Dr. Tanaka frowned, his tone hesitant,"It just feels... this isn't an ordinary quarantine zone."
Joe's smile faded slightly as he followed Tanaka's gaze, clicking his tongue,"Maybe they just left in a hurry."
Tanaka sighed softly, his eyes resting on an abandoned car by the roadside. The car door was half open, and a child safety seat was still in the back seat, with a plush rabbit next to it, one ear pressed under the seat.
"But the question is...why were they in such a hurry?"
The air felt stifling, the smog clinging heavily around them, making it hard to breathe.
Hai Ying frowned and whispered,"Don't think too much about it. We just need to finish our job and get the money."
Tanaka said nothing more, but he felt that things were not that simple.
The group moved slowly, the heavy atmosphere filled with the sound of footsteps on the broken ground. Sima, a middle-aged pharmaceutical volunteer, walked leisurely behind the group, his usual smile playing on his lips as he glanced at the others.
"Mr. Sima," Tanaka suddenly spoke, his tone half-joking,"Is your pharmaceutical company sending you here to promote products and make some extra money?"
Sima smiled, his tone smooth and unoffensive,"Dr. Tanaka, that's a rather realistic question. Our company is here mainly for market research—the pharmaceutical industry needs to understand the actual demands to provide better services."
Hai Ying raised an eyebrow, giving him a half-smile,"So, you're not just selling drugs, but seeing how much you can sell?"
Sima shrugged and spread his hands,"I'm just an employee carrying out tasks. How the company makes decisions is not up to me. But from a patient's perspective, every demand is related to life, right?"
Joe whistled, a teasing smile on his face,"Oh, sounds fancy. So, how are you going to 'research'? Count how many people are still alive in this ghost place?"
Sima kept his calm smile, his tone gentle,"Mr. Joe, knowing 'how many people are alive' is important, but more important is—how they're living."
He pointed to the backpack on his back,"For example, these medicines I brought are test samples for special environments. If anyone needs them, I can 'give them out for free.'"
Joe shook his head,"That sounds familiar... like when a restaurant opens, they give out free snacks to get people hooked, then start charging."
Sima clapped lightly, as if amused by the analogy,"Mr. Joe is indeed clever; that's how business logic works." He paused, adding pointedly,"But we're dealing with medicines, not snacks. The 'necessity' level of these two is entirely different."
Hai Ying glanced at him, her tone lukewarm,"Sounds like you know a lot about people's 'necessities.'"
Sima smiled and looked at the ruined street ahead, his tone still calm,"Living people will always need something, won't they?"
A brief silence fell over the group.
"You all seem pretty relaxed, but I have a bad feeling," a slightly nervous voice came from the front of the group. Jerry frowned, looking around and speaking in a low tone,"Do you know? A friend of mine went missing here. Before he disappeared, he told me everyone was desperately searching for the truth... There's a rumor that a man-eating monster has appeared in this place."
Sima looked meaningfully at Jerry, a slight smile on his lips,"Baseless rumors shouldn't be spread." His tone was unhurried,"Our government is the best government, with zero tolerance for rumors."
He finished, leisurely raising his wrist to check his shiny watch, as if confirming the time or calculating something.
Though his tone was light, Jerry instinctively closed his mouth, taking a deep puff of his e-cigarette and quickening his pace to distance himself.
Joe raised an eyebrow, breaking the awkward silence,"Hey, let's lighten up a bit. Let's talk about something cheerful."
Sima glanced at Jerry's back, snorting softly,"So young, yet so misguided."
Hai Ying tried to ease the tension, chiming in,"Haven't seen any zombies, but hey, little leader, there are a lot of animal corpses here. Do you smell the stench?"
Tanaka sighed helplessly,"You're all older than me, so why are you so scared?"
Hai Ying tightened her medical mask as if to shield herself from all unsafe things,"Little leader, this quarantine fence is scary. Do you know something? Is this really an infectious disease or something else? These protective suits probably can't even block dust!"
Tanaka frowned slightly,"Don't believe rumors, let's keep moving. We still have an hour to go."
Jerry muttered ahead,"These animal corpses weren't electrocuted but..." His voice trailed off as Sima's gaze locked onto him again.
Mo Wen glanced at the roadside carcasses, unable to tell what kind of animals they were. They were about the size of a cat, their bellies cut open, fur and dark brown blood tangled together.
Tanaka swallowed and steadied himself,"Doesn't matter how they died, let's go. Don't waste time! We're all here to make money, let's not create trouble for ourselves."
Mentioning money seemed to silence the group, and they quickened their pace.
Mo Wen shifted his heavy backpack, hearing the distant cawing of crows on the church spire, a sense of doubt rising within him.
If this was really an animal virus, why were those birds still thriving?
He glanced at Jerry walking ahead, making a decision—he knows something, I need to ask him.
------
As the sun rose, the smog began to lift, improving visibility. But the oppressive weight on everyone's hearts lingered.
"Did you hear that?" Hai Ying suddenly stopped, her voice trembling as she stared fixedly at a darkened window in a nearby five-story apartment building.
Sima frowned, his voice low but firm.
"Don't scare yourself… It's probably just the wind caused something fell from the building." His tone slowed, as if trying to reassure himself.
Mo Wen couldn't resist lifting his flashlight. The beam cut through the electric fence and flickered at the window, as if something dark and shadowy flashed by.
"There's a shadow there!" Hai Ying whispered, as a familiar headache simultaneously struck Mo Wen.
Everyone stopped and looked in the direction Hai Ying pointed. They quickly noticed a colorful, thick rope silently dangling from a bathroom window on the sixth floor of the building. A thin leg followed, sticking out of the window.
The young tenant, Lyon, straddled the windowsill, gulping down the last mouthful of white wine. The spicy liquid slid down his throat into his stomach. He struggled to squeeze out of the small window and looked down. The makeshift"rope" made of bedsheets, duvet covers, and strips of clothing barely reached the second floor. Lyon thought, the second floor is good enough, better than staying in this hopeless prison.
He had lost his job, and his stockpiled food was long gone. The welded-shut building had become a prison for its residents. The community's initial provision of daily necessities had dwindled from three meals a day to a single handout, and now even that had disappeared, leaving only cold price tags. His eyes flickered with the desperation of hunger and the madness of a trapped animal.
He glanced back at the empty room and sneered,"Welded iron doors? You think you can trap me?"
He gripped the rope tightly, his body suspended in mid-air, palms sweating, hands clutching the precarious fabric strips, struggling to inch down.
After sliding down a few meters, his back and waist ached with a tearing pain, and his legs trembled uncontrollably. He suddenly recalled scenes from movies—effortless rooftop escapes, now seeming like cruel lies. He mustered the courage to glance down, and the five-story height made his heart race. Below was a cold iron trash bin.
He continued his difficult descent, suddenly catching a glimpse of a thin figure standing behind a floor-to-ceiling window below. He remembered it was a female college student who had graduated a few years ago but hadn't found a job, still struggling in the cycle of exams and interviews, dreaming of entering city management. However, in this world, if success could be achieved through effort alone without connections, the management class would have long been replaced.
His thoughts were interrupted by a faint tearing sound, the fabric rubbing against the sharp edge of the windowsill. His body began to sway uncontrollably.
Looking up, he saw the knot of the rope starting to loosen. Worse, the rough cement ledge was as sharp as a knife, gradually cutting through his fragile lifeline.
He gripped the rope in terror, his scalp tingling, breathing rapidly like a bellows. His chest heaved violently, fear wrapping around each breath like a venomous snake, ready to drag him into the abyss at any moment.