They pushed three carts up the path and into the neighborhood. Three carts of groceries. Three carts of future.
Neighbors noticed. Of course they noticed. People always notice what they don't have.
Zhang didn't care. Let them talk. Let them whisper. Let them salivate.
If he only wanted to survive, he could have sold everything and vanished to some empty wild, built a fortress and been done with people. Easy. Practical.
But then how would he make them pay? How would he make those neighbors—those hands-that-kicked, mouths-that-lied—feel what he had felt?
No. Running away was a coward's answer. Zhang had tasted betrayal once. That taste wouldn't leave him. Not this life.
So he stayed. He would stay in this block and do it his way. Cruel. Slow. Perfect.
Of course, the plan had a condition. He needed a proper shelter. An actual safe room that couldn't be kicked down. If the security company couldn't build one, he'd have another plan: dig down, go underground, make a cave.
People nearby gossiped and pointed while the three of them hauled the loot. Zhang could already see the scene that would play out when the end came—neighbors clawing at his door, panic in their eyes, a desperate mob. He'd seen that before. He knew the choreography.
He didn't fear it. Not this time. He'd be ready. He wanted them to see and be unable to touch. To rage. To starve on their own anger.
They lived in the same building. Everyone knew him—he managed a Walmart warehouse. Folks always asked him to fetch discount goods. He'd been their handy man. He'd helped them. He'd even softened in the old life.
Not anymore.
An aunt with a toddler approached when she saw the carts. She peered at the fresh meat, the tins, the neat rows of things people dream about when the power goes out.
"小张啊, you folks get this from the warehouse?" she chirped. "You can't use all of it—why not share with neighbors?"
This was Aunt Lin from the committee. Bossy. Used to bossing people because she had a tiny bit of authority. Always peering, always wanting.
Her grandson, a sticky little thing, hopped up on a cart and reached for a glossy box of imported chocolate. Two hundred yuan a box. Shiny. Dangerous.
The kid's hand grazed it. Fast as thought, Zhang snatched the box away. No hesitation. No smile.
"Sorry," he said. "Keeping this."
The old woman's face collapsed. "You—"
"You're an adult," she snapped at him, indignant. "Why argue with a child?"
"It's one box of chocolate," another neighbor cooed. "Give it him, why make trouble?"
"Or just let me pay later," Aunt Lin brightened, always ready to freeload. "I'll pay you back."
He laughed once. Cold. "Pay later" meant "never pay." Mobile wallets made promises as cheap as air.
"I said I'm keeping it. Buy your own."
He waved them off with a hand and walked away. Her curses trailed after him like smoke.
They tried to catch him—Fang Yuqing and Lin Caining, the two who'd been hanging close like moths all day—but Zhang was done entertaining. He opened his pocket-dimension and fed everything inside. Food. Meat. Stacks like a small grocery store, gone with a thought.
Then he checked for changes. Temperature. Smell. Shape. Rules. Everything normal for now.
By the time he finished, night had come.
He didn't crash. He took out a notebook and a pen and wrote like a man planning a war.
People can explode when they need to. Laziness melts when life is on the line. Zhang had been lazy before—lazy enough to die. Not this time.
"Food," he wrote. Tick.
"Heating," he wrote next.
After the end, power would die. Air-con would be useless. You survive on heat. On fire. On anything that keeps lungs from freezing.
"Fireplace," he said. "Kang stove. Primitive, but reliable." He thought of insulating the apartment—lining walls, adding layers, making the place trap heat like a thermos.
Renovation made his chest tighten. He remembered the broken door, the hands in his home. He remembered being helpless. That memory was a fuel.
"Safe room," he wrote. "A proper steel shell."
Thick steel plating. Alloy. Something that would take a hit and not cave. If everyone is desperate, they'll use explosives. Better to have structure that holds.
Tianhai had security firms that built vaults for the rich. Houses that could shrug off small explosions. He'd seen it on some news channel before he died. If you had money, you could buy a bunker that made you untouchable.
Next: medicine.
"Can't get sick," he muttered. Walmart had common meds—fever, cold, antiseptics—but not everything. The Cambrian storm would be a long winter. You need stock beyond cough syrup.
People die of little things when infrastructure drops. Infection spreads. Simple problems blow up. He knew how to reach hospital warehouses. He knew people. He could buy what he needed—if he had the cash.
Then he tapped the pen against the page. One problem still sat there, waiting.
"Weapons," he wrote.
When the end comes, civilized rules fall away. People will fight for food. Your life is worth what you can physically protect. He wasn't a fighter. He could break a bone in a bad scuffle. But weapons level the field.
"Knives, crowbars, axes," he listed. "All easy." "Crossbows, airguns, compound bows—have channels."
He smiled bitterly at the last item.
"But the most useful?" he wrote. "Shotguns. American style. Stopping power."
In China, shotguns meant black markets and costly trips abroad. He had no license. No overseas contacts ready to smuggle him a crate. And leaving the country would take days—days he didn't have.
He chewed his lip. This one needed time and money. He still had both, in a way. He had one month. He could find a way.
Three hours later he had a plan. Not perfect. But workable. A map of who to call, who to bribe, what to move when, what to leave until the last minute.
He took a hot shower and felt the heat peel the day off his skin. He climbed into bed and let sleep come like a soft thief.
Tomorrow, he'd start calling.
Tomorrow, he'd start buying more than groceries. He'd start buying certainties.
Tonight, the apartment hummed. Outside, the block slept and whispered. Zhang closed his eyes and let the list roll again in his head.
Food. Heat. Medicine. Weapons. Fortress.
Four little rules. One big plan.
He'd already decided which one would be the most fun.