Seven days, seven nights.

April 1. Sunday. Night, 22:19.

That night, the whole city was surrounded by a violent thunderstorm, which may not have been so earth-shattering even in the middle of the rainy summer. The dazzling lightning pierced the darkness like a sharp sword, and everyone who hid behind the window was afraid of being struck by lightning suddenly.

Ye Xiao has been working overtime for several weeks in a row, and he has just caught a perverted murderer, and it is rare to go home before midnight, and he is just about to go to bed, but he is disturbed by the thunder outside the window. He walked to the window with his upper body naked. This is the 28th floor of a high-rise building, and you can clearly see the Future Dream Building from the window. Although the nineteen-storey Future Dream Building is a tiny tiny tiny part of this megacity with countless skyscrapers, it has become the most prosperous commercial center in the southeast corner of the city in the three years since it was erected. Tens of thousands of office workers and residents in the vicinity, as well as those who have to change subways every day, use it as their wardrobes, shoe closets, refrigerators, canteens, and meeting places...... Even the few movies Ye Xiao watched this year were all watched in the Future Dream Studios on the ninth floor.

Through the rain-covered glass windows and thousands of meters of cold air, looking at the Future Dream Building with huge billboards flashing in the storm, Ye Xiao felt irritated.

At the same time, he saw a ray of light.

It was the farthest end of the city, and from the end of the steel forest, a brilliant white light lit up, almost covering the entire horizon, like lightning in the sky hitting the ground.

Ye Xiao instinctively blocked his eyes, and when he put his hand down, a thought flashed through his heart-

Doomsday?

The earth-shattering white light had turned into a mushroom cloud like a nuclear explosion, breaking through the stormy night and rising thousands of meters into the air, connecting with the lightning clouds.

The air was filled with a deafening loud noise, and the floor under Ye Xiao's feet also began to vibrate, and this sound was not just coming from a distance—what stunned him again was that thousands of meters in front of his window, the Future Dream Mansion began to descend rapidly.

Whether it was an alien invasion or nuclear radiation, it couldn't stop Ye Xiao from opening the window.

Right in front of my eyes, in the center of the city, the nineteen-story building with flickering lights was crashing into the ground at the speed of an elevator! For a few seconds, he could no longer see the roof of the Future Dream Building, and further down was blocked by the nearby buildings.

Heavy rain shows no signs of abating.

The lightning in the night sky was even more raging, and the thunder once again replaced the sound of explosions beyond the distant horizon. The white light in the distance had disappeared and turned into a sky-high fire, illuminating almost half of the city.

Ye Xiao put on his pants, he didn't have time to wear a T-shirt, and he went out with a shirt. Instead of taking the elevator, he ran down twenty-eight flights of stairs in one go, sweating profusely into the rain - his physical strength was as outstanding as it had been ten years earlier.

It's like countless basins of cold water poured on the soles of your feet, and you are already soaked in an instant. Fortunately, the building where I am located is safe and sound, and the surrounding buildings seem to be fine, and the ground is not shaking as expected.

He jumped into a police car parked downstairs with his cell phone, change, police ID, driver's license, car keys in his pocket...... But without a gun, he never came home with a gun.

The streets were unusual, except for the heavy rain. The huge explosion and flames were gone. On such a rainy night, it was almost impossible to see the car, Ye Xiao turned on the police lights, quickly passed three red lights, and rushed to the destination in a blink of an eye.

The Future Dream Mansion is gone.

Ye Xiao parked the car on the side of the road, and the original sidewalk has become a pile of concrete ruins. The 19-storey building has been transformed into a sunken plaza, illuminated by the street lamps opposite, like a cemetery more than 60 years ago.

He stepped over the half-buried subway sign and came to the middle of the empty "square". The feet were covered with mud and debris, forming a swamp in the heavy rain and quickly flooding the calves.

Which master magician is performing? A few minutes ago, the Future Dream Building, which was still standing upright, disappeared in the vast rainy night and the distant explosion in the blink of an eye of Ye Xiao.

However, he doesn't believe in everything in science fiction movies, and he doesn't believe that the building is instantly transferred to another parallel time and space.

Ye Xiao half-squatted in the heavy rain, letting himself look like a ghost in the water, reaching into the dirty puddle, his fingers sinking into the dirt full of garbage, as if touching the fingers of a person who was about to drown - this was the atrium of the future dream mall.

A few minutes ago, the last time I saw this building, it was rapidly descending until it disappeared, could it just sink into the ground?

With his fingers still stuck in the dirt, he imagined himself connected to the earth and to the deeper hell.

There were more and more policemen, and people in various uniforms stood on the side of the road, but none of them dared to walk to the center of the original location of the building like Ye Xiao - they were afraid that the soil was too soft, and since it had swallowed up the entire building, it would be too easy to swallow up another person.

Two minutes later, three policemen cautiously walked in and dragged Officer Ye Xiao, who was kneeling in the muddy water, out.

He was taken back to the police car to rest, and a large number of rescuers were arriving with equipment. However, the city leaders have rushed to the petrochemical plant in the suburbs to deal with the chemical explosion accident that has just occurred......

Sleepless nights.

Like many people in the city, Ye Xiao was still staring at bloodshot eyes in the early morning of April 2.

It's already dawn.

Heavy rain turned into heavy rain and then light rain turned into drizzle.

Experts and professors as much as drizzle, as well as a national-level rescue team, flew from the capital in the early morning, bringing various high-tech instruments to conduct in-depth testing of the "ruins" of the Future Dream Building. Through the exploration equipment of geological engineering, electromagnetic waves penetrated more than 100 meters into the ground, and found traces of human buildings, only to confirm that the Future Dream Building was not robbed by aliens, but fell into the ground as a whole. The roof of the building appears to have been badly damaged, and it is about 110 meters above the ground, and it is impossible to tell if there are still people alive. Most experts agree that the building has been buried so deep underground, that the vast majority of people have died, and that there is little chance of survivors in the absence of life-sustaining oxygen underground.

Although several nearby roads were blocked by the police, hundreds of citizens still flocked to the city. They didn't come to see the excitement, but they suspected that their relatives had been buried in the ground with the Future Dream Building, and everyone was nervous or anxious or afraid or sad, wanting to know the whereabouts of their loved ones, whether they were alive or dead, disabled or injured. Others were not sure if their family members were underground, but stayed in the neighborhood that night and did not return home — a group of people who were dwindling every day, but still had dozens after seven days.

At the urging of the families of the missing and the attention of the media around the world, the rescue operation was finally officially launched on the evening of April 2 after a full day of delay. Oil drilling engineers were brought in, and only they could drill a deep well to the ground. Many foreign scholars and rescue workers have also come to China, including Chile, where 33 miners were miraculously rescued after 69 days of the collapse of a copper mine in the desert north of Chile in 2010. Therefore, Chilean experts are categorically against abandonment, believing that a depth of more than a hundred meters is nothing, and as long as there is a possible survivor, it is necessary to rescue with all your might.

Public opinion across the country is leaning towards the rescue side, and hundreds of millions of netizens have even scolded the experts who were the first to unanimously believe that there is no sign of life.

Around the same time, the expert group released the preliminary findings of the investigation into why the Future Dream Building fell underground, which was land subsidence.

This metropolis, located on the eastern seaboard, began to sink many years ago. The foundation where the Future Dream Building is located happens to be the core area with the most serious land subsidence (some netizens actually pulled up the deserted graveyard of the year, and legend has it that the feng shui here is not good, and many ancient tombs were dug up when the Future Dream Building was first built). According to experts, a huge cavity had formed in the ground months before the disaster, and no one would have expected that this building would be in the air. On the night of April 1, the heavy rain caused huge pressure on the city's drainage system, and several drainage pipes burst nearby, and a large amount of rainwater seeped into the ground, seriously shaking the foundation of the Future Dream Building, and the loose soil could not bear the weight of the building, and finally formed an underground collapse.

The entire nineteen-story building was mercilessly swallowed up to a hundred meters below the ground. The huge cavities formed by the subsidence of the building were also filled in by nearby strata and soil. Therefore, it is not as simple as imagined to traverse these complex geological environments and send rescuers to the ground below 100 meters.

As for the night of April 1, when the Future Dream Building sank into the ground, the white light that Ye Xiao saw from his window, and the violent explosion that followed, were not the seismic light imagined at that time, but from a large petrochemical complex on the seaside in the far suburbs of the city. According to government releases, an unlicensed temporary welder made a mistake that led to an explosion in a chemical warehouse and a series of large explosions throughout the plant. Due to the large amount of petroleum and chemical products in the petrochemical plant, the explosion produced almost more energy than Hiroshima* – which is why the white light was so intense in the first place. Naturally, the accident caused a huge number of casualties, all of them staff, and of course the temporary workers who caused the accident.

Many people wonder why these two catastrophes happened at about the same time. The official designation is purely coincidental and has no connection with each other. However, some netizens analyzed on Weibo: the construction of the petrochemical project was suspected of violating laws and regulations, and there was a lack of environmental assessment, which destroyed the local ecological balance and even affected the geological structure of the entire region - such as the problem of land subsidence, although it is related to high-rise buildings in the city center, but after the petrochemical plant was put into operation, the nearby groundwater was overpumped (the specific amount of pumping is always a mystery, and the mystery was brought into the grave after the explosion), and the city's land subsidence speed has accelerated more than ten times. Especially in the past two years, there are often unfathomable cracks in the asphalt pavement, and the park has inexplicably collapsed large potholes - all of which are precursors to the impending end of the world.

During the rescue process of seven days and seven nights, the police made every effort to collect information on the missing people, except for the staff at the time of the disaster, they could basically determine (God knows which one will change their fate if they leave work one minute earlier or sixty seconds late, the rest of the list can only be an approximation, Ye Xiao deduced that at least half of them are wrong, and the total number of missing people fluctuates between one hundred and two hundred.

The road near the "ruins" of the Future Dream Building has always been closed, and many foreign media have rented houses or offices in the surrounding high-rise buildings to condescendingly film the rescue scene and broadcast it live around the world. On the fourth day, a major breakthrough was made, when the drilling well went deeper than 100 meters into the ground and opened the top floor of the building, which, as well as the results of the instrumental detection, had reduced the upper floors of the hotel to rubble. Rescuers who reached the ground through the deep well tank found human remains long broken in the rubble.

However, electronic detection instruments show that there are still signs of life below the ninth floor.

The news was once again exciting, and it was spread around the world through major media outlets. Experts carefully studied the building's architectural drawings and concluded that the dome between the cinema on the ninth floor and the office building on the tenth floor was unusually strong, and it was likely that it supported the enormous pressure on the upper part.

The rescue team quickly cleared the ruins of the upper layer and drilled down a deep shaft with a diameter of only 7.5 centimeters – the same method used during the Chilean mining disaster: it was extremely difficult to make a space that could accommodate one person, and it took a long time, and it probably took many days to open the tunnel, only to find that all the people below were starving and thirsty. Therefore, there must be a pipeline deep into the ground to transport basic survival materials as soon as possible, even if it is just a few bottles of water and a few pills, it can continue the life below.

The deep well was opened within 24 hours, and it went 150 meters underground. Rescue team members brought food, water, medicine, communication equipment, batteries...... It was transported through a deep well, but there was no response.

The rescue lasted another three days, and a larger rescue tunnel passed through the rubble and dirt, and finally reached the dome between the ninth and tenth floors of the Future Dream Building on the evening of April 8.

The all-steel dome is extremely strong, and apart from cracks in the concrete, there are no major problems with the steel itself, which is bound to be touted as major news by a state-owned steel conglomerate.

The rescue team made a careful excavation plan, because this dome is related to the safety of the next nine floors (not including the four underground floors), and if the dome is damaged, all the floors below may collapse. Therefore, everyone took the method of manual excavation and found the escape passage between the ninth and tenth floors, so that they could avoid the steel structure dome.

Just an hour ago, due to a small negligence on the part of the rescue team, there was an accident while cutting steel, and the dome structure partially collapsed. A cloud of smoke rose in front of him, and Ye Xiao quickly fell to the ground and fastened his safety helmet.

He followed the rescue team throughout the excavation tonight, as the sole representative of the local police, responsible for dealing with emergencies between people — to put it bluntly, suppressing possible crimes underground.

A minute later, a strong electric light shines through the heavy concrete dust, illuminating a large hole in the ground, which is faintly recognizable as the ticket window of the movie theater.

Got through!

Ye Xiao didn't forget to put on a mask, followed the rescue team members in red, and entered the Future Dream Studios through the gap.

I hope it's not hell. He prayed silently, and opened his eyes in the still-thick smoke.

That's right, it really survived! Under the sun-like searchlights set up by the rescue team, a bizarre picture is displayed, as if it was a scene from a science fiction novel that I had seen as a child—a dungeon, a huge atrium and patio, a man-made sky overhead, a high-speed elevator that carries people up and down, and shops, restaurants, and residences on every floor...... Countless people live underground, no different from us living on the ground, eating and drinking, eating, drinking, eating, eating, eating, eating, eating

It's just that they can't see the sunset at dusk, the stars at midnight, or the moonlight in the second half of the night.

Ye Xiao felt dizzy and almost knelt down on the railing of the atrium on the ninth floor. He didn't dare to take off his mask, the air was cloudy and dirty, filled with the smell of rot. Looking up, I saw that most of the dome was still solid, and the collapsed part was confined to the vicinity of the theater.

He had a loaded pistol pinned to his armpit to protect against any accidents that might arise underground. Colleagues joked that they were afraid that there were prehistoric monsters hidden underground, and Ye Xiao was needed to play the role of Ultraman. The people in red rescue suits came and went, but he felt that something was calling to him. It's the sixth sense that has been developed over the years of his police career, or the senses of hearing, sight, and smell beyond the average human that cannot be explained by science - sometimes he feels like a superpowered cop, like he can never explain why he returned without warning after years of disappearance.

He entered the passage outside the movie screening hall, and the rescue team members had already gone to the eighth floor to search for survivors, and the ground responders did not dare to come down rashly. Ye Xiao walked alone in the labyrinthine road, most of the walls had collapsed, and there was rubble and ruins. When I passed through a small inconspicuous door, I suddenly heard a strange sound - it was a dog barking!

Even if no one is found, it is a miracle to find a live dog. Ye Xiao opened the door and entered a small room, and found that it was a movie projection room, and most of the roof had collapsed, suppressing a Labrador retriever, and it was it that barked.

Ye Xiao was about to change its name to "Dog Strong", but when he looked down, he found a person.

A man with half of his body exposed, his lower body crushed in the heavy rubble.

He's dead.

The throat was cut open with a sharp object.

The eyes are still open.

The deceased appeared to be between thirty-five and forty-five years of age, with dust and stains on his face, a lush beard, and some scars on his forehead and cheeks. But from the outline of his eyebrows, nose and face, it can be seen that his appearance is quite good, and he must have been a handsome guy when he was young.

The time of death should not be long, the smell of blood still lingers in the air, and the blood on the neck has not dried out. There were a number of sharp pieces of broken glass on the floor, coming from broken frames on the walls. The murder weapon was one of the blood-stained glasses.

Murder!

No one would have imagined that such a brutal murder would take place in the midst of such a catastrophe! It is conceivable that this person has gone through all kinds of pain and despair in the dark underground, and has survived seven days and seven nights like a year, and finally the rescue team has arrived in front of him, and is about to see the moment of hope, but someone has coldly taken his life.

It seems that Ye Xiao risked his life and followed the rescue team members to the front line, not for show or anything, but really needed a police officer to exist!

At this moment, he had exited the half-collapsed movie projection room, and the wail of a Labrador still rang in his ears. He knew that the rescue team would come soon and do their best to save the poor and lucky dog.

Continue to walk towards the passage of the screening hall, there is no clear road, you have to climb over the ruins. He held a powerful flashlight in his left hand and carefully placed his right hand under his armpit, ready to pull out the pistol at any moment. The time of the murder just now, just after the collapse of the movie theater, took advantage of the fact that the victim was crushed and unable to move, and easily slit his throat with broken glass - it must be before the rescuers find out!

The killer won't run far and will most likely be trapped in the ruins as well.

Ye Xiao was out of breath, and the rope of the safety helmet around his neck almost strangled him to death. He simply took off his safety helmet and mask, and only relied on the gun under his arm to protect himself.

After climbing more than ten meters, he heard a cry, which seemed to be made by a child.

Oh, my God! He no longer considered whether to shoot the killer or not, and immediately began to dig through the rubble in front of him. He had no tools, only ten fingers, until his hands were fleshy and bloody—he touched a hand.

His palm, though rough and bleeding, could feel that it was a woman's hand.

Thank goodness not dead people! Five fingers that were still with body temperature clenched Ye Xiao's hand strongly!

He saw her face.