The survivors straightened instinctively under her gaze.
Qingran didn’t need to raise her voice. The sheer pressure she exuded, it was cold, steady, unshakable.
She made it clear that this was not a place for argunts or complaints.
"I don’t care what your background was before. Doctor, teacher, rich kid, street rat. It’s all useless now. Here, you are what you do. Not what you were. Of course, if you’re a doctor, I’ll hold you with a little more regard."
Several people flinched, a ripple of unease moving through the group.
She continued, "You’ll be split into work groups. Security, logistics, maintenance, sanitation. Each group will have a lead. Orders co from them. If you have a problem, take it to your leaders. If it’s serious, your leaders will co to ."
Feng Yuxi began handing out slips of paper with assignnts written on them, moving quickly through the crowd.
Qingran watched silently, arms crossed, as people hesitated before taking them. So looked relieved, happy just to have sothing to do. Others glanced at each other, uncertainty in their eyes.
"You’ll get one hour in between to eat, drink, and settle your personal matters." Qingran said. "After that, we work until sunset. No exceptions, of course those would sprained ankles and broken arms and what not..would stay back for now. So Taejin, you’re off duty but once you’re all better, you’ll be in security."
Soone in the back, a young man maybe no older than twenty, raised a tentative hand.
"What about weapons?" he asked, his voice cracking slightly. "To defend ourselves?"
Qingran’s gaze cut to him like a blade.
"Weapons will be issued when you earn them.." she said coolly. "First, show you can lift a brick without whining. Show you can build a barricade without tripping over your own feet. Then we’ll talk weapons. Of course, you’ll be given weapons if you’re going on scouting but for now, you don’t need it before you’re safer inside."
The young man swallowed hard and lowered his hand.
Satisfied that no one else dared to speak, Qingran stepped back.
"Feng Yuxi, you have command over the 39th floor. Rotate shifts every six hours. Send the injured or sick to on the 34th floor."
"Understood," Feng Yuxi said crisply.
"Good. I’ll check the 35th floor markings later. For now, move on."
The group dispersed slowly, pairs and trios forming as they made their way toward their assigned areas. There was still a sense of fragility among them, but Qingran could see the first hints of cohesion too.
The desperate survival instinct that would hopefully bind them into sothing stronger.
She let out a slow breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
Lingquan spoke softly in her mind.
[This is a start. You’re holding them together.]
"For now.." Qingran murmured under her breath. "But the tide will test them. And ."
She stayed on the 39th floor for the next two hours, overseeing the initial sorting. People needed to be nudged into action, sotis pushed hard.
But after the first few orders barked and the first few tasks assigned, things began moving more smoothly.
i Jiao, the fifteen-year-old girl Feng Yuxi had worried about, ended up assigned to sanitation, one of the lighter duties, but still crucial.
Qingran watched from a distance as the girl scrubbed the walls silently, her motions chanical but still determined. Fear still clung to her like a second skin, but at least she was moving.
At least she hadn’t curled up and refused. Then she would have no choice, than to give her a good beating and knock so sense into her.
As noon approached, Qingran’s body began reminding her that she wasn’t invincible. Her shoulders ached fiercely, her bandaged hands throbbed with every heartbeat, and a low-grade headache was steadily building behind her eyes.
But she didn’t stop. She couldn’t afford to stop.
By the ti she climbed down to the 35th floor to inspect the strange markings ng Nian had ntioned, she felt like she was running on fus.
ng Nian t her at the stairwell door, his expression serious.
"They’re still there.." he said. "We posted a guard to make sure no one touched anything."
"Good" Qingran muttered. "Show ."
They moved through the darkened corridor, the lights casting long, eerie shadows against the walls.
It didn’t take long to see what he ant.
Symbols were crude and deliberate, it had been carved into the plaster walls, in spirals, jagged lines and interlocking triangles.
So parts had been sared with sothing dark, like dried blood.
Qingran crouched near the largest cluster, tracing one of the symbols lightly with her fingertips.
"Recognize any of it?" ng Nian asked.
"No." Her voice was flat. "But it’s not random."
Lingquan whispered quietly:
[Residual energy detected. That’s the only thing I can pick up right now]
This had probably happen before the apocalypse started in full, but what did these symbols an?
Qingran rose to her feet slowly, her joints protesting.
"Don’t touch anything until I say otherwise," she ordered. "Post two guards here around the clock. I’ll co back to study it later."
ng Nian nodded, already relaying the orders over the communication device.
Qingran stood for another mont, staring at the wall.
A bad feeling gnawed at her gut.
She didn’t believe in superstitions. She didn’t need to. The world was already broken enough without inventing ghosts to haunt it.
But these markings... They reeked of sothing old, sothing malignant.
Perhaps it was related to the systems...
Another problem to add to the mountain already crushing them.
⸻
When she finally returned to the 40th floor in the late afternoon, Bai Shiyue had left a tray of food outside her door again, warm vegetable porridge and flatbread.
"Sigh. She should stop giving food when I don’t ask for it. But I should eat sothing. I’ll take ng Nian along with during this scouting. I’ll take the SUV and he’ll take the another car. Would be nice if I had a truck, can ferry more people, maybe we can take the ambulance when we scout the hospital."
Th𝓮 most uptodate nov𝑒ls are publish𝒆d on freew(e)bnove(l).𝓬𝓸𝓶
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