Darkness, spreading.
Rain, pattering.
Shenzhen.
A slender figure stands atop the Land King Building in the heart of the city. Glass shattered, his silhouette sways with the wind.
Sporting a buzzcut and clad in a black combat suit, his face is indiscernible in the dark.
He stares blankly at the acid rain trickling down the windowpane.
Before the apocalypse, the world was populous, and walking amidst the bustling crowd always invoked an inexplicable sense of unrealness.
So revel in the commotion, while others, amidst the feigned bustle, strain their brains to learn the art of conversation for the sake of livelihood.
After a busy day of work, one returns to a single dormitory under the moonlight, with the evening breeze, eating takeout alone in a daze.
The lengthy nights are like poison; human life requires not just food, but ample spiritual fulfillnt.
He is lonely, yet he savors the solitude.
Only those who have embraced solitude can truly possess themselves; this he firmly believes.
A dark shadow rushes towards him from afar, but the man does not dodge.
The pitch-black shadow collides into his arms.
Stroking the furry German Shepherd in his embrace, a smile spreads across his face: "Xiao Hei, you really are pitch-black. If it weren’t for the sound, I wouldn’t have seen you at all."
The man rubs the dog’s head, recalling how on the third day after the apocalypse began, he found this two-month-old German Shepherd in a room.
Completely black.
Initially, he wanted to keep it as a reserve food source, but after a while, even he, accustod to solitude, felt a sense of reliance on the puppy.
At the peak of the food shortage, he still did not kill it for its at.
After sparing the dog, it brought him many surprises over ti.
....
Patting the dog’s head, the man says: "It’s about ti. Let’s go hunting!"
The man, carrying a rifle and a black bag on his back, slowly makes his way to a particular area of the building.
The man, known as Ant, is a retired Special Soldier.
He carries the psychological scars of war from before the apocalypse, which led to a period where he concealed his identity, hidden in plain sight.
With light footsteps, he moves with night vision goggles through the building, several hundred ters tall.
This building once stood as the tallest in Shenzhen before the apocalypse.
It was once the tallest structure in the city.
Moving in silence, he is like a ghost of the night, appearing and vanishing without a trace.
The German Shepherd on his right side places each paw down with ticulous care.
Man and dog arrive at a lobby around a corner.
Upon entry, they are greeted by the stench of bird droppings.
The man stands at the entrance, not stepping further, taking a deep breath, then holds his breath.
Inside the lobby, a flock of crows has found a nest.
Perhaps the previously intense heat drove many birds to nest high up in the city.
The lobby is swarming with crows.
Nearby windows are open.
Holding his breath, the man slowly approaches the flock.
Step by step, he edges closer silently.
The continuous patter of rain outside provides excellent cover.
He can’t walk too fast; any noise might spook the birds.
Finally, after about a dozen seconds, he closes in to within three ters of the crows.
Suddenly, one of the crows seems alerted and flutters into flight.
The rest of the flock, disturbed, flutters out in a frenzy.
In the blink of an eye, the man—the speed of lightning—throws a piece of cloth over and presses down.
Swoosh—
The cloth descends on four crows, just as they attempt to rise, pressed down firmly by the man’s hand.
His actions are swift, securing the crows with both his hands and body, ensuring they cannot escape under the cloth.
At the sa ti.
The mont the first crow took flight.
The pitch-black German Shepherd, Xiao Hei, dashes like an arrow.
Clamping a crow’s head with its teeth, *crack*—
A crunch snaps the crow’s neck.
The action continues.
After snapping its neck, the dog swiftly leaps to the window and, mid-air, catches another crow by the wing.
The captured crow flaps desperately, struggling to survive.
Despite its fervent efforts, the crow is dragged down by Xiao Hei.
Flurries of feathers drop as Xiao Hei, mouth full of plumage, gives the bird no chance to flee.
Two paws seize the crow.
Thud—
Xiao Hei slams the crow onto the ground.
After landing, Xiao Hei pins the crow’s neck with its paws and bites down without hesitation, silencing the second crow.
As for the man.
Watching the crows struggling frantically beneath the cloth, he does not hesitate to deliver a whack, likened to a Whack-A-Mole ga, putting one to death.
Then continues to dispatch the remaining three.
The force of his palm is trendous; after four strikes, the cloth no longer stirs.
Clunk—
The man sees Xiao Hei drop a crow’s corpse at his feet.
He can’t help but chuckle: "Xiao Hei, I caught more than you did this ti."
Xiao Hei seems displeased, hopping to the window, proudly wags its tail as it brings over another crow.
The opaque black pup is indistinguishable from any angle.
But the man, equipped with night vision goggles, sees its smug look and laughs: "Wow! Xiao Hei, you’re amazing!"
Then he pets the dog’s head.
A look of great satisfaction appears on Xiao Hei’s dark, furry face.
The man wrapped the four crows beneath him, along with one that Xiao Hei had brought over, in a cloth, and walked out of the hall.
This ti the harvest was plentiful.
This place is currently the man’s temporary but stable hunting ground.
Each ti, he would co over after a period, then hunt and kill crows for food.
Naturally, he knew that if he closed the windows, he could harvest even more crows, but that would be like killing the goose that lays the golden eggs—good only for a short-term feast.
But so long as he controlled the number, coming over every week to kill a few, he would be able to obtain food sustainably.
And this crow hunting ground was also discovered by Xiao Hei.
This was the surprise Xiao Hei brought him.
Back on the rooftop, he closed the entrance door.
Then he locked it with a chain, and headed straight for the innermost room.
The building was huge.
Each floor covered thousands of square ters.
After he entered the innermost room, he closed the door again.
Only then did he relax.
The room was filled with heaps of various items.
So canned goods, so large barrels of water, and a variety of tables and chairs that he had chopped up and piled together, serving as fuel.
The man hung his shoulder bag near the door.
Then, out of habit, he placed his Rifle on the ground by a weapon storage near the door.
This weapon storage contained all the weapons he had gathered since the apocalypse.
Inside were two rifles, three handguns, two Long Knives, one spear, and a bag of bullets.
After hanging up the rifle.
The man took so wood from the pile of smashed furniture, then tore off a chunk of cotton fluff from a ssy pile of sofas.
Xiao Hei, following behind the man, wagged his little tail with pride, his black dog face expressionless. However, from his tail spinning like a propeller, one could feel the little black dog was in a good mood.
The man was also in a good mood, sitting on the carpet of the room’s main hall.
Then he pulled out an iron bucket from the side.
Fondling the key ring on his waist with various gadgets—multifunction knife, firestarter...
The man took out the firestarter, approached the cotton he had just carried over, and scraped it against.
Kacha—
Sparks scattered as the firestarter was rubbed, quickly igniting the cotton, a puff of white smoke appeared.
The man carefully cupped the cotton, blowing gently.
Whoosh—
A small fla burst forth.
In the light of the fla, the man’s face was also illuminated.
Gently placing the cotton in the iron bucket, the fla grew stronger, and the man quickly inserted two sticks of wood inside.
The fire grew bigger and bigger.
Xiao Hei stared blankly at the fire, not even noticing when the crow dropped from his mouth onto his leg.
Seeing the fire blazing, the man quickly pulled out a small triangle-fork iron pot, poured so water in, and placed it over the fire to burn.
Then he started plucking the crows, quickly removing the feathers of several birds.
Ying ying ying—
The man felt sothing fluffy rubbing against him.
Seeing Xiao Hei holding the crow under the firelight, the dog’s eyes hinted a desire to eat.
The man chuckled.
He plucked the feathers of the two crows Xiao Hei had hunted and processed them as well.
The feathers were not wasted; they were tossed into the fire as fuel.
He then took out a Dagger, simply processed the crows’ innards, dug out their stomachs, scrubbed them, and then threw them to Xiao Hei.
The rest of the innards were thrown into the iron pot to be stead. The crows’ innards are rich in iron and other nutrients.
Then he skewered the bodies of the crows with rebar, setting them across the fire to smoke.
Six crows in total, four his, two Xiao Hei’s.
This was their food for the next three to four days.
After being smoked, they would have a longer shelf life.
Xiao Hei also liked cooked at.
Eating raw crows was rather dangerous, not knowing what pathogens they might carry, so it was safer to eat them cooked.
Night, as usual.
He hadn’t seen the sun in a very long ti.
He still rembered, many days ago, watching the sunset twilight on the rooftop of the building with Xiao Hei.
Sunlight, it seed like a mory from long ago.
As the flas burned, the man smoked the crows over the fire and then sat on a sofa covered with a blanket, quietly watching the fla.
Beside him, Xiao Hei was also quiet, lying next to his feet, with both ears drooping, watching the flas with his master.
The fire crackled and burned.
The wood was all of high-end raw timber.
There were also precious woods such as Pear Wood and Agarwood from before the apocalypse.
But now they had only one identity, fuel.
The soup with the crows’ innards being stead was ready.
Xiao Hei grabbed a dog bowl and brought it over.
The man poured so water into its bowl, along with so innards, reminding "It’s just boiled, very hot."
And he himself took the iron pot.
He took an iron spoon, scooped so of the crows’ innards with the broth, and tasted it.
In that instant, he looked at the firelight and the darkness outside the window.
He suddenly felt an emptiness in his heart.
As if speaking to himself, as if speaking to Xiao Hei:
"Why does the taste of the crows, taste like twilight?"
...
He hadn’t seen the sun for a very long ti, nor had he seen the twilight.
The prolonged night acted as a catalyst for emotions.
The bone-deep loneliness gradually engulfed him.
Alone in the endless night for too long, one craves sunlight, craves light.
...
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