Chapter 111 – Panic Spreads

After Su Lifeng and Gouzi drove out of the city center, they realized it wasn’t only the people gathered around the cordon who had grown agitated. The streets themselves had changed drastically as well.

Many people had already left their workplaces or homes and poured onto the streets, trying to get more information from anyone they could.

From snippets of conversation, Su Lifeng learned that aside from a small number of radio stations and the national television network, most media outlets had already been banned. The ones left were only broadcasting messages telling people not to panic and “debunking rumors.” Many websites had also been blocked, leaving very little information available online.

But none of that could stop what was happening.

The entrances to supermarkets and malls were jammed with people. There was no time for them to close. Even stores that had managed to shut their doors in time had been smashed open by frantic crowds. At first, the earliest groups were still buying things in a rush, but as more and more people arrived, it had almost completely turned into looting.

Only then did Gouzi realize that the man he had seen inside the quarantine zone was nothing compared to this. These ordinary people, who normally looked perfectly normal, were now no different from rioters. Some had even smashed open the doors of a jewelry store. Outside an ATM, several young men were desperately trying to break the machine apart.

Even a small roadside fruit stall had not escaped being mobbed. The middle-aged farmer selling fruit tried with all his might to stop them, only to be shoved to the ground. All he could do was crouch there and wail. The people snatching his fruit did not even spare him a second glance.

“Here. Take this money.” A stack of cash was suddenly placed in his hands. The middle-aged man had just looked up in shock when he found that the person in front of him was already gone. The only thing left was the crowd who had been looting his fruit, now lying on the ground and groaning in pain.

The middle-aged man froze for a while, then grabbed the money with trembling hands and stuffed it into his coat. “A good man… a good man…”

“Su-Ge, don’t just get out of the car like that.” Gouzi was carrying two cases holding Xenospecies, and standing on the roadside put him under a lot of pressure.

Just standing there was enough for people to try to steal his cases, probably mistaking the Xenospecies inside for his belongings.

As one of the Mutants, Gouzi certainly was not going to be robbed in the middle of the street, but he was still seething inside.

How was this still a normal city? It was practically a massive asylum. Some of these people’s eyes were so unsettling that even Gouzi, a thug himself, found them chilling.

“The traffic is too bad. I don’t even know where all these people think they’re going to flee once they get out of the city. We might as well walk.” After his physical strength had improved, Su Lifeng had long since grown used to walking. In any case, they were no longer that far from the road leading to the suburbs, and traffic within the city was nearly paralyzed. As for the farmer he had helped in passing just now, Su Lifeng did not take it to heart. That money did not mean much to him anyway.

In fact, after seeing everything along the way, he felt more and more powerless. Perhaps because he looked refined and scholarly, even he had been shoved the moment he got out of the car. Of course, the person who shoved him was immediately kicked so hard he flew backward and could not get up for a long time, but it still showed just how chaotic things had become.

Those who managed to loot supplies were robbed by others in the blink of an eye, and the unrest escalated step by step because of it. Under the influence of the general atmosphere, many people had already gone mad. Even some of the patrol officers had not yet recovered from the shock themselves. Relying on them alone to maintain order was clearly very difficult.

The way things had developed had, in truth, already exceeded Su Lifeng’s expectations. He had originally thought that before the news was fully confirmed, many people would still remain skeptical. Just like the previous rounds of so-called “doomsday crisis” rumors, no matter how convincingly they were spread, there were always plenty of people who refused to believe them.

But this time seemed different… Economic contraction, waves of unemployment, and a large number of death cases. All these factors had piled together, and then, because of an unprecedented speech from the mayor, they had suddenly erupted.

The spread of panic was now inevitable.

“And that’s not even counting the Xenospecies likely guiding things from the shadows, taking the lead in stirring up trouble. Plenty of people are just taking advantage of the chaos too. The Xenospecies in the quarantine zone have probably tied down most of Ningnan City’s elite combat forces…” Su Lifeng thought.

However, the closer they got to the suburbs, the more the situation gradually stabilized. Large numbers of troops were entering from outside the city, and some rioters were quickly subdued. In the face of fully armed soldiers, people whose best weapons were kitchen knives had no combat strength to speak of.

At the same time, though, there were also incidents of Xenospecies suddenly appearing and charging into crowds. Because of that, the scene repeatedly spun out of control. It also proved that Su Lifeng’s guess had indeed been right.

The convoys leaving the city had been stopped at various intersections. Su Lifeng observed carefully for a while and found that the roads leading to the suburbs had not been affected. He took Gouzi with him, carefully skirted around the troops, and entered an alley.

“Su-Ge, I found a motorcycle!” Gouzi pushed a motorcycle over, visibly excited.

“…” Su Lifeng stared at the motorcycle in silence. At a time like this, it really did seem like you could pick up anything off the road… and this was probably only the beginning. The army could maintain stability for a while, but there was no way it could truly keep a city of several million people in the midst of a riot stable for long, especially with Xenospecies moving around so frequently.

And in reality, even if they did maintain order, it would not mean much…

Just then, Su Lifeng suddenly felt his phone vibrate. He took it out and saw an unfamiliar number.

After the call connected, Su Lifeng heard a slightly breathless male voice say, “Hello?”

Su Lifeng frowned. “Who are you?”

After hearing Su Lifeng’s reply, the other party laughed, though no matter how one listened, there was something twisted about that laugh.

“You forgot? Last night, you were ignoring me. How could you forget me already? Huh?”

Su Lifeng froze for a moment, then his expression darkened. “How did you get my number?”

“What, getting anxious? Mm, I can hear it. You’re anxious. Good. It’s good that you can still get anxious.” The other party continued, then let out another low chuckle. “Come to Hebian Village right now. I’ll give you… twenty minutes. Come alone. Otherwise… she’s dead.”

Immediately after that, Liang Junyu hung up.

Su Lifeng slowly tightened his grip around the phone. Originally, he had not taken this man seriously, but now it seemed that, just like Zhu Hao, once ordinary people harbored malicious intentions, they could be just as dangerous, even people like them who usually looked so proper and respectable.

“I was still too soft…” Su Lifeng thought.

At the same time, beside the road in Hebian Village.

Liang Junyu lowered his arm, then glanced at the bloodstained phone in his hand.

A woman’s voice came from beside him. “How could you fail to catch even a girl?”

The smile on Liang Junyu’s face instantly vanished…