Call Back
"Beep... beep... beep..."
Yu Yu's face remained calm as she continued to redial. After seven or eight attempts, there was still no response. Yu Yu put down her phone and began to think.
Old Li... was probably in grave danger. If Wang Rui couldn't find her, would she have gone to look for Old Li?
But Old Li lived in the city center, in a high-rise building with frequent activity and surveillance cameras everywhere. How could she have climbed up there?
Yu Yu glanced at the weather outside. Beyond the wide window was a vast expanse of fog, with visibility getting lower and lower. She sat on a chair in the dining room, with instant noodles and her phone in front of her. Looking outside, she could see her own low railing, dark and gloomy, with an ordinary asphalt road beyond it.
Further out, nothing was visible. Yu Yu suddenly became curious: where were the birds and stray cats from the neighborhood when the fog rolled in?
What were they doing?
Yu Yu stared blankly for a while, then withdrew her gaze. Her fingers slowly pressed the keys— one one zero
"Hello."
This time the call connected immediately. Probably because night had passed and no one was occupying the line anymore. Yu Yu briefly explained Old Li's situation and recounted her own experience from yesterday once more.
It wasn't to get the police to handle it, but to make them pay a bit more attention to Old Li's case rather than treating it as an ordinary incident. After all, missing person cases usually require waiting 24 or 48 hours before they can be filed.
The person on the other end acknowledged this calmly and reminded Yu Yu again to protect herself, saying that in her current situation, it would be best not to go out in the fog or look for her friend.
Yu Yu cheerfully expressed her understanding and wished the operator could swap shifts with a colleague to get some rest and sleep. This time the other person paused, then thanked her with a slightly choked voice before hanging up.
Perhaps Yu Yu was among the calmest of all emergency callers, allowing others to feel slightly reassured when listening to her.
...She seemed like a nice young lady.
Compared to last time, the young lady's voice had become more steady and determined, but also more exhausted. Unfortunately, Yu Yu couldn't do much more; verbal comfort was all she could offer.
She had no intention of going to look for Old Li. After her parents' death, there were very few people in this world worth risking her life for. Having reported it to the police and wishing in her heart for Old Li's safety, Yu Yu again opened various guides and began reading.
This time, however, she wasn't reading game guides, but survival guides. This was a famous survival forum in Rong City, nicknamed "Gathering Place for the Paranoid," but at this moment, this was exactly what Yu Yu needed.
Her wisdom alone was limited, and this was when her usually silly internet friends could be useful. Various posts about doomsday preparations, checklists, home modifications, ensuring water and food cycles, waste disposal, and other series of posts were all well-reasoned, and Yu Yu read them with great interest.
When she earned some money, she would come back and replace the small broken fence at her door—it was so useless that even a dog could jump over it. Just as she was thinking this, Yu Yu heard a noise and looked up. The window was large and bright, sometimes making one feel quite insecure.
A large "王" (Wang) character was visible on the round yellow head of a cat as it maintained a posture of straddling the fence while looking at Yu Yu.
Yu Yu looked back at it. They both found each other adorable. Although the window was large, there was an anti-theft layer outside with iron bars, so Yu Yu wasn't too alarmed. She calmly raised her phone and—click!—took a photo for identification. Soon, a series of big cat information popped up. Yu Yu browsed for a while before finding similar information.
#RongCityZooAnimalEscapeTenthBatch#
Seeing "tenth batch," Yu Yu was stunned for a moment—how many escapes would it take to use the term "batch"?
She scrolled down and discovered that the previous nine batches included horses, alpacas, peacocks, and later wolf packs, monkey troops, cheetahs, and then...
Like the big fellow in front of her. Perhaps realizing it had disturbed a resident, the big cat politely withdrew its foot and walked away. Yu Yu sincerely worried for the birds and cats in the neighborhood. And incidentally, for herself as well.
So... she had to call the police again.
The same young lady answered the call and recognized Yu Yu's voice as familiar. "Is that you again?"
Her tone was surprisingly familiar, which was quite rare. Yu Yu was silent for two seconds, then tactfully informed her that there was a big cat prowling outside her door. As if on cue, the golden gradient tiger just passed by her window again. Yu Yu quickly snapped another photo. "If you don't believe me, I can send you pictures."
She said very gently and tactfully, "I think, whether I die at Wang Rui's hands or in the big cat's mouth, both deaths would be equally undignified. Could you possibly..."
Send someone to take the big cat back. This time the young lady agreed immediately and even gave Yu Yu her WeChat ID to send the pictures. Oh no, actually to get in line.
Apparently, so many animals had escaped from the zoo and there were so many witnesses that people had to queue up. They were really short-staffed. Yu Yu understood and realized she definitely wouldn't be going out today.
Having already experienced Banban' agility in the game, she had no desire to face the polite big cat in person. Soon, she added the WeChat contact, took a look, sent beautiful photos of the big cat, received her queue number, and that was that. Fortunately, she had stocked up on instant noodles, which should last until the police came to lead the big cat away.
As for the express deliveries she had ordered, who knew when they would arrive. Delivery fees had skyrocketed, and Yu Yu had spent several hundred just on shipping, but she had no choice. She estimated that after a while, no one would be willing to deliver packages no matter how much money was offered.
By then, cities would become isolated islands, and it was unclear how cities would interact with surrounding counties and districts. Were densely populated areas safer, or were rural areas outside the city safer?
Yu Yu didn't know. Could Rong City be self-sufficient?
As soon as Yu Yu thought about this, she got busy again, getting up to search for information about industries around Rong City. This was bound to be a lengthy task. Without realizing it, the fog dispersed. Yu Yu checked the time on her computer: 12:35 PM. She remembered that on the first day, the fog had cleared exactly at noon, so why now...?
This was not a good trend. Yu Yu could only grimace and continue browsing various websites to gather information. Fortunately, basic utilities like water and electricity seemed fine for now; problems only affected a very unfortunate few.
Like her, like her, like her.
Even though the fog had cleared, Yu Yu didn't go out.
At 1:30 PM, a long wailing sound suddenly came from the river, seemingly a ship's horn. Yu Yu listened briefly, then clicked her mouse a couple of times. The sound passed by leisurely, coming no closer than fifty meters from Yu Yu's home at its nearest point.
Yu Yu remained unmoved.
Although she was nervous, she was still a fair distance from being completely terrified. The big cat sprawled on the nearby lawn, however, reacted as if its tail had been stepped on, darting away in an instant and disappearing.
The riverside suburb was sparsely populated with wide-open spaces. The residential community had asphalt roads, but outside were only cement roads, with many vacant lots and a patch of barren woodland that seemed out of place compared to the refinement of the residential area. There was corn and reeds planted in the riverside marshes, but they were now abandoned.
Yu Yu was hungry and looked at her instant noodles, feeling she needed to improve her meal. She chose to boil noodles, added two green vegetables (name unknown), broke an egg, and took out some beef sauce she had bought. The taste wasn't bad. She received a phone call. "...Oh, okay, okay, I won't go out."
Perhaps because the big cat outside posed a high danger level to humans, Yu Yu's queue moved rather quickly. The sun was out now, and under the sunlight, the residential area was quiet and beautiful—a peaceful world. Even from here, she could seemingly see signs of human activity across the river, bustling with life.
Yu Yu felt much better. She looked outside again. The big cat was lying on the community lawn, leisurely sprawled with its belly exposed, one paw idly batting at nothing. As it played, it suddenly hugged its head and rubbed against the ground, stretching out its entire body, looking particularly relaxed.
Having already received the call, Yu Yu couldn't help but lean against the window. "Big orange fatty, your good days are numbered."
Hearing her voice, the tiger looked over. It didn't move, just lay there twisting its head, exposing its broad white belly while squinting at Yu Yu. Yu Yu often did silly things to lighten her mood.
Like now.
When the staff arrived, they saw her and the big cat taunting each other.
The big cat was now crouching outside the fence, fierce tiger stare.jpg.
It occasionally let out low growls toward Yu Yu. Yu Yu immediately retorted, chattering away without showing any fear.
The staff: "..."
This resident was quite lively.
"Why don't you open the window to talk?"