Ch 87: Apocalypse Star House Hoarding

Across the road, under the bright afternoon sun, the purple and white butterfly-like petals of the wisteria swayed gently in the breeze. The clusters of wisteria flowers looked beautiful; since the abnormal temperature shifts, many flowers had bloomed outside their usual season. However, in this neighborhood, most of the lovely blooms had been planted in a small garden that had now turned to ashes in a recent fire.

This wisteria in front of her was one of the few remaining flowers in the neighborhood, blooming most radiantly.

Yu Xi checked the windowsill area but found no footprints or other traces. Supporting herself on the windowsill, she lightly jumped out. She bent down to pick up a small stone, stood still, and flicked it with her fingers.

The stone accurately hit a cluster of wisteria flowers. She deliberately used enough force, and with a bit of sharpness, the stone knocked down several petals.

Standing calmly, Yu Xi seemed expressionless, but in reality, her other hand, hidden behind her back, was quietly holding onto a bottle of High-Temperature Perfume. If it was a mutated plant, cold weapons or even guns wouldn’t be very effective—only fire would deal maximum damage.

A few purple-white petals drifted down, while the wisteria in front of her continued to sway gently in the breeze, with no signs of unusual movement in the flowers, leaves, or vines. She didn’t just look with her eyes but opened all her senses to listen and feel, yet she sensed nothing out of the ordinary.

It seemed that the wisteria here hadn’t mutated. However, another possibility lingered: perhaps it had mutated, but in a different way…

An hour passed, and the police hadn’t arrived. Likely, another emergency had delayed them, and everyone seemed to understand given the current chaotic state outside.

Yu Xi and the others had long left the house where the incident occurred. Xu Yan had closed the windows and doors, planning to reopen them when the police arrived for investigation.

In the meantime, they kept busy by addressing the issue of pets temporarily housed in the changing room. Currently, residents with pets who refused to send them there were unanimously marked and ostracized by the others. Once-cute cats, dogs, bunnies, and even turtles, goldfish, and hamsters had now become the top objects of suspicion.

Seeing that she wasn’t needed, Yu Xi told Xu Yan to message her if anything came up and then headed back to the main building.

When she returned home, she found her parents, who had been busy in the kitchen for the past few days, standing by the south-facing floor-to-ceiling window in the living room. They were checking their phones and tablets, occasionally glancing outside in a particular direction.

“What’s going on?” she asked, sensing that something was off.

“A trending topic just broke out. There was an incident at the temporary shelter set up in the city’s western sports stadium.” Fan Qi turned around, her expression unusually grave and sorrowful. “They said that overnight, everyone housed there died… and they passed away silently in their sleep…”

“What!?” Yu Xi was shocked. “Is this real or just fake news?”

Without speaking, Fan Qi tapped a few times on her tablet and opened a saved video, holding it out to her.

Yu Xi took the tablet. The video wasn’t very clear due to dim lighting, seemingly shot indoors at night with only a few faintly glowing floor lamps.

The person recording seemed to be crying, suppressing their voice out of fear. She was pushing a middle-aged woman lying on a bed, calling out to her as “Mom” in a tearful voice. But the woman didn’t respond—either deeply asleep or unconscious.

With stifled sobs, the young woman moved to another bed. As she did so, Yu Xi got a clearer view of the surroundings: gray partitions, two beds in each compartment with two bedside tables, and a few scattered belongings on the floor nearby.

Yu Xi recognized the location: the temporary shelter inside the converted sports stadium.

The following footage was haunting. The young woman with the phone moved to several adjacent compartments, gently calling out to the sleeping people, but none of them responded.

In the dim interior, everyone lay on their beds, as if lifeless…

The video’s final shot showed her in a selfie, but the low light only revealed the rough outline of her face. Leaning beside her mother’s bed, her voice trembled with desperation and incoherent fear.

“…There’s something here. I can’t make too much noise; I’m afraid it’ll come after me. I don’t know what it is… I was in the bathroom for over half an hour, and when I came out, my mom was motionless…”

“It killed my mom, killed everyone here… everyone is dead. I don’t know if I’m next… I don’t dare to run. This place is huge; it could be hiding anywhere… Why? Why did the world suddenly become like this?

Our home is gone, everything is gone. My mom and I came here thinking things couldn’t get worse… At least we were still alive, and we felt lucky compared to some others… But why…

Is this the end of the world? Is this planet really trying to drive humanity away because we didn’t care for it, didn’t protect it? But I’ve never done anything like that. I’m so scared… I called the rescue team, so why haven’t they come yet… Wait, I hear something. It sounds like footsteps…”

The video ended.

“The person who uploaded the video wasn’t the one who recorded it. She said it was her friend who had sent it to her after filming. She had been waiting for an official announcement, but by noon, there was no news. The media even claimed that the city’s crisis with animals and plants was almost over and that life would soon return to normal. That’s when she decided to upload the video online.

She used to be an internet influencer, and she first showed the video to her viewers during a livestream. She then posted it on several platforms, but it kept getting deleted at first. Later, others started saying they had friends staying at the stadium’s temporary shelter who hadn’t been reachable all day. More and more people began to focus on this incident, and now it’s blown up into a trending topic,” Fan Qi explained.

After finishing, she took the tablet back from Yu Xi and tapped a few times to show a few more videos, all recorded by nearby residents from various angles—some from balconies, others from windows.

The videos showed ambulances, rescue vehicles, and police cars racing by.

“These were filmed this morning by people living near the stadium, and that’s why they’re now being posted online.”

“So, it’s real?” Yu Xi took out her phone and opened a social media platform. There was no need to search; the entire internet was already buzzing with this incident.

The public was discussing, speculating, and panicking. Many had been hoping that life would return to normal soon. Fresh food supplies in homes were running low, and many were relying on instant noodles and preserved foods. People were desperate for things to return to normal so they could go out and shop again.

But now, everyone had been plunged into a deep sense of despair.

They wished this wasn’t real, that the video was fake, that the people speaking up were all lying. Everyone was waiting for someone to debunk it, but this topic had been trending for over an hour. More people were sharing videos, and as these clips were compared, they only reinforced the tragic reality of the situation.

Yu Feng and Fan Qi were deeply unsettled. Even though they had the protection of the Star House, were safe indoors, and had their daughter’s support and ample supplies, they still felt the grief and empathy of a shared human tragedy. No one could ignore such a catastrophe, even if they were momentarily safe.

Who wouldn’t wish to live in a peaceful and ordinary time, even if life is filled with trivial annoyances, complex relationships, work one doesn’t want to face, and a monotonous daily routine? That life, though, is still a happy one.

But now, it was as if they were only just beginning to understand the true meaning of “apocalypse.”

Seeing her parents’ sadness, Yu Xi approached and hugged them from behind. She didn’t say anything, just gently patted their backs.

Only long after this incident did Yu Xi and her family realize that this wasn’t a random occurrence, nor was it inevitable. It was nature’s backlash—a response to humanity’s widespread burning and destruction of flora and fauna.

That day, the police never came, even by evening.

Xu Yan and the others soon heard about the trending news, and everyone returned to their apartments in a somber mood.

The news broadcast covered the incident that night, marking it as the first large-scale casualty event following the massive mutations of plants and animals in S City. Reporters called it a mass poisoning event, though the exact mutated organism responsible remained unclear, with experts working urgently to investigate.

There were survivors of the incident, but only a few, and they remained in a coma. The girl from the video was safe in a hospital, neither poisoned nor unconscious, but she had clearly been traumatized and needed psychological support.

Officials announced on the news that, starting the next day, fresh food packages would be delivered to citizens, urging everyone to hold on a bit longer and avoid going out.

Each district and street would be responsible for these deliveries, with escort teams ensuring that every area, neighborhood, and household received their food packages. These supplies would be distributed for free, though delivery times would vary, so they urged people to be patient, avoid competing for resources, and rest assured that each household would receive their share…

“Mass poisoning?” Yu Xi leaned by Star House’s window, glancing back at the city outside. What kind of creature could silently poison two or three hundred people at once, in the dead of night?

She couldn’t imagine any creature capable of such a feat.

Fan Qi and Yu Feng, unsettled by the news, washed up in Star House and went to bed early.

Yu Xi dimmed the camping light and continued searching for clues online, reading various messages and discussions, leaving questions in group chats to see if other neighborhoods had experienced similar disappearances, strange events, or incidents like the one at the stadium.

As the night wore on, Yu Xi was preparing to go to sleep when she heard a strange noise.

The sound came from the living room outside Star House.

Even though they slept inside Star House, her family still locked the main doors and secured every window each night. Whatever might have entered the building couldn’t have entered their apartment.

To be safe, Yu Xi quickly put on her protective suit and mask and stepped out of Star House.

The south-facing curtains in the living room were open, and long shadows stretched across the glass.

As she drew closer, she realized that the shadows were clusters of wisteria flowers.

The wisteria that should have been blooming under the pergola outside was now hanging right outside their glass wall, gently swaying in the wind. The clusters of purple and white petals overlapped, creating a stunning sight even in the darkness.

She quickly sensed something was wrong.

No! This wasn’t wisteria!

It was—butterflies!

Dozens—no, hundreds, even thousands of purple and white butterflies were clinging and intertwining, forming clusters that looked like petals.

As she moved closer to the window, the butterflies suddenly scattered, petals fluttering apart, and then, all at once, they swarmed toward the glass, sticking tightly to it.

The entire floor-to-ceiling window was covered from top to bottom in a dense, writhing mass of purple and white butterflies.