Clearing out the garage wasn’t about charging in blindly. In fact, after the past two days, the young residents of the youth apartment complex had largely figured out the characteristics of both the original zombies and the second-generation infected ones. They’d drawn up a battle plan.
Old Luo had grabbed two rolls of barrier tape from the property management storage.
They stretched the two tapes horizontally across the downward-sloping entrance to the underground garage, about four to five meters apart, at calf height. People held both ends of each tape, using them like tripwires.
Once they were ready, someone tossed a cooking pot down the ramp.
The pot clattered and banged all the way down, stirring the zombies in the garage.
Since there were no living people in the garage and it was fairly soundproofed from the outside, the zombies had been in a slow, wandering state—some even standing nearly still, like NPCs in a game that hadn’t yet been triggered.
But the racket got them moving, heading toward the source of the noise.
The people outside watched as the zombies gradually gathered along the pot’s path. Then they started banging on pot lids—clang, clang, clang.
The zombies all turned toward the ramp entrance and headed their way.
At that moment, the difference between second-generation infected zombies and the original ones became painfully clear—the ones charging at the front were all second-generation.
They were so much faster than the original zombies, who stumbled along with uncoordinated limbs.
The frontrunners pulled farther and farther ahead of the ones behind, getting closer by the second.
The young people tensed up, gripping their weapons tightly: “They’re coming, they’re coming!”
“Hold tight!”
At that, the ones holding the tripwires tightened their grips on the barrier tape, bracing against the impact.
The next instant, a tremendous force yanked at the tapes!
The plan worked. The lead second-generation zombie was sent flying by the first tripwire. It was moving so fast that it even cleared the second tripwire mid-air before crashing to the ground.
The moment it landed, a motley assortment of weapons swarmed in and smashed its skull to pieces.
Second-generation zombies had coordinated limbs and quick reflexes, but their vision was affected by light—not great in dim conditions. Plus, they were slaves to instinct, driven solely by the craving for flesh and blood, with no capacity for thought.
If there was an obstacle in the direct path to their prey, they’d rely on their jumping ability to clear it.
The reason someone had gotten injured during last night’s building sweep on the fifth floor of Building 2 was precisely because a second-generation zombie in one of the units had leaped right over the original zombies blocking its way.
But at dusk, spotting tripwires at ankle level was simply too much to ask of them.
Two tripwires ensured that even if a zombie happened to avoid the first, it couldn’t avoid the second. Once tripped and down, it was either a hammer to the skull or a cleaver to the neck.
There weren’t many second-generation zombies—only eight came out, and all were dealt with swiftly.
The ones that followed were the original zombies. Because their coordination was poor, the steep ramp slowed them down; many fell and ended up crawling.
They’d already been left behind by the second-gen ones, and the gap only widened. That gave the volunteer squad more time to adjust and prepare.
It was almost leisurely.
They just waited for the zombies to stagger or crawl up, one by one, and took them out.
After smashing one with his hammer, someone said, “This is kind of like whack-a-mole.”
Was it dark humor? It was clearly a disgusting, terrifying scene.
But somehow, cracking jokes made it a little less disgusting, a little less terrifying, a little less suffocating.
Everyone cheered in response: “Kill ’em as they come!”
They’d recruited plenty of volunteers—the youth apartment complex had no shortage of manpower. Whether for fighting or labor, they had enough people.
Of course, with several thousand residents in the complex, there were bound to be self-serving types who never lifted a finger. But those people stayed hidden in their apartments or buried deep in the crowd, unknown to anyone.
The familiar faces were all the ones who’d been fighting together these past two days.
With so many people, core members like Jiang Cheng and Song Jingshuo—even Li Jiangbing—didn’t need to push to the front.
But Su Yu did push forward.
Her cast-iron skillet was solid, not the cheap thin kind—heavy and substantial, a bit of a workout to swing.
But it hit hard. Perfect for smashing the back of a skull.
She’d found her rhythm and figured out the leverage. One tripped zombie took just two swings from her to crush its head, earning a round of applause.
Su Yu wiped the sweat off her forehead.
She had plenty of fashion and film magazines at home, and she’d wrapped them around her arms as makeshift armor. The summer evening was sweltering, and with all that strenuous exercise, sweat poured down her temples.
She couldn’t help glancing back.
Jiang Cheng stood further back, axe in hand, talking to Song Jingshuo. She hadn’t seen Su Yu’s moment.
The girl next to her elbowed her arm and praised her: “You’re pretty impressive!”
Su Yu turned and smiled at her.
This was the girl she’d been chatting with on the messaging app after coming back from the supermarket—like Su Yu, she’d shown courage in the group operations.
She too glanced back at Jiang Cheng.
She wasn’t resentful that Jiang Cheng was hanging back instead of fighting. On the contrary, she and Su Yu exchanged a look, understanding each other perfectly—they were both glad Jiang Cheng was on the committee.
The girl said with a hint of regret, “I should’ve joined the committee too.”
Su Yu comforted her: “It’s okay. Just show up and pitch in actively whenever there’s something arranged.”
Stick close to the core, get your face known, and you’ll naturally become part of it.
“Yeah!”
They both gripped their weapons tighter.
Jiang Cheng handled the mental labor on the committee; they could contribute up front with physical effort. Even though it was exhausting, there was a sense of security in knowing they’d found their place within the organization.
And honestly, Su Yu felt that facing zombies was actually easier than dealing with living people.
When a zombie charged, you just hit it hard.
But the people she’d encountered today at Jixiang Jiayuan, Duodu Supermarket, and the pharmacy—they made her feel frustrated and powerless.
She’d rather face zombies.
Kill them as they come.
After they’d finished off all the zombies coming out of the garage entrance, they banged on pot lids and tossed more clattering things down into the garage for a while. No more zombies emerged.
But the garage was huge—they couldn’t guarantee it was completely clear just from that.
“Let’s go down,” Jiang Cheng said. “We have to make sure every corner of the complex is free of zombies.”
If they could eliminate every zombie inside the complex and lock the gates, the youth apartment complex would become something like a safe zone.
Everyone had been living on edge and in fear for two days now. They all longed for the complex to return to a state of safety and ease.
“Let’s go down! Let’s go!”
The young men howled, brandishing all kinds of weapons.
Those with full protective gear on their heads, necks, arms, and legs took the lead with U-shaped forks they’d gotten from the property management. The rest followed behind, advancing slowly.
The first stretch was completely clear—the zombies that had been there earlier had all been lured out by the noise.
As they went deeper, they did find a few stragglers, which were killed on sight. Further in, there were more, so they used the noise method again to lure several out and dealt with them.
But the underground garage was enormous. They couldn’t all stay packed together—that would be too inefficient.
They split up into squads, forming tight formations. Some watched the front, some the left, some the right, and some made noise—a sweep like a carpet being unrolled.
Overall, there were far fewer zombies in the garage than in the garden.
The outbreak had happened on Saturday night. More people had been in the garden; far fewer happened to be in the garage at that time.
Clearing it was actually much easier than Sunday’s garden battle.
Using noise to lure zombies out let them spot threats from a distance. With formations allowing both offense and defense, and other squads coming to assist when needed, it was manageable.
By just past 8 o’clock, the entire garage was clear.
They made noise in every section of the garage, confirming that no more zombies appeared.
By now, they were old hands at the next step: disposing of the bodies.
Everyone hauled them together to the central square and piled them up. Old Luo had fuel ready and was crouched there waiting for them to start the fire.
They’d burned a batch Sunday noon—that one had the most bodies and the biggest fire.
They’d burned another batch Monday morning—the ones cleared from the buildings Sunday night.
And now they were burning again.
As the flames rose, the moon climbed higher.
Waves of heat washed over them.
And with that, the youth apartment complex had achieved a fully zombie-free interior—all buildings, courtyard, and garage cleared.
On the evening of the third day after the zombie virus outbreak, the youth apartment complex had become a sealed safe zone.
Someone suddenly lost control of their emotions, raising their hammer and howling.
That shout was like a catalyst. Everyone’s pent-up emotions from the past two days broke loose, and they all joined in—
“No more zombies—!”
“There are no more zombies in the complex—!”
“Everyone can come down and stroll around now—!”
“Woooooo—!”
Upstairs, many people opened their windows: “Really?”
“That’s great!”
“Thank you all for your hard work!”
Others up in their apartments started howling along too.
Cheers echoed back and forth, reverberating through the youth apartment complex.
It was exhilarating. It brought tears to their eyes.
Su Yu felt heat surging through her veins, her emotions running wild.
She wiped the tears from her face and instinctively looked for Jiang Cheng again.
She saw Song Jingshuo from Building 4 also turn to look at Jiang Cheng beside him.
In the firelight, Jiang Cheng’s face was lit by flickering orange flames, but her expression remained still, her gaze calm as she watched the burning pile of bodies.
The overwhelming feelings of anguish, tears, joy, and exhilaration that consumed everyone else seemed to have nothing to do with her.
As everyone gathered around the fire, high-fiving, bumping fists, encouraging each other, and celebrating wildly, she simply lowered her head and gently stroked the furry little head poking out of her bag.
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