Chapter 57
Chapter 57
Qingshui swiped down on her phone, trying to refresh the page, but no new content appeared in the post.
After a moment of silence, she slowly turned off the screen. She tried to fall asleep, but her mind refused to settle. Fragments of those terrifying dreams kept flashing through her head, leaving her afraid to breathe too loudly.
Go to sleep…
Qingshui desperately tried to calm herself.
Go to sleep.
An Xiaolin was on watch, sitting by the door with her knees drawn to her chest. Gao Yizhou sat a few steps across from her, leaning against a cardboard box filled with bottled water.
Perhaps she wanted to keep herself awake, or perhaps the news from earlier had left her needing to talk. An Xiaolin spoke softly. “Are you… a college student?”
Gao Yizhou seemed startled. It took him a moment to realize she was speaking to him. “Yes.”
His voice was a little hoarse.
“A junior?”
“…A senior.” Gao Yizhou pulled at the corner of his mouth, producing a bitter smile uglier than a grimace. “I was… supposed to graduate soon.”
When he uttered the word “graduate,” his voice held an endless sense of unreality. The word had once represented a new beginning in life. Now, it sounded as distant as something from a previous lifetime.
They both fell silent for a while. By unspoken agreement, they avoided everything related to their escape and talked as people once had before the world changed.
“I’m from Xiangjiang. What about you?”
“That’s quite a coincidence… I’m from right next door.”
In the shadows nearby, Ji Feifan lay curled up in his sleeping bag, perfectly still as though he were asleep. Gao Yizhou’s low, raspy voice carried clearly to his ears.
Ji Feifan’s brow furrowed tightly. This man had also escaped from Cuihu Mountain Resort… He could not be allowed to remain. Ji Feifan could not risk the possibility that Gao Yizhou was one of Sister Li’s accomplices.
If Qingshui ever learned that he had killed Li Wei’an…
The image of Li Wei’an’s shocked, contorted face in her final moments flashed through his mind. He could not let Qingshui find out… at least, not yet.
Ji Feifan’s breathing remained steady, but beneath the sleeping bag, his hand slowly clenched.
On the other side of the store, Lin Hao and Zhou Yaping were wrapped in a warm blanket. Zhou Yaping’s tiny body was curled up in his arms, giving off a faint warmth.
He lowered his head and gently brushed his chin over Pingping’s soft hair. His voice was barely above a whisper, carrying a trace of tenderness. “Did Pingping work hard and help out today?”
Zhou Yaping rubbed her cheek against his chest. “Mm-hmm.”
“I helped charge the phones,” she reported softly, as though she had completed an important mission. “And I emptied all the liquor out of those bottles.”
“That’s amazing,” Lin Hao said sincerely, his throat tightening. After a brief pause, he asked gently, “Then… can I give our Pingping a little test?”
“Okay.”
“If… you run into those monsters, what should you do?”
Zhou Yaping answered clearly, “Keep my mouth shut and don’t make any noise. Hide in a corner, under a table, or beneath a bed.”
“And what if… what if they find you?”
The little girl fell silent for several seconds. Then, in an unnaturally calm and innocent voice, she said, “Then… then take a knife and quickly cut my throat.”
She tilted her head back to look at Lin Hao, her large eyes unblinking. “It’ll be… it’ll be just like getting a shot. It’ll only hurt for a little bit, and then it’ll be over.”
“If the monsters catch me… it’ll hurt much, much more than a shot.”
Tears instantly flooded Lin Hao’s eyes. He abruptly tightened his arms around his niece, holding her firmly against him. Burying his face in her frail shoulder, he fought desperately to suppress the sob rising in his throat. “…That’s right. Pingping is very smart…”
His words came out in a broken jumble as pain tore through his heart. “I’m sorry… Pingping… I’m sorry… Your uncle is too weak… I can’t protect you properly…”
His embrace hurt, but Zhou Yaping did not struggle. Instead, she reached out with one small hand and awkwardly patted Lin Hao on the back. “Uncle Haohao isn’t weak. Uncle Haohao has always protected Pingping. Pingping knows.”
Not far away, Chen Yuhui lay on her side facing the wall. Though the uncle and niece had kept their voices extremely low, fragments of their conversation still drifted into her ears.
The words spoken in that childish voice sent a dull ache through her heart. She closed her eyes, digging her nails deep into her palm.
At least… Lin Hao still had someone he had to protect, someone who bound him firmly to the lifeline called survival.
But what about her? What did she have left?
An Xiaolin was keeping track of the time and preparing to wake Chen Yuhui and Ji Feifan for the next watch when her entire body suddenly swayed.
It was not dizziness. A faint tremor had passed through the solid ground beneath her.
“Huh?” An Xiaolin gasped instinctively. She quickly braced a hand against the floor to steady herself, then stared down in confusion.
At almost the exact same moment, Qingshui, who had only been sleeping lightly, heard a sound from deep beneath the earth.
“Crack…”
It was incredibly faint, as though it had come from the very center of the earth. Yet it also seemed impossibly close, right beneath the store’s foundation.
Her eyes snapped open, and her gaze immediately met An Xiaolin’s startled, uncertain stare from across the room.
Neither of them needed to speak. Each saw the same shock and sudden vigilance in the other’s eyes.
The next second…
BOOM!!
The earth abruptly heaved upward, then crashed back down, like a colossal beast shifting in its sleep!
Violent, erratic shaking struck without warning!
“An e-earthquake!!” An Xiaolin’s eyes flew wide, and the warning burst from her throat. “Get out of the way!”
The entire store descended into chaos!
The shelves rocked wildly from side to side, and products rained down from above in a deafening clatter!
“Pingping!” Lin Hao’s roar was swallowed by the rumbling and the tremendous crashes of falling objects. Acting almost entirely on instinct, he rolled over and shielded Zhou Yaping beneath his body. A shelf toppled above them and slammed heavily into the wall beside him, forming a small pocket of shelter around them.
“Find cover! Protect your heads!” Qingshui’s voice cut through the chaos. She grabbed Gao Yizhou, the person closest to her, and dragged him beneath the relatively sturdy checkout counter.
Gao Yizhou went down hard, slamming his head against the counter. Stars burst across his vision as the roar of destruction and the sound of shattering debris filled his ears.
Chen Yuhui was thrown against a wall with a muffled grunt. She immediately scrambled under a heavy metal table. Ji Feifan shot out of his sleeping bag and lunged awkwardly into the nearest corner beside a load-bearing column.
The floor groaned. The walls shook. Dust and chunks of debris rained from the ceiling.
The entire building let out a teeth-grating creak. Outside, a tremendous rumble like mountains collapsing and the earth splitting open echoed from the distance.
No one knew how long the violent shaking lasted. Amid the crashes and thunderous roars, time seemed to stretch endlessly. At last, the terrifying tremors gradually subsided, leaving only the occasional faint clatter.
In the deathly still darkness, Qingshui slowly pushed aside the slab pinning her in place. She pulled Gao Yizhou up beside her. “Get up.”
“We need to find the others. Move slowly and keep quiet. Watch out for another collapse.”
Gao Yizhou gasped for breath. Half his face burned with pain, and the metallic scent of blood filled his nose. Trembling, he felt his way upright and shook his dazed head. “…Okay,” he rasped.
Relying on her memory, Qingshui edged toward the place where An Xiaolin had been keeping watch. She called softly, “Xiaolin? …Yuhui?”
“…I’m here…”
After a moment, a faint voice came from below.
Qingshui’s heart clenched. She quickly cleared away the debris. An Xiaolin was covered in dust and looked battered, but Qingshui reached down and pulled her free. “Are you hurt?”
Using Qingshui’s support, An Xiaolin steadied herself and flexed her limbs. She took several deep breaths, struggling to calm her pounding heart. “I’m fine… I think. I got hit a few times. I’m just a little dazed.”
Elsewhere in the wreckage, Gao Yizhou found Lin Hao and Zhou Yaping. Together with Ji Feifan, who stumbled over to help, he strained to remove the broken slabs and debris that had fallen on them.
Coughing, Lin Hao slowly sat up with their help. His first reaction was to lower his head and check on Zhou Yaping, whom he was cradling in his arms.
The little girl’s face was filthy and her eyes brimmed with terror, but aside from a few minor scrapes, she appeared unharmed.
Only then did Lin Hao release a long breath.
“Where’s Yuhui? Where’s Chen Yuhui?” An Xiaolin looked around, urgency rising in her voice.
Everyone struggled to their feet and began searching through the unrecognizable ruins.
“Here! Over here!” Ji Feifan called from nearby.
Their hearts sank, and they hurried toward his voice. Ji Feifan was using his bare hands to dig through a pile of concrete rubble and twisted metal. Beneath it, a familiar scrap of clothing was visible. It was Chen Yuhui’s jacket!
“Quick! Help me!”
Lin Hao, Gao Yizhou, and An Xiaolin rushed forward. Working together, they carefully lifted the heavy debris away, piece by piece.
At last, Chen Yuhui’s body was fully uncovered.
She lay on her side, her face as white as paper. A streak of blood marked her forehead, and her lips were pressed into a tight line. But the most horrifying sight was her left calf.
A large section of her jeans had been torn open. The flesh underneath was mangled, and blood had soaked through the fabric and continued to seep from the wound.
“Yuhui!” An Xiaolin gasped, her voice rising sharply.
Chen Yuhui met their horrified stares and forced the corners of her mouth upward. “I’m fine… It’s just a scrape.”
Qingshui was already moving. She picked up a nearby unopened bottle of mineral water and twisted off the cap.
Kneeling beside Chen Yuhui, she said, “This is going to hurt.”
The cold water washed over the gruesome wound, flushing away grit and dirty blood while sending a burst of agony through her leg. Chen Yuhui’s entire body jerked, and her jaw clenched instantly.
Once the wound was fully exposed, they saw that a large chunk of flesh on the back and side of her calf had been nearly sliced away, leaving the wound deep enough to expose the bone.
Without the slightest hesitation, Qingshui removed the relatively clean inner layer of her own clothing and wrapped it tightly around the wound.
When she finished bandaging it, she looked up at Chen Yuhui’s sweat-drenched face. “Can you walk?”
Chen Yuhui closed her eyes. When she opened them again, they shone with fierce determination. Forcing herself upright, she said, “I can walk.”
After taking several ragged breaths, she looked at Qingshui and somehow managed an expression that almost resembled a smile, despite how pale and weak she was. “It’s nothing.”
Qingshui studied her in silence, then shifted her gaze over everyone present.
Lin Hao’s face and arms were covered in scrapes and bruises.
A lump had swollen on An Xiaolin’s forehead.
Blood streaked half of Gao Yizhou’s face.
A gash ran across Ji Feifan’s shoulder.
Every one of them had been injured in the earthquake. And without medicine, Chen Yuhui’s wound was almost certain to become infected.
Qingshui’s gaze finally settled on the faint silhouette of a city rising and falling against the darkness in the distance. It was the place they had originally planned to circle around with great care.
She looked back at the others.
“The plan has changed. We can’t go around it anymore.”
Her eyes dropped to the makeshift bandage around Chen Yuhui’s leg, where fresh blood was already beginning to seep through.
“We have to… get through that city ahead of us as quickly as possible.”
“Medicine. We need antibiotics, disinfectant, gauze, anything that can treat wounds and prevent infection.” Her gaze swept over each of them. “Otherwise, Yuhui will lose her leg. And our wounds might kill us too.”