Chapter 646: Don’t Open the Door Yet
“Of course you can be sad. But you have to face reality. Your grief made Liu Zhi and the others worry themselves sick—did you ever think about that?” An Ran’s voice rose involuntarily.
Truth be told, in this apocalypse, who hadn’t lost someone they loved? Liu Shasha running out onto the frozen ground to light a sky lantern for her grandfather might have been touching before the end of the world, but now it only seemed reckless and sentimental.
“Enough already. Keep arguing like this and even people who didn’t want to stab anyone will end up grabbing a knife!” Zhao Ru snapped, rubbing her temples as she looked at the two of them acting like squabbling children. “As long as we don’t open the door or let anyone in, Chen Chaofa can’t provoke us. But what about the people outside?” Her tone grew grim.
Thinking about what An Ran had said, she could understand the slaughter outside a little better. When people lacked even the most basic trust, not even blood ties could stop suspicion from festering.
Chen Chaofa didn’t need to kill anyone himself. All he had to do was change his face into someone else’s and make a stabbing motion—then plenty of others would do the killing for him.
Just as she finished speaking, someone knocked on the door.
Inside the room, An Ran, Zhao Ru, and Liu Shasha all froze and exchanged alarmed looks.
Zhao Ru took a deep breath and ran to the peephole. After a glance, she turned back to An Ran.
“It’s Yun Tao.”
“Ask what he wants—but don’t open the door yet.”
An Ran had already seen the figure through the vines covering the corridor. It really was Yun Tao.
While giving instructions to Zhao Ru, she extended her awareness downward through the plants, “looking” toward the lobby below. The fighting there was intense. Zhan Lian, Luo Feifan, and Yun Tao’s men were no longer in the tearoom—everyone was tangled in a chaotic brawl. She could occasionally catch glimpses of Zhan Lian and Luo Feifan amidst the melee.
While she was searching for Yun Tao among the combatants, Zhao Ru called through the door, “Who is it?”
The Yun Tao outside didn’t answer, only knocked again urgently and shouted, “Don’t come out! It’s a bloodbath out here—don’t open the door!”
Then he hurried away.
An Ran’s “vision” followed him through the vines and saw him knocking on other doors, repeating the same warning to each room. He moved methodically down the hallway, then went upstairs, continuing to tell everyone not to open their doors.
At first glance, there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with his behavior. He looked like he was warning everyone to stay safe.
Down in the lobby, amid the raging chaos, Zhan Lian and Luo Feifan were pulling a few seemingly innocent people—mostly children and the elderly—out of the crowd. The rest were killing each other in blind frenzy. No matter how many times the two men intervened, the moment they turned away, new fights broke out.
It wasn’t just a melee anymore—it was an ugly war of human nature itself. All the filth buried deep inside people’s hearts was laid bare in the slaughter.
After a while, An Ran noticed a few survivors breaking free of the chaos, rushing into the emergency stairwell and fleeing up to the second-floor café, where they hid trembling in corners.
Zhan Lian and Luo Feifan brought a group of children up as well. They reached the third floor, didn’t knock on any doors, simply herded the children into the cinema, shut the door, and left them crying inside.