It didn't take long before the door they had installed just last night began to loosen.
Lan Jin grew anxious. While stuffing packets of salt into the two men's pockets, she said, "This door won't hold. We'll have to adapt as we go."
"Bare hands won't work," Huang Jinghe said. "Sister Lan, I have a baseball bat and a knife at home. Help me get them." He handed her his house keys.
Lan Jin turned to head upstairs.
Lao Gao spoke up. "I have a gun. That'll work better."
Huang Jinghe frowned. "Even if you use a gun, it's no good. These people can still move after they're dead. And the noise will draw the ones that haven't come yet."
Lao Gao paused, then reluctantly gave up on the idea of using his gun.
After several more hard impacts from outside, the two top corners of the security door had completely pulled away from the wall.
When Lan Jin came downstairs with the weapons, this was the sight she walked into. "If it comes to it, lure them to the roof. See if we can throw them down from there."
The corridor and stairwell were too small to fight in. Even if they managed, there was no room to swing properly. On the rooftop at least…
It might not work, but it was still better than being crammed in here.
Both men agreed with her. After a few more impacts from outside, the entire security door tore away from the wall.
"Hold the door handles tight," Lan Jin ordered. "Use the door to block them off. Keep yourself safe. Draw them to the rooftop."
Lao Gao and Huang Jinghe held the door and slowly backed away. On the 32nd floor, there was still another security door before the residential area. Even if it wasn't locked, Lan Jin wasn't worried about Ling Jiang's side.
The problem was that the three of them were being forced upward, step by step, until they could only retreat to the rooftop.
Once they reached the roof, they realized a problem. The security door was far larger than the flimsy rooftop door. With the three of them pressed tight against the mob, there was no way to toss the security door aside. Instead, it created a small safe zone between them and the attackers.
That safe zone lasted all of two seconds.
With a crash, the shoddy rooftop door splintered under the assault.
Both doors toppled together, and the seventeen frenzied attackers swarmed toward them.
"Damn," Lao Gao cursed. "I knew it was weak, but not this weak." As he swore, he and Huang Jinghe grabbed the weapons from Lan Jin's hands and stepped in front of her.
They fought desperately, but within moments, their clothes, faces, and arms were marked with cuts and bruises.
Only then did they realize how wrong they had been. It was hard enough to handle one attacker before. Facing more than a dozen at once, they had no chance. In seconds, they were driven into a dead corner of the rooftop.
Still, Lao Gao and Huang Jinghe held Lan Jin behind them, shouting, "Sister Lan, run!"
But there was nowhere to run.
The scent of blood was like bait. To these starving, crazed people, they were nothing but prey, and it drove them into even greater frenzy.
If they were caught…
Lan Jin could already picture their bodies torn apart, bones and all gone.
At that moment, the ones at the back of the mob leaped over the others and pounced straight toward them.
Just as they were about to be overwhelmed, Lan Jin grabbed Lao Gao and Huang Jinghe, and in the blink of an eye, the three of them vanished into her space.
Inside the space, they were safe.
Lan Jin let out a breath, then sighed helplessly.
There was no helping it. After guarding the secret of her space for so long, she had been forced to reveal it. But she couldn't have come in alone, and she couldn't have stayed outside either.
She could never watch her companions—people who had just risked their lives to protect her—die before her eyes. Even if Ling Jiang might have understood, she could not get past that in her own heart.
So, she had brought them in.
Still, she could do one thing: if either of them showed even the slightest greed for her space, she would not let them leave alive.
Lao Gao and Huang Jinghe stood frozen. Hearing the howls outside, they could hardly believe they were truly safe.
They looked around the surroundings, their faces full of doubt, yet neither spoke.
They were sensible enough to keep quiet. Even so, Lan Jin knew there had to be an opening for the conversation.
She rubbed her brow. Just as she was about to speak, Qiao Qiao and Nana came running toward her. Qiao Qiao threw her arms around Lan Jin's leg, then looked at the two men with open curiosity.
This was her and Mama's secret. No other living person had ever come into the space. And Mama had told her not to tell anyone. So why had Mama brought strangers in?
Qiao Qiao glanced up at Lan Jin, her voice cautious. "Mama, they?"
Lan Jin smoothed her hair. "Go back to the hut for now. Mama has to talk to them."
Seeing her mother's serious expression, Qiao Qiao didn't argue. "Okay."
She took Nana by the hand and went back to the thatched hut.
Lan Jin turned to the two men. "Come with me."
She led them to the spirit spring, scooped two cups of water, and handed them over. "Drink. You're injured. Don't worry, I'm not going to kill you. This is spirit spring water. You've drunk it before."
At the mention of the spring water, Huang Jinghe suddenly remembered the novels he had read. In those stories, the protagonist always had a space like this.
"So this is… a space?" he asked. Then his eyes widened. "My god, Sister Lan, you actually have a space. This is like the standard setup for the apocalypse."
But the excitement quickly shifted to suspicion. "Sister Lan, how did you get it?"
Lan Jin would never mention her rebirth, so she kept it simple. "On the day I divorced my ex-husband, the lotus jade pendant I had bought before suddenly gave off a golden light, and this space appeared. Since spaces don't just appear without reason, I sold my house and used all my savings to stockpile supplies."
She pointed toward a distant corner piled high. "That's what I've stored—things I bought, and things I got through other means. There's a lot. But I've never told anyone about this space…"