The purplish-pink sunset lasted for over a week; news reports quoted experts explaining it as a normal phenomenon of dust ionization.
At exactly five o'clock in the afternoon, Xiang An left the office on time and rode the mountain bike he used during his student days.
He still looked like a student with his backpack, but in reality, he had graduated from university in June this year. He had applied for graduate school and the civil service exam but neither worked out. Currently, he was stuck in the local community, working as a temporary contract worker with no real job title, earning a meager two thousand yuan a month.
Perhaps because it was Friday and parents were picking up their children from school, the community felt a bit deserted. He even considered himself leaving late.
"Brother Wang, I'm heading off."
Xiang An squeezed the brakes in front of the community's iron gate. The middle-aged man coming towards him pressed his phone tightly against his ear, the veins in his forehead throbbing with the conversation. He nodded a few times haphazardly and brushed past.
The evening breeze carried scattered complaints: "Why are they making me go to a meeting now? I already bought movie tickets... What's the situation on the street side......"
The bike ride took less than ten minutes. Xiang An arrived home at 5:10 PM. Several pairs of women's shoes and boots were neatly arranged on the shoe cabinet in the entryway.
He had been an orphan since childhood. Fortunately, he inherited two apartments. He sold one during middle school for living expenses, leaving this three-bedroom apartment from the 1990s.
He had rented out this three-bedroom apartment during university and planned to live alone after graduation, but his two-thousand-yuan monthly salary was truly tight. A month ago, he had no choice but to rent out the second bedroom again, collecting a few hundred yuan a month to supplement his household expenses.
The new tenant was a young woman who always wore noise-canceling headphones. Aside from the hem of her nightgown occasionally glimpsed when she picked up takeout, the sound of a mechanical keyboard tapping echoed from behind her perpetually closed door. He guessed she was involved in some kind of emerging self-media industry.
Because he had to take care of himself from a young age, Xiang An was skilled at housework. He stir-fried two dishes using ingredients from the refrigerator, ate a simple meal, and then lay down on the bed to rest.
The phone screen cast a cold light in the dim bedroom. Xiang An's eyes grew tired from scrolling through short videos when he suddenly saw a message pop up in the work group chat.
"@Shang Shan Ruo Shui @Chang Fa Wan Jun Xin, please send me the image data from the mechanical factory dormitory incident today immediately. The leaders need it!"
Xiang An's thumb hovered over the screen, hesitating for half a second, when two images already jumped into view—
The scene was a dim room. The wooden bed was old. The old man curled up in the bedding had bulging eyes, purplish-blue veins twisted into a web under his gray skin, and his withered fingers were dug deep into the mattress foam.
Xiang An suddenly propped himself up, the bed board protesting with a creak. His index and middle fingers rapidly swiped across the screen to zoom in, but only the gray prompt "The other party has recalled a message" appeared.
He subconsciously clutched the corner of the quilt, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down. Cold sweat had seeped out from his back at some point.
To be honest, he had felt something was off these past few days.
The long-lasting purplish-pink sunset, the news about abnormal disturbances in the near-Earth asteroid belt observed by multiple countries, and the increasingly frequent earthquakes with magnitudes above six.
He glanced out the window. The night was thick. The time on his phone showed 8:22 PM.
The mall closed at ten o'clock, leaving nearly two hours.
Xiang An got dressed, grabbed the van keys, and hurried downstairs.
The van was a used one he bought during university for a few thousand yuan, but it had earned him tens of thousands through part-time work. If not for the pandemic outbreak then, which closed the campus gates, he might have earned even more.
The night wind blew into the car through the window. Xiang An's gaze swept over the scattered streetlights along the road, feeling a slight chill.
He knew it was likely overthinking, but with food at home, his heart was at ease. During the pandemic a few years ago, those who had stocked up beforehand lived much more calmly than others.
Before reaching the mall, the van stopped at a crosswalk to wait for a red light. A piercing siren sounded in the distance. Two armored SWAT vehicles sped past, their blue and red police lights branding the silhouettes of the street trees onto the windshield. They were heading precisely in the direction of the mechanical factory dormitory.
Xiang An took a photo, scrolled down in his WeChat chat, and sent: "Sister Wen, are you in our jurisdiction? Do you need the community's help?"
There was no reply for a while. The red light turned green. Xiang An took a deep breath and drove into the underground parking lot two hundred meters ahead.
"Teacher Xiang, are you helping the community with procurement?"
The supermarket manager on duty, accompanied by two employees pushing boxes for loading and unloading materials, came to the van and asked Xiang An.
Xiang An hadn't been in the community long but had gone to the mall several times for inspections and was acquainted with the person in charge of the mall.
He pulled out a pack of Liqun cigarettes from his pocket and offered them to the group—he didn't smoke, but it was always like this in society; offering a cigarette made things easier.
"Something like that," he put the cigarettes back in his pocket, giving an ambiguous answer.
After all, he was a community member. If he were to spread rumors based on some unfounded sixth sense, he would definitely be held responsible.
The supermarket manager exhaled a smoke ring and took out a piece of paper from his pocket: "Three bags of 50kg rice, five boxes of compressed biscuits, five boxes of dried noodles, five boxes of luncheon meat cans, two boxes of fish cans, three boxes of nuts, five bags of dehydrated beans, two boxes of peanut butter, ten 5L barrels of palm oil, five boxes of instant milk powder, five boxes of bagged instant noodles, two boxes of energy bars, two boxes of dark chocolate, two boxes of multivitamin tablets, one box of salt, one box of white sugar, and two boxes of dried goods seasoning packs. They were all just stocked yesterday."
"Thank you, Manager Zhang," Xiang An thanked him.
Manager Zhang waved his hand, looked at the van, and asked doubtfully, "Can your car fit all this? How about I have someone drive it to the community?"
Xiang An shook his head: "Put the rice and oil barrels on the bottom layer, the canned goods on the middle layer, and stuff the instant noodles and other fragile foods on the top layer. The space should be just right."
Twenty minutes later, the young worker who helped load the car, with a half-smoked cigarette dangling from his mouth, squinted at the perfectly packed compartment and suddenly ground out the cigarette butt on the sole of his shoe.
"Buddy, your spatial geometry skills are more incredible than mine, and I do this every day."
Xiang An offered a few more cigarettes to the group and hurried back home in his car. Just now in the parking lot, he had faintly heard police sirens rising and falling.
"Leaders, is there a drill being held in our community?"
"Many police cars have arrived at Wutong Shenyuan residential area. What on earth is happening?"
In the resident group leader information notification chat, the group leaders who should have been asleep were constantly communicating, their words concealing unease.
Xiang An lived in an old residential area from thirty years ago. His apartment was on the top floor. Fortunately, an elevator was added during the courtyard renovation a few years ago, which could go directly to the platform between the two floors, so moving the supplies wasn't difficult; he only had to carry them up half a floor.
After about forty minutes, Xiang An had moved all the supplies into the apartment. He pulled out his phone and checked the time, 10:17 PM.
Before he could put his phone back in his pocket, two urgent messages suddenly popped up in the work group chat, which had been silent for a long time:
"@Everyone, gather at the community immediately, including grid members and public service personnel!!!"
"@Everyone, reply if you receive this!!!"
Xiang An frowned tightly and muttered to himself, "...Something really happened."
He quickly sent the two words "Received". Xiang An hurried downstairs. As soon as he got into the car, a ringing in his ears washed over his eardrums like a tide.
Flames suddenly erupted on the street. Several out-of-control cars crashed into shops on either side, black smoke filling the sky.
【Doomsday Infrastructure System Activated!】
【Initial Modules: Survival Building Module, Talent Management Module】
【Initial Tool Kit Issued!】