A Burden Shared, A World Unraveling

“There’s no need to agonize over such matters, drummer. Preserving your own life is never the wrong choice, no matter the circumstances.”

“Huh?”

Ling Yechen lifted his gaze. He then recalled his actions from moments before—how he had pointed at Uncle Lü, bitten by Blacksmith Wang, and emphatically stated, “He was bitten too.”

“Even if it was immoral…?”

“Yes,” Jing Lan affirmed with a resolute nod. “Do not carry any psychological burden. Or, at the very least, allow yourself to meticulously lick your wounds afterward.”

“But I still despise myself—that moment just now, when I actually pointed at Uncle Lü, allowing you to…”

Jing Lan offered a cool, faint smile. “Allow me to do what? You merely brought a fact to my attention: someone was injured.”

Ling Yechen’s body tensed slightly in distress, his gaze darting away. “But I felt as though I was summoning you to kill the infected.”

“Summon me? Dare I ask, are you my Master?” Jing Lan quipped, a mischievous glint in his eye, playfully referencing a meme from the *Fate* series.

For a fleeting half-second, Ling Yechen paused, then, comprehending the reference, he grew even more agitated, instinctively clenching his fists and pressing them against his thighs.

“Don’t joke around, Senior! I’m terrified I might do something extreme. I always thought I was so misanthropic, so dead inside, that I wouldn’t care about anything. Yet now, I find I can’t control my own will to survive. The thought of biting monsters roaming freely outside fills me with dread; I don’t even want to venture downstairs…

“I’m also afraid that tomorrow, I might wake up, unable to accept anything, and then take up a knife, stabbing everyone one by one, and then…”

Lui Si abruptly bumped him with her shoulder; even the usually composed girl was visibly incensed. “What are you talking about! Are you threatening us?!”

Jing Lan, however, offered no reply. Instead, he rose and stepped forward.

He pulled Ling Yechen into an embrace.

“W-what!?” Ling Yechen thrashed a few times in a panic, but quickly relaxed into the embrace.

“Calm down, drummer. Recall how you learned to play the drums. Maintain your composure; do not flail your drumsticks wildly.”

Ling Yechen, whether from surprise or a genuine effort to calm himself, gradually regulated his breathing, and the fierce intensity in his eyes finally softened.

Lui Si, standing nearby, let out an exasperated chuckle. “Be careful he doesn’t pull the knife from your waist and stab you in the kidney.”

The embrace lasted over ten seconds, and at last, Ling Yechen felt a measure of calm return.

Meanwhile, Lui Si, ever perceptive, went to comfort Little Lamai, who was standing nearby.

“Little Lamai, your big brother and big sister will protect you from now on. Don’t cry, and don’t imitate them with their gay antics.”

Little Lamai, whose head had been buried between his knees, struggled to lift it, offering a faint, indistinct “Mm” in response.

“It’s… it’s not gay!” Ling Yechen exclaimed, pushing away from the embrace and settling back down, seemingly embarrassed by the recent turn of events.

“Alright, I’m fine now. Let’s continue.”

****

For some inexplicable reason, the atmosphere of the discussion improved thereafter. The young boy, Little Lamai, also ventured a couple of remarks, first suggesting, “How about we try to find the police?”

“I’ve called several times already, but I can’t get through,” Lui Si reported, shaking the phone in her hand.

“Oh, right,” Lui Si added, “I’ve been in constant online contact with my family. Back home, in Tangshan City, the situation seems quite stable. They’ve reportedly even set up supply distribution centers within the residential compounds, and the military and armed police are operating normally. My parents mentioned they haven’t encountered any frenzied infected individuals there to date.”

Jing Lan, who had been scanning for radio stations on his phone, lifted his head. “That truly is excellent news. However, it would be best to share such information with everyone promptly in the future; otherwise, I might have assumed you and your family had a falling out, much like Yechen’s did.”

“My second uncle delivers takeout in Mengshan County; I’ll try to reach him,” Little Lamai offered.

However, after he retrieved his phone and placed the call, it rang unanswered.

‘He couldn’t possibly be busy delivering takeout to zombies, could he?’ Jing Lan mused inwardly, a silent jab of sarcasm.

Following this, everyone began to divide the task of gathering information. Lui Si took charge of monitoring online forums, as her hometown appeared not yet to be in critical danger. Ling Yechen continued attempting to contact his family and friends—his parents and paternal uncle remained unreachable, yet he managed to connect with a classmate.

“Study committee member? That’s wonderful, you’re still alive. Perhaps taking that vacation was the best decision you’ve ever made.” Remarkably, the classmate was a girl. ‘This seemingly listless high school boy might possess a certain decadent charm in the eyes of girls,’ Jing Lan mused.

“What happened in class?” Ling Yechen inquired. The moment the words left his lips, a sudden wave of regret washed over him, as if he had already, in some subconscious way, anticipated the grim reality.

The girl spoke for an extended period over the phone, and Ling Yechen listened in silence. Jing Lan noticed a faint sheen of sweat gathering on the fingers that gripped his phone.

Whatever else the girl said, it caused a small, violent tremor to ripple across the boy’s already shadowed face. Consequently, when the girl next posed a question, he remained silent for a prolonged moment, unable to respond.

Jing Lan, for his part, attempted to contact his father. In times of crisis, expediency superseded protocol; he could no longer afford to adhere to strict regulations.

Yet, the call still failed to connect; his father’s phone was off. Perhaps being off was preferable to ringing unanswered. His father frequently worked in locations that, due to their confidential nature, even his son couldn’t be privy to, making temporary communication blackouts a common occurrence. Regardless, those places ought to be relatively safe.

For some unknown reason, Jing Lan’s fingers involuntarily tapped open his mother’s account on WeChat.

Within the chat window, a long span of time separated the messages, consisting solely of Jing Lan’s past greetings: “Happy New Year, Mom,” “Happy Mid-Autumn Festival, Mom,” “Happy Birthday, Mom,” and similar sentiments.

After a long deliberation, he typed out a few words and sent them.

“Mom, cheer me on.”

Next, he proceeded to contact other relatives. His aunt in the provincial capital was reached; she and his uncle were at home watching *28 Days Later*—a zombie-themed film Jing Lan had once recommended, which they had downloaded onto their hard drive long ago but never watched.

Now, in his aunt’s words, “We have no choice but to watch it.”

He couldn’t glean much other information. The community had dispatched people to inform every household to stay indoors, and thanks to the ubiquitous internet, most people were already aware of the horrifying reality unfolding. After bidding his aunt farewell, Jing Lan proceeded to contact his other relatives in the autonomous prefecture—all from his mother’s side, bearing the surname Cun.

Jing Lan made several calls, eventually connecting with his great-uncle, who lived on a rubber farm in the adjacent county. They reported that infected individuals had also appeared there, but fortunately, the situation had been dealt with.

“How was it dealt with?” Jing Lan pressed.

“With a tiger-head shotgun, a slug to the head,” his great-uncle replied, adding a stern caution, “After this is over, don’t go blabbing about it! I know owning a hunting rifle privately is illegal…”

After urging his great-uncle’s family to intensify security around the farm, Jing Lan ended the call.

‘A farm, then… that certainly could be a viable refuge. Such a concept has even been documented in the television series *The Walking Dead*. Furthermore, Great-Uncle’s farm is encircled by two-meter-high barbed wire fencing, and in certain areas, earthen mounds have been piled to deter wild elephants—all excellent fortifications.’

However, what would typically be a two-hour drive in normal times could stretch into an indeterminate ordeal during the apocalypse.

Finally, Jing Lan utilized technological means to contact several online acquaintances residing overseas. The intelligence he gathered was far from optimistic: similar events were unfolding across the globe, from the opposite side of the earth to island nations separated by vast seas, and even in Africa, differing only in their scale. Curiously, some entertaining content continued to be updated on various platforms, suggesting these bloggers were likely situated in large, untouched pockets amidst the biohazard outbreak, perhaps even genuinely unaware of the global catastrophe.

After this extensive intelligence gathering, while it couldn’t be said that nothing was learned, there was certainly no immediate information that could alleviate their present predicament.

The “Voice of Shangri-La” broadcast continued its transmissions. Local police, volunteers, and even ordinary good Samaritans had already formed survivor alliances and rescue teams. They called into host Xiao Yu’s hotline, reporting their team’s status and offering a beacon of hope to those in need across the province.

Unfortunately, no such groups had emerged from the vicinity of Mengshan County.

Naturally, even if such a group existed, Jing Lan would never rush headlong into it without caution.

After all, emergency police lines were currently unreachable. If malevolent individuals sought to exploit the widespread chaos, unleashing their destructive urges by using the broadcast to lure victims, there would be no one to bring them to justice.

Just at that moment, Jing Lan’s phone rang. It was an unfamiliar number, yet it belonged to the local area.

Evidently, the caller was likely the very person he had been anticipating.