Chapter Four: Preparations

Staggering a few steps, Liu Chang endured the pain in his ankle and circled the room again, but still found nothing new. There was only his father's half of a finger—one of them had been gnawed almost in half by a rat.

Picking the two fingers up from the floor, Liu Chang stared at them, unable to feel any relief. His throat was choked up, but no tears would come. Unlike females, males are far less adept at venting pain.

Fortunately, Liu Chang was optimistic enough not to believe his parents were dead. After a moment of sorrow, he went over to the water pipe, washed the blood off his father’s fingers, and put them in his pocket.

Then he turned into his own bedroom. He turned on the computer, wanting to see if the internet was still working. Once the computer booted up, Liu Chang clicked the client—success.

“So, things connected by cable still work.” As soon as he connected, a torrent of information flooded the screen.

The usual pop-up ads from various programs had all been replaced by breaking news. The news was overwhelming, all about the “end of the world.”

Clicking into the news, Liu Chang saw not only endless reports but also a deluge of comments and theories. He quickly browsed through several major news sites and distilled a few important points: first, the crimson mist veiling the sky wasn’t limited to his city of Kaifeng, but had blanketed almost the entire country—and even the globe—at nearly the same moment; second, the fog was confirmed to block all wireless signals, including satellite transmissions—anything communicated wirelessly had ceased to function; third, bizarre mutations were occurring in flora and fauna worldwide, and these mutations were growing more pronounced as time passed.

Finally, the world had plunged into panic. There was no official statement, only raw news and a string of horrific, bloody incidents.

In that instant, it seemed as if every animal and plant on earth had become bloodthirsty and terrifying, every creature aggressive—each species appeared to be fighting madly for survival, driven by a primal fear of being swept away in the torrent of competition.

As Liu Chang scrolled through the endless news, suddenly the web pages stopped loading. At the same moment, he heard a rustling sound from the floor.

Looking down, he realized that at some point the ground had become thickly carpeted with iron-armored beetles, drawn by the scent of blood. They scrambled madly toward the living room, devouring the rat’s corpse and the bloodstains left by his father.

A few of the more sharp-nosed beetles even began crawling toward Liu Chang’s injured foot, making him snap upright.

“Damn it!” The curse slipped out instinctively, a reflexive response to fear. Liu Chang shook his legs violently, flinging the beetles off, then stomped down hard.

Thump, thump, thump!

His soles struck the floor, sending a sharp, stony pain up through his feet. Yet, even after a bout of furious stomping, the hard-shelled beetles were merely wounded, not killed—one could hardly imagine just how tough those gleaming, black carapaces were. Liu Chang thought that if not for the vast difference in size, he might not even be able to harm them at all.

“It’s no use staying here!”

The floor crawling with black beetles called to mind the sacred scarabs from “The Mummy.” Though these insects were far less aggressive for now, in this scarlet mist, who could say what they might become by tomorrow?

At this point, Liu Chang knew he could no longer wait for his parents to come home. As for the broken network cable—it was obvious the beetles were to blame.

He went to his study, took a calligraphy brush and rice paper from the shelf, and wrote in large characters on the biggest sheet: “Mom and Dad, I’m at school now. Come find me there.”

He wrote three of these big notes, posted one on his bedroom door, one in the living room, then left the house to stick the last one at the courtyard gate.

As he opened the door, he was confronted by a world flooded with red mist—crimson everywhere, enough to make the heart race.

After posting the last note, Liu Chang returned inside. He carefully picked up the bloodstained crowbar from the midst of the insect swarm, shook off the beetles, and headed to the kitchen.

After thoroughly cleaning the blood from the crowbar and rinsing his own wound, he found the medicine box, disinfected and bandaged his ankle, then paused to consider his situation.

There could be no doubt—the apocalypse had arrived.

But it was unlike the apocalypses depicted in most books—there were no nauseating zombies, nor was this a blasted wasteland left by nuclear bombs.

The world was now a scarlet darkness, where one could barely see a hand before their face, yet aside from humans, everything else seemed to be thriving. The real change was that humanity’s dominance over the earth was being challenged—food and habitat were not yet critically scarce.

“Perhaps, though, this world’s apocalypse will not come all at once.” After a moment’s thought, Liu Chang noticed that the beetles, which had been only fingertip-sized before, had visibly grown larger in just this short time.

“Or perhaps this doomsday will be harder to endure than any in fiction, though its full horror has yet to reveal itself.”

Seeing the beetles growing at such a supernatural rate, Liu Chang knew he couldn’t afford to waste another minute. He dug out a huge old backpack from his middle school days, went to the fridge and packed some food, grabbed a few basic medicines from the first aid kit, and tucked a kitchen knife inside as well.

In no time, the bag was packed full, weighing several dozen pounds—any more and he wouldn’t be able to carry it.

Having prepared everything, he glanced down to see a few beetles crawling up his leg, drawn by the scent of blood. Shaking them off, he was struck by a sudden thought.

“This smell of blood could bring me trouble.”

With that, Liu Chang turned into his mother’s bedroom, rummaged through her things, and found a bottle of perfume. He sprayed it liberally over himself.

“Who knows if this’ll help, but I bet animals find this stench pretty offensive.” Truth was, Liu Chang had no idea how well perfume could mask the scent of blood, but this was all he could do—do his best and leave the rest to fate.

After dousing himself in perfume and confirming he’d forgotten nothing, Liu Chang shouldered the heavy backpack, gripped the crowbar in one hand, slid the kitchen knife into the side pocket, and stepped out of his home.

Outside, the world was still awash in blood-red mist, with visibility near zero.

The fog was even thicker now.

Liu Chang kept his head down, carefully searching for familiar traces along the road. The old landmarks were growing fewer and farther between. The roadside walls and houses were overrun by wildly growing vines; even the solid ground was riddled with holes from the tenacious weeds, and visibility was no more than three meters ahead.

It seemed that, in any circumstance, plants always outpaced animals in growth.

The beetles inside the house had amazed Liu Chang, but compared to the ravenous growth of the outside plants, they were nothing.