Lao Gao did not seem entirely convinced by her words, but he had clearly heard them. "No way. How could rain just start falling out of nowhere?"
"Why not? Didn't it happen like that last time?" Ling Jiang shot back instantly. She looked up at the darkening sky, and a flicker of unease stirred in her chest.
"But the rain stopped, didn't it? It hasn't rained for days now," Lao Gao countered.
"Just because it stopped once doesn't mean it won't come again. Rain isn't a one-time thing."
Seeing the three of them still bickering, Huang Jinghe, seated at the back, grew more anxious. "Enough talking, hurry up! Don't you feel like the sky's getting darker? And it's getting colder too, not to mention the wind picking up."
He was right. The hair at the edges of their faces, where it wasn't covered, had already gathered a thin layer of frost. If there was one sensible choice right now, it was to get home as fast as possible.
They had only been circling around the residential compound these past days, so the return trip wasn't far. After Ling Jiang and Lao Gao paddled furiously for a while, the familiar outline of their neighborhood drew closer. But the sky was sinking into deeper and deeper darkness.
The darker it got, the heavier everyone's unease became. Before long, a strange, deafening roar rose behind them, moving closer.
Neither Ling Jiang nor Lao Gao dared to look back. Huang Jinghe, who was sitting at the rear, risked a quick glance—and his whole body trembled.
He tugged on Lan Jin's sleeve and leaned close to whisper, "Sister Lan, look behind us. What is that?"
Lan Jin turned and froze. A massive wall of mist was sweeping toward them, blotting out the distance. It stretched from the frozen surface of the water up into the clouds, solid and unbroken, as if there wasn't a single gap in it.
Worse still, it was charging straight in their direction.
She called forward to the two at the front. "Go as fast as you can, but stay safe. And whatever you do, don't look back."
Lan Jin's tone made their already-frayed nerves snap tighter. Lao Gao, still pushing forward, asked between breaths, "So what's back there? What's making that noise?"
"Don't ask! Just move! Something's wrong," Ling Jiang urged, afraid every word he spoke might cost them precious seconds.
Lao Gao shut his mouth and pushed harder. In moments, they were crossing into the compound.
Building 12 stood straight down the path from the main gate, no turns in between. The moment they reached the covered entryway, Lan Jin and Huang Jinghe were already jumping out, dragging the stunned Lao Gao and Ling Jiang inside.
Ling Jiang moved quickly, vaulting in. Lao Gao lagged behind for just a few seconds, trying to pull his skating cart inside—but in those seconds, the rushing mist surged right up behind him. His arm, still gripping the handle, brushed against it. A sharp sting shot through his skin.
The roar inside the fog was so loud that even though they were standing shoulder-to-shoulder, they couldn't hear each other.
Then, through the cracks in the covered walkway, something began to spill in from outside. They saw it clearly now. The dark weight in the mist wasn't just cloud—it was hail.
The sight sent cold sweat down their backs. With hail this loud, a single strike could kill a person outright.
When they got a better look at the jagged chunks, their eyes all darted to Lao Gao's arm.
Thankfully, there was no injury—just a sleeve shredded through, white feathers from the lining poking out. In their rush earlier, they hadn't even noticed the down drifting around them.
Ling Jiang yanked off Lao Gao's glove to check his hand. Finding it unhurt, all four finally exhaled in relief.
The moment the tension broke, Lao Gao blurted a sharp curse. They couldn't hear the words over the roar, but from the movement of his lips, everyone knew exactly what he'd said.
And really, could any other phrase have summed up the moment better?
Since the poisonous fog had long since destroyed the safety partitions between the floors, hail now blew right through the open gaps of the walkway on almost every level.
Climbing upstairs was too dangerous. The safest spot was the half-landing on the staircase, where the wall offered some shelter.
The four of them huddled there, silently grateful they hadn't hesitated to come back when they did. If they had… well, finding shelter would have been one problem. Getting home would have been another entirely.
With the way it looked outside, even if you survived, traveling through again wouldn't be possible any time soon. Both Lan Jin and Ling Jiang had elderly family and a child at home. The thought of being trapped outside was unbearable.
Even if they were stuck in the stairwell now, the fact they were back in their own building brought a deep sense of comfort.
They waited about twenty minutes before the enormous fog bank finally drifted away, leaving heaps of hail piled above and below them.
As the noise faded into the distance, they all breathed out together. "It's gone. That scared me to death."
"Tell me about it."
Lao Gao stepped up a few stairs, scooped up a chunk of ice, and examined it. "That's odd. Why's the hail shaped like long sticks?"
Huang Jinghe picked up one too, turning it in his hands. "Actually… that wasn't hail. It was rain. But the temperature's so low that it froze solid on the way down, turning into ice rods before hitting the ground."
That sort of thing wouldn't happen in normal cold. It had to be well below freezing now.
Lan Jin frowned. "You mean frozen rain?"
Dangerous didn't even begin to describe it.
Ling Jiang groaned. "So now we've got to check the weather before we step outside. One wrong move and we might never make it back."
Lan Jin nodded. "We also need to think about how to get out next time. If the rain comes that suddenly again, the ground could ice over fast. Our skates and skating carts might not even work anymore."