Chapter 21

The voice drew closer, then quickly disappeared. Su Xing saw a helicopter streak across the distant sky.

It was a government evacuation notice.

She turned to look at Wen Ruyao. “What message did you receive?”

“Level 1 Catastrophe Notice. Wartime management is being implemented in S City. The stadium perimeter has military firepower stationed there; it’s a temporary Safe Base.” Wen Ruyao succinctly relayed the key information from the text, putting down her phone with a furrowed brow. “It seems the situation outside isn’t optimistic. If they could thoroughly clear the city of Variants, the government wouldn’t need to have survivors risk their own lives reaching the Safe Base.”

“Which means it’s even more dangerous out there than we imagine,” Su Xing summarized the current situation, her expression rather grim. “The stadium… seems quite far from here. Walking there isn’t realistic.”

“Then we’ll drive,” Wen Ruyao said, holding the “phone” Qin Mo gave her. Her slender fingers slowly slid across the map on the screen, upon which all of S City’s major and minor routes were clearly displayed. “The main roads might be jammed, but we can take more remote back roads. Theoretically, we can drive there in half an hour.”

“A car? But where do we find a car now…” As soon as she spoke, Su Xing regretted it. She was currently at Wen Ruyao’s home, after all. How could a wealthy woman not have a car?

As expected, Wen Ruyao casually said, “I still have a Land Rover. It’s in the underground parking garage. As long as we can safely get down there, we can get the car.”

Su Xing pondered for a moment, then said, “If the elevator outside is still safe, we could go straight down. But the problem is, we don’t know what the situation in the garage is like now, whether any mutated things have gotten in.”

Wen Ruyao turned her head to look at the drone temporarily placed on the floor. “So we still need to use this.”

Going to the military-guarded stadium was their only chance to get protection and evacuate S City. It was currently around three in the afternoon, the sun was shining brightly outside, and there was still plenty of daylight left. Once they decided, they planned to use the drone today to scout the garage situation first, then make their move.

Wen Ruyao placed her laptop on the table and opened all the surveillance feeds from the corridor. The long, narrow passage was covered in dried blood, all from the Variant that had self-destructed at the door that night. In the corner, the corpse of the Sharp-Mouthed Monster still lay exactly where it was. The temperature wasn’t low these days, and after so long, Su Xing and Wen Ruyao could already faintly smell the odor from inside the room.

This floor had only two households: Wen Ruyao’s and the man who had mutated and exploded. The elevator was quietly stopped at the 15th floor. The door to the emergency stairwell at the end was also locked. The corridor was currently safe.

Su Xing’s gaze swept across the surveillance feed of the neighboring man’s apartment door. She noticed it was still open and paused, saying, “Just in case, should we check next door first?”

After the mutated man walked out that night, there had been no other sounds from inside the neighboring apartment. Although they knew that if one person in a household mutated, the others were undoubtedly dead, confirming it would still be safer.

So, they quietly approached the door. For the first time in all these days, they cautiously tried to open the front door.

The door opened silently with a crack. They sent the drone out, and Su Xing first maneuvered it to fly into the open door next door. Holding her breath, she nervously watched the footage transmitted back by the camera. The neighbor’s living room was a mess, but there were no other living people, or any moving things. There was a baby stroller in the living room; a pool of blood had congealed under its wheels. Maneuvering the machine slowly closer, Su Xing’s fingers suddenly jolted, and she nearly lost control.

She saw a baby in the stroller… a shriveled husk of skin.

“…”

She couldn’t help but jerk the control stick hard. The drone lurched forward; the image shifted and nearly hit a wall. Fortunately, the expensive high-end machine performed well, suffering no major damage. Su Xing immediately piloted the drone out of that apartment.

“Next door… no danger.” Although she confirmed the threat was eliminated, her feelings were tremendously complicated as she spoke.

Silence filled the room for a moment, and then the two of them opened the door and went out.

If they were using the drone to scout first, they couldn’t take the elevator down. They decided to have the machine fly down the stairs of the fire escape.

Stepping both feet into the corridor outside, that odor became even more pungent and nauseating. Pinching her nose, eyes half-closed, Su Xing endured the discomfort and quickly stepped over the horrendous patch of blood, heading straight for the fire escape door.

Wen Ruyao followed behind her. The two stood quietly before the door for a moment. After confirming there was no sound outside, they pushed open the fire escape door.

Su Xing remotely piloted the drone downward floor by floor. Along the way, they were fortunate not to discover anything unusual. Just as they were about to reach the underground garage, they spotted a human corpse at a turn in the stairwell. The corpse still retained its human appearance; it hadn’t mutated while alive. There were no bloodstains or obvious wounds, nor did it look like it had died from an attack. Stranger still, the skin surface of this corpse looked moldy, overgrown with a layer of grayish-white… “sprouts.” It felt odd to compare them to that, but they genuinely looked like plant sprouts, with slender tips that were a dark cyan color.

The two stared at this bizarre image for a few seconds before continuing to fly downward.

Going down the stairs, entering the underground garage required swiping a card to open the door. The drone couldn’t go straight in; it could only film the inside of the garage through the glass of the transparent door.

Observing inside from the limited view, the garage seemed empty, apart from the cars quietly parked in their spaces.

“Looks like there’s nothing unusual in the garage, either.”

Su Xing maneuvered the drone to pan sideways, wanting to shift the perspective to see as much of the interior as possible. The footage slowly moved, switching to a view slightly to the right of the door. Suddenly, a human face appeared in the camera feed.

Su Xing, who had been staring intently at the screen, jumped in fright. That person was standing motionless at an oblique angle on the other side of the door, their reddened eyes wide open, staring fixedly at them.

The drone body wobbled from the sudden control input. The man in the garage flinched back half a step. Only then did Su Xing realize it was a normal, living person.

After the man retreated, he seemed to turn his head and call out deeper inside. Soon, several more people walked from inside up to the door, staring intently at Su Xing’s drone. Their mouths opened and closed as they exchanged a few words. One person wanted to open the door but was immediately stopped by the others.

Since the disaster struck, having witnessed all kinds of bizarre creatures and insects over these days, Su Xing had grown accustomed to only having Wen Ruyao as a living person to talk to. Seeing so many normal people inside at once felt somewhat unnatural to her.

The people inside seemed to be arguing and showed no intention of opening the door. However, Su Xing and Wen Ruyao had now confirmed there were active people inside, which meant the garage itself was safe.

Just as they were preparing to pilot the drone back, the footage suddenly started shaking violently. The camera angle plunged uncontrollably to the ground. Then the image flickered and went black.

Su Xing instantly put down the remote control and looked up at Wen Ruyao. “Someone shot the drone down from behind.”

Sensing danger, they retreated back into the room and locked the door.

“Could the thing that shot the drone down from behind be one of those creatures?” Su Xing was worried. Although they hadn’t spotted any dangerous Variants along the way, it didn’t rule out the possibility of one suddenly appearing from an inconspicuous corner.

Wen Ruyao wrapped her arms around herself, slightly shaking her head thoughtfully. “It doesn’t seem like it. Before the machine malfunctioned, I was watching the expressions of those people in front of the door. One of them kept staring at the drone with a look of surprise, but no terror. So, there probably wasn’t any danger outside the door at that moment.”

“Then what could it be? A person?” Su Xing frowned. If it was a person, why would they attack their drone? That seemed excessively hostile.

Wen Ruyao smiled. “After all, what they saw was just a cold, anonymous machine that appeared out of nowhere, not a person. Nervousness would be normal in that situation. But at least the fact they’re there proves the garage is temporarily safe.”

“Should we go down today?” Su Xing asked.

Lowering her eyes to check the time on her phone, Wen Ruyao pursed her lips. “There’s no time left today. Tomorrow morning, we’ll go. We also need some time to prepare our gear for leaving.”

Su Xing thought of all the food and water in this apartment, which they definitely couldn’t take all with them. Feeling a pang of regret, she licked her lips. “Then let’s eat a bit more extravagantly tonight. Otherwise, leaving it here would just be a waste.”

“…” Hearing that her first thought was about food, Wen Ruyao’s phoenix-like eyes lifted slightly. She gave a subtle, fleeting curl of her lip, quickly suppressing the smile. “We will certainly bring some supplies too. The two of us can’t carry much, and… we can’t bring too much.”

“Why?” Su Xing was puzzled.

“Did you notice the complexions of those people?” Wen Ruyao frowned. “They all looked very hungry.”

“…”

There would naturally be no water or food in an underground garage. Being trapped inside for three or four days, their condition definitely wouldn’t be good. People in extreme states are the most hostile, and who, in normal circumstances, would bring large amounts of supplies to a garage at a time like this?

There were only two of them. To avoid unnecessary complications, Wen Ruyao’s caution was entirely justified.

Su Xing suddenly realized that, without her noticing, the level of trust between her and Wen Ruyao had reached a point where it came almost instinctively.