Chapter 3: The Company, My Son's School

The streets were clogged with countless cars of all kinds, stretching endlessly north and south, with long pillars of smoke rising everywhere—like the ancient warning beacons lit at the sign of invading enemies. Many cars still blared their horns madly, but the shrill noise couldn’t conceal the sound of drivers coughing violently inside. Some hunched over their steering wheels, pressing the horns until they screamed. Those able to get out were flinging open their doors, frantically making phone calls or running around in panic.

Li Fengyi thought that this was exactly the sort of chaotic omen his mother always muttered about—“the Japanese devils are coming.” People were running everywhere, smoke billowing in all directions. All that was missing were two of those “devils” suddenly appearing, and it would be the full scene. Was this what it looked like when order collapsed? He feared nothing would end well today. There was still some distance to home, and after years of hearing his mother recount how her uncle was beaten to death, he instinctively felt the need to guard against looters. Looking down at his empty hands, he realized he needed something to defend himself. He called out, “Come with me, let’s grab some things first.”

He led the group to a hardware store north of the Tianhai Business Tower. Five clerks were inside, three of them doubled over, coughing at their desks. Li Fengyi called to the other two, “We want to buy some tools!” But the two, stunned by their colleagues’ coughing and the street full of wrecked cars, simply stared at the six men barging in, offering neither a word nor a greeting.

Using the pretense of shopping, the group began to act. Li Fengyi instructed everyone to take up hammers, axes, and hand saws. After a moment’s thought, he also grabbed two household water pipes, each about a meter and a half long, and told the others to pick up anything else they thought useful. No one understood what was in the boss’s mind, but they were used to following his orders unquestioningly. If he said to take something, they took it. Sun Feigang, for reasons even he didn’t understand, grabbed a handful of chopsticks.

No one came to charge them. Li Fengyi casually tossed a few bills onto the counter. As they were leaving, he called to the dazed clerks, “Call emergency services, and go home. If you have nowhere to go, head to the police station and ask for help.”

Public transport was clearly not running, and taxis were out of the question. Li Fengyi led Sun Xiaoshan and the others in a dash toward home. On the way, they bought a few bottles of drinks from a store, figuring the run would make them thirsty. At the time, Li Fengyi’s thoughts were simple.

Due to the district-based enrollment system, Li Yutian attended Hepingli Central Primary School, the closest one to home. The company was about three and a half kilometers away. Li Fengyi had taken note of the route countless times—after all, Chinese people are family-minded, and he was a quintessential example.

They ran north past Yonghe Temple and Hepingli West Street, careful not to sprint too wildly, aware—thanks to the age of information—that panicked running was dangerous. They kept their pace steady, watching the smoking cars lining the streets.

Luckily, city cars rarely went above eighty kilometers per hour. Most had crashed and smoked, but hadn’t exploded. The sight of so many jammed vehicles, coughing drivers, and crowds of people growing more frantic by the minute sent a chill through his heart.

The city’s tight public security network wasn’t set up for nothing. People in the inner districts were used to following the rules, and so far, there was no sign of looting.

“See? Didn’t I say Japanese cars can’t take a hit? Look at them, all smoking!” Tian Ming said to Sun Xiaoshan as they ran.

“That’s right. Bicycles are sturdier—none of the wrecked bikes are damaged!” Sun Xiaoshan replied with a laugh.

Huang Shunyi chimed in, “Did you see that idiot driving—”

Everyone shouted at once, “Don’t say it! Don’t say it!”

Cars were colliding everywhere, piling up in the streets and alleys, with more vehicles careening out of side streets only to crash into the growing heaps, blocking the roads even further.

“With chaos like this, it’ll be days before things are back to normal,” Li Fengyi thought, a strange sense of schadenfreude rising within him—a national trait, perhaps—but unease gnawed at him as well. “How big a disaster does it take to set off something like this?”

The group dodged and darted between the vehicles, making their way toward Hepingli North Street. On the way, Wang Shujuan called, saying she would go pick up Li Yutian from school.

“I’m at the Industrial and Commercial Bank on North Street,” Li Fengyi shouted. “I’ll go get him. You stay home, look after the elderly and the kids, lock the doors, cover your nose and mouth, and open the windows for ventilation.”

Suddenly, he remembered his wife’s call that morning, complaining that there wasn’t much food or drink left at home, and that they should go shopping together in the evening. Now, with a group of employees and clients in tow, he’d have to figure something out, or there’d be nothing to eat tonight.

The old stories his mother told—eating clay, eating human flesh—sent a shudder through him. “There are five of us, the old and the young,” he thought grimly.

In truth, the “Japanese devils” had unwittingly fostered China’s first generation of survivalists. Well-trained and hardened, their greatest wish was to put Japan through the same ordeal. Once this older generation was gone, China would truly be a postwar nation, and it was no wonder the West pinned its hopes for peaceful transformation on the second and third generations. The new generations, untouched by Western vices, had no idea that the blissful euphoria of heroin led only to hell. Their forebears, desperate to escape the suffering behind the opium dream, had struggled for over a century.

By the time they reached the alley west of Mary Hospital, Li Fengyi was panting heavily. He called out to the equally breathless group, “Let’s split up. Chuzhen, come with me to find Li Yutian. The rest of you, follow Sun Xiaoshan through the alley to Youth Ditch Road and buy food. Get a few drums of purified water. If you don’t have enough cash, leave an IOU. When you’re done, everyone meet at my house.”

The group chorused their agreement, “Got it, Boss Li, don’t worry!”

Holding their tools gave them a sense of security, and having a task—stocking up on food and water—kept them calm. Judging by the chaos, the whole world seemed to have gone mad, but with Li Fengyi at the helm, they felt a little safer.

Li Fengyi had no choice. He knew the city’s dense network of surveillance cameras would have recorded their every move. He had a family of five to protect, with both the old and the young, along with the people who’d followed him. If things really fell apart, he couldn’t afford to care about appearances. Carrying hammers and axes wasn’t a crime—at worst, they might be questioned—but panic-buying food could easily spark public anxiety. Still, there was no other way. Today wasn’t just about his family; he had others to consider too. Ordinary residents didn’t keep that much food at home, after all.

His neighbors, for instance, never stocked up much; they all waited for the weekend to do their big supermarket shops. Today was a weekend afternoon, and no one had gone shopping yet.

Given the circumstances, what little food they had at home wouldn’t last more than a few days. Regardless of others, he had to think of his elders and children.

Sun Xiaoshan often visited the Li family, freeloading meals and occasionally helping the kids with their studies, so he knew the area well. In the middle of the alley, Li Fengyi split from the group, taking Chuzhen with him, while Sun Xiaoshan led the other four.

After several notorious schoolchild slayings in recent years, schools no longer allowed parents inside. At dismissal, children were lined up by class and escorted out, with security guards posted at the gates.

The three-and-a-half kilometer journey had taken over twenty minutes—now it was four in the afternoon, the hour when primary students were released. The narrow alley was packed with people.

Many in the crowd at the school gate were coughing, but Li Fengyi noticed the coughing was milder here, and nearly all the sufferers were adults. Children clung anxiously to their parents’ hands, calling out, “Mom, Dad, what’s wrong?”

Many were in tears, not knowing what to do.

Li Fengyi searched for Li Yutian’s class but could not find him. He hurried over and asked, “Ms. Xu, where is Li Yutian?”

The teacher leading the class was coughing so badly she couldn’t speak, so he turned to Yutian’s classmates. By third grade, children could generally answer adults’ questions, and between sniffles, they told him Yutian was in the art room, practicing painting.

At the start of second grade, Yutian had somehow won a national children’s painting award, though he was so young that no one ever figured out how he’d gotten it. The teachers, usually impatient with parental inquiries, gave no answers. Still, from then on, the family had supported Yutian’s interest in art.

No one was paying attention to who entered the school now. Li Fengyi and Chuzhen took nearly ten minutes to squeeze through the crush of parents and students at the gate and dash inside. There, the scene was different.

Children stood in orderly lines by class, gazing up with innocent, bewildered eyes at their coughing teachers. Though the campus was quieter than the street outside, the eerie silence made Li Fengyi’s skin crawl—a vision that would haunt his dreams many times in the years after the disaster.

But there was no time for reflection. He shouted to the dazed security guard, “Where’s the art room?”

The guard, leaning against the gatehouse door with a white safety helmet and a rubber truncheon in hand, answered blankly, “North side of the playground.”

Both ends of the teaching building had passages leading to the playground behind. The west corridor was closest to the gate, so Li Fengyi and Chuzhen sprinted along the west side toward the back of the school.

Behind them, the sound of coughing gradually began to fade...