Chapter 1: A new world is coming
“According to the weather report, the nearly three-year-long rainy season is expected to end next Monday. Starting tomorrow, rainfall across the country will begin to decrease.”
“…Temperatures are expected to rise back to pre-rainy season levels of around 25 degrees Celsius, and in some areas like Hanzhou, it may exceed 28 degrees.”
“…However, until the rainy season officially ends, we urge all citizens to travel with caution and stay warm…”
“AHHH!!! There’s a zombie biting people!!!”
A piercing scream rang out above the school building. Students fled in panic down the hallway.
The grade director strode toward the scene with a grim expression, his leather shoes clacking sharply against the tile floor.
The senior-year corridor was already a complete mess. He stood at the far end, his face darker than the stormy skies outside.
“You two! To my office. Now!”
The office fell into dead silence.
After a long pause, the director finally let out a deep breath and called their names.
“Chen Shuang. Zhao Qiansun. Talk. What nonsense are you two up to this time?”
“Well?! Didn’t you have plenty of energy to scream and shout out in the hallway just now?!”
Seeing the two boys standing with heads bowed, saying nothing, the director’s anger flared.
Chen Shuang, whose glasses had a broken corner, let out a long sigh and exchanged a glance with Zhao Qiansun.
“Director, we were just messing around. We know we were wrong.”
“Messing around? Then explain to me—what are those things all over the wall?”
“Paint! It’s paint!” Zhao Qiansun answered in a flash, blinking innocently at the director.
The director’s eyes lingered on each of them for a few seconds. “Why did you throw paint on the walls?”
“We already said—we were just messing around!” Zhao Qiansun’s voice rose uncontrollably, the director’s droning scolding getting on his nerves.
BANG!
The director slammed the desk.
“You screw up and you think you’re still in the right?!”
Zhao Qiansun paused, shrugged, and his defiance deflated instantly.
A couple of seconds passed. He suddenly flared his nostrils exaggeratedly, a confused and dazed look flickering in his eyes.
“Director… do you smell that? It smells amazing.”
Chen Shuang glanced at him, then followed his gaze—landing on the middle-aged director’s neck, layered with soft, pale flesh. The scent wafting from it was warm and inviting.
The director was still fuming and snapped impatiently, “Don’t try to change the subject. This time I’m giving you both a serious punishment. Go clean up the hallway, then each of you write an 800-character reflection. I’ve been too lenient with you two—no sense of rules, no respect…”
The director eventually tired himself out ranting. He grabbed his thermos, took a couple of loud gulps of water, and set it down again—only to find Chen Shuang and Zhao Qiansun still standing there.
He glared. “Why are you still standing around? Think 800 words isn’t enough?”
“N-no, sir,” Chen Shuang replied quickly, then grabbed Zhao Qiansun—who was still staring wide-eyed at the director—and dragged him out. “Let’s go, let’s go.”
Once outside the office, Zhao Qiansun yanked his arm free.
“The director’s so fat, one bite and he’d burst with juice. You can just imagine how good he’d taste. Why’d you stop me?”
“Do you want to get hauled off for dissection?” Chen Shuang shot back, cold sweat soaking his back. “Good thing we didn’t actually hurt anyone just now.”
“So what if we did? We’re finished anyway. The whole world’s about to be finished!” Zhao Qiansun slumped down in defeat. “You really think everything’s going back to normal after the rainy season ends?”
As he spoke, he stretched out his hands. The veins under his nailbeds and across the backs of his hands were a sickly blue-black.
He sighed and tucked them back into his sleeves.
Chen Shuang looked like he wanted to say something, but the grade director came out with his hands clasped behind his back.
“Why are you still here?”
Chen Shuang gave the director a quick once-over—round face, flabby ears—the man had clearly taken very good care of himself.
The director had just turned forty last month, an age rich with… well, richness. His presence made the mouthwatering scent in the air grow thicker, almost intoxicating.
Chen Shuang’s salivary glands suddenly kicked into overdrive. He clenched his jaw to keep the drool from spilling over, but his eyes locked on the director with a vacant, hungry stare.
Zhao Qiansun noticed the change in Chen Shuang. He quickly straightened up, bowing slightly toward the director with a fawning smile.
“Yessir, we’re going, we’re going now.”
—
After dragging Chen Shuang to a quiet spot, Zhao Qiansun let go. Chen Shuang stood with his eyes shut, saying nothing.
“I thought you were better than me,” Zhao Qiansun said, leaning against the wall, shrugging. “But you’re no different.”
It took a long moment before Chen Shuang calmed down. He wiped the sweat from his brow and finally spoke.
“Let’s just go get the mop and cloth. I’ll mop, you wipe the walls.”
“…Seriously?” Zhao Qiansun opened his mouth, then shouted after Chen Shuang’s retreating back,
“You really are better than me! Even after turning into a freak, you’re still trying to be teacher’s little good boy!”
—
The school’s cleaning supplies were kept in a small utility closet at the very end of the first floor. Normally, only students on cleaning duty ever went near it.
The key was usually placed on the windowsill by the door. But when Chen Shuang reached out to grab it, his hand met empty air.
Looking down, he saw the key was still in the lock—and the door was ajar.
Someone was inside.
Zhao Qiansun, noticing Chen Shuang’s hesitation, shoved him aside and kicked the door open. His patience was nonexistent when he was this hungry.
Inside, a boy was rinsing a mop under the tap. He looked up at the noise.
“Wu Heng?” Zhao Qiansun walked in casually. “You’re on cleaning duty today?”
“Yeah,” Wu Heng replied.
Chen Shuang stared at Wu Heng, who stood by the sink. His sleeves were rolled up, revealing pale, almost bloodless arms that looked like they weighed barely anything.
The standard black-and-white school uniform hung off his thin frame like it was draped on a stalk of wheat.
His almond-shaped eyes were perfectly symmetrical but clouded with gloom, dull and lifeless. His skin was so pale it bordered on malnourished.
Wu Heng was in the same class as them, but he always kept to himself—practically invisible.
There were rumors his family treated him poorly. That probably explained his withdrawn personality.
This was the first time Chen Shuang had actually gotten a good look at his face.
Zhao Qiansun was looking at Wu Heng too, and he frowned slightly, as if something about the sight unsettled him. ‘Feels like something stuck in my teeth,’ he thought.
“You done washing?” Chen Shuang asked, stepping toward the sink as he shut the door behind him.
Wu Heng nodded. The fringe over his brow swayed lightly. “Yeah, all done.”
He carried the mop over to the wall, propping it upside-down against it so the water could drain off into the floor vent.
Chen Shuang stayed where he was, sniffing the air. The spot where Wu Heng had just been standing carried a strange, delicious scent of flesh—more tempting than even the one coming from the director earlier.
“Wu Heng,” he called.
Wu Heng was just pulling down his sleeves. Hearing his name, he turned around.
A shadow dropped toward him at lightning speed. Instinctively, Wu Heng shut his eyes.
A searing pain exploded across the top of his skull. He didn’t even have time to cry out before his vision blurred.
Just before he blacked out, he caught one last glimpse of Chen Shuang—the top student, the model classmate—his face now distorted, consumed by a gaping, monstrous maw.
What… is that thing?
—
“Did you lock the door?”
“Locked.”
“Block it with a desk too.”
“On it.”
Chen Shuang looked down at the boy collapsed on the ground. After a moment of thought, he removed his school uniform jacket and bent down to lift Wu Heng into his arms.
He set Wu Heng gently on a makeshift table that Zhao Qiansun had cobbled together from several desks.
“Chen Shuang, you’re incredible—seriously. You said you’d do it, and you just did! I swear, I don’t admire anyone else but you right now!”
Zhao Qiansun was practically vibrating with excitement, fists clenched, eyes bulging out of their sockets. The veins on his face stood out in dark, pulsing lines.
Chen Shuang responded calmly, “Someone like him… even if he disappeared into thin air, no one would notice.”
Wu Heng was already awake.
He didn’t open his eyes—just lay there, listening in silence to the two of them speak.
No… these two probably weren’t even human anymore.
A week ago, he’d come across some posts online about cannibalism—humans eating other humans.
Like most commenters, he’d assumed it was just a ploy for clicks, made up by some twisted attention-seeker.
And sure enough, follow-up statements from officials had labeled the stories as fabrications.
But now, the things they called rumors were coming horrifyingly true.
A warm breath brushed against Wu Heng’s neck. Something wet was dripping… steadily.
“He’s so thin,” Zhao Qiansun murmured, his dried-up, bluish fingers circling Wu Heng’s wrist. “I don’t think there’s enough meat here for both of us.”
“Better than nothing,” Chen Shuang said as he tugged down the zipper of Wu Heng’s school jacket.
The boy’s slender neck disappeared into a round-collared sweater, where faint bluish marks peeked out near the collarbone.
Chen Shuang paused.
If he had a choice, he wouldn’t eat something with blemishes.
“Can we eat now? I’m starving,” Zhao Qiansun said, placing a hand on Wu Heng’s thigh. The warmth of the flesh beneath made his fingers twitch with anticipation.
“Anytime. Let’s keep it quick,” Chen Shuang replied. As he spoke, a trail of saliva dribbled from the corner of his mouth, landing on Wu Heng’s collarbone with a faint plop, reeking faintly of rot.
Then, with a hungry gleam in his eye, he ran his fingers along Wu Heng’s neck and leaned down.
A grotesque crack echoed through the air as his jaw unhinged unnaturally wide—
—but Wu Heng was ready.
Without hesitation, he pulled out the folding knife he’d been clutching for who knows how long and drove it straight into the twisted face hovering over him, stabbing again and again without pause.
Blood spurted onto Wu Heng’s face with a sickening hiss.
Chen Shuang’s scream, raw and guttural, sounded more like a wounded animal than a human.
Before Zhao Qiansun could react, the boy who’d just been lying there, seemingly helpless, was suddenly right in front of him.
“You—” Zhao Qiansun stared in shock at Wu Heng, whose blood-smeared face remained eerily expressionless.
In one fluid motion, the boy crouched atop the table and drove his folding knife clean through Zhao Qiansun’s eyes with ruthless precision.
“Wu Heng, f*ck you!” Zhao Qiansun roared, reaching blindly toward him.
But his movements were clumsy, jerky—like a puppet with tangled strings.
Wu Heng flipped off the table, landing lightly on the ground just as Chen Shuang came staggering toward him, growling like an animal, a guttural “huhh-huhh” echoing from his throat.
But this Chen Shuang was nothing like the quiet, model student Wu Heng remembered.
Half his face was dominated by a grotesquely widened mouth, torn and dripping. The tongue hung limp, nearly severed, and blood poured from his ruined mouth like a fountain—yet he seemed numb to it, his eyes focused solely on the boy before him like prey.
Wu Heng swallowed hard, dodging a swipe of clawed fingers. His eyes flicked around the room—then he darted down and snatched up a broken table leg studded with nails.
Chen Shuang lunged again.
Wu Heng swung.
With a sharp crack, he slammed the makeshift weapon into Chen Shuang’s head. Again. And again. Seven, maybe eight brutal strikes.
A wet, meaty chunk—warm and reeking of iron—splattered onto Wu Heng’s eyelid.
It slid slowly down his face and hit the floor with a soft, final splat.
Wu Heng looked down.
The thing on the floor… looked like tofu pudding.
Realizing he was actively killing someone—had killed someone—Wu Heng pressed his lips into a thin line.
He kicked Chen Shuang’s barely-standing body to the floor, then turned toward Zhao Qiansun, who was still wailing in agony, clutching the remains of his eyes.
Wu Heng stood over him in silence. His expression had shifted—now tinged with grief, with helplessness.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Then he raised the table leg.
Crack!
Zhao Qiansun screamed.
Crack!
Another scream.
Blood slowly pooled beneath Wu Heng’s feet, soaking into the soles of his canvas shoes.
It wasn’t the kind of blood he was used to seeing—it was dark red, almost black, and reeked of rot.
Stepping over Zhao Qiansun’s lifeless body, Wu Heng walked to the sink and turned on the tap.
First, he rinsed the folding knife. Then he scrubbed his fingers—hard—and washed his face.
The water running off his hands swirled red for a long while before it finally ran clear.
By the time he looked up again, Wu Heng’s heartbeat had returned to normal. He dried his hands, pocketed the knife, and turned to clean up the mess.
He took photos of the two bodies—carefully framing the grotesquely distorted maw of Chen Shuang, the blackened sockets of Zhao Qiansun’s eyes, and the bluish tinge of their skin.
Lastly, he stepped into the far corner of the storage room and found the perfect angle to capture a wide shot—a haunting image of brutal beauty.
Once the photos were done, Wu Heng dragged Chen Shuang over to the storage cabinet and stuffed him inside.
Chen Shuang was skinny—barely fit. Zhao Qiansun, on the other hand, was bulkier. Wu Heng had to fold him in half to fit him into another cabinet.
Even then, part of him still stuck out—so Wu Heng kicked at the protruding limbs a dozen times until he could finally slam the door shut.
At last, he attached an extension hose to the faucet and began hosing down the bloodstained floor.
Red water spiraled into the drain.
Wu Heng’s soaked lashes drooped slightly.
Though his eyes were hidden by shadow, their reflection shimmered faintly in the blood-tinted water—a strange glint, sharp and unreadable.
His gaze drifted toward the window.
The sky outside was a dull, lifeless gray.
It reminded him of those so-called “conspiracy posts” he’d seen online—
The old world, ruled by humans, is ending. A new world is coming.
