In the cramped corridor, Zhang Yi stopped pretending to aim. They had come for his life; mercy had no place here. He fired bolt after bolt. Each shot found flesh—people toppled under the sudden, precise strikes. The hallway turned into a bedlam of screams and falling bodies; panic made the crowd stumble and trample itself.
Chen Zhenghao stayed at the stairwell with his gun, shouting orders: "Charge!" He wanted them to throw themselves at Zhang Yi. Sun Zhichao urged them on from the back, avoiding the inevitable first salvo.
Zhang Yi reloaded and fired with clinical coldness. The bolts did more than wound—their rusted tips guaranteed infection. In a world without antibiotics, tetanus and septic wounds meant a slow, miserable death. Some pulled bolts from limbs—only to see swelling and dark discoloration within hours. Others were trampled to death or crushed under the mass trying to flee.
Someone suggested ramming the ceiling or floor—but every surface inside Zhang Yi's apartment was reinforced steel; the plaster chipped, and hands bled against the metal beneath. Exhaustion and despair replaced bravado. The mob's morale crumbled into angry threats and futile accusations.
Zhang Yi listened to the dying chorus outside and felt nothing but detached satisfaction. He had prepared for this—his walls, his door, his traps. While neighbors whispered about justice, he lived by a simpler law: survive.
When the last bolt had been fired and the smoke cleared, the hallway was a ruin of bodies and wounded. Zhang Yi walked back to his couch, checked his feeds, and poured himself another drink. He watched the aftermath like someone finishing a grim, satisfying play.