Chapter 25: The Many Faces of Humanity Part 1

The steak melted blandly in Tang Danqing’s mouth. The cooking wasn’t the problem. Her mind was too heavy for her to taste anything.

Shang You said, “Once the temperature drops to -76°F, the external power grid will fail within half a day. Everywhere that still has electricity is running on backup generators.”

“But those won’t last long.”

“This hotel uses a lot of power. Its generators won’t hold out for forty-eight hours. After seventy-two hours, the power will be out everywhere.”

“Before that, though, the water system will fail within twenty-four hours.” Shang You’s voice was mild as she laid out the facts. “The hotel might run completely dry before tonight.”

Tang Danqing chewed and swallowed the beef in a few distracted bites. “And then?”

“After that, buildings will start to suffer damage. The cold will seep inside, and without a working heat source, the indoor temperature will quickly approach the outdoor temperature.”

“The weaker windows will crack in the cold. A lot of people will look for sturdier rooms to shelter in.”

Tang Danqing frowned without meaning to. Shang You made it sound so immediate, so real.

Even though Tang wasn’t cold at all right now.

Shang You saw that she was still watching her in confusion, so she continued. “If the cold doesn’t let up, it won’t take long. Within seven days, order will disappear…”

That would be the true beginning of the apocalypse.

Shang You would have to watch it all happen again: the monuments of civilization, once lit up night after night, turning into dark, frozen tombs.

But this time, she only had to watch out for one person—

Tang Danqing’s face was reflected faintly in her eyes.

Shang You looked warm and harmless as she gently reassured her, “Danqing, don’t be afraid. We’ll survive.”

They were different from everyone else.

They were staying in a suite built like a fortress, with a vast stockpile of supplies in their space.

What a strange spatial storage feature.

But why did it have to bind two people before it could be used?

While Shang You puzzled over that, Tang Danqing only murmured, “Mm,” and lowered her head to keep eating.

Tang was hungry. She decided it was best to look after her health first.

Once she’d eaten her fill, Tang Danqing reminded Shang You, “Jelly, there are a lot more people staying at this hotel now than there were before. Don’t go wandering outside. Someone might see you.”

Shang You shook her head and obediently said, “Mm. I won’t go out.”

Tang Danqing kept going, becoming more and more insistent. “And don’t open the curtains. If people find out we’re staying here, everyone in the hotel could rush up here.”

“If you run into anyone, don’t let them find out you have a space or food.”

“If you really want to go out and look around, make sure you take me with you.”

“Do you know how to use a real gun? Would you dare to fire it?”

Even though they’d spent twenty days together in the game and Tang knew Little Jelly had all that experience, she still couldn’t stop herself from reminding her again and again.

This was too dangerous.

The dangers of the real world were nothing like the dangers of a virtual game.

Tang Danqing’s guard went up in an instant.

She told Jelly to stay inside, then gripped a dagger and slipped out to inspect the twenty-second floor.

No one had come up.

The electrical room and water storage room were still reinforced just as she’d left them. The private elevator worked, and the iris scanner, camera, and emergency button were all in place.

The emergency exit door was still the same as it had been in the game: a solid wall of iron.

The surveillance camera outside their front door was working normally, and the high-voltage trap hidden under the doormat looked fine.

Only after confirming that everything matched what she’d built in the game did Tang Danqing relax. She returned inside and locked the door behind her.

The thing she repeated to Jelly more than anything else was:

“There are a lot of people here, and things are complicated. Be careful around strangers.”

Jelly lowered her eyes and obediently agreed.

It was only five in the afternoon, but the sky had already begun to darken. Tang Danqing’s feelings were tangled. She didn’t know whether her situation was fortunate or unfortunate.

Then Little Jelly said, like a bird in a cage, “There used to be nobody in my world. Now there are so many people again… It’s so new.”

Tang felt a little comforted on her behalf.

Their worlds had been turned upside down.

But for Shang You, everything had gotten better.

The more often Tang saw her in a good mood, the more the weight on her own heart lifted.

It wasn’t much fun sharing a home with someone who always looked like she had a sour face.

The suite was warm as spring, peaceful and comfortable—aside from the occasional roar of the wind outside.

Tang Danqing sat in an armchair with her phone in hand.

She’d only just noticed the messages a friend had sent twenty minutes ago. The same friend who, back at the film set, had told her to “play fewer games and save more money.”

Her friend had written:

“Danqing, are you okay??”

“Holy crap, your crew is insane! I just saw that you all went to XX Middle School yesterday to help with a rescue!”

“I give up / facepalm. Are all big productions this hardcore? I take it back. I’m never saying I want to join a big production again. You’re risking your lives for the money—you’ve earned every penny.”

“Did you get back safely? Were you hurt? Did your hands or feet get frostbite?”

Tang Danqing considered her reply before typing:

“Yeah, I’m okay. I’m fine now.”

“Thanks for worrying / hug. Don’t go out much, either. It’s cold enough to kill you outside.”

Her friend replied, “No way I’m going out. I don’t want to turn into a popsicle.”

Tang Danqing asked, “Are you staying with your crew? Are you getting group meals, too?”

“We couldn’t afford to book rooms as a group. I went home when it started snowing two days ago.”

“Why did the temperature drop to -76°F? It’s spring… Is the apocalypse coming?”

“The weather bureau hasn’t said why. I’ve got a bad feeling / facepalm. Sigh.”

Tang Danqing: “…”

It was true. At first, the temperature had only dropped to -4°F, and there’d been a snowstorm. That hadn’t frightened many people.

But once the temperature plunged to -76°F, Tang started seeing different things in her friends’ feeds and group chats. The bizarre cold was impossible not to fear.

People were gradually realizing this wasn’t a small matter.

Tang Danqing typed, “Don’t scare me… Do you have food at home?”

“A little, but not much. If we run out completely, I think I can hold on for three to five days. / crying”

Tang had her own idea of how much food that meant. If her friend thought she could last three to five days, she probably had enough to stretch to eleven or twelve.

Most people had at least a little food at home. She was better off there than stuck in a hotel with nothing.

Tang stopped worrying about her friend and opened a few group chats from the martial arts class.

“People are losing their minds. It’s colder than the Northeast ever gets.”

“If the power doesn’t come back tomorrow, I’m going to lose all contact. I haven’t had any electricity here at all. How about you guys?”

“I’ve eaten three meals of bread since yesterday. I want hot pot so bad…”

“The cast on my arm was supposed to keep me from moving it. Now it’s frozen to my hand. Rock hard / smile”

“Is the whole planet freezing over? Aaaaaah! Just end it already!”

“Hahaha, if Earth really ends, the rich are the ones who lose out. The super-rich, all of them. I’ve got nothing, man. Nothing to take with me when I die. / grin”

“When one is in trouble, everyone comes to help. When everyone’s in trouble, we’re all screwed.”

(↓99+ messages)

The martial arts class was a lot rougher around the edges than any of the production group chats. But whether it was the martial artists or the film crew, everyone sounded much the same:

Miserable. Uneasy. Trying to reassure themselves. Hoping the cold would pass soon.

But the game Extreme Cold Apocalypse had an outdoor low of -94°F. The temperature was only -76°F now. Maybe that meant…

This was only the beginning.

There were long, hard days ahead.

Shang You had said that rules and order would start to collapse rapidly around the fifth or sixth day.

Tang Danqing didn’t agree.

Rules and order had always been broken. Even in civilized society, they were nothing but organs hidden inside a perfect-looking shell. They’d been dead for a long time.

The extreme cold had only cracked the shell and let the stench of decay escape.

…

That night, Tang Danqing had a nightmare.

She dreamed the hallway outside their suite was packed with people. So many people!

They had axes, chainsaws, hammers, machine guns, and bundles of explosives. They took turns hacking at the outer wall. Not one of them stopped. Everyone put their whole strength into it, lifting an axe over their head and bringing it down hard.

Clang!

An axe mark appeared in the wall.

Then came the chainsaw. It buzzed against the doorframe, sparks flying as the metal ground against metal. The shrill, grating noise filled the entire floor.

The high-voltage traps and poison gas in the hallway had already been used up against wave after wave of attackers.

Trapped inside, Tang watched the wall’s wounds grow deeper and deeper, watched the surface wear thinner and thinner…

She yanked the curtains open, only to find people clinging to the windows. They’d rappelled down from the roof on ropes and were stuck to the outer glass, packed together as they used drills to destroy its defenses.

Countless eyeballs stared into the suite, their whites gleaming like a roomful of ghosts.

The scene changed.

Tang found herself tied to the corner of a wall in an abandoned building. People kept coming back in groups, carrying guns and knives, demanding that she take supplies out of her space for them.

Her forehead glistened with sweat.

Terror rose in her like a tide.

She hurled herself through the broken window of the old building—

And snapped awake.

A second, lucid part of her mind had known it was a dream. At last she’d forced herself out of it, but the tight, pounding fear in her chest hadn’t faded.

So the real world and the game really are that different.

She still hadn’t built up the sense of safety she’d missed out on.

Tang wiped the sweat from her face, drank a glass of water to calm down, then headed to the gym and turned on the treadmill.

In martial arts, speed was everything. If you could run fast enough, nobody could catch you.

She couldn’t afford to let her footwork get rusty.

Next, she practiced dodging: sidestepping a cheap shot, an ambush, a direct attack…

Finally, she took a razor-sharp dagger out of her space. She got used to its weight and feel, then practiced close combat… and killing.

When she’d been a kid and was about to get into a fight with another martial arts class, this was what she’d done in the days beforehand. The explosive snap of the blade cutting the air and the force of her muscles in motion helped ease her nerves. She felt a little more confident, too.

Whatever the problem is, I can handle it.

Tang Danqing muttered to herself, “Cut through every problem. Cut through every problem…”

At six in the morning, she went to the living room and practiced shooting with a silencer, trying to get to the point where every shot hit the bull’s-eye.

At seven, she changed the dressing on her arm.