N-A-A Chapter 30 Before the Storm
Chapter 30 Before the Storm
The alarm sounded at 4:17 PM. Su Xinpei was squatting in front of the third row of metal cabinets in the archives room, rearranging the file numbers of the unusual complaints surrounding Beihe No. 2 Primary School in chronological order. Aunt He pushed open the door, holding a sheet of thermal paper that had just been torn from the fax machine; the edges were still slightly warm. "Emergency notification from the Special Meteorological Bureau, Orange Alert." She handed over the fax paper, which bore a symbol of a closed-eyed, one-eyed figure, with only five lines of text:
Crack No. 12 in the Beihe abandoned industrial zone began step expansion at 15:48 today. The expansion rate exceeds the upper limit of the previous prediction model by about three times, and a stable convergence period cannot be determined at this time. The crack radius has expanded to cover the entire area of Workshop 3 in the past half hour. The Special Meteorological Bureau has activated a full emergency response, and the Beihe Subdistrict Office is requested to cooperate in implementing the personnel evacuation plan under the orange alert.
Su Xinpei read the fax twice. Step expansion. He had personally witnessed the heatwave-like fluctuations at the edge of the crack that night in the Beihe factory area. Old Tie Tou said that was called a step expansion—the crack would jump once it had absorbed enough environmental energy, widening the opening segment by segment. Last time, the crack only expanded by less than half a meter, but this time the rate jumped to three times the normal rate.
He closed the file box and stood up. "I'll be in charge of Settlement Point 7. I'm going there now." Aunt He didn't stop him, but turned around and took a brown paper envelope from her office drawer. Inside were a pre-printed emergency contact list, a blank letter of introduction stamped with a seal, and a key to a locker at Settlement Point 7. She placed the envelope in his hand: "The first page of the contact list has the list of social workers on each floor of the settlement. The second page has the duty frequency and emergency codes of the Special Affairs Bureau. You can fill in the date on the letter of introduction yourself. There are three days' worth of compressed dry food and a case of bottled water in the locker. Don't lose the key." Su Xinpei stuffed the envelope into his coat pocket, picked up his briefcase, and walked out.
The No. 7 resettlement site was located in an abandoned primary school building at the westernmost end of Beihe District, less than two kilometers away from the factory area where the cracks were located. It was one of the designated emergency shelters in Xiacheng District. When Su Xinpei arrived, the resettlement site was already operational—classrooms had been converted into temporary dormitories, desks had been pushed together to form beds, and the sports equipment room had been cleared out to store blankets and folding beds urgently allocated by the Civil Affairs Bureau. He found Lao Sun, the person in charge of the resettlement site (an old section chief who had worked in the district civil affairs bureau for twenty years, whose hair had turned completely white and whose voice was so hoarse that it sounded like sandpaper), handed him the letter of introduction, and began to help resettle the first batch of residents who had been transferred there.
The first group to be transferred were residents from the outskirts of the factory area, mostly casual laborers and scavengers renting rooms there. They had little luggage; a few woven bags and a bedding were all their belongings. They were settled in the two largest classrooms on the first floor. Su Xinpei registered their names, addresses, and health conditions one by one, and assigned them beds and blankets. When he was registering the thirtieth-something people, an old woman grabbed his sleeve and wouldn't let go, repeatedly asking, "My cat is still at home, can I go back and hug my cat?" Su Xinpei squatted down and told her that returning to the danger zone was prohibited at the resettlement site, but the property management would help her lock the door, and that it was safe if the cat was at home. The old woman let go, and he wrote the property management's phone number on a sticky note and handed it to her.
The second group of people transferred came from the east side of the old district; they were the long-time residents of the tenement buildings—Uncle Zhang and his yellow dog were among them. Uncle Zhang was carrying the dog bed into the classroom when Su Xinpei was moving folding beds; the two exchanged a glance. Uncle Zhang said the dog hadn't barked that night, but had been pacing back and forth inside. Su Xinpei helped him place the dog bed next to the last row of desks in the classroom, whispering, "It's safer here."
After moving the folding bed, he leaned against the horizontal bar by the playground to catch his breath. He took out a micro-communication chip from his pocket and held it behind his ear. The chip emitted a very short beep when activated. Zhou Cheng's voice immediately came through his earpiece—her speech was much faster than usual, with the sound of rapid keyboard typing in the background: "Advisor Su, the iron net monitoring system just recorded a synchronous jump in data for all known cracks in the city. Crack No. 12 in the abandoned industrial area of Beihe is the main epicenter, and the old crack at the former site of the agricultural machinery factory on the east side has also responded—" She paused, then added, "The response pattern is consistent with the carrier characteristics of the Beilian synchronous test two months ago. Technicians are tracking the beacon frequency."
"What's the status of the person in the mirror?" Su Xinpei asked in a low voice.
"At least twice as many in the surrounding area. And it's not just the larvae—both crack monitoring stations recorded the movement trajectories of mature organisms, and the paths are more orderly than before, as if they were being guided." Zhou Cheng typed a few words on the keyboard. "Team Leader Ye asked me to tell you: all external consultants are on standby tonight. He has doubled the patrol density and expanded the defense zone to the eastern boundary of the old area, but there aren't enough people—Xia Liyuan and Li Dan have been transferred to the outer perimeter of the factory area's control line, and currently only one small team is mobile."
"Received. I'm at point seven." Su Xinpei switched his earpiece to standby mode, leaned against the horizontal bar, and glanced at the hazy sky above. The sunset was mostly obscured by a layer of grayish-yellow smoke that seemed to have drifted in from nowhere. There was a very faint smell of burning in the air, like something burning in the distance, or like the residue of ozone seeping from a subspace rift diluted by industrial waste gas.
He didn't have time to think much. The third group of people being transferred arrived—it was Uncle Zhou's family in the old town's bungalow area. The wife was holding the child who had said, "There's someone under the bed," and the child was asleep on his mother's shoulder. Su Xinpei went to greet them, took their luggage, and led them to a quieter spot in the corner of the classroom, where he arranged several folding beds in a semi-circle to give them some privacy. When the child was placed on the temporary bed, he groggily opened his eyes and asked, "Is there anyone under the bed?" Su Xinpei squatted down and told him that there was nothing under the bed. The child closed his eyes, turned over, and continued to sleep.
The resettlement work continued until late at night. After three rounds of transfers, the resettlement site had taken in nearly two hundred people. There weren't enough classrooms, so temporary sleeping mats were set up in the corridors. Su Xinpei was busy distributing compressed biscuits and bottled water, arranging for the elderly to have their blood pressure checked at the medical room, helping social workers organize the roster, and repeatedly confirming the delivery time of the next batch of blankets with the material dispatch center via walkie-talkie. His calves were already sore, and his throat was starting to go dry, but he didn't have time to think about being tired—every time he bent down and stood up while carrying supplies, his peripheral vision would catch a glimpse of the elderly and children curled up on the sleeping mats at the end of the corridor, and his legs would unconsciously keep moving.
During this time, he poured a cup of hot water for an elderly man who was wrapped in a blanket and sitting at a desk in a daze. The old man was also clutching an old alarm clock that he had hastily brought from home. Su Xinpei did not say anything to comfort him, but simply placed the cup of water where he could reach it.
Around 1 a.m., Zhou Cheng's short voice suddenly came through the earpiece: "The violet radiation of Crack 12 has suddenly increased, which may trigger a new round of step expansion. The Special Meteorological Bureau predicts—" She paused for a moment and continued, "that the activity of people reflected in the mirror will increase in the surrounding blocks within half an hour."
Su Xinpei walked to a secluded corner by the edge of the playground and lowered his voice: "Point number seven is located southwest of the crack, less than two kilometers away. Is it within the affected area?"
"Currently, the wind is blowing north-northeast, and the pollutants are not yet covering point 7. However, if the step expansion exceeds expectations, the diffusion path will change—you at least need to prepare for internal containment." Zhou Cheng's voice was very low and flat.
Su Xinpei glanced at the time on his phone. He pulled two items from his inner coat pocket—a spare micro-rune communication chip issued by the Special Meteorological Bureau, which he hadn't used when dismantling the signal device in the abandoned factory area; and a dried jujube talisman given to him by Master Chen, with the jujube pit pressed against the back of the talisman, which felt slightly warm to the touch. He checked both items, attaching the communication chip to the spare contact point inside his left collar, and moving the dried jujube talisman to a more easily accessible spot in his inner coat pocket.
Around 2 a.m., the wind near the playground suddenly changed direction. The cold wind that had been coming from the north, carrying the acrid smell of the industrial area, suddenly stopped, replaced by a humid, stuffy smell from the east, a mixture of rust and ozone. The leaves of the old poplar trees outside the eastern wall of point seven, which had been rustling, suddenly fell silent. The emergency lights on the playground flickered briefly before returning to normal.
Su Xinpei stood at the entrance of the corridor, turning his head to look towards the factory area to the east. A very faint purple halo appeared and disappeared above the lower clouds on the horizon, exactly the same purple light he had seen in the factory workshop, only this time it was farther away, larger, and colder. He reached into his coat pocket and touched the dried jujube talisman paper—the paper was warmer than before.
Zhou Cheng's voice suddenly tightened in her earpiece: "The No. 12 fissure has expanded for the third time, exceeding the previously predicted upper limit. The number of people in the mirror—my god." She paused for two seconds, her fingers returning to the keyboard. "The movement trajectories of at least twelve mature organisms have been confirmed, spreading from the industrial area outwards. Team Leader Ye has led his team to the interception position. Advisor Su, point seven is not currently listed as a spread direction, but please remain on standby."
Su Xinpei replied with "Received," switching his earpiece to continuous monitoring. He leaned against the classroom doorframe, watching the elderly and children sleeping on makeshift mats in the corridor—some snoring softly, others tossing and turning. In the corner of the classroom, Uncle Zhou's wife held their child, the child's brow resting comfortably against his mother's shoulder. He thought that if something really came from the direction of the factory area, he would stand at this end of the corridor, using his current tendon and skin training, stance training, alchemy, and the dried jujube talismans given by Master Chen, to stop it outside the school gate by any means still within reach. But he said nothing, only turning to the kitchen to heat up a kettle of water, handing cups to the still-awake social worker on duty and Old Sun on night watch. The purple light in the east flashed across the sky for a long time, gradually fading away.