Chapter 294: March

The First Floor lobby of the mall has already been turned into a temporary refugee camp.

The smell in the air was foul, a mix of the sour stench of hundreds of people who hadn't bathed for days, the ammonia of waste, and an indescribable iron‑rust fishy odor. It was the scent of blood residue on clothing.

Su Ming curled up in a corner, gnawing on a compressed biscuit obtained from the Special Forces. His cheek muscles twitched mechanically, but his gaze pierced the chaotic crowd, fixed on the floor‑to‑ceiling windows sealed with tape.

We can't stay here.

Memories of his previous life flashed through his mind like a slide show.

The mall was indeed one of the official outposts, but because it was overcrowded and bustling, by the fifth day it had turned straight into a monster buffet.

That night, blood streamed down the escalator, nearly flooding the Basement Level -1 supermarket.

Counting the time, there were less than thirty hours left until that massacre.

We must go.

Not far away, Lei Yu was pointing at a city map with several fully armed team members. The "Hawk" squad hadn't shed their gear, indicating they didn't plan to stay long.

Su Ming brushed the biscuit crumbs from his hand, smoothed the startled expression on his face, and stepped forward.

"Sir, are you heading north?"

Lei Yu snapped his head around, his gun instinctively lifting an inch; only after recognizing Su Ming did he lower the barrel.

"How did you know?"

"I just heard the comms officer over there tweaking a channel and mentioning 'Qing Song Hospital'." Su Ming pointed to his ear, his expression sincere, showing a petty‑citizen's sharp wit, "My home is in the North Suburbs, not far from the Hospital. I know this road well."

Lei Yu squinted, sizing up the young man. Surviving in a mutated apartment and knowing how to counter Weird with corpse pus showed he was no ordinary kid. Yet, given the current situation, an extra guide could indeed save a lot of trouble.

"We do need to go there to rendezvous with someone," Lei Yu folded the map, his tone stiff, "but taking you along is a burden. You've seen the outside—everything's animated buildings and monsters."

"Precisely because all the buildings are alive, you need me even more."

Su Ming didn't back down; instead he stepped half a pace forward, drawing a line on the map with his finger.

"Sir, are you planning to take the main road? The Zhongshan Road Elevated?"

Lei Yu said nothing, tacitly agreeing.

"That's courting death," Su Ming's voice was low but firm, "Both sides of Zhongshan Road are office towers; the density of glass curtain walls easily spawns monsters. Moreover, the elevated bridge itself is a massive concrete structure—if the bridge comes alive and rolls you into the middle, it's like wrapping dumplings."

Lei Yu's brows furrowed. This was exactly his concern. The earlier apartment mutations had already taught them a hefty lesson.

"Then what's your brilliant suggestion?"

"Go underground," Su Ming pressed his finger hard on the map, landing on a red 'M' symbol, "Subway Line 2."

The team members exchanged puzzled looks.

"Subway?" the deputy captain, a bald man, interjected, "Isn't underground even riskier? If it collapses, we'd all be buried inside."

"Based on my observations, the current Weird resurgence mainly targets 'ground buildings with complex structures'." Su Ming knew his logic had to convince them, "Subway tunnels have a simple structure and lie deep underground, so they're least affected by Blood Moon red light. Most importantly, Line 2 goes straight to the North Suburbs with no transfer stations—a straight line. Once you reach the terminal, the Hospital is only three kilometers away."

In truth, the real reason was that in his previous life Su Ming knew Line 2 was a relatively safe route at the start.

Lei Yu stared at Su Ming for a full five seconds.

"Give him an Anti-Stab Suit," Lei Yu finally relented, tugging up his tactical gloves.

"Deal," Su Ming grinned, flashing a set of white teeth.

Qing Song Hospital's location coincided with the route he intended to take to the North Suburbs.

He could once again escape this dangerous place.

A win‑win.

Ten minutes later, the squad was ready and set out.

Lei Yu took only six elite members; with Su Ming, that made eight.

From the mall to the subway entrance, they had to cross a pedestrian street.

The fog outside was denser than when they arrived. It wasn't white but tinged with a faint pink, and inhaling it gave a cloying sweet taste. The street lamps on both sides had long been out; only distant, flickering neon signs glowed like malfunctioning ghost eyes.

"Maintain formation, don't fall behind," Lei Yu signaled with tactical hand signs, the bright flashlight on his gun cutting through the mist.

Su Ming walked in the middle of the squad. He carried no gun, still gripping the modified mop‑spear in his hand.

The pedestrian street was too quiet.

So quiet it felt abnormal.

Normally this spot is the busiest part of the City Center, with loudspeakers blaring "Everything two bucks," and long queues outside the bubble‑tea shop.

Now the whole street was dead‑still. The plastic mannequins still stood in the clothing store windows, but their poses were bizarre—some twisted their heads backward, others tangled limbs together as if performing some Weird yoga.

"What… is that?"

Da Peng, the rearmost squad member, spoke with a trembling voice.

Everyone followed his line of sight.

In front of a bridal shop's floor‑to‑ceiling window stood a woman in a white wedding dress.

No, that's not a person.

It was a plastic mannequin, but its face wore an outrageously gaudy makeup, its eyes were red glass balls. It stared straight at the line of eight people in the middle of the road, its mouth corners drawn with lipstick, stretched to the ears.

"Don't look," Su Ming hissed low, "Don't meet its gaze."

It was already too late.

Da Peng's earlier shout seemed to have broken some balance.

Clack.

A light sound.

The bridal mannequin's neck rotated ninety degrees. Immediately, every shop window glass on the street shivered with a tooth‑aching tremor.

"Move quickly through!" Lei Yu felt something was wrong, growling a command.

The squad began to speed up.

Su Ming's nerves were stretched to the limit. He knew what was here: Mirror Walker. These things have no physical form; they live inside mirrors, killing by devouring reflections.

Just as they passed a barbershop, a mutation suddenly occurred.

A team member walking behind Su Ming's left didn't even let out a scream; the whole person seemed to be wiped away by an invisible eraser, vanishing into thin air.

Only half a rifle remained, clanging to the ground with a 'danglang' sound. The rifle's barrel looked as if it had been neatly cut by something, the cut surface smooth as a mirror.

"Lao Zhang!"

The vice-captain turned his head, his eyes almost popping out of their sockets.

Nobody.

On the empty street, only the broken rifle spun on the ground.

"Over there!"

Su Ming pointed to the floor-to-ceiling mirror on that entire wall of the barbershop.

In the mirror, Lao Zhang frantically slapped the mirror surface with a terrified expression, his mouth wide open but unable to make a sound. Behind Lao Zhang in the mirror, a humanoid monster made of assembled glass shards slowly reached its hand into the back of Lao Zhang's head, as if fiddling with a ragdoll.

"Damn!"

Lei Yu roared angrily and raised his gun to fire.

Papapap!

The specially made bullets struck the mirror surface.

"Don't shoot!" Su Ming shouted, trying to stop but was a step too late.

Clatter!

That huge floor-to-ceiling mirror was shattered by the bullets. Countless shards of sharp glass exploded outward, scattering all over the ground.

In the mirror, Lao Zhang and the monster instantly disintegrated.

Is he dead?

No.

In every fingernail-sized piece of glass on the ground, the silhouette of that glass monster actually appeared simultaneously.

Originally there was one; now it has turned into tens of thousands.

"Idiot!" Su Ming cursed inwardly. The Mirror Walker fears nothing more than physical attacks; smashing the mirror is equivalent to creating clones for it.

Countless tiny red lights shot out from the glass fragments on the ground—that was the monster's gaze.

"Ah!"

A team member clutched his face and screamed as he fell. Dozens of fine blood slits inexplicably appeared on his face, as if countless invisible tiny knives were slicing it.

"Take cover! Find shelter!" Lei Yu also panicked; an enemy you can't see or touch is the most despairing.

"Cover is useless! Anywhere with a reflection is their attack path!" Su Ming grabbed the big Peng trying to hide behind the stainless-steel trash can, shouting, "That's metal reflection! Do you want to die?"

Da Peng shuddered in fright; his motion to dive in froze mid-air. The next second, the trash can's surface gained several deep claw marks, sparks flying.

"What do we do?!" Lei Yu yelled while firing wildly; his bulletproof vest had been slit in several places, blood seeping out.

Su Ming's gaze darted frantically across the street.

Guns and knives won't work. This is a rule-based weirdness; we must defeat rules with rules.

As long as there is no reflection, they do not exist.

His gaze fell on the entrance of a store under renovation. There were several buckets of paint smeared with putty, and a few unopened bags of cement powder.

"Cover me!"

Su Ming bellowed, slung his spear over his back, crouched low, and charged out.

"What are you doing? Come back!" Lei Yu reached out to grab him, but grasped at air.

Su Ming's silhouette slipped through the fog like a loach. He rushed to the pile of renovation materials, grabbed a bucket of red paint. The lid wasn't sealed tight, but he didn't care; he gripped the rim with his fingers and heaved hard.

His muscles tensed, his waist and abdomen twisting.

That bucket of paint, weighing over twenty jin, he swung round and hurled hard at the barbershop's remaining glass frame and the shards strewn on the ground.

Whoosh——

The thick red paint, like a pool of blood, poured down over his head and face.

The red paint instantly covered those glittering glass shards; the originally clear mirror reflection became hopelessly murky.

"Ah——!!!"

A sharp, glass-scraping fingernail-like scream came from the air.

That was not a human voice.

The glass shards on the ground began to tremble violently; the shadows inside, having lost their clear imaging medium, could no longer attack.

"Effective!"

The vice-captain shouted in delight.

"Don't just stand there! Cement powder! And mud!" Su Ming tossed the empty bucket, kicked open a bag of cement, grabbed a handful and flung it into the air.

Gray-white dust flew everywhere.

This dust not only blocks sight, but more importantly, it settles on the few surviving glass shop windows, instantly making their smooth surfaces dull and unable to reflect any silhouettes.

The Special Forces members finally reacted.

They also stopped firing, hastily putting away their weapons, imitating Su Ming by grabbing roadside trash, dirt, paint, and even the leftover swill bucket from the milk tea shop's entrance, frantically splashing it onto any reflective objects around.

In an instant, this upscale pedestrian street turned into a garbage dump.

Stains, paint, and mud were everywhere.

The once bright and pristine glass shop windows were utterly transformed.

That feeling of being watched by countless eyes finally receded like a tide.

Only the plastic mannequin in the bridal shop still stood upright there, but its pair of red glass eyeballs had been splashed with black asphalt, making it look even more ridiculous and weird.

"Huff...... huff......"

Lei Yu leaned against a concrete pillar, gasping heavily. His face was mixed with blood and Paint, a sorry sight.

He looked at Su Ming, who was standing in the middle of the road dusting off his hands, and his gaze completely changed.

Before, it was vigilance; now there is a hint of awe, and deep doubt.

How could an ordinary civilian possibly find this monster's weakness in an instant in such a desperate situation?

"How did you think of that?" Lei Yu walked over and handed Su Ming a dirty tissue.

Su Ming took the tissue, casually wiped his hands, shrugged, and said: "Observation, careful observation."

This explanation is utter rubbish.

But Lei Yu didn't press further. Now is not the time for interrogation; survival is the hard truth.

"Form up, count the casualties." Lei Yu's voice was somewhat hoarse.

One person is missing. Lao Zhang is completely gone, leaving no corpse, probably forever trapped in the mirror world. There are also two lightly wounded, both having their flesh sliced by an invisible blade.

The atmosphere is somewhat heavy.

"Let's go, the subway entrance is just ahead." Su Ming pointed at the underground entrance ahead that looked like a black hole, "If we don't leave now, once this Paint dries or peels off, they'll come back."

Nobody dared to delay any longer; even if the road ahead was hell, it was better than staying in this street filled with mirrors.

At the moment they were about to step onto the subway station steps.

Buzz—buzz—buzz—

In everyone's pockets, almost at the same time, a vibration sounded.

On this deathly silent street, the dense vibration sounded like a deathly countdown.

Su Ming took out his phone.

The screen lit up automatically.

All that could be seen was that each person's phone had received a new text message.

The heading of the text message was a Weird blood-red.