Chapter Eight: Bacteria

This voice sounded very familiar to Liu Chang, as if it belonged to someone he knew.

“Don’t do anything, we mean no harm.” Liu Chang stepped forward, and only when he was within the other person’s reach did he clearly see their face.

“Teacher Li, it really is you.” Indeed, it was a familiar face—more precisely, a face he had just seen that morning: his biology teacher, Li Qingshui.

“You are... Liu Chang?” Upon seeing Liu Chang’s face, Teacher Li lowered his guard and set aside the iron rod he’d been holding.

“And me, Liu Tao.” Liu Tao also stepped forward so Teacher Li could recognize him.

“How did you two end up here?” Li Qingshui stepped aside and said, “Let’s talk inside.”

“Alright.” The two of them nodded and entered the dimly lit room.

Inside, it was even darker than outside. With no sunlight, the thick red mist, and the power lines destroyed by the vines outside, the darkness was absolute—one could barely see their own hand in front of their face.

Still, after a moment, their eyes adjusted, and at close range, people could just barely make out each other’s outlines.

So, after just a few seconds in the darkness, Liu Chang saw a room full of familiar faces—all from their school.

There were several students and more than a dozen parents, over twenty people in total. It seemed that after the apocalypse began, a small group from the school had banded together and found refuge here, likely led by their biology teacher.

Evidently, Liu Chang and his friends weren’t the only ones who thought of using a convenience store as a safe haven.

Once inside, Liu Chang spotted two even more familiar faces among the crowd—Fatty and Glasses.

“Liu Chang, Liu Tao?” Fatty stepped out from the crowd. “How did you find this place?”

“We just stumbled upon it,” Liu Chang replied with a smile. “We’re lucky. Teacher, were you out scouting? We didn’t expect to run into you.”

“I’m glad you’re both alright.” Glasses left his parents’ side and walked over, a hint of guilt in his eyes.

“We’re fine. We didn’t run into any real danger on the way,” Liu Chang said, unconsciously tightening his grip on the gun hidden in his chest.

“That’s good.” Glasses nodded. “This place is still safe for now.”

“There’s no such thing as a safe place anymore,” Teacher Li said, coming over. “The rate of biological mutation is too fast. It’s even faster than what’s described in books about the Cambrian period. If creatures around us keep evolving at this rate, within three days, everything nearby will become a predator. What a strange red mist. Is this red mist the ‘free oxygen’ of the Cambrian period? No wonder the biology scores for university entrance exams have been so much higher these past two years—did they already know this was coming...?”

Teacher Li’s voice gradually trailed off. The last sentence was so quiet that only Liu Chang, standing beside him, could hear it.

“So what do we do?” Fatty’s mother shouted. Teacher Li’s words sparked an anxious commotion in the room.

“I don’t know what we can do. We’ll have to take things as they come and try our best to survive,” Teacher Li sighed, sitting down on the floor next to the shelf.

After exchanging a few words with Fatty and Glasses, Liu Chang and Liu Tao also sat down.

Time passed quickly, and before long, night fell as expected.

The world was plunged into true darkness.

Even at midday, the dense red fog blocked more than seventy percent of the sunlight. Now, the gentle glow of the moon and stars was entirely cut off, and in the pitch-black room, they finally understood what it meant to “not see your hand in front of your face.”

But Teacher Li had prepared for this. Taking out a lighter, he used its flame to light two candles that he had set out in advance.

“We must use candles sparingly, and too much light would make us targets for other creatures.” The candlelight dispelled some of the darkness, bringing a brief moment of brightness to the quiet room.

Sitting beneath the red-tinted candlelight, Liu Chang felt dizzy, and the wound on his ankle began to itch unbearably.

Finding a quiet corner, Liu Chang took off his shoe. With the faint light, he loosened the bandage on his foot, and a putrid stench immediately wafted up.

“Ugh!” The smell from his own body almost made him gag. Forcing himself to endure the odor, he looked down and saw a wound even more horrifying than the smell.

It was completely festering and rotting, the flesh an ugly mix of red, white, and yellow.

“The wound is infected!” Teacher Li’s voice came from behind. He walked over, held Liu Chang’s foot, and pressed gently around the wound.

“Does it hurt?”

“No, it just itches!”

“It’s infected.” Teacher Li adjusted his glasses and stared intently at the festering gash. “Do you have any medicine?”

“Yes,” Liu Chang replied, taking out his backpack, where he kept some common pills.

“Any antibiotics?” Teacher Li examined the various medications in Liu Chang’s bag.

“No.”

“Then take some anti-inflammatory medicine, take more than usual!” After another look at the horrifying wound, Teacher Li frowned. “This looks much worse than a normal infection! It seems it’s not only the large animals that are mutating—these bacteria are evolving as well!”

Liu Chang took out the medicine, saw on the label that the dosage was one tablet at a time, and decided to take two.

“Take even more; it might not help.” Teacher Li was still frowning deeply.

“Alright.” Liu Chang poured out two more tablets and swallowed them with some bottled water from the convenience store.

“Does anyone have alcohol or iodine?” Teacher Li called out loudly to the crowd in the dim light.

No one responded.

The room fell silent.

“Is it really that serious? It’s just an infected wound—I had festering infections all the time when I was a kid.”

“When you were a kid, you also ran into rats and dogs. Is that the same? The simpler the organism, the more likely it is to mutate. Even in normal times, bacteria mutate frequently—let alone under these circumstances.”

“Is it really that bad?” Liu Chang felt a chill in his heart at Li Qingshui’s words. If even the gentlest animals had become ferocious, then the already dangerous pathogens could become truly terrifying.

“I don’t know. Let’s wait and see.” Li Qingshui let out a sigh and said nothing more. The room lapsed back into silence.

Resting his foot on a bench, Liu Chang dared not wrap the festering wound again. Perhaps because of the unbearable stench coming from him, no one approached, not even Li Qingshui, who had retreated into the back for reasons unknown.

Time slipped by in this eerie silence.

Leaning against the wall with his leg propped up, Liu Chang felt his dizziness worsening and his body growing colder.

He realized he was running a fever.