The Invasion Day – Chapter 4

Table of Content | Character Guide

Chapter 4

On the 5th day, it started to rain in Yun City.

By this point, people with persistent high fever, vomiting and diarrhea had surfaced all over the world, many of them eventually dying of organ failure.

There was almost no need to guess. It definitely had something to do with the red clouds.

Speculations that the red clouds created an illness that had no cure and would undoubtedly lead to death began to circulate on the Internet, sending everyone into a full-blown panic. Gangsters on the street took the opportunity to vandalise and snatch things, while pro-apocalypse radicals with devious intention encouraged pessimistic people to join in the celebration of Earth’s final days.

Fu Shiwu looked at the shocking photos on the Internet with a heavy heart.

At this moment, he seemed to be grateful that they were under quarantine. There were armed police outside so those crazy people wouldn’t be able to break into Heavenly Gardens.

After several days of researching in this vast ocean called the Internet, Fu Shiwu had finally mastered the art of searching for underground information that was made known to very few individuals.

According to the analysis of an insider that he found on a forum, the red clouds seemed to have polluted certain components of the atmosphere, and these components were the cause of the large-scale epidemic. The reason why the elderly and children contributed to the largest portion of deaths was because young adults had a stronger immune system, resulting in fewer people of this demographic getting sick. However, the initiator of this topic wasn’t optimistic either, for he said that as long as the red clouds lingered in the sky, the pollution would intensify and the adult immune system would, at one point, stop being able to fight against the entry of the polluted components…

“Huh?” Fu Shiwu was taken aback as he looked suspiciously at the sudden change of the page in front of his eyes. He clearly had been eyeing this hot topic, but the webpage no longer existed after a refresh.

Fu Shiwu had never encountered this kind of situation before and couldn’t help but start making several inspection attempts, but whatever he did, the webpage couldn’t be viewed anymore.

Meanwhile, in an office building in Yun City, a boy with a young, fair-skinned face and short hair was tapping on the keywords, his fingers plunging at an unearthly speed.

“Hahaha! I killed another one!” His eyes beamed with excitement as he said to himself: “Eh? You dare to resist? I’m gonna do it again!!!”

On the table in front of him were several computer screens and keyboards, while opposite him was a large data cabinet.

“Large computer is still the easiest to use. My laptop is too weak! It’s so cool to be a hacker right under broad daylight. It really isn’t a waste of efforts that I chose to enter the police academy, haha!” The short-haired boy chuckled, secretly feeling pleased with his own decision.

At this point, a middle-aged man with a weary face walked in: “Miao Jia, how are you doing with cleaning up all the manipulative information on the Internet?”

“Boss!” Miao Jia immediately shut down his hihihaha expression just now, stood up and responded in a serious manner: “I’ve closed all websites that contain dangerous speech and even took down the physical addresses of those people.” He turned around and picked up a piece of paper from the printer, handing it to the other man: “This is the address list. “

The middle-aged man took the paper, taking only a quick glance before telling Miao Jia: “Very good work. You must continue to control the safety and purity of the Internet.”

Miao Jia could tell that the director had no intention to arrest anyone even with such detailed findings already in hands, so he couldn’t help but feel disappointed. This was the first major case he dealt with after graduation.

The director clearly saw his disheartened look, but the police force was under great tension at the moment. Everyone was going around the blocks to catch the vandalisers and gangsters. Miao Jia could have been dragged to the task too, but he was too young and his physique was subpar. In fact, his strengths lay only in information security and management, while every other quality of his just barely met the standard requirement.

The director of course knew that he shouldn’t dampen his enthusiasm, so he bestowed Miao Jia with some encouragement: “You’ve done a fantastic job. Now that there are fewer dangerous speeches on the Internet, there will be fewer dangerous people joining in the chaos on the street. Look at it as ensuring more safety for our frontline police officers, please work hard! Boy, I have big hopes for you! I will hold onto this list, and we will make the arrest when the police force has less pressure!”

Miao Jia naturally knew that the director was just coaxing him, but he had to understand that the director’s words were meant to comfort him, so he must follow along with the boss’ intention.

Miao Jia replied spiritedly: “Leave it to me! I’ll make sure to keep the Internet clean, I won’t give people a single chance to take advantage of it!” 

And this chicken-hearted boy was the type that could be agitated easily, so regardless whether the content actually had dangerous intentions, as long as it could potentially breach safety, he would completely crush it.

As such, it was no wonder that Fu Shiwu couldn’t open that forum again no matter how hard he tried.

After struggling for a long time to no avail, Fu Shiwu had to give up, then he felt a serious protest in his stomach.

He left the study, walked into the kitchen, took out a large bar of dried vegetables from the cupboard, set the pot on the fire and threw in a handful of dried noodles.

When the noodles were ready, he scooped them out, blanched the dried vegetables with the soup, put everything in a large bowl, dug up a spoonful of frying sauce from the fridge, and his amazingly fragrant dried vegetables noodles mixed with frying sauce were ready.

Although he had been single for many years, Fu Shiwu’s cooking skills were not the greatest. He mostly kept to boiling and stir-frying and really couldn’t handle sophisticated dishes.

As someone who was too lazy to cook and too impatient to buy actual vegetables, he decided to turn to dried vegetables bars from online shops. It was easy to get and simple to make, truly a good companion for a nerd like him!

At least the fragrant frying sauce noodles were not tasteless even when he ate them with a worried heart. After that, he simply threw the bowl into the sink and returned to the study.

As he took out a box from the bookcase, Fu Shiwu hesitated for a second.

After thinking left and right, he eventually opened the box, took out a black block that resembled a portable hard drive, plugged in the cable and connected it to the computer.

He thoroughly cleaned up his search history and his desktop, turned on My Computer, headed straight for the portable drive and clicked on the software.

A web-like window popped up on the screen, showing a login interface. Fu Shiwu input the username and password and clicked Enter, his face a solemn expression.

He wasn’t let down: there was indeed a message inside.

Fu Shiwu got excited and couldn’t wait to open it.

“It’s not safe outside! Take care and protect yourself well. Mom and Dad are fine.”

Fu Shiwu stared at the computer blankly as his excitement deflated into disappointment, 

He counted and counted but apart from these dozen or so words, there really was no other news.

“But this isn’t too bad. Normally, we can only exchange some news during New Year’s.” Fu Shiwu comforted himself, for after all he didn’t have much hope in the first place.

His parents stayed outside all year round due to their work, and it was known as a place with exceptionally strict management and confidentiality. Fu Shiwu used to live with his parents when he was very young, but the moment he reached school age, he had to leave them and completed his studies alone under a nanny’s care.

Over the years, he had received only a few words from them. It also wasn’t possible to go back to that place or to pay them a visit. The family could only be reunited when his parents retired.

However, with the red clouds phenomenon happening all of a sudden and there were so many uncertainties ahead, Fu Shiwu felt worried about their safety and pulled out this special communication software.

But even with this software, most of the time, Fu Shiwu could only be on the receiving end, unless his parents were also logged in. However, such encounters became rarer and rarer as their works kept them incredibly busy.

Fu Shiwu lingered on those dozen words, unspeakable sadness and a feeling of being lost creeping up inside him.

At this moment, the red light on the hard drive suddenly lit up. Taken aback, Fu Shiwu quickly unplugged the data cable and the window disappeared instantly.

“Huh—” Fu Shi Wushu sighed with relief. He felt his heart almost jump out, for this was the first time he’d ever seen the red light turned on.

As he was putting back the drive, a commotion could be heard from outside. Fu Shiwu hurried to the door to look out.

“We’ve been abandoned! We’ve been discarded! The end of the world is here! Hahaha!” A peculiar-looking man was yelling with excitement in the corridor, walking from one apartment to another and punching on the doors.

“!” As the man slammed on the door without a care about how the people behind it might react, he continued shouting: “Nobody cares about us. We are free!”

“Has he gone mad?” Fu Shiwu was dumbstruck to watch this frantic behaviour. Seeing that he was about to slam on his door, Fu Shiwu quickly shut it.

As expected, a loud knock came a few seconds later: “Come out here! Let’s have our final celebration”

The noise didn’t stop until the crazy man was done knocking at least once on all the doors of the 18th floor.

Only then could Fu Shiwu feel relieved. He looked through the door viewer to confirm that no one was outside before opening it. The man seemed to have disappeared, but Fu Shiwu wouldn’t know if he had headed downstairs or upstairs.

Just then, the door next to him also opened, and his tired-looking neighbour poked her head out, stunned as she saw Fu Shiwu.

Fu Shiwu instantly reacted to the condition, flattening the corners of his mouth and calmly nodding at her.

The woman reluctantly smiled at him before immediately pulling her head back. 

Fu Shiwu couldn’t help asking: “Excuse me, how is your old man?” 

The lady looked at him with slight astonishment, then replied despairingly: “He passed away less than a day after being sent to the hospital.”

Hearing this, Fu Shiwu was stunned. The Internet indeed had informed him many times that the infected people could only wait for death even if they got to the hospital, but he couldn’t help being shaken.

This was a living example, right next to him.

The lady obviously was in no mind to chitchat any further and closed the door.

Fu Shiwu let out a long sigh. The entire corridor was so quiet that even his sigh made quite a sound.

After that, Fu Shiwu looked up as he thought he heard the faint sound of the electric wheelchair moving. The door on the opposite side didn’t move and also didn’t look like it would open any time soon, so Fu Shiwu could only close his own door.

In this building, Fu Shiwu wasn’t the only one who never took a step outside his house all this while. When these people learnt that the armed police outside had withdrawn, they were already a step behind others.

But that wasn’t the most surprising news. Earlier, a family on the ground floor attempted to run away and was caught, so now all entrances and exits of their building had been blocked.

Somehow, they had been trapped in this place!