"I have put up with you long enough. You buzz all day like a fly." Jing Lai said, turning away from the sobbing Wei Wei, her attention on the dark water.
"You, just you wait. Someone is coming to save me any minute now. You can stay here and wait to drown! Xiao Wen, I will take you with me later!" Wei Wei covered her stinging face and sobbed, turning to a younger colleague for validation.
Right then, a dark, sleek shark fin broke the dim water's churned surface and cut toward the supermarket rooftop at high speed, leaving a V-shaped wake.
"Look, what is that?" Someone near the edge pointed.
"My god, is that a shark? In a flood?" Another voice, terrified.
Those who had been praying for rescue stared toward the approaching shape. Some, driven by unbearable hunger, numbly opened their mouths and swallowed a few red nematodes caught in the rain, a grim automatism.
The rooftop was crammed with terrified diners and staff. The moment someone shouted, every head turned and the whispers churned, speculation flying about the thing that had suddenly appeared.
A young woman, perhaps a vlogger before the apocalypse, lifted her phone with a shaky hand and started filming. "It is our second hour trapped on the roof of Ai Jia supermarket. Something that looks like a shark is rushing over. It is so fast, so cool. Wait, maybe it isn't a shark. Look, there are lights on it, small running lights."
"My god, it's a speedboat! A weird one!" Someone else corrected.
In a blink, the shark-shaped craft closed in on the supermarket roof. The roar of its motor grew, shaking everyone with its vibration. Only then did the crowd realize it seemed to be some kind of customized amphibious vehicle or speedboat. For a moment the rooftop erupted, excitement surging among the desperation.
"Is it the police? Are they here to save us?" Hope flared.
"Are you dumb? Why would the police ride a shark over here? And even if it's a boat, how many people can that tiny thing take? Five? Six?" Reality crashed back.
"Then what do we do? The water is rising so fast. If this keeps up, it will swallow the roof. Are we all going to die here?"
"I don't want to die." A child's wail rose.
Among the sea of shiny, bald heads, Jing Shu, from the cockpit, spotted Jing Lai at once, identifiable by the distinct, ugly rain hat and matching raincoat. Jing Shu drove the shark submarine straight toward that section of the roof, the motor thundering as she expertly feathered the throttle to hold position against the current just meters from the building edge.
Jing Shu cranked open the small, thick cockpit window and shouted over the howl of wind, drumming rain, and the patter of red nematodes against the hull. "Auntie, are you okay?"
"Jing Shu? What are you doing out here in this flood? I am fine, all thanks to the gear you gave me!" Jing Lai's voice shook with a mix of fear and overwhelming relief. She had already decided mentally that if rescue didn't come within the hour, she would have to try to swim for it, life jacket or not.
But the water below was swift and fierce, filled with unseen debris. Anyone who fell in would be swept away in seconds, life jacket or not.
"Hurry and get in. I didn't dare tell Grandma that you were trapped in a flood or she would cry her eyes out," Jing Shu yelled. The rain drowned everything. Talking meant shouting to be heard even a few meters away.
So the strange boat was here to pick up a specific person, not for a general rescue.
Wei Wei, standing nearby, stared at Jing Lai in utter disbelief, fresh tears spilling. So this was the amazing niece Jing Lai kept mentioning. In this moment of extreme danger, when her own connected husband was nowhere to be found, only Jing Lai's niece had come piloting a boat through a flood to save her. How was Jing Lai this lucky? The injustice burned.
Right then, as understanding spread, plaintive voices rose all around Jing Shu's craft. "Please save us!"
"Save me. I don't want to die. I have a child at home!" A woman cried.
The young man kept his phone trained on the craft, narrating quietly. "This shark submarine is seriously cool, and it is driven by a young woman. But it looks like she is only here to pick up her family member. The rest of us might actually die on this roof."
After the initial rush of personal relief, Jing Lai, looking at the sea of desperate faces around her, faltered. As part of the supermarket's management staff, she felt a responsibility. She couldn't just leave these people. "Jing Shu, is there… can we think of a way to save these people too? There are over a thousand here." Her shout was half-plea.
Jing Shu frowned, scanning the packed rooftop, and shouted back, "Isn't the Second Police Detachment stationed nearby? Why aren't the police here yet with boats?"
Jing Lai shouted back, the rain whipping her words. "They are evacuating the residents of the oil-base community first! Those buildings are old and low, easy to collapse in a flood, and there are many seniors and kids there. Our supermarket has higher floors, so they told us to hold out a while longer. But at this rate, watching the water rise, we won't last much longer either." Her voice broke.
Thank goodness the Ai Jia supermarket building had three full stories of mall above the flooded ground floor, or it would have gone under already. But the water was now lapping at the roof's edge.
Jing Shu had never been one to play the hero. In her previous life, she barely had the ability to keep herself and her immediate family alive. She had walked past too many dying people with a hardened heart.
In this life, her rule was simple and selfish, but with a caveat. If saving someone was within her power and didn't jeopardize her core safety or secrets, she would do it. If it was beyond her power or would expose her, then everyone would have to fend for themselves. This situation, with a packed rooftop and one small craft, seemed firmly in the "beyond" category.
"Hold on," Jing Shu shouted to her aunt. Then, louder to the crowd, "Quiet, everyone! I am calling someone. Be quiet so I can hear!" She pulled out her satellite phone, a prized possession.
The noisy rooftop fell almost silent at once, hope warring with skepticism. Nobody realistically expected that little boat to save more than a handful, but if this girl knew a police officer or official, maybe she could call in a favor, bring real help.
The young woman kept recording, her voice a hushed whisper into her phone. "Looks like the situation might turn around. The girl knows someone. She is calling for rescue. Let us see."
Beep, beep. The satellite phone connected after a few rings.
"Hello? Jing Shu? What is it? Make it quick. If you are about to ask me to rescue people at Ai Jia, don't. Half the residents in the oil-base community are still being evacuated. It will take at least two more hours. There is another group waiting at Ai Jia supermarket. We don't have enough life jackets or boats! We don't have enough supplies or people!" Officer Li Yuetian's voice came through, harsh and strained with exhaustion and stress. If Jing Shu hadn't sent him a precious kilogram of soybeans as a New Year gift earlier, he likely wouldn't have picked up a personal call at all.
Officer Li Yuetian was at his wit's end. This time they were in real, unprecedented trouble. Wu City had been relatively stable overall, but the oil-base community under his Second Detachment's jurisdiction was the first and hardest hit, a geographic tragedy.
That community sat at what was basically a natural river inlet from the mountains. The flood had rushed through there first before spreading and surging toward the city center.
Downtown Wu City at least had some warning, maybe an hour to evacuate lower floors. The oil-base community was swallowed all at once in a wall of water, with no time to run. The death toll would be horrific.
Many would likely die today. His career was probably over. He faced an impossible choice: if he committed all resources to save the oil-base community, he couldn't save the people at the supermarket. If he split his forces to save the supermarket, the oil-base community would be wiped out. He had chosen the community, judging it more vulnerable.
Jing Shu narrowed her eyes, listening to the desperation in his voice. Officer Li Yuetian clearly couldn't spare anyone or any boat for the supermarket right now. The math was brutal.
The city itself was flooding in multiple districts. Over a million people were on the move or trapped. The government had to secure emergency shelters on high ground. There was simply no way to free up sufficient rescue teams. At the current rate, the top floor of the supermarket would be underwater within the hour. There were over a thousand souls on this roof. They would likely all drown.
In her previous life, she had never learned the final death toll for the Ai Jia supermarket. The news never reported it specifically; it was lumped into city-wide casualty figures. Most of those reported missing from that day were later found dead when the waters receded months later.
People around her watched her with bated breath, their fate hanging on her call. It felt like even the relentless rain had paused for a moment in anticipation.
The young man's camera caught only the back of Jing Shu's head and her voice as she spoke into the phone, clear and firm. "Officer Li, one question. Where is the nearest designated emergency shelter in the development zone, the one with the sports stadium? Give me the coordinates."
A pause as she listened. "Got it. Then set someone there to receive them. A lot of people. Tell them to be ready."
Most people on the rooftop heard Jing Shu's side of the conversation despite the storm. Even so, after she hung up, the rooftop remained eerily quiet, confusion reigning. No one understood what she meant by "I will handle the transfer" or "set someone to receive them." How was she going to save over a thousand people with a shark submarine that could only take a handful at a time? Was she delusional?
Jing Shu hung up with a resolute look, her jaw set. She had seen death too often to fear it anymore, but that didn't mean she would ignore lives she could save if a path opened. If she could do it, simply, without exposing the core secrets of her Cube Space or other preparations, she would. A plan, audacious and risky, had formed in her mind.
"From this moment on," she shouted, her voice cutting through the rain and the silent stares, "we move fast. Listen carefully. I am only going to say this once."