Madness: a Journey into the Distance

On the night when the meteorite pierced the night sky of the northern hemisphere, an unknown neurological virus spread quietly with the atmospheric circulation. People with weak constitutions are the first to suffer the disease - they retain basic intelligence but lose all sense of pain. They hold sticks and bricks in their hands and laugh maniacally. They take pleasure in killing living people. Wherever they use obscene words, the social order collapses instantly. Folks call this incurable catastrophe "madness." Zhou Jian, a former history professor at Shanghai University, went for a walk in western Sichuan after his divorce. On his way back, an accident happened on the bus in the suburbs, and he fell into a doomsday hell overnight. Relying on his many years of outdoor experience, he escaped from death and rescued Zhang Mingze, a girl from the astronomy department who was trapped in a single-family villa. He also successively met Chen Feiyu, a deliveryman who was looking for his wife, Chen Jianjun, a grocery vendor who was eager to protect his children, and Su Qing, a former war reporter with sharp marksmanship. They formed a temporary team and went all the way south to Hangzhou to find Zhang Mingze's missing parents. There are gaps in life hidden under the blocked national highways, and the dairy farms enclosed by high walls contain cannibalistic hearts. There are suspicions and disagreements, sacrifices and choices along the way. The screams of the madman followed closely behind him, and the light and darkness of humanity surged before his eyes. Some people give up the bottom line in order to survive, and some go into danger alone for their obsession. Zhou Jian always holds the steelyard in his heart, protecting the people around him step by step on the long road intertwined with corpses and man-made disasters. In the long road to the end, the craziest thing is never the sick people, but the people who are not sick but are willing to become wild beasts.