Chapter 56

Chapter 56

Once everyone had eaten and drunk their fill, their strength gradually returned. They began searching the store more carefully, refusing to overlook anything that might prove useful.

Qingshui stopped in front of a shelf, her gaze sweeping across a row of dark glass bottles. She casually opened one, brought it to her nose, and wrinkled her nose at the smell.

This was… alcohol.

She immediately turned to Chen Yuhui behind her and spoke quickly. “We can make Molotov cocktails.”

“Gasoline would work best… We’ll also need cotton cord and strips of cloth for the wicks.”

Chen Yuhui’s eyes lit up at the mention of gasoline. “Gasoline? Ji Feifan still has some in his bag.”

“Ji Feifan!” She lowered her voice and beckoned to the tall boy standing distractedly nearby.

Ji Feifan snapped out of his daze and hurried over, looking slightly confused. “What’s wrong?”

“The gasoline you had in your bag. Is there any left?”

“Oh, yeah.” Ji Feifan pulled a bottle from the side pocket of his backpack. It contained half a bottle of amber-yellow liquid. “Is this enough?”

Qingshui shook her head. “No. Each of us can carry at least two more bottles.” She looked at Chen Yuhui and Ji Feifan. “Could you two go outside and siphon some more gasoline? Take Gao Yizhou with you. It’ll be faster with another pair of hands.”

Ji Feifan’s eyebrow twitched, but he also understood how useful Molotov cocktails could be at a critical moment, so he nodded. “Got it.”

After watching the three of them climb out through the lounge window, Qingshui called An Xiaolin over. “We need to empty these bottles.”

She briskly poured the leftover alcohol into a trash can, then suddenly paused and looked up. “Where’s Lin Hao?”

“He found a few Bluetooth speakers over there. He’s examining them now.”

“Bluetooth… speakers?”

An Xiaolin paused before explaining, “They’re devices that can play sounds remotely. Lin Hao said they’d be less conspicuous than using a drone to lure the Madmen away. A drone is easy to spot, but we can hide the speakers somewhere far away and activate them remotely.”

Qingshui nodded in approval. “That’ll work.”

Just then, a small head quietly peeked out from behind the shelf beside them. Zhou Yaping stared silently at the two of them with wide eyes.

Before Qingshui could speak, An Xiaolin asked softly, “Is your phone fully charged?”

“Mm-hmm.” Zhou Yaping answered quietly and held out the phone in her hand.

“What about the power bank?”

The little girl nodded.

After a moment’s thought, Qingshui crouched down and handed her the empty bottle in her hand. “Yaping, could you help me empty all the alcohol out of these bottles? I’m going to find your uncle.”

“Okay!” Zhou Yaping’s eyes lit up. She took the bottle and answered earnestly.

Qingshui gently ruffled her hair, then turned and walked through several rows of shelves toward the counter. Lin Hao was bent over a small black speaker, tinkering with it, while the radio beside him continued broadcasting the same message on a loop.

When he saw Qingshui approaching, he switched off the radio and stood up. “Qingshui? Did you need something?”

“Yaping is helping Xiaolin.” Qingshui first told him where the girl was, then grew serious. “Lin Hao, can you find detailed maps of every place we’ll pass through between here and Jiangcheng? The more detailed, the better. I… want to plan our route and avoid the most dangerous areas whenever possible.”

Lin Hao nodded. “I can, but it’ll take some time. The terrain varies from region to region…” He rubbed his brow, then added, “And the internet has been getting weaker lately. Downloading and loading detailed maps will be slower.”

He hesitated, tapped a few keys on the computer sitting on the counter, and then turned the screen toward Qingshui.

“But… a lot of survivors online have already been sharing information and routes.” He opened a saved webpage displaying a digital map covered in dense annotations. “Um, I… hacked into a few satellites…”

Perhaps he noticed the change in Qingshui’s expression, because he hurriedly explained, “No, I don’t usually do anything like that! And… and I only looked at the surface-level data.”

His voice grew quieter with every word, and an awkward silence settled between them.

“I see,” Qingshui said. “You’re impressive.”

“Ah… Uh…” The unexpected compliment caught Lin Hao so off guard that he began to stammer. His gaze darted around, and his voice trembled slightly. “Right. So, just now, I used the routes shared by the experts online and cross-referenced them with the satellite images. I came up with several relatively viable ‘northbound routes.’ You can… take a look at this one first.”

Qingshui leaned closer to the screen, her eyes quickly scanning the paths marked in different colors, along with annotations for dangerous areas and estimates of possible resupply points.

She wasn’t surprised by the growing trend of survivors migrating north as a group.

“Our current location…” Lin Hao dragged the map across the screen and stopped the cursor near a small icon representing a service area. “…happens to be on a route marked as the ‘Central Route.’ This route follows national highways and secondary roads whenever possible, avoiding the densely populated centers of major cities. But…”

He paused and pointed to several unavoidable locations along the route. “We’ll still have to pass through a few small and medium-sized towns or skirt the edges of some cities. The people who shared the route marked these places as ‘conditions unknown; proceed at your own risk.'”

“However…” Before Lin Hao could finish, the half-closed door to the lounge was pushed open.
Chen Yuhui led the way, with Ji Feifan and Gao Yizhou behind her. The three of them struggled to carry a plastic bucket containing more than half a bucket of clear yellow gasoline, which sloshed with every step.

“This should be enough, right?” Chen Yuhui carefully set the bucket down and wiped the sweat from her forehead.

“Mm. Give me a moment.” Qingshui looked away from the map and returned to An Xiaolin’s side. She picked up a liquor bottle and filled it about two-thirds full with gasoline.

Then she took one of the cloth strips they had prepared and stuffed it into the mouth of the bottle as a fuse. “Like this.”

She demonstrated for everyone gathered around her. “When you need to use it, light the cloth and throw the bottle. It’ll set an entire area on fire. It’s useful against large groups.”

Everyone watched in silence, then got to work.

Gao Yizhou and Chen Yuhui began filling the bottles with gasoline, while Ji Feifan stuffed cotton and cloth strips into their mouths.

Zhou Yaping sat obediently on a crate a short distance away, watching the adults work.

An Xiaolin went around the counter to fetch more cloth, but her gaze happened to sweep across the computer screen. “Is that… a map?”

She stopped, drawn in by the intricate markings on it.

“It’s a route map shared online by other survivors,” Lin Hao explained casually. “We’re right on the Central Route at the moment.”

An Xiaolin bent down for a closer look. Her finger traced the winding Central Route, and her brows gradually drew together. “This route… takes us through several cities.” She looked up, worry creeping into her voice. “The cities… are bound to have the most Madmen.”

Everyone froze in the middle of what they were doing.

“Can’t we avoid them entirely?” Ji Feifan asked, holding a half-finished bottle. “We could travel through the wilderness or take mountain roads.”

“It isn’t that simple.” Chen Yuhui shook her head, her expression grave. “None of us except Qingshui know how to survive in the wild. And now that the weather is getting colder, staying away from the cities would leave us exposed to the cold and desperately short on supplies.”

“But cities are meat grinders.” An Xiaolin’s voice was chillingly cold. “I still think we should avoid them.”

“But the experts who mapped this route must have weighed the options before choosing the outskirts of these towns,” Lin Hao said, trying to analyze the situation rationally. “Maybe those areas aren’t as dangerous? Or perhaps… they’re places where we can resupply?”

Ji Feifan shot back, “You want to bet our lives on that?”

The minor disagreement began to set everyone’s nerves on edge. Qingshui said nothing and merely placed another completed incendiary bottle to one side.

Completely avoiding every city was unrealistic. In her opinion, the route was already as close to perfect as they could hope for.

It bypassed most cities while still allowing them to obtain supplies from a few towns along the way.

Her gaze swept across her arguing companions once more. She knew that a real decision could only be made after a calm analysis, and right now, her companions were clearly anything but calm.

As Lin Hao watched the group split over the issue, a wave of helplessness rose inside him. He sighed, only to catch sight of the radio on the table out of the corner of his eye.

Huh? Why had it gone quiet?

Frowning, Lin Hao gave the radio a couple of taps.

“Krrr… kzzzt…”

“Scared me to death,” Lin Hao muttered. But the familiar influenza bulletin did not resume.

Instead, an unfamiliar woman’s voice suddenly rang out, clear and distinct.

[This is the National Emergency Broadcast Service, broadcasting on 46.2 MHz. Repeat, this is the National Emergency Broadcast Service. We are now issuing a Level One emergency directive. All survivors, please listen carefully.]

[The Ark Project has now been activated nationwide. Safe zones have been established in the Northeast, the North China Plains, the northwestern basins, and along the coast of East China. Their locations… The latitude and longitude coordinates will be repeated every hour.]

What?!

Everyone went rigid in an instant.

It was as if someone had pressed pause on all of them at once. Lin Hao’s pupils contracted sharply, and every argument died on the spot.

[Attention, all survivors. The nation will not abandon a single one of you.]

[Beginning today, nationwide supply airdrops will be conducted once every three months. Each supply crate will contain basic survival equipment, emergency medicine, and detailed instructions to ensure that even those without professional knowledge can use them.]

[Please rest assured that the supply crates are secured with biometric locks and can only be opened by humans. Contact by a nonhuman organism will trigger the crate’s automatic locking system.]

[We solemnly repeat: the nation will not abandon a single one of you. Hold on to hope, watch the skies for aerial markers, and do everything in your power to stay alive.]

“The nation… is still standing?” An Xiaolin murmured. Her voice trembled with disbelief, and her eyes instantly turned red.

Chen Yuhui bit down hard on her lower lip and turned her face away, but the corners of her eyes reddened too quickly to hide her emotions.

Lin Hao felt a scalding rush surge into his nose. He tipped his head back and blinked hard.

Even Gao Yizhou, sitting in the corner, had a faint light struggling to gather again in his numb eyes.

[The first airdrop is scheduled for November 14. Repeat, the first airdrop is scheduled for November 14. Distribution will begin in Jing Province and proceed through the designated grid sectors in sequence.]

“The fourteenth…” Ji Feifan calculated quickly. “That’s in two days!”

“And they’re starting from Jing Province,” Lin Hao added hoarsely, a trace of excitement in his voice. “Drone fleets move fast. If the drops go smoothly, it might not be long before they reach our area!”
Hope coursed through everyone’s numb, exhausted minds like a shot of adrenaline.

For the moment, their arguments were set aside. The country was still functioning. Rescue was out there. That was more encouraging than any map could ever be.

For the rest of the night, a long-lost tranquility settled over the store.

Everyone found a relatively comfortable corner, spread out the sleeping bags or mats they had scavenged, and prepared to spend this rare night in safety.

Their bodies were utterly exhausted, but the news on the radio had left their minds in a strange state of excitement.

No one fell asleep right away.

As if by unspoken agreement, the women took out their fully charged phones. Dim screens flickered to life one after another throughout the darkened store.

The network connection remained intermittent. A month into the disaster, there were hardly any new posts left to browse. Most either encouraged everyone to keep holding on or were furious, despairing rants questioning everything.

Leaning against a shelf, Qingshui slowly scrolled through her screen. Suddenly, a title caught her eye:

[Are the Madmen Evolving?]

Her brows drew together, and she tapped on it.

There were only a few comments, but the post itself sent a chill down her spine:

I’ve been hiding at home and living off my stockpile for the past month. But a few days ago, I noticed something terrifying. The Madmen who only ever cared about torturing and killing people seem to have changed their behavior… It’s become kind of… systematic? No, no, I don’t know how to describe it properly. Before, whenever they caught someone, they’d torture them to death on the spot and leave once they’d had their fun.

But now… I looked through my binoculars and saw them on the roof of the building across from mine. It looked like they were… keeping the people they caught alive. They chained them up and… used them every day. The screams come and go from morning until night. They’re getting weaker and weaker…

It’s horrifying. This is worse than being killed outright.

Qingshui’s heart sank.

…Evolution?

It seemed that after humans had been slaughtered on a massive scale, forcing the survivors into hiding and putting them on constant alert, these insane infected were also adapting their tactics to an environment where prey had become scarce.

They were shifting away from indiscriminate, frenzied slaughter toward the more efficient practice of keeping their victims captive for sustained… torture?

Beneath the post was a new reply from another survivor, submitted three minutes ago:

Be careful. Stop watching them. If they notice you, you’re dead.

The original poster replied:

Another living person?? Thanks for the warning… Don’t worry. I’m watching from somewhere hidden. They’ll never find me.

A boy so emaciated that he barely looked human glanced at the post he had just made, climbed out of bed, and, compelled by some inexplicable impulse, crept back to the edge of the window. He cautiously lifted one corner of the curtain and raised his binoculars toward the rooftop of the hellish building opposite his.

They had started again.

Dozens of contorted Madmen had formed a warped circle around several trembling human figures.

They didn’t seem to be feeding. It looked more like some kind of depraved game. Taking their time, they tore at their victims’ limbs one after another, spraying blood through the air. Even from so far away, their shrill laughter seemed to burrow into his ears.

The boy’s entire body went cold, yet he couldn’t tear his eyes away.

Then–

His gaze suddenly collided with another pair of eyes!

At some point, a woman had appeared at the edge of the opposite rooftop.

She wore relatively neat, dark-colored clothes. Her hair had even been combed. Her expression lacked the extreme distortion seen on the other Madmen; there was only an inhumanly cold curve to her lips.

Her scarlet eyes stared straight at him, piercing through hundreds of meters to lock precisely onto his concealed window!

“Holy shit!” The boy recoiled in terror, wrenching his head back. Cold sweat instantly broke out across his body.

On the rooftop, the woman’s lips curled upward into a spine-chilling smile-a faint, almost delicate smile.

Then she raised a hand and gave a gentle wave.

In an instant, all the Madmen on the rooftop stopped playing. They turned toward her in perfect unison, babbling with even more sickening excitement as they crowded around the edge of the roof.

Reflected in the boy’s suddenly constricted pupils, one of the Madmen at the very front grinned savagely and leaped!

The distance was too great. It failed to reach his building and plummeted straight down.

But a second Madman immediately jumped after it, traveling farther!

Then a third. A fourth…

They poured over the edge one after another, like dumplings dropped into boiling water, like a frenzied yet unnervingly precise barrage of human bombs. Each traced a deranged arc through the air as they hurled themselves relentlessly toward the boy’s building!

Thud, thud, thud, thud-!!

The muffled sound of bodies slamming into the building’s outer wall drew closer, growing denser and louder by the second!

Crash-!

One exceptionally muscular Madman finally smashed into the exterior air-conditioning unit near his window. The metal bracket groaned under the strain!

Bang, bang, bang-!!!

Scarlet eyes and viciously grinning faces instantly filled the entire window frame.

“N-No-“