Forecasting Natural Disasters for Novel Natives - Chapter 16
Wei Yuexin barely managed a few bites of food before she really couldn’t eat anymore.
She took out her phone and opened DouDou, only to find that the zombie video had been banned.
The reason given was excessive gore.
Wei Yuexin: “…”
How outrageous. She’d lost her appetite over this video and couldn’t even finish her meal—this felt like a workplace injury. Not earning enough from it to compensate seemed unfair, and now it was banned too!
Was all that editing effort wasted?
Her first instinct was to contact HR, but then she thought bothering them several times a day might not look good, so she reluctantly dismissed the idea.
“Sigh, Grandma, seems like today was all for nothing,” she complained to her grandmother lying on the hospital bed. Getting no response, she could only writhe gloomily on the caregiver’s cot, twisting and crawling in frustration, gnawing on the corner of her blanket.
Soon she tired herself out from all the fussing and fell asleep curled under the covers. In her dream, a zombie face suddenly appeared before her eyes, lunging down to bite.
“!” Wei Yuexin jolted awake, clutching her wildly pounding heart, unable to recover for quite some time.
After a long while, she finally exhaled deeply, collapsing weakly onto the bed. Great, now she had lasting trauma from this.
Her stomach gurgled with hunger, singing an empty fortress strategy. She scratched her head and glanced at her phone—it was about time. She got up to turn her grandmother over and pat her back.
Huh? Wait!
She stared at her hands in surprise. Had she been seeing things just now? She thought she’d seen her hands emit a green glow.
She hadn’t done her nails, hadn’t applied any phosphorescent material, and wasn’t wearing any jewelry—how could they be glowing?
She held up her hands and examined them carefully for a while but found nothing. In the end, she could only chalk it up to a trick of the eye.
Just then, her phone chimed with that familiar sound!
She quickly opened the DouDou backend.
Wow!
The data for the fourth video was out!
Views: 2.33 million
Likes: 1.89 million
Dislikes: 350,000
Flowers: 1.26 million
Paying viewers: 715
Total earnings: close to twenty thousand!
Wei Yuexin was dumbstruck.
Wasn’t it supposed to be banned? How could the data still be this good?
The view count was lower than the previous videos, but with such low views, the likes and flowers were exceptionally high. Was her method of boosting engagement really this effective?
After a moment of confusion, she set aside these questions. Whatever—as long as the results were good.
“I knew you wouldn’t let me down, mua~” She kissed her phone a couple of times. All shadows of nightmares flew away to the horizon, and she hurriedly uploaded the second episode.
*
「Zombie World」
Today was already August 6th. Less than twenty-four hours remained until the zombie outbreak time predicted by the Sky Screen.
But the country still showed no significant response.
Meanwhile, Yongcheng was reaching its breaking point. Amid massive strikes, school closures, panic buying, and waves of discussion, the Yongcheng government finally took action.
They directly issued a notice: starting tomorrow at 9 AM, all citizens must stay indoors and self-isolate. They recommended that each person isolate in a separate room if possible—to protect themselves and their families.
If household conditions were insufficient, residents could register with their community for government-arranged isolation sites. However, if someone actually became infected and mutated, family members wouldn’t be able to reclaim them—all handling authority would belong to the government.
This notice brought some peace of mind to some people, but made others even more anxious. Still others couldn’t stand the citywide atmosphere of awaiting the apocalypse and fled Yongcheng overnight.
Chef Xiao Ma read the notice over and over, then gritted his teeth, stamped his foot, and finally made up his mind to personally fetch his parents from the countryside.
His parents were initially unwilling, but Xiao Ma said just one thing: “If something really happens, would you feel comfortable leaving your son alone?”
Hearing this, his parents indeed couldn’t feel at ease about their son. “Then maybe you should move back home and don’t return to the city.”
Xiao Ma replied, “Our courtyard wall is only one meter high, the house is old and dilapidated. If zombies really come, could it hold them back? Besides, we have so much grain at home, plus a flock of chickens and ducks. Even if it doesn’t attract zombies when chaos breaks out, it could attract thieves. What would we do then?”
This was indeed a problem.
The entire village consisted of elderly people and children, with all the able-bodied adults working in the city. If disaster really struck, they couldn’t even find anyone to help.
So finally, they packed big and small bundles of belongings and went into the city with their son. The scene looked like moving house—they wanted to bring everything, even the firewood for cooking.
Fortunately, Xiao Ma had driven a small truck, or they couldn’t have brought it all.
Like Xiao Ma, many people brought their parents and relatives into the city, while at the same time, many others felt the city was too densely populated and worried about urban chaos, so they fled early to seek refuge elsewhere.
Inside and outside Yongcheng was one big commotion.
Since the Yongcheng government had already committed, they went all the way—operating under the premise that “the Sky Screen is real,” mobilizing the entire city.
Government propaganda vehicles roamed the streets and alleys, informing citizens how to isolate and prepare.
“Ensure doors and windows are sturdy and not easily broken by zombies. Prepare enough food and water for one to three days in your isolation room. If you discover danger outside, don’t open doors lightly—stay put and wait for rescue.”
“Keep your phone fully charged and have one or two weapons ready.”
“Never shout loudly, and always stay calm.”
“Based on community grids and residential units, form chat groups among neighbors. Everyone should check in regularly and report their status. Group leaders should summarize and report information promptly.”
Along with the propaganda vehicles, community workers also went door-to-door.
They inspected whether residents’ living environments met isolation requirements, then gave each family member a yellow flag and provided safety guidance.
“If you discover a family member has turned into a zombie, or find zombies in a neighbor’s home, don’t act rashly. Immediately seek help in the group or call the rescue hotline, hang this yellow flag in your window, then quietly wait for rescue.”
“To prevent unnecessary trouble, starting tomorrow at 9 AM, gas and electricity will be cut off in this area. You must prepare before then.”
“Family members should make agreements—either contact each other via phone, or if you don’t have enough phones, agree on a secret signal. If the person in the room doesn’t respond to you and doesn’t give the agreed signal, absolutely don’t open the door.”
“If someone comes knocking at your main door or asking for help, don’t open the door easily, because we cannot determine what’s outside or whether that person seeking help has been bitten.”
“If you discover someone nearby has been bitten, don’t hesitate—immediately tie them up and lock them away. This is being responsible for your own life and the lives of those around you.”
Xiao Min followed the team leader from the work group out of the residential building and sat down to rest in the first-floor open recreational center.
After going through an entire building of residents, giving guidance door by door, they were parched.
The team leader took a bottle of water from her bag and handed it to her. “Drink some water, have a snack. You must be exhausted, right?”
“Not too bad,” Xiao Min said, gulping down half the bottle of water, then picking up a pork floss bun and eating it.
Ever since the Sky Screen appeared yesterday, whether people watched it live or saw the replay later, everyone’s appetite had been poor. Xiao Min hadn’t eaten much all day either, but after working hard for most of the day today, she’d thrown those bloody, brutal images far behind her and was eating with particular relish.
Colleagues from other buildings also came out and gathered here to rest.
“How did it go? Smoothly?”
The team leader said, “Not bad. Everyone was quite cooperative and said they’d follow our instructions tomorrow.”
A colleague said, “We had several households that wouldn’t cooperate—they drove us out. We’ll have to go back and continue working on them.”
Another colleague said, “In the building we went to, one household on the fifth floor had all their relatives over—more than ten people crammed into one apartment. There’s no way to isolate separately. We told them to go to community-arranged isolation sites, but they refused. It’s really worrying.”
Everyone chatted while eating and drinking to replenish their energy. Suddenly someone said, “By the way, we also have to isolate tomorrow. Aren’t you all scared? What if we’re the ones who turn into zombies… I can’t even think about it.”
Everyone fell silent.
Who wouldn’t be afraid? But being afraid was useless—everything was random. Whether you were a billionaire or a beggar, the probability of being selected for infection was the same.
A colleague said quietly, “Are you all planning to take leave tomorrow?”
Another person said, “I’m not taking leave. Right now, workers like us are most needed. Tomorrow we’ll isolate together, and if those desperate three minutes don’t happen, then everyone can celebrate and everything returns to normal. If those three minutes do happen and we make it through, then we’ll immediately face an apocalyptic world, and we’ll have plenty of work to do.
“And if we don’t make it through… well, at least we died at our posts, so our families can get some compensation.”
This reasoning made some sense. Anyway, regardless of where you were, the probability of becoming a zombie was about one in ten. If you turned into a zombie at home, you might even hurt your family.
“Anyway, I’m staying at my post. If I die, it counts as dying in the line of duty. If I live, I’ll be among the first soldiers. I’ve already written my will.”
“Sigh, it really feels like going to war. I really hope this is all just a false alarm.”
As they talked, they looked at the unfamiliar face of Xiao Min. “This girl is a college student, right? Are you going back to school tomorrow?”
Xiao Min quickly swallowed the food in her mouth. “I’m not going back. This work counts toward volunteer hours.”
Everyone: “…”
You silly girl—is now really the time to worry about volunteer hours?
But thinking about it, weren’t they also calculating how much compensation their families would get if they died in the line of duty?
Beyond noble professional ethics, they all had to consider some practical matters.
Xiao Min chuckled sheepishly: “I’m from out of province. My family doesn’t have that many spare rooms, and they don’t take this seriously over there. My parents are worried I’ll have problems on the road, so they told me not to come back. The school doesn’t have enough isolation space either. My teacher said staying in the community as a volunteer provides food and lodging, and it’s safe.”
It was so hard to get herself into such a big organization with full room and board. She didn’t have to think much—just follow orders from superiors. How wonderful.
Someone like her probably wouldn’t be sent to fight zombies directly—basically just logistics support.
If she was lucky and didn’t lose limbs or her life, when this was all over, she could even earn some kind of honor, which would be very beneficial for her future development.
Everyone looked at Xiao Min with pity and affection. You could say this kid was foolish, but she was quite shrewd. You could say she was shrewd, but her thinking was refreshingly direct and clear.
Still, her choice wasn’t wrong.
After finishing their snacks, everyone continued with their busy work.
Xiao Min followed the team leader toward the next residential building.
Security guards were installing barbed wire on top of the community walls, and many residents were helping.
Several trucks drove into the community, loaded with person-tall giant water containers to be installed on rooftops for water storage.
She couldn’t tell if the residents had arranged this themselves or if it was a community-wide installation.
The team leader suddenly received a phone call. “Okay, okay, I understand.”
After hanging up, the team leader said, “We don’t need to handle this community anymore. The residents have organized their own Anti-Zombie Association and want to hold their own meetings and mobilization. We should head to the next location for outreach immediately.”
“That’s great.” One less workload.
The team leader notified the other workers, and the group left the community and split up to head to their next locations.
Sitting in the car, Xiao Min saw her classmates.
Several male classmates were also wearing red volunteer vests, helping set up roadblocks on the street. Some main roads were being gradually sealed off.
Barrier after barrier, like firewalls, divided the city into sections. While this caused some obstacles, if a situation arose in one area, it wouldn’t immediately spread to other areas.
Helicopters appeared in the sky, seemingly patrolling, hovering overhead with the loud sound of their rotating blades.
Another helicopter was gradually descending, then hovering in mid-air while several people grabbed ropes and descended one by one onto a building’s rooftop.
“Wow!” Xiao Min let out an impressed exclamation.
The team leader said, “That should be a drill. If something really happens tomorrow, air support will be essential.”
Suddenly, the sky began to ripple like a curtain, with a small black dot spreading rapidly outward from the center, like a black hole instantly expanding, as if it were going to swallow the entire world.
Especially with several helicopters flying in the sky, it gave people the strong illusion that the helicopters were about to be sucked in.
Xiao Min: “Ah!”
The team leader also cried out.
The driver slammed on the brakes, and both of them lurched forward.
“Oh my God! What is that!”
“Is the sky falling?”
“Helicopters, run!”
People on the ground were staring at the helicopters with curiosity, so they immediately noticed the anomaly in the sky. They were terrified, their hair standing on end.
The helicopter pilots also noticed the unusual situation, but being pilots, they had strong psychological composure. The helicopters only tilted slightly before quickly stabilizing.
The next moment, a black image covered nearly half the sky, and after a flash of colorful lights, a row of green cartoon zombies in tattered clothes bounced in from the left side of the screen, hopping to the center.
Then five large characters descended from above 「ZOMBIES ARE COMING 2」, crashing down and crushing all the zombies with a bang, and the letters even shook a bit.
Then a familiar voice rang out: [Friends in the zombie world, hello everyone, I’m Weizi, and I’m back. Because everyone was so enthusiastic, the second episode is being released ahead of schedule. I wonder if you gained anything from the previous video, and whether you’ve prepared for dealing with zombies?]
[In this episode, we’ll talk about the characteristics of zombies.]
The entire city’s people: “!”
So this was the Sky Screen!
Because the last Sky Screen appeared at dawn and the entire video wasn’t very long, at least two-thirds of the city’s people hadn’t seen it live—they’d only watched recordings afterward.
This time, except for the 350,000 people who had disliked the first video and could no longer see the Sky Screen, everyone else, including people who had just arrived in Yongcheng, saw it.
While recordings were shocking enough, seeing the Sky Screen appear directly overhead was even more directly overwhelming.
Xiao Min got out of the car and looked up at the sky, murmuring, “So this is the Sky Screen. It really is magnificent!” And terrifying too!
At Chef Xiao Ma’s house, the family had just arrived home not long ago, with a pile of things to organize. They were busy when suddenly the sky went dark.
Xiao Ma ran to the balcony to look and immediately called his parents: “Mom, Dad! Come quick, this is the Sky Screen!”
Last time his parents had slept too deeply and missed the Sky Screen. Seeing it now, their legs went weak.
“Heaven above! The gods are manifesting!”
A young man who had been traveling and having a great time, but was called back by his parents’ frantic phone calls, was full of impatience and complaining to his still-traveling friends about his parents becoming senile and believing any nonsense. Then the Sky Screen appeared.
He rushed outside, his mouth agape enough to swallow a goose egg. “The Sky Screen… is actually real!”
His father smacked him on the head: “Still thought your mother and I were lying to you!”
“But I thought it was special effects or something!”
The young man couldn’t care about the pain and quickly held up his phone to film for his friends. “Bros! The Sky Screen is real, the apocalypse is really coming! You all be careful too, get home if you need to, stop messing around! Any more messing around and you’ll lose your lives!”
Because this was daytime, and because the previous Sky Screen had already attracted huge attention, as soon as this Sky Screen appeared, everyone was filming videos and livestreaming. The internet exploded instantly.
People from other cities watching the live streams saw that the aerial footage couldn’t possibly be faked, and their worldviews were shaken to the core.
“I think I understand why Yongcheng people are so crazy. If the Sky Screen appeared over my head, I’d go crazy too!”
“A moment ago I was still mocking Yongcheng people for having problems, and the next moment I’m thinking—when will our government take action! Hurry up and copy their homework!”
“I’m really panicked now. Can someone tell me what I should be doing?”
People were getting goosebumps while the Sky Screen continued playing at its own pace.
The scene appeared in a very dim, cramped space that seemed filled with packages. A little girl holding a teddy bear was looking out through a gap between the packages. The little girl’s rapid, trembling breathing clearly rang out, immediately drawing people into the scene.
This seemed to be a small delivery truck, and the little girl was hiding inside while something she feared obviously existed outside.
Listening carefully, you could hear screams and shouts from outside, along with beast-like roars and chewing sounds.
Everyone immediately understood—this was after the zombie outbreak, and the little girl was hiding from zombies.
Their hearts immediately rose high.
From the little girl’s perspective looking out, the door had a gap that wasn’t quite closed. Outside was bright, with an overturned car, blood everywhere, and a person lying face-down, unknown if dead or alive.
The noise gradually faded, and everything slowly quieted down, but the little girl still didn’t dare move. In the narrow field of view through the gap, several “people” were wandering around.
Their movements were sluggish, clothes hung loosely on their bodies, stained with blood and suspicious tissue fragments.
They wandered around outside the vehicle, seemingly searching for something.
[These are zombies. As you can see, zombie movement is actually quite slow, because at the moment of becoming zombies, their muscles and organs atrophy, blood dries up, all normal cells die, and all energy is concentrated on transforming their bodies.]
[This change completely alters their species and greatly limits their movement.]
At a Yongcheng research institute, a professor seriously watched the Sky Screen. “So zombies and humans are completely different species, with absolutely no possibility of reversal?”
This point was very important—it determined whether they could or should immediately exterminate zombies.
[Additionally, zombies’ vision and touch basically degenerate, but their hearing and smell become very acute. Hearing allows them to catch subtle sounds, while smell lets them accurately distinguish between their own kind and living humans—that is, their food.]
[Yes, zombies’ food is humans. Of course, they also eat animals, but compared to aggressive animals that are often smaller and mostly furry, they still prefer eating people.]
[When ‘food’ is abundant, they basically only eat the first few bites of meat, then immediately abandon the victim once blood stops flowing, to hunt the next food source.]
[If food is scarce, zombies are likely to eat much more flesh.]
[Zombies’ stomachs are different from humans’—they can quickly and efficiently convert consumed flesh and blood into the energy they need. The fresher the flesh and blood, the more beneficial it is for them.]
In the scene, through the little girl’s view, you could see that after wandering for a while and seemingly unable to find fresh prey, the zombies outside turned toward the corpse on the ground and began eating it bite by bite.
Viewers: !!
Did the image have to be this clear!
The little girl in the vehicle was also trembling all over, both hands tightly covering her mouth, with whimpering sounds stuck in her throat.
The viewers were even more worried about her.
“Good child, you must not make any sound!”
“Damn it, can someone draw those zombies away! If this continues, she’s definitely going to be discovered!”
[After consuming enough flesh and blood and gaining sufficient energy, zombies will undergo evolution. Evolution means becoming stronger.]
[Zombie limbs will become harder, movement will become faster, and hearing and smell will also improve. Things they couldn’t detect before might become detectable after evolution.]
People felt a bad premonition in their hearts.
Sure enough, in the video, one zombie stopped eating after a long while. It remained still for a full half minute, then stood up.
People with slightly keener observation could notice that its rising movement was more agile than before, and then it turned its head to stare directly at the delivery truck.
Its sesame-seed-sized, cold, lifeless pupils met the little girl’s eyes, and simultaneously met the viewers’ eyes outside the video.
It looked like it was staring straight at the camera, sending a chill of death instantly creeping up from their heels.
Viewers: !!
Everyone’s hair stood on end, scalps exploding, hearts racing out of control.
“Damn damn damn! I almost wet myself!”
“It found her!”
“The kid is done for!”
“Help! What should we do! Can she still run now?”
“This kind of delivery truck only has one door that opens to the back—there’s no escape!”
“Damn it! Someone kill that thing!”
“I can’t take it anymore, let me rush into the video and kick that thing away!”
The zombie walked over step by step.
Viewers instinctively backed away, as if they were the ones being targeted.
The little girl in the truck also backed away, but the truck was full of packages with little hiding space.
She finally couldn’t help but cry out loud.
The zombie outside moved even faster, slamming into the door with a bang that made the whole vehicle move.
Then, bang again—the door was dented.
Finally, with a crash, black claws pierced through the truck’s thin metal door and reached inside!