The night was bitterly cold. The heavy storm outside had stopped being a warm spring rain and turned into an icy downpour of red nematodes.
While people in the other caves shivered, the firewood in Zone Z's No. 5 cave had finally burned out. When the thick smoke cleared, the hot stones still held a comfortable warmth, and sleeping with your back against those stones at night was about as good as it got.
Jing Shu's earthen kiln was stoked with charcoal, and the family all sat around the warm kiln talking.
After dinner, Grandpa Jing carved a mahjong set out of wood for the family. The whole thing started because Grandma Jing's mahjong habit flared up. By the time Jing Shu and Li Yuetian finished their handoff and came back, they already gathered at the little wooden table playing mahjong.
Occasional calls of "one tile" and "pung" drifted out, and it really felt like being on holiday.
Jing Shu watched them play the challenger's game, with the loser stepping down and the next person taking the seat, while she kept practicing her Rubik's Cube. This lifetime had finally given her something to aim for again.
"This is the thirty-third time." Jing Shu said, staring at the Rubik's Cube that had literally just been twisted into order only to revert to its previous colors, counting silently the frequency of its reversion.
Yes, the Rubik's Cube really did change colors on its own, which made the Cube much harder. At first she thought it was an illusion, but she had kept a few tricks in mind and discovered it really did sneakily swap colors.
Because of that, she had become painfully sensitive to sudden color changes, and when she caught a color shift, it felt like everything moved in slow motion.
She could even track the flight path of a fly as it zipped past her face.
She didn't know whether this new skill came from the extra hours she spent practicing the Rubik's Cube or from drinking too much of the Spirit Spring, which might have enhanced her abilities. For now it didn't seem to help much.
She could only hope that when her Rubik's Cube Space upgraded, it would gain extra functions like the color-changing trick had. It was predictable that the future upgrades of the Rubik's Cube Space would be harder and harder.
They arranged beds for the night by squeezing her parents a little to make room for Su Long. There were two inflatable boats set aside for Uncle and Auntie to sleep in, and close to the earthen kiln there was warmth.
It was colder to sleep in the vehicle, with nowhere to stretch your legs, and everyone was caked in mud and red nematodes. They didn't mind, but inflatable boats were easier to clean.
As forAuntie had felt bad about letting Su Long sleep in the dirty tent, so before dinner she had gone and cleaned a tent especially for him. In the end someone lent he a dry towel to wipe the red nematodes off. Some of the red nematodes had already been eaten clean by Xiao Dou's chickens.
At 11 p.m., Wu You'ai finished taking roll call for the people in the No. 5 and No. 6 caves, and everyone retired. Her checking work for the day was over.
A little after two in the morning, her phone started beeping. she snapped awake.
…
The community was terrifyingly quiet at night. Only the top floor of No. 25 glowed faintly. Shangguan Jun stood at the window, his shoulder blades bare and streaked with blood, carefully pressing a wood fire to his wounded shoulder. The meat sizzled when it touched the hot wood. He clenched his teeth and sweated, and he roared, "This feels great!"
At that moment someone below made a noise, and Shangguan Jun quickly put the flame out. He watched a group of a dozen people walk toward the villa district and tilted his head with mild interest.
"Da Sheng, if you're caught stealing now they'll put you in labor reform. Didn't you see Lao Wang the other day? He stole someone's clothes and got arrested. Now there's a flood and he's been forced to work ever since."
Zhou Dasheng held Zhou Dafu's phone and his small eyes darted around.
"You fools. Our phones are hidden in the caves. With no big-data trace, who'll know we came out? Besides, we're helping Dafu fulfill his last wish and get revenge. Even if you take it a step further, that woman stole Dafu's pistol. If we go to her place and take some stuff, isn't that fair?"
"Right, I'm just worried there won't be anything worth taking." someone said.
"You don't get it. They can afford an energy vehicle and they raise chickens. There's so much food in their car. You don't think their house will be short of good stuff. Come on, according to the big-data registration, this is the house."
Zhou Dasheng compared the data on the big-data app, and Zhou Dafu's secondary access permission had been given by his cousin Zhou Daheng. Just search for she and you could find where she lived and what her family did.
"We've hit a fat target," Zhou Dasheng thought, but a scream cut through the night.
"Ouch, something bit me! It hurts."
"I got stung too! It's bees. Damn it, why are there bees here?"
"There are so many bees!"
Zhou Dasheng rubbed the swelling on the back of his neck and swore. "They're just bees. We're wearing thick clothes. Curl up and head inside. Once we get in, we'll be fine."
Shangguan Jun squinted and murmured, "So there are bugs around here after all?"
"Oh… there's a fenced trap too? That place must've pulled a lot of people into those traps back during the blackout."
"There are several traps outside, and inside there might be just as many." Shangguan Jun adjusted his special goggles. Although the goggles could track lifeforms at night, they weren't perfect, and the view was a bit blurry.
A rumbling came from below. The people were trying to break in, but after a few hits they started dropping one by one.
"They're useless. They can't even get past the first line of defense. Still, it doesn't matter." Shangguan Jun sounded a little disappointed and slowly closed his eyes.
Less than half an hour later a woman came. She inspected the bodies, tossed them into another outer trap outside the villa, then went back into the villa. About half an hour later she left in an amphibious shark submarine.
"See, I wasn't wrong. There's surveillance around. Good thing I didn't go down there…" Shangguan Jun started coughing violently. "That woman is she? Her strength is terrifying."
Shangguan Jun leaned against the wall and slid down. A crazed look came into hia eyes. "I hope you all come back soon. This body of mine can't hold on much longer. Wu You'ai, I want to go to hell with you, and we'll study all kinds of punishments together. As for the rest of you… you ruined my great plan, so you'll just be buried with it," He coughed.
"Looks like I'll be busy for the next few days. How can I make sure you all die without a grave? The whole family must go together, don't miss anyone, or Wu You'ai will regret it," Shangguan Jun said, coughing.
Even if his body held on, the people hunting him would probably push on to Wu City.
…
"Twelve bodies in all. Go to the No. 6 cave and verify and report them missing. One of them is Zhou Dasheng who was with Zhou Dafu yesterday. I found Dafu's phone at the scene. It has our info on it. They probably came to the villa to steal."
The next day she quietly told Wu You'ai the whole story. She nodded, she knew what to do.