Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Dongcheng District was an old town, with many factories and government residential buildings from the olden days. The factories and government branches had either gone bankrupt or had closed. Only the residential buildings were left as part of the past.
Zhang Zian had been there once with Welder Zhao and Electrician Wu when the bobbit worm incident happened. The trip was easy. He had easily found the entrance to the residential building.
He was coming on a work day, and a working hour.
Normally, except unemployed people such as Zhang Zian, only retired people and insurance brokers were wandering in the streets.
Yet, he was astonished when he saw the residential building entrance. Many people gathered inside and out of the entrance. From a distance, all one saw was a sea of heads. Had it been an FPS game, one could shoot a few heads with your eyes closed.
Zhang Zian didn’t think there was anything wrong at first. Maybe it was a wedding or a funeral. It was not a lucky day according to the fortune tellers’ calendar, but a funeral might not need to take that into consideration. Or maybe some unethical vendors were there to sell natural health products and rip off the elderly and were disguised as people offering free medical exams.
Beep! He honked the horn.
The crowd gathering around the entrance looked back towards him, then moved aside reluctantly to let him pass.
Zhang Zian was not an excellent driver. He tried a few times, but he could not pass through at all. He parked the car outside the building, shouted “excuse me,” and squeezed into the crowd on foot.
The further he walked, the more crowded it became. He became more and more convinced that something was wrong, since the crowd was too massive. It was as if every single person in the residential area had been poured out of their homes. What happened to make so many people circle around to watch? Had the old factory owner passed away? Yet people’s faces didn’t seem sad, but frightened. They discussed in small groups, pointing deeper inside from time to time.
And… judging from where they were pointing, it seemed to be Welder Zhao and Electrician Wu’s building.
Of course, maybe he was thinking too much.
He had vaguely captured some keywords in his ears, such as “police,””horrifying,””bad luck,””family extinction,””trouble,” etc.
Was there a homicide?
As he moved further forward and took a turn, the road was fully blocked by police cars. A large group of police officers were standing behind the yellow cordon with serious faces. Many policemen were maintaining the order, asking the nearby civilians to leave the scene.
Of course, many curious people stayed at the scene, filming with their phones from a distance.
Apparently, the police didn’t want people to see what was going on, but they couldn’t stop them; the building had a lot of residents. He lifted his head and glanced around. There was a curious face and a phone in every single window in every single building. There were even professional cameras and video recorders.
Zhang Zian stood where he was and didn’t know what to do. The place with the most police happened to be the building he was heading to––the building where Welder Zhao lived.
Luckily, most police were coming in and out in a different unit’s door, not Welder Zhao’s unit.
Many people were weeping at the scene, as if they were family members of the “victims.” The police were trying to comfort them.
One child was crying super loudly. Zhang Zian moved his feet to switch angles. He suddenly discovered that the wailing, chubby child was, in fact, Welder Zhao’s grandson. He had inherited Welder Zhao’s loud voice.
What happened?
Did something happen to Welder Zhao?
Zhang Zian gasped in terror. No wonder Welder Zhao said he could come back to the aquarium to buy fish, but had never showed up…
Beside the chubby kid, a few adults cuddled him and wept. They must have been Welder Zhao’s family members.
The crowd sighed and whispered, exchanging all sorts of horrific guesses.
Everybody wanted to find out what on earth had happened that had caused half of Binhai City’s police officers to be drawn to the normally quiet residences.
Homicide?
Hostages?
Kidnap and blackmailing?
None of the commonly seen violent cases seemed to qualify.
When a group of special forces walked out of the unit door with professional gas masks, oxygen tanks, and tool boxes, the civilians in the crowd all panicked. Everybody seemed frightened and stepped back. Many people ran away without being told to do so by the police.
Some parents were watching with their kids. As soon as they saw what came out of the apartment, they carried the kids in their arms and ran home, afraid that their kids might be exposed to some horrible virus.
Many people squeezed out of the crowd without hesitating, and then drove away in cars.
Curiosity was important, but not as important as life… Everybody knew that a wise person would not stand next to a falling wall.
Clearly, something big had happened!
An event that had brought in the Biochemical Specialist Police Unit… Could it be a terrorist attack that seemed to be far away from the Chinese?
The Hollywood movies seemed to be pouring into everyone’s minds at that moment.
It was cool to watch the actions in the movie for an adrenaline rush, but entering the movie to be a nameless victim was not cool at all…
As the crowd left, Zhang Zian suddenly had much more free space around him. Only a few brave people stayed around to watch.
After the Biochemical Specialist Police Unit came out, they debriefed a middle-aged man in a police uniform waiting outside.
The man was in his fifties and had a serious look on his face. He was radiating an invisible authority of a man in high power.
Next to the middle-aged man, Zhang Zian saw Sheng Ke. He was asking the specialist unit questions with anxiety.
Although Zhang Zian was too far away to hear anything, it seemed that the specialist unit didn’t bring any good news. As Sheng Ke and the middle-aged man looked at each other, their facial muscles twitched ceaselessly, as if they had encountered great trouble and were unable to make such important decisions.
“Keep away! Keep away!”
A sharp breaking sound rang out, followed by quick and rhythmic footsteps. Zhang Zian looked back and saw two familiar men and two familiar dogs!
Xiao Liu and Xiao Wang came out of a police car at the entrance with serious faces, along with Red Dragon and Prince. They ran into the scene with other police and police dogs to report to the middle-aged man.
While they passed by Zhang Zian, Xiao Liu, Xiao Wang, Red Dragon, and Prince all discovered him. Out of strict disciplines on duty, however, they only looked at him without speaking.
The well-trained police dogs didn’t bark a single time from the beginning until the end.
Zhang Zian knew what to do and stayed silent. He was not in the position to speak to them for greeting, either.
Sheng Ke commanded the police dog unit to stay for further instructions. The police dogs sat down in a row. The Biochemical Specialist Police Unit gave each police officer a gas mask.
The dog unit police held the gas masks and oxygen tanks, while staring straight forward. They glanced at the unit door where the Biochemical Specialist Police Unit was coming in and out of, unable to hide a hint of concern in their eyes.
Zhang Zian had roughly figured out that, as soon as the middle-aged man commanded, the police dog unit would break into that unit and search for suspicious objects with the dogs.
Judging from the Biochemical Specialist Police Unit’s response, it might be a suicide mission for the police dogs.
“Oh crap! Why did I lose cellphone signal?”
“Me too. I’m editing my WeChat moments, but can’t send it out after editing…”
“My phone signal is gone. My call was cut in the middle, and can’t dial out anymore. How about you?”
“Me too…”
“Aw man, I’m live broadcast! The fans are pouring in! Who the hell cut it off for me?”
The bystanders lifted their phones to search for the faded signal, as if someone had commanded them to do so.
Zhang Zian also took out the phone to check. The signal bar was gone.
As he had expected, to avoid the rumor from spreading and causing a large-scale panic within Binhai citizens, the police had used special equipment to block cell phone signals in the area, or they had shut down the mobile base station in the neighborhood. They might have cut off the internet connection as well.
Such measures could only buy them a very short period time, as someone would soon reach an unblocked area to upload photos and videos.
“Hey, what… What is this? What’s the police doing here?”
After hearing a familiar voice behind him, Zhang Zian looked back again.
Electrician Wu wore his morning exercise outfit, carrying a supermarket plastic bag in his hand that was filled with fresh vegetables. He looked at the familiar, but strange, residential area at loss.
He went outside for his morning exercise very early, and didn’t head home right away after he finished exercising. Instead, he headed to the supermarket for groceries, and spent a lot of time there after meeting a friend. He returned to residential area almost around noon. At first, he thought his wife would surely give him crap. On the way back, he had been thinking what kind of harmless lies he could make up. Yet, after a few hours of absence, something shocking had happened in the residential area!
“Wu, something happened in your building!” someone told him. “Go check it out now!”
Electrician Wu’s face turned pale as soon as he heard. The plastic bag fell on the ground and fruits and vegetables were everywhere.
“Let me in! Don’t stop me! Let me in! My family is still inside! My little grandson is still inside!” He ran inside fanatically, trying to cross over the yellow cordon.
A young policeman stopped him. “Sir! Sir! Please calm down! This area is quarantined. Please don’t interfere with the police work!”
“My family is still inside! Let me in!” Electrician Wu was desperate. He was determined to rush into the yellow cordon, regardless of police or arms in front of him.
Electrician Wu made such a noise that the middle-aged man and Sheng Ke heard him. They frowned and saw Electrician Wu. At the same time, Sheng Ke saw Zhang Zian. A strange look crept on his face.
