novelraw Chapter 114
Chapter 114
“Who is it? Who’s talking? Stop talking nonsense! How could a perfectly healthy person just disappear? Didn’t they just fall behind?”
Someone in the group lifted their phone and shined it toward the back, and several flashlights immediately followed suit, all pointing in that direction. The young man who had spoken instinctively shut his eyes.
They were all from a nearby community, and even though they were wearing masks, they knew what Xiao Zheng looked like and what he was wearing. But after shining the flashlights several times, they still couldn’t see Xiao Zheng anywhere.
“What… what’s going on?” someone stammered. “How could Xiao Zheng just disappear?”
The people walking at the back, who were considered the backbone of the team and had some strength, were baffled. Xiao Zheng was over 1.8 meters tall; even if he was attacked by a mutated animal, he should have made some noise or struggled, right? How could he just vanish without a sound?
This isn’t a horror story.
Though they thought this in their minds, fear was evident on their faces. The delay of the group at the back caught the attention of Yu Xi’s group. The Gou brothers, who were leading, turned back to ask what had happened.
The two groups gathered, and the flashlights illuminated the area, making it noticeably brighter.
After hearing the explanation, Gou Yaoyang frowned. “Are you sure he didn’t make a sound and just suddenly disappear?”
Apart from the person who had first noticed Xiao Zheng’s disappearance, the others at the back nodded in agreement. While they were nodding, the person at the front of their group remembered something and pointed at Yu Xi. “She stopped suddenly; it was because she stopped that the other group had to stop, and that’s when we realized Xiao Zheng was missing.”
In an instant, all eyes from both groups were on Yu Xi.
“I have better hearing than most, and I did hear some faint sound, but I couldn’t tell what it was.”
“We should find him,” someone from the other group, who knew Xiao Zheng better, said urgently. “We can’t just leave him like this.”
Gou Yaoyang turned to the team and asked, “It’s still early in the apocalypse, or rather, society hasn’t collapsed completely. Most people are still governed by laws and conscience. No one is showing their selfish side just yet.”
Some said they were willing to search, and others agreed.
To ensure safety, everyone stayed close. The teams were divided according to their respective communities and began cautiously searching in two areas, retracing their steps.
About ten minutes later, both groups returned to the starting point after searching their assigned areas with no results.
The area was silent, and no strange creatures were found. It was as if Xiao Zheng had vanished. They even started to wonder if he had ever come down to the underground parking lot with the group.
“He definitely came down. He talked to me on the way here,” the young man closest to Xiao Zheng said, now visibly distressed. “How could a living person just vanish without a trace behind me? Could it be… a ghost?”
“Stop talking nonsense,” someone retorted.
“What should we do? I’m so scared.”
“Should we keep searching?”
“But where could he have gone? What if he’s not in the garage and went back upstairs?”
“Why don’t we head to the supermarket first and come back afterward?”
“Is human life more important, or the supplies?”
“Well, we can’t just wait here forever, can we?” That person sighed. “We were searching in the direction we came from. What if he walked ahead of us and we missed him?”
“Is that possible? With both our teams combined, if he had really gone ahead, someone would have seen him. You’re better off guessing he went upstairs. I think that’s more likely.”
The person spoke as he pointed his chin upward, his flashlight instinctively following the direction.
The light flickered across the area, and his voice suddenly stopped as he glimpsed something hanging above.
He froze as though paralyzed, his face turning pale like a ghost. Though he hadn’t seen it clearly, when the flashlight flickered, he had briefly seen… a person’s foot?
Someone was hanging right above them.
He suddenly realized that Xiao Zheng, whom they had been searching for in vain, had been hanging directly above them the whole time.
“What’s wrong with you?” someone nearby frowned. “Why the sudden expression?”
The man’s whole body was trembling, so frightened that he couldn’t speak. He merely pointed upward with a trembling finger.
In the next second, several flashlights turned upward. People nearby looked up, and when they saw what was hanging above, someone couldn’t hold in the horrifying sight and screamed immediately.
As soon as the scream escaped, someone beside the person hurriedly covered their mouth. “Don’t scream, we’ll alert that thing.”
The “thing” they were referring to was a thick, green, strip-like object that looked like a vine, but its smooth surface made it appear more like some sort of soft-bodied creature. This green object had coiled around the body of the person hanging from the ceiling and was slowly moving across his body and legs.
It was alive.
Everyone fell silent and stepped back a few paces.
Someone whispered cautiously, “Is it… is it Xiao Zheng?”
“Yes, I recognize his pants and shoes.”
“Oh my God, is he dead? What is that thing?”
Some murmured in fear, while others remained calm and determined to save him.
The young man in his twenties from the other group, seemingly an amateur archer, had brought his full set of equipment. Yu Xi had noticed him when they first met. Seeing the situation, the people in his group understood his intent to save Xiao Zheng and silently quieted down. Everyone focused their flashlight beams upward to give him the best chance to save their comrade.
However, the man’s hand, as he prepared to draw his bow, was gently stopped by Yu Xi.
He frowned in displeasure and gave Yu Xi a questioning look.
“Don’t rush,” Yu Xi said, “Take a good look. Your friend is covering his mouth as if he doesn’t want to make a sound. Why is that?”
Earlier, the group had avoided looking directly at Xiao Zheng’s face due to fear. Now, at Yu Xi’s words, the flashlights slowly shifted upward.
Sure enough, despite being entangled by the unknown creature and hanging from the ceiling, Xiao Zheng’s eyes were wide open, filled with terror, and he was desperately pressing his hand over his mouth to suppress any noise.
When he saw the light shining on his face, he made a “shush” gesture and cautiously pointed toward the other side of the ceiling.
The garage’s ceiling was already high, and with most of the lights off from the night before, the upper corners were shrouded in darkness. Even with a flashlight, they could only make out blurry shapes.
The light swept across and illuminated a segment of dark, fuzzy, segmented limbs. The legs slowly moved, pulling away from the light and retreating from its coverage.
Someone could no longer suppress their gasp. “It… it’s a spider.”
It was a spider—a gigantic mutated spider. Its legs were covered in fuzzy hair, and it looked about half the size of a person.
In addition to the direction Xiao Zheng had pointed to, the group soon spotted two smaller spiders in the further corners of the roof.
They had been hiding in the darkness, but it seemed that they realized they were discovered. Slowly, they began climbing down the walls from the upper corners, coming toward the group from different directions.
The largest spider, with a brown-black body, was covered in golden-brown hair on its legs, thorax, and abdomen. It silently crawled down the wall, landing on the ground and raising its pincers, advancing toward them.
Perhaps because the threat from the roof had been neutralized, Xiao Zheng, still suspended by the green vine, finally spoke, though his voice was unsteady, as if he had just regained consciousness. “C-careful, the spiders… they’re poisonous.”
As soon as the words left his mouth, an arrow was launched at the largest spider.
The spider reacted quickly, retreating at once. The arrow brushed past its pincers and struck the ground. Enraged, the spider raised its upper body, suddenly accelerating and charging at the group, its pincers wide open.
People who had lived in peaceful times had never seen anything like this. Even though they had witnessed various mutated plants and animals recently, the sheer size of this spider shattered their previous understanding.
The group panicked and began to retreat, but the other two spiders had already silently landed on the ground and were now advancing toward them from different directions, pincers raised. One of them even leapt toward them.
In an instant, the group was surrounded.
A green, vine-like object suddenly shot through the air, striking the jumping spider with a powerful lash. The spider was hit squarely, flipped over upon landing, and shot a thread of silk at the green vine. It then raised its body in a defensive posture.
The green vine didn’t fully avoid the silk and was struck by the end of the thread, writhing violently for a moment before retracting.
“Wait, did that thing just help us?” someone murmured.
“Be careful, the spider’s coming back!” another warned. This time, it was the largest spider, which jumped even higher than before and was already in front of them in the blink of an eye.
The people in front hastily dodged, while one person from behind moved forward, swinging their sharp weapon at the spider.
In a flash of combat, two furry limbs fell to the ground, with greenish liquid oozing from the severed parts. The wounded spider lay on the ground, struggling to raise its pincers and emitting an angry screech.
The screech wasn’t loud, more like the eerie sound of leather being scraped, a screeching noise that sent shivers down the spine.
Yu Xi, having successfully struck, didn’t stop. As the spider lunged toward her, she bent her waist and side-stepped, then swiftly struck, severing a few more of its limbs.
Five of the spider’s eight legs were chopped off, and now it looked like a large, crippled lump, twitching on the ground. It opened its mouth and suddenly sprayed silk at Yu Xi. She dodged to the side, but the silk hit someone else, causing a dark patch to form on the person’s protective suit.
“The silk is toxic!” that person exclaimed. “No, wait, it’s not poison—this is acid, the silk has strong corrosive properties!”
“We need fire! Quick, pass it here!” someone shouted. Immediately, a glass bottle was hurled and smashed onto the spider’s back.
The bottle shattered, and the scent of gasoline filled the air. Xia Xuan, seeing that Ma Tiantian had hit the target, immediately took out a small flamethrower, ignited it, and sprayed the alcohol mist directly onto the flames.
In an instant, a long stream of fire erupted, igniting the gasoline on the spider’s body, and the spider writhed and screamed in flames.
It struggled violently, then, focusing on one person, it used all its strength to jump again.
“Thwip thwip!” Two sharp sounds of air being split echoed as the arrows accurately struck the spider’s abdomen. The spider, mid-leap, fell to the ground, landing on its back. The remaining three legs twitched in the flames, and gradually, the movement slowed.
The young man who had drawn the bow exhaled a long sigh of relief. Fortunately, he had held steady in the critical moment.
The group had successfully taken down one spider, but the crisis was far from over. Yu Xi saw that the others were handling the legless spider and had moved to deal with the remaining ones, so she continued to sever the legs of another spider.
After their previous collaboration, their teamwork was seamless, and soon, all three spiders were eliminated.
The three blazing fires lit up the underground garage, and only then did the group notice a metal frame on the ceiling in a certain section of the garage. It was covered with dense green plants. The earlier green tendrils were the veins, or perhaps vines, of this plant.
The group gathered together, warily looking up, thinking there might be another tough battle ahead. But after the three giant spiders were dealt with, the vine-like object that had been holding Xiao Zheng slowly lowered and released him. It then, along with the other vines, retracted and disappeared behind the dense foliage, no longer visible.
“Wow, I feel like that thing wanted us to help it get rid of the spiders… Did it just become sentient?” someone said, bewildered.
Another person frowned in thought. “It seems that these mutated plants and animals have surpassed our imagination in some ways.”
Ten minutes later, they finally found the stairwell. They hurried in, thoroughly checking the area before locking the stairwell door behind them. Some sat down or leaned against the wall, taking a moment to recover.
Xiao Zheng’s shoulder had been injured. After cutting away his clothing, they found two small blackened holes, likely from spider bites.
Chen Tong, being meticulous, had brought a medical kit in her backpack. Having been a nurse before her marriage, she skillfully cleaned, disinfected, and provided temporary treatment. After finishing the bandage, she advised him to go to the hospital for a more thorough check-up to be safe.
“Forget it, in this situation, you’d probably die faster on the way to the hospital. Just go back and take some anti-inflammatory medicine. As long as you’re not dead, you can tough it out.”
Xiao Zheng’s optimistic smile made Chen Tong admire him. She took the initiative to introduce herself.
Seeing that Xiao Zheng seemed to be fine, someone couldn’t help but pull him aside to ask about what had happened earlier.
It turned out that when he was walking at the back of the group, he had vaguely noticed a slender shadow flicker by him. Since it didn’t make any sound, the people ahead of him didn’t hear it, but he caught a glimpse of it in his peripheral vision.
He instinctively stopped to look, and during those few seconds of hesitation, something sharp and cold pierced his shoulder. When he tried to shout, he realized that his limbs and tongue had quickly gone numb, and soon he couldn’t move at all.
He felt something soft and fuzzy rubbing against him, as though trying to drag him away. At a critical moment, the same slender shadow appeared again, forcefully wrapping around his body and pulling him away.
After that, he lost consciousness. He thought he had been out for a long time, but later realized it was only about ten minutes.
When he woke up, he was already suspended by plants. With the help of the flashlight below, he saw a giant spider on the ceiling not far from him. For some reason, the spider seemed to have poor vision and didn’t notice him, though it was constantly moving around the ceiling, seemingly searching for him. The green plant that had entangled him didn’t seem to carry any hostility.
The rest of the story was known to everyone.
“So, those spiders have been lurking on the ceiling since we entered the underground garage, planning to paralyze us one by one and drag us away?” someone shuddered. “And that plant actually saved you, even helped us fight the spiders… This is so surreal.”
“Did you guys think those spiders looked familiar? Like the ones some people keep as pets?”
“Don’t mention spiders. I’m terrified of them. I was so scared earlier I could barely run, almost died right there.”
“I just remembered, this mall’s top floor has an open-air pet paradise, and I think there’s a small spider pet shop. The mall has floor-to-ceiling glass windows, and since it’s closed at night, the spiders couldn’t get in, so they came down to the underground garage instead.”
“Wait, so big, and it’s a pet?”
“So, the spiders must have mutated, right? Normal spiders have acidic venom, but their silk shouldn’t be corrosive, and their size definitely wouldn’t be that big.”
As soon as the words were spoken, everyone fell silent.
The changes in cold-blooded animals are among the most dramatic, but many cold-blooded creatures are also the most dangerous. What would their future lives look like?
Everyone felt heavy-hearted. Even though they successfully reached the elevator, took it to the first basement level, and found the supermarket, they weren’t as happy as they thought they would be when they saw the supplies.
Of course, that was partly because there weren’t many supplies on the shelves.
Before the plant outbreak, most supermarkets had already been limiting purchases due to insufficient stock. While half of the food shelves were empty, the two teams didn’t have many people, so even with the limited supplies, there was enough for them to take.
But now, there was a new problem.
They had all read post-apocalyptic novels where, when zombies broke out, as long as there was chaos outside, survivors would rush to the supermarket, and once they opened the doors, it would be first-come, first-served—everyone grabbing what they could without considering paying.
They had thought that when they came to the supermarket, it would be just like those novels: they would go in and take whatever they wanted without a second thought. But, as they had come to realize, society’s order had not yet collapsed, the supermarket still had power, and the surveillance cameras were still operating.
“If this crisis passes in a few days, just like the last one, and the mall decides to hold us accountable, we’ll be in trouble.”
This time, unlike the previous situation where they were nearly out of food and water, most of the group still had plenty of supplies at home, and they were mainly here to assess the situation.
As they hesitated, someone, holding an electric baton and wearing a wary expression, walked out from behind a shelf. “Who’s there?”
The person was wearing the mall’s security uniform, with two other security guards following him.
What happened next unfolded smoothly.
The security guard operated a self-checkout machine, allowing them to scan their items and pay with their phones.
Of course, the security guard mentioned the purchase limits, but the group completely ignored it.
They had already taken a risk coming out here, and simply paying for the items was already obeying the law. Limiting their purchases? Not a chance.
“Three for thirty,” the security guard muttered, knowing he couldn’t do much against them. After a few words, he gave up, especially since he and the others had been living off the supplies from the mall in the last few days, not fully following the rules themselves.
With cameras and people around, Yu Xi didn’t dare to fill her space with too many items. However, she had just stocked up on five trucks of supplies and two parties’ worth of food from the Acid Rain world, so she wasn’t lacking anything.
After a moment’s consideration, she went to the luggage section and grabbed a few oversized travel bags—big enough to fit a curled-up person.
She then moved to the women’s products area, taking all the sanitary napkins off the shelves, regardless of brand or type, and stuffed them into her bags.
Two young girls from the other team, who had been loading their cart with canned goods and instant noodles, saw her clear out the entire shelf of sanitary napkins. They immediately became upset and approached her to complain about her selfishness for not leaving anything for the others.
They came at her with accusatory tones. If they had approached her differently, Yu Xi might have taken some out and shared, but now, she just glanced at them, lifted her eyelids, and said, “You can have the security guards take you to the warehouse. They have more stock there than here.”
One of the girls retorted, “Why should we go to the warehouse? You emptied the shelf, and now we’re supposed to go to the warehouse?”
Yu Xi unsheathed her Tang sword. She wasn’t in the mood for back-and-forth. Without a word, she slashed at the empty shelf with a loud metallic sound. “I don’t like wasting words. Either we fight, or you shut up.”
The two girls froze, speechless.
Another woman from their team noticed the tension and quickly approached, apologizing to Yu Xi while pulling the two girls away. “You two should have listened before. Don’t act like this now. The situation has changed, and no one cares who you were before. And you should keep your head down. That woman just sliced spider legs like she was cutting sugar cane. You don’t want to mess with someone like her.”
The two girls weren’t pleased. “What’s the big deal? We’re black belts in Taekwondo!”
“Yeah, if it weren’t for that, we wouldn’t even be out here with the group. But don’t cause trouble now. We’ll go find security. If it wasn’t for her reminder, I would’ve forgotten about the warehouse. It has more than just sanitary napkins. There’s also more food.”
“You two should go push a few more carts,” the older woman added. “I’ll call the people in the community and see if we can gather another team to help. We need to gather as much as we can before others arrive. We came early, so the supermarket’s still untouched. But when other teams arrive, they’ll be able to take whatever’s left. If we don’t get enough supplies this time, the next time we come, everything might be gone.”
The older woman spoke with reason, and Yu Xi glanced at her with a deeper look.
“That’s their manager, Huang. She’s always lived with them,” someone said from the side. It was the young man who had been preparing to shoot arrows. He approached Yu Xi and introduced himself.
His name was Lu Bin, a recent graduate, and archery was his hobby. He never expected it would come in handy.
His reason for talking to Yu Xi was obvious—he had noticed her skills. In this world, education, money, and status no longer mattered.
The world is undergoing a major reshuffle, and naturally, he needs to get to know more people who can adapt to the new world.
After the two introduced themselves, Lu Bin took the initiative to exchange phone numbers and WeChat with Yu Xi. His thoughts were similar to those of Gou Yaoyang; if the crisis in S City didn’t pass, he planned to evacuate with his parents to another city.
The more reliable people in the evacuation team, the better.
After a brief chat, they went back to shopping.
Considering that others needed it more, Yu Xi didn’t touch the food. She moved to the coffee shelf, sweeping the entire shelf of bagged coffee beans and coffee powder, regardless of the brand or type, and packed everything into her travel bags.
Next, she went to the paper goods section and filled the remaining travel bags to the brim.
She took out climbing ropes from her backpack, tying the five bulky travel bags together. While dragging the five enormous bags past the alcohol section, she remembered the boxes of red wine she had stored for her father. Estimating how much he had consumed, she decided to stock up for him all at once.
But red wine was fragile and hard to fit into travel bags. She scanned the camera positions and thought of a solution.
The wine shelves were arranged in several layers, with many rows. She pretended to walk past the shelf and, as she passed, took all the bottles from the inner rows, leaving only the outer row intact. The bottles were all stored in her Star House warehouse.
She also gathered many bottles of soda, Sprite, Fanta, and various packaged milk teas, milk, and beverages using the same method.
From the outside, the shelves still looked full.
With her mask and hat on, even if someone later checked the surveillance footage, they wouldn’t be able to identify her.
Of course, at checkout, she directly paid for the extra drinks and alcohol. Her bank account still had plenty of money from selling gold bars, so she didn’t mind spending it and actually wanted to use it up quickly.
Since there were too many packs of sanitary napkins in her bags, she bypassed the automatic checkout machine and paid the total using the supermarket’s payment QR code, transferring an amount far greater than the value of the five bags of goods.
The security guard by the checkout machine was stunned, but when he saw the six-figure transaction, he didn’t question her. He simply let her go.
When Yu Xi walked out of the supermarket, Xu Yan had already collected the supplies he needed. Like everyone else, he had mainly taken food, and also grabbed travel bags from the luggage section, though he only took two because he couldn’t carry more.
When he saw Yu Xi dragging five travel bags larger than herself, he froze for a moment. Then he told her that he had asked the security guard for the spare key to the side door of the mall. Next time, they could enter directly from the ground-level door to avoid going through the underground parking lot again.
He had already notified the other residents in the community, telling them to hurry up and come to the supermarket to grab supplies.
He had a hunch that the news of the relative safety outside would spread quickly, and so would the news about the supermarket. By tomorrow, the supermarket would likely be emptied.
Xu Yan had a good head on his shoulders, and Yu Xi felt like she could relax again.
She sat down on the floor, waiting until everyone from her community had come out. Then, she followed them back to the community.
Of course, this was the last time she would accompany them. If others wanted to go to the supermarket again, she wouldn’t get involved. After all, Xu Yan had the key and a good plan; he could handle it.
Dragging her five giant travel bags, she walked out of the supermarket and then tightened the climbing ropes to carry all of them on her back. The five bags were like a small mountain, completely engulfing her slender figure, making her look like a unique sight in the group.
Ma Tiantian and Xia Xuan couldn’t help but laugh, and when they finally returned safely to the apartment building, they immediately approached her to exchange phone numbers and WeChat, expressing their admiration and saying they’d like to stick with her in the future.
Yu Xi…
That night, after all the trips to the supermarket, Xu Yan finally had some free time.
Everyone who was willing to go outside had already done so, and all the supplies were secured. These supplies were their reassurance and security.
Later, Yu Xi sent a message to Xu Yan, informing him about the food mysteriously disappearing from the family on the fourteenth floor.
Compared to their experiences outside today, this was a trivial matter, but Xu Yan didn’t ignore it. He understood how important that building was to them.
As long as the building stood, the people would survive. If something happened in the building that wasn’t addressed in time, and it spread, it would be too late to do anything.
Following Yu Xi’s suggestion, they accessed the surveillance system through the building’s reception computer and reviewed the footage from the previous day and night on the fourteenth floor.
The footage clearly showed that the professor and his wife left with empty hands. Given the hot weather, everyone was dressed lightly, so there was no way to hide anything.
The couple’s involvement was ruled out. They fast-forwarded through the footage, watching the entire night until the middle-aged woman came looking for the professor and his wife. There was no sign of anyone entering their apartment.
Not even any suspicious creatures were seen.
If the problem wasn’t from the outside, then how did the food inside disappear?