"Everyone is busy, huh," Jing Shu mumbled around a bite of a chocolate ice cream bar, a rare frozen treat she had preserved in the deepest part of the Rubik's Cube Space. She wondered idly if Qian Duoduo's silly son had finished the ones she traded him last time. Would he come back to trade for more? If he did, what should she ask for next time? Something practical, like high-grade steel or rare seeds.
Before she knew it, the morning had slipped away. It was nearly noon. At twelve sharp, Jing Shu planned to have a hearty lunch first, roast chicken, rice, stir-fried vegetables, so she would not eat too conspicuously at Su Mali's later and scare anyone with her appetite.
Right then, her phone started chiming with notifications from the class group chat. She minimized it and instead checked the live feed from the surveillance camera at her front gate. Five or six people stood huddled under the extended awning in front of the villa, each carrying a bag or bundle. A closer look at their faces, and sure enough, it was high school classmates: Shi Lei, Wang Chao, and a few others she recognized vaguely.
[Shi Lei]:"@Xiao Shu we are at your door. We showed up early by accident, but Su Mali is not here yet, and the workers at her villa say no entry until 13:00. [(ノ﹏ヽ)"
Jing Shu slurped a mouthful of rich beef noodle soup. Not the pitiful kind with a single sliver of meat stretched from a cow sold into next year, but a whole small basin of tender beef brisket stew with just a few token noodles for form.
[Wang Chao]:"What a coincidence, I just arrived too. @Xiao Shu let us wait inside, yeah? It is pouring out here, and we are getting soaked even under the awning."
[Shi Lei]:"Jing Shu does not seem to check WeChat much. Should we just knock?"
[Yao Zixin]:"Don't push it. Hiding from the rain under her awning is enough. Why insist on going in? You will track red nematodes and mud all over her clean floors."
[Nima Sang]:"@Yao Zixin we are classmates. What is wrong with sitting inside a classmate's house? Who does not have bugs on them right now? Su Mali lives in a villa too and is still treating us all to a meal without minding the bugs. Why can't she let us sit for a bit? So stingy."
Jing Shu's head throbbed. She really, truly did mind them being covered in red nematodes and flood muck. Her home was a clean sanctuary. "How about I bring out a few stools?" she typed quickly. "You can sit by the door under the cover and get out of the rain. Don't worry, that whole covered entryway counts as my place."
That counted as "sitting at her house," right? It was a compromise.
No one openly objected in the chat, though Nima likely scowled.
Jing Shu hauled out the simple but sturdy wooden stools Grandpa Jing had made. She had only carried out five or six when more people drifted over from the direction of the apartment blocks. In no time, a dozen, then nearly twenty classmates and a few curious strangers had gathered under her awning, a damp, shivering crowd.
She checked the time on her phone. It was only 12:10. So enthusiastic, these classmates. Or so desperate for diversion.
Most looked rough, even though they had clearly tried to tidy up. Shaved heads, clothes that were soaked at the hems and cuffs, rain dripping from sleeves. No matter how you sliced it, they were well-groomed drowned chickens.
So the villa's front step and covered walkway ended up with two neat rows of bald heads silently sheltering from the relentless rain.
"Jing Shu," a woman asked, her voice tinged with envy, "why do you always wear such heavy, sealed gear wherever you go? Aren't you hot?"
"Rain," Jing Shu answered monosyllabically, gesturing at the downpour.
"Jing Shu," a man asked, peering at her windows, "why did you install another layer of glass or plastic on your exterior walls? For insulation?"
"Looks nice," she said, though the real reason was ballistic and blast resistance.
"Jing Shu," another pointed at the shallow, saltwater-filled trench by her main door, "what is that pool for? We do not lack water anymore."
"High-concentration saltwater. Gets rid of red nematodes on contact."
"We need to soak in that to go inside?" Nima Sang's voice carried a sneer. "So fussy. It is raining red nematodes every day. Who does not have bugs on them?"
"Nima," Yao Zixin retorted, "just because you do not care does not mean others do not. Plenty of well-off households manage not to have a single red nematode indoors. It is about hygiene."
"Well-off?" Nima shot back, her tone bitter. "Before the apocalypse these villas could not be given away. One villa here was not worth half a decent apartment downtown. Now suddenly it is a palace?"
Jing Shu had tried to be accommodating, answering whatever they asked with short truths, but even she had limits. "Alright, chat here among yourselves. I've got things to do inside. Remember," she added, her voice firm, "don't go near the railing to the left. Just stay on the paved area." She slipped back inside, closing the reinforced door with a soft click. Her beef noodles were getting cold, and her patience was thinner.
By 12:40, practically the whole class had gathered at her gate. Su Mali's villa down the row still was not open, its workers finishing last-minute touches, so they all crammed under Jing Shu's awning to dodge the rain. Even with her wide entryway, it was becoming tight and uncomfortable.
"Why don't we move over a bit, by that railing? There is more space there," someone suggested.
"Jing Shu said not to go near the railing," Shi Lei reminded them.
"Why not?" Nima's voice rose, challenging. "Now I am curious. What is over there? Hidden treasure?"
"Try a little basic manners," Yao Zixin snapped. "This is someone else's home. She said not to go there."
"The host will not even come out to greet us properly and will not let us inside. What manners are we talking about?" Nima retorted. "I am going to take a look." Splash. "Aaaah! Help!"
Nima had not finished the sentence before she stepped off the paved path toward the decorative railing, where the ground looked solid but was not. Her foot met thin air, and she dropped into a concealed pit with a shriek and a wet thud.
"Ahhh, bodies! So many bodies! Help!" Her scream, now muffled and horrified, echoed from the pit.
Jing Shu rushed out, the aroma of chili oil and braised meat still trailing from her lips. For people who had not tasted proper meat in ages, the smell was lethal temptation. A dozen throats swallowed in unison.
She did not jump in. Instead, she hooked a long bamboo pole that leaned against the wall into a loop inside the pit and levered the sputtering, filthy Nima up. Everyone else crowded forward, ignoring Jing Shu's earlier warning, leaning over for a better look into the pit. They sucked in a collective, shocked breath. Corpses. Several of them, in various states of decomposition, half-submerged in muddy water.
"Jing, Jing Shu, you killed them! You killed lots of people, and you are burying them here! Waaaah, I am calling the police!" Nima sobbed so hard her words broke into hiccups, covered in mud and what else no one wanted to think about.
"I killed thieves who came to rob the villa. The surveillance system has the full record. The new emergency legal code permits lethal defense of homesteads. If you don't believe me, call the police. Go ahead." Jing Shu's voice was calm, matter-of-fact.
The lively chatter and muttered complaints died instantly. The looks they gave Jing Shu turned complicated, a mix of fear, awe, and reassessment. This was the same person who had "conveniently" saved over a thousand lives. Yet she could kill intruders without blinking and stash them in a pit. She always spoke calmly, unhurried and gentle in tone, but what she did could be utterly terrifying.
Jing Shu was not the harmless, perhaps lucky girl she seemed.
"Isn't that Zhou Dafu?" Wang Chao whispered, pointing a trembling finger at one of the more recognizable bodies. "God, what happened to his body? It is all rotted. That is brutal."
"It is Zhou Dafu!" someone else confirmed, voice hushed. "Why is Zhou Dafu's body here? I was wondering why I suddenly could not reach him on chat."
The classmates took a synchronized step back from the pit, then another step back from Jing Shu, pure fear on many faces.
Death itself was not so scary in the apocalypse. What was scary was when the dead person was someone you knew, and they had died miserably, right outside the home of someone you were casually visiting.
"He brought a group to rob the villa two nights ago," Jing Shu said with a slight shrug, as if discussing the weather. "Here, I will pull up the camera record from that night on my phone."
On her phone screen, under the dim light of a security lamp, Zhou Dafu and several other men crept up, then brazenly started prying at the villa's door and windows with tools. For reasons unknown to the watching classmates (tranquilizer darts, poison bees), one by one they simply dropped where they stood, collapsing silently.
Another round of hard swallows. Unbelievable. The villa had hidden defensive mechanisms and poison. Try to pry the door and you died on the spot.
Shi Lei's knees went soft and nearly gave out. He leaned against the wall. "Thank heavens I did not actually knock earlier."
With hard visual evidence that Zhou Dafu had led a group to break in, a few people stared at the villa's sleek, modern exterior with new, deep awe. Just how deep did its defenses run, if it kept attracting this kind of covetous attention? Looked like Jing Shu's home held plenty of good stuff worth killing, and dying, for.
They were still frozen in this tableau of horror and revelation when the low hum of an electric vehicle approached. Su Mali had arrived. Her timing broke the frozen stalemate, but also made the atmosphere even more awkward.
She stepped out of a stretched, custom Lincoln EV, herself in a fashionable, fully sealed transparent raincoat. "Aiya, everyone is here already! You are all so early. Perfect, let us all go in and get started." She paused, her nose wrinkling visibly behind the clear visor as she took in the mud-covered, bug-speckled crowd. "Wait. Why are you all covered in those disgusting red nematodes? No bugs are allowed in my house. Absolutely not." Her tone was sweet but firm, a hostess setting a non-negotiable rule for her pristine sanctuary. The contrast with the grisly pit a few meters away and Jing Shu's lethal practicality could not have been more stark.