Chapter 33: Collapsing Cities

So they locked the door and asked Negen to go and take care of the house. Everyone gathered at Regus' house. Ike, Tom, and Regus dressed neatly walked out. Bringing their backpack, EDC emergency supplies, and weapons out of the house.

When they were going out, they met Lu Wei and his son Ralph. Ralph was wearing a duck tongue hat with two or three layers of transparent plastic bags inside.

 His expression was cold and stern, and he remained silent. Lu Wei's wife was wrapped in a transparent raincoat and had a slender figure. Lu Wei himself was holding an umbrella and putting several layers of plastic bags over his head to keep out the rain. He was wearing a pair of old blue slippers and rolled up his pants very high.

"A lot of people have gone, we need to hurry up, we'll be robbed if we're late," Ike said.

 Since Ike sent a thousand yuan to the Luwei family and shared some of the supplies found during each dive, Luwei has come closer to Ike's camp.

After contact, it was discovered that Lu Wei was actually a very measured person. No matter how many supplies are given to him, he never asks for more.

Give it to him and he will keep it. The gratitude overflowed on his surface, and occasionally he could catch fish. But I don't know where he caught it. There are freshwater fish and other fish, and he will bring them to Ike and his team.

Thanks to his blessing, Ike and his team had several meals of fresh fish.

"Okay, before we leave, let's talk about a few points," Regus said. "Our primary task is personal safety, followed by the search for supplies."

"Of course," Lu Wei nodded. Everyone closed the door and set off.

Negan and Nami, along with others, moved a marble dining table indoors and barricaded the entrance. This area had become increasingly disorderly, so they needed to exercise caution.

The streets overflowed with people, merging into the crowds on the road. The last time so many people had ventured onto the streets was during the government's distribution of rescue supplies.

 Both occasions involved going out, but their purposes were entirely different. There used to be hope, but now only a glimmer of hope remains, intertwined with despair, distorting everyone's mood.

There were other differences from the last time. Back then, the crowd was mostly scattered, lacking any organized formation, with occasional chatter and noise.

This time, small groups clung together, maintaining a cautious distance from each other. People remained silent, avoiding conversation, with only the sounds of rain, wind, and hurried footsteps filling the air.

Nearly all the food and beverage-related shops on both sides of the street had shut down. Even restaurants, fast-food joints, and milk tea shops had succumbed to the situation.

After all, for those on the brink of starvation, any frozen food left in restaurant fridges was a valuable resource to appease their hunger.

The crowd gathered at the nearest shopping center in the vicinity. As they approached, the tightly-knit groups rushed in, the urgency of their need apparent. Other small stores that should have been looted already had been, while many unlooted ones belonged to large chain stores.

The government had deployed armed forces to maintain order at shopping mall entrances, preventing such incidents.

 However, with a gunshot echoing in the early hours of the previous night, even these last remaining enforcers had faltered.

 It was unclear who fired the first shot, but for those currently rushing to secure supplies, it might have felt like a stroke of luck.

A group of five people entered the mall. This was a massive shopping complex with clothing stores, jewelry shops, decorations, toy stores, and more on the first floor.

The second floor housed a large affordable chain supermarket, while the third floor offered electrical and electronic products.

 The fourth floor hosted a cinema and video game arcade.

Ike and his group's current objective was the first floor, where they urgently needed clothing. If not for a piece of clothing that happened to dry today, they would have been forced to resort to women's clothing again.

As the crowd streamed into the mall through the shattered entrance, the ground was littered with glass shards, debris, mud, and stains—a testament to previous visits.

The dirty and chaotic environment inside suggested that this wasn't the first time the mall had been looted. Ike and Lu Wei had different goals this time. Ike's family lacked clothing but had an adequate food supply, while Lu Wei had enough food but was keen to stock up further.

Ike explained, "Let's meet back here after counting to 1000. Don't delay."

Lu Wei, who had never accompanied Ike's group before, was uncertain about the rules. Tom demonstrated the counting speed for them, showing how to count to 1000 within approximately 20 minutes, slightly slower than a watch's pace.

Finally understanding, Lu Wei decided to follow suit. "We should split up," he suggested.

Ike agreed, "We'll gather clothes on the first floor and leave promptly. Make sure to be quick and avoid causing any trouble."

"Alright," Lu Wei replied, grasping the plan. Ike and the three others didn't require more food, it seemed, as they weren't heading to the second-floor affordable shopping mall for supplies.

As Lu Wei separated from the group with his son Ralph, he swiftly made his way to the second floor of the mall.

As the middle-aged man, known for his "tortoise-speed," moved quickly through the crowd, his progress seemed reminiscent of a clumsy penguin.

Ike, Tom, and Regus, on the other hand, proceeded to the first floor. This level contained high-value items like gold jewelry, decorative accessories, cosmetics counters, and branded clothing stores, among others.

Upon entering, many people made a beeline for the gold jewelry counters, armed with tools such as hammers and large wrenches.

Their aggressive demeanor suggested premeditated intentions. Breaking the glass of the jewelry counters was no easy feat.

As Ike and his group entered and began counting to 1000, the crowd continued their attempts to breach the counters.

 However, even by the time Lu Wei's group had emptied their contents and departed, the counters remained unbroken.

The first floor's clothing stores mainly catered to women, but in the current situation, practicality trumped fashion. Ike's attire was dirty and malodorous, making women's clothing a better option than damp and foul-smelling clothes.

As long as they focused on selecting pants, T-shirts, coats, and other items, and avoided the likes of ultra-short skirts and strapless dresses, they would blend in with minimal discord.

 The mall was packed with people, and as long as they didn't compete aggressively, the crowd's attention was firmly fixed on acquiring necessities, ensuring a relatively safe environment without major obstacles.

Time passed, yet Lu Wei's group had not returned. "Why are they taking so long?" Regus wondered aloud.

"Perhaps they're counting too slowly," Tom speculated. However, their conversation was abruptly interrupted by a deafening gunshot that resounded from within the mall.

Instantaneously, a chaotic mass of people surged outward, fleeing in every direction.

Without needing to guess, it was clear that something had gone terribly wrong inside the mall. Last night's gunshot had shattered the "calm" that had lingered since the power outage, and this new shot extinguished any lingering hope the city held. Collapse seemed imminent.

From the expressions of panic, and confusion, and the way people looked around, Ike deduced that many of them had run out due to crowd inertia and had no idea what had happened inside the mall.

Since the power outage, Ike had been working on improving his survival skills, which included remaining calm in the face of chaos and trying to gather useful information from the outside world. By observing people's facial expressions and body language, Ike quickly identified someone who seemed to be an eyewitness.

With a soothing tone, he asked, "What's going on inside?" This approach was designed to encourage the person to open up and share information willingly.

"Killing... they are killing people!" The man, out of breath from running, struggled to articulate what he had witnessed.

"Who's killing people?" Ike asked gently, trying to extract more details.

"It's a group of men in black uniforms... they have guns, and they're killing anyone they see. The mall is covered in blood."

 The man's words were fragmented, but Ike managed to piece together the information.

It appeared that a group of armed men in black had gone on a killing spree in the discount shopping mall on the second floor.

 The leader of this group was the same man who had fired a gunshot the previous night. The rest of the group, while lacking firearms, were armed with various weapons, such as knives, iron bars, hammers, and kitchen knives, which they used to terrorize the trapped shoppers inside the mall.

Realizing the dire situation, the man speaking to Ike had managed to escape, but many others remained trapped.

 Ike couldn't help but worry about Lu wei and his son. Were they among those who were trapped inside the mall?