Lin Mo pointed at the “good brothers” wandering outside the window.
“Gather supplies, establish a base, and…” His gaze fell on the collar around her neck, “test the effects of your ability in a crowd.”
Lu Dongnuan suddenly understood something and asked, “You want me to be a gatekeeper?”
“More accurately, a faith.” Lin Mo pulled a crumpled map from his pocket and spread it out on the dining table.
“Supermarkets, Pharmacies, hardware stores… all these places must be visited. With you here, we can go in and out safely.”
At that moment, the phone rang again.
This time, it was a private message from Uncle Zhang, who lived on the first floor of Building Three: “Little Lu, my blood pressure medicine is running out. Do you still have any? I can trade my treasured Baijiu for it.”
Staring at the message, Lu Dongnuan suddenly realized this might be a sign that a new order was taking shape in the Apocalypse.
She turned to look at Lin Mo, her eyes complicated, “So, we’re going to be the guardians of the community now?”
A faint, meaningful smile tugged at the corner of Lin Mo’s lips.
“No, rulers.”
He licked the last breadcrumb from his plate and asked, “Do you know why people become superstitious?”
***
“Aiya, why hasn’t that doctor replied yet?” Li Xuhui stared anxiously at his phone screen, then looked back at his son lying on the bed.
After a moment of thought, his fingers began typing away.
“Dr. Lu, are you still there…” He stared at the words for a while.
“No, no.” He deleted the sentence.
Can’t make it seem like she’s not there.
He pondered for a bit, took a deep breath, and retyped: “Dr. Lu, this is Li Xuhui from Building Three. My son Little Kai has had a fever for three days. The fever medicine you gave us before is already used up. I know the situation is difficult now, I don’t dare hope you’ll take any risks, but if you have any advice, any way at all to help the child…”
He paused here, then added, “I still have some canned food and bottled water at home. If you need it, I can leave it at the entrance of Building Three.”
He hit send.
He set the phone down on the table, screen up, as if this would make a reply come faster.
Then he walked to the bedside and touched his son’s forehead—it was still burning hot.
Little Kai’s cheeks were flushed with an unnatural redness, his breathing rapid and shallow.
“Dad,” Little Kai opened his eyes halfway, his voice weak, “I’m thirsty.”
Li Xuhui hurriedly poured a glass of water, carefully propping up his son and helping him take small sips.
His hand brushed over his son’s sweaty hair, a wave of helplessness welling up inside him.
Before the Apocalypse, he’d been a software engineer, a problem-solver.
But now, faced with his son’s high fever, he was at a loss.
The skills he’d once prided himself on were utterly useless in this broken world.
Suddenly, the phone buzzed.
Li Xuhui nearly dove for the table, grabbing his phone but it wasn’t Lu Dongnuan—it was the neighborhood chat group, once again launching into a new round of arguments—about who’d taken more of the distributed supplies, and who was suspected of hiding an Infected.
Annoyed, he swiped away the notification and opened the chat with Dr. Lu again.
Still no reply.
“Maybe she’s busy, maybe she’s facing her own problems. After all, the villa district is too dangerous,” Li Xuhui muttered to himself, trying to suppress the rising panic in his heart.
He went back to his son, gently wiping his forehead and neck with a wet towel.
The gesture was useless, but at least made him feel he was doing something.
Outside, dusk was slowly falling, casting the room in a half-light, half-shadow.
Li Xuhui didn’t turn on the lamp.
He simply sat quietly at the bedside, one hand holding his son’s burning hand, the other gripping the silent phone.
In this silent twilight, for the first time, he so clearly felt powerless and at a loss.
What he didn’t know was that, on the other end of the phone, Lu Dongnuan was staring at his message, while Lin Mo stood behind her, a mysterious smile on his face.
“Another one asking for help,” Lin Mo said quietly, “Looks like your clinic is about to open.”
Lu Dongnuan stared at the message, her fingertips unconsciously rubbing the cold surface of the screen.
“Blood pressure meds, anti-inflammatories, now children’s fever medicine…” she muttered.
“They’ve started treating me as a relief center.”
He reached out, gesturing for her to hand over the phone.
Lu Dongnuan hesitated for a moment, but gave it to him.
She watched Lin Mo’s slender fingers slide quickly over the screen, and couldn’t help but ask, “How do you plan to reply?”
“Make him wait.”
“The kid could die, you know.”
“Are you really that kind?”
“A doctor’s compassion. I’m a great do-gooder.”
Lin Mo ignored her nonsense.
“Don’t rush. The more desperate, the more hope.”
He pulled a book from Lu Dongnuan’s bookshelf and flashed it at her.
How does one rule people most efficiently?
By creating a faith.
That faith could be a god, a philosophy, science, or even just a square piece of earth.
The form doesn’t matter.
What matters is what it brings.
Lin Mo tossed the book onto the sofa.
“Faith brings order. Order brings obedience.” He stepped up to Lu Dongnuan, bracing his hands on either side of the dining table, trapping her in the middle.
“And what we need most right now is obedience.”
Lu Dongnuan felt uncomfortable and turned her head slightly.
Lin Mo straightened up, went to the kitchen, found a half-empty bottle of mineral water, and tore off a small piece of bread.
He put them, along with the map, on the table and said, “Watch carefully.”
He pointed at the bread crumbs and started explaining, “This is the medicine, food, and sense of security they need.”
Then at the water bottle, “This is you, Dr. Lu, or more accurately, you as a miracle in their eyes.”
Finally, his finger tapped the Pharmacy on the map, “And here is where miracles appear.”
“Our job isn’t to beg them to believe. It’s to let them see for themselves—what following you can bring, what opposing you will cost.” Lin Mo’s finger slid from the Pharmacy to each building on the community map.
“Li Xuhui’s son needs medicine. Uncle Zhang needs blood pressure meds. Auntie Liu needs insulin… Everyone has a weakness, a need. Satisfy it, control it, and you control their material desires.”
“But…” Lu Dongnuan started to speak.
Lin Mo pressed a finger to his lips and said, “That’s not enough. In other words, it’s far from enough. People are selfish and bad by nature, and modern education has given everyone independent thinking. This only ties them tightly to you, but won’t make them worship you.”
“So,” Lin Mo’s finger gently tapped the collar at Lu Dongnuan’s neck.
The cold metal made her shiver, “we need something deeper. Something that bypasses thought and goes straight to instinct.”
He stepped back, eyes sharp as if he were assessing a piece of art about to be exhibited.
“Do you know, in ancient times, humans worshipped lightning, the sun, floods—not because they were kind, but because they were powerful. Because of fear. Fear of death, hunger, the unknown.”
His voice was low, with a penetrating force, “And now, those wandering Zombies outside are the new lightning and flood—they are the purest, deepest source of everyone’s fear.”
Lu Dongnuan seemed to understand, and touched the collar.
“You mean, use my effect on them?”
“Not use. Display.” Lin Mo’s eyes flickered with an almost fanatical light.
“What we need is not to sneak past them, but to let as many people as possible see—with their own eyes—how you walk among them, how you make them retreat, how you accomplish what they can never do. We need to bind you to the idea of safety, to sear it into their subconscious.”
He picked up the phone and waved Li Xuhui’s desperate plea.
“Fulfilling material needs tells them following us means meat to eat. Demonstrating power over their fears tells them only by following us can they survive. When survival is the only issue, independent thought becomes the first luxury to be abandoned.”
“They’ll convince themselves.”
Lu Dongnuan watched him boast endlessly and couldn’t help but pour some cold water on him, asking a much more realistic question: “Aren’t you afraid I’ll be slandered as a virus-spreading demon, the culprit of the Zombie crisis, and then get burned alive on a cross?”
Lin Mo’s words stopped abruptly.
He silently looked Lu Dongnuan up and down, a look of increasing disdain on his face.
“Is that rumor-mongering?” he countered.
Then, reaching out, he unceremoniously pinched her cheeks and said, “Get it together. We’re the ones spreading rumors.”