Chapter 102: A Man’s Despair

The closest thing to Building A was a red inflatable raft, piled high with supplies.

A middle-aged couple and a little girl of about six or seven sat on it.

The three of them seemed well-equipped, all wearing raincoats, and their supplies on the raft were covered with plastic sheeting.

Hailstones, some as big as fists, others as small as grains of rice, came down in a dense, furious barrage.

With their home building almost within reach, the man didn’t even think to take cover. Instinctively, he paddled hard toward the window of Building B’s stairwell.

Quick as a flash, the woman set aside her oar, yanked her daughter close and shielded her with her own body, then lifted the plastic sheet and grabbed two unidentifiable objects to cover her and her husband’s heads.

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

They’d barely paddled a couple of seconds before the raft was covered in a sheet of white.

The raft was already punctured in several places, and icy water started gurgling in.

Slap!

Slap!

“Aaah!”

“Hiss!”

The woman’s arms, raised in the air, were struck by hail. She cried out in pain and lost her grip, the makeshift shield slipping away. Hailstones of all sizes pelted down, smashing into the couple’s heads.

To stop was certain death; paddling forward might offer a sliver of hope.

Blood streaming down his forehead, the man clenched his teeth, fighting through the pain to keep paddling with all his strength.

“Zhang Qi! Liu Fenglei! Help us!!” Gone was his earlier composure; the man shouted in panic toward the window on the 16th floor.

Within seconds, the woman was slumped over her daughter, her face covered in blood.

Drip.

Drip.

Bright red blood trickled from her forehead down her neck, then along the edge of her raincoat, dripping into the bottom of the raft.

She must have used the last of her strength to shield her daughter with her body.

“Mama!”

The little girl, staring at the splatters of crimson blooming in the raft, screamed and sobbed, heartbroken.

The man realized what had happened too. He completely lost it, his voice breaking as he pleaded, “Zhang Qi, Liu Fenglei, please, I beg you, help us!!”

The people at the window shrank back.

Some looked on in silence, others with regret.

With hail this big, whoever went out would be smashed to death. No one dared.

They were all people who’d been fishing in the floodwaters earlier, but when the heavy rain started, they’d retreated to the stairwell, built a fire, and huddled for warmth.

They planned to wait for the rain to let up, then go back out to fish while the crowds were thin, so they hadn’t returned upstairs.

The man, holding on with his last ounce of strength, managed to paddle the sinking raft to the window.

There was some shelter here, so the hail wasn’t as dense.

He pulled his wife’s body aside, trying to lift his daughter up to the window.

But he was badly injured all over and had no strength left in his hands.

He tried to grab the window ledge, but he was just out of reach. “Xiaoyu, quick, climb up first!”

“No! I want Mama! I’m not going anywhere!! I want Mama!!” The girl clung to her mother’s still-warm body, sobbing uncontrollably, ignoring her father’s words.

“Please, we’re all neighbors, help me. I’ll share half my supplies with you!” the man begged in despair.

No one responded.

“All my supplies! Take them all! You can have the raft too! Please, save my daughter!” The man, head bleeding, was on the verge of collapse.

If he didn’t have to protect his daughter’s head, he would have knelt down and begged.

Finally, a man with a triangular face, shivering from the cold, wrapped his wet clothes around his head and stepped forward.

The man on the raft looked at him like a savior. “Liu Fenglei, I’ll reward you handsomely!”

Liu Fenglei curled his lips. “I’ll save you, but you have to hand over your house key.”

They were all people who’d moved from lower floors to sleep in the hallway on the 23rd floor. The man with the raft happened to live in B2301.

“Can’t I just let you move in? I promise you can stay in my home, and we’ll provide food and drink,” the man tried to bargain.

Liu Fenglei grew impatient. “Are you giving it up or not?!”

“I—”

The man choked up, glanced at the rapidly sinking raft, took a deep breath, and with trembling hands, fished the house key from his pocket.

Liu Fenglei strode to the window and snatched it away.

Seeing the vicious glint in Liu’s eyes, the man’s pupils contracted, a bad feeling rising in his chest, but he still clung to a shred of hope:

“Liu Fenglei, please, help me.”

He pulled his daughter up and, using the last of his strength, tried to lift her toward the window.

He barely got the words of gratitude out when Liu pulled out a gleaming fruit knife, a cruel smile twisting his lips as he snarled:

“Now you know how to beg? Where were you when a dozen of us knelt and begged you to take us in, huh?!”

Shlick!

As Liu Fenglei spoke, the blade plunged into Xiaoyu’s heart. He quickly pulled it out and stabbed at the man behind her.

“That’s right!” the others in the hallway echoed.

“You—”

Before the man could finish, a cold, piercing pain shot through his neck.

His hands went slack, and his daughter’s body fell into the water with a splash.

A moment later, the man toppled in after her.

The water quickly turned red.

“Hey, Liu Fenglei, why’d you have to kill Xiaoyu too?” a man nearby said fearfully, poking his head out the window and glancing down with regret.

That little girl had been his son’s classmate before the apocalypse.

During the pandemic, she’d even come over for online classes and lunch a few times.

But it was all pointless. When they knocked on 2301’s door this time, as always, no one answered.

Liu Fenglei glared at him. “With her parents gone, do you think a little girl like that could survive in this world? Besides, if you don’t pull up the roots, the grass grows back in spring!”

He turned to the others, his gaze threatening:

“The official rescue boats come tomorrow. No one breathes a word about what happened today!”

After his warning, he put away the fruit knife, climbed out the window, and tossed the woman’s body into the water too.

In an instant, three fresh corpses floated outside the 16th floor window of Building B.

By now, the hail had lessened, only the size of peas.

Some of the supplies from the raft had already slipped into the water, but others, packed in woven bags and tied to the raft, still dangled precariously.

“What are you all standing around for? Come help me!”

The others, who’d been hiding in the hallway, hurried to grab their fishing tools and helped haul the sinking raft up.

Liu Fenglei glanced at the man’s body floating in the water, swam over, took the gold watch from his wrist, and then, lips purple with cold, climbed back in through the window."