Wanda Mall's roof poked above the drift like an island. Zhang Yi smashed a pane, rappelled inside, and walked through a dead mall—mannequins frozen beside racks of luxury goods, displays abandoned to the snow. Most of it was worthless now, but he stripped the stores bare for anything usable and headed to the underground supermarket.
The shelves there were intact, but the goods had been betrayed by the cold. Vegetables were desiccated husks, meat had turned into rock-hard "zombie flesh," and packets of cookies had puffed with moisture and mildew. In normal times it would have been trash. For the starving, it was a feast.
He filled two heavy bags with rotten veg, frozen slabs of meat, and moldy biscuits, deciding to leave the rest for a second trip. Checking his cold-resistant Rolex—3:30 PM—he kicked the snowmobile into life and raced back, the return ride taking an hour through white silence.
The engine's roar drew eyes at every window. Huang Tianfang noticed first—half his face still scarred from Zhang Yi's earlier defense—and spat, "That thing can move in the snow. With it, we can find food." His men hunched, hungry and eager, but Huang added a warning: "This is Zhang Yi. He killed Chen Zhenghao. Be careful."
Zhang Yi felt their hunger and the threat in their stares, but his new haul and heavier weapons steadied him. He slid the snowmobile into spatial storage, hefted the bags, and walked into Building 25.
Neighbors pressed to the glass and cheered. Uncle You met him at the door, eyes wide. "You found so much!" he breathed.
Outside, however, a few of the Tianhe workers had already slipped down, knives and wrenches in hand—impatient, greedy, and ready to act. The quiet relief inside the building had a razor edge.