The other two private messages were the same—people begging for medicine.
Chu Yian did have meds.
But giving them out… wouldn't that just draw more attention?
Wouldn't that expose her?
If word got out she had medicine, people would swarm her with messages. Then come the guilt trips, the moral blackmail, maybe even threats. When desperate enough, people didn't care about right or wrong—they'd do whatever it took to survive.
Chu Yian's principle was: help if you can, but never at the cost of your own safety.
After a moment of thought, she declined all three requests.
[Sorry, I couldn't get any medicine either. Do you happen to have any disinfectant? I'm running low, and without it, my drone can't fly outside safely.]
She sent the message.
Two of them never replied. The third one did—but the tone was completely different now. Gone was the polite pleading. In its place was pure rage, someone venting all their fear and helplessness on a stranger they'd never even met. The words were vile.
That only reaffirmed her decision not to help.
Just as she was about to put down her phone, another friend request popped up.
Chu Yian was about to decline—until she saw the request note:
"From across the hall. Lu."
Lu Qingyuan?
She instinctively glanced at her tightly shut front door, then tapped Accept.
A message came through almost immediately:
[Don't fly your drone outside. You'll stand out too much.]
Chu Yian blinked. Was… he warning her?
But he had a point. In fact, she'd already had three strangers message her about meds. She was just one girl—not weak, per se, but no match for an adult man in a fight. She also had a ton of supplies stocked up. If people found out…
When life is on the line, all social rules break down.
Someone begging you one moment might turn on you the next.
She was grateful she hadn't admitted to having any medicine earlier.
[Thanks.]
She messaged back.
[Mm.]
Still cold as ice… but—hey! The ice had cracked a little.
Guess all those meals she'd given him hadn't gone to waste.
Afternoon.
Suddenly, from the opposite building came a piercing scream, followed by heart-wrenching sobs.
Someone had died.
A family from the other building.
The atmosphere, already suffocating, grew heavier. Grief, despair, and the invisible presence of the virus hung in the air like a thick fog.
And this was only the beginning.
Just like that video she'd seen: once infected, without medicine, you lasted five days at most. Several families had already been infected during the first wave. Now, within a single night, three or four people had died.
And not a single corpse had been taken away.
Since the day that black truck crashed into a tree, no more corpse-collecting vehicles ever came.
The dead were left inside their homes.
It was summer. With the heat and the yellow fluids from the bodies, decomposition happened fast. The stench of death filled entire apartments.
For the surviving family members, there was no time to grieve. All they felt was despair.
Because they were infected too.
The families who had escaped in cars never came back. Rumors and misinformation flooded their phones—no one could tell truth from lies anymore.
Panic took over.
Especially for those already sick, or whose loved ones were—it was impossible to sit still.
They had to try something. Anything.
They were like trapped beasts, roaring into the night as they slammed their cars into gear and tore out of the compound.
Last time, someone had at least tried to stop them at the gate.
This time, the gate had been smashed open, and nobody came out to stop them.
It swung eerily in the night breeze.
Game: Day Eight.
More people left.
But this time, they came back—by noon, they were returning, lugging big bags of supplies up the stairs.
Chu Yian watched from her window. Looked like they'd managed to buy some things outside.
WeChat blew up:
[What's it like out there?!]
[Hey, tell us what's going on!]
[…]
[Not many people on the streets. Everyone's holed up in supermarkets and pharmacies.]
[Couldn't find any medicine. Food was super hard to get too. We were out there for hours and only got a little. Prices were like 10–20 times higher…]
[It's chaotic out there. If you go, don't go alone—go in groups.]
News that someone had brought back supplies lit a spark of hope in the panicked group.
More people set out in the afternoon, and didn't return until night. This time, many came back with goods. The chat was now full of plans to go out tomorrow.
Game: Day Nine.
More left the compound again.
This time, there were even more cars than yesterday.
Everyone, including Chu Yian, thought this would become the new norm—more and more people leaving to search for supplies.
But that afternoon, the number of people heading out dropped sharply.
Why?
Because several of the people who went out yesterday… got infected.
Joy one day, horror the next.
Sure, you could buy food out there—but not a single box of medicine could be found.
Some families could survive two more weeks on just rice.
But if they got infected?
No meds, five days left to live.
Yesterday's shopping warriors were today's desperate beggars, knocking on digital doors, asking who had fever medicine.
Chu Yian got asked again.
She gave the same answer as before:
[Sorry, I don't have any.]
The fact that just one trip could result in infection showed just how terrifying this virus really was.
She needed to save her medicine for herself, in case the worst happened.
And the more this went on, the more she realized:
Those meds were priceless.
She opened her emergency inventory box and stored all the fever reducers inside.
At the same time, she reviewed her remaining supplies:
Rice: 20 pounds originally → about 12 pounds left
Noodles: 5 pounds → still two large packs left
Fruit: 5 apples, 3 pears, 6 mandarins
Vegetables: 8 potatoes (~4 pounds), 1 pound of peas, 1 small winter melon (~2 pounds), 1 pack of dried black fungus (200g), half-pound dried shiitake, 4 bell peppers
Meat: 1 pound beef, 4 pounds pork, 3 chicken legs (~3 pounds), half pound of shrimp
Preserved vegetables: 4 jars of pickled mustard root
Snacks: …All gone.
She calculated: even if she kept sharing with Lu Qingyuan, she still had ten days' worth of food.
Especially with noodles and rice—super filling.
And on top of that, she still had:
Instant noodles
Instant rice
Canned food
Chocolate
Snickers
Compressed biscuits
All meant to be emergency rations, saved for when she would need to go out in search of special antiviral medicine.
She felt more reassured after double-checking her inventory.
She wouldn't starve.
Better yet—she rummaged through the back of her freezer and found a long-forgotten stash of:
Beef tripe
Duck gizzards
Fatty beef slices
Hot dog sausages
She'd bought them before to make hot pot, but ended up losing her appetite after seeing an infected person vomit in the restaurant.
She had shoved the whole batch into the freezer and forgotten it even existed.