Jiang Cheng held Mo Li in her arms and nodded in greeting at Zhou Wang through the window glass, watching as Li Jiangbing stuck his head out to chat with him up ahead.
She turned and saw Song Jingshuo lost in thought.
“What are you spacing out about?” Jiang Cheng asked.
Song Jingshuo snapped back to reality and let out a soft sigh.
Jiang Cheng: “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Song Jingshuo said. “…I was just thinking about those foreign disaster movies—when something happens, every family stuffs their trunk and flees. Feeling a bit emotional.”
Jiang Cheng understood what he was getting at. She said: “We have nowhere to run.”
Peng Ze and Su Yu were sitting behind them and overheard the conversation. Peng Ze chimed in: “I never really understood—in those movies, after the foreigners run away, what do they eat and drink?”
Su Yu joined in: “If it’s a regional disaster, they can flee to a place unaffected by the disaster. Go to another city or something.”
But the zombie virus wasn’t regional. And they couldn’t leave their homes.
First, not every household had a private car. Due to their age demographic, the youth apartment had a lower car ownership rate than surrounding neighborhoods.
Second, fleeing the city meant going to the countryside. Even if rural areas had lower population density and thus fewer zombies, how would they find shelter in a strange place? And how would a bunch of city dwellers who couldn’t tell wheat from leeks find food sources?
Even if they fled to a completely uninhabited area, the same two problems—food and shelter—still remained. Very few city people had any wilderness survival skills.
So “fleeing” wasn’t even an option worth considering.
Staying put at least guaranteed a roof over their heads that could keep zombies out.
The property staff worked diligently precisely because they feared losing the youth apartment as a refuge, like Liu Hongwang had.
Everyone consciously or subconsciously understood that none of them had anywhere to run.
So when Jiang Cheng called for action, and the interim committee organized it, anything that helped them stay and hold their ground drew an immediate, enthusiastic response.
But the more Song Jingshuo understood this, the heavier his heart grew.
The chaotic scene of people grabbing supplies on the road kept flashing before his eyes—people being shoved, beaten, trampled, robbed.
Outside the youth apartment, “order” had already decayed to this extent.
Song Jingshuo felt a weight pressing on his heart. He truly wanted to escape it all.
He turned his head, only to see Jiang Cheng with rosy cheeks and bright eyes, looking at him.
She’d clearly slept well last night—full of energy.
What was her deal?
Song Jingshuo had always wanted to know how she managed to stay in such a state. He had a vague feeling that Jiang Cheng was completely unaffected by their current circumstances.
To Jiang Cheng, zombies running wild in the streets and taking the bus to work every day seemed no different.
Was that really the case?
Song Jingshuo’s lips moved. He really wanted to ask Jiang Cheng directly.
Peng Ze leaned his head in from behind and asked: “Can we open a box and see what’s inside?”
Jiang Cheng agreed: “Open two boxes and two sacks too. See if they’re all the same.”
Someone on the bus pulled out a pocket knife, cut the tape on the cardboard boxes, and snipped the ties on the sacks.
The contents of the boxes and the sacks were similar—just different in volume. Inside were rice, flour, powdered milk, sausages, bagged pickled vegetables, and compressed biscuits.
Someone pulled out a compressed biscuit and looked at it: “Whoa, these are military rations.”
Instantly, many people wanted to “try some.” Most had heard of compressed biscuits but never had them, and they were curious.
The one who’d shouted “military rations” was a military enthusiast. He first crushed it through the packaging, then opened it and handed out tiny crumbs to everyone.
Someone complained: “Give more—look how stingy you are!”
“Idiot,” the guy said. “Eat too much and drink water, and it’ll burst your stomach! You know what ‘compressed’ means? If it can compress, it can expand. I’d give you more, but would you dare eat it?”
That person backed down: “Fine, fine.”
Everyone got a little bit, and the guy even squeezed through the gaps between the piled-up boxes and seats to give some to Song Jingshuo and Jiang Cheng.
Everyone put it in their mouths and tried it.
“Tastes awful!”
“God, this is absolutely disgusting!”
It really was terrible. Jiang Cheng moistened the compressed biscuit with saliva and had to force it down with difficulty.
That military enthusiast said: “Try drinking some water—you’ll see what I mean soon enough.”
He was right. After they drank water, the bus hadn’t even returned to the youth apartment before they found out just how right he was.
The stuff really swelled up in their stomachs.
“So uncomfortable.” Su Yu frowned, pressing a hand to her stomach.
She’d brought plenty of food today and had eaten her fill before having the compressed biscuit. Now the biscuit had expanded in her stomach, making her feel bloated and uncomfortable.
Everyone quickly learned the power of compressed biscuits—they really did swell up when they met water.
Jiang Cheng felt it too.
“It’s good stuff,” she said approvingly.
“Right?” The military enthusiast was delighted. “Jiang Cheng knows what’s good!”
By this time, it was almost three in the afternoon. The buses drove back to the youth apartment and split off from the Jixiang Jiayuan convoy near Biduoduo.
Jixiang West Street was blocked, so the vehicles couldn’t pass. Jixiang Jiayuan’s cars had to go through their own east gate, while the youth apartment’s convoy went through their west gate—so they parted ways.
Having witnessed the chaos of the supply grab earlier, as the vehicles passed by the Jixiang West Street intersection, everyone looked through the windows at the “safe zone” formed by the two connected neighborhoods and felt a deep sense of relief.
Many people were waiting inside the west gate, with security guards constantly looking outward.
Even more people were in the courtyard, gathered in small groups in the shade, chatting.
Suddenly, they heard the guard at the gate shout: “They’re back! They’re back!”
Everyone rushed toward the west gate.
The gate opened, and the four buses slowly pulled into the neighborhood.
Residents lined the way to welcome them. Through the windows, they could see the piled-up boxes and sacks inside—clearly, the interim committee had lived up to expectations yet again, getting the job done, and done beautifully.
Cheers erupted.
The interim committee’s authority was once again reinforced.
The four buses drove into the courtyard. From the moment Jiang Cheng had conceived the idea of borrowing them, there had been no intention of returning them.
The buses stopped, the doors opened, and the scavenger team members got off first—they’d woken up early, worked hard all morning, and their mission was complete. The rest would be handled by the residents left behind.
People swarmed around the bus. As the volunteers descended, everyone said: “Good work! Good work!”
Someone also asked: “How was it? Everything go smoothly?”
The scavenger volunteers replied: “No one dared to try and take from us, at least.”
People were shocked: “There were people trying to grab things?”
“More than that—people were beating each other bloody, there were stampedes too. Even more chaotic than at Biduoduo.”
It was a fairly objective account. Back on Monday, when the youth apartment and Jixiang Jiayuan people had done their zero-yuan grab at Biduoduo, although it was chaotic and there had been conflicts and shoving, it hadn’t escalated to active violence.
“Yeah, that Zhou Wang from next door—someone split his head open. His face was covered in blood.”
“Who’s Zhou Wang again?”
“That big brother in charge over at Jixiang Jiayuan.”
“Oh, oh, that guy!”
The people left behind had also made arrangements. After the scavenger volunteers got off, others boarded the buses.
Volunteers with shopping carts lined up to receive the supplies. As soon as one cart was full, they’d head down to the underground garage.
These supplies were considered community property. For now, the youth apartment wasn’t short of supplies, so these goods would be stored centrally.
The property management’s small storage room in Building 1 couldn’t possibly hold everything.
Yesterday, everyone had come up with a plan together: store everything in the underground garage. The garage also served as a civil defense shelter, with several large steel blast doors designed to withstand surface explosions.
Normally, these heavy blast doors were kept open, connecting all the spaces in the garage.
But by closing a few of them, the garage could be divided into separate sections.
The selected space had already been cleaned and disinfected by a team while the scavenger team was out that morning.
Zhao Yi was in charge of this. He’d originally wanted to join the scavenger team too, but Jiang Cheng had vetoed it. Now he was a very busy and important person—many things in the neighborhood couldn’t run without him. This task was also assigned to him.
He followed closely behind Jiang Cheng to report: “Conditions are limited, so this is the best we can do for now.”
“We used burning alcohol to lower the air humidity.”
“Some of the cardboard boxes we collected earlier were burned to ash, and some were shredded into bits. We mixed the ash and shredded bits together and spread a layer on the floor.”
“We took a few empty oil drums, cut off the top half to make open containers, filled them with quicklime, and placed them in the corners.”
“We also made simple moisture-absorbing bags.”
Song Jingshuo stepped back to give Zhao Yi room to report to Jiang Cheng.
The core members followed behind Jiang Cheng and Zhao Yi, listening as they walked down to the underground garage and entered the designated space.
Everything was exactly as Zhao Yi had described.
The air was indeed very dry, without that damp underground feel.
In the corners by the walls, there were containers made from cut-off cooking oil drums filled with quicklime. Quicklime was precious—they needed it to deal with the accumulated waste at the clubhouse. But this space was for storing government-issued supplies, mostly food, which was also extremely important—even more so. Zhao Yi had had to carefully scrape together a portion to allocate here.
As for the “simple moisture-absorbing bags,” everyone could see them when they looked up.
Long iron wires hung overhead, suspending one sock after another.
“The socks were donated by everyone,” Zhao Yi said. “Inside are plant ash and shredded paper bits.”
“For safety, we’ll need to come by regularly to ventilate the space and prevent moisture from building up.”
And that wasn’t all. The cars originally parked in this space had all been moved. Not only was the floor covered with ash and shredded paper, but a whole set of shelves had appeared out of nowhere, already neatly arranged.
“They were delivered before 9 a.m.,” Zhao Yi said. “That Old Dong guy is pretty decent.”
“Old Dong” was Dong Ge, the supervisor from Biduoduo.
Last night, during the interim committee’s emergency meeting, the temporary warehouse task was given to Zhao Yi. He’d pointed out that underground spaces were most vulnerable to leaks, so supplies were best stored on shelves rather than piled on the floor.
Someone sharp immediately suggested: “Biduoduo has lots of shelves.”
After the barter exchange for medicine last time, Jiang Cheng had already exchanged phone numbers with Dong Ge, so they had each other’s contact info.
Jiang Cheng called Dong Ge directly and finalized the shelf arrangement. That morning, Dong Ge and his crew delivered the shelves using the warehouse forklift.
He was also a man of action.
Zhao Yi sighed: “Conditions are limited—this is the best we can do. Basically meets the requirements. Moisture-proof and insect-proof—definitely no problem.”
Zhao Yi was a really reliable young man, and Jiang Cheng had grown to like him a lot. Whenever she spoke to him, she was especially gentle, making people feel at ease: “You’ve worked hard.”
The homebody, nervous as always, pushed up his glasses: “It’s my duty, my duty.”
One after another, shopping carts pushed boxes and sacks down to the garage, where people were waiting to receive them and stack them onto the shelves.
Everyone was busy.
Like worker ants in a colony, or worker bees in a hive.
Apart from the supplies set aside for Dong Ge and the rewards to be distributed to the volunteers, everything else was moved to the underground garage.
A few strong men worked together to push the civil defense door closed. The screeching of the bearings was teeth-grating.
With a heavy thud, the door shut.
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