The second thread Jiang Cheng clicked on was posted by that neighbor who had opened his door, made eye contact with Li Jiangbing for a second, and then gone back inside.
He and Li Jiangbing had both typed very little in their posts, which was why they’d posted faster than Jiang Cheng.
There wasn’t any real content—just screaming about seeing a neighbor commit murder, presumably the big, muscular guy on the same floor. The police weren’t answering, and property management wasn’t answering either.
Below it, Li Jiangbing had already replied: [IT WASN’T ME!!!! Go read the post from 0306! The one with all the exclamation points! I already bumped it up! It’s at the top!]
Not bad. It seemed like Li Jiangbing had already gotten through his initial panic and fear.
Only at this moment did Jiang Cheng realize that she hadn’t even had a sip of water yet. Her throat was dry and sore—probably from shouting so hard at Li Jiangbing.
She went to get a glass of water, sat down on the sofa, and drank it down in one go.
She turned her head to look at the bed. Both the person and the cat were unconscious.
She tried calling the police again, and even dialed for an ambulance. Unfortunately, no one answered. Since no one could help this person and this cat right now, all she could do was rely on the medication she had applied to them and hope they held on.
Just then, her stomach growled. Now that she had relaxed, she realized she wasn’t just thirsty—she was hungry too.
Jiang Cheng made herself a bowl of instant noodles and ate the leftover braised meat from yesterday that was still in the fridge.
As she ate, the silence around her began to break.
Car wheels and horns started sounding on the road—chaotic.
People were screaming in the garden of the complex, more than one of them. Their voices echoed in the night. Shouts, screams, even shrieks of agony came one after another from various buildings.
There was noise in the hallway outside her door too—doors opening, startled cries, panicked doors slamming shut.
The neighbors were gradually waking up.
Whenever someone yelled, “There’s a dead body! Call the police!”, Li Jiangbing opened his door and bellowed at the top of his lungs: “Go back inside! Lock your doors! Read the top post on the owners’ forum!”
His physique was intimidating, and his voice was loud too. No matter which neighbor it was, he managed to shout them back inside.
But the noise in the hallway stirred Li Ziqing awake again. This time, she finally managed to hit the door handle. After a few tries, she opened the door and came out.
Li Jiangbing still had his door open and was leaning out. He saw her, shouted “Holy shit!”, and shrank back inside, slamming the door shut.
But Li Jiangbing had already gotten past the initial shock of “seeing a ghost.” He had also learned from Jiang Cheng’s post that the mutated monsters’ weak point was the head, and he had seen with his own eyes how Jiang Cheng had beaten one to death.
Now he was itching to try.
He rummaged through his various pieces of gear at home, ruled out the nunchucks and the collapsible baton, and finally picked up his all-steel T-baton.
He took a few deep breaths, peeked through the peephole—Li Ziqing had lost her target and was drifting slowly through the hallway like a ghost.
Good.
Li Jiangbing gave himself a little pep talk, then suddenly yanked the door open and charged out with a yell.
All those muscles weren’t for nothing. And the weapon was comfortable in his hand.
Li Jiangbing dealt with Li Ziqing quickly.
He had been full of courage when he burst out and when he struck. But when he finally stopped and looked again at the female neighbor he usually saw every day, her skull now shattered, a wave of nausea suddenly hit him.
Li Jiangbing braced himself against the wall and vomited a huge puddle, emptying his stomach completely.
After he finished throwing up, he wiped his mouth. He knew that right now, a lot of people were probably hiding behind their doors, peeking through their peepholes at him.
So he shouted through the hallway, over and over: “There are dead bodies in the hallway! Don’t come out! Go read the owners’ forum!”
He repeated it several times, then went back into his own apartment and closed the door.
The sounds from the hallway were clearly audible, but Jiang Cheng just lowered her eyes and slurped her noodles noisily—one mouthful of noodles, one bite of braised meat.
Fighting monsters takes strength. You have to eat to have energy.
Outside, the screams, cries for help, and pleas in the garden turned into hysterical shrieks, one after another. But soon, the shrieks grew weaker and disappeared.
Jiang Cheng was probably the person in this complex with the most experience fighting monsters so far. But she wasn’t a superhero. If she could help someone, she would. But what was happening outside right now was a situation about to unfold on a massive scale across every part of this city. It wasn’t something one person’s ability could change.
She had already exhausted herself just saving Shen Wei.
It was the weekend. The temperature was cool in the evening. She had no idea how many residents had passed out in the garden, or how many mutated monsters were hiding out there.
The smartest thing to do right now was exactly what Jiang Cheng had written in her post: stay home and keep your door locked.
Just then, she heard someone a few floors above open their window and shout down to the garden: “What’s going on?! Somebody help! What’s happening down there?!”
Immediately after, she heard Li Jiangbing’s familiar voice shouting out his window too: “Everyone—go read—the owners’—forum—! Everyone—go read—the owners’—forum—!”
His voice was so loud, and his lung capacity so big, that he drew out the last syllable for a long time. It echoed through the outdoors.
Good. At least now, a lot of people in the complex should have heard him.
Li Jiangbing was actually proving to be somewhat useful.
But it wasn’t long before Li Jiangbing was shouting out the window at the garden again: “Stop calling me, dammit! Stop calling! Calling me won’t help! If you need something, say it on the forum!!!”
There was no need to guess—people had gone on the forum, seen Li Jiangbing’s post where he left his phone number for Jiang Cheng, and were now calling him one after another to ask what was going on.
Jiang Cheng ignored all the external noise and focused on eating. She even drank all the noodle soup before she felt her tired body regain some strength.
She cleared the small table and walked over to the bed to check on them.
First, she gently stroked the black cat’s head and softly called, “Moli~ Moli~”
Don’t die.
Moli’s limbs twitched a little.
What a relief—he was still alive. But the situation wasn’t good. Jiang Cheng pressed her palm against Moli’s back. Was a cat’s body temperature supposed to be this high? Yes, she remembered reading on pet forums that cats have slightly higher body temperatures, but… this high?
His body felt almost hot to the touch.
Jiang Cheng had a gut feeling that things were very bad.
But there was nothing she could do.
She hadn’t even thanked him yet for saving her life.
Little cat, hang in there!
Lost in her sadness, Jiang Cheng didn’t notice that when she thought “hang in there” in her heart, Moli’s body trembled faintly.
As if jolted by a tiny electric current.
Jiang Cheng wiped her eyes and walked to the other side of the bed to check on Shen Wei.
Shen Wei looked terrible too. Her face was ashen, and she seemed to have lost a lot of blood. At least she didn’t have a fever—her forehead actually felt slightly cool to the touch.
Jiang Cheng called her name softly, hoping she would open her eyes. But Shen Wei didn’t respond at all—she was completely unconscious, even less responsive than Moli.
Truth be told, even if a mutated monster died inside her apartment, Jiang Cheng would be fine. She would just be grateful that she had survived another encounter.
But she really didn’t want to watch a girl who had spoken to her just earlier, who had endured excruciating pain while trying to stay calm and lucid, die right in front of her.
Even though she didn’t have much hope, Jiang Cheng dialed the emergency number again, praying for a miracle.
And a miracle actually happened—the call went through!
Jiang Cheng’s heart skipped a beat.
But before she could say anything, a chaotic, intense noise came from the other end of the line—
Phone rings echoing over each other.
Crashing sounds.
Many women screaming.
“Pin her down! Pin Xiao Song down!!”
“Ahhh, she bit me! Pry her mouth open! Ahhh, hurry, pry her mouth open, she’s biting me, ahhhhh!”
“Be gentle! That’s Xiao Song!”
“Can’t you see she’s not human anymore?! She’s crazy! She’s a monster!”
Screams, shrieks, crying, pleas for help, and arguments were all woven together amid the jumble of ringing phones. It was overwhelming.
A closed dispatch center. Female dispatchers on duty. And a mutated coworker.
A coworker they saw every day. So they couldn’t bring themselves to be ruthless from the start.
But the mutated were ferocious and bloodthirsty—once they bit down, they didn’t let go.
“Sister Wang, what are you doing?!”
“Ahhh, murder! Sister Wang killed someone!”
“Shut up! Xiao Song isn’t human anymore!”
Everyone was hysterical. Helplessness, panic, and fear spilled out of the receiver and flooded into her ears.
Jiang Cheng hung up the phone.
Outside, there was still vague noise. Inside the apartment, there was a kind of calm madness.
She was powerless. There was no one to rely on.
Jiang Cheng had felt this way before—when her parents suddenly died.
But she had gotten through that alone.
She would get through this too.
She went back to the computer and opened the forum. Many new threads had appeared. More and more people were waking up.
Her thread was at the very top, pinned by a moderator. In the short time it had taken her to eat her noodles, it had already grown to hundreds of replies:
[My neighbor was bitten to death! The biter is also a resident!]
[There’s one on our floor—we teamed up and killed it! Will we go to prison?]
[No one is answering the police at all!]
Most of the residents and tenants in the youth apartment complex were relatively young. So the owners’ forum was usually very active.
Now it seemed like the forum had exploded. A quick refresh would send a new thread soaring dozens of floors high.
[Look at what the OP said—the affected area is huge. The police are probably in the same situation as us. Some of them might have turned into monsters too.]
[How do we know what the OP said is true? How does she know anything?]
[Well, obviously. They’re human too. It’s not like being a cop gives you occupational immunity.]
[What the hell is going on? Is this some kind of viral infection?]
[Everyone turn on your TVs and wait for the news. If the situation is serious, there will definitely be news and announcements. Keep your TVs on to receive information in a timely manner.]
That last person gave a very good, very sensible suggestion.
Jiang Cheng turned on the TV and flipped through several channels. But clearly, the government hadn’t reacted yet—everything was just regular recorded programming.
Jiang Cheng turned the TV off.
She paced back and forth in her not-very-spacious apartment, thinking.
Something had caused everyone to lose consciousness collectively. The “cause” was unknown—it could be a virus, it could be radiation. Whatever it was, some people had mutated.
If what was happening at the youth apartment complex was happening indiscriminately across the entire city, or even a wider area, then the police—who maintained public order—would lose a portion of their workforce first. So would doctors. In fact, every industry would be affected, because this didn’t discriminate by profession. It was probably affecting all industries equally.
But under the current circumstances, police and doctors were the most important and most needed professions.
If that was the case, order might not be restored even by tomorrow, or the day after. That meant people would be trapped at home for at least the next day or two, unable to go out easily.
Jiang Cheng quickly checked her household supplies.
Fortunately, because she lived alone, she couldn’t afford a situation like “finishing a bathroom visit only to find there’s no toilet paper left.” So she always kept a small stockpile of daily necessities at home.
Jiang Cheng had always adhered to the philosophy of “one in use, one in reserve.”
For staple grains: one bag of 5kg rice that was one-third eaten, and one unopened 5kg bag of rice.
Eggs: 4 eggs and one unopened full carton.
Canned luncheon meat: 6 cans—she usually used these for fried rice.
Pickled vegetables: one large bag containing 12 small packs.
Frozen meat: several large pieces, hard to say the exact weight.
Vegetables: a small amount.
Other items: two large buckets of chocolate, 4 boxes of various flavored pies, two different kinds of cookies.
Snacks: beef jerky, nuts, potato chips, and a few bags of other snack foods.
Looking at this, even if she ran out of side dishes, that one and a half bags of rice could last her about twenty days. So for now, food was fairly abundant.
Toilet paper was also plentiful.
The water dispenser had half a tank of water, and she had one full backup tank stored at home. That would last a good long while.
But the antiseptic solution in her small first-aid kit had been used up entirely on Shen Wei and Mo Li. And it was becoming clear that wound care supplies were going to be in high demand in the days ahead.
That was something she needed to replenish.
After checking the entire apartment, Jiang Cheng turned on the TV again. Still no emergency news. It seemed she would have to wait until at least tomorrow for the government to respond.
Jiang Cheng logged back into the owners’ forum and took a look. More threads had appeared.
Her thread was still pinned at the top, but it had become too crowded with replies to be easily readable. Many people had started new threads instead.
She scrolled through them. Most people were naturally showing varying degrees of panic, fear, and anxiety, but generally everyone agreed that staying in their apartments was the safest option for now.
By this point, the garden had fallen almost completely silent. Looking down from the window, she could see some ghostly shadows moving slowly.
There weren’t as many screams and shrieks coming from the buildings anymore.
The first wave of unexpected encounters between ordinary people and mutated monsters had ended in a relatively short time.
Those who were slow, weak, or panicked—and had no one to rescue them—were probably already dead.
Everyone else had basically retreated into their apartments by now. They were safe, and they were all actively reaching out to others, going online, and gathering information.
So after this initial chaos, the complex had once again fallen into an eerie silence.
Only the sound of more and more cars on the road could be heard.
The community was gated, and residents had apartments to take shelter in.
She had no idea what was happening in places outside of a gated community like this.
Sure enough, someone else had the same thought. Someone reposted information from other forums with updates from outside: [It’s not just our complex! It’s everywhere! The whole city of S! And cities C, N, L… This situation might be nationwide!]
Even though she had suspected as much, seeing it confirmed still made Jiang Cheng’s heart sink.
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