One person: Starting with the Snow Drinking Blade

As I left the two-story building, a faint grayish-blue hue had just begun to rise on the horizon. The morning mist of the Yimeng Mountains surged up from the valley floor, flowing close to the ground, its height just above an adult's ankle. The entire town of Qingshan was shrouded in this mist; the bases of the walls and the lower half of the doorsteps on both sides of the street disappeared into the fog, while the upper half of the brick walls and window frames were exposed in the cool morning light, creating a visually disjointed effect. That omnipresent, sinister aura became even more solidified in the mist, like a thin film of oil covering every stone slab and every wall surface; after a few steps, you would find a fine layer of grayish-white water droplets clinging to your cuffs and trouser legs.

Zhang Chulan walked in the middle of the group, glancing at his shoulder every now and then to make sure the layer of water droplets hadn't thickened. He noticed that the mist darkened in color as it approached the iron gate of the foundry—transitioning from milky white to a thin leaden gray, seeping inwards along the cracks in the door and at the base of the wall.

"The concentration in this factory is higher than on the street." Wang Ye moved the Zhenwu Sword from his shoulder to his chest, hilt facing outwards. "The Qi from underground is converging in this direction through some kind of channel; the entire factory area is like the bottom of a funnel."

"Where does it want to gather?" Lu Linglong asked.

"Gather at a certain point in the middle of the factory area," Nie Lingfeng replied briefly. He stopped in front of the iron gate, placed a hand on the door panel, and waited for about two breaths before pushing the door open.

The main gate of the iron foundry was larger than I had imagined. Each of the two iron gates was about three meters wide, covered with a layer of reddish-brown rust. A dried, dark brown stain ran from the middle of the gate panel to the ground, pooling into a small, solidified puddle at the threshold. On the floor inside the gate lay several broken iron pipes and an overturned toolbox, its wrenches and screwdrivers scattered everywhere, some bent.

The interior of the factory was a whole level dimmer than the outside. The huge skylight was mostly covered by dust and fallen leaves, with only a few narrow beams of light cutting in at an angle through the gaps, illuminating the dust particles suspended in the air and forming solid outlines of beams of light. The ground was a mixture of compacted soil and scrap iron, hard and rough to walk on, with some hastily discarded items scattered around the edges—a rolled-up work uniform, half a broken rubber boot, an overturned enamel mug with a ring of dried, dark liquid still clinging to its rim.

From deep within the factory came extremely faint sounds—not the low growls of a zombie, but a softer, deliberately suppressed breathing sound, occasionally punctuated by the rustling of fabric.

Nie Lingfeng slowed his pace. He didn't let the others get into combat mode; he simply shifted the hilt of his Snow Drinking Blade from his waist to a more comfortable position and continued walking. His pace remained the same, but each step he took was lighter than before, and the sound of his boots crushing metal scraps was minimized.

In the deepest corner of the factory, there was a huge set of old machine tools. The cast iron bases of the machines were half-buried in a pile of junk, surrounded by several overturned wooden crates and a roll of canvas gnawed by rats. The faint sounds came from the narrow gap between the machine tools and the wall.

Nie Lingfeng stopped about five steps away from the machine tool. He turned his head slightly, letting the light shine from his left, his gaze falling on the narrow slit, and then spoke, his voice neither loud nor soft, maintaining a calm and non-threatening tone: "We are people sent by the company. The streets outside have already been cleared. You can come out."

A few seconds of silence followed in the narrow crevice, then a few low, suppressed gasps. Next, a hand emerged from the crevice—a long, scabbed wound on the back of the hand, black rust embedded in the fingernails, but the skin was a normal flesh color, without that grayish-white or reddish-gray discoloration.

Liu San was the first to emerge. He was wearing dark gray work pants and a worn-out blue cotton jacket. His hair was a tangled mess, like a clump of dry grass blown by the wind. His eyes were sunken, and his lips were cracked in several places, some dried and scabbed over, others still oozing a thin layer of blood. He hunched over as he left the cramped space, first using his hands to push himself up from the ground before slowly straightening up. After standing up, his knees trembled, and he had to steady himself by grabbing the machine tool next to him.

Three people emerged from behind him. Zhang Qiang was shorter, with broad shoulders. A section of his left sleeve had been torn off at the elbow, revealing a strip of cloth wrapped around his forearm, now stained dark brown. The edges of the cloth showed the skin around the wound was taut and pale, but showed no signs of infection. Lin Mei was the only woman among the four. She looked to be in her early thirties, with short hair and a shallow scratch on her right cheek, already scabbed over. When she came out, she was clutching a rusty, red-hot iron pipe, one end of which had been flattened, forming a barely usable blade. Wang Daniu was taller than the other three, but his back was severely hunched, his entire center of gravity leaning forward, as if he had been carrying a heavy load for too long without putting it down.

The four men watched Nie Lingfeng and his companions in the dim light of the factory, their eyes filled with a mixture of emotions: the sudden joy of seeing living people, and the conditioned reflex of wariness formed from prolonged exposure to fear. Their gaze swept over Nie Lingfeng's back—Zhang Chulan, Wang Zhenqiu, Lu Linglong, Feng Baobao, Wang Ye, Zhang Lingyu, Lu Lin, and Chen Duo holding Xiaoyun—eight people plus a child, alive, intact, without wounds, and without discoloration. That number caused a small crack to appear in their tense demeanor.

"Are you...human?" Liu San's voice was so hoarse that it was almost unrecognizable, as if he hadn't drunk enough water for several days, and his vocal cords had lost their proper moisture.

"We are human." Nie Lingfeng's answer was direct and without embellishment. "Na Du Tong Company, Dawn Squad. You are survivors of Qingshan Town?"

When Liu San heard the words "Na Du Tong," his deep-set eyes suddenly welled up with tears. His Adam's apple bobbed violently twice, his lips opened and closed repeatedly, and finally, a broken sentence escaped his lips: "We...we've been here...for four days...our dry rations and water are long gone...we started drinking water from the condensate pipe yesterday...if no one comes soon..."

He couldn't continue.

Zhang Chulan took two steps forward, pulled an unopened bottle of mineral water and a pack of compressed biscuits from the side pocket of his backpack, unscrewed the caps, and handed them over: "Have some water first. Don't rush, drink slowly."

Liu San's hands trembled as he took the water bottle. He didn't drink immediately; he held the bottle for a couple of seconds, then carefully unscrewed the cap, took a small sip, held it in his mouth for a moment, and slowly swallowed. The second sip was larger than the first, then the third, and the fourth. After swallowing, he wiped his mouth with his sleeve and handed the bottle to Lin Mei beside him at the same angle, the movement as natural as the countless times they had passed tools to each other at work over the past decades.

Lin Mei took the water and drank a few sips herself before passing it to Zhang Qiang, who then passed it to Wang Daniu. The four of them shared one bottle of water, and no one drank more than necessary. Each person only took two or three sips before passing it on to the next person, as if it were some kind of tacit understanding ingrained in their bones, formed in an environment of scarcity.

After the four of them took turns drinking water and sharing two packets of compressed biscuits, the ashen color on their faces faded slightly. Liu San sat on the ground, leaning against the cast iron base of the machine tool, his hands supporting his knees. He exhaled a long breath and began to recount the whole story in his hoarse voice.

His narration was disjointed, with several pauses where he rubbed his temples, as if trying to reassemble the scattered timelines of his memory. Wang didn't rush him, but occasionally asked a guiding question when he paused, keeping his narration on a relatively straight path.

"At first, there was something on the mountain," Liu San said, his gaze fixed on the ground in front of him, as if looking at a scene that had replayed in his mind countless times. "People in town were saying that someone had seen something walking strangely deep in the forest. The rumors circulated for about ten days, and at first no one took it seriously. Later, a few militiamen went up the mountain to hunt, and two of them came back, both injured."