Wu You'ai's single sentence plunged the group into silence, a fear that seeped into the bones. People themselves could barely eat now, let alone prisoners. What would happen to prisoners?
Most likely, only a dead end.
Zhu Fan shivered, accidentally brushing a wound. Pain twisted his face. He stretched out a shriveled, prematurely aged hand that trembled uncontrollably. "Why… why did it become like this?"
His wounds kept oozing pus, then turning into sores. In such heat there was strangely no typical inflammation, but they never seemed to heal. Zhu Fan asked the other two men and their conditions were the same. It was as if the water had been sucked out of their bodies all at once, leaving them visibly older by several years.
Jing Shu was thinking about the same problem.
That day, Su Meimei's cheap father had been stung by bees that Jing Shu released on the road. Anxious to learn the outcome, Jing Shu made discreet inquiries the next day and learned that Su Meimei's cheap father had hitched a ride and left Wu City overnight.
That spoiled Jing Shu's follow-up plans. "Fine, he ran fast," Jing Shu thought.
Without her father's protection, Su Meimei was discharged from the hospital and returned home, with Zhang Hanhan taking care of her.
On the day of discharge, Jing Shu watched from afar. Su Meimei was a tragic sight. Her eyes were wrapped in gauze. She stumbled along behind Zhang Hanhan.
Her whole body seeped pus. Where it dried, crusts formed. Her skin was wrinkled and withered like a sixty-year-old woman's, her cheeks sunken.
Zhang Hanhan supported her with a look of disgust. Zhang Zhongyong, who came to pick them up, kept his brows knitted, snapping at them to hurry.
Jing Shu sneered. Some debts were self-made. Only now did payback begin. Su Meimei would suffer for a long time yet. Let Su Meimei first taste what it meant to be abandoned by everyone.
Jing Shu continued observing the others who had been stung. A thought rose in her mind, incredible at first, then impossible to stop. She felt she was circling a guess.
"What effect would nux-vomica plus Spirit Spring plus a bee stinger have?" Jing Shu grew excited, waiting only for a suitable subject to try again.
Jing Shu realized she had fallen into a trap of her own making, assuming that using Spirit Spring must always produce positive outcomes. What if it worked the other way? If ingesting Spirit Spring increased life force, then when a bee nourished by Spirit Spring stung someone, it might cause life force to drain away rapidly. "Yes, that must be it. I am a genius."
The Cube Space truly was a miraculous realm, as if endless abilities lay in wait for her to unlock. Jing Shu could not wait to drill her cube practice again. She hoped to level up soon and glimpse even more powers.
In the blink of an eye, it was July. Wu City began sweeping across districts with a heavy hand, cleaning out anyone with a criminal record, going door to door to verify identities and disseminate the new laws.
Apocalypse theories had been circulating online for a long time. The authorities had gone from initial denial to a half-acceptance. Jing Shu knew that on National Day in October, there would be an official recognition of doomsday theory, and January 1, the day the sunlight vanished, would be designated as Day One of the apocalypse.
Jing Shu remembered that day's speech clearly: "Seventy-plus years ago today was the well-known beginning of a new era.
Seventy-plus years later, we indeed face some small difficulties.
But this is not frightening. What is frightening is if we cannot unite and overcome them together…"
Precisely because of the current chaos and the voices claiming the darkness would last forever, many people had come to despise rules, exposing the darkness in human nature.
In reality, the power above should never be underestimated. What you see is always the tip of the iceberg. When a vast machine truly begins to operate, that is when it becomes terrifying.
Of course, the movie or novel kind of protagonist who steamrolls everything had appeared in other places. Real cases existed and were outrageous. But here, that was impossible. Forever impossible.
Those above had already predicted your predictions and came prepared.
While some dreamed of doing whatever they pleased in the apocalypse, the truth was this:
Two months before the apocalypse, the leadership had already executed corrupt elements. One month before, they butchered the fat sheep. When the apocalypse came, they seized control of food and canning plants. In the second month, they centralized all grain and supplies.
In the third month, they arranged housing and security for all armed personnel's families. In the fourth month, they decisively poured half the nation's resources into the artificial sun, burning bridges behind them.
The fifth month did bring a pinch on supplies, but that was anticipated. They had backup plans.
For example, replacing cash with virtual currency. First they secured loyalty among insiders by rewarding vegetables and virtual coins, making that cohort determined to safeguard their own interests.
In the sixth month, they deployed online and offline big data together. In the seventh month, they immediately executed those who had committed crimes, skipping all intermediate steps.
If you asked how formidable the authorities were…
Jing Shu felt they were simply grasping the levers of human hearts and interests and combining them into one force. All relationships between people reduced to the word "interest." Understand that fully, and nothing is hard.
That was the true meaning of the will of the people and the tide of the times.
Aside from those who failed to flee at the start, many others ran. They figured that without sunlight, no one could recognize their faces, there were no cameras, and no one could catch them. Many others were seized right at home and never knew how they were discovered. If you asked Jing Shu, the authorities' brilliance lay in never telling the public about big data.
As for the fugitives, they could not make trouble anymore. Most knives had already been traded for meat, and most importantly, no households had food. What was there to rob? Do not envy the era when people slept with doors unlocked. In that era, there was nothing to steal.
The knife reclamation had run for two months. Almost all knives and dangerous weapons had been collected.
[Wu You'ai]:"@Everyone, Team Two will sweep our sector today. For everyone's safety, please stay at home and do not go out. At noon, gather in the underground garage. We will ask about each household's situation."