Of course An Li didnât go around and say to everyone that â Oh no, something bad is going to happen! Everyone run for your lives! â like a mental patient, nor did she dash out the room while mumbling nonsense. If this were a film set, she wouldnât have minded acting like this, but in real life, she was only a model whoâd just started to gain popularity. Since she refused to accept being sugared <sup>1</sup> meaning ć ć », which can be understood as a patronage where a rich person would pay and bring resources to actor/actresses while the actor/actress sell their body to the person in return , sheâd have to wait longer for her chance at success.
Acting like the heroine of a movie? She needed to be alive first.
What could be the safest place? Or better yet, what could possibly happen?
Tsunami? Typhoon? Impossible. The Thalassa Goddessâ detecting devices were extremely diverse and covered a wide scale; if that were the caseâ even an idiot would realize the increasingly odd situation. Everyone she knew was talking about the lack of phone service, the incompetent room service, and the fact that even a salad would take forever to arrive. The explanation that was given said that all of this was the result of the cruise sailing through an area with an abnormal magnetic field which caused the radio and signal to malfunction; but itâd been more than a dayâŠ
An Li grew more alert when she saw Han Lin speaking to the person beside him with a cold expression, before she turned around to find that Xia Yi was no longer in the previous corner. There were bodyguards guarding the doors, so it wasnât easy to leave, but it was impossible to find a safe place in such a crowded room. The best solution was to wait until morning, when everyone was drunk and the party had ended, before rushing to the restaurants to purchase some preservable food and water.
As for now, all that she could do was pray for nothing to happen before dawn.
As the night grew darker, more and more drunkards filled the space. Men and women entangled together with no regard to their surroundings, and some had even left for the private rooms provided on the side; the party was in full swing.
Han Lin was considering the information heâd just received.
That man was only a small-time actor. Ridiculous. He didnât believe that Xia Yi had nobody standing behind him, otherwise, why would he have the guts to ignore him⊠unlessâŠ
Before he finished his thought, darkness suddenly enveloped him.
âWhat happened?!â
After a period of frantic cries, some people, such as Han Lin, understood the situation.
âWhat the fuck? Isnât this supposed to be the most luxurious cruise in Asia? Why would there be blackouts?â
âYeah, Mr Han, whatâs the meaning of this? Is this some sort of special program?â
âSorry, sorry⊠Iâll go check on it right away!â
The people who were still awake were all upset. Some didnât even bother to wait for an explanation. Their moods were disturbed, so naturally they just wanted to leave. They swayed to the outdoor swimming pool to call their partners or companions back to the cabins.
âAHHHH!!!â
A scream silenced the begrudging crowd.
By now, their eyes were becoming adjusted to the darkness, and through the faint moonlight, they could see a lady had fallen by the pool. In front of her was a man who seemed to be intoxicated and was laying beside the water. Around him were several women of the same posture, and there was even a person who was half floating in the pool.
âDâdead⊠Theyâre all dead!â
The crowd grew restless as all the bodyguards ran to their employers and the ones who were completely passed out.
An Li shivered and immediately turned to leave this place. That was when she realised Xia Yi was even faster than her and had already dashed out the fire exit.
***
The sun rose as usual and January 9th arrived.
The sky was cloudless in some northern Chinese city.
All the people hurrying out their doors instinctively looked up to the sky.
Thatâs weird, the sun wasnât out yet, why did it feel so warm? The usually biting winter winds became pleasant, but werenât there still months until spring? Chinese New Year had yet to pass, so whatâs going on? The urban heat island effect was getting ridiculous! Look at the amount of carbon dioxide emissions. Oh well, at least warmer weather was better than the blizzards a few years ago. Itâs almost New Years, and all the things at home and at work were piling up; the kids were busy with term tests and wishing that there were 48 hours in a day instead. Who had the time to worry about the weather? As long as this January didnât end up with two snows, one lasting for 15 days and the other for 16 , all was good.
Around twenty years ago, Chinese streets were flooded with bicycles. The rush hour red lights were quite the sight! As for now, the scene was still spectacular: rows upon rows of electric bicycles in all the colours of the rainbow glided out with ease at the squeeze of a handle. Almost nobody regularly checked whether the bolts on their bikes were tight enough, which meant that during emergency situations, things became chaotic.
When the green light appeared, no matter how they squeezed their handles, the electric bicycles refused to move.
If these were regular bicycles, they could at least carry them on their backs, but what could they do with electric bicycles? They were a hassle to even push along, plus it was around seven oâclock, when everyone was rushing to work. It was best to find a nearby garage or parking lot to lock the bikes in and wait for a bus or taxi.
A lady first began to dejectedly push her bike across the road.
Then the second, and third, and soon, a bizarre scene appeared: at all four crossroads were crowds of people who were forced to walk because of malfunctioning electric bikes; whose god did they displease today?
âYour bike?â
âYeah, it suddenly stopped moving. Yours too?â
âMmhmm, and I just bought it a week ago!â
The people discussed how it was the more expensive and better-branded electric bikes that refused to budge a single inch, while the older versions that were about to break down were able to slide a few meters before dying.
Strange things happened all the time, but they seemed particularly plentiful this year.
Countless people swore and complained, yet only a few of them were spooked out and were prepared to post on Weibo or call for help. But who knew that a problem occurred with the service; no matter how they tried, the calls wouldnât go through, and both WiFi and data refused to respond.
Could it be the so-called sunspot activities and solar storms interfering with communication?
At this moment, the strongest reactions were only the twitching of eyes and not panic. All that the people wanted to know was what had happened? As for work? There was no way that their bosses wouldnât hear about this mass peculiar situation. Even if they were late, as long as the boss wasnât too demanding, their salaries wonât be cut.
Nothing made sense today; donât tell me that the aliens took preference in electric bicycles?
Similar situations were occurring all around the world. The only difference was that, except for China, no other countries had such a large number of electric bicycle users. In many places, it was cars not being able to start, or airports being shut down. The only areas that were unaffected were warfronts, where they still engaged in guerrilla warfare and terrorist attacks. The more developed the country, the more problems arose: phones stopped working, watches stopped running, cameras broke down, and computer hard drives were unopenable. All forms of communication were strangely cut off.
The people finally started to panic and ran out the doors to stock up on resources.
By the time the government tried to interfere, it was already too late. Such big countries, yet there were almost no unaffected areas. Only around a tenth of the provinces could maintain basic communication. Once there were no phones or Internet, messages had to pass by literal word-of-mouth, and even a village head would be exhausted, much less the heads of a whole country. Terrible news came one after the other, bombarding the world leaders so much they were at loss for what to do.
January 9th, 12:00, all the satellites near the earthâs orbit were confirmed to have lost contact regardless of whether they were weather satellites, military satellites, or communication satellites⊠Maybe they were still working diligently, but all the receiver systems on earth had shut down. This meant that the intercontinental missile-launching systems and the world wide web, whether that be military or commercial, were all paralysed.
13:00, almost all the airplanes in the world were unable to take flight.
Motorised vehicles, regardless if they were buses, trucks, cars, or even trains, all became a pile of useless metal because their engines couldnât start. Even if they did, a lot of the functions were defective, and it would be committing suicide to drive these cars. Even tricycles, bicycles, and scooters worked better than them!
14:00, the mass panic that caused people to seize as many resources as possible had completely derailed from the governmentâs hands.
Ironically, the war-torn areas were practically unaffected as people simply ran back to the trenches and shelters.
Since there was a lack of communication and transportation, nobody knew what was happening to the rest of the world. Some even believed that it was only their city that was undergoing chaos. While a number of people hid in their homes after securing food and water, there were more who took up their belongings and frantically rode their bicycles on the highway leading out. They wanted to leave the city that had become a pandemonium.
No matter if they succeeded or not, they were doomed to be devastated.
Afterall, nobody could leave the earth itself.
1
meaning ć ć », which can be understood as a patronage where a rich person would pay and bring resources to actor/actresses while the actor/actress sell their body to the person in return