July 12th, 2027. 10:00 AM.
The twenty-fifth day since the disaster.
The rain had been falling for three days and three nights.
A viscous rain. Fine and dense, like a foul-smelling film clinging suffocatingly to the entire world. When you walked, the soles of your shoes never truly dried. The spaces between your toes were always damp and clammy, puckering the skin.
The shallow drainage ditch outside Liu Village School had long since overflowed.
Black water, following the lay of the land, had crept to the edge of the sports field, crawling silently inward along the base of the walls. At night, lying on the straw, if you pressed your ear to the ground, you could clearly hear the rats scurrying in the voids below. They gnawed and dragged, making a skin-crawling rustle as they dismantled this building, bit by bit, that no longer belonged to humans.
The porridge in the pot was now being bulked up with dried sweet potato.
It was salvaged from a moldy pile, chopped up, and boiled into the mix. The porridge was darker now, and it looked a little thicker, but the portion in everyone's bowl was noticeably smaller. When Aunt Wang ladled it out, her movements grew slower and slower, the hand holding the spoon trembling slightly as it rose and fell.
It wasn't that she lacked the strength; she was calculating—how much would be left at the bottom of the pot after this scoop, and would it be enough for the next meal.
Yu Molan sat at the entrance of their lean-to, a scrap of cloth torn from an old T-shirt in his hand, wiping down the fire axe.
The axe's blade was nicked in several places, as if a dog had gnawed on it. Since returning from the County Town, it had been used for everything: chopping damp firewood, prying open locked doors, even hacking through obstacles mired in the mud. It had been used too hard. The sharp, cold glint it once had was long gone, leaving only a dull, iron-gray color.
He wiped it again and again. Rust and black mud smeared onto the cloth, turning it darker and darker, but the axe blade remained blunt.
He knew that no matter how much he polished it, it would never be what it once was. Just like their lives now. No matter how they endured, there was no going back.
Inside the lean-to, Lin Zhixi was altering some clothes for Xiaoyu.
The cuffs of the child's original pink jacket were frayed, the threads unraveling like a wilted flower. Lin Zhixi had taken an oversized raincoat, stripped from a dead body, and cut it down, re-hemming the edges and taking it in with a needle and thread. The stitches were dense but crooked, ugly but strong enough to keep out the rain.
She kept her head down, biting through the thread with a soft *snap*.
Just then, a strange sound came from the distance.
At first, it was just a low rumble, like muffled thunder rolling below the horizon, suppressed by the sound of the rain, intermittent and barely there.
Yu Molan initially thought it was his imagination, or perhaps a ringing in his ears. But then the sound grew clearer, and even the ground began to vibrate faintly—
It was the distinct roar of diesel engines.
More than one.
It was a whole convoy of heavy vehicles, interspersed with the teeth-grinding screech of metal and the crunch of caterpillar tracks on pavement. The sound cut through the heavy curtain of rain, drawing closer like a saw.
Almost simultaneously, everyone in the sports field stopped what they were doing.
Those mending nets, those scolding children, those staring into space… Some looked up, others shot to their feet, and every single person turned to look north.
In that moment, no one spoke, but the same thought was in everyone's mind.
"They're here?!"
Lao Zhou was the first to react.
He snatched the hunting rifle leaning beside him, the stock thudding heavily against the wall, and scrambled up the wooden watchtower in a few quick movements, as nimble as a monkey. Xiao Wu followed close behind, grabbing a long spear, while Lao Zhao snatched up a rusty iron pipe.
Yu Molan stood up, pulling Lin Zhixi with one hand and gathering Xiaoyu into his arms with the other, the axe already in his grip.
"Let's go," he said.
They moved toward the north wall. The closer they got, the clearer the sound became. It was no longer a "maybe," but an undeniable, earth-shaking reality.
The wooden platform on the wall was quickly crowded with people.
Some stood on their tiptoes, others pressed their entire bodies against the barbed wire, oblivious to the marks it left on their faces. Their clothes, soaked with rain, clung to their bodies, outlining their gaunt frames. But their eyes, in that moment, were frighteningly bright, like two-hundred-watt light bulbs.
Every gaze was fixed on the ruined National Highway to the north.
The gray curtain of rain was torn open.
The convoy appeared.
Leading the way were two jungle-camouflaged military off-road vehicles, moving at a controlled pace. The heavy machine guns on their roofs swiveled slowly with the jolting of the vehicles, their black muzzles pointed at the sky, rainwater dripping down the barrels.
The cold, hard presence of the steel was suffocating.
Following them were six heavy-duty military trucks.
Their originally dark-green canvas covers were now splattered with mud, stretched taut. Faded white characters could be vaguely seen on the side of the truck beds— Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
"XX Detachment."
Behind them were three enormous fuel tankers, a modified ambulance, and a communications vehicle with an antenna rig. Bringing up the rear were two more off-road vehicles.
An entire mechanized convoy. Intact, clean, silent, radiating an irresistible force.
Their speed was not fast, maybe thirty kilometers per hour. The wide off-road tires crushed the standing water on the road, kicking up waves of black water that slapped violently against the roadside weeds and rust-spotted barbed wire with a crackling sound.
The vehicles were full of people.
Even through the curtain of rain, they could make out the figures in camouflage raincoats. Steel helmets, body armor, Type 95 rifles held close. Their fingers never left the handguards, their eyes scanning the surroundings with vigilance.
No one got out. No one even glanced toward the side of the road.
The wind lifted a corner of one truck's tarp.
Yu Molan saw that it was packed to the brim with people. Shoulder to shoulder, head to head. Their faces were sallow and gaunt, their eyes sunken. It was impossible to tell if it was numbness or simply the deepest exhaustion.
The crowd on the sports field wall fell silent.
The immense joy had not even had a chance to erupt before it was half-doused by the cold water of being utterly ignored.
Lao Lian stood at the highest point, his hands gripping the slippery top of the wall, the veins on his neck bulging. He opened his mouth and roared in a voice that was nearly cracking:
"Hey—!! Comrades! Stop for a minute!!"
The sound was crushed by the roar of the engines the moment it left his lips, not even leaving an echo.
Aunt Wang had somehow squeezed to the front, still clutching the youngest child to her chest, her voice trembling uncontrollably, tinged with tears:
"Comrades! We have children here! And old people!! Save us!!"
The convoy did not slow down.
Not even a single brake light flickered on.
The lead off-road vehicle passed by, about fifty meters from the wall.
In the front passenger seat, the window was halfway down. A man in an officer's cap leaned out and glanced in their direction.
Yu Molan could see his insignia—a major.
The glance was quick, and it was cold.
There was no wave, no signal, and certainly no hesitation. It was the look one gives a rock by the side of the road, devoid of any emotion.
The officer pulled back into the vehicle, said something to the driver, and the window rolled up. The convoy continued forward, crushing everything in its path.
Xiao Wu grew frantic, hammering the concrete edge of the wall with his iron spear.
"Stop! Fucking stop!! We're alive! We're civilians!!"
Lao Zhou slung his hunting rifle over his shoulder, watching the backs of the steel behemoths, and cursed under his breath.
"Fuck… in a rush to get to hell."
The convoy roared past the wall.
The mud and water it kicked up lashed the barbed wire like a whip, then fell away limply.
Just then, the communications vehicle passed.
The speaker on its roof suddenly crackled to life.
The voice was not loud, and it was emotionless—a pre-recorded, synthesized voice, yet it was unnervingly clear in the rain:
"...*Ksshh*... Repeating broadcast... The road ahead is blocked. Survivors, please find a safe zone nearby..."
"...The Northern Reconstruction Zone has been established, marked by blue flags..."
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"...If Infected are discovered, do not approach. Terminate immediately..."
"...Supplies are scarce. Please conserve resources... Maintain order..."
It played through once, then repeated.
And then, the convoy was gone.
The roar of the engines was slowly swallowed by the sound of the rain, leaving only two deep, crooked ruts on the National Highway, which quickly filled with murky water.
The rain kept falling, striking their frozen faces.
The first to break down was the young man who had been clutching his money.
He squatted in the mud and water, his shoulders shaking violently, but he made no sound. The wad of cash slipped from his pocket, the bills falling into the black mud, where they were quickly trampled and soaked through.
Someone swore, their voice hoarse with despair.
"Sons of bitches! They saw us and didn't even stop! The army doesn't care about the people anymore?!"
Others said nothing, just stared blankly in the direction the convoy had disappeared.
Ma Shifu stood to one side, clutching his radio, his face ashen and numb. The small spark of light in his eyes was completely extinguished.
Lao Lian was the last one to climb down from the wall.
His face was taut, like a piece of wind-dried bark. He didn't curse, didn't throw anything. He just tossed his cigarette butt into the mud, crushed it with his foot, and said in a low voice:
"It's over. Everyone, disperse. Get back to work."
He put an end to the fruitless spectacle.
Yu Molan returned to the lean-to.
Lin Zhixi was sitting on the straw mat, holding Xiaoyu. Both of them were still trembling slightly.
Xiaoyu looked up, her eyes wide with confusion.
"Papa, why didn't those uncles stop? Aren't they here to save us?"
Yu Molan crouched down, wiped his muddy hands on his clothes, and then stroked her head.
"They have a mission," he said, his voice very soft.
Lin Zhixi looked at him and asked in a low voice, "The broadcast... it's real, right? There's really a Northern Reconstruction Zone?"
Yu Molan didn't answer right away.
He thought of the officer's glance from the wall.
It wasn't malicious, nor was it hesitant. It was a purely rational assessment. In that instant, the seventy-odd people here had been judged as entities that "didn't need to be dealt with" or "couldn't be dealt with."
"It's real," he said. "But it's also really far away."
The midday porridge was as thin as ever.
No one mentioned asking for "an extra scoop" again. When Aunt Wang stirred the pot, her hand trembled even more, her eyes staring blankly into the vortex.
In the afternoon, the stack of money in the trading area, which no one had dared to touch, was quietly collected by the young man himself.
He stuffed the money back into the very bottom of his bag and never took it out again.
Yu Molan sat at the entrance of the lean-to, looking toward the northern highway.
The rain slowly filled in the ruts, and the black mud returned to its former state, as if the convoy had never appeared, as if it had all been a mass hallucination.
But he finally understood one thing clearly—
The old order still existed.
Only, it was no longer on their side. It had contracted, becoming cold, efficient, and exclusive.
The Northern Reconstruction Zone. Blue flags.
It sounded wonderful, but it was as distant as another world.
The rain began to fall harder again.
Fine, incessant, it beat against the plastic sheet with a *pat, pat, pat*, like someone hammering nails.
Inside the lean-to, Xiaoyu let out two soft coughs, a heart-stopping sound.
Yu Molan lowered his head, picked up the scrap of cloth again, and continued to wipe the blunted axe.
Again, and again.
The blade was still dull, but it was the only thing he could rely on now.