[Xiaoshu Villa District]: "What am I supposed to prepare?"
Jing Shu typed back quickly, her thumbs cold against the screen. Her right eyelid kept twitching uncontrollably, a nervous flutter she couldn't suppress. She had a bad feeling, a sinking sensation in her gut as if she had missed something crucial, overlooked a vital piece of information.
With a sharp, splintering crack, Jing Shu snapped the wooden chopsticks in her hand cleanly in two without even realizing she was applying pressure, the sound startling in the quiet room and drawing everyone's attention. Wu You'ai, watching, picked up her own pair and tried with all her might, her face scrunching with effort, and couldn't even bend one.
Su Lanzhi scolded, her voice a mix of annoyance and concern, "You little menace, yesterday your shaky hands broke a porcelain bowl, and today you break perfectly good chopsticks. What next, are you going to break the sky? When you squander everything we have, where will you buy more?"
She turned and fetched a heavy, unbending pair of stainless steel chopsticks from the kitchen drawer, slapping them down on the table. "Here, let us see you break these. Now eat your noodles and stop staring at your phone. All you do all day is clutch that thing like it's a lifeline."
"Okay." Jing Shu took the cold metal chopsticks silently and began shoveling ramen into her mouth, chewing mechanically while her eyes stayed glued to the glowing screen of the group chat. The house slipped back into its usual dinnertime bustle of clinking dishes and low conversation. Third Aunt Jing Lai was sharing some gossip from her job at the government cafeteria, her voice a steady background hum.
[Wang Qiqi No. 13]: "@Wang Xuemei No. 2??? What happened? Why are you talking like this? Are you unwell?"
Right after that, a notification popped up: Wang Xuemei had sent a short video file.
When Jing Shu tapped it open, the screen filled with a grim scene: a naked woman under the harsh, unforgiving light of a bare bulb appeared, pinned roughly to a stained sofa by four or five shadowy men. The camera angle was low, shaky, held by someone in the room.
Red, raised welts from a leather belt striped her pale body. Her forehead was split and bleeding from a blow. Finger-shaped bruises, dark and angry, burned across her cheeks and neck. She looked directly into the camera lens with eyes full of a hollow, absolute despair, eyes that said the greatest sorrow is a heart that has gone dead, and the deepest grief is too heavy for words.
A crowd of male voices jeered and cheered in the background, a chaotic din. Now and then the sharp, unmistakable crack of a belt against skin cut through the noise, followed by the woman's ragged, choked-off scream, then scenes that shifted, became blurred, that needed no further description to understand. Somewhere in the background, the droning, official voice of the TV news broadcast could be faintly heard. A clock on the wall showed it was 19:20, during Wu City's brief, precious window of power supply.
The woman in the video, her face battered but recognizable, was forty-year-old Wang Xuemei.
With a single, violent clang, Jing Shu drove the pointed ends of the stainless steel chopsticks straight down into the solid rosewood tabletop, embedding them half an inch deep. Every eye in the family snapped toward her, conversations dying mid-word.
The comfortable bustle in the dining room died at once, extinguished. A silence fell so sharp a pin dropping could have been heard. Everyone stared at Jing Shu, at her rigid posture, at the chopsticks quivering in the wood.
Jing An parted his lips, then closed them. He touched the smooth surface of the rosewood table with a shaking hand. He loved this table; it had been a wedding gift. He checked his daughter's expression, the flat, cold anger in her eyes, and decided this was a daughter he couldn't afford to provoke at this moment. He let it go, the damage already done.
Su Lanzhi finally sensed that something was profoundly wrong. The look in Jing Shu's eyes was deadly enough to kill, a look she had never seen before. It chilled her to the bone.
More voice message notifications chimed one after another, incoming from Wang Xuemei's account.
A man's laugh, gloating and breathless, filled the phone's small speaker. It was Gou Yitian's voice. He said, "Surprised it's me, huh? I'm back! You thought tying me up and leaving me to die in that stinking apartment would finish me? Lucky for me, our group was already planning to take over this community today. They knew my place and came straight to pick me up. As the saying goes, great fortune comes to those who survive catastrophe. Hahaha!"
Gou Yitian laughed until his voice cracked with malice. He spat audibly, then continued, his tone dropping, cold with pure hatred. "Wang Xuemei, Jing Shu and your whole family, and that busybody Wang Qiqi, everyone in this community, none of you are getting away. I wasn't going to just take your grain and let you live, but I changed my mind. I will not spare a single woman. Especially you, Jing Shu. I will make you suffer ten thousand times worse than Wang Xuemei is suffering now. I will make you my personal slave, until you break."
Gou Yitian spoke through gritted teeth, the words hissing out. His hatred for Jing Shu had sunk into his bones, a festering poison. Only grinding Jing Shu's bones to dust would calm the rage in him. Nothing attracts a man's undying hatred more than making him unable to be a man.
Thanks to Jing Shu's precise, brutal kick, he hadn't recovered even after a long time. He had tested it repeatedly, tried every folk method, even experimented on other, unfortunate live subjects, and nothing had changed. The little brother no longer worked. Gou Yitian was a ruined man, and he knew it.
"Relax. Don't bother running. The main force is already heading to the villa district right now. Do not go anywhere. Wash up and wait. Every building with residents has guards posted downstairs. We will come for you all, one by one. Jing Shu, you are up next. Your fancy villa is first on the list.
Don't struggle pointlessly, or I will make you beg for death. Calling the police is useless. They are swamped, lines are dead. The Zhetian Gang is raiding the district police stations for guns right now. Once they have them, they will run Wu City. Our 'Bi Ri' will be the second biggest power in Wu City.
Oh, and if anyone in the chat wants to defect, to live, you can join us. All you have to do is go to the villa district and help kill that bitch's family. That's your ticket in."
The stream of voice messages ended. The group chat fell into a stunned, digital silence, as if no one could process or accept this new reality. Just a few days ago they had been friendly, if stressed, neighbors, standing together in lines at the supermarket, sharing complaints. It had still been a society ruled by some semblance of law where killing was a serious crime. Now none of that counted. Now killing could be done at will, broadcast as a threat.
A bowl slipped from Third Aunt Jing Lai's numb fingers and shattered on the tile floor, the sound explosive in the quiet.
Tension clamped down on the room, thick and suffocating. Jing An and Wu You'ai grabbed their own phones, replaying the messages, reading and listening again, their faces paling. Su Lanzhi covered her mouth with both hands, tears spilling over her fingers in silence. "No, this isn't real. This can't be happening. How can this be?"
Su Lanzhi suddenly lunged forward and pulled Jing Shu into a fierce, trembling hug, choking out, "Don't worry. I will never let this happen to you. Don't be afraid. Mom will figure something out. The knife, where is the big kitchen knife? Call the police, yes, we must call the police first."
Jing Shu sighed, a heavy, weary sound. Her mother had completely lost her composure. Su Lanzhi was visibly terrified, her body shaking, yet her first instinct was still to try to shield her daughter. "They all deserve to die for making mom this afraid," Jing Shu thought, her fists clenching so tight her nails bit into her palms.
Grandma Jing hurried over, her face ashen, and tugged at their arms. "You young ones should run. Now! Or find an empty apartment nearby to hide in. The community is so big, with so many units, how can they search every single one?"
Grandpa Jing snapped, his voice uncharacteristically sharp, "Nonsense. Didn't you hear him? He said there are guards at every occupied building's entrance. If we scatter and one of us gets caught, what then? If we die, we die together as a family. No one gets left behind." His hands trembled as he spoke. "Before they arrive, we drive and leave. They only have men at the ground level gate. We can go out through the underground garage, in the car."
Jing An didn't waste words on debate. He typed rapidly into the group chat, his message a plea and a call to arms: "We have to unite. There are over a hundred of us in this chat. How many do they have? I just counted only a little over thirty showing themselves in that video. They have knives, but so do we. We have more people! Worst case, we fight them together!"
A moment later, a new voice message played in the chat, Gou Yitian's voice dripping with contempt. "You can try."
No one else in the chat spoke. No one supported Jing An's call. The digital silence was louder than any shout.
Jing An hurled his phone across the room in a burst of furious despair. It smacked against the wall with a sickening crack and fell to the floor. "At the critical moment, not one person stands up." his heart went cold, the disillusionment a physical chill. On that day when Wang Xuemei was attacked, he had rushed out without a second thought to help save people. Today, facing a direct threat to them all, not a single voice answered his call for unity.
Just then, Jing An's shattered phone, still functional, lit up with a private message notification. It was from Wang Qiqi. "Pull every string you can for police support. I called every number I have, and it was useless. The city is in chaos. The only way now is self rescue. I will contact a few trusted people to deal with the guards downstairs first, then head to you. Be ready."
Di-di, di-di. A different, pre set alarm chimed from Jing Shu's phone, a soft, insistent sound. Jing Shu's lips curved into a thin, hard smile that held no warmth. It looked like the intricate traps Jing Shu had spent half a year meticulously laying around the villa's perimeter, and all those long, sweat soaked hours of archery practice and stone carving drills up on the back hill, would finally be put to their intended use today.