Jiang Cheng had been pressed against the door, peeking through the peephole ever since she heard noises in the stairwell. When she heard Li Jiangbing’s voice, she pulled the door open. “She’s not.”
Everyone turned to look at her.
The girl leaned against the doorframe, her face bare. She looked a bit haggard, probably from lack of rest.
When a person looks haggard, they tend to come across as aloof. It’s like when you’re exhausted from working too much overtime and don’t feel like talking to anyone after getting off work.
“She’s the one I saved in the garden last night. At the time, I couldn’t find any police or ambulance. If I had tried to take her home, she lives in Building 6, and we would have had to go through the garden to get there—we didn’t dare. So I let her stay at my place. She got bitten, and in the middle of the night, she turned.”
Li Jiangbing understood. “She’s the one you mentioned in your post!”
Hearing that, the neighbors suddenly realized. “You’re the owner who posted that pinned thread!”
Everyone had seen Jiang Cheng’s two posts, but on the owners’ forum, she had used a screen name, so no one knew which household she lived in. Now, after listening to the exchange between Li Jiangbing and Jiang Cheng, they knew.
So she was the first person in the complex to encounter a mutant and warn everyone with a post!
Looking at Jiang Cheng again, they noticed that although she leaned against the doorframe with a tired, relaxed air, she was holding a baseball bat in the hand hanging by her side.
Her eyes were dark and bright—no panic, no urgency, just calm.
Last night, everyone had seen from their windows that some of those who woke up in the garden had been bitten and killed by mutants. Yet she, the first to wake up and encounter a mutant, had survived.
Jiang Cheng said, “Take a look—isn’t she different from those two?”
Jiang Cheng needed others to confirm whether her observations were off.
The neighbors had already been staring for a while and nodded. “Yeah!”
“Just like you said in your post.”
“Is she really much stronger?”
Jiang Cheng nodded. “A lot stronger. I almost died.”
She succinctly explained the difference between primary mutants and infected mutants again.
Among the neighbors on the same floor, only she and Li Jiangbing had directly encountered a primary mutant, and only she had encountered an infected mutant. Even Li Jiangbing listened intently.
“I think…” Jiang Cheng said, “it’s like an evolution.”
Everyone exchanged uneasy glances.
A young male neighbor said, “Sounds like a viral iteration.”
Jiang Cheng sighed. “Yeah, exactly that feeling.”
Li Jiangbing said admiringly, “You’re pretty impressive.”
Without Mo Li, she might have died. Jiang Cheng shook her head slightly and said to Li Jiangbing, “Since everyone’s here, let’s clean up the bodies. We can’t just leave them in the hallway forever.”
Li Jiangbing asked, “How should we handle them?”
Jiang Cheng said, “Take 0315 and 0317 back to their own homes. And could you take this one to 0308?”
Jiang Cheng had saved Li Jiangbing’s life the night before, so it felt natural to give him instructions, and it felt natural for him to agree. “Okay.”
Then Li Jiangbing naturally started delegating to others. “You two take 0315 back. You two take 0317 back. Everyone knows which unit is which, right? Doesn’t really matter if you get it wrong. We’ll sort it out if the cops ever show up. Go on, get moving! Man up! We can’t leave this to the girls.”
Li Jiangbing held a tactical baton in each hand. He was tall, strong, and loud. Several neighbors had watched through their peepholes as he killed Li Ziqing the night before. When he barked orders, no one dared to object. The men he pointed at started moving, dragging the bodies by their ankles toward the apartments.
People have a natural curiosity and love to follow a crowd. Everyone trailed along to see what was happening.
Li Jiangbing dragged Shen Wei into unit 0308, which was right next door to Jiang Cheng’s.
“Poor Bai,” he sighed, after dumping the body inside and stepping back out.
The dog had it bad too—bitten to death by its own owner, its neck nearly torn through.
But Jiang Cheng’s gaze swept over his hands—
Li Jiangbing had his tactical batons tucked under his armpits, both hands free, clutching several packs of instant noodles and some potato chips.
“I don’t have much food at home,” he quickly explained. “I usually eat meal prep at the gym. I’m afraid I’ll binge if I keep snacks around, so I never stock any food. All I have at home is protein powder.”
So when he saw food in Xiao Bai’s place, he helped himself.
Jiang Cheng didn’t scold him for taking things. Instead, she said, “That won’t keep you full for long. You should check if he has rice or flour.”
Li Jiangbing said, “I don’t know how to cook. I only know how to boil chicken breast. I was thinking I’d rely on instant noodles to get through the next couple of days.”
“And then?” Jiang Cheng asked.
Li Jiangbing said, “Then, in a few days, when things settle down…”
Jiang Cheng’s eyes were clear and reflective, mirroring his strong, bulky frame.
Li Jiangbing couldn’t finish his sentence. A faint sweat broke out on his forehead.
“Things will settle down, right?” he asked quietly. “The police will step in eventually, won’t they? The government has to do something, right? They can’t just ignore this, can they?”
“How would I know?” Jiang Cheng’s voice was also low.
It sounded just like the gentle, soft-spoken girl people usually took her for. In fact, that had always been Li Jiangbing’s impression of her—he’d even thought about striking up a conversation with her before.
But last night, Jiang Cheng had shattered that impression entirely.
“But if you don’t have any supplies saved up,” she said, “I’d suggest you take everything you can carry from 0308.”
Li Jiangbing didn’t dare think too deeply about it. A cold sweat formed on his forehead. “Okay. I’ll go back and find a bag—no, I’ll look for one in his place.”
He turned and ducked back into 0308.
Jiang Cheng looked further down the hall. A few neighbors who had been dragging bodies were also taking things from units 0315 and 0317. Unsurprisingly, they were all grabbing food.
Someone protested, “How can you take other people’s things?”
Someone else defended themselves: “I don’t have any food at home.”
Jiang Cheng didn’t listen any longer. She retreated into her own apartment and closed the door.
Muffled arguments drifted in from outside—arguments over whether it was right to take things from other people’s homes. The arguing only stopped when everyone saw Li Jiangbing doing the same.
Li Jiangbing said, “What, I’m supposed to starve? Fine, when the families come to claim the bodies later, I’ll pay them back at market price.”
It was obvious that everyone was a bit afraid of Li Jiangbing now. Once he spoke, a few others who had also taken things from the dead chimed in loudly, “Yeah, exactly!”
The rest fell silent.
For now, it could still be called “taking.” But what about later? Jiang Cheng thought behind her closed door.
Mo Li was on the bed. Whenever he heard a sound, he’d open his eyes to look at Jiang Cheng, then close them again. That meant he wasn’t unconscious or in a deep sleep—just genuinely weak.
Jiang Cheng walked over and stroked the black cat’s head.
He didn’t move, his eyes closed.
Jiang Cheng refreshed the owners’ forum.
Everyone was awake now. Some had gone through nights as harrowing as hers, while others, though safely hidden in their own homes, had witnessed the horrors unfolding in the garden below from their windows.
But despite all this, on Sunday morning, more and more posts on the forum were asking the same thing:
“Are we still supposed to go to work tomorrow?”
The question struck a chord with almost everyone. Across different forums, people were asking and debating the same thing—what to do about Monday.
Most of the residents in the youth apartment complex were young men. And as everyone knows, put three single guys together, and one of them is bound to come up with some wild idea.
Soon, Jiang Cheng saw a post on the youth apartment owners’ forum: “Screw it, I’m going out to take a look.”
Several others chimed in: “Yeah, let’s go check it out. We can’t just stay cooped up in our rooms and suffocate.”
“Got any weapons?”
“I have a hammer. Not cursing—I actually have a hammer. I also have a wrench.”
“I’ve got a piece of a steel pry bar.”
“Why do you have something like that at home?”
“I passed by the construction site next door and saw it lying there, straight as an arrow. I couldn’t resist picking it up.”
The group enthusiastically started planning on the forum.
Half an hour later, Jiang Cheng stood by her floor-to-ceiling window and looked out. From several buildings, male residents emerged one after another. They had agreed on a time to move out together.
Each person held a weapon—hammers, wrenches, a piece of steel pry bar, dumbbells, nunchucks, mops, kitchen knives—all kinds of things.
Some even wore motorcycle helmets.
At least four or five people came out of nearly every building in response. One building even sent out eleven men.
After the first wave of encounters last night when the garden became a scene of mass awakening, those who were meant to die had died. The survivors had fled back into their buildings. With no living people left in the garden, the mutants drifted around slowly and aimlessly, like boats without power floating on water.
Dozens of young men, brimming with adrenaline, took the initiative to strike. The garden instantly became a chaotic scene.
From upstairs, Jiang Cheng watched the male residents encounter the mutants. For this group, armed and already well-informed about the mutants’ characteristics, the hardest hurdle was actually swinging their weapons at the mutants.
After all, the mutants still had human forms, and many people still thought of them as “people” in their hearts.
Everyone was a law-abiding citizen, a kind-hearted worker. Suddenly being forced to strike someone hard—fatally—was nowhere near as easy as one might imagine.
Several people had marched out full of bravado, only to freeze the moment they came face to face with a mutant. They simply couldn’t bring themselves to do it. They couldn’t get past that mental block.
Within Jiang Cheng’s line of sight alone, she saw three or four people turn and run back into their buildings.
Fortunately, among these men, a few had already fought mutants the night before. They already had blood on their hands.
Those who had already faced life and death didn’t hesitate at all. They swung straight for the heads.
With someone taking the lead, the others followed, adding their own hammer blows and wrench strikes to the mutants’ heads. The psychological barrier became much less daunting.
Once a person killed their first mutant, that initial mental hurdle was cleared.
Jiang Cheng watched as their movements shifted from hesitant and timid to aggressive and relentless.
After killing that first mutant, it was as if they had been granted a surge of courage. They shouted and charged toward the next mutant.
But everyone had severely underestimated the number of mutants in the garden.
Yesterday was Saturday. On a summer night like that, so many people had been out in the garden. Some had just gotten home, others were heading out.
The night before, from their windows, residents had only seen what was visible. Many who had woken up later barely heard the tail end of things before the first wave of slaughter was over. Much of what happened was hidden by trees, lurking in unlit shadows—impossible to see.
But now, under the clear, bright sun, everything was laid bare.
Attracted by the shouting and yelling of the energized young men, mutant after mutant emerged from the greenery and appeared in everyone’s line of sight.
One after another.
Another.
And another.
The beautiful plan of “defeating them one by one” failed due to the overwhelming number of mutants—far exceeding expectations.
The young men, who had just been riding a wave of excitement, began to struggle. They would knock one down, only for another to roar and lunge at them.
At that moment, many residents watching from their floor-to-ceiling windows saw several different figures among the mutants below—fast, steady, and charging straight toward the young men in a straight line.
Many residents instinctively slapped their windowpanes and screamed in terror: “Watch out—!”
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