Back in Cave No. 6, the air thick with the smell of damp bodies and mildew, Zhou Dafu's calves were still trembling faintly, a residual shake from the adrenaline and humiliation. He beat Zhou Dasheng severely on the shoulder, not hard enough to injure, but with sharp, frustrated slaps. "You idiot. I told you to take people over there and squat for space, to pressure them into sharing. Who told you to make a move on the chicken? Now look at us, packed into this tiny cave like rats, and we have made powerful enemies."
Zhou Dasheng, rubbing his shoulder, knew Zhou Dafu was just venting his own fear and only dared whisper, his eyes darting, "I just saw a fat chicken running around, plump and healthy. I figured we had the numbers, and it was just a bird. One chicken would be easy to grab. How was I supposed to know…"
"Tell me what we do now," Zhou Dafu always felt that he didn't perform well every time they quarreled, his bluster crumbling under real pressure. He couldn't swallow this without payback, the sting of the gun against his temple still fresh on his skin.
"Let's tell Brother Daheng and have him take revenge for us." Zhou Dasheng suggested, his voice hopeful.
Zhou Dafu rapped Zhou Dasheng's skull with his knuckles. "Idiot. You think Brother Daheng is a gun that fires on our command? If we had taken the chicken, maybe he would help us out of gratitude. We got nothing, and you want him to be our fool." His voice dropped to a hiss. "On top of that, you lost the gun he gave me. He isn't going to tear us apart if he finds out."
Zhou Dasheng's eyes rolled in his head like a rat's, thinking fast. "Brother Dafu, does Brother Daheng still keep those two prized snakes? The ones in the bamboo tube?"
"Two five-paced vipers. Good grief." Zhou Dafu's expression shifted, a mix of fear and fascination. "One bite and they say you can't take more than five steps. You have to hop to keep from falling. That venom, tsk tsk." He actually looked spooked, remembering the sleek, deadly creatures.
"Brother, since we lost the gun, we can't go in hard. We can use something else." Zhou Dasheng leaned in, his voice a conspiratorial whisper.
Zhou Dasheng's eyes gleamed in the dim lantern light from a neighbor. "Brother Daheng is in Cave No. 4. We wait until his men are busy, steal the snakes. I pick my moment when that family is asleep or distracted, and toss the snakes into their sleeping area. Whoever dies is whoever dies. If people get bitten, it will be on Brother Daheng. His snakes escaped their cage and bit people. An accident."
"You idiot. Chickens eat snakes, and that one is a monster. That chicken won't fear snakes. The second you let them out, the chicken will eat them. Even I know that. You don't need schooling, but you need common sense," Zhou Dafu said with disdain, but a flicker of interest remained in his eyes.
Zhou Dasheng kept smiling, a sly, unpleasant curve. "Brother, that is exactly what we want. Think about it. If the snakes bite a few people before the chicken eats them, that is your revenge. Brother Daheng will be responsible for the deaths, and then we get two guns as compensation for our 'loss.'
If the snakes don't bite anyone and the chicken eats them right away, we take people and squat there first. We just happen to witness Brother Daheng's beloved snakes getting killed by the chicken. Do you think Brother Daheng won't explode and take revenge for us? He will have to deal with them to save face."
Zhou Dafu's eyes lit up, the plan taking shape. He patted Zhou Dasheng's shoulder with sudden satisfaction. "Good. Very good. Three birds with one stone. No matter what, Brother Daheng will end up at odds with that family. He will take our revenge for us." A nasty grin spread. "Then we fight side by side, and maybe get something out of the chaos."
…
Xiao Dou, on the other hand, had no idea a scheme was brewing in the damp darkness of the next cave. She was busy gobbling up the red nematodes that had been tracked in on people's boots and now wriggled on the stone floor. She had a compulsion, a deep-seated chicken instinct. If she saw food on the ground, she wouldn't allow it to remain, pecking with efficient, rapid strikes.
Cave No. 5 had an exit at the front, where they had entered, and another, smaller passage at the back, leading deeper into the mountain. Jing Shu's family chose a corner against the solid rock wall, farthest from both entrances. The rest of the community, after some hesitant discussion, picked spots to sleep nearer the front or sat in small groups on the floor to chat, giving the villa family a wide berth.
Some who had scouted other caves came back with wide-eyed reports, their voices carrying. "We got special treatment. The space here is huge. Look next door in Cave 6. They are crammed so tight they can't even stretch their legs. Worse than hard seats on a train during the New Year rush."
"Right. I heard someone here has connections. Officer Li Yuetian from the Second Detachment arranged this personally. His name opened the gate."
Everyone's eyes, subtly or not, drifted to the villa family setting up in their corner. It had to be them. The longer people spent around Jing Shu's family, the more unfathomable they seemed, a unit apart.
"Do you remember the photo Jing Shu posted before? That Zhou-what-Cheng guy, he died miserably. I always wondered how. Today I know." The speaker, a middle-aged woman, even pulled up the old, grainy photo on her phone, the screen glowing in the cave's gloom. A quick comparison between the photo of the bloody scene and the fierce chicken now patrolling the floor drained the color from faces all around.
Terrifying. They killed when they decided to kill, without a hint of mercy or hesitation. The unspoken conclusion settled over the onlookers.
People sat on the sidelines, on their bundled clothes or thin mats, and watched the villa family set up their space. There was envy, a deep, hungry ache, but no one dared hatch crooked ideas after the display with Zhou Dafu.
The villa family had guns, visible weapons, a murder-capable chicken, ties to a police officer, a job at the Livestock Breeding Center, a Consolation and Counseling Specialist in the community, and a post in the Planting Industry R&D Management Department. The mental tally was intimidating. They were the landowners of this patch now, the established power. Everyone else was the poor, the displaced, watching from the outside.
Still, the villa family's kit was impressive to observe. Everything was packed with obvious care, organized. Everything was clean, a stark contrast to the grime and damp of the cave.
The cave was very dim, only the grey light from the entrances and a few scattered flashlights or battery lanterns. Jing An propped up their own large camping lantern, casting a warm, yellow pool of light over their corner. Su Lanzhi got on her hands and knees with a scrub brush and a basin of water, scrubbing their chosen area of stone spotless. Jing Lai went along the rock wall with damp rags, wiping down every surface within their territory to remove dust and slime.
Jing An used a rubber squeegee to push the standing water from a persistent drip into a runoff channel in the floor. Xiao Dou handled the biological cleanup, leaving no red nematode survivors, her head bobbing with purpose.
Jing Shu unfurled a large sheet of heavy-duty plastic sheeting that had been wrapped around the planks, pre-cut to size, and with some cord and clever knots, rigged a broad awning from the wall out to a pole, creating a ceiling to catch the constant drips from the cave roof above their space.
The awning marked her family territory clearly. It covered about one sixth of the cave's total floor space, around forty square meters of relative dryness.
They laid the planks they had brought over the dampest spots in the corner, then pumped air into thick, moisture-proof inflatable mats on top, creating a raised, dry floor. Then they popped open the one-pull tents, the fabric whooshing into shape, and set them in a tidy row along the wall to create a line of private sleeping rooms.
The envy among the watching community members peaked when Jing Shu carried in the thick, padded sleeping bags and tucked one into each tent. People were practically drooling, hugging their own thin jackets tighter.
Look at this life. They evacuated and still brought the whole house with them. They would sleep warm and soft in proper tents, while others had only the clothing on their backs. Those few who did manage to bring quilts had them soaked from the journey or were now laying them on cold, wet stone.
When Jing Lai finished wiping down every surface, she took out a bottle of strong medicated oil and sprayed a fine mist around their perimeter. In moments the whole section of the cave smelled sharply of mint and camphor, cutting through the damp, fungal odor.
Jing Shu set Xiao Dou's small, portable wire coop by the tents, fixed the folding portable toilet in a far corner behind a screen of draped fabric, and looped a collapsible door frame around it to make a temporary, private restroom.
The BYD Song was parked at an angle, its trunk facing the tents to block sightlines from most of the cave. The planks they had brought were used to bridge gaps between the car and the rock, shielding most of the rest of their living area from casual view. The community felt a pang of regret. They wanted to see more of how this family lived, to feed their envy or curiosity. It was frustratingly enviable, this self-contained little fortress.
Jing Shu pulled a large folding table from the trunk and popped it open into a decent square surface. Six folding stools followed. The compact cookware set and a single-burner gas stove came out next, arranged neatly on a smaller table to form a tiny kitchen area. A heavy-duty power cable ran from the car's auxiliary battery to a power strip. Enough for charging phones and running a few low-power appliances like the car dryer.
Finally, she inflated one of the bright orange boats halfway, letting it sit soft in the middle of their space. It created a sense of safety, a ready escape pod, and doubled as a strange but comfortable-looking sofa.
When the basic setup was done, she took the car dryer, plugged it in, and blew warm air over the damp sleeping bags and mats. The cave was deeply damp, the chill seeping from the stone. she hated water everywhere, the feeling of constant wet. she would rather waste the battery and blow things dry twice a day than suffer the clamminess.
Just when the community had lost sight of what the villa family was doing behind their makeshift barricades and felt a wave of disappointed curiosity, Cave No. 4 next door, the one connected by a wide archway, suddenly roared to life with noise and activity, drawing every idle eye away.
"Wow, come see next door!" someone called from near the connecting passage. "They have a three-section trailer RV. It looks like a small train parked in there."
"What is a trailer RV?" another voice asked, confused.
"Come look. They are making camp. I hear they brought a lot of stuff too. Maybe even more than the villa family." The chatter picked up, and a stream of people from Cave 5 began drifting toward the archway to peer into Cave 4, the new spectacle pulling attention from Jing Shu's settled domain.