Chapter 21
Chapter 21
Elsewhere, Li Wei’an, Chen Yuhui, and An Xiaolin had taken up positions around the living room, relieving the others of night watch duty.
Broad daylight had arrived, but it brought no sense of security.
None of the three women spoke. Each occupied a separate corner, their eyes fixed on their phone screens.
Chen Yuhui unlocked her phone and instinctively opened the green chat app.
In the pinned conversation, the latest message was still the voice note her mother had sent yesterday: “It’s getting colder. Remember to dress warmly.”
She scrolled upward, finding the same mundane messages as always, reminders to eat properly and get enough rest. Yet now, those warm, ordinary texts and voice notes made her eyes sting with tears.
She opened her private chat with her mother and quickly typed: “Mom, are you and Dad okay? Please reply as soon as you see this!”
Send.
The seconds ticked by, but her screen never lit up again.
She sent similar messages to her father, her relatives back home… even several close friends from high school.
Not one of them replied.
Chen Yuhui turned off her screen and pressed her forehead against her cold knees. She couldn’t cry, but her shoulders began trembling despite her efforts to hold still.
Li Wei’an leaned against the armrest of an easy chair, staring at her phone as well.
She hadn’t sent her parents any more messages. Several hours ago, their call had ended amid her parents’ piercing screams and vile, nauseating obscenities. Since then, she hadn’t dared call that number again.
She couldn’t think about it. Not anymore.
Mechanically, she scrolled through the flood of posts on local forums and social media, forcing herself to piece together some clue about what was happening outside from those bloody fragments.
An Xiaolin, meanwhile, huddled in the corner farthest from the windows. She hugged her knees to her chest and rested her chin on them. Her phone screen remained dark and locked.
She simply stared at that black screen, her gaze unfocused.
Scenes from the garage kept flashing through her mind: the revolting touch and stench of the crazed man in the dress shirt as he pinned her down, the sensation of a blade sinking into flesh, the warmth of blood spraying across her face…
Fear, disgust, lingering dread… and a strange, icy numbness all tangled together inside her. It felt as though one part of her had been left behind in that blood-soaked garage, while the rest floated through this unfamiliar living room, unable to find solid ground.
She didn’t even dare think too deeply about her parents. The thought itself was like a black hole that would swallow what little strength she had left.
…
It was fully light outside.
On the sofa, Qingshui opened her eyes. She slowly sat up and looked out at the world beyond the window.
Today was the second day of the apocalypse.
Behind her, the others, having rested through the night, gradually woke to the daylight and faint sounds of movement.
“It’s daylight. We can start moving,” she said quietly. “We’ll take inventory, reinforce our defenses, and establish a watch rotation.”
Nearby, Zhou Shaocheng and Fang Shuyao also sat up. Zhou Shaocheng rubbed his exhausted face, glanced at his daughter Pingping, who was still asleep in his arms, then looked toward the calm figure standing by the window. After a moment’s hesitation, he asked hoarsely, “What… do you need us to do?”
Everyone stopped what they were doing and instinctively turned toward Qingshui.
“The first step to staying alive,” she said, “is finding out what we have, what we lack, and exactly how secure this villa is.”
She walked to the center of the living room and took a pen and small notebook from her backpack.
“We’ll split into groups.” Qingshui began assigning tasks, her tone crisp and decisive, leaving no room for argument.
“Group one will search for weapons.” She looked at Ji Feifan and Lin Hao. “Li Wei’an, you’re in charge. Take Lin Hao and search this villa from top to bottom. Find anything that could be used as a weapon. Not just knives. Gather anything sturdy or sharp, or anything that could be thrown or used to block an attack.”
Li Wei’an nodded. Lin Hao hurried to his feet, anxiously running a hand through his hair.
“Group two will inventory supplies.” Qingshui turned to An Xiaolin and Fang Shuyao. “An Xiaolin, you’re in charge, with Ms. Fang assisting you. Find and catalog every usable resource in this house: food, drinking water, medicine, fuel, batteries, flashlights, candles, lighters, rope, cloth… anything you can think of that might help us survive.”
An Xiaolin nodded, then turned to Fang Shuyao. “Hello, Miss Fang.”
Fang Shuyao studied the baby-faced girl with large eyes. Some of the tension in her heart eased, and she offered a small smile in an attempt to dispel the unease. “Hello.”
“As for the rest of you…” Qingshui looked at Chen Yuhui, Ji Feifan, and Zhou Shaocheng. “Come with me to inspect the villa’s perimeter and make sure the walls are intact. After that, we’ll search for materials and suitable locations for setting traps.”
“But first…” She surveyed the group and spread the food they had gathered from the school across the table. “Let’s eat something and restore our strength.”
Qingshui had only done it to build trust. She didn’t expect to become comrades-in-arms with everyone here, but for now, at least, she needed a temporary team.
Li Wei’an picked up several packs of instant noodles and suggested with a smile, “How about I cook these, and we can all eat together?”
The others exchanged hesitant glances. Seeing this, Lin Hao hurriedly voiced his support. “Sounds great! Junior Wei’an, how about I come with you?”
The two of them left together.
Ji Feifan stepped forward, took two pieces of bread, and began chewing on them. Chen Yuhui picked up two pieces of chocolate and held them out to Fang Shuyao. “Um… here. Have some.”
Qingshui sat on the edge of the couch, quietly nibbling on a piece of bread.
The simple act of sharing food eased the atmosphere in the living room slightly. When Li Wei’an and Lin Hao returned, the aroma of instant noodles wafted through the room.
Once everyone had eaten their fill, they set about their assigned tasks.
Li Wei’an and Lin Hao were the first to leave the living room. They searched the kitchen in the northern wing of the villa and gathered up every knife they could find.
“This house is… way too big,” Li Wei’an said helplessly.
“It is a little big. My cousin likes collecting… well, unusual things.” Lin Hao scratched his head, trying to remember. “He always had a small shooting range in his old houses… but I’m not sure if this one has one.”
Li Wei’an’s eyes lit up. “A shooting range? Where would it be?”
“The b-basement?”
“Let’s go!”
The basement was more spacious than they had expected, with several distinct areas. A musty odor hung over one corner piled high with clutter, but on the other side, a heavy soundproof door caught their attention.
It wasn’t locked. When they pushed it open, they found a room of roughly twenty square meters. Acoustic foam covered the walls, and several battered targets stood at the far end. The range looked as though it had been abandoned for years, but there, on a rack against the wall, were several compact crossbows.
“Now that’s a good find!” Lin Hao exclaimed under his breath.
They looked at each other, both seeing the same excitement in the other’s eyes.
…
Qingshui led the other three out of the villa. “Mr. Zhou, Yuhui, inspect the perimeter wall. Circle the entire villa and check carefully for any loose bricks or stones,” she instructed. “Ji Feifan, come with me. We’ll examine the mountain and woods behind the house.”
Qingshui and Ji Feifan made their way around to the rear of the villa. The ground was higher there, and the steep mountainside behind the house was densely covered in shrubs and young trees.
“Look for any trails or places that would be easy to climb,” Qingshui said quietly.
They split up to search. Before long, Ji Feifan found an extremely narrow path where the vines grew more sparsely. It looked as though it might just barely lead up the slope.
“Over here!” he called in a hushed voice.
Qingshui came over to inspect it. The trail was steep but clearly there, extending upward for dozens of meters before appearing to level out and disappearing into the dense woods.
“This could serve as one of our escape routes, but we’ll need to clear it and mark it so no one fails to find it in a panic,” Qingshui said.
They continued surveying the edge of the woods.
“We should also dig a trench around the house, fill it with sharpened stakes, and prepare for every possibility.”
She hadn’t planned on going this far, but her instincts told her they might not receive any rescue or official word from the government anytime soon. She needed to be prepared for absolutely anything.
Qingshui knew those maniacs would make it up here eventually.
She remembered what she had seen on her phone screen: blood running unchecked through chaotic footage, faces twisted in crazed laughter, and people ripping apart and tossing around the bodies of their own kind as if they were toys.
What exactly was driving them?
Were they trying to spread the virus?
The thought crossed her mind, only for her to dismiss it at once. If their goal was to infect as many people as possible, their behavior was far too inefficient and wasteful.
They reveled in the instant they inflicted pain, even deriving an absurd sort of pleasure from it.
It was more like… a primal malice that had been completely unleashed and twisted beyond recognition, combined with a cruel desire for amusement that surpassed normal biological instinct.
Or had they simply gone insane?
The zombies Qingshui had encountered in her previous life had also possessed a kind of madness, one driven by the virus and their base instincts.
But these creatures… were different.
They could use tools. They could shout coherent words. They displayed unmistakable joy as they tortured and slaughtered their victims.
Qingshui understood that within a few months, after humans had been massacred in vast numbers and those maniacs could no longer satisfy their craving for pleasure, they would become even more frenzied and irrational.
They would use every method imaginable to hunt down the surviving humans.
Could this be… Earth’s way of cleansing itself of humanity?
Qingshui smiled bitterly. So far, not only had she failed to discover why she had been reborn, but she had also found herself trapped in another, even more terrifying hell.