The silence is about to begin.
Pei Ran stared at these words.
What does it mean?
She glanced at the sender.
The sender field was completely blank.
Pei Ran flipped back to confirm again. Other messages had senders, or at least a number in the sender field. This blank sender seemed very strange.
Pei Ran got out of bed, opened the window, and poked her head out to look outside.
Occasionally, a hover car would sweep past outside the building. From the 21st floor, she could see people coming and going on the streets below.
Someone was walking their dog, and another person carrying a black trash bag exited the building’s door, greeted the dog walker, and with a wave of their hand, tossed the black bag onto the top of a mountain of garbage.
The sound carried upward, and Pei Ran could clearly hear people greeting each other and chatting casually. No one was “not speaking.”
There was no trace of tension in the air. Everything seemed perfectly normal.
She didn’t know what this “silence begins” that forbade speaking or sending messages meant.
Pei Ran searched her mind carefully, but unfortunately, in her chaotic memories, she couldn’t find any useful information.
She opened her wristband, wanting to search online. The internet had been fine last night, but today it wasn’t working.
Pei Ran thought carefully.
In novels from the old era that she had read before, there was mention of a type of scam where scammers would send messages that normal people would find absurd, such as “law enforcement officers are carrying guns and preparing to execute you at your doorstep,” or “the case you are involved in is a major national case, classified as level two secrecy, and you must absolutely not tell your family or friends.”
The scammers would first use outrageous messages to filter out those with low intelligence, then target those willing to believe. No matter how elaborate the initial messages were, they would always circle back to scamming money.
This “silence warning” might very well be something like that.
Besides, based on Pei Ran’s past experience, there was another possibility.
In the bunker world, almost every month, all human settlements would conduct an evacuation drill, simulating an emergency situation where the bunker was invaded.
Upon receiving the alarm, all residents had to immediately move to relatively safe shelters nearby. Inside the shelters, one of the most important rules to follow was to maintain absolute silence.
Not a single sound was allowed.
So children who grew up in the bunker learned not to cry from a young age.
The drills usually lasted a few hours, and only after the alarm was lifted could everyone come out again.
The current situation feels very similar to an evacuation drill. Perhaps it really is some kind of drill in this world.
Gurgle.
Her stomach growled again.
Whether it’s a drill or something else, the first priority is to solve the food problem.
Pei Ran glanced at the original owner’s memo.
Today’s memo read:
【Wednesday: Beef Noodle Day】
The original owner had a fixed takeout menu for each day of the week. Yesterday’s pizza was delicious, but today she couldn’t order beef noodles because there was no internet.
Pei Ran sat there feeling frustrated when suddenly she had an idea. She flipped through the contacts. She had noticed it yesterday—there was a number listed as “Fantasy Wing Building B, Ground Floor Noodle Shop.”
The original owner had sent countless messages to this shop:
【One beef noodle, Fantasy Wing Building A, Room 02115, thank you】
【One beef noodle, Building A, Room 02115, no cilantro, thank you】
【One beef noodle, charge to my account, thank you】
【Beef noodle】
【The usual】
…
Because she had ordered so many times, the messages became shorter and shorter as they became more familiar. At first, the shop would politely exchange a few words, but gradually they just replied with a simple “Received” sticker.
Pei Ran thought of following suit and was about to copy and paste when she remembered the strange “silence begins” warning.
Please do not speak. Please do not send any text messages to others. Only image-based communication is safe.
Even if this really is some kind of drill, even if the people downstairs are still chatting as usual, she should take it seriously.
Drills are meant to cultivate good habits in advance. In the bunker, everyone Pei Ran knew who didn’t take drills seriously ended up dead.
She didn’t paste the text message. Instead, she clicked on the noodle shop’s profile picture.
Its profile picture was a bowl of beef noodles, with the price listed below: 28 yuan per bowl. The broth was rich, the color vibrant, and there was plenty of beef—no cheating customers.
Pei Ran carefully cropped the part of the image showing the beef noodles.
She tilted her head to examine the picture, her gaze settling on a small cluster of finely chopped green leaves in the bowl.
In her mind, a strange taste rushed to the forefront.
Cilantro.
The taste of delicious food was already fading from her memory, but the taste of things she disliked was still crystal clear.
There was no way she could let that weird stuff be added.
The noodle shop owner might remember her habit of not eating cilantro, but what if he didn’t? What if he saw the picture and casually sprinkled a handful of it?
She couldn’t let that strange stuff ruin an entire bowl of fragrant beef noodles.
Pei Ran opened the picture and studied it for a while, eventually finding the editing tool. The image editing function was quite powerful—it allowed her to add text or use brushes of various colors.
Writing “no cilantro” on the picture should be enough. In that strange warning message, all the text had been written on the image.
But Pei Ran was a bit puzzled: if text communication wasn’t allowed, why was text on images acceptable?
The rules of this world’s drills seemed rather lax.
She had to hold herself to a higher standard and be strict with herself.
Pei Ran didn’t write any text. Instead, she carefully drew a big red cross over the cilantro.
After saving the edited picture, she thought for a moment, then opened it again and added another picture of beef noodles next to the first one before hitting send.
Two bowls of beef noodles, side by side—beef noodles times two. One bowl simply wasn’t enough.
She hoped the noodle shop owner would understand what she meant.
A moment later, the owner replied with the usual “Received” sticker, as per routine.
Pei Ran felt relieved and patiently waited for the delivery guy to knock on her door.
The noodle shop was located in the neighboring Building B, but there was no movement outside her door for a long time.
After waiting for a while, the doorbell finally rang.
There was a small old-fashioned screen installed on the wall in the entryway—an electronic peephole. Pei Ran tapped on it first to check the surveillance feed outside her door.
The screen showed a distorted image of a middle-aged man’s head and a shrunken body. He had a protruding belly, wore a diamond-patterned sweater with a down vest over it, and held a dog leash attached to a large black dog.
The dog sniffed at a cardboard box placed by the door.
The man’s outfit was completely different from the uniformed delivery guy from yesterday, and with the dog in tow, he seemed more like the neighbor who had been yelling next door last night.
This man seemed emotionally unstable, so Pei Ran stayed silent.
The middle-aged man waited for a moment, and when no one answered the door, he grew impatient.
Refusing to give up, he clenched his fist and began pounding on the door—bang, bang, bang.
Is anyone there? I live next door and came over to ask about your house…
His words came to an abrupt halt.
Sudden change erupted.
His face and his open mouth, which had been speaking, seemed to freeze for an instant, then—bang—a muffled explosion.
Debris flew everywhere.
A blurred mass of flesh and blood splattered onto the peephole, stayed for half a second, then slid down.
The lens of the peephole was immediately stained blood-red. Amid the sea of red, the middle-aged man outside the door had vanished. In his place were fragments of flesh and blood, spraying in all directions.
Countless indistinguishable body parts were scattered across the floor, the hallway walls, and the ceiling. A person could actually be reduced to such tiny pieces.
The dog let out a miserable yelp.
It hadn’t exploded, but its tail and half of a hind leg were gone. It ignored its owner, dragging the remaining half of its leash, limping as it bolted away. (TL: Nawww, NOT THE DOG!)
Pei Ran froze.
No matter how many times she had witnessed death in all its forms, she had never imagined that in this seemingly safe world, someone could die so suddenly—and in such a horrific way.
She swiftly stepped back, putting as much distance between herself and the door as possible, steadying herself.
She hadn’t seen the attack. Her mind quickly assessed the situation.
This apartment was at the end of the corridor, and through the peephole, the entire hallway was visible—completely empty, not even clutter that could conceal someone. The hallway was fully enclosed. Even with the power out, emergency lights provided illumination. There were no windows, no possible sniper positions.
No sniper meant it had to be self-detonation. Something inside his body had exploded, tearing him apart.
Pei Ran opened her wristband’s virtual screen again and found that image.
【Please do not speak】
Please do not speak.
Before exploding, the middle-aged man had clearly spoken half a sentence. Only half. He hadn’t even finished before—bang.
The thought had barely formed when an unusual sound seemed to drift from outside the window.
Pei Ran quickly moved to the window, cautiously peering out.
At some point, all the hovering vehicles that usually zipped through the air had disappeared. The roads between the buildings were empty—strangely empty.
On the pedestrian walkway below, however, there was one person. Wrapped in a white scarf, wearing a black-and-white patterned woolen hat, they stood frozen like a statue, as if struck by some sudden, overwhelming shock.
About two meters away from them, from this high vantage point, a massive, blood-red bloom had burst open.
At the entrance of the building across the street, a security guard in a navy-blue uniform was walking out.
He seemed to have seen something as well. While hurriedly crossing the street, he activated the virtual screen on his wristband—probably trying to call the police.
The person in the woolen hat seemed to be completely stunned, still frozen in place. The security guard quickened his pace, walking toward them.
Don’t speak. Pei Ran silently willed in her heart. Don’t speak.
But the security guard couldn’t sense her thoughts.
As his voice carried upward, Pei Ran vaguely heard him speak.
“What’s going on…? The Public Security Bureau’s line won’t connect… The municipal hotline won’t connect either…”
Bang.
A muffled explosion.
The security guard was gone. Flesh and blood splattered across the street.
Pei Ran lifted her gaze, scanning the surrounding buildings before refocusing on the road.
The person in the woolen hat, terrified by the successive explosions, suddenly let out an inhuman shriek.
“Ah—ah—”
This time, Pei Ran silently counted the seconds in her heart.
One. Two. Three.
Bang.
The wailing ceased.
Another blood-red bloom burst open on the street.
Everyone who spoke had died.