Where’s the internet!? (Seeking investment, looking for votes)

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“Waking up, everything’s turned upside down... but why is it so quiet?” Zhang Su’s brow furrowed deeply as his eyes scanned the surroundings. Compared to chaos, this eerie silence was far more terrifying. Such a grave event had occurred, yet there was no sign of emergency vehicles anywhere.

Where were the police cars, ambulances, and fire trucks?

This was far too abnormal.

Ping-pong.

As Zhang Su gazed down the street, a floor-to-ceiling window in Building No. 4 opposite suddenly shattered, and three figures plummeted from the sky, followed by piercing, agonized screams.

Their fall was swift, and Zhang Su could barely make out that among the three was a child and what appeared to be an elderly couple.

The trees blocked his view of their landing, but the dull thuds upon impact were faintly audible, causing a twitch at the corner of Zhang Su’s mouth.

“Help! Damn it, get away, you lunatic...”

Before Zhang Su could fully recover from the shock of the fall, distant cries for help echoed. The zombies, which had been sluggishly wandering moments before, suddenly moved with alarming speed. Their stiff bodies were surprisingly quick as they chased after a young man running barefoot.

“Run!”

Zhang Su couldn’t help but clench his fists for the young man.

Almost as if responding to Zhang Su’s silent encouragement, the youth bolted with all his might and soon disappeared around the corner, followed closely by the relentless horde of zombies. His fate was uncertain.

“Help... someone, please save me! Husband, no, don’t!”

Pressing his face against the glass in an attempt to see what had happened to the youth, Zhang Su was struck by a nearby, desperate cry—haunting and heart-wrenching.

He recognized the voice belonged to a delicate young woman from downstairs, someone he often saw walking her Samoyed dog around the community. She appeared carefree, without a job, living a comfortable life.

“Help... ah, uh...”

The call for help turned into a scream, then faded into faint chewing sounds. Throughout, there was no bark from a dog—perhaps it had already perished.

Just as Zhang Su was about to turn away, his peripheral vision caught two twisted figures crawling out from behind the tree that had concealed the falling couple. Upon closer inspection, it was indeed the elderly pair who had plummeted moments ago.

“Hell... are we in hell now?”

Unnoticed, Zheng Xinyu had approached Zhang Su’s side, tears glistening in her eyes as she stared out the window.

She had no notion of what hell looked like, but the gruesome scenes before her were the most terrifying and bloody she had ever witnessed. Yet if she were to see the current conditions in hospitals, boarding schools, or factories, she would realize how shallow her understanding of hell truly was.

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“What the hell is going on?!”

After forcibly waking up only to be met with such a violent shock, Zhang Su had no time to think clearly. He slumped to the ground, clutching his hair and muttering, “I’m losing it... this is insane. Everything’s gone completely mad!”

But the madness was certainly not his own—it was the world itself.

Yet if the entire world, except for him, had gone insane, then who was truly mad?

“This life script is all wrong!” Zhang Su roared silently within.

His previous life had been quite good—he owned a home and property, and had a car that sufficed for daily commuting.

No debts, an income exceeding ten thousand yuan monthly, changing girlfriends twice a year, enjoying food and drink at will—life was comfortable, free, and unrestrained.

He had no plans to marry, nor any intention of having children. He planned to start traveling at thirty, to experience the diverse cultures and landscapes both domestically and abroad.

Yet all of that turned to dust the moment he woke up.

“This apocalyptic script does not belong to me!”

Zhang Su’s brow tightened as irritation and a bleak sense of the future weighed heavily on his heart.

“Su Ge, don’t be like this... Su Ge...” Zheng Xinyu’s voice was filled with sympathy as she saw the strong, sturdy man’s moment of helplessness.

She crouched beside him, resting her hand gently on his shoulder, offering silent comfort.

After calming himself for a moment, Zhang Su took a deep breath and asked in a low voice, “Any news? Anything at all?”

“No... no network!” Zheng Xinyu withdrew her arm and sat obediently aside, unwilling to further wound Zhang Su at such a moment, but that was the truth.

“No network?!” Zhang Su released his grip on his hair and repeated incredulously, his brow furrowing further.

Before Zheng Xinyu could respond, he hurried back to the bedroom and grabbed his phone. The signal, which was usually full bars, now flickered with only one bar, like a candle flickering in the wind—sometimes there, sometimes gone.

All attempts to make a call failed, let alone to access the internet.

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“Wired network!”

Zhang Su suddenly remembered and quickly switched on his computer, only to be met with a red X in the lower right corner. His heart sank.

“I checked, the computer can’t connect either...” Zheng Xinyu approached the bedroom, lowering her voice, her tone full of helplessness.

For people accustomed to gathering information through the internet, the loss of connectivity was a devastating blow—like being blindfolded and deafened.

Zhang Su had no idea what could have caused a city’s communications and networks to collapse, but he knew this was very, very bad—catastrophically bad.

To say it bluntly, the internet was one of the lifelines of any city or even a nation. Severing it would bring unimaginable consequences.

He couldn’t fathom any scenario that could destroy a city’s communications so completely and so swiftly.

Growing impatient, he fiddled with his phone again to no avail, then threw it on the bed. Donning a jacket, he slowed his speech and said, “Forget the news for now. Let’s piece things together. Xinyu, when did you wake up?”

“I just woke when I called you—didn’t even brush my teeth...” Zheng Xinyu saw Zhang Su regaining composure and felt some relief herself.

“Alright. Judging by the current situation, the entire Sheng Qin community is definitely finished!”

Zhang Su paused briefly, then continued, “This street, Ocean Avenue, is usually bustling at this hour. I only saw one car pass by, and crucially, no sirens. For such a huge incident, no sirens, plus the network is down... I think...”

He stood up, took a cigarette from the table, lit it, and said in a low voice, “I think the whole of Qin City is in trouble.”

He avoided using the heavy word ‘fallen,’ perhaps unwilling to admit the grim reality.

“Don’t scare me like that.”

Zheng Xinyu covered her mouth lightly, tears welling in her eyes.

Even a large-scale epidemic would be enough to unsettle those caught within it. But when people around you suddenly mutate into flesh-eating monsters, how could panic be avoided?

Zheng Xinyu desperately wished only Sheng Qin community had suffered this disaster, hoping that soon the army or SWAT teams would arrive to restore order. At worst, the police would come to rescue survivors. But after hearing Zhang Su’s analysis, her heart sank to the depths.