Mohe, 10 o’clock in the evening.
The ambulance and police cars’ sirens echoed on the street outside the window from time to time, which made the otherwise peaceful night extremely hectic.
After Nie Xiao and the two returned to the hotel, they immediately received a call from Duan Wenyu.
Duan Wenyu was concise and went straight to the subject, he sent the information he found to Nie Xiao, and with a solemn expression he said, “Boss, I just found the latest photo of the big fish, and it looks very wrong.”
“I suspect he may be infected with some virus.”
Nie Xiao heard this and immediately clicked on the document sent by Duan Wenyu. A rather bizarre and terrifying picture entered his field of view.
Wu Wenqi helped the pale Xiao Yan sit on the sofa and used a blanket to cover her. As soon as he looked up, he saw Nie Xiao’s deep dark eyes holding a grave and severe expression, and couldn’t help being alert.
“Boss, what’s wrong?”
“Both of you, take a look. What do you think does this look like?”
Nie Xiao frowned deeply as he turned the phone over and showed the picture directly in front of the two. Wu Wenqi and Xiao Yan’s eyes fell on the picture, and they couldn’t help letting out a gasp.
In the picture, the mission target they wanted to kill has long been beyond recognition.
Cloudy and dead eyes, blue fangs dripping with yellow-green pus… the originally plain face had become weird and disgusting. Its entire body stood on the scarlet-colored snow like a corpse, covered with blood and surrounded by broken bones.
It made goosebumps appear all over, and chills crawl up your spine.
The call wasn’t hung up yet, and Duan Wenyu’s voice continued to come from the mobile phone, “The photo was saved on one of the deceased’s cellphones, and the timestamp shows it was taken this afternoon.”
“We know.”
Wu Wenqi couldn’t help interrupting. Recalling the scene where broken limbs that seemed to be torn apart by a beast were littered around and the screams of the police while they were going back, Wu Wenqi suddenly had a bold guess in his heart, and his throat felt a little dry. “We just came back from the crime scene.”
Xiao Yan’s hands and feet were as cold as ice at this time, and her lips were becoming whiter. Her gaze stayed on the photo as she directly spoke out Wu Wenqi’s bold guess.
“It looks like a zombie.”
Zombies, anyone who has watched apocalypse movies knows what they are.
—The walking dead, the living dead.
Hearing this, Duan Wenyu, who was sitting in the warm infirmary, suddenly felt a chill rising up from the soles of his feet.
He didn’t find it ridiculous at all, but instead, he immediately straightened up, and his fingers started making ‘pi li pa‘ sounds on the keyboard as he typed.
“I’ll check it again.”
Xiao Yan didn’t wait for Duan Wenyu’s verification, and as if she had decided on something, she abruptly pushed Wu Wenqi and propped herself up, staggering back to her room before slamming the door shut and locking it.
The sudden series of actions stunned everyone.
Wu Wenqi responded first, and he immediately chased after anxiously. He knocked on the door and loudly shouted, “A-Yan, what are you doing! Open the door! Don’t imagine things. What zombies, there are no zombies. Let’s take you to the doctor first, so open the door!”
On the other side of the door, Xiao Yan seemed to have been exhausted and slid directly to the ground. Breathing shallowly, she felt that her body temperature was crazily dropping. It seemed that she had exhausted all of her physical strength by going into the room to hide.
Xiao Yan looked at her cold, blue fingers and couldn’t help shaking her head. “Don’t care about me.”
Ning Feng was already a bit confused at this time, and he only heard parts of everyone’s conversation, but he still could feel what was happening. Hearing Wu Wenqi’s cries from the phone, he immediately propped up the upper half of his body, wanting to get up. He asked with a worried face, “Duan-ge, what happened to Yan-jie?”
“You, take care of yourself first, and lie down!”
Duan Wenyu saw Ning Feng’s flushed cheeks that seemed to crumble at any moment. He immediately moved the laptop aside and quickly reached out to help, but was shocked by the scalding temperature he felt from his palm.
“Why is it hotter than before.”
Nie Xiao heard Duan Wenyu’s words and looked even worse. He connected the phone directly into the team’s headset and asked, frowning, “Wenyu, is Ning Feng also sick?”
“En, he had a sudden high fever before we could board the plane, and we missed our flight. He’s getting an IV drip in the airport infirmary, and he clearly drank almost a whole bottle of water, but his body temperature rose again.”
Duan Wenyu replied while letting Ning Feng lie down. He was a little anxious while smoothing back the hair that fell on Ning Feng’s forehead and then got an alcohol wipe to physically cool Ning Feng down. The usually raised corners of his mouth were now pulled down to the ground.
Wu Wenqi heard Duan Wenyu’s answer in the headset and couldn’t help swearing as he knocked on the door louder, “Fucking hell, if this was a normal day, this would usually be nothing, but two of us actually came down with a sudden fever!”
“A-Yan, you have to talk to me!”
Dark clouds of wind and rain loomed over the heads of the three healthy men, the sense of foreboding crisis in their hearts making the atmosphere full of anxiety and frustration.
Their guesses about zombies were never groundless.
Foreseeing danger comes from their keen beast-like intuition, and this intuition was never wrong and has even allowed them to escape from death countless times.
It was just that this time, their speculation was too strange, and they didn’t want – or even dare – to believe it.
But it didn’t take long for this speculation to be confirmed.
A sudden massive explosion from the horizon shocked all of them. It seemed as if the ground under their feet shook.
Nie Xiao glanced at the distant night sky outside the window and then walked two to three steps forward to turn on the TV in the living room. The current program was cut off as a piece of breaking news was aired.
The voice of a female news anchor sounded from the TV.
“It is 11 o’clock China time, and this is Huayan Satellite TV News Station bringing you breaking news. Flight c7263 from Harbin to Mohe Gulian Airport crashed due to unknown factors, and a huge explosion has occurred. From Shanghai to Beijing x6… the above-mentioned multiple flights have all deviated from their designated routes, and an emergency situation broke out among the passengers onboard, harming multiple crew members. The cause is currently unknown…”
At the same time, the airport where Duan Wenyu was at broadcasted that all subsequent flights will be postponed indefinitely due to the large-scale aircraft accident.
The five people who had already vaguely predicted what was about to happen were silent for a moment. Wu Wenqi’s mouth couldn’t help but be dry as he said, “Wouldn’t this be too much for a coincidence.”
As soon as his voice fell, there was a shrill cry followed by the sound of screaming downstairs.
“Ah!—”
“Don’t bite me!!!”
Nie Xiao became calmer as time passed.
He walked towards the door, locked it, and then blocked it with a cabinet, while calmly ordering Wu Wenqi who was standing at the door of Xiao Yan’s room.
“Wenqi, just break the door.”
“Yes!”
Wu Wenqi wiped his face and took a deep breath before kicking the door of Xiao Yan’s room open with one foot. As soon as he entered, he hurriedly hugged Xiao Yan, who had fallen to the ground but was instantly shocked by her cold body temperature, causing his heart to plummet.
“Boss!”
Nie Xiao quickly walked over, his lips squeezed together tightly as he pulled the bed covers to wrap them around Xiao Yan, and then let Wu Wenqi hug her next to the radiator, the nearest heat source.
“It’ll be fine!”
Nie Xiao comforted Wu Wenqi and thought of Duan Wenyu, who was still in the airport’s infirmary at this time. His complexion turned a little ugly and had no other choice but to yell to the headset from where he was.
His every word felt as heavy as a thousand catties.
“Wenyu, take care of yourself and Xiao Feng, no matter what.”
“Will do, Boss.”
There was a bit of sweat on Duan Wenyu’s forehead as he directly sealed the door and windows of the entire infirmary while the medical staff was away.
Screams and sounds of commotion came from the airport lobby from time to time, proving that public law and order have been chaotic for a while now.
However, this was just the tip of the iceberg of chaos currently happening all over the world.
Ning Feng watched Duan Wenyu blocking the doors and windows, licked his dry, chapped lips, and sat up weakly while panting. “Duan-ge, leave on your own and find a safe place where there are few people. I’ve read novels about zombies, and those like me who had fever and illnesses at the beginning were most likely to become cannon fodder for zombies.”
“So, Ge, you should hurry up and run.”
“No. You saved your Ge’s life; otherwise, we would’ve died in the plane crash just now.”
Compared with Ning Feng, who has a high fever, Xiao Yan’s physical condition is obviously more worrying.
Because zombies also have no temperature.
Xiao Yan looked at Nie Xiao and Wu Wenqi, who both had serious faces, her pale purple lips raised into a rare smile. She was so weak, and her mouth was full of panting sounds, but she still managed to joke with everyone.
“Stay away from me or watch out when I bite you later.
“I’m really colder than the dead this time.”
The joke was not funny at all. Nie Xiao’s lips flattened into a tight line as he held the remote control and heavily pressed it to adjust the temperature of the air conditioner to the warmest setting.
“You won’t be able to bite us.”
Hearing Nie Xiao’s ruthless reply, Xiao Yan froze for a moment before her eyes immediately curved, inexplicably feeling at ease.
That’s right, the team’s strongest fighting powers No. 1 and No. 2 are here. When it comes to worries, she should worry about herself first.
Looking at Wu Wenqi who was somber and silent even while embracing her, Xiao Yan wanted to look a little bit longer, but her eyelids became heavier. “You don’t want to tell me now?”
“No, wait until you’re well.”
“Then, I won’t stop you.”
***
Chinese calendar, year 2025, the tenth day of the first month.
12:00.
With the ringing of the midnight bell, an unprecedented large-scale meteor shower hit the entire planet without warning. Countless people all over the world looked up at the same time, with some looking at the night sky from outside their windows.
Soon after, the whole world was shrouded in a black haze.
The dazzling meteor shower outside the window caught Nie Xiao’s attention. He wanted to walk to the window to see the situation, but right when he stood up, he felt the world spinning and he almost fainted.
Nie Xiao quickly supported himself against the wall and looked back.
Wu Wenqi, who was about to call his sister and tell her about the situation, suddenly turned pale, the phone slipping from his hands and dropping to the ground as he looked at Nie Xiao at a loss.
“Boss…”
Before he could finish what he wanted to say, Wu Wenqi fell into a coma next to Xiao Yan.
Nie Xiao had a bad hunch. His whole body was covered in cold sweat as he struggled to walk towards his teammates and settle both of them properly.
There was no response from Duan Wenyu or Ning Feng on the call, only the noisy footsteps outside the door and the crashing sound of objects falling to the ground were heard, one after another. He had no idea if the two of them had already fainted in the infirmary.
At this moment, Nie Xiao doesn’t know what would happen to the world, but with the last bit of his consciousness, he took out his mobile phone and issued the final command to his home.
***
Yuncheng, Fengshan villa area.
On the bay window covered with velvet blankets, a small milk-tea-colored hamster was still squatting in front of the electronic screen.
A pair of clear black eyes looked up at the night sky without blinking. When the sudden splendid meteor shower fell, its small face was filled with pleasant surprise and shock.
However, as long as Nie Xiao’s video call wasn’t received, no matter how good the meteor shower is, it won’t make the little hamster happy for long. Looking at the static filling the electronic screen, the little hamster lay unhappily on the velvet blanket with his small claws grabbing at the blanket’s light and soft fur.
It didn’t take long for the little hamster’s consciousness to gradually fade as the servants downstairs collapsed.
At this moment, the door of the room suddenly clicked.
—Blockade complete.
The little hamster’s ears twitched, but there was no longer any reaction as he fell asleep deeply.
***
Dazzling meteors traversed the sky, but no one appreciated this beautiful scenery.
That night, people all over the world showed different symptoms before falling into a coma. Some people slept for a long time, and some woke up early, but all of them changed their temperaments drastically. They rushed straight to their relatives, lovers, and children who had taken care of them, revealing their pale-white, sharp blue fangs and ferocious face.
Blood-curdling screams, pained cries, horrible shrieks, and the sounds of weeping cruelly ruined this peaceful night sky.
It was as if a terrible devil had silently descended, covering the whole world in a thick haze.
An apocalyptic catastrophe was quietly proceeding.
A lot of things happened today, but translating this helped me relieved the tension and sadness… Banzai!
I was listening to “Zombie” by Day6 while translating this (o’艸’)
Mohe, 10 o’clock in the evening.
The ambulance and police cars’ sirens echoed on the street outside the window from time to time, which made the otherwise peaceful night extremely hectic.
After Nie Xiao and the two returned to the hotel, they immediately received a call from Duan Wenyu.
Duan Wenyu was concise and went straight to the subject, he sent the information he found to Nie Xiao, and with a solemn expression he said, “Boss, I just found the latest photo of the big fish, and it looks very wrong.”
“I suspect he may be infected with some virus.”
Nie Xiao heard this and immediately clicked on the document sent by Duan Wenyu. A rather bizarre and terrifying picture entered his field of view.
Wu Wenqi helped the pale Xiao Yan sit on the sofa and used a blanket to cover her. As soon as he looked up, he saw Nie Xiao’s deep dark eyes holding a grave and severe expression, and couldn’t help being alert.
“Boss, what’s wrong?”
“Both of you, take a look. What do you think does this look like?”
Nie Xiao frowned deeply as he turned the phone over and showed the picture directly in front of the two. Wu Wenqi and Xiao Yan’s eyes fell on the picture, and they couldn’t help letting out a gasp.
In the picture, the mission target they wanted to kill has long been beyond recognition.
Cloudy and dead eyes, blue fangs dripping with yellow-green pus… the originally plain face had become weird and disgusting. Its entire body stood on the scarlet-colored snow like a corpse, covered with blood and surrounded by broken bones.
It made goosebumps appear all over, and chills crawl up your spine.
The call wasn’t hung up yet, and Duan Wenyu’s voice continued to come from the mobile phone, “The photo was saved on one of the deceased’s cellphones, and the timestamp shows it was taken this afternoon.”
“We know.”
Wu Wenqi couldn’t help interrupting. Recalling the scene where broken limbs that seemed to be torn apart by a beast were littered around and the screams of the police while they were going back, Wu Wenqi suddenly had a bold guess in his heart, and his throat felt a little dry. “We just came back from the crime scene.”
Xiao Yan’s hands and feet were as cold as ice at this time, and her lips were becoming whiter. Her gaze stayed on the photo as she directly spoke out Wu Wenqi’s bold guess.
“It looks like a zombie.”
Zombies, anyone who has watched apocalypse movies knows what they are.
—The walking dead, the living dead.
Hearing this, Duan Wenyu, who was sitting in the warm infirmary, suddenly felt a chill rising up from the soles of his feet.
He didn’t find it ridiculous at all, but instead, he immediately straightened up, and his fingers started making ‘pi li pa‘ sounds on the keyboard as he typed.
“I’ll check it again.”
Xiao Yan didn’t wait for Duan Wenyu’s verification, and as if she had decided on something, she abruptly pushed Wu Wenqi and propped herself up, staggering back to her room before slamming the door shut and locking it.
The sudden series of actions stunned everyone.
Wu Wenqi responded first, and he immediately chased after anxiously. He knocked on the door and loudly shouted, “A-Yan, what are you doing! Open the door! Don’t imagine things. What zombies, there are no zombies. Let’s take you to the doctor first, so open the door!”
On the other side of the door, Xiao Yan seemed to have been exhausted and slid directly to the ground. Breathing shallowly, she felt that her body temperature was crazily dropping. It seemed that she had exhausted all of her physical strength by going into the room to hide.
Xiao Yan looked at her cold, blue fingers and couldn’t help shaking her head. “Don’t care about me.”
Ning Feng was already a bit confused at this time, and he only heard parts of everyone’s conversation, but he still could feel what was happening. Hearing Wu Wenqi’s cries from the phone, he immediately propped up the upper half of his body, wanting to get up. He asked with a worried face, “Duan-ge, what happened to Yan-jie?”
“You, take care of yourself first, and lie down!”
Duan Wenyu saw Ning Feng’s flushed cheeks that seemed to crumble at any moment. He immediately moved the laptop aside and quickly reached out to help, but was shocked by the scalding temperature he felt from his palm.
“Why is it hotter than before.”
Nie Xiao heard Duan Wenyu’s words and looked even worse. He connected the phone directly into the team’s headset and asked, frowning, “Wenyu, is Ning Feng also sick?”
“En, he had a sudden high fever before we could board the plane, and we missed our flight. He’s getting an IV drip in the airport infirmary, and he clearly drank almost a whole bottle of water, but his body temperature rose again.”
Duan Wenyu replied while letting Ning Feng lie down. He was a little anxious while smoothing back the hair that fell on Ning Feng’s forehead and then got an alcohol wipe to physically cool Ning Feng down. The usually raised corners of his mouth were now pulled down to the ground.
Wu Wenqi heard Duan Wenyu’s answer in the headset and couldn’t help swearing as he knocked on the door louder, “Fucking hell, if this was a normal day, this would usually be nothing, but two of us actually came down with a sudden fever!”
“A-Yan, you have to talk to me!”
Dark clouds of wind and rain loomed over the heads of the three healthy men, the sense of foreboding crisis in their hearts making the atmosphere full of anxiety and frustration.
Their guesses about zombies were never groundless.
Foreseeing danger comes from their keen beast-like intuition, and this intuition was never wrong and has even allowed them to escape from death countless times.
It was just that this time, their speculation was too strange, and they didn’t want – or even dare – to believe it.
But it didn’t take long for this speculation to be confirmed.
A sudden massive explosion from the horizon shocked all of them. It seemed as if the ground under their feet shook.
Nie Xiao glanced at the distant night sky outside the window and then walked two to three steps forward to turn on the TV in the living room. The current program was cut off as a piece of breaking news was aired.
The voice of a female news anchor sounded from the TV.
“It is 11 o’clock China time, and this is Huayan Satellite TV News Station bringing you breaking news. Flight c7263 from Harbin to Mohe Gulian Airport crashed due to unknown factors, and a huge explosion has occurred. From Shanghai to Beijing x6… the above-mentioned multiple flights have all deviated from their designated routes, and an emergency situation broke out among the passengers onboard, harming multiple crew members. The cause is currently unknown…”
At the same time, the airport where Duan Wenyu was at broadcasted that all subsequent flights will be postponed indefinitely due to the large-scale aircraft accident.
The five people who had already vaguely predicted what was about to happen were silent for a moment. Wu Wenqi’s mouth couldn’t help but be dry as he said, “Wouldn’t this be too much for a coincidence.”
As soon as his voice fell, there was a shrill cry followed by the sound of screaming downstairs.
“Ah!—”
“Don’t bite me!!!”
Nie Xiao became calmer as time passed.
He walked towards the door, locked it, and then blocked it with a cabinet, while calmly ordering Wu Wenqi who was standing at the door of Xiao Yan’s room.
“Wenqi, just break the door.”
“Yes!”
Wu Wenqi wiped his face and took a deep breath before kicking the door of Xiao Yan’s room open with one foot. As soon as he entered, he hurriedly hugged Xiao Yan, who had fallen to the ground but was instantly shocked by her cold body temperature, causing his heart to plummet.
“Boss!”
Nie Xiao quickly walked over, his lips squeezed together tightly as he pulled the bed covers to wrap them around Xiao Yan, and then let Wu Wenqi hug her next to the radiator, the nearest heat source.
“It’ll be fine!”
Nie Xiao comforted Wu Wenqi and thought of Duan Wenyu, who was still in the airport’s infirmary at this time. His complexion turned a little ugly and had no other choice but to yell to the headset from where he was.
His every word felt as heavy as a thousand catties.
“Wenyu, take care of yourself and Xiao Feng, no matter what.”
“Will do, Boss.”
There was a bit of sweat on Duan Wenyu’s forehead as he directly sealed the door and windows of the entire infirmary while the medical staff was away.
Screams and sounds of commotion came from the airport lobby from time to time, proving that public law and order have been chaotic for a while now.
However, this was just the tip of the iceberg of chaos currently happening all over the world.
Ning Feng watched Duan Wenyu blocking the doors and windows, licked his dry, chapped lips, and sat up weakly while panting. “Duan-ge, leave on your own and find a safe place where there are few people. I’ve read novels about zombies, and those like me who had fever and illnesses at the beginning were most likely to become cannon fodder for zombies.”
“So, Ge, you should hurry up and run.”
“No. You saved your Ge’s life; otherwise, we would’ve died in the plane crash just now.”
Compared with Ning Feng, who has a high fever, Xiao Yan’s physical condition is obviously more worrying.
Because zombies also have no temperature.
Xiao Yan looked at Nie Xiao and Wu Wenqi, who both had serious faces, her pale purple lips raised into a rare smile. She was so weak, and her mouth was full of panting sounds, but she still managed to joke with everyone.
“Stay away from me or watch out when I bite you later.
“I’m really colder than the dead this time.”
The joke was not funny at all. Nie Xiao’s lips flattened into a tight line as he held the remote control and heavily pressed it to adjust the temperature of the air conditioner to the warmest setting.
“You won’t be able to bite us.”
Hearing Nie Xiao’s ruthless reply, Xiao Yan froze for a moment before her eyes immediately curved, inexplicably feeling at ease.
That’s right, the team’s strongest fighting powers No. 1 and No. 2 are here. When it comes to worries, she should worry about herself first.
Looking at Wu Wenqi who was somber and silent even while embracing her, Xiao Yan wanted to look a little bit longer, but her eyelids became heavier. “You don’t want to tell me now?”
“No, wait until you’re well.”
“Then, I won’t stop you.”
***
Chinese calendar, year 2025, the tenth day of the first month.
12:00.
With the ringing of the midnight bell, an unprecedented large-scale meteor shower hit the entire planet without warning. Countless people all over the world looked up at the same time, with some looking at the night sky from outside their windows.
Soon after, the whole world was shrouded in a black haze.
The dazzling meteor shower outside the window caught Nie Xiao’s attention. He wanted to walk to the window to see the situation, but right when he stood up, he felt the world spinning and he almost fainted.
Nie Xiao quickly supported himself against the wall and looked back.
Wu Wenqi, who was about to call his sister and tell her about the situation, suddenly turned pale, the phone slipping from his hands and dropping to the ground as he looked at Nie Xiao at a loss.
“Boss…”
Before he could finish what he wanted to say, Wu Wenqi fell into a coma next to Xiao Yan.
Nie Xiao had a bad hunch. His whole body was covered in cold sweat as he struggled to walk towards his teammates and settle both of them properly.
There was no response from Duan Wenyu or Ning Feng on the call, only the noisy footsteps outside the door and the crashing sound of objects falling to the ground were heard, one after another. He had no idea if the two of them had already fainted in the infirmary.
At this moment, Nie Xiao doesn’t know what would happen to the world, but with the last bit of his consciousness, he took out his mobile phone and issued the final command to his home.
***
Yuncheng, Fengshan villa area.
On the bay window covered with velvet blankets, a small milk-tea-colored hamster was still squatting in front of the electronic screen.
A pair of clear black eyes looked up at the night sky without blinking. When the sudden splendid meteor shower fell, its small face was filled with pleasant surprise and shock.
However, as long as Nie Xiao’s video call wasn’t received, no matter how good the meteor shower is, it won’t make the little hamster happy for long. Looking at the static filling the electronic screen, the little hamster lay unhappily on the velvet blanket with his small claws grabbing at the blanket’s light and soft fur.
It didn’t take long for the little hamster’s consciousness to gradually fade as the servants downstairs collapsed.
At this moment, the door of the room suddenly clicked.
—Blockade complete.
The little hamster’s ears twitched, but there was no longer any reaction as he fell asleep deeply.
***
Dazzling meteors traversed the sky, but no one appreciated this beautiful scenery.
That night, people all over the world showed different symptoms before falling into a coma. Some people slept for a long time, and some woke up early, but all of them changed their temperaments drastically. They rushed straight to their relatives, lovers, and children who had taken care of them, revealing their pale-white, sharp blue fangs and ferocious face.
Blood-curdling screams, pained cries, horrible shrieks, and the sounds of weeping cruelly ruined this peaceful night sky.
It was as if a terrible devil had silently descended, covering the whole world in a thick haze.
An apocalyptic catastrophe was quietly proceeding.
A lot of things happened today, but translating this helped me relieved the tension and sadness… Banzai!
I was listening to “Zombie” by Day6 while translating this (o’艸’)
