Day nineteen of the apocalypse.
Around six in the morning, the earliest-waking boy caught a strange sound. With a toothbrush sticking out of his mouth, he stared blankly through the glass wall.
In the dorms near the canteen, where students had spent the past dozen or so days barely scraping by on instant food, a scattered few heard the noise as well. They did not dare open the windows or step onto their balconies, opting instead to peer at the outside world from the hallway.
“What was that?”
The boy scratched his ear, irritated by the piercing pitch, but the sound faded almost immediately. He spat out the foam, rinsed with tap water, and wiped his face.
Jiangpu Canteen had grooming mirrors and sinks. In the dim light, people checked their reflections and tidied up. Before long, others began waking, forming a line to brush their teeth and wash.
Meng Zizhao heard the commotion around nine o’clock.
He had been sitting by the glass wall, leaning back against the surface and lazily watching a group gathered around a card game. When they had sorted through the convenience store inventory, they had found a row of playing cards on the shelves.
Someone had asked him to join their bridge game earlier, but he had declined with a smile, choosing instead to stay huddled in the corner and watch them play.
Against the noisy backdrop of calls and played cards, he glanced down at his wristwatch. The hands ticked steadily along.
The moment the hour and minute hands formed a right angle, marking exactly nine o’clock, a familiar, piercing sound drifted in from outside, cutting clearly through the air.
Meng Zizhao froze, then shot to his feet.
The sudden movement instantly made him the center of attention in the cafeteria.
Yan Fengji looked over at him with a furrowed brow. Over the past dozen days, everyone had grown familiar with Meng Zizhao’s demeanor. He laughed often, spoke with a bright voice, possessed an easygoing temper rare for a rich heir, and got along with everyone.
Whenever the others felt down, he always knew the right words to say, easing the sorrow and gloom. He was rarely ever this tense.
“What’s wrong?” several of his peers from the Aviation Academy asked, sensing trouble. “Brother Meng, why’d you jump up like that?”
Meng Zizhao raised a hand, signaling for everyone to be quiet so he could listen carefully.
The look on his face unnerved the room. Following his gaze, the others turned toward the glass wall.
That strange sound rang out for a full minute.
Then the noise gradually faded away.
Once the sound died down, Meng Zizhao reined in his expression. As his gaze met those of the people around him, Yan Fengji seemed lost in thought, his brow furrowing slightly before smoothing out.
Dou Qing did not care much about what had set him on edge. Head lowered, he was busy trimming Fang Yangyang’s nails.
They had found a box of nail clippers on a shelf in the convenience store. Her nails had grown a bit long, so she picked up a pair and intended to sit in a corner to trim them herself. She had not expected Dou Qing to volunteer the moment he saw what she was doing, insisting he could help.
She had only managed to clip two nails on her left hand before he took over the rest of the job.
Fang Yangyang, however, had watched Meng Zizhao’s reaction the entire time. She had already reached her own conclusion about what he had heard.
“It might be an acoustic bird scarer,” Meng Zizhao answered, addressing the room’s collective confusion.
“Huh?”
The technical term left most people baffled, but a few of his peers from the Aviation Academy quickly caught on.
“For scaring off birds?”
“Yes.” Meng Zizhao nodded. He hesitated, shifting his gaze toward the glass wall. “I just don’t know what good it will do.”
Acoustic bird scarers typically broadcast recorded calls of predatory birds or distress cries of injured birds to frighten flocks away.
It was basic industry knowledge for anyone in aviation.
The other students from the Aviation Academy were not as perceptive as Meng Zizhao. Unlike them, he had obtained his flight certification abroad at an early age and grew up around his family’s airline, making it second nature for him to identify the sounds of specialized equipment.
“What do you mean? Bird dispersal?”
Someone asked outright, “Is someone driving away birds?”
“Why would they do that?” A flurry of puzzled questions arose. The students playing cards put their hands down and looked at him in curiosity.
Meng Zizhao hesitated, looking dazed. “It’s a method used in aviation to prevent severe bird strike accidents.”
Why would anyone use it on campus, though? Were they trying to clear out a flock of birds temporarily, or did they have another motive? With so little information, he could not piece together the reason.
By then, Fang Yangyang’s nails had been trimmed into smooth, neat curves. Dou Qing cradled her fingers, his warmth seeping into her skin.
“All done,” he said softly.
She obediently pulled her hand back.
Nearby sat Tao Zhi, the fire-type ability user who had helped them dry their clothes the day before. Growing anxious, she chewed on her finger and stared out the window, clearly on edge and unable to sit still.
Glancing over at the young couple beside her, Tao Zhi paused and let out a helpless smile.
One held out her fingers like a pampered princess, letting her boyfriend trim her nails. The other worked with gentle, painstaking care. Only after he finished did he finally look up at the rest of the group, who were still clustered in the center debating the purpose of the loudspeaker.
None of them had any idea what Meng Zizhao’s “suspected bird repellent device” was actually for.
Only Fang Yangyang, having read the original apocalyptic novel and knowing the plot, understood who was using it and why.
“They’re probably trying to restore communications,” Fang Yangyang remarked casually. Her light, conversational tone made it sound like an offhand thought.
The people nearby turned to look at her in unison.
Unfazed, she offered them a sweet, easy smile, her eyes curving into crescents. “Can’t modern technology use drone base stations for mobile cellular signals?”
Huaguo’s drone technology led the world. In previous years, whenever natural disasters cut off network access and wiped out cellular reception, the authorities would deploy drone base stations to hover overhead, allowing stranded victims to reach the outside world.
Trapped inside the campus when the apocalypse struck, they had no way of knowing what was happening in the outside world.
Even so, it was easy enough to deduce.
During the first four days, the mutated creatures must have caused a catastrophic plunge in the population. That sudden loss of life would inevitably leave critical gaps across every industry and sector of society.
For the state to muster all controllable, usable resources in just over ten days was already an extraordinary feat.
Universities were idealistic havens. Most teachers and students who lived and worked on campus retained an innocent earnestness rarely found among working professionals. Lacking real-world experience, these highly intelligent, capable people were easily caught off guard, often overlooking key practicalities.
Dou Qing picked up naturally where Fang Yangyang left off.
“Mutated birds could damage the drones mid-flight,” he said calmly, his tone light and conversational. “If we want a drone station to circle safely in the air, we’ll probably have to clear the airspace of birds first.”
The seamless rapport between them struck Tao Zhi as surprisingly sweet.
Neither of them seemed to notice it. One spoke with bright, sparkling eyes, while the other watched on with quiet gentleness.
She noticed a shift in Yan Fengji’s expression.
On closer thought, Fang Yangyang’s words made perfect sense. As everyone watched her finish speaking, the pretty girl pressed her lips together and gave a shy smile. “I’m just thinking out loud, of course. It could easily be something else.”
Yet her casual speculation aligned seamlessly with the logical deduction she had once broadcast over the radio, which had correctly pinpointed the ideal settlement for human survivors. Time had proven her right, without exception.
Day twenty of the apocalypse.
The bird-repelling loudspeakers blared just as they had the day before.
Barely half an hour later, through the canteen’s glass wall, a blinding flash of bright orange burst across the sky, loud and vivid. Hundreds of meters above the ground, dense, storm-like flocks of birds scattered from the canopy in a panic, shrieking piercingly.
Soon, the flock’s flight patterns grew erratic. In the distance, several mutated birds plummeted headfirst, crashing into the earth.
More began to drop from high above like scattered beans, leaving wet streaks of blood across the ground.
The companions fell silent at the sight. Someone was clearly deploying high-tech, devastating force to eradicate the mutated flock.
Students from the Aviation Academy began whispering among themselves. “Bird-repelling projectiles?”
“Yeah, but they seem way more powerful than anything used in civil aviation.”
Their knowledge stemmed solely from documentary footage shown in class, leaving their guesses tentative and uncertain.
Meng Zizhao quietly observed the flock’s movements outside. Standing half a meter away, Yan Fengji asked in a low voice, “Do you know anything about this?”
“It doesn’t look like civil aviation gear,” Meng Zizhao replied, his tone heavy with caution. The cheerful smile he usually wore had vanished, replaced by solemn gravity.
“If your brother were here, he’d probably know better.”
The implication was clear: this was military-grade weaponry.
Not being a technical specialist, Meng Zizhao refrained from jumping to conclusions without reliable information. After a moment of careful thought, his gaze shifted to Fang Yangyang, who was currently helping the cafeteria worker carry out bowls of rice.
Yan Fengji looked over as well.
Fang Yangyang seemed unaffected by the commotion outside. The canteen staff enjoyed the company of the pretty girl with a sweet smile and pleasant voice as she helped them with chores.
When mealtime arrived, several other girls quickly gathered around her table. They chatted in low, cheerful voices, their upbeat mood lifting the spirits of those nearby.
Dou Qing did not stay by her side. Seated with a pen and paper, he wrote steadily, looking up only occasionally toward the group of girls.
“Her guess is most likely right,” Yan Fengji remarked, gazing outside. In the distant sky, sunlight remained hidden behind thick, dark clouds, their edges glowing with a faint glimmer.
Two hours had passed since the bird-repelling shell was launched into the air.
It was now afternoon.
A boy playing a tile-matching game on his phone reached the next level when his device suddenly buzzed with an incoming message. In the pull-down notification bar, a text message icon appeared unmistakable and clear.
He froze on the spot.
Almost unconsciously, his trembling fingers tapped to open the message.
A choked, tearful cry broke from his throat as he shouted to everyone in the canteen, “Everyone, check your phones!”
“We got a message! A message came through!”
Jolted awake from their midday rest, their companions’ hearts hammered in their chests at the sound of the boy’s frantic shouting.
Phones were unlocked, and text messages opened.
[Jia City Government: Fellow citizens of Jia City, in the early hours of September 4th at 4:00 AM, a global disaster struck, severing nationwide communications. The Ministry of Emergency Management has deployed Minglong drones over all districts of Jia City to temporarily restore the Huaguo Mobile Telecom public network. Due to the drones’ limited flight time, service will only be available for three hours. Please report your situation and contact your families immediately.
Below is the temporary link to register Jia City emergency rescue information… Please register your and your companions’ details within this window so professional teams can coordinate rescue efforts.
Stay safe!]
Amid choked sobs and sniffling, they read the message over and over. Twenty days of agony, anxiety, and dread finally gave way to a glimmer of hope.
Dou Qing looked at Fang Yangyang. Her eyes were as clear as ever, though now tinged with red. She met his gaze in quiet emotion, crinkled her nose, and gave a tearful smile.