Chapter 12 What Contraband

The boss' eyes lit up. "Enough, enough, enough. We won't need so much."

Zhong Jialing transferred the money, and Luo Jiu finished copying the video. She deleted the original video and put away the USB drive. "You can take this time to spend time with your family. Remember, say you don't know to anyone who asks."

The four of them went out from the back door of the barbecue restaurant and drove all the way back to Fengshan Road.

When getting off the car, Luo Jiu saw the blood on Zhong Jialing's white sleeves and asked hurriedly: "Are you injured?"

Zhong Jialing smiled and said, "When the beer bottle exploded, it broke into a few pieces on my arm and scratched me. If you had discovered it later, it would have healed."

Luo Jiu lifted her sleeves and saw eight or nine small cuts of different sizes. Although they were small wounds and the blood had already coagulated, they still had to be treated.

Luo Jiu disinfected her and wrapped her with gauze.

Cheng Yaoyao felt distressed when she saw Zhong Jialing gritting her teeth and enduring. "This was an accident and we were not prepared in advance. Next time we go out, we should wear the protective gear we customized in advance. If she had worn the protective cuffs today, Ling'er would not have been injured."

Luo Jiu shook his head. "No, let's just not go out anymore."

"Ah?" The three of them exclaimed in unison.

Luo Jiu analyzed seriously, "Today's incident, although it was an accident, it also reminded us. After all, we are young, and we go out to buy things and spend lavishly. As the saying goes, a man is innocent but guilty of possessing a treasure. Now that we have so much money, the most important thing we should do is to protect ourselves.

Don’t think that only zombies and natural disasters are scary. Books say that human hearts are more sinister than we can imagine.

Today we are just a few hooligans, but next time if we are targeted by a group of desperate criminals who want to kill for money, it won’t be so easy to escape unscathed.”

Zhong Jialing agreed, "You are right. My parents also told me before that wealth should not be exposed to others to avoid trouble."

Luo Jiu thought about it for a while and said, "Fortunately, we have bought most of the things we need. If there are no special circumstances, we can buy them online or have them delivered to our door.

I just searched on my phone and found that someone filmed a video outside the barbecue restaurant. Fortunately, it was at a certain distance and the face could not be seen clearly. But as long as the video goes viral, someone will definitely investigate.

The four of us should not act together, it will be too obvious. Don’t wear the clothes you wore today. Pray that no one will pay attention to the videos posted by passers-by. ”

Cheng Yaoyao asked worriedly, "What if those videos attract attention? Although we have deleted the surveillance video in the store, the surveillance at the intersection must have captured something. If this matter ferments into a big news, anyone who wants to investigate will definitely find us."

Luo Jiu tilted his head slightly, tapped his fingertips on the table, and his brain was working rapidly.

"Then there is only one way," she opened her eyes, her gaze extremely determined, "to release a bigger piece of news."

*

Hu Lai had never done such a ridiculous thing in her life. She had been an excellent student since she was young, then passed the normal school exam to become a teacher, got married and got pregnant, everything went according to plan. Even she herself couldn't believe that she actually faked an accident for the ridiculous remarks of several students and took the opportunity to take a ten-day vacation.

The senior class teacher asked for ten days off. If she hadn't told her boss that she almost caused two deaths, the leave would not have been approved.

Her husband was stationed out of town for training, and she did not tell anyone. She quietly arranged the basement at home, dragged all the tools for delivery to the basement, and stocked up on water, food, and some common medicines.

She didn't have much money, and she didn't dare spend it all. Otherwise, her own doomsday would come before the end of the world.

That morning, she opened her mobile phone to browse the news as usual, and an eye-catching headline caught her eye.

"Four women and seven men fighting in Jiangcheng BBQ restaurant. The men ran away and none of the women came out."

The person filming the video didn't dare to stand too close, so he couldn't see the face clearly, only a blurry outline. But Hu Lai could tell at a glance that the tall and agile girl in the video was Feng Qi.

The video has received over 700,000 likes, and there are all kinds of comments.

Hot comment 1: "I don't understand who won in the end? Why did the men come out with injuries in the end, but the woman didn't show up. Is she still alive?"

Hot comment 2: "My junior high school classmate lives in the opposite neighborhood. His aunt watched the whole thing from downstairs. She said that a few old hooligans wanted to take advantage of the girls and started a fight with them. Several of them died on the spot."

Hot comment 3: "It's not that several people died, but two women died. My childhood friend's brother-in-law's cousin is in the emergency room of the People's Hospital and said that they tried to save her for half an hour but she didn't survive."

…

Hu Lai looked at the messy messages with a frown on her face. She quickly found Luo Jiu's QQ number, sent him a screenshot of the video, and asked, "Is it you?"

Luo Jiu quickly replied: "Yes, don't look at the comments and talk nonsense, no one died, we are fine, don't worry."

Hu Lai: "How can I not worry? The incident has become so serious, the school will definitely send someone to look for you."

Luo Jiu: "No, the school... should be busy dealing with other things."

Luo Jiu was hinting at something, and Hu Lai suspiciously opened the campus forum. Words like "apocalypse", "zombies" and "natural disaster" filled the entire page.

Someone using an anonymous ID broke the news that zombies will arrive in six days, and asked everyone to find a way to go back and reunite with their families, and also buy enough water and food and prepare protective equipment.

At first, the comments below were all joking, "Does the six days include today?", "I haven't received the holiday notice from the class teacher", "Okay, okay, I'm a day student, I'll bring this important news to the students who live on campus, and from now on I'll be their savior"...

But as the thread was being talked about, a screenshot of an article was posted under the thread. The article detailed a series of impacts caused by nuclear pollution on the island country, including genetic mutations in coastal fish. The article also cited the latest case in the United States, where a person had lost consciousness and exhibited aggressive behavior after eating contaminated venison.

According to the progress of nuclear contaminated water, the author of the article, after a series of calculations and deductions, concluded that an unprecedented crisis is very likely to break out in six days.

As a result, the style of the comments quickly changed to: "Fuck! I still want to live...", "Is it too late to ask for leave now?", "It seems to be true, I also saw it on Tianqiao Forum...", "The fortune tellers on Weibo are saying..."

Soon, the phone at the student affairs office of Jiangcheng No. 1 Middle School kept ringing, and some parents asked for leave for their children with various reasons. The real reason was, of course, that they had seen news about the end of the world.

The mastermind behind all this is Luo Jiu.

Since his rebirth, Luo Jiu has always had an idea in his mind, which is to warn the public in some way, or at least let some people who value their lives make preparations in advance.

This is a confrontation between humans and non-humans, and between humans and disasters. The stronger the power of humanity, the more likely it is to win.

So, in the first three days, the four-member team worked day and night to catch up and stockpile goods. They were the first to make preparations, and the remaining time and resources that could not be stockpiled were left to others.

That day happened to be the day when the barbecue restaurant incident happened. Luo Jiu wrote more than a dozen articles overnight, and the four of them posted them on major social networks using different IDs.

The content of the article is true and false, science, metaphysics, and she uses everything that can help convince people to believe in the end of the world.

Mayan prophecies, Sanxingdui prophecies, Pyramid prophecies, and the ancient six-line divination.

Zhong Jialing spent several hundred dollars and found several fortune-telling accounts to post similar messages.

It gives people a feeling that everything, whether in the East or the West, is pointing to the doomsday event a week from now. The news spreads faster than a virus, and it is everywhere in hot searches, short videos, and forums.

Zhong Jialing's parents also used a satellite phone to contact official agencies overseas to report the news of the apocalypse. However... even if the four of them were reborn, they would not know the cause of the apocalypse and could not produce evidence. No official agency would accept this absurd statement.

Luo Jiu's casually fabricated remarks were half true and half false, and of course there were many loopholes. So a group of popular science experts came out to refute the doomsday theory.

It's just that the direction of public opinion is always out of control. As time goes by, the talk about the end of the world is getting more and more intense.

Of course, there are many people who don't believe in it, but there is always a small group of people who cherish life. And there is a group of people who are lazy and lazy, and they use this as an excuse to skip classes and enjoy themselves.

The most popular text on WeChat Moments that day: I heard that the world will end in six days, so I decided to be a boss and not go to work. I will play games and eat takeout. If the world doesn’t end in six days, I will go to work and be a grandson.

During a street interview, a young couple was holding two durians in their left hand and cherries in their right hand. The reporter asked them: "Do you believe in the end of the world?"

The two smiled innocently and said, "I don't know, but it better be true. Anyway, we have spent all our money. Our combined salary is less than 6,000 yuan, and we plan to spend it all in the next few days."

Cheng Yaoyao watched the video with mixed feelings, "They don't seem to believe it, are our reminders any useful?"

Luo Jiu sighed softly, "Everyone has their own way of dealing with the end of the world, and they probably have no other way. Spending the last few days of their lives the way they want is also worth our reminder.

Anyway, now that no one is watching the fight anymore, we can continue to check for gaps and make up for them. We'll have a meeting later to make detailed plans and division of labor for the next few days."

As soon as the voice fell, Zhong Jialing's anxious shout suddenly came from outside: "Jiuer, Yaoyao, where are you?"

Cheng Yaoyao stuck her head out, "Here, the small living room on the second floor!"

The house is so big that everyone wants to play hide-and-seek with others. Zhong Jialing ran down breathlessly, her face a little pale.

Luo Jiu asked hurriedly: "What's wrong?"

Zhong Jialing covered her pounding heart and said, "I just wanted to go into the space to sort out some things, but I found that the space... could not accommodate people."

Luo Jiu was stunned, "Is Sister Qi in there?"

Cheng Yaoyao said, "No, she just said she was going for a run. This is weird, why can't anyone get in? Did we stockpile some contraband? Or is it full?"