What kind of feeling was this?
Every pore on Jing Shu's body seemed to open, a prickling, hyper aware sensation spreading across her skin. She felt her heartbeat quicken, a steady, heavy drumming against her ribs, and her temperature rise, a flush of heat that had nothing to do with the room's warmth. She was excited now, not like last time with its cold shock. This time she was genuinely thrilled and bloodthirsty, a fierce, predatory anticipation itching in her hands, a desire to twist their necks with her own fingers and feel the crunch.
"We can't run. They are already here, at the perimeter." Jing Shu's voice was low, controlled. "Grandparents, Dad and Mom, Third Aunt, and Cousin, I need you all to sit in the living room and stay put. Don't move from there. Remember the traps I set with Dad last time, all around the house? They can't get in through those, so don't worry about that."
Su Lanzhi clutched Jing Shu's arm in a death grip, her fingers digging in. "No. You can't go out there. It's too dangerous outside. I, I don't want what happened to Wang Xuemei to happen to you." As she spoke, tears streamed down her cheeks without a sound, cutting clean tracks through the dust on her face. The horror of what had happened to Wang Xuemei had left a deep, cold shadow in her heart, a new kind of fear.
Jing An stepped forward, placing a broad hand on Su Lanzhi's shoulder. "Don't be afraid. Anyone who wants to hurt any of you has to step over my corpse first." His voice was rough but steady.
Seeing how utterly terrified her mother was, how the fear had taken root, Jing Shu clenched her fists until the knuckles were white. In her mind, several swift, efficient "death packages" for the approaching men snapped into place, a cold inventory of methods.
"Mom, wait here. I'm going upstairs to fetch something."
Jing Shu turned and went upstairs, her footsteps firm on the stairs, and came back down a minute later carrying a large duffel bag. But in truth, she had taken the items directly from her Cube Space, including three compact repeating crossbows with quarrels of bolts and a single, well oiled pistol with a box of ammunition.
Under her family's stunned, disbelieving stares, Grandpa Jing's mouth slightly open, Wu You'ai's eyes wide behind her glasses, Jing Shu efficiently handed everyone a crossbow and a handful of bolts. She saved the pistol for herself, tucking it into the leather holster she had secured at her waist, the weight familiar and solid.
"Let us move. No time for questions, I will explain when we have time. I didn't think I would really have to use this one day." She patted the crossbow in her own hands. "The crossbow is simple. Point, pull this lever to cock it, aim, and squeeze this trigger. Dad, you know how, show them."
Talking fast, her words clipped, Jing Shu led the whole family out through the back door into the villa's walled courtyard, the night air cooler outside.
Since her family was this resistant and afraid, frozen by the horror stories, she decided it was better to give them weapons and have them stand together at the fortified doorway to steady their nerves, to give them a purpose, rather than leave them trembling uselessly indoors. Everyone's first time facing violence comes like this, with terror and shaking hands. The true apocalypse had arrived at their gate. They had to learn to accept it, to harden their hearts enough to survive.
Jing Shu's own first time, in her previous life, had been spent clinging to her mother's arms in helpless tears. But what use had that been? Before dying in that ditch, Jing Shu had learned the hard lesson that only by making herself strong, by being her own weapon, could anything be relied upon.
"Cluck cluck cluck! Cluck!" Today Xiao Dou, sensing the tension, let out a series of sharp, savage cries from its pen, different from its usual contented clucking. Xiao Dou's blood seemed to be boiling, its feathers puffed up. One order from Jing Shu and the plump chicken would charge to the death, a feathered missile.
Jing Shu walked calmly to the pen and fitted Xiao Dou with a custom made one piece stainless steel helmet she had forged weeks ago. It was a bizarre sight, the helmet held a fifteen centimeter stainless steel spike with a deep blood groove along its length. The brutal design ensured that the instant it pierced flesh, blood would flow freely, preventing suction. Wu You'ai stared at the armed chicken with shining, fascinated eyes, her mind clearly racing with biological or perhaps tactical possibilities.
"Mom," Jing Shu said, guiding Su Lanzhi to a spot just inside the reinforced back door, "stay right here. Don't take a step forward. There are dangerous traps laid in the gravel ahead, between here and the outer wall. If anyone breaks through and I shout for you to shoot, aim toward the main doorway area and loose your bolts. Don't worry about hitting me or Grandpa, we will be to the sides. Grandpa and I will handle triggering the secondary traps from the chicken pen side."
Su Lanzhi's hands, holding the unfamiliar crossbow, wouldn't stop shaking, the weapon wobbling in her grip. At last she fumbled and took out her phone with her free hand. "I… I will call Minister Niu. He must have connections, he can send the police. He has to."
…
Outside, beyond the wall, the group of men drew closer and closer, their presence announced before they were seen. Their wild, unconcerned laughter and rough chatter were already audible, carried on the still night air. Jing Shu kept her head down, watching the grainy infrared feed on her phone screen split into four views, while she and Grandpa Jing spread out to their pre assigned positions along the inner wall.
The traps had been built by Grandpa Jing and Jing An with their own hands over many days. Both knew exactly what each one did and where they were deployed. With a few silent hand signals, grandfather and granddaughter quickly confirmed the trigger points and the kill zones.
"I heard from Gou Yitian that this villa is filthy rich and has a whole basement warehouse full of grain. I don't know if it's true or not…" a voice slurred from just beyond the wall.
"They're the only family in the whole community with a working energy car, I saw it. They can't be doing badly. Brother Da Ri has his eye on that car for himself."
"Stop yapping. Let's climb the wall. Faster that way than messing with the front gate."
"Fine. Brothers, grab your gear. Follow Brother Da Bi over the wall, then we'll pry the back door."
They were finally coming. In the dark of the courtyard, lit only by a sliver of light from the house, Jing Shu's eyes gleamed with a cold, focused light.
Listening to the growing noise outside, the scuffles, the clinks of metal, the whole family trembled where they stood, their breaths shallow. She counted moving shapes on the infrared monitor. "There are more than forty of them. Most have long blades or pipes, but luckily no axes or other heavy door breakers that I can see."
Thud. Thud. Thud thud.
A series of heavy impacts, followed immediately by:
"Ow, damn it, that hurts! Something's in my leg!"
"My leg, my leg! Something is stabbing all the way through my flesh! Get it out!"
"Help! I can't move! The pain!"
Bloodcurdling screams erupted, not one or two, but in a ragged wave, cutting through the night's earlier bravado.
They had just scaled the one meter decorative outer fence, stepped confidently onto what looked like solid ground, the camouflaged plank, and in the blink of an eye dropped into the two meter deep trench. If it were only a deep pit, the screams wouldn't be this awful, this raw.
This particular trap had taken Jing Shu and Jing An a full month to dig in secret, ringing the villa's inner wall with a continuous two meter deep trench, covered with hundreds of carefully balanced wooden planks disguised with a sprinkling of gravel.
And Jing Shu, without telling a soul in the family, had later buried clusters of five centimeter, rust resistant nails, points up, in the soil at the bottom of every other pit. If someone landed headfirst or chest first, driven by their own momentum, there would be no saving them. It was a grisly upgrade.
"A pity," Jing Shu muttered, her eyes on the screen. "Only eight went in." She tallied the heat signatures that had vanished into the trench zones.
"I can't get up. Damn it, what is this place? Is it a fucking trap?" a voice wailed from one of the pits.
"Da Zhuang! Da Zhuang! Which pit are you in? Where are you? Answer me!" someone above shouted, panic edging his voice.
Chaos erupted outside the wall. Those in the pits, injured and in pain, couldn't climb the sheer dirt walls. Those above, peering into the darkness, had no easy way to help. The planks were laid flush, and in the dark, nobody knew which specific pit held which fallen comrade.
Even when they finally located a voice, the wounded man in the pit couldn't stand to be pulled, and those above, leaning over, couldn't reach down two meters. At a time like this, who had thought to bring ropes or ladders?
The situation was awkward, to say the least, and their momentum was broken.
After several minutes of useless fussing and shouting, they regrouped, circling the perimeter at a distance. One of them finally reported, voice tight with frustration, "This villa is damn vicious. There's a whole ring of these pits. We can't cross it. Even if we got up the wall, there's a glass cover or something on top of the inner wall. I threw a stone and it just bounced off. Must be tempered glass or polycarbonate."
"And what does that mean?" another voice, presumably Brother Da Bi's, growled. "It means they're rich, and prepared. Heads up, brothers. Big score ahead. Forget the walls. We go in through the front gate like we planned. We'll rescue the guys in the pits after we have the place."
The mob, their numbers still formidable, marched around to the front entrance, their footsteps a heavy, ominous rumble.
"Brother Da Bi, the path to the front door looks clear. There are no more traps at the gate area that I can see."
"Brother Da Bi, I brought professional lockpicking tools. Give me a few minutes on this gate lock."
"Everyone, be careful once we're inside. Who knows what other tricks they have in there." Brother Da Bi spoke while taking a quiet, cautious step back, letting others move ahead. He had a bad feeling about this villa, a prickling on his neck.
The rasp of metal tools against the lock mechanism sounded, unnaturally loud in the tense silence. Inside, the family let out a collective, held breath, a fragile hope sparking that perhaps the gang couldn't get in after all. Then the bad news arrived. The distinct click of the lock disengaging was audible even from their position. Everyone's hearts leaped into their throats, and their hands, slick with sweat, clenched tighter on the crossbows they had just learned to hold.
With a crisp, final click, the front gate's electronic lock was overridden and the bolt slid back.
With a heavy boom, the solid wooden door was kicked wide open, slamming against the interior wall.
"Charge! Remember, leave the women for questioning. Kill the men on sight." Brother Da Bi hid at the rear of the group, but his voice boomed out, giving the order. The crowd, a dark mass of bodies, surged forward through the doorway into the entrance hall.
The next second, as Brother Da Bi himself lunged forward to follow, a sharp, metallic clack sounded, and searing pain clamped around his ankle. Something had cinched tight like a bear trap. His momentum carried his upper body forward, but his foot didn't lift. He pitched face first into the back of the man ahead of him, a domino effect beginning.
At the same time, a dozen men at the tail end of the charge, distracted or unlucky, failed to get a clean start. The sudden stoppage at the front, combined with the hidden foot snare traps Jing Shu had buried in the gravel path, yanked them forward in a chaotic chain reaction. They all tipped, stumbled, and sprawled in a tangled, cursing heap just inside the entrance, a knot of limbs and weapons. The clean charge had disintegrated into a mess on the threshold.