After being struck by lightning, the human-faced rabbit collapsed completely onto the ground.
After a while, seeing that the rabbit did not move, Brother Zhang immediately ordered someone to tie it up and send it back to the base.
When he looked back at Lan Jin and the others, his face was full of hesitation, wanting to say something but holding back. Lan Jin felt a bit irritated seeing this.
Luckily, Lan Jin had no interest in hearing such things. She quickly stopped him, "Don't say it. I don't want to hear."
Brother Zhang did not expect Lan Jin to react this way, but it worked. "The less you know, the easier it is later. Never mind. There's nothing urgent now. You go ahead first. After calculating your contribution points, I'll call you. You can just claim them at the exchange point."
"Okay. Qiao Qiao and Grandma Ling are still halfway up on the second floor. I'll go first. Call us if anything happens."
With that, Lan Jin left without looking back. The other three followed her quickly. They were curious about what had happened, but they were not children. They knew which questions could be asked, and which should wait for the proper moment.
…
Halfway up on the second floor, they immediately saw Nana waiting at the stair entrance. Seeing the four of them, Nana relaxed and stepped forward to greet them.
Grandma Ling held Lan Qiaoqiao's hand gently. "Is everything resolved?"
"Resolved. Let's go back," Ling Jiang said.
…
Inside the apartment.
After lunch, when the older and younger ones fell asleep, Ling Jiang and the others called Lan Jin into the living room to ask about what had happened.
Lan Jin smiled. "I thought you wouldn't be interested."
"How could we not be interested? I was dying to know," Lao Gao said excitedly, but he spoke softly to avoid waking Grandma Ling and Lan Qiaoqiao. Then he asked again, "What happened? Why did you say that? I don't get it."
Ling Jiang also did not fully understand. "I don't really understand either, but that rabbit was creepy."
Ling Jiang and Lao Gao were not the type to overthink. If it wasn't life-or-death, they wouldn't dwell on it. That did not mean they were stupid. They might not understand Lan Jin's attitude fully, but they sensed something was off.
Ling Jiang said, "Stop giving riddles. Just say it straight. I don't like thinking too much."
"I don't know where to start," Lan Jin admitted.
Huang Jinghe, on the other hand, spoke bluntly. "Say everything you suspect and all your guesses. Actually, Sister Lan, I've also felt that many things are off. This apocalypse, though it seems natural, some things I suspect are man-made."
Lan Jin's eyes flickered. They said together, "Human-faced rabbit."
As expected, Huang Jinghe had the same thought. But this idea was so strange that Ling Jiang and Lao Gao did not doubt them, yet they could not understand how a normal person could become a rabbit.
Lao Gao asked, "You mean the human-faced rabbit was man-made? That's why it has a human face on a rabbit body?"
Ling Jiang followed, "How could that happen? In movies, they do experiments. Could it be a failed experiment?"
"Most likely, yes," Lan Jin and Huang Jinghe said together.
Ling Jiang frowned. "Do you have proof? You can't just say it. Even if the face looks human, how can a normal person turn into that?"
Lan Jin said, "Don't you feel that from the very start of this apocalypse, things were already off?"
Lao Gao thought for a while. "I had doubts but didn't think much. Everything developed too smoothly. Even without thinking much, I suspected something, but it felt far away from me. I just wanted to live normally."
"That's not a wrong thought," Lan Jin said. "I used to think that way too. But after this apocalypse began, everything felt too smooth. Things happened as if prearranged."
From the very start, Lan Jin had noted suspicious points. Because she had been reborn and experienced this apocalypse again, she suspected she was not the only reborn person, which made her impressions sharper.
"We all know the apocalypse started with an earthquake and a tsunami. J city isn't in an earthquake zone and has no sea. So those disasters didn't affect us. I don't know about your community, but in ours, two minutes after the power went out, the broadcast started. They told us to stay home, and staff would come to register us."
Lan Jin continued, "Forget the registration. How did the broadcast work right after the power cut? Our community equipment wouldn't work without power. They must have used a generator, but no matter if the community had one, it couldn't be plugged in and broadcasting immediately. And the speech they read didn't sound improvised after a disaster."
Huang Jinghe interjected, "It sounded pre-written. The person reading sounded calm too."
Lan Jin nodded. "Exactly. Another point: do communities work late at night? Their hours are usually nine to five. Even if some worked overtime, not everyone. The whole country couldn't be working at the same time. This alone is not a coincidence. The later house-to-house registration also wasn't normal.
During registration, staff checked residence permits and household records. This is a foreshadowing. After the flood, low-floor residents who had nowhere to live were assigned homes. If a house was empty, the higher-ups didn't put anyone in. About residence permits, first they verified everyone had one, then activated contribution points. Furniture collection gave residents points for future shopping at the supermarket or cafeteria. The collected furniture was recycled, reducing material loss."
Lan Jin continued, "Let me tell you, it's a setup. Otherwise, why was the supermarket and cafeteria empty after acid rain? They must have known it was coming and removed items early. The higher-ups weren't neglectful; they just moved people to base. Those who could leave did, those who couldn't… it wasn't their fault."