"Simple. Stand in separate groups of forty." Brother Feng surveyed the people around him. "Not many people died in this mall. That's a good thing."
His cryptic remark only made the already frightened crowd more terrified. They huddled together, too afraid to move.
When they started dragging their feet, waiting for someone else to act first, Brother Feng sneered and fired a shot into the air. "You have five minutes. Anyone left over after that gets killed!"
The people in the mall scattered like startled rabbits. Friends and strangers alike crowded together. Some kept shouting out the numbers, dragging people over if they were short and pushing them away if they had too many. Before long, the roughly two hundred people had split into five groups. There weren't enough people left to make a sixth group of forty, so they pulled women and children out of the groups that were already formed and took their places. The scene grew even more chaotic than before.
Brother Feng and the other two watched with evident amusement, looking pleased.
"At least let the children go in!" a mother begged the people beside her, but a big man shoved her away, knocking her and her child to the ground.
"Why did you push her?" someone nearby protested, but the big man sneered. "If you're so noble, why don't you go out and take her place?"
The bystander immediately fell silent.
At least twenty elderly people, women, and children had been pushed out like this. They had nowhere to turn. Two old people even knelt and kowtowed, begging Brother Feng and the others to spare their lives.
The bustling mall soon fell quiet, leaving only the cries of women and children and the old people's pleas for mercy. The sounds made everyone's hair stand on