood.

“If I’d known it would be like this, we wouldn’t have spent those first months cooking from morning to night,” she told me.

All that work had left our backs aching. We had even taken two medicated patches from storage and slapped them on.

“Maybe it wasn’t a waste,” I said. “Look how much firewood everyone burns. We could run out one day.”

Mostly, people were bored. No one could leave the village or watch television, so they chopped wood, caught fish, and hunted small animals. Just yesterday, someone had been gored by a wild boar.

My mother and I were still talking when the village chief rattled past on a three-wheeled cart, holding a battered loudspeaker.

“No indiscriminate logging!”

“No poaching! No emptying the streams!”

“Anyone who disobeys gets no treatment at the clinic!”

“You’ve all eaten so well you’ve forgotten what hunger is—”

He grumbled his way down the road.

Zhang Wenshu was driving. He looked as if he had been forcibly conscripted for the job and kept a wooden expression the entire time.

The chief shouted from noon until evening. Since Zhang Pingping and I had nothing better to do, we ate dinner by the window and listened to him invent new warnings.

At last, his loudspeaker died directly beneath our window.

“Hello? Hello? Wenshu, my loudspeaker’s out of power.”

“Then it’s out of power,” Zhang Wenshu said.

His father grabbed him by the collar. “I don’t care. Fix it!”

Zhang Wenshu looked at him as though he were an unruly child.

I leaned out of the window. “Uncle, we have batteries. Size three, right?”

The chief beamed. “That’s right! Toss them down to me.”

I had been about to run downstairs, but instead I threw the batteries from the window. With a sigh, Zhang Wenshu drove his father around the village again.

Late that night, my mother and I were taking a walk after overeating when a roar came from the village entrance.

“Get out! Once you leave, you’re no longer one of us!”

We really had eaten too much, so we followed the other villagers over to watch the commotion.

The sight stunned me.

Shen Chunni had found us, and she had brought six men with her. They must have suffered terribly on the road. All seven were gaunt, filthy, and dressed in rags.

“Uncle Tianxuan, please let us in…”

By the time Zhang Pingping and I arrived, nearly the entire village had gathered. Everyone was that bored.

Seventh Aunt Wang cracked sunflower seeds between her teeth. “Can you believe her nerve? She used to call us country bumpkins.”

Eighth Aunt Liu said, “Who knows whether any of them are carrying the virus?”

Ninth Uncle Chen called, “Where’s Pingping? Pingping, you mustn’t go soft on her. She could get the entire village killed.”

“Exactly!” others agreed.

Zhang Pingping quickly ducked behind the crowd.

Fortunately, Shen Chunni did not see us. She was staring hungrily at Seventh Aunt Wang and Eighth Aunt Liu as they ate their sunflower seeds.

The two women backed away uneasily. “What are you looking at?”

They had to ask? In times like these, the sight of anyone casually snacking on sunflower seeds was astonishing.

Shen Chunni stepped forward without thinking and grabbed the electric fence with both hands.

The current struck her a second later.

“Aah!”

Seventh Aunt Wang clicked her tongue. “Look at her twitch.”

Eighth Aunt Chen spat. “Ptooey.”

I glanced around. Everyone was watching Shen Chunni as though she were a monkey at the zoo.

She must have been truly unpopular in this village.

Zhang Wenshu pulled his father aside.

“Dad, these people are trouble.” He pushed his glasses up and stared coldly at the men who had come with Shen Chunni.

“What do we do?” the chief asked.

“Tonight, I’ll turn the fence voltage to maximum. Increase the patrols.”

“You got it.”

Zhang Pingping heard him and instinctively stepped forward.

I caught her arm.

“Mom, let’s go.” I warned her with my eyes.

She hesitated only a moment before turning away with me.