Chapter 2
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It was dark outside the window. In fact, it wouldn’t light up.
Just like the completely stagnant clock, the people of the whole city or maybe even the world had disappeared. Dawn didn’t replace the night and this nightmare had no end.
Jian Hua slowly closed his eyes as he sat motionless against a wall. This was the most energy-saving method and his home was the most secure environment.
Two days and two nights had passed since the elevator incident- Jian Hua estimated this based on his loss of physical fitness. In addition, he discovered more terrible news after returning home that night. In response to quitting smoking, Jian Hua felt hungry. Therefore, he thought about what happened while trying to fill his stomach. However, the water in the pot on the stove wouldn’t burn and the rice cooker was useless.
If he couldn’t cook food then he would eat food that didn’t need to be cooked. He ate half a package of biscuits, crushed instant noodles and crumbled bread. But his hunger was still burning like he hadn’t eaten anything.
He couldn’t communicate with the outside world, couldn’t find people and couldn’t eat food. It felt like the whole world was deserted.
Jian Hua’s thirst was unbearable and his consciousness somewhat blurred. In the past few dozens of hours, he had rushed out of the house to try and find food and water. He had returned to the mall to see the couple eating crazily, throwing aside the wrapping paper and empty water bottles while shouting that they were still hungry.
The strange and terrifying scene caused Jian Hua to feel a chill. He gave up looking for food and drove directly to Linjiang Bridge. At the end of the bridge was a toll station, from where a person could leave the city.
The lights of the toll booth lit up the night and there were no movements on the bridge. As the cold win blew, Jian Hua opened the door and looked down at the river from the bridge.
He didn’t want to commit suicide. Jian Hua wasn’t a man who would give up on his life. It was just that the immediate dilemma made him feel helpless.
Finally, Jian Hua returned home.
He sat motionlessly against the wall in order to reduce physical exertion and with strong perseverance, he endure the hunger. When his thirst was unbearable, he endure the impulse to open the faucet and pour water down his throat.
He had seen the twisted desperation in the eyes of the overeating couple. Jian Hua didn’t want to become like them. Eating was useless, but once he started eating, it was difficult to control the survival instinct to continue eating.
His brain was fuzzy but he still thought about this incident. Jian Hua vaguely felt that himself, or that elevator had fallen through a crack in time.
Jian Hua didn’t understand the specific concept of time fissures. He just felt that the world had stopped in this second and all living things disappearing, except for those in the elevator.They could change dead objects (move or damage an object), but they couldn’t change the living (eating or drinking).
Jian Hua was little strength left due to excessive hunger and thirst, so his eyes drooped down heavily.
He became drowsy and was unable to maintain a clear mind. As he was in the midst of a tormented half sleep, a slight sound entered Jian Hua’s fuzzy head.
Tick tock, tick tock...
It was a stable, clear and regular sound.
Jian Hua slowly opened his eyes and barely regained consciousness. His eyes felt to the wall clock, the old-fashioned glass surface and black needles, where the second hand was moving.
23:01.
The ticking of the second hand sounded like the first performance of a concert violin to Jian Hua. Then in the next few minutes, he heard a child crying from next door and faint voices coming from the community chess room. The drunk person upstairs made a sound, alerting the neighbour’s lightly sleeping dog.
These ordinary noises, now they were like the sounds of nature.
The hungry Jian Hua subconsciously wanted to stand up and walk to the door or the window to confirm that this wasn’t a hallucination. However, his weak body didn’t listen.
Jian Hua worked hard for a long time, so the effect wasn’t small. His consciousness began to collapse and he was about to faint.
No…
With his current situation, he didn’t know if he could wake up after falling unconscious. The longer the delay, the closer he was to death! Everything had finally returned to normal, so how could he die?
Water, he wanted water. It was only a few steps from the living room to the kitchen, but this was impossible for Jian Hua.
He stretched out his hand futilely and this action alone took one minute. Jian Hua’s dark eyes stared at the glass jug filled with cold water on the kitchen table.
Crash.
The glass jug suddenly soared and fell heavily to the ground.
Water flowed to one place as the fragments scattered. Jian Hua’s right hand was slashed, but this pain cleared his mind and he somehow moved to the glass jug.
He didn’t dwell on it as he quickly approached a large piece of shattered glass and carefully licked the residual water on it.
Jian Hua sensed that the water hadn’t yet entered his stomach, as it rapidly disappeared down the esophagus. His great joy made him involuntarily tremble. In that time stagnant world, his throat never felt anything, no matter how much water he drank.
He took a deep breath, looked doubtfully at the fragments and looked in the direction of his bedroom. Jian Hua’s bedroom contained a drink, but the distance was further from the living room. He tried to grasp the previous feeling. Then a few seconds later, a bottle of mineral water rolled out of the room.
Jian Hua paused and the bottle of mineral water jumped up again, standing upright. After a moment, an invisible force held the bottle and opened the cap-
Snap! The cap flew up and hit the wall clock, actually causing a subtle crack in the glass face of the clock. He couldn’t imagine how much strength was behind it.
The water bottle floated up to Jian Hua’s mouth, then tilted to allow for convenient drinking. Jian Hua drank half the bottle before he recovered. His mind relaxed and the water bottle immediately fell.
“…”
Jian Hua thought he had run out of an entire lifetime’s worth of surprise in the past three days.
In any case, he survived and reached the end of the nightmare. Jian Hua barely dragged his weak body to his feet, finding a few pieces of chocolate among the glass and forcing himself to eat the semi-liquid chocolate.
He looked in the mirror and saw that he was pale with dark bags under his eyes. His clothes were crumpled and also stained with water. If Jian Hua went to the studio right now, he wouldn’t need makeup to played a lovelorn person who committed suicide in the river.
He hastily treated the wound on his right hand and regained some physical strength. Jian Hua prepared some hot water to take a bath, then set about exploring his ability that appeared accidentally.
A coffee cup with a spoon rose up as he thought about it. Jian Hua also ‘swept’ the glass fragments to a corner of the living room. It was like the psychic abilities in last century’s Europe or United States, such as reading minds, floating a cup, making a spoon bend, etc.
As long as it wasn’t vital, he could move a few things without much trouble. For Jian Hua, this superpower wasn’t as good as those in martial arts novels, but at least it helped him not suffer.
Jian Hua suddenly returned to the normal world and this weird ability subsequently emerged, so his brain was tired.
He turned on the TV and saw a soap opera family drama, while the evening news was over. When the elevator shook that night, the movie had ended at 22:40. The mall wasn’t near his home and it took at least half an hour to drive home. But at 23:01, he was lying in his living room and almost starving to death.
Jian Hua wanted to go to the cinema again to check the situation, but his weak body didn’t allow him to and he didn’t dare go to sleep. He feared once again falling into that dark, dead world.
His heavy eyes would keep closing, but Jian Hua forcefully used his will to wake up. He kept struggling against his drowsiness.
As he was in a daze, night faded and the sky brightened. Jian Hua was comforted by the dawn and his mind finally relaxed, allowing him to fall asleep until the sun rose high in the sky and shone a dazzling light in the room.
Bang bang bang!
Jian Hua slightly frowned as there was an energetic tapping on the door.
“Jian Hua! What are you doing? Your phone isn’t connecting and your car is parked downstairs. Where did you go?”
The shocking roar finally woke him up. Jian Hua opened his eyes stupidly for a moment before remembering what happened yesterday. The knocking on the door continued, as if it was reminded him.
The person was his close childhood friend, Lu Zhao.
The close childhood friend was self-proclaimed by Lu Zhao. They did know each other from an early age, but Jian Hua always subconsciously stayed away from this person. It was because Lu Zhao liked to talk about himself, so Jian Hua didn’t want to be bothered with it.
“Did something happen?” Jian Hua opened the door and asked with a hoarse voice.
“What’s wrong with you? A cold?” Lu Zhao’s eyes suddenly lit up. He looked past Jian Hua towards the furnishings (the glass fragments couldn’t be seen from his angle), and couldn’t conceal his disappointment
“I have a bad cold and have been sleeping at home for two days.” Jian Hua spoke with a cold expression, “Didn’t you going abroad?”
“I just came back.” Lu Zhao came from a good family, even if he didn’t look like it. He lowered his voice and asked, “I heard you offended someone and lost your job? You didn’t pick up when I called…”
“It is nothing. I was just resting. The medication makes it hard for me to keep my eyes open. Jian Hua interrupted and neatly closed the door
Lu Zhao touched his safe nose, before turning around and heading downstairs. He stopped by Jian Hua’s car downstairs and saw the phone inside the car. Lu Zhao was relieved and said to himself, “This is why you didn’t answer your phone.”
Lu Zhao touched his phone, where the hot topic was ‘Huan Yu Studios Young Man and Woman.’ The news talked about the dead bodies that were found in the supermarket on the first floor of the mall, with food wrapping paper and empty drink bottles beside their bodies. According to the statement from the security at the mall, the deceased were found around 11 o’clock last evening.
“It has started.” Lu Zhao spoke with annoyance and closed his phone.