July 3rd, 2027, 10:00 AM.
The sixteenth day since the disaster began.
An old, broken-legged desk at the edge of the playground was propped up on two red bricks to keep it steady. Yu Molan sat cross-legged on top of it, a Swiss Army knife in hand, shaving a freshly cut bamboo pole.
He had cut the bamboo from the back mountain that morning. Its skin was green and its flesh moist, and shaving it released a raw, grassy odor. The blade hissed as it pushed forward, smoothing the bamboo joints and carving the tip into a sharp, slanted point.
The blade of his fire axe was chipped in two places, like it was missing a couple of teeth. It was his turn to stand watch at Beigou tonight. In a place like that, an inch longer was an inch stronger; he needed to prepare a longer piece of equipment.
For once, it wasn't raining, but you couldn't call it a good day.
The clouds hung so low they felt like they were scraping his scalp—heavy, dark, and gray, like a dirty rag soaked in filthy water that hadn't been wrung out. The air was muggy and humid, clinging to the skin like a layer of glue.
The muddy ground of the playground had long been trampled by hundreds of pairs of feet into a black, gummy mud with an oily sheen. The narrow paths between the shelters were filled with stagnant water, on which floated rotten cigarette butts, wild vegetable leaves, and pieces of flavorless gum spat out by children.
The population of Liu Village was growing. There were almost seventy people now.
The shelters were built like a slum, the back of one practically pressed against the front of the next. The stench—a mixture of sweat, foot odor, children's waste, and spoiled food—hung over everyone on this low-pressure morning like an invisible shroud.
The porridge in the pot grew thinner with each passing day.
Yesterday, during the dinner distribution, a newcomer, a bald man, complained that he was one strand short on his pickled vegetables. He smashed his bowl and almost came to blows with Aunt Wang, who was serving the food. In the end, Lao Lian and his men pinned him to the mud and smashed him on the back of the head with a rifle butt. That shut him up.
Blood dripped into the porridge, but it was still served in the end. No one complained.
Lin Zhixi was teaching a class for the children in an open space in front of her shelter.
Lao Lian had specially approved it. It wasn't for the sake of education; he just figured it was better to round up the gaggle of kids who were always running around getting into trouble. It saved him the headache.
Lin Zhixi crouched on the ground, using a dry twig to write in the wet mud.
There were seven or eight children in total, the oldest thirteen or fourteen, the youngest only six. They sat with their necks hunched, their eyes vacant, their clothes splattered with mud. They weren't really listening. They were just waiting for the midday meal that might not even fill their stomachs.
"Repeat after me." Lin Zhixi's voice was soft, marked by the habitual pauses of her former life as a teacher, but it lacked conviction.
"Spring. Time."
She wrote the two words in the mud, the strokes a little crooked.
"Springtime is here. The little grass is sprouting."
"Spring... time..."
The children repeated after her sporadically, their voices like drowsy kittens. A boy named Huzi sniffled back the snot that was about to run into his mouth and suddenly asked, "Auntie Lin, when is spring coming? I want to eat wild vegetable buns. The vegetables now are too bitter. I want to eat sweet cane."
Another little girl with pigtails, who had been staring at the two words, blurted out, "My mom said spring isn't coming anymore. She said the sun died."
The hand Lin Zhixi used to hold the twig froze.
She didn't look up, just violently scraped away the two words with the branch until the patch of mud was smooth again.
"It will come," she answered stiffly, her voice trembling. "The water will recede eventually."
The knife in Yu Molan's hand paused for a moment, then continued shaving.
*Hiss—*
A bamboo shaving flew up and landed on his mud-caked pant leg.
Just then, a commotion suddenly erupted from the center of the playground.
Lao Lian, Lao Zhou, and Xiao Wu were crouched on the ground in a circle. In the middle sat a dark, lumpy object.
It was a hand-cranked radio.
They had just traded for it last night. Its original owner was an electrician named Ma, who was as thin as a bundle of firewood. He carried a bulging bag full of junk like wires and diodes. He had traded the radio for three days' worth of rations and a rain-proof bunk.
Right now, Ma Shifu was kneeling on the muddy ground, his hands gripping the tuning knob as if he were disarming a time bomb. Xiao Wu crouched beside him, cranking the generator handle. This chapter is updated first at novelping.com.
*Crank, crank.*
The handle spun rapidly, and the radio emitted a static crackle, like the chirping of countless insects.
A man mending a fishing net stopped his shuttle. A woman scolding her child fell silent. Everyone's gaze, as if drawn by a magnet, was fixed on the unremarkable black box.
Yu Molan put away his knife and walked to the outer edge of the crowd.
Ma Shifu's fingers were trembling violently. He adjusted the knob by tiny increments, so carefully it was as if the slightest bit of force would shatter the signal.
"...*hss*...*hss*...*hss*..."
Suddenly, one word jumped out of the noise.
"...Central..."
Clear, and in that unique, reassuring announcer's voice.
A choked gasp rose from the crowd.
Ma Shifu's eyes widened, his eyeballs nearly popping from their sockets. Beads of sweat as large as beans dripped from the tip of his nose. He held his breath, his fingers moving as if performing microsurgery.
"...*hss*...This is...*hss*...Emergency Broadcast... I repeat... the nation has not collapsed...*hss*..."
The voice was intermittent, as if drifting from a great distance, torn to shreds by wind and rain.
"...The military is... clearing... the northern... Safe zones have been established...*hss*... All surviving citizens... find shelter nearby... wait for... maintain order..."
The signal suddenly died, leaving only a cacophony of white noise.
Ma Shifu frantically cranked the handle, twisting the knob back and forth, his knuckles white from the strain.
"There's more! There has to be more!" he yelled, his voice hoarse. "Don't stop! Crank it! Faster!"
The veins on Xiao Wu's arm bulged as he cranked, but the voice never returned.
Only the hollow *shhh* sound echoed across the dead-silent playground.
A few seconds later, the crowd erupted.
"Did you hear that?! The government's still here!"
"There's a military! I knew there was a military!"
Lao Zhao's wife plopped down onto the filthy ground, slapping her thighs and wailing. "I knew we wouldn't all die... I knew it..."
Some people were laughing, a sight more painful than crying. Others crouched on the ground, clutching their heads, their shoulders shaking violently. The despair that had been suppressed for half a month had been torn open by these few, ethereal radio waves, leaving a bloody wound.
But some people didn't move.
Lao Lian leaned against a nearby post, smoking. The wrinkles on his face were as deep as knife cuts, his eyes devoid of any ripple of emotion. Lao Zhou slung his shotgun over his shoulder, sneered, and spat a thick glob of phlegm onto the ground.
"Sixteen days. And they only manage to squeeze out a fart now?" Lao Zhou's voice wasn't loud, but it was cold enough to be a bucket of ice water poured over the crowd. "Who the hell knows how old that recording is. The guy who made it is probably long dead and rotten."
Xiao Wu said nothing, just silently packed the radio away, wrapping it in a piece of torn oilcloth as if it were a bar of gold.
Yu Molan stood at the edge, watching the ecstatic, weeping faces.
He didn't feel much joy, only a deepening sense of emptiness. If there really were safe zones, why hadn't they seen a single helicopter by now?
At lunch, Lao Lian had Aunt Wang add two extra scoops of cornmeal to the porridge.
"Eat up, everyone," Lao Lian announced, standing before the large pot and tapping its rim with a large iron ladle. "Now that you have something to hope for, live properly. Don't starve yourselves to death before rescue arrives."
The words were meant to be inspiring, but Yu Molan noticed Lao Lian's hand never left the hilt of the knife at his waist, and his eyes were heavy. He was on guard, wary that this sudden burst of hope could turn into another kind of uncontrollable riot.
Back in their shelter, Lin Zhixi returned with her bowl, her hands trembling slightly.
Yu Molan lowered his head and took a sip of porridge. The scalding liquid flowed down his esophagus but failed to warm the cold knot in his stomach.
"What did you tell her?"
"I said they would." Lin Zhixi looked at the gaunt face reflected in her bowl. "What else could I say?"
Xiaoyu held her bowl, taking small sips, but her eyes kept darting toward Ma Shifu's shelter, shining with a light that had never been there before. That light made Yu Molan's heart clench with unease.
In the afternoon, Ma Shifu brought the radio out again.
As if possessed, he sat at the entrance of his shelter, cranking and tuning, cranking and tuning. There was nothing but the *shhh* of static.
Lao Lian passed by and told him to rest, to save his energy for work that night. Ma Shifu ignored him, still turning the knob, muttering to himself.
By evening, the weather had turned again.
The Black Rain came down without warning, hard and fast this time. Large drops hammered against the plastic sheets with a staccato patter, like the slapping of countless hands.
Yu Molan went to the north wall to relieve Lao Zhao from his post.
During the handover, Lao Zhao passed him the broken monocular telescope. His face was grim, as if he'd swallowed a fly.
"The water's risen," Lao Zhao said, pointing outside. "Four more floated by last night. And... something's not right."
"What's not right?"
"There are too many of them," Lao Zhao swallowed, his voice trembling. "And... I think I saw something alive moving."
Yu Molan said nothing. He took the telescope and climbed up the makeshift wooden watchtower.
The wood was soaked with rain and slippery underfoot.
Below was the barbed wire and the foul-smelling drainage ditch. Further north, a vast expanse of dark fields faded into obscurity.
The curtain of rain severely obstructed his vision.
Yu Molan raised the telescope. A crack ran through the lens, a permanent black line that seemed to split the world in two.
The water in the ditch had indeed risen, nearly overflowing its banks. The black water churned like boiling asphalt, carrying unidentifiable debris.
Lao Zhou was smoking at the other guard post. The ember of his cigarette glowed faintly in the rain, flaring and dying.
"Hey," Lao Zhou shouted, his voice chopped up by the sound of the rain. "That broadcast... you believe it?"
Yu Molan wiped the rain from his face. It was salty and bitter.
"What difference does it make if I believe it or not? Still have to eat, still have to sleep."
Lao Zhou let out a laugh that sounded like the hoot of a night owl. "True that. It's been half a month without a single sign. Trusting in heaven or earth is useless. Better to trust the gun in your hand."
The sky turned completely black.
From the direction of the shelters, he could faintly hear that monotonous, persistent cranking sound.
*Crank—crank—*
That was Ma Shifu, still cranking.
Yu Molan tightened his grip on the sharpened bamboo spear in his hand, its coolness seeping into his palm. His gaze passed over the barbed wire, fixed on the darkness beyond.
The water in the ditch was still rising.
And beneath the surface of the black water, something was indeed moving. It wasn't just drifting with the current; it was moving with purpose, against the flow.