Doomsday police, please show your god/demon ID card.

"So beautiful!"

Su Yan couldn't help but murmur a sentence softly.

"Indeed, it's beautiful!" Tang Long slowly raised his right hand and shielded his eyes.

Sunlight filtered through his fingers, casting golden streaks on his face.

"So this is sunlight..."

His voice was low, as if he were talking to himself.

That's right.

He couldn't remember the last time he had sunbathed.

It was during a lunch break before the end of the world. I was taking a nap on my desk when sunlight streamed in through the blinds, leaving streaks of light on my uniform.

At the time, he thought it was quite ordinary.

So ordinary that I never even glanced at it.

Tang Long lowered his hand, turned around, and looked at everyone.

The sunlight shone on his back, casting a deep shadow in front of him, but he stood there like a tree with deep roots.

"What are you all standing there for?"

His voice returned to its usual steady tone.

"Sunlight doesn't generate its own electricity. Is the base shut down? Is the canteen closed? Are the city walls not being reinforced?"

He paused.

"And..." He looked into the distance, further out on the edge of the city, where the sun never shone and the fog still lingered. "The work isn't finished yet."

"Wang Hu!"

"Here!" Wang Hu snapped to attention and saluted.

"Take your squad and clean up the entire city! I want every street spotless, leaving no zombies or opportunistic looters alive!"

"yes!"

"Zhao Fan!"

"arrive!"

"Organize survivors to restore water and electricity, clean up the trash, and repair the houses!"

"yes!"

"Li Mo!"

"arrive!"

Tang Long pointed to the armed helicopter on the tarmac.

"Go up and hang this flag up."

He pulled a neatly folded flag from his pocket.

He found this in the warehouse before; although it was a bit old, it was still as bright as blood.

"Fly around Dongyun City three times."

"Tell everyone who is still alive."

"Here, there is still order! Here, there is still hope!"

……

The next day.

Dongyun City.

Inside an old basement in the old town.

It was dark, damp, and smelled musty and foul-smelling with excrement.

In the corner, a dirty little girl was huddled in her mother's arms, staring blankly at the sky above.

There is a beam of light there!

A beam of light suddenly shone through the crack in the manhole cover.

She didn't understand; the sky was always gray, like the face of a dead person.

Why is there light today?

"Mommy, I'm hungry..." The little girl's voice was barely audible, and her chapped lips were oozing blood.

In the damp basement, everything was quiet.

The mother did not respond.

The mother leaned against the wall, her eyes closed, her face so calm it didn't seem like she was asleep.

The little girl stopped talking.

She lowered her head and buried her face in her mother's already stiff chest.

Her mother hasn't spoken to her for two days.

She didn't want her mother to worry. Her mother had said that as long as they played hide-and-seek quietly and didn't cry, someone would come to pick them up soon.

So she is very well-behaved.

She has always been very well-behaved.

Even if my stomach is growling like it's being gnawed by mice, even if my throat is parched like it's swallowed sand, even if I can't wake up no matter how much my mother calls me...

She didn't cry.

She just hugged her mother tightly, nestled her face in her mother's arms, and pretended that her mother was still breathing.

until--

Buzz! Buzz! !!

A tremendous roar descended from the sky, shaking the manhole cover and causing even the rubble on the ground to bounce.

The little girl shuddered and instinctively tried to shrink back.

Is the creepy uncle coming?

My mother said I mustn't get caught by those weird uncles outside.

Otherwise, I'll never see my mother again.

Thinking of this, she subconsciously let go of her mother and crawled towards the beam of light on her hands and feet.

She had to use her body to block the gap, preventing light from leaking out and keeping the strange uncle from discovering the place.

The next second, she froze.

Through that narrow gap, she saw the sky.

It's not gray.

It's blue.

A deep, distant blue, like the painting my teacher used to hang on the wall—the painting was called "The Sea".

And in that blue expanse, a giant black steel bird was skimming low overhead.

Its wings spun rapidly overhead, whipping up a gust of wind that swept away the dust from the street. Sunlight shone on its fuselage, reflecting a dazzling metallic sheen.

Under the giant bird's belly hung a huge flag.

The wind howled, and the blood was as bright red as blood.

The red color was extremely dazzling in the sunlight, like a burning fire, instantly searing the little girl's eyes.

She is illiterate and doesn't understand profound principles.

But she remembered that when the teacher raised this flag in kindergarten, she told them about it.

Once you see this, you have nothing to be afraid of.

This is our flag.

The little girl opened her mouth wide.

In this stinking basement, in this corner where she endured countless days and nights holding her mother's cold body—

She burst into tears.

"Wow!"

The cries were hoarse and broken, like a volcano that had been suppressed for a century finally finding a crack to erupt.

She cried as she desperately reached out her hand toward the light.

"Here!! We're here!!!"

"Officer! Please come quickly!"

"..."

At that moment, she wasn't the only one crying.

As the fog dissipated, the sun appeared, and the roar of armed helicopters echoed throughout the skies above Dongyun City.

In abandoned office buildings, in blocked bank vaults, even in sewer access hatches... countless eyes peek out from countless cracks.

Their pupils all reflected the same sky and the same flag.

Wherever the red flag passed, the city, silent for hundreds of days and nights, was suddenly infused with its first heartbeat, like a body that had been dead for a long time.

In a high-rise residential building.

A man with a full beard and so thin he looked emaciated rushed onto the balcony like a madman, waving his white shirt, whose original color was no longer recognizable, and screaming desperately.

"There's someone here!!"

"Look over here! There's someone here!"

As he shouted, his voice became hoarse.

He looked up, staring blankly at the red flag, then slumped against the railing, tears streaming down his face.

"I knew it..."

His lips moved, repeating words that only he could hear.

"I knew it, they...they didn't give up on us..."

On the helicopter.

Li Mo gripped the control stick tightly, his knuckles turning white.

He saw arms reaching out of the windows, clothes waving wildly on the balconies, and a dusty head emerging from a crack in the manhole cover.

I saw a little girl, only four or five years old, waving frantically at the sky, her mouth opening and closing, her voice swallowed up by the roar of the rotor blades.

But he understood the lip movements.

"Help me."

A surge of heat welled up in Li Mo's eyes.

He pressed the call button, his voice slightly choked, yet unusually firm.

"Reporting to command center, this is Hawkeye One."

"The fog has lifted, and the red flag has been unfurled."

"......"

on the ground.

Boom boom boom!

The car drove over the broken asphalt road.

Three modified police armored personnel carriers led the way, followed by more than a dozen pickup trucks equipped with heavy machine guns, cutting into the city's main thoroughfare like black blades.

The loudspeaker on the roof was turned up to maximum power.

"Attention all survivors! Attention all survivors!"

"This is the Shinonome Special Police District!"

"Please immediately hang eye-catching signs on windows and balconies; colorful bed sheets and clothing are all acceptable!!"

"Lock the door and wait for rescue—!!!"

"Repeat, repeat it again."

"..."

From the main street to the alleyways, from the residential area to the commercial street.

The sound resounded throughout Dongyun City, permeating every corner of the city.

Third floor window.

A shirtless man frantically rummaged through drawers and cabinets.

"Where are the sheets, honey?"

"We're out of sheets! We used them up as rags last month!"

The woman paced anxiously, her gaze sweeping across the room, when suddenly she ripped off her bra.

"Will this one work?!"

"..."

The man stared at the bright red lace bra in his wife's hand, his lips twitching for a mere 0.3 seconds.

"Okay! Hang it up!"

Red is eye-catching enough.

He took the wad of cloth, hoisted it onto a clothesline, and thrust it out of the window.

The vibrant red swayed among the gray and dilapidated buildings, like a small but stubborn battle flag.