Dense Fog

I wouldn’t last more than three hours in an apocalypse movie

January 19, 2021

At 10:30 AM, the loudspeaker stopped its stressful broadcast at last. The thick fog enveloped the campus, making the campus seem as still as in the middle of the night.

“There isn’t even a hint of the clouds parting or the fog dispersing.” Xia Yang stood next to the window and determinedly observed the outside for almost half an hour. The more he saw, the more frightened he felt. “This unlucky weather is way too extraordinary.”

Lin Wu was sitting on the upper bed, scrolling through Weibo. Under the “Shenyang Fog” topic, people from all over the city had posted photos. From Shenbei to Hunnan1, from the Forbidden City to Chessboard Mountain, any spot was picturesque no matter how you looked at it. There were no bad angles. On the other hand, if they hadn’t posted their locations and descriptions as well, Lin Wu wouldn’t have been able to tell where all those photos were taken. Every picture was, as far as the eye could see, a vast expanse of whiteness.

Yet, even such an unusual event didn’t propel Shenyang up into the top ten hot searches. This was because there were too many other regions that also experienced this great fog. In Dongbei and North China, East and South China, the seldom seen foggy sky practically linked the north and south, enshrouding the entire Eastern region. The Midwest was also unable to completely escape. It was just that only small areas of fog afflicted sporadic parts of the cities there, unlike the Eastern region, which was almost completely covered.

“Damn!” Li Junchi, scrolling through his phone like Lin Wu, was shocked by the latest report that popped up in his feed. With a face full of disbelief, he whipped his head toward Lin Wu on the opposite bunk. “Seems like this shit is happening worldwide...”

Lin Wu looked over. In a split second, “Global fog outbreaks” rushed to the top of the hot search, its popularity exploding in the blink of an eye.

“What’s going on?” Xia Yang heard their conversation and turned around. “What’s worldwide?”

Li Junchi immediately handed his phone over to him. Xia Yang took a glance at the screen, then became stupefied.

Across the whole planet and its seven continents, regardless of Northern and Southern hemispheres, regardless of day and night, regardless of meteorological features and climate, it seemed as though if you wanted there to be fog, there would be fog. Still more unifying were the photos of the dense fog taken and posted in the online communities of every country. Those pictures were indistinguishable from Shenyang’s.

Even the pattern in which the fog emerged was precisely the same as that of China: some regions were engulfed by fog in large areas, while other regions saw fragments of it dispersed across one or two cities.

“My view of the natural sciences has been overturned.” Li Junchi lay spread eagled and gazed at the ceiling in a daze.

“If you live long enough, you can see all sorts of things.” Xia Yang tossed his phone back onto his stomach. “Isn’t this how all the disaster movies start?”

“Let’s hope not.” Lin Wu was well aware of his abilities. “If I were in an apocalypse movie, I wouldn’t last longer than three hours.”

“No need to humble brag.” Xia Yang stuck out his tongue in disdain. “A movie is at most two hours, you’re even giving yourself an extra thirty minutes.”

Lin Wu let out a self-satisfied chuckle and brought his hands to his heart in a gesture of sincere brotherhood. “You get me.”

Xia Yang mimicked his movement and, in a hard to come by moment, spoke with a spot-on Dongbei accent: “Of course.”

Li Junchi whose brain circuits couldn’t keep up with theirs at all: “...”

Because he wasn’t enough of a fudgehead like them, he often felt incompatible with his roommates.

Alas, god was fair. Having given you a handsome face, he was forced to let your personality traits veer off track. That’s right, the way Li Junchi saw it, Lin Wu’s looks could be considered to be in the same league as Xia Yang’s. Although Lin Wu didn’t think so himself, and although that face of Xia Yang’s was quite eye-catching indeed, Li Junchi’s judgement was backed by data. His social circle encompassed the WeChat moments of the entire school. He had asked around for the girls’ opinions of Lin Wu about as much as he’d asked about Xia Yang.

“How come Old Yu still hasn’t come?” Lin Wu clicked into his dorm room group chat.

One hour ago, Ren Feiyu’s train had arrived at the station, and he had sent the first message.

Please bestow a koi upon me: I’m at the North Station now, how is the fog so dense [Three stages of shock.jpg2]
Please bestow a koi upon me: Even the taxis have stopped, they don’t dare drive [cry] [cry] [cry]

Ten minutes later, he sent a second message.

Please bestow a koi upon me: The subway’s still reliable!

This meant that at the time of sending, he had already gotten on the subway. Half an hour was enough to make it from North Station to their university by subway, but now, fifty minutes had already passed.

“Did something happen?” Lin Wu was a little bit worried.

Xia Yang scratched his head. “Probably not. With this demonic weather, once he leaves the subway station, he won’t be able to move a single step. I bet he’s still outside our north gate, inching over here in small steps.”

The return trip to school from the subway station would definitely be via the north gate.

“No, that’s not right.” No matter how Lin Wu pondered, he couldn’t get to the bottom of it. “Think about it ah, based on Old Yu’s personality, if he really is unable to move a single step, the first thing he'll do is stand still where he is, then complain up a storm and sadfish ying ying ying.”3

Xia Yang: “...”

Li Junchi: “...”

Ren Feiyu really was like this. Lin Wu wasn’t wronging him at all.

There was no point in thinking about it anymore. Lin Wu sent Ren Feiyu a voice message and called him.

The other side picked up after a very long time.

“Where’re you?” Lin Wu was straightforward.

“Huh? Oh, almost at the North gate...” Ren Feiyu’s voice was transmitted through Lin Wu’s phone in speaker mode. His voice originally had the distinctive bright and clear tone of a teenage boy, but because of his personality, it carried a gloomy note that was impossible to get rid of all year round, like the whimpering of a big dog looking for a head pat.

However, on an average day, Ren Feiyu was just frightened. Today, he was particularly limp and seemed to have a bit of a guilty conscience. More importantly, the background noise on the other side was clamorous. It sounded as though he was surrounded by a crowd of people.

Before, Lin Wu had his suspicions but now, he was pretty much certain. “Ren Feiyu, did something happen to you?”

“No, no,” the other side quickly denied. “Let’s not talk about it, hah, this fog is just too dense, too busy to talk, haha...”

Pa.

He cut off the voice call.

Lin Wu lifted his head. The three people in the dorm looked at each other. The next second, they flipped out of their beds at the speed of lightning, pulling on their jackets and putting on their shoes.

“Shit, your wild guess turned out to be true,” said Li Junchi.

“Whaddya mean ‘wild guess’, it’s called being attentive,” said Xia Yang.

“Big brother, now isn’t the time to be praising,” said Li Junchi.

Ren Feiyu, this guy who spent 364 days a year crying out loud and spewing out sob stories, would only refrain from doing so on one day: the day when he ran into big trouble. No one knew how this awkward tendency had developed. Anyway, when he faced no major difficulties, he itched to tell the whole world that he was the most miserable person on the planet. On the contrary, when there was real trouble, he was afraid of implicating others in it and always wanted to bear the burden himself.

Room 333 did not often come to blows with others, but when it came down to it, they weren’t afraid to fight. Usually, Ren Feiyu would hold them back, but today, the dove of peace was absent. The three heroes of the pro-war faction swooped down in one move like a fierce tiger bursting out of its cage.

Whatever happened to Ren Feiyu could not be determined by asking. It was faster to directly head over to the scene. The school faced the south, so the south gate was the main entrance near the library and teaching buildings, whereas the north gate was located in between the Shushan and Xuehai dormitory areas, just steps away from the male dorms.

The dormitory buildings weren’t sealed off and the trio exited without a hitch. Yet, once they reached the outside, they entered a completely different world. The sky was a little darker than it was in the morning. It was impossible to see anything in the thick fog. They could only rely on their memories to feel their way forward, one tree at a time, to avoid losing their way.

Luckily, the north gate wasn’t far. After walking for a short while, the three of them heard the sound of the security guards’ conversation up ahead. If there were security guards there, that meant they had made it to the gate.

The fog became the best “invisibility charm”. The three of them stood still for a little bit. There was no need to deliberately hide, just lowering their voices was good enough.

“The campus is under lockdown, we definitely can’t make it through the gate,” Li Junchi said.

“Let’s find a better concealed spot to climb over the wall,” Lin Wu said.

“We really don’t need to go out of our way to find one. Today, the entire world seems to have this concealment property,” Xia Yang said.

“Which school's—” hollered the security guard who was originally having a chat up ahead. He was unable to see any movements but had already heard the clomp clomp clomp of their footsteps. Apparently, this student even brought their merry band of friends. “To the side, to the side—”

Lin Wu, Li Junchi, and Xia Yang: “...”

They were so quiet that they could barely hear their own voices, yet they still got exposed?

What to do? Run, brothers!

“Stop right there! I see all of you!” the security guard said.

“Hey, come on, even if your hearing and sight are sharp, this is breaking the limits of human vision,” Xia Yang said.

“Stop running, it’s dangerous!”

“If you stop chasing us, then we won’t run!”

Playing tag in this type of weather made everyone dizzy and disoriented. When Lin Wu finally fumbled his way to the school fence, only then did he discover that it was silent around him. At a second glance, he realized that there wasn’t even a shadow of a person.

It was basically impossible to meet up again in this situation. Lin Wu also couldn’t pinpoint which part of the wall he had reached, so he might as well flip over to the other side first, then look at the buildings off campus to check his direction.

To his surprise, when he'd just gone through the efforts of climbing to the top of the fence, he discovered that outside, there was yet another security guard on patrol. Moreover, he was practically glued to the foot of the fence, leaving practically no path of escape for this poor fence scaling student.

Did they really have to be this strict...

Lin Wu straddled the top of the wall, gradually shifting his weight downwards. While he mouthed, “You can’t see me,” he lightened his breathing and patiently waited for the security guard to pass by so he could descend.

While the security guard on the outside still hadn’t passed by, more classmates appeared at the bottom of the fence inside.

“Let’s stay here, tell me what you want to say,” said a male voice.

“I like you,” said a female voice.

Lin Wu almost fell off the top of the wall.

He quickly steadied himself. He couldn’t help but lower his sight to the two people below. He didn’t mean to see, but alas, gossip was a human instinct. There was nothing that could be done about it.

Unfortunately, the fog was too blurry. He could only make out the sounds of a male and a female. The male voice was very pleasant to listen to, but sounded a bit weary. The female voice sounded quite fresh. Even though she confessed first, she came across as natural and unrestrained.

All of a sudden, a light breeze picked up. A large portion of the fog gathered at the bottom of the wall was unexpectedly blown away at this moment, leaving behind only a thin layer like muslin.

Through the light, gauzy curtain, Lin Wu finally saw the two students clearly. The one who had taken the initiative to confess was actually the school flower recognized by the entire campus, a third year girl in mechanical engineering! Lin Wu opened his eyes wide, thinking that he might be hallucinating. One had to know that this senior had the loveliest appearance and sweetest voice. Last year, the first years went crazy over her.

Their university was co-ed. There was no lack of female students in the liberal arts school. Yet, against all odds, the school flower came from a major like mechanical or power engineering where there were no more than three girls per class. And, she was absolutely uncontested—just look at how pretty this senior sister was.

After being confessed to by this type of girl, the guy underneath unexpectedly replied.

“Sorry.”

His voice had no change in inflection from before.

Lin Wu was at first only curious what sort of male student could make this senior come forward and confess her love, but this time, he was stunned. He promptly set his eyes on that male student.

A regular handsome guy.

Right, just a regular guy, but on the taller side. Lin Wu himself was 185 centimeters tall, and he eyeballed that the other person was a few centimeters taller than him. He should be at least 190 centimeters, but there was no way he reached two metres. His facial features were quite well-defined, with a clear contour from the bridge of his nose to his jawline. His eyebrows were also above average... fine, a little better than above average. The way he confidently shaved his hair into a buzz cut was just right, giving him a dashing quality.

So what? Because you were handsome, you could do as you pleased?

“Why?” the school flower asked.

“It isn’t your fault. It’s mine,” said Buzz Cut.

“You can’t possibly be using that overdone excuse, like ‘I don’t like women’?”

“I don’t like humans,” said Buzz Cut.

... Look, he did whatever he pleased.

The author has something to say:
The little gong is here!

Halp

心细如发: Translated as “attentive”, but maybe there’s a better equivalent English expression大二的学姐把他们这些大一新生迷得不要不要的: What, they don’t want her anymore? What does this mean? ≡(▔﹏▔)≡

Additional Notes

东北 / Dōngběi, 华北 / Huáběi (North China)，华东 / Huádōng (East China), and 华南 / Huánán (South China) are all regions in China, and are clearly defined groups of provinces: Wikipedia list呈大字状 / chéng dà zì zhuàng: literally take the shape of the 大 character, was translated as lying down spread eagle拿眼皮鄙视他 / ná yǎn pí bǐ shì tā: Akanbe, that thing in anime where a character pulls down their eyelid tauntingly. Localized as blowing a raspberry, but let me know if you want a more faithful translation沙雕 / shā diāo: literally means “sand sculpture”, but is a euphemism for the less polite 傻屌 / shǎ diǎo, meaning “stupid dick”. Translated as “fudgehead” but maybe dumbass would sound more natural跑偏 / pǎo piān: Dongbei dialect to describe peoples’ thoughts and behaviour that deviate from normal. There is a lot of Dongbei dialect in this story that is basically just going untranslated T^T

沈北 / Shěnběi and 浑南 / Húnnán are municipal districts in Shenyang↩

震惊三连.jpg / zhèn jīng sān lián: The three stages of shock, from left to right 

不会吧 / bú huì ba: It can't be...真的吗 / zhēn de ma: Really??牛逼牛逼 / niú bī niú bī: Fucking awesome!