With his preparations complete, Zhang Yi loaded the "specially treated" rations onto his snowmobile and set off for Yuelu Estate.
Upon arrival, he called Uncle You, Jiang Lei, and Li Chengbing, ordering them to maintain order. They arrived at the central courtyard quickly, a ragtag militia armed with iron rods, snow shovels, and kitchen knives.
"Zhang Yi, we're here!" one of them called out.
Zhang Yi gave a curt nod. "Good. Stay put. I'll call the others down to collect the supplies."
He pulled out his phone and sent a notification to the building leaders' group chat. Uncle You stood beside him, clutching an iron rod like a grim, silent sentry. Li Chengbing and Jiang Lei moved to his flanks, their men forming a loose protective circle.
Zhang Yi caught a glimpse of them from the corner of his eye. Li Chengbing and Jiang Lei seemed unusually wound up—tense, even for an apocalypse. Driven by a prickle of intuition, Zhang Yi subtly retreated a few paces, putting the crowd between himself and the newcomers.
Soon, the representatives arrived. A cold smile flickered across Zhang Yi's lips. The bait—cigarettes, fine liquor, and luxury goods—had worked perfectly. Nearly every building leader had crawled out of their hole, save for Li Jian from Building 18, whose rigid sense of "fairness" kept him away.
It didn't matter. The majority were here. The "gifts" they were about to receive were laced with enough rat poison to drop a man in ten minutes.
"Alright, everyone," Zhang Yi called out, his voice steady. "Come and get your supplies!"
Starting with Building 1, he tossed the rations several meters away, forcing each representative to step forward alone to retrieve them.
"Building 21!" Zhang Yi barked, locking eyes with Wang Qiang.
Wang Qiang approached with his head low, eyes hidden. Zhang Yi reached down for a bag, but as he bent over, a roar shattered the silence: "DO IT!!"
Wang Qiang whipped a pistol from his pocket, leveling it at Zhang Yi's head. Time slowed. Zhang Yi's pupils contracted as adrenaline flooded his system. He lunged to the side, but Uncle You was faster. With a guttural cry, the old man threw himself forward, shoving Zhang Yi out of the line of fire.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The reports were deafening, echoing like thunderclaps in the frozen courtyard. Uncle You's body jerked, then went limp, collapsing into the snow like a puppet with its strings cut.
A high-pitched ringing filled Zhang Yi's ears. He looked up to see a nightmare unfolding: Wang Qiang was screaming, Huang Tianfang was brandishing a meat cleaver, and even his "own" men, Li Chengbing and Jiang Lei, were closing in from less than two meters away.
Of the thirty people present, half were charging. Steel glinted against the white snow. They had been waiting for this. Zhang Yi had planned to lull them into a trap, but they had already reached their breaking point. To the estate, Zhang Yi was a god—and a god who could kill you on a whim was a god who had to be put down. They wanted his food, his fortress, and his life.
Even his own guards had been bought. They thought they had him. They thought a single pistol and a dozen blades were enough to end the reign of Zhang Yi.
Zhang Yi watched Uncle You slump into the crimson-stained snow. A terrifying, frigid clarity washed over him. He hadn't told Uncle You about the high-grade ceramic body armor he was wearing; those three bullets wouldn't have killed him. But Uncle You hadn't known that. He had jumped into the path of death without a second thought.
For the first time since the world froze over, Zhang Yi felt a pang of genuine guilt—followed immediately by a white-hot, soul-searing rage.
"Die!" Jiang Lei roared, swinging a heavy shovel at Zhang Yi's skull.
Zhang Yi rolled violently across the ice, using the snowmobile as a shield. As he scrambled to his feet, a black assault rifle materialized in his hands as if summoned from the void.
The mob's faces shifted in a heartbeat: from bloodlust, to confusion, to pure, unadulterated terror.
Zhang Yi didn't give them a second to scream. He pulled the trigger and held it.
The rifle roared, spitting a continuous stream of lead. Li Chengbing and Jiang Lei, being the closest, were shredded instantly, their bodies dancing under the impact of a dozen rounds. Zhang Yi didn't aim; he simply swept the barrel.
He didn't care who was a conspirator and who was a bystander. In the apocalypse, there was no room for a trial. Kill the guilty, and kill the suspects. It was the only rule that kept you alive.
People fell in heaps. Wang Qiang, the "Mad Wolf," was cut down mid-stride, his face frozen in a mask of disbelief. He had brought a pistol to a gunfight; he never imagined Zhang Yi was hiding a military-grade arsenal.
"He has a rifle! Run! RUN!" Huang Tianfang shrieked, dropping his knife and scrambling into the snow. The other leaders turned and fled, their bravado replaced by the frantic desperation of prey.
Zhang Yi was a machine. He looked at Uncle You, motionless in the growing pool of blood, and his heart hardened into diamond.
"Uncle You," Zhang Yi's voice was a low, icy rasp. "Thank you for the bullets. I'll make sure every last one of them joins you."
The "ambush" had turned into a slaughter. As Zhang Yi had always believed: Against absolute power, all schemes are nothing more than dust in the wind.