This accident indirectly helped them confirm their suspicions, but to be safe, and given how hard-won the severed arm was, they still went ahead with their original experiment plan.
They first securely tied a thin rope around the severed arm, then fixed the arm beneath the Drone, and finally released the Drone from the window.
Zhang Xin, having experience from the Drone club, took control of the Drone to fly it into midair near the Red Tongue Monster, beginning to “lead the monster around.”
The small Drone made considerable noise while flying, and with the severed arm dangling below, it naturally provoked the monsters into agitation and attack.
Zhang Xin focused intently on controlling the Drone, keeping the severed arm always just out of the Red Tongue’s striking range. After attracting several monsters to chase it, the Drone suddenly accelerated away.
When it was about ten meters from the monsters, Zhang Xin pressed the drop button, letting the severed arm fall to the ground.
The monsters chased the arm a few steps but quickly lost their target and started searching around. At this moment, the people upstairs began rapidly pulling the thin rope in their hands, causing the severed arm lying in the parking lot below to “move.”
When the pulsating flesh caught the monsters’ attention again, they suddenly stopped the motion, letting the flesh remain still.
After several trials of varying lengths, the people upstairs quickly drew conclusions.
The monsters have keen hearing and can see, but their retinas are special—they react to sounds, movements, moving objects, and moving flesh, while stationary flesh is ignored. The safety distance for this ignoring behavior is about two to three meters, and the safe duration is five seconds.
In other words, even if a human is seen and chased by a monster, as long as they stay completely still in the monster’s sight for over five seconds, the monster will lose its target and attack blindly around them.
The three-meter safe distance is to avoid accidental piercing injuries from the monster’s probing Red Tongue.
But this data is rough, and under normal circumstances, ordinary people lack the psychological resilience to remain absolutely still in front of a monster for five seconds.
For now, however, gathering these traits is enough. The Drone finished its task and flew back to the Beauty Salon.
Zhang Xin checked the Drone again to ensure all functions were normal since they would need to use it again for their escape plan.
Zheng Ying, Chu Yi, and Zi Jiang had long since changed out of the pink Beauty Salon uniforms into their own clothes, all wearing practical pants for easier movement.
Not everyone had a backpack; the two that existed were small and heavy leather types, not holding much.
Afterward, they scavenged inside the Beauty Salon, converting handbags and crossbody bags into makeshift backpacks, carrying leftover food, some water, other supplies, and things that could be used as weapons, each carrying their own.
Finally, everyone put on masks.
Zhang Yu and Zhang Xin’s cars were trapped among vehicles on the ground driveway and too far away to be usable.
Tang Siqing’s rented Jeep, which she had planned to drive all the way northwest, was also covered in unknown substances—black matter had squeezed it until it toppled over. Fortunately, inside were only two bottles of water and some chewing gum; all important and newly purchased items were stored in her Space.
Both cars were now useless. Luckily, Zheng Ying had a car still intact, parked in the lot.
The car was small, barely fitting six people with some squeezing. More importantly, its parking spot was in the Mall Employee Parking Lot, separated by an iron fence from the Customer Parking Lot, located on the far right side of the entire ground parking area. Beyond the employee lot was another driveway.
If they could get into the car smoothly, they wouldn’t have to cross the whole parking lot. That driveway wasn’t a main road, and during the incident, it had no traffic. They could take that route to go around to the back of the Mall, avoiding congested areas. If lucky, they might exit the city smoothly.
Their destination was Zhang Xin’s University Town. Once there, they would check the school’s situation. If things seemed off, they would continue heading outside the city toward the Military Camp.
***
One end of their homemade Curtain Rope Escape Line was fixed inside the partition; the other hung down from the floor-to-ceiling window that Tang Siqing had broken with the Windproof Torch and Safety Hammer.
There were many Windproof Torches in the Beauty Salon used for lighting moxibustion and aromatherapy candles. She first heated the glass corners with the torch to high temperature, then struck them with the Safety Hammer. When she smashed the fourth corner, the entire floor-to-ceiling glass shattered with a crash.
They chose not to escape directly through the ventilation window because it was small, and climbing out while accurately stepping through the escape rope’s loops would be difficult. More importantly, they feared the situation in the two floors beneath the Mall.
Since the floor-to-ceiling glass all had uniform specifications, they worried that climbing down through the ventilation window might expose them to monsters or hostile survivors hiding below.
Escaping from the side with the closed floor-to-ceiling glass was at least safer. This was Tang Siqing’s reminder, based on experience from apocalypse novels.
Zhang Yu, strong in arm power, was the first to descend, leading the way. They had agreed beforehand that if they encountered other survivors inside, and if they seemed friendly, they would share their experiment results.
For convenience, they even prepared multiple handwritten copies of the “Red Tongue Monster Experiment” record sheets, detailing the experiment and corpse changes, planning to just stick them on the glass for others to read and believe or not at their discretion—saving time and avoiding risky conversations.
If the other side was hostile, they would quickly climb past that area. The Mall’s glass was very sturdy; without the torch or hammer, it would be nearly impossible to break it quickly.
The Curtain was thick and the escape rope exceptionally strong—under normal conditions, it could easily support two people hanging.
Zhang Xin operated the Drone again, hanging a small Music Player beneath it. The Drone first flew to the right side of the parking lot, using sound to lure monsters on the ground from right to left, trying to clear the ground path from their position to the employee parking lane.
Due to the monster’s unique vision, as long as they remained alert to nearby ground monsters and stopped descending whenever others appeared—standing still for several seconds—they would soon lose their target.
Then, the monsters would be attracted by the Drone’s music and move away, allowing them to continue descending.
If they stayed steady, they could land safely.
Zhang Yu began descending, moving quickly and quietly, carefully stepping through the rope loops.
Next were Zheng Ying and Zi Jiang.
Finally, Chu Yi and Zhang Xin.
Among them, only Zheng Ying regularly went to the gym and had decent arm strength, descending steadily. The others were a bit shaky.
Fortunately, the escape rope’s loops were very well placed—stepping into one allowed them to leverage force and balance their bodies. Despite some stumbling, they all reached the ground safely.
Those who landed immediately hid behind a nearby car, out of the line of sight of monsters on the other side.
Zhang Xin tied the Drone’s remote controller to a rope. Before descending, she parked the Drone on top of a large truck in the parking lot, keeping it noisy to continuously attract monsters, then hung the controller rope around her neck to bring it down with her.
She originally planned to let Tang Siqing go first, but Tang insisted she descend first.
Tang Siqing wasn’t being courteous; she planned to take useful items from the Beauty Salon after everyone else had left.
For example, more than eighty Windproof Torches in a large box, and over twenty one-liter bottles of Fire Spray Alcohol. Used separately, they had limited use, but combined, their destructive power was immense.
Actually, with so much alcohol, they could make Molotov cocktails, but unfortunately, the Beauty Salon lacked suitable containers. Molotovs work best with small-mouthed glass bottles that can be tightly sealed and break upon impact, releasing flames.
Tang Siqing searched the Beauty Salon thoroughly. The only small-mouthed glass bottles were 50ml Essential Oil bottles, exceptionally sturdy—even dropped on tiled floors in the restroom, they didn’t break.
Helplessly, she had to demonstrate another way of using flame and alcohol spray.
After practicing a few times, everyone stuffed one Windproof Torch and one bottle of Fire Spray Alcohol into their bags. Still, the backpacks were small, so they couldn’t carry everything.
But she could.
Additionally, Tang Siqing took several clean, thick blankets, some unopened skincare and bath sets, a large box of Disposable Underwear, several boxes of Disposable Face Towels, six six-packs of Paper Tissue, half a box of Sanitary Napkins, unopened Bathrobes and Towels, Aromatherapy Candles, two boxes each containing 100 bottles of Essential Oil, two unopened 19L containers of Purified Water, and a dozen bottles of Floral Tea and Coffee drinks others couldn’t fit into their bags…
This Beauty Salon was indeed thoughtful—every detail regarding female supplies was considered.
After confirming the storage room had no cameras, Tang Siqing packed at lightning speed, instantly recognizing useful items and immediately placing them in her Space.
She didn’t fill the Space completely, keeping some room for backup.
She also planned to find an opportunity to get some gasoline. Given the current situation outside, gasoline would be easier to get than before. Those empty portable fuel cans needed to be filled to feel secure.
***
When Tang Siqing returned to the partition, Zhang Xin was almost down to the ground on the escape rope, with Zhang Yu half-squatting there to assist.
Tang Siqing checked the ground for nearby monsters, confirming the closest were still twenty to thirty meters away, their attention fixed on the noisy truck’s roof. She then turned and gripped the rope knot, beginning her descent.
It was her first time climbing such an escape rope, feeling similar to climbing a soft rope ladder, since there were footholds spaced regularly to leverage against. Going down was much easier than going up.
She had a martial arts background, learned from her older sister when young, but gradually abandoned it due to studies.
However, she had kept running regularly because she loved to eat but wanted to maintain her figure. To boost metabolism, she ran at least five to six times a week.
Though her sprinting explosiveness wasn’t great, her endurance was strong. She routinely ran over five kilometers, once even twelve—a short marathon level.
Therefore, she descended faster and steadier than Zheng Ying and Zhang Yu. The curtains inside the Mall’s second-floor floor-to-ceiling windows were tightly closed, concealing whether anyone was inside. The first-floor area was a Glass Showcase without ventilation, similarly obscuring the interior.
She crouched and shifted her backpack from her back to her front for easy access. Just as she was about to hide behind the car with Zhang Yu, a small door inside the Glass Showcase opened.
It was a small door opening inward, used by the clothing store staff to change display items.
A haggard man lunged at the glass, asking what they wanted. Soon, several other survivors hiding inside appeared, all looking panicked and uneasy.
This was a clothing store. They didn’t know if there was any drinking water inside or how the survivors had managed the past two days.
When the others learned they planned to leave, reactions were mixed—some wanted to go, others wanted to stay—and a quiet dispute broke out.
One young man, agitated, argued that based on many apocalypse movies he’d seen, in this kind of situation, one must stay put and not venture out recklessly. No one knew if the Gray Fog from two days ago would return or what the outside was like—possibly worse.
In short, it was only two days in. Going out recklessly was suicide.
Tang Siqing and Zhang Yu had no patience to listen to their quarrel. They simply stuck the “Red Tongue Monster Experiment” record sheet on the glass and, following their plan, followed closely behind Zheng Ying, ducking low, carefully avoiding the transformed areas in the parking lot, weaving between cars, using the vehicles as cover.
Tang Siqing soon spotted her Jeep. The doors and windows were intact, but it lay completely on its side, its wheels pressed against thick black Proliferation Substance resembling mud.
Up close, it was still hard to identify—looking like rotten garbage mixed in a black sludge, with some white things poking out.
The white things looked different from the black Proliferation Substance, not muddy but fragmented, fibrous, slightly yellowish with an unsettling calcified texture… Until Tang Siqing saw a clearer white outline and her breath caught.
It was—a skull fragment!
So these white things were—human bones!?
At that moment, she felt as if she had guessed what this black substance that looked like rotting garbage really was.
It was—the ashes of burnt human bodies! The ashes, for some unknown reason, must have absorbed water or other liquids, preventing the wind from dispersing them, causing them to clump together like sludge.
But to pile up such a large area of “black Proliferation Substance,” how many bodies must have been burnt at once?
A chill ran down Tang Siqing’s spine.
The entire parking lot, green belts, and the front driveway were covered in this “black Proliferation Substance.”
Where did all this come from? No matter how bad things were outside, only two days had passed—how could there be so many dead? Who had set fire to these corpses…?
Her thoughts were interrupted by the crashing sound of porcelain nearby.
A piece of porcelain fell from above, shattering loudly. It was probably a large blue-and-white ceramic bowl—thick and wide—hitting the ground with a heavy crash.
The sudden noise startled all six cautious people, who had been moving stealthily.
In the next moment, their expressions all changed. Even with masks on, their eyes spoke one word clearly: “Trouble.”