They reached the settlement at dusk.
From the outside, Shuijingzhen looked like a miracle. Rows of barricaded houses sat behind thick wooden walls, smoke curling lazily from chimneys, and a functioning windmill turned in the distance like a forgotten relic of peace. There were even children laughing—laughing—near the gates.
But Li Wei had learned not to trust what his eyes showed him. In this world, hope was often a lure. And every clean street had blood underneath.
A man in patched uniform stepped out from a guard post. His rifle was clean. His smile, less so.
"Travelers, huh?" he said. "Not many make it this far from the south."
Chen Yu leaned on the truck's hood. "We heard you're running a spa."
The guard laughed, showing silver teeth. "Something like that. You'll want to talk to Mayor Fang. He handles intake. Weapons down, hands visible."
Li Wei didn't like the tone. Too practiced.
But he nodded.
"Rui," he said quietly. "Keep your knife."
She blinked up at him, innocent as ever. "I never dropped it."
They were led inside with the other new arrivals — two families, a limping ex-teacher, and a pale woman in a silk qipao who didn't speak. All of them were tired. Some hopeful. Some just hollow-eyed.
The interior of Shuijingzhen was almost surreal. Laundry lines flapped in the breeze. A street vendor roasted mushrooms over coals. Children played with a soccer ball made of rags.
Then there were the watchers.
Men with armbands stood at every corner. They didn't speak. They didn't smile. But they watched.
Rui reached up and took Li Wei's hand. Her palm was trembling.
"I don't like this," she whispered.
Chen Yu whistled low. "Yeah. Too clean. Like a theater stage. All this effort to show they're normal."
"They're not," Li Wei said.
"Bingo."
Mayor Fang met them in the central pavilion.
He was a tall, lantern-jawed man with thick eyebrows and a calm voice that almost worked. He wore a vest made of stitched leather and spoke like a man who used to be a school principal.
"We believe in order," he said. "Structure. Everyone earns their keep. Work in the fields, teach the young, guard the walls. You'll get food. Protection."
Li Wei said nothing.
Chen Yu rolled a blade across his fingers. "Sounds noble. What's the catch?"
Fang folded his hands.
"There's a ten-day trial. You follow our rules. Prove you're not dangerous. After that, permanent membership."
Rui tilted her head. "And what happens if we are dangerous?"
Mayor Fang smiled thinly.
"Then you leave. Or you disappear."
The guest quarters they were assigned to had cots, running water, and windows without bars. At night, the sound of insects filled the air — not screams, not sirens.
And yet, Li Wei didn't sleep.
He sat by the window, watching the guard towers.
Rui lay curled up, knife under her pillow.
Chen Yu whispered from across the room, "What do you think?"
"I think they're hiding something," Li Wei said.
"They always are."
The next morning, they were given work.
Li Wei joined a patrol — two men and a woman, all heavily armed. One of them, Jun, had a long scar running down his neck and a tattoo of the old People's Liberation Army on his forearm. The others were quieter. Too quiet.
They patrolled fields that were half-dead. Dead crows lay in rows along the fence.
"Crows don't just die like that," Li Wei said.
Jun shrugged. "Maybe they got sick."
"Maybe someone poisoned them."
Jun didn't respond.
Meanwhile, Rui was assigned to the nursery.
She helped tend to younger kids, played with them, even sang songs. The woman in charge, Auntie Mei, was all soft hands and smiles. But when Rui accidentally picked up a child's drawing — one with figures hanging from trees — Auntie Mei's smile turned to stone.
"That one's not for sharing," she said.
Rui folded the paper slowly. "Who's the tall man in the picture?"
Auntie Mei didn't answer.
Later, when Rui checked the nursery walls, she saw scratch marks behind the toy shelf.
Deep ones.
Like fingernails clawing for a way out.
Chen Yu was placed in the kitchens.
He wore a butcher's apron and grinned at the meat. But even he stopped smiling when he saw the storage.
"Where's the cow?" he asked the cook.
"What cow?"
"This meat," Chen Yu said, poking a tray.
The cook shrugged. "We trade for it."
Chen Yu sniffed the meat again.
It smelled like pork. But it wasn't pork.
That night, the three of them sat under a dead tree outside the compound walls. They said nothing for a long time.
Then Rui broke the silence.
"Why do they smile so much?" she asked. "Even when they're lying?"
Li Wei looked at her. She looked small, but there was steel forming in her eyes.
"Because," he said, "smiling makes the poison easier to swallow."
Three Days Later
The smiles in Shuijingzhen hadn't faded — but the masks were beginning to crack.
Three days had passed since their arrival, and each of them had seen things that didn't fit. The patrol routes never entered certain areas. The children never mentioned their parents. The meat still tasted strange. And the smell near the north wall… no one ever explained it.
Li Wei stopped trusting the wind when it blew from that direction.
He'd seen Rui whispering to one of the smaller boys during nursery hours. The boy had strange eyes — like he'd seen too much, too young.
Later, Rui approached Li Wei, her hands folded neatly behind her back.
"He said there's a door under the library," she murmured. "A place they say is 'for the disobedient.'"
Li Wei didn't speak right away. Rui didn't press him. She just stood there, patient, almost eerie in how calm she was becoming.
"They'll kill us if we dig too deep," he finally said.
"They'll kill us anyway," Rui replied, her voice barely a whisper. "Eventually."
Five Days Later
Chen Yu had begun sneaking food. Not for himself, but to test it.
He boiled scraps with salt and bone ash in a tin pot behind the kitchens. Animals wouldn't eat it. Dogs growled and backed away. Even the rats didn't touch it.
When he asked the head cook where the deliveries came from, the man gave him a cold look. "We trade with outsiders," he said. "The meat comes sealed. You don't ask questions here."
Chen Yu smiled. "You think I'm here to follow rules?"
The man didn't answer. The next morning, the cook was gone. Replaced by someone else who wore the same apron, but not the same eyes.
That night, Chen Yu told Li Wei and Rui everything.
"Human meat," he said. "I'm not guessing anymore."
Li Wei closed his eyes. Rui didn't react at all.
"I think I already knew," she said.
Li Wei turned to her. "You're not scared?"
"No," Rui said softly. "Just angry."
One Week Later
It was Rui who first suggested they explore the library at night.
"There's something wrong under there," she said. "We're wasting time pretending to be guests."
They waited until moonless night. Chen Yu distracted the outer patrols with a staged fire near the compost pits — something to send the guards scrambling. Meanwhile, Rui picked the lock with terrifying precision. She had learned it from a dead man they'd met on the road months ago. She said his name once, but never again.
The trapdoor beneath the library was real.
What lay under it was worse than any of them expected.
Cold stone steps led down into an old bunker, the air damp and stinking of bleach and metal. The walls were lined with chains, some still wet. On a table sat surgical tools. Buckets of salt. A wheelbarrow filled with gnawed bones.
Rui stared for a long time at the metal gurney in the center of the room.
"I think they do it slowly," she said. "Bit by bit."
Li Wei didn't speak. Chen Yu lit a cigarette with a shaking hand.
"We burn this place," Chen Yu said. "Now."
"No," Li Wei said sharply. "If we burn it, they'll bury the truth. We wait. Watch. Learn who's in charge."
"And then?" Rui asked.
"Then we make them scream."
Two Days Later
The boy from the nursery vanished.
The other children were told he'd "gone with traders." Rui knew it was a lie. She stopped singing with them. She stopped smiling. The caretaker, Auntie Mei, pulled her aside.
"You're different," Mei said.
"I'm awake," Rui answered.
"You don't have to make trouble. You're too pretty to die here."
Rui smiled at her then — a slow, eerie curve of her lips. "I'm not dying here. You are."
That Night
They began their purge.
The three of them — Li Wei, Chen Yu, Rui — moved with silent efficiency. Like ghosts. Like blades in the dark.
They started with the "hospital."
There was no medicine. Only restraint chairs. They freed two men — one had no tongue, the other had no eyes. Both were too far gone to speak. But their screams filled the sky as they were carried out into freedom.
Next, the north wall.
Li Wei had been right. Behind it, in a mass grave, were bodies—dozens. Children. Elderly. Traders. Rebels. All dumped like waste.
Rui found a teddy bear under the dirt.
She held it for a second. Then stabbed it through the heart with her knife.
At Dawn
They walked into Mayor Fang's quarters before sunrise. His guards were dead. His windows were broken. The mayor had been awake all night. He was drinking when they entered.
"I knew it was you three," he said.
"I know," Li Wei replied.
"You don't understand how hard this is. Keeping people fed. Keeping them safe. There's no kindness left in this world. Only control."
Li Wei stepped forward.
"Control isn't survival," he said. "It's rot. And you're the root."
Then he shot Fang in the stomach — not the head.
The mayor bled out on the carpet, weeping.
Later That Morning
They left Shuijingzhen as smoke billowed behind them. The fire consumed everything — the nursery, the kitchens, the library, the bodies.
A few survivors followed them. Most did not.
Rui walked ahead now. Her shadow was long in the morning light. Her hands were stained. But her eyes were clear.
Li Wei glanced at her.
"You're changing," he said.
"I was always like this," she answered.
"No," Chen Yu said, grinning. "You're worse. I love it."