Chapter 471 - Tsunami (1/2)

Chapter 471 Tsunami

The tallest nearby structures were several residential buildings located on the east side of the road, though a green zone remained in the middle of it all. Zhang Heng visually estimated the distance to the spot, where he concluded that it would be almost impossible to get there in time. Instead, the four-story museum on the west side looked like a more reachable goal.

Wasting not a second, he jumped off the taxi’s roof and ran toward the museum as fast as he could. The cab driver was still in a rage, mad over his pa.s.senger trampling on his vehicle’s roof. At that time, Zhang Heng had already arrived at where the bus sign was. He hastily pushed away two high school students engrossed with their mobiles, then ran toward the bicycle and pedestrian lane before jumping over the museum’s ticketing gate.

The ticket collector operating the booth was taken aback by the intruder, yelling at Zhang Heng to stop as he went after him. Not only did Zhang Heng refuse to stop running, but he started to speed up the moment he heard those cries. An elderly couple had just entered the museum, and Zhang Heng slipped in before the automatic door closed.

The museum was open for business not too long ago, and there weren’t yet many visitors. There were only about a dozen people in the bronzeware exhibition hall on the first floor, where they slowly strolled and admired the showroom’s collections.

Zhang Heng found the stairs in a few seconds, but the guards on the first floor were alerted as well. They began to surround him in no time. Zhang Heng, however, didn’t plan on wasting any time on them. His mind raced to calculate how much time he had left, eventually estimating that he should have around six or seven seconds left. At that moment, the guard who was now on his right attempted to pounce on him, but Zhang Heng managed to duck the attack, avoiding it by inches. The guard on his left failed to capture him as well since a shelf separated them.

In the final three seconds, Zhang Heng ran up the stairs as quickly as his legs would climb them. From the corner of his eye, he could see through the gla.s.s wall that the gargantuan tidal wave was already making landfall. Then, it struck! The ten-meter wave mercilessly smashed onto the museum’s south-side gla.s.s wall, shattering the double-layered tempered gla.s.s in less than half a second!

After that, swathes of seawater rushed into the museum along with a barrage of branches, bricks, bicycles, and other garbage. Zhang Heng managed to rush to the third floor at the last moment. Seawater swallowed the two floors beneath him in the blink of an eye, and the guards in pursuit were swept away by the colossal wave before they could even shout for help. The group of tourists visiting the museum had disappeared, probably killed by as well.

At this moment, Zhang Heng felt as if he was alone on a deserted island in a vast ocean. The human species was evidently powerless against natural disasters.

n.o.body really expected a tsunami to hit them, and as it approached the city, many people didn’t realize what was happening. It was all but too late when they realized that a cataclysm was coming for them. While many were swept away by the unstoppable current, either being pushed to the wall or trapped in their floating cars, sharp objects impaled the more unlucky ones, or in this case, lucky, as they were instantly killed on the spot.

A little girl wearing a dress about six to seven years of age opened her eyes wide in terror, utterly shocked by the devastation taking place right in front of her.

Zhang Heng didn’t bother asking about her parents. Before he could catch his breath, he saw a second wave approaching at an incredible speed. This one was even taller than the previous one, almost as tall as the museum itself. Instead of running upstairs, he turned and ran to the center of the three-story exhibition hall. He heard a thunderous rumble behind him, and that was when the giant wave effortlessly penetrated the last two layers of gla.s.s. The exquisite collections of porcelain from the Tang and Song dynasties had resisted the test of time, but they were nothing against the mighty tsunami. These ended up like the gla.s.s wall, too, shattered into oblivion.