“What bravado,” the officer retorted sharply.
“Do you know how many finished grain warehouses or civil defense shelters there are in the entire county? You don’t know, and you’d only look for things in small shops, which are likely already picked clean.”
Keke remained silent, her expression unreadable as she quietly retrieved a folded piece of paper from her pocket, unfolded it, and pushed it across the table.
“This is a map of the entire county.
I’ve marked seven supermarkets with granaries, five independent granaries, and I only recall twenty-three civil defense shelters, though in reality there must be over a hundred and twenty, as this is a border county with many such facilities.
Additionally, there are six oil and gas reserve depots, two thermal power stations, three hydroelectric power stations, a logistics center, military garrisons outside the city, airports, gas stations, and an armory hidden at the border with the neighboring Menghe County… all of it is marked on this map.
I drew this map when I was trapped at school with nothing to do.
You can have it, if you wish, though the entire map is already etched in my mind.
This is my hometown; I’ve known it intimately since childhood.”
****
The temporary mess hall fell silent.
Even in this digital age, some young people are still captivated by exploring the tangible world.
Keke was undoubtedly one such anomaly; if she were a taxi driver, she would likely never need a GPS.
Naturally, she detested anyone who doubted her mastery of a subject she knew so well.
It was always awkward for an elder to fail at asserting their authority over a junior.
Zhao Long was the first to break the silence, a conciliatory smile gracing his lips.
“What a treasure we’ve found in you, Keke.
With your help—no, with all of your help—our team is sure to find its footing amidst this disaster.”
Officer Niu, standing nearby, found himself speechless.
He realized that he could no longer leverage the fact that he had saved them.
Clearing his throat, he resolved to steer the conversation back to the matter of ‘order’.
“While each of you possesses unique skills, have you considered that in the face of such a calamity, humanity itself might accelerate its own decay?
If each of you believes that lives can be taken lightly and possessions seized at will, then the internal strife within this team might ultimately prove more terrifying than the pandemic itself!”
His words made it sound as though the few individuals seated before him had already committed heinous acts.
Jing Lan felt that the literal meaning of the officer’s words was not problematic, but they were jarring, and he couldn’t be bothered to respond.
People who simply spoke unpleasantly rarely piqued his interest.
Keke, however, couldn’t contain her indignation and shot back:
“That’s not what we believe at all!
I’ve never once thought that lives could be taken lightly!
If you regret saving us, if you think we’re murderers, then you can send us away right now, and we will return all your supplies, twofold!
If anyone tries to kill you in the future, we’ll help you too!
Because that’s just the kind of people we are!”
Jing Lan gently pulled his sister’s arm.
“There’s no need.
Calm down.”
Keke felt a hot potato in her chest, an urgent need to wrap it in something.
That potato felt like the flesh and blood of her junior, pulsing within her chest.
Naturally, she sought to encase it in fierce words.
Or perhaps, she was simply feeling a touch guilty.
While Jing Lan could perhaps justify killing foreign intruders in the granary, Keke found herself utterly unable to rationalize her act of consuming her junior.
Even though there was room for defense: survival is humanity’s primary instinct, and under extreme conditions, cannibalism could even be considered an act of self-preservation.
If the officer’s aversion to killing merely stemmed from his failure to grasp the realities of the apocalypse, then what did her own inability to accept having eaten a person signify?
The turmoil in her heart made her restless, prompting her to seek further verbal self-defense.
“And now billions of people have already been killed worldwide, and human lives are just goddamn data now!” Keke blurted out.
Under normal circumstances, she would never have resorted to such a glib defense.
From the officer’s side, a man angrily slammed his hand on the table.
“Oh, great, if we hadn’t stepped in to save you, you’d be one of those statistics yourself!” This man was Xiao Sun, the driver.
As the two sides were on the verge of tearing into each other, Jing Lan, sensing Keke’s emotional instability, was about to intervene and calm the situation.
Suddenly, a loud ‘clatter’ echoed through the room, drawing everyone’s gaze.
Ling Yechen had abruptly stood up.
“What’s all this arguing about!
What’s the point?!”
The young woman glared furiously at Xiao Sun, who was inexplicably frozen by her piercing blue gaze.
Ling Yechen herself wasn’t entirely sure why she had suddenly interjected, cutting through the tension.
This was quite unlike her usual demeanor.
Moreover, this time it wasn’t some mysterious force driving her; she was certain she was fully conscious.
“Just tell me, why are you all so agitated, and what exactly is there to argue about?
Are you afraid we’ll kill?
My killing of the man with the crossbow was an act of legitimate self-defense!
Don’t forget that plump girl had an arrow in her stomach, and that man shot it!”
“What if you were the one who shot it?” Zhao Long asked, a faint, appeased smile already playing on his lips, though he harbored no hostility.
“You can check the fingerprints on the crossbow.”
Zhao Long still wanted to ask something, perhaps about Ling Yechen pushing Du Lan out of the car.
However, Ling Yechen didn’t give him the chance to press further.
“Everyone here is a good person.
What’s the point of constantly finding fault with our own people?”
Jing Lan felt that Ling Yechen had hit the nail on the head, and he immediately fixed his gaze on Officer Niu and interjected:
“Furthermore, the bandit armies from Myanmar have already launched an offensive, and it’s highly probable we’ll soon be in a state of war.
No matter how much you uphold the law, this is a time for extraordinary measures.
We can no longer replicate the order that existed before the twelfth of this month.”
Pausing for a moment, Jing Lan continued, “And don’t forget, law, as a superstructure, relies on the state’s apparatus of violence to uphold it.
It’s been over ten days now; does anyone here have any news of the army or the police?
Foreign invading forces don’t count.”
The other people in the room remained silent.
“Admit it, everyone, there is no law now.
Even if we take a step back and discuss whether killing is right or wrong, does it truly matter?
What criteria do we use to determine right and wrong?
Who will make arrests?
Who will judge?
Who will defend?”
“At the very least, it must conform to the most basic human nature!” the officer’s voice remained loud, but his conviction had noticeably waned.
Ling Yechen immediately retorted:
“Then for the most basic human instinct of self-preservation, killing those who threaten me and pushing those who try to harm me out of a vehicle is precisely in line with human nature.”
“Even so, shouldn’t some simple norms be established upon that basic humanity!”
Jing Lan countered:
“Then the problem circles back.
For norms and regulations to be effective, they require violence to enforce them.
Otherwise, you’ll have your rules, and we’ll have ours.
Because we also possess our own means of violence.
The survivors hiding elsewhere in the city, and the foreign bandits who have crossed the border, are all the same.”
****
The rather unpleasant meeting eventually calmed down under the mediation of peacemakers like Zhao Long.
Cao Renshuang, the artist who seemed to cosplay Warhol, appeared to have a good relationship with Officer Niu.
He skillfully offered a few face-saving remarks to both sides, ultimately proposing a solution acceptable to everyone: Jing Lan and Keke’s group would be given a small shop diagonally across from the parking lot’s security office, though all its contents had already been removed.
Cao Renshuang himself would then move in with them, bringing along his twenty-year-old son, Cao Hongrui, one of the capable young men in the camp.
Jing Lan now understood the Cao family’s naming convention—they pieced together names of individuals surnamed Cao from the Three Kingdoms era of Wei to create new ones.
The group temporarily settled under a sunshade in a corner of the parking lot.
As they glanced at each other’s faces, darkened by the night, they couldn’t help but burst into laughter.
“I suddenly feel like that Officer Niu isn’t so bad after all!
He actually got confused by our sophistry!” Keke said, sitting on a plastic chair, twirling her trench dagger in her hand.
Jing Lan smiled, feeling a little weary.
“It wasn’t sophistry.
It was simply the officer’s refusal to accept reality, and his desire for certain remnants of the old world to persist in the apocalypse.
However, Ling Yechen was quite unexpected just now, suddenly brimming with such an imposing aura, like an enraged Snow Woman!”
Ling Yechen stammered, “What?
What Snow Woman?”
“A white-haired beauty from Japanese folklore who appears on snowy nights.
If she gets angry, she turns people into ice sculptures.
Look at that man just now; he was instantly frozen by you.”
“How could I be such a terrifying monster…”
“She’s not that terrifying, actually.
Legend has it the Snow Woman later fell in love with a human boy.
The boy invited her to bathe in a hot spring, and the Snow Woman, experiencing love for the first time and momentarily bewildered, jumped into the hot spring… and melted away.”
Keke stopped twirling her dagger, chiding slightly, “Why is it always about knives?
I don’t like knives.
Mine doesn’t count, though.
This story could have gone like this: the Snow Woman was forced to reveal her true identity to the boy, and the boy said, ‘Ah, it seems you can’t follow me into human society, so let me stay with you instead.’
The Snow Woman was overjoyed, turned the boy into a conscious ice sculpture, and took him back to her snowy mountain.
Every day, she would cuddle with the boy’s ice sculpture, and they lived happily ever after…”
“Why does that feel even more horrifying?” Ling Yechen said with a wry smile.
A Snow Woman… a monster unable to be with the human she loved, whose magical powers could not bridge the chasm of their different bloodlines.
And what about me?
Was this body truly just the flesh and blood of an ordinary human?