Chapter 16: Caught

They could talk about the rescue team coming to fix things all they wanted, but Tong Xiangyu knew it would be a long time before anyone arrived.

There were only three things in the basement that needed electricity: the lights, cooking, and charging Song Ge’s phone.

They’d found alternatives for the first two. The phone was the only thing they couldn’t charge, but that alone left Tong Xiangyu feeling strangely unsafe.

In the modern world, a phone was the easiest and most important way to keep in touch with the outside.

They had no internet or signal now, but as long as the phone had power, they could learn about any news as soon as it came in.

Down in the dark basement, the two of them were cut off from everything.

What if rescue arrived and they never found out? Wouldn’t that be a senseless way to die?

Tong Xiangyu worried herself sick over it.

Song Ge remained as calm as ever.

Unlike the young miss, who was in the dark about what was happening outside, Song Ge checked through the window every day.

At first, things had been up and down. Lately, they’d only gotten worse.

The monsters seemed to be growing in number.

After so many days, Song Ge had grown numb to the corpses, severed limbs, and every other gruesome sight. Rotting flesh had piled up outside the window.

In a situation like this, forcing their way out was the last resort—something they could only try when there was nowhere else to go.

When Song Ge woke that morning, she did what she always did when Tong Xiangyu was still asleep: peeled back half the newspaper and checked outside.

But she couldn’t see anything.

Rotting flesh and blood completely obscured the window, and white maggots crawled through the gore.

Even if Song Ge tore down all the newspaper, there wasn’t a clean patch of glass left to see through.

Still, Song Ge’s body clock was reliable. With her phone dead and the window covered, she could keep track of the days by remembering when she went to sleep and woke up.

They still had plenty of food.

It would last longer than she’d expected.

They had Tong Xiangyu’s tiny appetite to thank for that. She’d often eat a small drumstick or a bit of bread and declare herself full. Even after Song Ge had filled in two tally marks in her notebook, there were still more than ten snacks left in the bag that Tong Xiangyu had claimed would last a week.

Song Ge had just drawn the first stroke of a third tally mark when she noticed something was different. She turned around.

At some point, Tong Xiangyu had silently sat up in bed. She was staring straight at Song Ge with wide, unblinking eyes and lips pressed into a firm line.

She looked like she was sleepwalking.

But after more than ten days together, Song Ge knew the young miss didn’t sleepwalk.

“Another nightmare?” Song Ge asked casually.

Instead, Tong Xiangyu said, “I just saw you pull back the newspaper.”

Song Ge paused with her pen in hand. She hadn’t expected the young miss to catch her. She began spinning the pen over her knuckles.

Tong Xiangyu looked upset. “Why are you the only one who gets to look? What’s it like out there?”

“What do you think? More monsters. More corpses.”

“But all this time, I haven’t heard any monsters.”

Song Ge understood. She stopped spinning the pen, and it slipped from her hand and clacked against the table. She looked back at Tong Xiangyu. “You think I’ve been lying to you?”

“I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m asking a reasonable question. All you have to do is give me a reasonable explanation.”

“‘A reasonable explanation.’” Song Ge turned the words over in her mind, then gave a short, bitter laugh. She looked at Tong Xiangyu. “If you think I’m some kind of psycho who made up an excuse to keep you here, just say so. You want to see? Look for yourself.”

Song Ge stood and ripped down the newspaper she’d put back over the window that morning.

She didn’t even realize how angry she sounded.

Tong Xiangyu immediately covered her eyes. “I don’t want to look! I’m not asking to see. I just want you to explain!”

Song Ge leaned against the table. “And what if I don’t explain?”

Tears welled in Tong Xiangyu’s eyes. Her tightly pressed lips trembled, and she covered her face with her slender fingers. Hearing Song Ge’s cold, mocking question, she choked out a sob, then suddenly burst into tears.

Song Ge had nothing to say.

Right. The rich girl cried at the drop of a hat.

It felt absurd to be squabbling with a child. Song Ge put the newspaper back, went to the bed, and gently tugged at Tong Xiangyu’s hand. “Hey.”

“Little Milk Tea.”

Tong Xiangyu’s tear-reddened eyes glared at her. “Don’t call me that!”

“Stop crying. We don’t have many bottles of water left. Save some moisture.”

Tong Xiangyu pouted, sniffled twice, and stared at her through watery eyes.

Song Ge looked at the young miss’s wounded, resentful expression and pursed her lips. She relented. “Go wash your face. I’ll explain afterward.”

Tong Xiangyu got out of bed at once.

By the time she passed Song Ge, she’d stopped crying. She said clearly, “You could’ve done that from the start!”

She didn’t look remotely upset anymore.

Song Ge stared after her, momentarily baffled. Had she imagined the whole thing?

Tong Xiangyu turned on the tap to wash her face, but the water trickled more and more weakly.

She turned the handle all the way. The water stopped altogether.

Tong Xiangyu stared at it, then shut the tap and tried again. Not a drop came out. She turned on the shower, but after a few feeble drips, that stopped, too.

“Song Ge!”

“What now?”

Tong Xiangyu hurried out of the bathroom and found Song Ge lit by candlelight. “I think the water’s stopped.”

Song Ge picked up a candle and checked the valve beneath the sink. No one had touched it, so it couldn’t have been that. But why would the water suddenly stop? Well, nothing was normal anymore.

“The water’s probably been shut off,” she said. “First the internet, then the power, now the water. Looks like most of Kecheng has fallen.”

Tong Xiangyu’s face was wet. She asked anxiously, “What do we do now?”

“Nothing. We keep waiting for rescue.”

“But we can’t just sit here and wait to die, Song Ge!”

“Weren’t you the one who said it was too dangerous outside?”

“That was before. This is now. When you’re up against a wall, you find a way.” Tong Xiangyu sounded flustered. “If we don’t look for a way out, we’ll die when we run out of water. People can only last three days without water!”

Song Ge watched Tong Xiangyu speak with such urgency and reason, and suddenly smiled.

Tong Xiangyu froze. “What are you laughing at?”

“Nothing.” Song Ge left the bathroom, brushing past her.

Tong Xiangyu followed. “What are you laughing at?”

“Just thinking you seem to have grown up all of a sudden.”

Grown up? Tong Xiangyu was about to answer when Song Ge turned around. Her face and voice were as ordinary as ever.

“Do a few more rounds of jumping jacks and high knees.”

“What? We’re training again?” Tong Xiangyu said. “We can’t even shower now.”

“Then don’t shower.”

“But—”

“If you don’t train, how are we going to get out?”

Tong Xiangyu’s heart suddenly started beating faster. She looked at Song Ge. “You mean…?”

Song Ge knew things were worse than she’d thought. Maybe the rescue they’d been waiting for had already arrived, only to vanish without a trace and become part of the monsters roaming the city.

“When we run out of the water we have, we’ll make a break for it,” Song Ge said. “You can drive, right?”

Tong Xiangyu hesitated. “I have a license…”

“That’ll do. Start jumping. We’ll eat breakfast afterward.”