Chapter 4 (1/2)

Chapter 4: Preparation

Staggering a few steps, Chang endured the pain coming from his ankle and searched the house again, but no living person was found, there was only the one and a half fingers—half of one finger was bitten off by that rat.

Picking up those two fingers, Chang gazed at them with an empty heart. He sobbed inaudibly, but tears never came out of his eyes.

Unlike girls, guys always had a hard time venting their pain.

Fortunately, Chang stayed optimistic; he didn’t believe that his parents dead. He walked into the kitchen and put the fingers in the sink. He rinsed off the blood and put them into his pocket. Then he turned away and walked into his bedroom. He turned on the computer to see whether the network was still connected.

Accompanied with the noise of his computer starting up, Chang clicked on the network connection – it was a success.

“So things still work, as long as they are connected with a direct line.” As he opened the browser, news was already all over the screen. Even the normal sidebar ads had all switched to broadcasting urgent news. It was flooded with an endless amount of news all about the “apocalypse”.

After clicking the news, there was an overwhelming amount of commentary and speculation in addition to the news.

Going through the three largest news sites, Chang quickly browsed all the news and commentary and subsequently summed up several important messages: first, the red fog had not only filled Kaifeng, the city he lived in, but rather the entire country and whole world was covered in the fog at almost the same time. Second, the fog blocked communication signals, including those from satellites and radios. Third, there were bizarre animal and plant mutation events, and as time pa.s.sed, the number of mutations steadily increased.

And finally, the world sunk into panic.

Officials hadn’t come forward and explained anything, so all that was known was from the distressing news, along with the events that some people had experienced.

It seemed that animals and plants had become bloodthirsty, and every species was filled with aggression. More precisely speaking, every species was competing for living s.p.a.ce as if they living in terror of becoming extinct.

When Chang continued on searching for other news, the internet went down. At the same time, he was aware of an indistinct noise coming from the floor——

Looking down, Chang didn’t know since when, but a ma.s.sive amount of Rice hispa covered the floor. They seemed to come from the smell of blood, as they rushed to the living room and devoured the rat body and the pool of blood from Chang’s father. The ones that had a better sense of smell climbed towards Chang’s wound, causing him to stand up without a second thought.

“F**k!” he cursed. It was a natural reaction from being horrified. Chang shook his legs, then he heavily stepped on the Rice hispa after they fell off his leg.

Crack!

Chang felt a sharp pain from the sole of his feet, as if he had stepped on rocks. Those beetle were only wounded from his vigorous stepping. No one could imagine how st.u.r.dy their s.h.i.+ny black armour was. “If I were smaller, I’m afraid I couldn’t even injure them,” Chang thought.

“The house isn’t safe anymore.”

With beetles everywhere, it made him think of the aggressive scarabs from some science fiction novels. Although these insects currently looks far less aggressive than scarabs, under these red fog, it was impossible to tell how they would change by tomorrow.

Looking at the house, Liu Chang knew he couldn’t wait for his parents to come home any longer.

As for the cable breaking, it was caused by these beetles.