Chapter 10

The rain seemed endless.

The government began organizing disaster relief efforts, and the news was filled with warnings about preventing landslides, protecting crops from flooding, and avoiding urban waterlogging. In low-lying areas of the city, several floors of buildings had been submerged.

The neighborhood, situated on higher ground, wasn’t flooded, and the residents in the property group chat expressed their relief.

Zhou Yun, either intentionally or unintentionally, reminded everyone in the property group chat that floodwaters might drive up prices, so he suggested stocking up on food, water, and medicine at home. Soon, everyone began shopping in a herd mentality.

Finally, despite the heavy rain, Zhou Yun received the custom-made items he had ordered a month ago: a Tang sword, a sword staff, a Bingtie snowflake Uzi steel short knife, and a folding knife made from the same material.

Zhou Yun hung the Tang sword and sword staff properly, but he took the Uzi steel short knife in hand to play with.

His fingers were long and agile, and the bright, sharp short knife spun in his palm. The knife was lightweight, easy to carry, and unobtrusive.

With a light press, the narrow blade popped out from the handle. The knife was quick to draw, and the double-edged blade gleamed with a cold light, showing its powerful piercing ability. It could easily and unexpectedly slice open fragile human arteries and windpipes. This was the weapon suited for the apocalypse—because in the end times, it wasn’t just zombies that needed to be dealt with.

He gripped the natural antler handle, flicked the crystal-clear snowflake-patterned blade, and proceeded to cut the lamb, beef, and pork he had bought into chunks with this incredibly sharp small knife. He handled it with ease, neatly organizing everything into the freezer.

The seeds were individually packed into vacuum-sealed bags and stored in a seed vault. In the pharmacy, many commonly used medicinal herbs were also neatly organized.

The iron door arrived as well, and the installation worker came to install it despite the heavy rain. Zhou Yun tipped the worker extra for the rush job. After the installation, Zhou Yun placed a set of keys with a small flashlight attached on the shoe rack in Guan Yuanfeng’s room. Guan Yuanfeng glanced at the iron door but said nothing.

—–

In the unrelenting rain, Guan Yuanfeng, unable to go outside, quickly became fond of archery.

He woke up early, and by the time Zhou Yun got up, Guan Yuanfeng had already come over to sweep and wipe down the gym, completing his workout routine with meticulous care before practicing archery.

As they became more familiar with each other, Guan Yuanfeng took over the household chores, like washing dishes and wiping tables. Zhou Yun didn’t stop him and just sat doing his own things.

This day, he was making wine using grapes bought from the market. The rain was too heavy, and the grapes had already ripened. The grape growers couldn’t keep up with the harvest, so they had to lower the price online, offering to let buyers pick the grapes from the vineyard themselves.

Since it was raining heavily, no one wanted to go out, so there were few takers. Zhou Yun noticed the vineyard wasn’t far and decided to wear a raincoat and ride his bike there. He bought 100 kilograms of grapes to make wine.

He had bought several glass barrels before and now slowly crushed the cleaned and air-dried grapes in the glass barrels. Each plump and translucent grape was crushed by a stone pestle, and the room was filled with the fragrance of ripe grapes.

Guan Yuanfeng was washing the dishes when he heard his phone ringing on the dining table. Surprised, he picked it up.

His mother’s voice was sharp and urgent: “Yuanfeng! Send us a photo of your privilege card! They’ve stopped the flights here, and the embassy ships are prioritizing the elderly, children, and pregnant women! They won’t let us board…” There was a lot of noise on the other end, and he heard his younger brother shouting desperately, “We are military families! Military families! We should board first!”

Guan Yuanfeng’s gaze darkened. “The veteran privilege card can only be used by the person it’s issued to. After retiring, family members are no longer considered military dependents.”

His mother shouted angrily on the phone: “You have achievements! You sacrificed for the country! You’re a martyr!”

Guan Yuanfeng remained silent. “I’m not dead yet, so I’m not a martyr,” he said slowly, though if he were dead, his family might benefit more.

The phone was grabbed away by someone else: “Brother! My sister-in-law is pregnant! The embassy here has free ships for the elderly, children, and pregnant women. I can’t let her board alone; I need to accompany her.”

“Brother! Talk to the embassy! You’re a hero, they’ll listen to you… it’s very dangerous here… the tourists are evacuating. We don’t speak the language, the guides and translators have run off! We don’t know what’s happening, and there are special police and soldiers everywhere! The other tickets are expensive!”

Guan Yuanfeng remained silent for a while. “Buy the tickets. Don’t save money on this. Rules are rules, and they can’t make exceptions. In such evacuations, it’s usually done in priority batches. If the situation is urgent, they will prioritize evacuating civilians…”

On the other hand, his mother started yelling angrily: “You’re always like this! The same as last time! Why is it so difficult to arrange a job for me through the government? I lost my legs and became disabled, but I got nothing! Stop pretending to be so selfless! If you’re so capable, don’t make us support you in the future!”

Guan Yuanfeng expressionlessly hung up.

He glanced at Zhou Yun, who was also staring at him with dark eyes but remained silent.

The phone rang again. This time, his father’s stern voice came through: “Your sister-in-law’s child will be adopted by you in the future. You need to consider the bigger picture. Send us a photo of your privilege card, and we’ll try to negotiate with the military for us. They’ll have to consider your contributions…”

Guan Yuanfeng replied, “I send money home every month, and I also gave a sum for buying a house. That should be enough to buy the tickets. At this point, we don’t need to save money.”

The signal on the other hand suddenly became weak, and he could faintly hear his father saying something about how he still had many uses for money, and that he didn’t understand how hard it was to earn. Finally, the call dropped, and Guan Yuanfeng tried calling back several times, but the line was dead. His brows furrowed in concern.

Zhou Yun said, “The signal is probably bad abroad, with all this rain.”

Guan Yuanfeng responded, “It’s not raining there.” He said solemnly, “I’ll check online. I wonder if a war has broken out.”

Zhou Yun nodded. “Alright, I’ll call you for dinner.”

In fact, even if they boarded the ship, it wouldn’t help—they were doomed the moment they decided to go abroad for vacation.

The zombie virus spread quickly from abroad, starting in tourist cities crowded with people, and then rapidly spreading to international ships, airplanes, bus stations, and airports—places with large crowds and confined spaces were the first to suffer…

Of course, even if they stayed in their community, there would be nowhere to run.

Guan Yuanfeng hurried back to his room with Comet.

At dinner, when Guan Yuanfeng came over to eat, he told Zhou Yun, “Stock up on daily necessities, food, water, and medicines.”

Zhou Yun noticed the exhaustion and sadness in his expression and asked, “Did you hear any inside news? Have you resolved your family’s issue?”

Guan Yuanfeng shook his head. “The borders are completely closed. They can’t return to the country. My friends didn’t tell me the key details, but they advised my family to stock up on food, water, and medicines, especially trauma medicines.” He was worried; some of his former comrades had also asked him to prepare some weapons.

Could it really be that war was coming?

But, no, if war were truly imminent, they wouldn’t have given him this information.

It seemed more like an urgent situation to prevent the virus from spreading into the country. If even foreign citizens couldn’t be evacuated, it meant that evacuating them could jeopardize the country’s safety.

Zhou Yun said, “I’ll go to the supermarket and buy some. I’ll also get some for you.”

At this point, Guan Yuanfeng didn’t refuse, as he was restricted from going out. “Thanks, I’ll transfer you the money. Buy more, I’ll make a list for you. Rent a car to bring it back, and you should stock up too.” He appreciated Zhou Yun’s straightforward, practical, and calm approach.

Zhou Yun readily agreed and checked his pulse. “I’ll get you some herbs too.”

After dinner, the rain seemed to have stopped. Zhou Yun used a car-sharing platform to order a car and went out.

First, he went to the pharmacy to buy the medicines from Guan Yuanfeng’s list. He found that the medicines he took were quite expensive, so he also helped him get some necessary herbs according to his pulse. Then, he bought some regular household medicines that he often kept in stock. He had already bought some earlier, but now he topped up the stock.

After purchasing the medicines, he went to the supermarket and bought the items from Guan Yuanfeng’s list. He also bought some daily necessities for himself. He checked out and left.

This supermarket was near the community, not in the city center. Due to the continuous rain, there weren’t many customers.

When he was checking out, the cashier curiously glanced at him as he called a small truck to load all the rice, flour, oil, and other essentials into the vehicle. The cashier said to a colleague, “It seems like many people in the flooded neighborhoods are starting to stock up. The rain has stopped outside, right? The weather forecast says it should clear up tomorrow. Do you think they’ll be able to finish all this food?”

The supermarket manager came over, his face pale. “The boss just called. He received a notice from the community that all malls, supermarkets, etc., will be closed. All goods are being converted to emergency supplies, to be requisitioned and managed by the community for centralized distribution. Everyone needs to take inventory and submit a list to the community for aggregation.”

On his way back to the neighborhood, Zhou Yun saw a notification in the neighborhood property group on his phone from community staff. It said that there would be an emergency drill across the city tonight. Residents were urged to stay at home, close all windows and doors, and fill out forms with household information, supplies, contact numbers, etc., to be submitted to the property office for aggregation.

The form required very detailed information.

Zhou Yun opened it and glanced at it but didn’t fill it out, knowing it would soon be unnecessary.

This had happened in his past life as well, and many people had speculated that it was just an investigation to gather basic information.

He looked outside and saw that, sure enough, many military and police vehicles had quietly appeared on the highway, heading in the direction of the hospital in convoy. The truck drivers were saying, “The navigation says the roads near the hospital are under control, we can’t go through. I’ll take a different route. It’s strange, why would they be controlling the roads this late? Could there be an important person coming to our small town?”

Zhou Yun replied, “Maybe something’s happened at the hospital.”

The zombie mutation had first started at hospitals and morgues, where dead bodies and critically ill patients were the first to get infected. By now, the outbreak had already spread abroad, and there were likely cases in the country too, though the virus was still not very potent, so its spread was limited. Experts still couldn’t figure out exactly what virus it was or how it was transmitted, and they couldn’t release any public information about it.

He had been suspended from his job due to getting involved in a complaint. But from the workgroup, he saw that the hospital had been taken over, and all the morgue bodies were being incinerated, while all critically ill patients were being placed under strict control. Some family members requested to accompany their loved ones, but it was to no avail. Community leaders, hospital administrators, police, security, and even the military had all been deployed.

Despite all the control measures taken by the authorities, in the end, it was futile.

After the red fog arrived, the zombie virus easily destroyed social order.

However, thanks to these measures, compared to other countries abroad, the survivors in the country were the most, as well as the most mutated individuals. During the apocalypse, there were also the most safe zones for refugee shelters.

The truck reached the neighborhood and began to climb the hill. The driver said, “This neighborhood is a pain, still have to go up such a long slope to get home?”

Zhou Yun replied, “Sorry for the trouble. I’ll leave a bag of rice and a jug of oil for you as compensation.”

The driver was taken aback and laughed. “How can I accept that?”

Zhou Yun kindly reminded him, “It looks like it’s an emergency drill. They might close the roads later, so you’d better head home soon.”

Before the apocalypse hit, most people hoped to be with their families.