But the air inside and outside the mall circulated. Even if the fog hadn’t filled the interior, if the Gray Mist caused infection, then everyone in the mall would already be infected…
Also, the Creatures looked human—could it be that normal people transformed after being enveloped by the Gray Mist?
That would explain why there’d been no news of Creatures online before the mist appeared.
“If the transformations only started after the Gray Mist showed up, that’s too fast. Look at their skin, bones, and clothes—they don’t look like something that formed in a short time…” Tang Siqing zoomed in on a video on her phone.
Because she’d still been running for her life, the video was short, but it happened to catch a Creature head-on as it attacked people in the mall.
“Yeah,” Zhang Xin nodded, “they look more like they crawled out of some ruins…”
After that, Tang Siqing shared what she’d learned from a livestreamer in the supermarket. It showed that when the Gray Mist first appeared and the signal was still on, other places in West City were also covered in the mist, so it wasn’t just this commercial area in the suburbs.
It was possible that other cities, or even the whole world, had fallen…
With the current level of technology on this planet, no human force could silently unleash such a vast disaster in such a short time.
That seemed to completely overturn the “man-made” theory.
So… was it an alien invasion?
“Is it the end of the world?” On the side, Chu Yi—who’d been squatting there listening—suddenly spoke up. He looked just over twenty, his face full of fear. “Are we trapped here? Are we going to die here… I—I don’t want to die…”
In a small city like this, male beauticians weren’t widely accepted. He’d just gotten this job and wanted to work hard—he’d never imagined something like this would happen.
“We won’t.” Zheng Yin turned to comfort him. “We can’t be trapped here forever. There are still so many people in this building. Someone will come to rescue us. We have to believe in the strength of our country.”
Zhang Yu agreed. “It’s only just happened—the national machinery hasn’t reacted yet. Once it does, with modern weapons, those Creatures are nothing…”
“Is there a military presence in West City?” Tang Siqing asked.
“There should be,” Zhang Xin replied. “I heard some boys in our class say there’s a Military Camp outside the city, about twenty kilometers north of our campus. It’s not big, but it’s definitely there!”
These words lifted everyone’s spirits, because this shopping mall was on the city’s edge, and Zhang Xin’s school was in the same direction, meaning if the Military Camp started rescue operations, they’d pass by here first.
They should be rescued soon!
Realizing this, Chu Yi perked up a bit, and when Tang Siqing took out her phone to play a video of the Blood-Tongue Monster to study its movement and attack speed, he joined in to watch.
The Blood-Tongue Monster had a human form, so Tang Siqing used zombies as a baseline for comparison.
So far, people attacked didn’t turn into Creatures right away, and the spread rate wasn’t high.
But compared to zombies, who had to get close and bite, these Creatures’ tongue attacks had a much longer range. The red tongue was very strong, able to pierce human flesh and bone easily, latching on and dragging people. Even if you wore thick clothes or wrapped yourself in cardboard or tape, it probably wouldn’t block the red tongue’s power.
If a normal person tried to attack such a Creature with a knife, the knife would likely not even get close before the red tongue stabbed them—unless you were quick enough to judge the tongue’s angle and speed, and cut it off before getting stabbed or grabbed.
But whether the red tongue could be cut off with a blade was something they couldn’t test yet.
Now that they’d relaxed a little, everyone started to feel tired—the exhaustion that came after being highly strung.
They didn’t know when rescue would come, but they had to be ready to spend the night here. Fortunately, the Beauty Salon had several partitioned rooms. But the idea of everyone hiding in the rooms didn’t sit well with them.
They couldn’t all hide in the rooms and leave the lobby empty.
Tang Siqing suggested taking shifts. So far, as long as the people inside didn’t make too much noise, the Creatures outside didn’t keep banging on the door.
The glass door, though cracked, would hold for a while longer, and behind it was the sturdier Crystal Rolling Shutter Door. So as long as whoever was on duty stayed quiet in the lobby and notified the others if anything changed, it should be safe.
Zi Jiang, who’d fainted, woke up around this time. Zheng Ying covered her mouth and quietly filled her in on the situation, focusing on waiting for the Military Camp troops from the suburbs to come rescue them.
In the end, the six of them split into four groups: Zhang Yu and Chu Yi, Tang Siqing alone, Zheng Ying and Zi Jiang, and Zhang Xin alone. The main reason was to avoid having the two most frightened people, Zi Jiang and Chu Yi, on duty alone.
It was a little after four in the afternoon. It was early spring, with sunrise around six, so they set a 14-hour schedule, each group taking a three-and-a-half-hour shift in the lobby.
Zhang Yu took the third, sleepiest shift. Chu Yi had no choice but to go along—he wanted to object, but seeing that all the others were girls, he closed his mouth.
Zhang Xin took the last shift—two-thirty to six in the morning. Though she’d have to get up in the middle of the night, at least she could rest early and get a full sleep.
Tang Siqing didn’t care which shift she got—she planned to let Zheng Ying and Zi Jiang choose, then take the remaining one.
The Beauty Salon had a water dispenser and several unopened barrels of purified water, as well as bottled water, coffee, flower tea, and other drinks. There were also biscuits and candies for guests. The beauticians themselves kept instant noodles, pastries, and meal replacement bars, so food wasn’t an issue for now.
Tang Siqing was even less worried—she had a space, and had started stockpiling supplies ten days earlier. Today, she’d put in a lot of cooked food, drinks, and a cartload of daily necessities, so even though she was trapped here, she felt a subtle sense of security.
It was hard to describe—like having a solid, safe wall at her back. Even if she couldn’t hide inside, leaning on that wall erased her worries and let her focus all her attention forward, facing the dangers head-on.
There were three partitioned rooms—just enough for the different night shifts.
After they went in, Tang Siqing led the others to check the glass walls with vent windows once more.
The rooms were long and narrow, so each glass wall wasn’t large. The mall’s glass was all laminated and tempered, very strong and safe. As long as the only vent window was locked, it was a safe, sealed space.
None of the rooms had their lights on, nor did they plan to turn them on. With the Gray Mist outside, turning on lights at night—even with double curtains—might attract things outside.
Zheng Ying said every room’s cabinet was full of large glass jar candles—safe, windproof, and long-burning. If they really couldn’t see, they could light a candle.
“What if there really are scarier Creatures in the Gray Mist outside, and they smash through the glass at night?” Zi Jiang lifted a bit of curtain, nervously peering at the thick gray fog outside.
It was getting late, close to dusk, and the mist looked even darker than Zheng Ying had described earlier. It reminded her of scenes from horror movies—she kept feeling like some twisted thing would burst from the fog and slam against the glass in front of her.
The unknown is always the most terrifying.
“We’re on the third floor. In a mall like this, that’s over ten meters high—about the fourth floor of a regular apartment building,” Tang Siqing said calmly. “With that height and the strength of the glass, even if something outside tried to break in, it would make a huge racket. You’d wake up before the glass was breached.”
“But what if…” Zi Jiang still wasn’t reassured. “What if something really tall, or that can climb… and smashes the glass instantly—?”
“If there’s something that powerful, with our current strength, even if we weren’t in this room, we couldn’t get away…” Tang Siqing said, glancing at the Gray Mist outside again. “So, don’t worry.”
Zi Jiang:
Though it sounded like comfort, all she felt was a chill down her spine.
What she meant was, if there really was such a Creature, they might as well just give up… and wait to die, right?