Doomsday Wonderland

Chapter 1371: About Them, About the Future

At 8:30 a.m. on the same day, Deng Yilan’s heart turned cold.

She hadn’t expected that the plan she had discussed with Uncle Zhang for several days would be thwarted on the day she was ready to implement it.

“Everyone return to your rooms!” shouted several male nurses at the end of the corridor, herding every patient in the hallway back to their rooms. “Go back, no one is allowed out without notice!”

The last sentence was meaningless, as every time they confirmed that all the patients in a ward were accounted for, they would lock the door; the corridors were filled with the sound of doors and keys echoing.

Deng Yilan was startled by the loud command as she stood in the corridor, waiting for Uncle Zhang.

He had recently told her many things about posthumans, some sounding absurd and almost like the ravings of a madman, while others made her envious. The topic they talked about most was naturally the escape this morning. The plan was not complicated, just a little risky: every Wednesday morning at ten o’clock, a truck delivering fruits, vegetables, and meat would arrive at the cafeteria behind the hospital to unload. At that time, they planned to secretly sneak into the truck and leave the psychiatric hospital.

When Deng Yilan glanced out the window upon waking up, she felt a heaviness in her heart, as dark and ominous as the sky. If it rained heavily today, would the truck still come to deliver the goods?

Still, they followed the original plan, first watering the potted plants in the courtyard and then confirming the blind spots in surveillance. After watering, she and Uncle Zhang split up to prepare. When the appointed time came, she anxiously waited for about ten minutes. Uncle Zhang did not show up, but the nurses did as if it were the second ominous sign of the day.

A male nurse waved at Deng Yilan, asking, “Which room are you from? Don’t stay here, go back quickly.”

“I-I’m from room 406,” Deng Yilan blurted out, her palms sweaty with panic. Seeing that the male nurse, though unfamiliar, seemed approachable, she asked, “Excuse me, why do we need to go back to our rooms?”

The male nurse motioned for her to hurry back upstairs to her room and gave her a brief answer, “The city is under martial law today—Hey, where are you going?”

Martial law?

Deng Yilan’s mind went blank momentarily, but she suddenly regained her senses and hurriedly ran to the stairwell, taking refuge in the water room. Her ears buzzed with the rush of blood.

Under martial law, would the transport truck still come?

Uncle Zhang didn’t show up, and she didn’t know what to do. If she continued to wait in the ward building, she would eventually be sent back to her room and locked up, and their plan for the day would be ruined. But even if she went to the backyard alone, the truck wouldn’t come, and Uncle Zhang would be nowhere to be found. What was the use?

Deng Yilan also knew the rational decision was to wait for the next opportunity. But she longed to go home so much that the thought of waiting another week made her almost breathless with frustration. She had been sustaining herself with fantasies of escape during this time; the fantasy that was supposed to come true today had suddenly turned into nothingness, and she couldn’t bear it.

Moreover, if she ran out during martial law, would that mean there would be no pursuers?

When the nurse peeked into the room without thought, she immediately slipped into the gap between the sink and the water tank. During martial law, the nurses were only herding patients back to their rooms to prevent accidents, so they were not vigilant. After a quick glance around the room, they left the water room.

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When most people on the first floor had left, Deng Yilan quickly left, too. She dared not imagine if someone was monitoring her through the cameras, but she hurriedly walked to the back door. When she tried to open it, she found it locked.

She stood there dumbfounded for two seconds, as if she couldn’t believe the door was locked, and futilely tried to pull it a few times. The two panels of the door were tightly closed and wouldn’t budge.

If she couldn’t go through the back door, wouldn’t she only have the lobby’s front door left? Would she have to walk past a group of nurses and go around to the backyard? That was simply impossible. It would have been better to wait for the next opportunity rather than forcing her way out today and alerting them.

That’s what she thought, but when she reached the intersection, her body seemed to have a mind and turned into the corridor leading to the front door. The sunlight pouring in from the front door cast a glow on several hospital staff gathered there, looking up at the TV screen in the lobby. A nurse nudged her colleague holding the remote control and said, “Turn up the volume.”

They were all gathered in the lobby, so the offices should be empty, right?

Deng Yilan quickly crouched down and quietly slipped into one of the half-open nurse stations. Looking around, she felt a wave of relief wash over her, burying the pounding in her throat. She stood by the door, her ears catching the sound of news broadcasts coming from the lobby.

“Unknown individuals with dangerous abilities have taken over the Copper Ground Dock in the city.”

“A large number of… have surrounded the dock.”

“Residents are not allowed to go out, awaiting further notice. Violators during martial law may be detained for fifteen days for disturbing public order.”

Deng Yilan blinked, feeling like she guessed what was happening.

She glanced outside and saw everyone’s heads raised, staring at the TV screen on the wall. They had their backs to the entrance, so maybe she could slip past them—no, that wouldn’t work. A security guard was sitting behind the desk on the other side of the lobby, watching the screen intently. If she walked out, she would be directly exposed to his view.

Uncle Zhang had originally been in charge of collecting civilian clothes so that the two of them could change out of their hospital gowns; now that Uncle Zhang was nowhere to be found, it was difficult for her to move an inch in a hospital gown.

She swept back around the room and realized that there wasn’t a chair with a coat on it. Her mouth was dry with anxiety, and her eyes subconsciously flicked over the cups on the table, but suddenly she saw a telephone.

Deng Yilan was about to walk over to the phone when she heard a muffled thunderclap roll past in the distance-she thought it was finally going to start raining, but unexpectedly the thunderclaps came one after the other, so dense that they left no gaps, shaking the earth slightly beneath her feet; she hastily held onto the table to stand still, and heard the crowd outside resounding with a miscellaneous She hurriedly held the table steady, and heard the crowd’s tumultuous cry of alarm outside: “It’s a real explosion! My God, what a fright!”

Firing on the Copper Harbor Pier?

A posthuman couldn’t possibly stand up to a modern army, could it?

Deng Yilan steadied himself, hastily fished out the phone, and glanced toward the wall.

There was a chart on the wall listing the various extension numbers in the hospital. She dialed one of the extension numbers, and as it rang in the microphone, the phone rang in the corridor along with it – followed by a security guard’s voice on the microphone, “Hello?”