The congee burned. In the past, Jiang Cheng would have thrown it out and made a fresh pot. But now, Jiang Cheng wouldn’t waste food like that. Even though her food supplies were still ample, Jiang Cheng had a strong sense of crisis.
She forced down the burned congee with salted duck eggs.
After she had eaten her fill, she fed Mo Li.
He was doing much better now—Mo Li was fully capable of eating on his own. She sprinkled some cat food into the “nest” of the bean bag chair, and he started crunching away by himself. He wasn’t fast, but he was eating completely independently.
The only thing was, he still hadn’t used the bathroom. Jiang Cheng had checked. The litter box was completely clean, with no signs of use at all. It worried her a bit.
Her phone suddenly buzzed once—just a single buzz, then stopped. It felt a little sneaky.
She picked it up and saw it was from Li Jiangbing.
Jiang Cheng called him back. “I’m awake.”
“Did you sleep well?” Li Jiangbing asked. “You looked pretty worn out yesterday.”
“Not bad. My energy’s mostly back. The main problem was I didn’t sleep well the night before either,” Jiang Cheng said. “I’ve already had breakfast. Have you eaten?”
Li Jiangbing had eaten too.
Good. Jiang Cheng said, “Then let’s get to work.”
They had to start moving early in the morning.
The bodies in the first-floor lobby had to be dealt with.
Jiang Cheng and Li Jiangbing roused everyone from Building 2’s temporary owners’ committee, along with some other residents from the building who came to help. Together, they dragged all the bodies piled in the lobby to the central garden square.
After all, this was where they lived. No one could just leave a pile of corpses in their own lobby and ignore it.
Su Yu and the other girl from the night before were there too. They had each brought along another girl.
Everyone was busy. Jiang Cheng didn’t have much chance to talk to them. They just nodded at each other in greeting.
Master Luo was already busy in the square.
When he saw Jiang Cheng, he said, “I went by the office this morning to take a look. The conference room was making a racket again early on, but now it’s quiet. They didn’t call you all again. Anyway, we’re keeping an eye on it.”
That conference room now felt like a cursed vessel. Who knew what would end up remaining inside in the end?
The key point was to keep the door locked and never open it. The basement had no windows, so they couldn’t get out.
People from every building were mobilizing. All the zombie corpses killed during the previous night’s building sweeps were now being dragged out for unified disposal.
The paths from the buildings to the garden were bustling with people coming and going, busy at work. They looked like a hive of diligent worker bees. Strangely, there was an almost vibrant, lively feeling to it.
It was utterly dissonant.
The pile of bodies burned the previous day had truly become a “pile.”
Many people, when they hear “cremation,” think of burning to ashes. But that wasn’t the case at all. Without professional incineration equipment like the youth apartments had, simply burning bodies in the open air would never reduce them to “ashes.” In the end, they would only become a “pile.” Within that “pile,” one could still see clearly outlined human remains.
The new bodies were dragged onto the “pile” to continue burning. There was still plenty of fuel—more than enough.
Quite a few people had come to help.
There were also several people who hadn’t come to help but to take photos—click, click, click. Some had traditional cameras with large telephoto lenses; others had the new pocket-sized digital cameras that had emerged in recent years.
“How often do you get to experience something like this in a lifetime? We need to document it. Maybe these photos will end up in history books someday,” they said. “Cameras were invented for moments like this.”
It sounded almost reasonable.
The fire blazed, and waves of heat hit everyone’s faces. Everyone kept their distance, watching from afar.
The photographers, whether near or far, kept searching for good angles.
The scene was both still and chaotic.
Just then, someone came running over. “The neighbors have organized themselves too!”
The “neighbors” referred to the complex across the street from the east gate, called Jixiang Jiayuan.
On Sunday afternoon, the residents of Youth Apartments had poured out of the east gate in droves, heading to Duo Duo Supermarket, passing right by Jixiang Jiayuan. That street was called Jixiang West Street.
At that time, many residents of Jixiang Jiayuan had watched them from their windows, and some had even shouted across the street.
While Jiang Cheng was constantly browsing the owner forums of other developments and other major forums, many people had also been browsing the Youth Apartments owner forum.
At this moment, the internet had meaning. Information began to flow.
Among the outsiders visiting the Youth Apartments owner forum, the vast majority were from the neighboring Jixiang Jiayuan. Because on Sunday afternoon, they had witnessed the massive collective shopping trip from Youth Apartments, and they were desperate to know what was happening there, so they flooded into the Youth Apartments forum.
From the Youth Apartments owner forum, they got a general understanding of what had happened over there.
Back on their own forum, the owners of Jixiang Jiayuan launched a heated discussion—
【We can’t just sit here and do nothing!】
【We’re almost out of food at home.】
【The baby’s formula is running out!】
【We should organize too.】
Jixiang Jiayuan had everything from one-bedroom to four-bedroom units, and residents ranging from children to the elderly, even many nannies. Its demographic makeup was basically a complete microcosm of society. Unlike Youth Apartments, which had a single, simple demographic—mostly young, highly educated, single individuals.
Now, Jixiang Jiayuan had finally organized a team to go downstairs and clear the zombies wandering inside their complex.
It was far more difficult for them to organize than it had been for Youth Apartments.
Some people had even armed themselves and were ready to go downstairs, but their elderly parents cried and screamed, clinging to them and refusing to let them go. “Let someone else go! Let someone else go! You’re my only son!”
It was incredibly hard.
But as the forum discussions said, they couldn’t just sit and wait to die. Especially since on Sunday evening, the government’s new announcement had shifted direction, clearly encouraging citizens to rescue themselves.
They had argued all night, and finally, today, someone had taken the lead to go downstairs. One, then two, then three—more and more people joined, and they finally managed to organize.
But although this complex had a larger total population, the absolute number of able-bodied young men was lower than at Youth Apartments.
Mothers with children had mostly stayed home. Some young couples without children to hold them back had mustered their courage and gone downstairs together, armed with kitchen knives and rolling pins.
There were elderly parents who clung to their only sons, forbidding them from going downstairs to take risks. But there were also families where the older generation held the younger ones back: “You’re still young. Stay here. I’ll go!”
After understanding the situation, Jiang Cheng paused thoughtfully, then called on everyone: “Let’s go help.”
“This isn’t the time for each to clean their own doorstep. If they fail, we’ll only face more zombies.”
“In times like these, we’re all in this together. Not just complexes with complexes, but cities with cities.”
“To put it another way, right now, humanity is a community.”
Zombies weren’t going to stay obediently in one place. Zombies had legs. They could walk. The neighboring complex had a high proportion of elderly, women, and children. Imagine if they just let things slide, and the complex completely fell to infection—what then? Would they have to face zombie babies crawling on the ground, clutching their bottles?
That was too horrifying!
Even horror movies wouldn’t dare film that.
The two complexes were too close. The east gate of Youth Apartments almost directly faced the west gate of Jixiang Jiayuan. It was a relationship of lips and teeth—without the lips, the teeth would feel the cold.
If Jixiang Jiayuan fell, that would mean a zombie nest right outside the east gate. When those zombies started moving and spreading to the surrounding area, Youth Apartments would be the first to suffer.
Jiang Cheng’s call received everyone’s support. “Well said!”
By now, everyone basically kept their weapons on them at all times. People like Jiang Cheng and Li Jiangbing, when they went downstairs to move bodies, simply tucked their axes into the backs of their waists, ready to pull them out at any moment.
But everyone still went back upstairs to put on some protective gear before regrouping downstairs.
The able-bodied young adults formed a mighty procession and headed straight for the east gate.
The two security guards at the east gate learned what was happening. Their blood heated with excitement, and they wanted to go too.
Jiang Cheng stopped them. “You two are far too important! The safety of our complex depends on you. You have to hold the line here. Our complex can’t do without you.”
That cheered them up. The two guards promised: “Don’t worry, Miss Jiang. We’ll guard the gate!”
Due to a lack of organization, the gates of Jixiang Jiayuan were now wide open, nowhere near closed or even locked like those of Youth Apartments.
The entrance was only blocked by two vehicle access control bars. The Youth Apartments people filed through, ducking under the bars. The young folks, their blood pumping, charged in shouting: “Youth Apartments is here to help—!”
“Youth Apartments came to assist—!”
“We’re here—!”
The number of people Jixiang Jiayuan had managed to organize was small, but the number of zombies in their garden was far greater than at Youth Apartments.
On Saturday night, too many families had been cooling off in the garden. Unlike Youth Apartments, where many young people had been inside their apartments playing video games—very luckily isolated inside their own homes—Jixiang Jiayuan’s residents were locked in a bitter struggle.
Then the large contingent from Youth Apartments appeared like miracle troops descending from the heavens.
This massive group of young people charged in, yelling at the top of their lungs. They struck without a moment’s hesitation, showed no fear at the sight of blood, and didn’t faint or vomit when faced with severed limbs or shattered skulls.
Their combat effectiveness was formidable. The moment the large force arrived, the tide of battle turned instantly.
Only when they encountered child zombies or infant zombies did they show the slightest hint of reluctance, but they still resolutely swung their crowbars and axes, mercilessly eliminating those zombies as well.
A little after ten o’clock, the battle was largely over.
Everyone, holding various weapons, scoured the garden, afraid of missing any.
Those infant zombies would suddenly crawl out of the bushes and even spring up from the ground to bite people—it was absolutely hellish.
For the people of Jixiang Jiayuan, facing a battle with zombies for the first time, the psychological impact was immense. Most of them were overwhelmed with exhaustion. They found a spot to sit down on the ground, catching their breath as they watched these young people from Youth Apartments energetically handle the cleanup.
Jiang Cheng and a few other core members of the owners’ committee had just gathered when a man who looked to be in his forties walked over and asked, “Thank you so much! I know your complex has already formed a temporary owners’ committee. Are you the members of that committee?”
He transferred his kitchen knife to his left hand and extended his right.
Among the group, Song Jingshuo was tall, with an elite aura, and very eye-catching. The man headed straight for him.
Almost instinctively—clearly a muscle memory from everyday life—Song Jingshuo reached out and shook his hand. Exchanging pleasantries, he said, “Yes, the few of us are the responsible persons of Youth Apartments’ temporary committee. My surname is Song. And you?”
The man said, “My surname is Huang. I’m one of the organizers of this effort in our complex. I truly can’t thank you enough. We never imagined anyone would come to help.”
Mr. Huang’s eyes grew moist. He was genuinely deeply moved.
Song Jingshuo was about to speak again when Jiang Cheng squeezed in. “Brother, is the kitchen knife easy to use? Which works better—kitchen knife or axe? I’ve been wondering if I should switch to a kitchen knife.”
Mr. Huang found this girl strange and utterly lacking in social awareness.
If one of his subordinates had this little sense of timing, they’d never get promoted.
He said dismissively, “Either is fine.”
But this girl was even more clueless than he had thought. She seemed completely unaware that the heads of two complexes were in the middle of an important exchange. She simply reached out her hand. “Let me try your knife.”
Mr. Huang found it difficult to refuse, so the kitchen knife was taken away by this girl.
Annoyed, Mr. Huang was about to speak when he saw the girl step back and hand the knife to a large, muscle-bound man beside her.
Her voice was a little cold. “He’s injured.”
Everyone followed her gaze. Mr. Huang also looked down.
He was wearing summer casual shorts. On his lower leg were several scratch marks. Small, like the claws of some small animal… or the hands of a very small child.
“It’s nothing,” Mr. Huang said. “Just a bit of scraped skin. A Band-Aid will do.”
But the young person in charge from Youth Apartments, who had been shaking his hand, had already withdrawn his own hand. He also stepped back and stood together with the girl.
Mr. Huang froze.
He saw the young woman from Youth Apartments—the one with no social awareness—detach a walkie-talkie from her waist.
“Call all our people over here,” she said. “We’re screening for the wounded.”
Word spread. One person told ten, ten told a hundred. Everyone called out to each other, and soon, they all knew Jiang Cheng’s directive from the temporary committee.
The people from Youth Apartments had already been through this. Everyone understood what it meant.
The people from Jixiang Jiayuan were still sitting on the ground, catching their breath, when shadows suddenly fell over them.
They looked up. Those warm-hearted, brave young people from Youth Apartments, who moments ago had been fighting alongside them, now gripped their weapons tightly. Their faces were taut. They had formed an encirclement.
Step by step, they advanced, closing in.
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