Ten o'clock that night.
The couple met Yao Chengwei and Yuan Chuan in the corridor. In order to prevent someone from taking the opportunity to steal the house, Chi Yue gave the loudspeaker to Zhao Peng and asked him to call them loudly if he noticed any movement.
"Don't worry." Zhao Peng patted his chest and said seriously: "I promise not to let outsiders approach our home!"
"If you encounter any situation, don't fight them." Yuan Chuan has no confidence in Zhao Peng's force value, but he can't attack him in public: "Life is the most important thing."
"I know."
After making sure that he listened, the four of them rushed to the rooftop to attend the meeting.
They stood in the corner, watching the residents who were exhausted and haggard due to the extreme heat, gradually walking towards them without any energy.
I especially remember that when we first received the supplies, there were more than a hundred people who came. They would greet their neighbors with a smile and chat about household matters to kill time. It was a scene of friendship.
But now, there are only about fifty people left.
They no longer chatted with their neighbors. They were half a meter apart from each other, with defensiveness, nervousness and numbness written on their faces.
The rooftop, which was wider than before, was filled with a lifeless atmosphere, and even the evening breeze was depressing.
"Brothers." Liu Xiong's arrival dispelled the haze that enveloped them. He took back the hand on Wen Qizhou's back, frowned and asked, "Why do you smell so bad?"
"Who doesn't smell?" Yuan Chuan felt that he was talking nonsense. He grabbed his collar, pulled it up, put it to the tip of his nose and smelled it: "I feel like I'm going rancid."
"He doesn't have the same taste as you."
"Why is it different?"
Liu Xiong ignored him.
He simply asked Wen Qizhou: "Did you fall into a manure pit just now? Or did you step on feces?"
"..." Wen Qizhou said calmly: "I ate snail and lion rice noodles before I came here. The smell is very strong and it easily sticks to my body."
He didn't tell the whole truth.
It is true to eat snail rice noodle, but the smell of it cannot stay on the body for a long time. They deliberately sprinkled the soup base on the dirty clothes that have been worn several times to mix the sweat and stench, thus creating a long-lasting smell. The illusion of not taking a shower.
"No wonder." People who have never eaten snail and lion rice noodles have heard of its power, so they easily believe his words.
Yuan Chuan thought he liked to eat that stuff, so he thought about going downstairs to get him a few bags later.
No one ate what he collected anyway.
"Here comes the meeting." Chi Yue caught sight of Sister He and her husband and spoke to divert their attention.
After not seeing her for many days, Sister He was in a state like that of a young lady, her back seemed to be bent by a heavy burden. She no longer had the high spirits she once had, and only the malaise visible to the naked eye remained.
She stood on the round stool with a loudspeaker and counted the number of people with her eyes: "Why are there only fifty-three people here?"
Someone replied: "More than ten families in our building went to the subway station to escape the summer heat."
"I know this." She glanced at her husband on the left and asked, "Where are the remaining people? Didn't you notify them?"
"Notified." Her husband's condition was not much better, and he said weakly: "They can't come for the time being."
Either they are injured, or there are only one or two old, weak, sick and disabled people left in the family who are unable to go out.
Sister He stopped asking.
She recounted the content of the meeting: "I asked you to come up this time mainly to discuss the safety issues in the building."
"You must also know that house invasions and robberies are common nowadays. If we continue to let it go like this, those beasts will definitely become more rampant!"
"So I'm thinking, should we form a team to patrol the building every day?" Sister He licked her chapped lips twice and detailed the benefits of patrolling, trying to persuade them.
Finally, ask: "What do you think?"
"Okay." Many people agreed to patrol, but when it came to the candidates, differences arose.
One of the women with sunken cheeks turned her eyes and pointed at the young adults standing next to her: "They are tall and strong, so they are very suitable for patrolling for us."
Anyone with a discerning eye can see what her intentions are. It was just because he was old and thin that he would not be selected into the patrol team, so he picked people up for him.
"You want me to work for you? I'm dreaming!" The young man slapped her hand away, indicating that he would not participate.
Another sly person suggested: "Don't the people on the 26th floor have guns? Let them handle the patrol."
Sister He looked at the people on the 26th floor.
If the leader of the patrol comes from someone with a weapon in his hand, then the participation of others will definitely be higher.
She directly arranged for Wen Qizhou and Yuan Chuan: "Then you each pick five team members, and then we will see how to take shifts."
"Do we agree?" Wen Qizhou looked at her playfully for a moment, with a strong sense of oppression all over his body.
Sister He said loudly: "The meaning of the patrol team is to add security to everyone! When you patrol the entire building, you are also protecting your family! Don't you understand this?"
"Don't do this!" Yuan Chuan didn't want to have to deal with a bunch of irrelevant people: "Whoever wants to participate can participate. We don't care anyway, so don't discuss it with us."
"How can you be so selfish?!"
"Selfish?" Chi Yue smiled: "If you're not selfish, go ahead. Why do you always want to push others out as targets?"
With the growth of robbery gangs, the probability of patrols encountering danger at night is extremely high.
If they are blocked in the corridor by the robbers, not only will it be difficult for them to escape, but they will also be easily pushed out by their teammates.
It's not a good thing no matter how you look at it.
"Forget it." Sister He's husband was afraid that she would impulsively join the patrol, so he persuaded her: "Everyone has different ideas. If they don't want you, there's no need to force it."
Sister He finally saw that none of them were good people, and no matter how hard they tried, they couldn't change the current situation.
She swallowed the tightness in her chest and said, "Then I'll give you four bags of instant noodles, and you can lend me your gun."
"I won't borrow it." Chi Yue turned around and left.
The sinister-looking man immediately blocked the door with the young man in blue behind him: "If you don't want to borrow it, you have to borrow it!"
They thought Chi Yue had the best idea, so they immediately showed off their fruit knives, trying to exchange her life for a gun.
The moment the fruit knife was swung, Chi Yue reacted very quickly and dodged sideways, kicked the man in the abdomen, and took advantage of the moment when his body was shaking to grab the knife and put it on his neck.
She slashed violently, and blood suddenly gushed out from the cut artery, splattering on her fingertips.
At the same time, Wen Qizhou grabbed the young man in blue who wanted to attack her, pressed his wrist bone upwards, and when the other party screamed, he stabbed him in the chest with a knife without mercy.
The young man in blue's eyes narrowed sharply.
The second he fell to the ground, he glanced at the lifeless rat-eyed man from the corner of his eye, coughed twice and stopped moving.
Everything happened so fast that the residents who witnessed the whole process subconsciously stepped back, looking at the couple in horror or admiration.
Time seems to have been pressed on the pause button.
No one said anything.
Chi Yue threw away the fruit knife in her hand and looked back at them. Even without saying a word, people could receive a warning signal from those indifferent eyes.
Sister He, who was so frightened that her legs were weak, held her husband's hand tightly and did not dare to mention lending the gun to the patrol. She only watched helplessly as she and others left one after another.
*
The patrol team was not formed after all.
Those who are capable and skilled do not dare to take risks, so how can the remaining ordinary people dare to take the risk? We can only leave it at that.
After the rooftop murder incident, those who were interested in weapons also stopped thinking.
However, the robbery gang that was keeping an eye on them came up with a new strategy and decided to use a beauty trap with the highest success rate to infiltrate the inside.
"Knock knock──"
There was a knock on the door of 2601.
Wen Qizhou looked through the peephole at the woman wearing a white suspender skirt outside the door.
Jingjing asked: "Is something wrong?"
"Sir." The woman looked up at the cat's eyes, her eyes as clear as a deer were full of helplessness: "I left my key at home. Can you go upstairs and help me pick the lock?"
"Who asked you to come?"
"Ah?" She paused, as if aware of his suspicion, and innocently explained: "No one, I came here by myself."
Wen Qizhou didn't believe it at all.
Not to mention how the other party opened the door to the safe passage, just the fact that she dared to wander alone in a corridor that might be in danger at any time was enough to show that something was unusual.
"Look for someone else, I can't help you." He hadn't finished squeezing the juice for Yueyue, so he had no time to waste with her.
"gentlemen……"
He turned away.
As soon as he lifted his feet and took a step forward, he saw the figure imprinted deep in his soul, leaning against the wall and looking at him.
"Sir?" Chi Yue crossed her arms and raised her beautiful eyebrows with unknown meaning: "Her voice is quite pleasant."
"..." Wen Qizhou's back stiffened, and he had an inexplicable feeling of being caught for doing something bad.
He walked up to her in a few steps, put his arms around her waist, and said with a strong desire for life: "No matter how nice it sounds, it's none of my business."
"Then what did you talk about?"
"She asked me to help pick the lock." He recounted it verbatim, and emphasized: "I only said three sentences to her."
Seeing him tense his jaw, as if he was afraid that she would misunderstand, Chi Yue chuckled and stopped teasing him.
She looked up at him: "I feel like she's not just trying to trick you into going out."
Hearing Qizhou nodded.
He has seen too many endless tricks in the business world, and his mind has been sharpened enough. If he thinks about it carefully, he can guess what the group of people behind her are trying to do.
"She probably wants to break into us." He hugged Chi Yue, who was on his slippers, and walked to the sofa in the bedroom.
"Then what?"
"Then when we lower our guard, she will extract useful information and provide it to those who want to rob her."
"...They don't find it too troublesome."
"This is the same as a company sending spies to its opponent. Only with enough patience can you get favorable returns."
Before they went to the shooting gallery, Zhao and Peng searched all the nearby police stations, but no guns were found.
It can be seen that guns are rare items.
The group of robbers not only wanted supplies, but also guns that would make them more brazen.
Otherwise, roundabout tactics would not have been adopted.
Chi Yue blinked slyly: "Then we will use the plan?" Rather than guard against thieves for a thousand days, it is better to avoid future troubles forever.
