90: Chapter 90 Zero Casualties! 1.4 Billion People Weep, While on the Other Side of the Ocean, People Revel and Await Death!

The signal returned. Inside the bus, over forty mobile phones exploded with sound at the same second. Ringtones, vibrations, and WeChat notification pings churned together like a pot of boiling water.

Zhou Yu's phone screen lit up. His fingers were stiff; he swiped three times before he managed to answer.

"Son!!!" On the other end of the line, his mother's voice was heart-wrenching, the volume so loud it made his eardrums ache.

"The news says there really was an earthquake in Hangzhou! Magnitude 8! The ground split open! Where are you? Are you okay?"

Zhou Yu opened his mouth. His throat felt like it was blocked with cement. Four words collided back and forth in his chest before he forced them out.

"Mom, I'm alive." On the other end of the line, there was uncontrollable wailing. Zhou Yu cried too.

Shen Nian leaned on his shoulder, her phone pressed to her ear. On the other end was her father's voice, hoarse and out of tune, "Daughter, say something. Just say something so Dad can rest easy—"

"Dad, I'm fine." The entire carriage instantly turned into an ocean of tears.

"Mom! I'm fine! Really! Not a single hair is missing!" "Honey! I made it to the safe zone! Don't cry!" "Grandpa, don't worry, your grandson is tough as nails—"

Cries, laughter, and shouts of reassurance rose and fell. The shirtless uncle finished his call, shoved his phone into his pocket, leaned his head back against the seat, and tears slid silently from the corners of his eyes, flowing into his temples.

The little girl holding a teddy bear was woken up and pursed her lips, about to cry. Her mother hugged her tightly, smiling while shedding tears, resting her chin on her daughter's head. "It's okay, baby, everything is fine now."

The official announcement was released twenty minutes later. The wording was extremely concise, with no nonsense.

[Hangzhou Disaster Report: A shallow earthquake of magnitude 8.3 has been confirmed, with a focal depth of 8 kilometers. Large areas of urban buildings have collapsed, and surface fissures crisscross the area. Because everyone was evacuated in advance—Casualties: Zero.]

It was accompanied by four shocking aerial photos. In the CBD core area, skyscrapers were snapped in half. An entire section of the overpass collapsed, smashing into the deserted street. In the residential area, only two of the six buildings were still standing. By the West Lake, the Broken Bridge had truly broken.

The speed at which comments flooded the section caused the server to emit a groan of overload.

"Zero casualties."

"Zero casualties!!!"

"Thirteen million people, not one missing!"

"I saw the photos of the ruins, my hands are shaking. If we hadn't evacuated..."

"Don't say it, don't say it."

"I have no regrets being born in China in this life!"

Xiao Zhou, a high-speed rail attendant who had been on duty for fourteen consecutive days, crouched on the floor of the breakroom. The words "Zero casualties" on her phone screen were blurred into a patch of light by her tears. She cried until she was hiccuping, her pretty uniform collar stained with snot.

A colleague poked their head in from the door, "Xiao Zhou, are you okay—"

"I'm okay—sob sob sob—I'm doing great—"

At a highway service area, bus driver Old Sun parked the bus, turned off the engine, and slumped over the steering wheel. His broad back heaved violently twice. Five trips, four days, he had made five trips.

His phone rang; it was his wife.

"I saw the news, zero casualties." Her voice on the other end was also shaking, "Old Sun, it was worth it."

Old Sun didn't reply, just wiped his face hard, unscrewed his thermos, and took a sip of the cold Red Bull mixed with coffee. It was heart-wrenchingly bitter. Yet, he smiled.

At the airport arrivals gate, the woman in the apron holding a sign finally lowered her sore arms. She stared at the photos of the ruins on her phone, tears dropping one by one onto her apron. Her husband beside her pulled her into his arms.

"Hey, don't cry."

"I'm not crying."

The woman sniffled, her voice muffled against his chest, "I'm just... look at these collapsed buildings, if people were still inside..."

"They aren't." Her husband patted her back, his voice firm, "Not a single one."

The top five trending topics on Weibo were dominated by the same term. #ZeroCasualties#

The top comment had 930,000 likes and was still soaring.

"Other countries couldn't do it, but we did!"

The overseas internet. Dead silence. After the English version of China's official announcement went live, it was retweeted 110,000 times within twenty minutes.

The four aerial photos of the ruins were like four loud slaps in the face of everyone who had mocked them. Under the highly-liked comment that once said, "In two weeks, China will be the biggest joke in the world," there was a new reply. Only one word. "OMG!" It had 470,000 likes.

The mockery vanished, replaced by a cold panic rising from the spine.

"Wait—China said our West Coast would have it too—"

"What about Jason's livestream? The last frame of the sky was red!"

"Has anyone been able to contact him?"

"It won't go through! All the phones won't go through!"

"The signal is cut... it's exactly the same as when the earthquake hit Hangzhou, China—"

Panic spread like a virus. The Lighthouse Country official website was crashed three times within forty minutes, flooded with millions of angry questions.

"My son is on the West Coast! Why was there no warning!"

"China told you two weeks in advance! What did you do!"

"I've paid taxes for thirty years! Is this what I get for it?!"

Inside a closed-door conference room. The intelligence director pulled up the warning emails sent by China two weeks ago—three of them, with clear timestamps. Status: Read. Reply: Empty. The Secretary of Defense slammed a hand on the table, "Send the military! Send them now!"

The communications officer's forehead was covered in cold sweat, their voice trembling. "All frequency bands are interrupted, satellite imagery is being interfered with by unknown energy, we... we cannot contact the West Coast."

Meanwhile, under the overpass in Hangzhou. The General connected to the encrypted channel.

"Report—all five E-Rank Exotic Beasts have been eliminated. Kindling intervened, and the battle lasted less than two minutes. We have seven people seriously injured, twelve slightly injured, and zero casualties."

There was a three-second silence on the other end.

"Good." A single word, carrying the weight of survival after a disaster.

"Withdraw everyone from the core area of Hangzhou and establish a Level 3 quarantine zone. The remains of the Exotic Beasts—especially the severed limb specimens—must be sealed immediately, transported via cold chain, and sent directly to The Seventh Division."

"All specimens are top secret."

"Yes!"

The General hung up the phone and looked up at the sky. The blood-red color had faded, and the lead-gray clouds were dispersing, revealing the clean, deep blue night sky behind them. The stars had come out.

"As long as the people are alive, home is still there."

Santa Monica Beach. The wind had stopped. The waves were still crashing, but the sound was dull and viscous, like heavy corpses being repeatedly pushed onto the shore and dragged back.

The cars on the road still had their lights on, the radios stuck on a white noise frequency, buzzing and crackling, but there were no human voices anymore. The car doors were open, the seatbelts fastened. The seats were empty.

Slippers, mobile phones, and sunglasses were scattered on the beach. Half a bottle of cocktail was stuck in the sand, the amber liquid mixing with the dark red sand. The waves receded and surged again; each ebb tide washed away a layer of the dark red on the beach, and each high tide covered it with new dark red.

Three Exotic Beasts crouched among the ruins. The black mist of the Shadow Erosion Beast covered the entire coastal boulevard, and the streetlamp poles slowly rusted, bent, and collapsed in the mist. The eight tentacles of the Abyssal Tide Beast retracted into the sea, its flat, round head floating near the shore.