The chat interface on the screen suddenly refreshed.
[Let’s wait until this is over!]
[When everything returns to normal!]
[We’ll go to the police and have that scumbag arrested!]
A few scattered responses like “Right,” “Exactly,” popped up in the group.
But more people remained silent.
When would the zombie virus pass? When would everything return to how it used to be?
The progress of government rescue efforts wasn’t exactly encouraging.
Everyone was lost.
At the same time, troops rescuing City S were clearing out a certain neighborhood in the southern district.
The second squad leader’s face was ashen.
The soldiers threw a middle-aged man and woman to the ground: “Squad leader! It was them!”
The soldiers were grinding their teeth with hatred.
Among them, one soldier had a pale, ashen face, and the side of his neck was a bloody mess with obvious bite marks.
To date, there had not been a single reported case of an infected person not undergoing mutation. Every infected person would eventually mutate. The time it took varied, but they all would ultimately turn into zombies.
The soldiers hadn’t expected that someone would be keeping a zombie at home. They’d even lied about it to protect the zombie, resulting in one soldier getting infected.
The soldiers were furious! Their eyes were bloodshot!
“That’s not a monster—that’s my son—”
The middle-aged woman lay on the ground, wailing.
“You killed him! You killed my son!”
She sobbed.
Her husband stared blankly at the ground, a middle-aged man who had lost his son, as if he’d lost his soul.
A young soldier, veins bulging on his forehead, couldn’t hold back and raised his gun barrel, shouting: “Your son died a long time ago!”
A person, from the moment they were infected with the virus, was essentially already dead.
Just like his comrade at this moment.
The squad leader reached out and pressed down on his gun barrel, ordering sternly: “Lower your weapon!”
The young soldier gritted his teeth and obeyed the order, lowering his gun.
The squad leader was furious, of course.
Their current unit was entirely makeshift—when the zombie virus broke out, places with large concentrations of people like military barracks were the hardest hit. They had lost far too many comrades on Saturday night.
The survivors had assembled into their current formation only afterward.
And the one who was bitten and infected now just happened to be a soldier under his own command.
The squad leader had no mood to deal with those two wretched middle-aged people.
He looked at his own soldier and said gravely: “Xiao Xu, first you…”
Although everyone knew infection meant mutation, according to protocol, before mutation occurred, the infected person was still to be treated as a “human” and placed under supervision, only to be “disposed of” after mutation.
“No need to go to the trouble, squad leader.” Xiao Xu gave a bitter smile instead, refusing to submit to supervision. He drew his sidearm and aimed it at his own temple.
“Xiao Xu!”
“Brother Xu!”
“Xu Gang!”
Xiao Xu looked around at everyone.
Many of these faces he hadn’t even known before Wednesday, since they hadn’t been in the same unit. But over the past few days, they’d become brothers who’d gone through life and death together.
“Too bad I can’t invite you all to my kid’s first birthday banquet,” he said. Then he addressed the squad leader: “Squad leader, when my child grows up, help me tell them…”
“Your dad wasn’t a coward.”
Bang—!
Everyone closed their eyes.
They hadn’t flinched when facing original zombies or second-generation zombies, but in this moment, they couldn’t bear to look.
Xiao Xu’s body lay at the squad leader’s feet.
His child was about to turn one year old. Before the zombie virus broke out, he’d even talked about holding a first birthday banquet.
He would never make it to his own child’s birthday banquet.
The squad leader’s fist was clenched so tightly that the veins on the back of his hand bulged out.
He gritted his teeth hard, turned, and kicked the man who was kneeling on the ground, sending him rolling.
The woman let out a sharp scream.
The squad leader paid them no more attention and gave the order: “Continue clearing.”
“Zombies—kill on sight.”
In the southern part of City S, rescue forces advanced slowly.
Back at the youth apartment in the tech district, Su Yu had barely left when Li Jiangbing and Song Jingshuo arrived right after.
Jiang Cheng invited them both in.
The apartment layouts in the youth complex were mostly similar—Jiang Cheng’s unit was exactly the same layout as Li Jiangbing’s.
But the two men still couldn’t help looking around when they came in—not out of curiosity about the layout, but curiosity about a girl’s home.
Song Jingshuo was surprised: “What happened here?”
The mirror behind the door was shattered, with only a few pieces still hanging on it.
The spot where the sideboard should have had glass was empty—clearly the broken glass had been cleaned up. One cabinet door had also fallen off and was now barely hanging on.
There were cracks on the TV, but it was still on and barely usable.
There were three dining chairs. A fourth had fallen apart and hadn’t been thrown out yet—it was just piled in the corner.
The place was actually quite clean, like a battlefield that had been swept up after the fighting.
Li Jiangbing knew: “Remember—Jiang Cheng was the first person in our neighborhood to encounter a zombie. She’s also the one who killed the first second-generation zombie.”
Song Jingshuo suddenly understood.
He remembered now—he’d seen it all on the forum. Jiang Cheng had shared it.
Later, when Jiang Cheng stepped up and took charge, he’d learned that she was the girl who’d shared those zombie-killing experiences on the forum. At the time, he’d thought, “No wonder.”
Jiang Cheng pulled over a chair and placed it facing the sofa, and the three of them sat down.
Li Jiangbing told Jiang Cheng the outcome of how they’d handled Nie Kuizhang. Both he and Song Jingshuo subtly watched for Jiang Cheng’s reaction.
Jiang Cheng’s reaction was that there was no unusual reaction at all.
She didn’t even need to have learned the outcome in advance from Su Yu. Whatever result Li Jiangbing and the others told her they’d reached, she could have accepted.
She hadn’t positioned herself against the six male floor leaders, hadn’t split herself from them, but had instead handed the matter to Song Jingshuo and Li Jiangbing to handle—transforming a male-female conflict into an internal male one. That was exactly what Jiang Cheng had wanted.
She had nothing to be dissatisfied about.
The female residents were surely not satisfied.
But even all the female residents plus Jiang Cheng together had no real power to restrain the male residents.
As Su Yu had said, morality and law appeared to still exist, but in truth they had already quietly ceased to function.
It was precisely the existence of Jiang Cheng and the interim committee that maintained the inertia of order, making them “appear to still exist.”
If they insisted on sharpening the conflict, they’d poke through that thin layer of window paper and make everyone suddenly realize that what “appeared to still exist” had actually already disappeared.
“We’ve all communicated and agreed—this kind of thing is strictly prohibited from happening again,” Song Jingshuo promised. “The survival order covers all residents, regardless of gender. Everyone should be protected under that order.”
Li Jiangbing handed over two large bags: “And this—confiscated from Nie Kuizhang. We’re giving it all to you.”
Jiang Cheng took them and saw that it was indeed the half of the medicine they’d seized.
“Good. Then let’s leave it at that,” Jiang Cheng said.
The matter was considered handled.
Li Jiangbing and Song Jingshuo both relaxed their shoulders and stood up to leave.
Jiang Cheng also stood.
“We just need to hold out until the government rescue arrives,” she said as she walked.
Song Jingshuo and Li Jiangbing reached the door and both turned back to look at her.
She leaned against the doorframe, wearing a smile: “We should remind everyone that we’re all just ordinary citizens. Just because we’ve helped with some organizing and coordinating during this special period doesn’t mean we’ve gained any special power or become some big shots.”
“When all of this is over,” Jiang Cheng brushed her hair back, “we’ll go back to work, go back to our lives. Those of us in events and exhibitions might not have work for a while, but you finance people should be fine. Gyms should be doing okay too. Everyone’s lives will return to normal.”
Hearing Jiang Cheng say that, even Song Jingshuo felt a momentary daze.
Let alone Li Jiangbing.
Li Jiangbing was a fitness trainer. As burly and intimidating as he looked, his job actually required him to put on a smile every day, drum up customers, bow and plead with people to sign up or renew memberships.
But this past week, Li Jiangbing had been strutting around like he owned the place, feeling like some kind of gang boss.
When Jiang Cheng said “return to normal,” he actually felt a twinge of reluctance inside.
Li Jiangbing caught himself immediately and let out a breath: “Ain’t that the truth—we’re just ordinary folks.”
Jiang Cheng nodded with a smile, took a step back, and closed the door.
Song Jingshuo walked toward the elevator, and Li Jiangbing followed him—all the way to the elevator lobby before snapping out of it: “Why am I following you? My place is that way.”
He turned and headed to his own home.
Song Jingshuo chuckled.
He stepped into the elevator alone and stood facing the doors.
The stainless steel mirror doors reflected his image.
Song Jingshuo ran a hand through his hair too. He hadn’t taken much care of it these past days—not as polished as before.
Better to get back to the old days soon.
Any normal person would want to return to normal.
Unfortunately, everyone was disappointed again.
On Saturday night’s broadcast, the rescue forces’ progress was still frustratingly slow.
After the progress report, it was supposed to loop like it had in previous days. But today there was new content.
[…Encouraging citizens to actively carry out self-rescue and establish safe neighborhoods. Led by street offices, property management, and homeowners’ committees…]
As soon as this guiding statement came out, City S exploded.
Howls of anguish and sobs rang out across the city.
Some people even cursed: “What does that mean! What does that mean! Are you telling us to go die on our own?”
Even right there at the youth apartment, Jiang Cheng could hear someone throw open a window and shout and curse at the garden.
Another person opened a window to reason: “Stop cursing. What’s the point?”
Someone else shouted: “It’s not over yet! There’s more! Get back inside and watch!”
[Armored vehicles will lead the way. Supply trucks will break through all obstacles and first drop supplies on the main thoroughfares, giving citizens the strongest support.]
The rescue forces had to thoroughly clear every area they passed through. Otherwise, a single left-behind zombie could bite several people, and those mutated people could infect even more.
That was why the rescue forces were advancing so slowly. But the people couldn’t wait any longer—they were starving.
So the logistics units would push through first. Armored vehicles would lead the way, dropping supplies along the city’s main ring roads.
But according to the city’s surveillance system, the number of zombies in the city was enormous. With a shortage of military personnel, the supply convoys couldn’t afford to stop or take side roads—otherwise they’d risk being surrounded.
They could only drop supplies along the main roads.
Then the citizens would have to get them themselves.
This was what the emergency command center meant by “self-rescue.”
Jiang Cheng turned around, dug through the desk drawer, and found a map of City S.
When she’d first come to City S alone, not knowing anywhere, she’d specially bought this map. Now it was coming in handy.
She spread the map out on the table, bent over, and studied it carefully.
Her phone rang. Unsurprisingly, it was Song Jingshuo: “Jiang Cheng, what are you thinking?”
“It’s very bad,” Jiang Cheng said. “Prepare yourselves mentally.”
Civilized society had temporarily come to an end. City S was about to enter a mode of mass slaughter.
Leave a Reply