Chapter 27: Into the Sea — You Do Remember Where Your Safe House Is, Right?

At this moment, Ji Li’s group was standing before a room.

The room didn’t look large, but its security was thorough—thick iron door, bulletproof glass fitted with iron bars. Without tools, it simply couldn’t be opened.

Inside was a single zombie, pacing back and forth in the cramped space, dressed in a white shirt and black trousers, the Homeland Badge on its shoulder strikingly clear.

“We’re really opening it?” Chen Jianxin asked, his face full of unease.

“Of course we are!” the other five answered in unison. Ji Li simply took out the Window Breaker, pressed it against the glass without a word, and pushed hard.

Crash!

With a loud bang, the glass shattered into a spiderweb. Yu Shen pulled out a pair of heavy bolt cutters and began snipping the iron bars, snip snip.

While Yu Shen cut, Zhang Luyao pried with another pair of tool pliers, bending the cut bars back to form an opening big enough for one person to pass through.

Halfway through, the zombie couldn’t wait and lunged out—Lu Zihan seized the moment and smashed its head with a hammer, splattering brain matter all over the three at the window.

“…Could you give us a warning before you swing?”

“Sister Zihan… I just changed into these clothes today…”

Lu Zihan shot a cold glance at Yu Shen, who didn’t dare breathe, and flicked the red-and-white mess off the hammer. “Next time for sure.”

Chen Jianxin and Gao Lan stood at the back. Seeing Ji Li and Yu Shen already climbing inside, Chen Jianxin wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Back in the day, this would’ve gotten you shot…”

“We’re not in the old days anymore.” Gao Lan stepped up to the window after saying this, taking what Ji Li handed her.

A dark, heavy mass—much like what you’d see in movies and shows.

“Found twenty pistols, ten rifles, and two Sniper Rifles,” Ji Li said, climbing back out the window and clapping his hands clean. “Didn’t count the rounds, but rough estimate, a few thousand per caliber. Keeping it all with me for now; we’ll divide it tonight.”

Gao Lan nodded. “Store this one too. We won’t really need these, but we have to plan ahead.”

“Right,” Ji Li agreed. “But weapons alone aren’t enough—we need practice. And this little ammo is far too little.”

He could solve that with duplication; the others had no such advantage.

“Nothing to be done about it. We searched this long, and only this police station had…!” The word “guns” was cut off by a paper wad hitting her square between the brows. Gao Lan looked at the little Paper Note rolling on the ground, her face changing. “Signal! Now!”

Ji Li had already bolted from the police station the instant he saw the paper ball. Swiftly, he pulled an iron canister full of wood blocks from his wristband, then a portable fuel tank, set the canister in the middle of the road, doused it in gasoline, and lit it.

Soon white smoke from the burning damp wood rose up, drifting with the wind—visible from any high point.

At the school on the mountain, two cars were parked below the teaching building. Yang Haoran stood on the roof, scanning the city below with binoculars, and quickly spotted the white smoke.

Confirming its location, he hurried downstairs to the cars and told Skinny Monkey and Shen Shuyan, “Boss Chen’s group is in Block No. 3.”

He was about to get in when he heard Shen Shuyan say, “Haoran, you drive Qin Xiaoxiao’s car. I’m afraid she’ll panic and drive too fast and draw the Black Tide.”

“Okay.”

Yang Haoran acknowledged and walked toward the silver-white sedan behind. Skinny Monkey glanced at the rearview mirror. “Surely not…”

“Surely. Look at Xiaoxiao’s face—this might be worse than we imagined.” Shen Shuyan’s brows knitted, a bad premonition settling in his gut.

The premonition came true. When Qin Xiaoxiao haltingly poured out what she’d seen, everyone’s hearts leapt into their throats.

“The Black Tide… everywhere… all of it… They… they’re heading this way!”

Those last words she practically screamed through a strangled throat, the shrill voice slicing through the air and seizing the most fragile part of everyone’s heart at once.

“‘Everywhere’—what does that mean?” Ji Li forced down his panic and pressed.

But Qin Xiaoxiao seemed trapped in the scene, hugging her head and muttering, “Run… run fast… No… can’t get away…”

“Xiaoxiao, calm down. You say they’re coming—how long until they get here? Xiaoxiao? Qin Xiaoxiao?”

Chen Jianxin tried to keep asking, but Lu Zihan yanked him aside and slapped Qin Xiaoxiao across the face. “Qin Xiaoxiao! Snap out of it!”

The slap broke Qin Xiaoxiao’s sleepwalking murmur and brought her back—but it also cracked open the emotions long buried in her heart, and she broke down sobbing.

“I just want to live… Why is it so hard! No matter where I run… there’s the Black Tide! I finally found a broken house to hide in… and those Black Tide things actually gather together… I had no choice! I had no choice!”

“There’s nothing wrong with wanting to live, but now is not the time to despair!” Zhang Luyao grabbed Qin Xiaoxiao’s shoulders and growled low.

“You came back because you want to live, didn’t you! Then tell us everything you saw! What does ‘everywhere’ mean? How long until they get here?!”

“It means… it means… like a sea… a huge stretch… How long… I-I don’t know… I saw it and just drove here…”

“Do you remember how long you drove?”

“Where did you run into her?”

Ji Li and Gao Lan asked almost simultaneously. It took the questioned group a moment to answer one by one.

Qin Xiaoxiao: “I… drove half… a dozen-odd minutes… I don’t remember…”

Skinny Monkey: “No road signs over there, hard to say exactly where…”

Shen Shuyan: “We drove for about an hour.”

Yang Haoran: “Right, counting from the school, a bit under an hour.”

“Sister Xiaoxiao, you drove for a while before you ran into Brother Monkey and the others, right?” Ji Li pressed again.

Qin Xiaoxiao nodded. Ji Li calculated rapidly in his head.

Qin Xiaoxiao’s memory was blurred by terror—in that state, her speed could only have been fast; Skinny Monkey’s trio had spent these ten-plus days patrolling the New Media road on a fixed route, and since there were no signs of Black Tide there, they hadn’t needed to slow down.

Counting both sides by the shortest time…

“Four or five hours at most!”

At those words, everyone went quiet. Five hours was neither long nor short, but the situation they now faced was dire.

Both roads out of Cheng’an City were blocked. They knew where the other exits were but had no way to scout them—getting there meant crossing the river, and the areas near the river were Black Tide dense zones.

But it wasn’t entirely hopeless.

“We can leave by boat!” Yu Shen suddenly spoke up.

“The Black Tide can enter water,” Lu Zihan said, dousing him with cold water.

They’d learned this on their very first day scouting Cheng’an City—from Qin Xiaoxiao’s own eyewitness account.

“Then what do we do…” Skinny Monkey’s face was a bit pale as he looked from Chen Jianxin to Gao Lan, hoping they could come up with something.

After a long while, Shen Shuyan spoke slowly. “Actually… there’s no need to leave. Only four days left. Find somewhere high enough, block the ways up, and hole up until it’s over.”

“That works, but what about the Safe Houses?” Zhang Luyao frowned. “We’ve held out for over a dozen days—are we just giving up now?”

“Setting that aside,” Gao Lan cut off the brewing argument and made a ruling, “at least one thing Little Shen said is right: when there’s no way out, we can only go up.”

“Right, find a safe place first,” Chen Jianxin said, pointing in a direction. “I propose the hotel. It’s tall enough, has fire doors inside—even if the Black Tide breaks in, we can lock down the floors.”

“Then it’s the hotel!”

Gao Lan made the call and was about to leave when Ji Li said, “Wait, Sister Lan. I want to go recover the explosives.”

“Why bother with that now?” Skinny Monkey was getting anxious. “If it’s really like Xiaoxiao said, the traps we set are already useless!”

“The traps are useless, but the explosives aren’t.” Ji Li looked at Gao Lan, his expression serious.

Gao Lan considered briefly, then nodded. “All right, I’ll go with you to recover them. Brother Chen, take everyone to the hotel. Once inside, head straight up—leave one person to cover us.”

Chen Jianxin hesitated to speak, but finally nodded. “Okay. Be careful.”

The ten split into two groups. The others headed straight for the hotel they’d cleared on the first day, while Ji Li got into that familiar SUV and, with Gao Lan, went to recover the explosives.

“You want to use the explosives to blast an opening so we can get back to our Safe Houses,” Gao Lan said, in a tone of certainty.

Ji Li set Eno on the center console and grunted. “It might not work, but we have to try.”

“Even if it could, the little explosives we have would barely matter.”

Ji Li said nothing, only calculating silently in his mind.

These past days, he’d used his two daily duplications thus: one to duplicate wristbands for the others, the other for upgrading his own wristbands.

By now, he had one Space Bracelet of 20x18x16—a volume of 5,760 cubic meters—two 64-cubic-meter ones filled with gasoline, and two empty 192-cubic-meter ones.

Today’s duplication charges were unused. Four days remained—if no one else came to him to “expand” wristbands, that meant eight charges; even at half, four duplications.

By his experience, explosives should be able to exploit the bug. If he gathered them together, four days would be enough to duplicate a considerable quantity of explosives.

At this thought, Ji Li looked at the first trap point they were approaching and said, “Sister Lan, if you trust me, please try to persuade Sister Luyao to come back with us for the Safe Houses.”

Gao Lan glanced at him, and only when the car stopped did she ask a completely unrelated question. “Little Ji, you do remember where your Safe House is, right?”

Ji Li was a bit baffled. “Of course. It’s in the wristband.”

Gao Lan sighed and opened the door to get out. “As long as you know.”

Ji Li grabbed Eno and followed her, muttering, “Sister Lan, I know what you’re worried about. I only said that because I have a plan…”

Gao Lan gave this worrying kid a look, then finally waved a hand. “Later.”

Ji Li: “…”

The two entered the stairwell and retrieved three explosive packages from several first-floor apartments.

“Why so many?” Gao Lan, who hadn’t taken part in placing the explosives, was startled by the quantity.

“Was afraid it wouldn’t collapse.” Ji Li stored the explosive packages and waved his wristband at Gao Lan. “Besides these, we prepared over a hundred Gasoline Bottles. All with me.”

Gao Lan: “…” Say what you will about a small-time workshop—the materials were generous.

They ran three trap points in a row, recovering ten explosive packages, and returned smoothly to the hotel. Just as they turned into the elevator lobby, they saw Zhang Luyao standing there holding a U-Lock.

Seeing them, she visibly relaxed and gestured for them to take the right-side stairs.

They followed. Ji Li glanced left. “Sister Luyao, is that stairwell locked?”

“Locked. Not just the first floor—every floor below gets locked too.” Zhang Luyao efficiently locked the first-floor fire door. “Uncle Chen’s group handles that side; we handle this side.”

Ji Li grunted, bent down to collect all the U-Locks on the floor into his wristband, then locked up once on every floor they climbed.

The benefit of operating in a city was that nothing was in short supply. Earlier, Ji Li and Gao Lan hadn’t been able to find locks and had made do with data cables and wires; now they’d emptied out an entire lock shop, and every car carried several locks—just in case.

After several dozen minutes of climbing to the thirtieth floor, the three entered the hotel’s most luxurious Presidential Suite, to find everyone gathered at a floor-to-ceiling window, gazing toward the school in the distance.

“So how exactly did the Black Tide come to be? The other zombies seem pretty normal.”

“Who knows. But I do know why there are no survivors—with that thing around, how could there be?”

“Wonder if the Black Tide has cores…”

“Probably… right?”

“…Why are you all looking at me?”

“Weren’t you the one who saw players turn into Black Tide?”

Yu Shen shot a glance at Lu Zihan and said vaguely, “Saw it, sure, but I was scared half to death—who had the nerve to look closely… Sister Lan, you’re back!”

Gao Lan nodded, looked around with a puzzled frown. “Where’s Brother Chen?”

“Boss Chen’s too tired—he’s lying down over there.” Skinny Monkey pointed at the sofa.

Gao Lan turned and finally spotted Boss Chen’s bulging belly. “…When you all left the school this morning, you all dealt with your Safe Houses properly, right?”

Everyone nodded in turn—even Chen Jianxin struggled upright, panting as he answered. “All dealt… with… I reminded them… when I left…”

“Dealt with… Safe Houses?” Qin Xiaoxiao seemed to have recovered her senses, looking at the others blankly.

“A Safe House’s Defense Value is tied to its door, so it’s best to leave your Safe House’s door open—otherwise the Black Tide could smash it in and all your work would be wasted,” Zhang Luyao explained.

Qin Xiaoxiao gave an “oh” and lowered her head.

Zhang Luyao thought she was worried about her own Safe House and comforted her, “Don’t worry, I opened your door for you.”

Qin Xiaoxiao was briefly stunned, then gave a grateful smile. “Thank you, Luyao.”

Lu Zihan gave a soft snort. “As if you actually care.”

Qin Xiaoxiao’s smile stiffened, and she lowered her head again.

Just then, Yang Haoran, who had been sitting by the floor-to-ceiling window, suddenly stood up. “Look at the mountain… something’s wrong…”

Everyone immediately crowded to the window, looking toward the mountain.

Logically, at this distance, the mountain should have been just an outline, with no detail of trees or buildings visible. But looking now, the entire mountain seemed to have come alive—you could even make out the swaying of trees.

“That’s not trees…” Qin Xiaoxiao backed away several steps, her barely recovered face paling again.

“Not trees… damn it!” Yang Haoran swore, hopping back from the window like a startled rabbit.

But Ji Li, Gao Lan, Shen Shuyan, and the others drew closer, silently watching those swaying “branches.”

“They’re coming faster than expected…” Gao Lan frowned. “Did their speed increase?”

Ji Li’s face was grim. “If the Black Tide has sped up, it’s nearly impossible for us to go back for our Safe Houses.”

Shen Shuyan glanced at him, and only after a moment said quietly, “Not necessarily. Five hours was an estimate based on time and driving speed—a big margin of error is normal. More importantly, if the Black Tide sped up, Xiaoxiao couldn’t possibly have escaped.”

At those words, Ji Li and Gao Lan turned to Qin Xiaoxiao at the same time. The latter stepped forward, took Qin Xiaoxiao’s hand, and led her to sit on the sofa.

“Xiaoxiao, can you tell us in detail what happened to you these past few days?”

Perhaps because she no longer had to face the Black Tide head-on, Qin Xiaoxiao didn’t drown in fear. Under Gao Lan and Chen Jianxin’s questioning, she slowly recounted her experiences.

After stealing the car, she had driven straight toward the New Media Group, only stopping to rest when she reached the spot where she’d previously met up with Gao Lan.

After daybreak, she traveled while using her skill. Her original plan was to reach the town Yu Shen’s skill had detected, but as she approached, she discovered it too held Black Tide.

Not daring to enter, she could only turn around, driving into the country lanes, trying to bypass the Black Tide-occupied town—but found no way through.

With no way forward, she could only turn back, looking for a fork to leave by, but found only those narrow farm paths leading deep into the mountains.

She’d considered crossing the mountains on foot, but the car couldn’t come with her—and the thought that if she ran into Black Tide on the way, without a car there was only death, so she gave up and settled into a farmhouse at the foot of a mountain near a town.

“I was worried the Black Tide would come out of the town, so I used my skill to check several times a day… And then I saw… saw a huge stretch of Black Tide swallow the whole town…”

Qin Xiaoxiao clutched the hem of her clothes, still trembling at the memory. After a while she continued, “I was scared to death… hurriedly packed up and fled in the car…”

At this, Ji Li pressed sharply, “You said you were staying at the foot of the mountain—where was the car? Where was it parked?”

Qin Xiaoxiao didn’t understand the point of the question, and only after a moment answered, “The car was parked on the road…”

“How far was the town from where you stayed?” Shen Shuyan asked.

“A few minutes… by car…”

“From where you were staying to the car, how long did it take to walk?” Gao Lan asked.

“A few… minutes?”

All three let out a breath of relief. Chen Jianxin patted Qin Xiaoxiao’s shoulder. “You’ve been through hell.”

Hearing a word of comfort at last, Qin Xiaoxiao’s eyes reddened. “I’m sorry, Uncle Chen… I… I…”

“It’s fine. We’re all just trying to survive. Uncle Chen understands.”

While Chen Jianxin comforted Qin Xiaoxiao, Ji Li and the others returned to the floor-to-ceiling window to discuss the information they’d just gathered.

“Personally, I lean toward the Black Tide’s speed having changed, but not by much,” Shen Shuyan said first.

Ji Li nodded in agreement. “Now it just depends on the scale. If it has an end, fine—but if it exceeds that…”

“It’s here.” Gao Lan cut them off, tilting her chin toward the window.

Zhang Luyao and the others came over at once; only Yang Haoran and Qin Xiaoxiao watched from a distance, not daring to approach.

And outside the window was already another scene.

That black, filth and defilement incarnate, poured into the city like a true flood, its crest directly swallowing the vehicles along the way.

Thus the cars that the city’s Black Tide had pushed to the roadsides were violently crushed, the piercing shriek of steel crumpling clearly audible from the unobstructed high floors.

The commotion quickly drew the city’s Black Tide, and so Ji Li’s group witnessed with their own eyes the scene of small “streams” converging “into the sea.”

“My god…” Zhang Luyao murmured, unable to help moving closer to Lu Zihan, pressing tightly against her.

Shen Shuyan’s gaze settled on the familiar street scene as he estimated the height. “Over three stories now.”

“It’s about to hit us.”

The moment Ji Li finished speaking, everyone felt a slight tremor, and faintly, the sound of shattering glass reached their ears.

The hotel’s exterior was fully glass-curtain-walled; the floor-to-ceiling windows were completely sealed, and the small windows opened only forty-five degrees—no human body could pass through.

Plus, every floor had fire doors—even if the Black Tide entered the hotel, it couldn’t break into the corridors. Moreover, they’d locked the fire doors on the floors below, cutting off any Black Tide breach into the fire stairwells.

But as he watched, Ji Li suddenly felt something was off. “Does anyone else think this Black Tide seems to be… rising like a tide?”

Shen Shuyan examined the Black Tide’s height carefully, and his face changed drastically as he cried out—

“They’re surging upward!”