July 2, 2027. 6:10 a.m.
The muddy water reached the tops of his thighs. The pressure squeezed his pant legs against his skin, like being wrapped in a layer of chilled, dead pig hide.
Yu Molan extended the bamboo pole in his hand. Its iron hook scraped through the murky black water a couple of times before hitting something.
A dull thud.
It wasn't like hitting wood. It was more like prodding a sack of waterlogged flour—soft, yet offering a dead, heavy resistance.
"Hooked something?" Lao Zhao asked in a muffled voice from beside him. His face was less than half a meter from the water's surface, his beard dotted with black droplets. With every breath, his nostrils flared violently, a clear sign he was fighting back the stench that assaulted his senses.
"Yeah."
Yu Molan clenched his jaw, put his weight into his wrist, and the hook bit into the thing's collar—or perhaps its flesh.
It was heavy.
The corpse was suctioned to the silt at the bottom, and with its own weight added, pulling it up felt like a tug-of-war.
"Heave!"
He let out a low growl, the muscles in his arms tightening as the bamboo pole bent into a bow.
The water churned, and the black, oily film on its surface broke. A grayish-white mass slowly emerged. First, the back of a head, hair splayed out like rotten seaweed, then the shoulders.
In that instant, the collar of the corroded, brittle shirt couldn't take the strain and tore with a sharp rip. The hook slipped, digging straight into the flesh of the corpse's shoulder.
It was dead flesh, completely devoid of elasticity, as soft as tofu.
The hook sank in without any resistance. Yu Molan felt the weight on his end lighten, followed by a dull, wet, tearing sound—
Splat.
A swollen arm had been ripped clean off. It fell back into the black water, sending up a spray of foul-smelling mud.
A few drops of black water splattered onto Yu Molan's face.
In that moment, bile surged up his throat like a bursting dam. He clamped his mouth shut, his cheeks puffing out as he forced the vomit back down. His throat burned from the stomach acid.
Beside him, someone started to retch violently.
Lao Zhao was bent over, hands on his knees, heaving his guts out. But his stomach was empty. When he was done, Lao Zhao wiped his mouth with the back of his grimy hand, said nothing, and picked up his shovel. He scooped up the severed arm floating on the water and flung it toward the bank.
Half an hour later.
The surface of the ditch was finally clear, revealing the black skin of the water.
On the muddy bank, a dozen or so mangled corpses were piled up. They lay like a heap of unwanted trash, pressed against each other, leaking black fluid. Some had burst open at the stomach, their contents spilling out, indistinguishable from the mud.
Lao Lian stood on a small hill upwind, covering his nose with his sleeve as he directed the pit-digging team.
The pit was dug, two meters square.
One by one, the bodies were pushed into the pit. The heavy thud of each fall was like a blow to the heart.
Someone brought a plastic jug and poured murky diesel fuel over them. It took several clicks for the lighter to catch.
Whoosh.
The flames shot up.
The soaked clothes and waterlogged flesh were hard to burn. The flames licked at the pile of bodies, sputtering as fat rendered and popped. There was none of the clean roar of a proper fire, only a slow, suffocating smolder.
Thick smoke billowed up, carrying an indescribable, acrid stench—a mix of burnt hair, scorched protein, and the unique smell of mold.
A gust of wind blew the smoke right back at them.
Yu Molan stood downwind, the smoke making his eyes stream with tears. He didn't move away, just stared numbly at the ghostly blue flames dancing in the black pit. His mind was a blank. His fingers, frozen inside his torn gloves, had lost all feeling, leaving only a dull, wooden ache.
By the time they returned, the sky was fully bright.
There were signs of life on the playground. Aunt Wang was stirring a large pot with an iron ladle. The aroma of boiling corn grits felt jarringly out of place in the corpse-stenched morning, yet it was also maddeningly enticing.
The men shuffled onto the playground like lost souls. No one spoke; they all headed straight for the water cistern.
The water was rainwater that had been left to settle, with alum added. It looked relatively clear, but it was bone-chillingly cold to the touch.
Yu Molan squatted on the ground, scrubbing his hands and arms over and over with a nub of soap. The lather turned gray. He rinsed and scrubbed again. The stench of death seemed to have seeped into his pores; no amount of washing could get rid of it. He could even imagine the slick, wet feeling still under his fingernails.
He didn't stop until his skin was raw and red. Only then did he stand and return to his shelter.
Lin Zhixi was picking lice from Xiaoyu's hair. Xiaoyu sat on a straw mat, her little face pale. When she saw him enter, she didn't run to him, just called out timidly, "Papa."
Her gaze lingered on Yu Molan for a moment. She seemed to catch a whiff of something, her nose twitching, but she didn't pull away.
"Yeah."
Yu Molan answered, not daring to get too close, afraid the smell on him would overwhelm the child.
Aunt Wang brought their breakfast: three bowls of thin porridge, slightly thicker than yesterday's, with a small dish of blackened, salted vegetable slivers.
This was the "laborer's meal."
Yu Molan picked up his bowl and, ignoring the heat, poured the porridge down his throat. The scalding liquid seared its way down his esophagus, making his stomach cramp, but it finally managed to chase away some of the chill.
He had just set his bowl down when the flap of the shelter was thrown open, revealing Lao Lian's grim face.
"Yu Molan."
"Here." Yu Molan wiped his mouth and stood up.
Lao Lian's eyes swept over him.
"You did a decent job. Anyone who doesn't puke is a good hand," Lao Lian said. "Tomorrow night, it's your turn for watch duty. The post over at Beigou. Someone needs to keep an eye on things upstream."
Watch duty. Alone, for a whole night, in that place filled with ash from the dead and rotting mud.
"Fine." He didn't hesitate, his agreement crisp.
Lao Lian didn't leave right away. His gaze flickered to the half-empty backpack.
"If you want to keep living in this shelter, you need to contribute your share. We're all in the same boat here. We don't carry freeloaders, and we don't do credit."
Yu Molan said nothing.
He turned, reached into the very bottom of his backpack, and pulled out his last two cans: one of yellow peaches, the other of dace with fermented black beans. He had been saving them for Xiaoyu.
He handed them over, the tin cans heavy in his palm.
Lao Lian took them, weighed them in his hand, and his mouth twitched in something that might have been a smile before he turned and left.
Lin Zhixi hadn't dared to speak. Once Lao Lian was gone, she asked in a trembling voice, "Watch duty… is it dangerous?"
Yu Molan didn't look back. He sat down on the straw again, pulled the fire axe to his side, and began to slowly sharpen it with a whetstone.
Shhh—shhh—
"It's fine," he said, his voice low. "Just a bit cold."
In the afternoon, a fight broke out on the other side of the playground. Two women were clawing at each other over half a bar of soap, pulling hair and scratching faces. Some men went to break it up, cursing and swearing, taking the opportunity to grope the women.
Lao Zhou sat perched on the surrounding wall, an extinguished cigarette butt dangling from his lips. He squinted down at the commotion below as if watching a monkey show.
No one really cared to intervene.
Here, morality had long since rotted in the mud. As long as you didn't kill anyone or attract 'those things,' everything else was trivial.
That night, the Black Rain began to fall again.
The raindrops pattered against the plastic sheet roof, a sound like someone scattering sand.
Yu Molan lay on the damp straw, his hand clenched tightly around the axe. The handle was slick with sweat, sticky, like he was gripping a dead man's bone.
From the next shelter, the muffled sobs of Lao Yan's wife could be heard, her cries smothered in a pillow, as if she couldn't breathe.
Farther off, from the ditch north of the school building, came the sound of water lapping against the bank.
Lap.
Lap.
Yu Molan's eyes were wide open, staring fixedly at the pitch-black roof of the shelter.
Tomorrow night, he would be there.