June 23, 2027
The sound of the rain had changed.
The violent drumming had stopped, replaced by a viscous, endless scraping, like a cold, wet tongue licking the building's outer walls.
When Yu Molan woke, his throat felt like it was stuffed with a thorny ball of hay. He instinctively reached for the nightstand—and found nothing. That half-full bottle of mineral water had been finished yesterday afternoon. The empty bottle had been crushed and stuffed into the hoard of bags under the bed.
What sat on the cabinet now was an open-topped glass pitcher.
The liquid inside wasn't black.
After a full day of processing, the water had taken on a translucent, pale amber color, like over-steeped old tea, or perhaps the fluid in a hospital specimen jar. Though the color was off, at least there were no suspended particles; you could see straight to the bottom.
This was their new water source.
In the living room, Lin Zhixi was kneeling on the floor. Pots and basins of all sizes were spread across the floorboards, forming a grotesque laboratory.
In her hands was one of Yu Molan's white shirts—a high-thread-count cotton one he only wore for interviews, now cut to shreds. She stretched a piece of the shirt over the mouth of a funnel, secured it tightly with a rubber band, then picked up a basin of rainwater, as dark as diluted ink, and carefully began to pour.
"How many times has it been?" Yu Molan walked over, his voice as hoarse as two pieces of sandpaper rubbing together.
"The fourth," Lin Zhixi replied without looking up, her movements steady. "This method works. See? All the black sludge is left on the cloth."
Yu Molan crouched down to look.
The once-pristine white fabric had now become a piece of pitch-black tarpaulin, coated in a thick layer of a black, silt-like substance.
But the drops of water falling from the bottom of the funnel, though yellowish, were clear. Drip, drip, they fell into a stainless steel pot with a crisp sound.
"It's filtered pretty clean." Yu Molan nodded, a small knot of tension loosening in his chest. At least they wouldn't have to drink muddy soup.
He dragged the black portable cassette stove out from the corner and placed it on the coffee table.
Click.
The canister locked into place. This was the third-to-last bottle from their final box of butane gas.
A blue flame leaped from the burner, licking the bottom of the pot.
Yu Molan stared at the water's surface. As the temperature rose, the water began to roil, and the "filth" that had been filtered from sight finally exploded into the cramped living room as a smell.
It wasn't the earthy smell of mud, but a pungent odor of sulfur mixed with the ammonia stench of rotting seafood.
The water boiled.
Though there was no grit, a bizarre oily film quickly formed on the surface. The film shattered as the water boiled, only to rapidly recoalesce, refracting an iridescent light.
"Is that oil?" Lin Zhixi asked, frowning.
"Doesn't look like it." Yu Molan stared at the film. "More like some kind of gel, or dead bacteria."
"The gas is running out..." she reminded him in a low voice. "From the sound of it, the canister's almost empty."
"Ten more seconds!" Yu Molan didn't turn off the flame. "We have to scald whatever's in there to death. Filtering only gets rid of the sediment, not living things."
Ten seconds later, he wrenched the knob off.
The flame died.
The water in the pot continued to roll from inertia before finally settling. After it cooled, a very thin layer of white powder settled at the bottom—dissolved salts and minerals from the rain.
Breakfast was instant noodles boiled in the water.
The three of them sat around the coffee table. Xiaoyu, clutching a grimy stuffed rabbit, was huddled on the sofa, staring intently at the bowl in front of her, her hands twisted together.
"Eat," Yu Molan said, lifting his bowl. "The color looks alright. It's much better than what the people outside are drinking."
He took a deep breath, as if marching to his execution, and gulped down a large mouthful of the broth.
The moment it entered his mouth, he froze.
There was no grittiness, none of the bitterness he'd expected.
On the contrary, the water was extremely slick.
The viscous texture was like drinking raw egg whites, or aloe vera slime. The liquid slid over his tongue and down his throat with almost no resistance.
Then came a strange, sweet aftertaste.
A quick look at tinyurl.com/2p9emv8w will leave you more fulfilled.
It was an artificial sweetness, like saccharin or the taste in your mouth after a metallic allergic reaction, followed by a heavy sulfurous tang and the flavor of the instant noodle seasoning.
It was more like drinking the bodily fluid of some creature.
His stomach gave a slight twitch—a physiological alarm triggered by the utterly alien texture.
"It's drinkable," he said, putting down his bowl and wiping his mouth. He forced down the strange feeling and looked at his wife and daughter. "It's slick and a little salty. It's fine."
Lin Zhixi picked up a few strands of noodles with her chopsticks, blew on them, and placed them in Xiaoyu's bowl.
"Eat up, Xiaoyu."
Xiaoyu didn't touch her chopsticks. She lowered her head, sniffed at the bowl, and her brow immediately furrowed.
"Papa, it smells like dead fish..." She looked up, her eyes full of pleading. "I want to drink the water from the bottle."
Yu Molan didn't say a word.
He stood up, walked to the corner, and picked up the empty mineral water bottle. He turned it upside down and shook it in front of Xiaoyu.
Not a single drop came out.
"Do you see now?" Yu Molan's voice was soft, not a yell, but his calm was more terrifying than any shout. "There isn't a single drop of clean water left in this house. If you don't drink this, there's nothing else."
Xiaoyu stared at the empty bottle and bit her lip.
"But... it's so gross." Her eyes grew red, her voice trembling on the verge of tears.
"I know it's gross." Yu Molan tossed the empty bottle into a trash bag, sat back down on the sofa, and looked his daughter straight in the eye. "But you're ten years old, not three. The people outside can't even get water that's been filtered like this. If you want to survive, you have to get used to the taste."
He paused, his tone hardening. "You don't have to drink it. You can just sit there until you die of thirst."
The air was deathly silent.
Lin Zhixi opened her mouth to say something, but a look from Yu Molan stopped her.
Xiaoyu froze, large tears rolling down her cheeks and splashing onto the coffee table. She looked at her father's hard face, then at her mother's helpless gaze, and finally, her eyes fell on the bowl of greasy noodles.
A long moment passed, perhaps a full minute.
Xiaoyu reached out a trembling hand and picked up her chopsticks.
"Cough, cough, cough—"
The slick liquid easily went down the wrong pipe. She coughed violently, her small face flushing red, instinctively wanting to spit it out.
"Don't spit it out," Yu Molan said in a low, firm voice. "Swallow it."
Xiaoyu covered her mouth, and with a gulp, forced the foul-tasting mouthful down.
She put down her chopsticks, laid her head on the table, and began to cry silently.
The fist Yu Molan had clenched on his knee slowly relaxed, its palm slick with sweat. He didn't comfort his daughter, just silently finished the noodles in his own bowl in large mouthfuls.
He had to make her understand. From this day forward, being picky was a death sentence.
Two in the afternoon.
Thankfully, none of the three had gotten diarrhea.
Yu Molan stood behind a crack in the balcony curtains, holding a cheap monocular he'd bought on Pinduoduo.
Through the lens, on the rooftop of Building 4 across the way, several young people in raincoats were collecting water. They stuck a hose directly into the pooled water, siphoning it into a huge blue chemical drum.
Suddenly, the view through the lens shook.
A man in a blue raincoat lost his footing.
It was something that grew in the rainwater—a transparent, jelly-like membrane. The stuff grew rampantly in the damp dust, making the concrete ground slicker than if it had been greased.
He flailed his arms at the edge of the rooftop for two seconds, his soles finding no purchase on the membrane, and then—
He slipped off, silently.
A few seconds later.
Thump!
A dull thud pierced the curtain of rain, like someone had dropped a bag of wet cement into a deep well.
The others on the rooftop froze.
One of them fell on his backside in fright, hands slipping on the slick ground, unable to get up. Another peered over the edge, then yanked his head back as if he'd seen a ghost and turned to run.
That life, like the round droplet of water that had splashed from Xiaoyu's bowl earlier, was wiped away just as casually.
Yu Molan lowered the monocular and turned around.
Because the sewers were blocked, the large, sealed bucket in the corner of the living room that served as a toilet was almost full. Beside it, Lin Zhixi was organizing a pile of empty mineral water bottles, preparing to use them for water storage.
"From now on..." Yu Molan looked at the bottles, his voice weary. "For... bowel movements... use a plastic bag, and throw it out."
Lin Zhixi's hand trembled. A bottle tipped over, making a hollow sound.
She looked up, her face, which had once always worn light makeup, was now sallow and gaunt. A faint yellow stain from the broth was at the corner of her mouth.
"What are we going to become?" she asked. "The house stinks, and we're drinking this slimy water."
Yu Molan looked out at the black curtain of rain, then at the half-pot of liquid on the table—clear, yet radiating an aura of death.
"As long as we're still human," he said, "it doesn't matter what we become."
Proofreader: Peter Pan