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Zhang Zhongyong's face was ugly, a sickly gray color blooming under his skin. He remained silent, his jaw clenched so tight a muscle jumped in his cheek. He had thought that by grabbing onto Su Meimei's weakness, her affair, he could do whatever he pleased, hold all the power in their ruined marriage.
As a man, being publicly cheated on was already unbearable, a stain on his pride, and he had been itching to torment Su Meimei every day just to vent his hatred, to make her pay. But who would have thought that this vicious woman would dig up the matter of his biological son, his most carefully guarded secret, and even threaten to report him to his superiors? The sheer audacity of it left him reeling.
If she really reported it, both he and his son's lives would be completely ruined. His career, his pension, his social standing, all of it would vanish. His end would be even more miserable than Sun Yinrui's, a public disgrace followed by poverty. "This damned woman!" he seethed internally, the words a toxic brew in his stomach.
The eldest uncle continued tapping his knuckles on the table, a slow, deliberate beat that filled the heavy silence. "So, Meimei," he said, turning to her, "what do you two intend to do? Divorce and go your separate ways, or…" He left the alternative hanging, an unspoken suggestion of an uneasy truce.
Su Meimei bit her fingernails, a crude habit, but her eyes shone with smug confidence. She had the upper hand now. "That depends on him." Her voice was syrupy with false magnanimity. Before any divorce, she would certainly make sure to expose him publicly and ruin his name completely if he didn't fall in line. That was her unspoken threat.
The eldest uncle looked toward Zhang Zhongyong, his gaze expectant. Zhang Zhongyong instantly panicked, the pressure in the room squeezing the air from his lungs. "Of course we can't divorce," he blurted out, the words tasting like ash. "I will cut ties with her immediately. When the Dark Days are over, I will send them far, far away." He meant his mistress and his son, the words a desperate sacrifice.
Su Meimei snorted, a sharp, derisive sound. "Still waiting until the Dark Days are over? What about the house and the car?" She wasn't about to let him off with vague promises. She wanted tangible assets, guarantees.
Zhang Zhongyong narrowed his eyes and glared at Su Meimei for a long while, a silent battle of wills. The hatred between them was a live wire in the room. Finally, he spit out the words, each one forced. "Send them away immediately. The house and the car both return to me." It was a concession, but one that secured the property in his name, not hers.
Only then was Su Meimei satisfied. A thin, triumphant smile touched her lips and she stopped speaking, settling back in her chair as if she had won a great victory. The eldest uncle admired Zhang Zhongyong's quick, pragmatic compliance, so he said a few soft, mediating words, hoping that in the future the family could live in some semblance of peace. He warned Zhang Zhongyong that if he were to cut ties, he must cut them cleanly, leaving no trace, otherwise the rest of his life would be truly ruined. He also turned to Su Meimei and told her to apologize to Su Lanzhi for past troubles. Su Lanzhi only gave a faint, noncommittal acknowledgment, a mere "hm," and the eldest uncle, seeing the futility, said no more on the subject.
Of course, everyone in the room knew Zhang Zhongyong would never really cut ties with his son. It was an empty promise. Su Meimei thought she had him firmly in her grasp, but the real suffering, the endless resentment and covert battles, were still ahead. This was merely a temporary, fragile ceasefire.
Zhang Hanhan stared at Jing Shu with gritted teeth, her pretty face twisted with a bitterness that had nothing to do with the other girl. Whether or not her parents divorced, what real difference did it make to her life? Her father's heart was all with his mistress and that illegitimate son, leaving her mother consumed with nothing but pain and seething hatred. And her mother's mind was now entirely focused on how to profit from this mess, how to squeeze every advantage.
Who had ever considered her feelings? No one! She was just a pawn, a backdrop to their drama. She clenched her fists tightly under the table, her nails digging into her palms, and swore in her heart, "Never give me a chance. If I get one, a real one, none of you will have a good end. Especially you, Jing Shu!"
When the tense family negotiation was finished, according to holiday custom everyone was supposed to stay the night. But Su Lanzhi was freezing in her light clothes, and thinking of the clean, odorless, perfectly temperature controlled villa, she was eager to return home. She made their excuses.
Su Meimei, perhaps feeling a flicker of something, guilt, or more likely, a desire to appear conciliatory, found it difficult but forced out the words. "That vixen drove the car before. It's dirty now. I won't touch it again. Sister, why don't you… take the car back?" It was less an offer and more a clumsy attempt to offload a problem.
Not mentioning the car was fine, but once the car was brought up, Su Lanzhi's heart ached faintly. That little BMW had been her pride, a symbol of their family's better days.
"Auntie," Zhang Hanhan chimed in, deciding to stand united with her mother in this performance. "The car is still as good as new. At that time you said we had bought it too cheap, and we felt so guilty about it. Why don't we all just return it to the original owners and act as if the sale never happened? Clean and simple." Her tone was sweetly reasonable.
Su Meimei gave Zhang Hanhan an approving glance. "That car could sell for two hundred thousand now, easy. But wasn't that your favorite ride, Sister? Tell you what, just return me the money I paid back then, and the car is yours again. A fair deal." It was a blatant attempt to cash in, to get their money back and then some by invoking sentimental value.
"At that time you insisted on buying it, and now you insist on selling it back. If it can really fetch two hundred thousand, then hurry and sell it to someone else. My mother won't want a car that someone else has… touched." Jing Shu's voice was cool, her meaning clear. She paused for a moment, letting the insult hang, then added with a mocking lilt, "Instead of thinking about how to squeeze money from family, perhaps you should worry about how to deal with Sun Yinrui's wife after she gets out of prison. A month in detention, all because of you. She will definitely vent all her resentment from the past month onto you. I'd be more concerned about that."
Su Meimei's face turned pale instantly, the smugness draining away. How had she forgotten about that? The wife was a ticking time bomb, and Su Meimei was the obvious target. A cold dread washed over her, momentarily eclipsing her greed.
Jing Shu's family and Wang Gang's family were preparing to leave, gathering their meager things, so the eldest uncle escorted them all downstairs into the oppressive, cold darkness.
"It's so late, and the weather is bitter cold. The buses have stopped running hours ago, and there are no black market taxis anymore. Better to stay the night," the eldest uncle suggested again, peering out at the pitch dark city. There was no moon, no stars, not even the faint glow of distant streetlights. One could not see their own hand in front of their face. The darkness was total, a physical presence.
"We drove an energy car. We can give Old Jing's family a ride, it's no trouble," Wang Gang said, pulling out his car keys with a jingle.
"We also drove an energy car. We're each going our own way. Thank you, though." Jing An politely but firmly declined the offer, then ushered Su Lanzhi and Jing Shu into their own vehicle. He turned on the heater, a blessed blast of warm air, and drove away, the headlights carving a fragile tunnel through the absolute black.
As they watched Jing Shu's family disappear into the devouring distance, Wang Can, who had not spoken a word all night, finally said, her voice thoughtful, "I get the feeling their family is rather mysterious. They don't seem like what Zhang Hanhan described at all, so fragile and pitiful."
"Exactly," Wang Gang agreed, his eyes sharp. "A family who can grow such fresh vegetables in this darkness, whose hands are all so clean that not even their fingernails have a speck of dirt, and who still wash their clothes with laundry detergent. They don't look like people lacking water. And most importantly, they didn't bring any heavy clothes. Didn't even seem to feel the cold until it was upon them."
"What's strange about that?" Wang Can asked curiously, pulling her own coat tighter.
"It means they're not used to wearing thick clothes, not acclimated to these wild temperature swings. They must be living under constant air conditioning at a set temperature. That is very, very interesting." Wang Gang's mind was working, calculating. "Maybe my political achievements next month will depend on them. They are a puzzle, and puzzles contain opportunities."
"When will the Dark Days finally end?" Wang Can murmured, more to herself than to him.
"Who knows?" Wang Gang replied, his gaze still fixed on the empty road where their taillights had vanished. "Who truly knows?"
…
A few days after the Lantern Festival, the grim new normal tightened its grip. Wu City's electricity supply time was shortened again, now from 14:00 to 20:00, only six precious hours of power.
To save the strained energy output, official working hours for those who still had jobs were shifted to the early, slightly cooler period from 5 a.m. to 10 a.m., desperately avoiding the hottest part of the day. But even so, the news reports still tallied hundreds of cases daily where elderly people and young children died of heatstroke despite frantic emergency rescue attempts. The resources were too thin, the heat too relentless.
In the apocalypse, the first to be eliminated were always the frail elderly and the weak children. It was a cruel, silent culling. Hospitals, the only places with guaranteed uninterrupted power and life saving air conditioning, were operating far beyond capacity, hallways lined with groaning patients on mats. Now, they could no longer admit new patients, turning away the desperate at the doors, when suddenly another disaster struck, announced by grim, static riddled emergency broadcasts.
"According to reports from the Center for Disease Control, this is a new mutated insect born from the combination of sustained high temperatures and prolonged darkness. It has been officially named the Black Fungus Beetle. It carries multiple potent bacteria and spreads them recklessly. Like other flying insects, it is phototactic, drawn to light. About the size of a jujube, it likes to dive bomb from high places, flying in chaotic, unpredictable patterns. While it doesn't bite or directly harm humans, it spreads numerous pathogens upon contact with skin or surfaces.
The bacteria it carries aggressively lowers human immunity, making even normally healthy people extremely prone to illness. Most cases of the current rampant viral flu are traced back to contact with this insect.
The Black Fungus Beetle's weakness is its heightened, hypersensitive sense of smell, a hundred times stronger than similar bugs. As long as mosquito repellent, medicated oils, floral waters, or strong smelling mosquito coils are used, it can be effectively driven away.
The state plans to mobilize all resources to exterminate this insect species within one week and to produce an effective epidemic prevention vaccine within three days. Please remain calm and follow protective guidelines."
Outside Jing Shu's villa, the proof of the broadcast thrummed against the walls. Countless insects buzzed in a dense cloud, violently drawn by the villa's interior lights shining through the windows. The loud, unsettling thuds of Black Fungus Beetles dive bombing against the reinforced shell could be heard constantly, a morbid rain of hard bodies.
Jing An, taking charge, wore a full body beekeeping suit Jing Shu had produced and carried a heavy sprayer filled with water mixed with potent medicated oil. He climbed a ladder and began meticulously spraying the outer shell and window frames. As soon as the pungent mist hit, swaths of insects fell to the ground with a sickening buzz, while others scattered in a frantic rush. But the villa was large, and the work was considerable, a nightly defense ritual.
When Jing An had first received the beekeeping suit and industrial sprayer from his daughter, he had been utterly baffled. Why did it feel more and more like his daughter had a Doraemon style four dimensional treasure pouch, pulling out whatever specific item was needed at exactly the right moment?
"They really are spreading fast. Just ten days ago, during the first water distribution, there weren't this many yet, and they didn't carry the viruses." Jing Shu remembered aloud, watching her father work from the safety of the doorway.
Her phone buzzed relentlessly in the villa's group chat.
[Wang Qiqi, No. 13]:"@Everyone, if you have mosquito spray, floral water, or medicated oil, make sure to spray it on your windowsills and door gaps. Absolutely don't touch these black flying insects! If anyone has accidentally caught the viral flu, get to a hospital immediately if you can. When going outside, cover up completely and don't expose any skin!"
[Wang Xuemei, No. 2]:"What do we do? I've gone to every supermarket, store, and pharmacy that might sell medicated oil or floral water. Everything is sold out! There's nothing left! What are we supposed to do?"