Back when there were plenty of vacant units, Jiang Cheng had forced people like Guo Jun and the Duoduo crew, along with property management staff, to share rooms two to a unit.
Song Jingshuo had joked that she was a born capitalist.
Looking back now—wasn’t that exactly the behavior of an operator?
A good operator would scrap defective products rather than let employees take them home as perks.
It sounded cold and wasteful.
But it effectively maintained quality control, preventing a sudden spike in defect rates.
What Wang Haotian wanted—”following the right leader”—was exactly the state Song Jingshuo was in now.
Because he’d picked the right leader, everything ran smoothly and effortlessly. No need to overthink—just follow her lead and do the work.
That was the best possible work situation.
Song Jingshuo glanced at Jiang Cheng again, then at Moli, who was sound asleep on her lap. “Fell asleep that fast.”
“Yeah,” Jiang Cheng said, stroking Moli’s jet-black fur.
Maximizing his size consumed a tremendous amount of energy.
To be honest, in terms of practical combat, he didn’t need to maximize at all to kill Cao Jiacai with one blow. But today, Jiang Cheng was determined to give Moli a proper debut.
And a debut had to look impressive.
Nothing left a deeper impression than going full-size.
Everyone seemed to be taking it well.
Gao Yuxuan couldn’t sit still—like something was poking him from under his seat. He kept squirming left and right.
When Song Jingshuo finished speaking, he seized the chance to cut in. “Jiang Cheng, how does Moli transform?”
Everyone in the bus stopped chatting. Gao Yuxuan had asked what they all wanted to know.
Jiang Cheng said, “I don’t know either. But I’m guessing it’s related to the zombie virus. We’ve all got superpowers—maybe this is an animal’s version of that.”
“Anyway, for us right now, it’s a good thing.”
Right—as long as it was good.
Song Jingshuo could imagine that Moli had been able to transform for a while now. Jiang Cheng must have been waiting for the right moment to bring him into the open.
Today’s timing was perfect. Cao Jiacai had practically delivered himself as a stepping stone.
The more villainous Cao Jiacai was, the more righteous Moli’s appearance became.
And the less anyone would worry about whether he was a monster—or whether he might harm them too.
Suddenly, someone up ahead let out a gasp.
Everyone looked out the window—and fell silent in shock.
Their destination was Gaoxin Middle School, but to get there, they’d pass by Gaoxin Elementary School first.
Outside the windows were zombies.
From the second outbreak until now—four days—only Song Jingshuo, Zhou Wang, and their group had seen this many zombies, back at the district government office.
There were very few zombies in the residential areas. So few that Jixiang West Street hadn’t even been barricaded—the two neighborhoods could move freely between them.
Turns out, all the zombies from the residential areas had gathered here.
But everyone had seen plenty of zombies before—in crowds, in dense swarms like ants. The sheer number on this street alone wouldn’t shock them.
What left them speechless was seeing so many female zombies for the first time.
At a glance, nearly all of them were women.
There were a few men, but their numbers were negligible.
Someone muttered, “These are all mothers…”
Yes—at a glance, the entrance to the elementary school was packed with mother zombies.
Su Yu’s tears spilled over.
Li Jiangbing quickly fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a pack of tissues for her.
As everyone stood frozen, Jiang Cheng called out, “Cui Haiyang! Give it a try.”
Cui Haiyang snapped back to attention. “Oh! Oh!”
He stood up, and the other metal-type users rose with him.
They reached out and gripped the handrails inside the bus, or pressed their hands directly against the walls.
On the way back, these four 535 buses had already been modified by the metal-type users.
During the last outbreak, the rough iron bars they’d welded onto the windows had been removed by the bus depot. The glass that the second-generation zombies had shattered had also been replaced.
This time, they didn’t need welding. They’d found materials at the depot, pressed them against the windows, and used their powers to mold sturdy, fine-mesh window grilles in no time—ensuring the safety of everyone inside.
Now, as they passed by the elementary school, the mother zombies on the street leaped up and slapped at the windows—but they could only hit the metal grilles, not break the glass inside.
The superpower users began to focus.
Metal blades began to “grow” from the bus’s body.
From the outside, it looked like the bus was suddenly sprouting “tongues” all over.
They shot out in an instant, then retracted in an instant.
The height was exactly at shoulder level. In that one instant of extension, they severed a zombie’s neck—heads rolled.
The next instant, they retracted, returning to smooth metal panels again.
Heads rolled all over the elementary school street.
This was the suggestion Jiang Cheng had given the metal-type users.
With superpowers backing you up, you could let your imagination run wild—whether it was achievable was something the users would try out.
When Cui Haiyang and the others heard the idea, they immediately thought it was feasible.
They’d turned a public bus into a rolling blade wagon.
Zhao Yi: “Holy shit!”
Gao Yuxuan laughed out loud.
As an electric-type user, Gao Yuxuan had gone along to get the vehicles and had already watched the metal-types test this on the way back.
Now, he could easily pick out the third-generation zombies among the hordes of second-gen ones.
The second-gen zombies, even as heads rolled, kept mindlessly throwing themselves at the bus, trying to smash the glass.
The ones that stepped back—those were the third-gen zombies.
Third-gen zombies knew how to stay alive, just like humans know to run home when it rains.
Everyone had grown accustomed to spotting a third-gen here and there among a crowd of zombies.
But Zhao Yi quietly said to Gao Yuxuan, “Could they evolve further?”
Could human zombies evolve into something massive—like Moli?
Moli’s transformation must have been related to the zombie virus. If a little kitten could evolve like that, why not human zombies?
Gao Yuxuan said firmly, “Even if they can, there’ll definitely be balance. And we’ll definitely be able to handle it.”
Balance?
Zhao Yi thought: actually, Moli’s appearance today had already broken the balance.
Before Moli transformed into a giant beast, the emergence of third-gen zombies and human superpower users had already created a balance.
Moli’s appearance wasn’t balance—it was a disruption.
And balance…
Balance was something that had always subtly existed.
So who was maintaining that balance?
That question went back to the root issue: where did the zombie virus come from?
Almost no one asked that anymore. Because everyone knew there was no answer.
Although their target was the middle school, they couldn’t just ignore the elementary school either.
Besides, there were too many zombies on the street—they had to clear them out.
The buses detoured and drove back and forth down Xueqian Street several times, leaving headless corpses and rolling heads everywhere.
Then they stopped.
Su Yu extended her protective shield and led Cui Haiyang off the bus. They opened the heavy iron gate of the elementary school.
Zhou Wang—with his super speed—darted inside first to scout the area. He came back sighing heavily. “Sigh.”
No one needed him to explain. Outside were mother zombies—inside were bound to be elementary school student zombies.
Everyone felt a pang of sorrow.
“Let Moli go first,” Jiang Cheng said, waking the little black cat. “Wake up.”
Moli opened his sleepy eyes, stretched his front paws out, and arched into a long, lazy stretch on Jiang Cheng’s lap.
Now that he could transform freely without hiding from humans, Moli was happy too: “Meow~”
Jiang Cheng: “Go on.”
She opened the bus door specially for Moli to get out.
The big bus followed him into the school.
Sure enough, the school was full of child-sized zombies—only half as tall as adults.
It was hard to look at.
But Moli didn’t have those emotions.
Once a human mutated into a zombie, their scent changed completely—to Moli, they were already a different species.
Everyone crowded toward the front of the bus, especially Zhao Yi and Gao Yuxuan—practically pressing their faces against the windshield.
So they got to watch Moli transform again up close.
“Eh? He can control the size?”
“Whoa—so precise!”
This time, Moli didn’t maximize. He only grew to about the size of a leopard.
At that size, facing elementary school zombies, he didn’t even need to leap—he could simply bite through their necks mid-stride.
His speed was like lightning—only Zhou Wang could match it.
The 535s were too big—they didn’t bring all four in, only one, so it could maneuver in tight circles.
But the elementary school kids were so short.
Some of the lower-grade ones were barely taller than little beans.
The metal-type users had to press their faces against the glass just to aim properly, so they could extend the blades at the right height to sever the heads.
First, they cleared the schoolyard in bulk like that.
Then everyone got off the bus.
Someone remarked, “This is so much more convenient.”
No need for hand-to-hand combat right off the bat.
Gao Yuxuan raised a loudspeaker: “Any survivors? Anyone still alive?”
A window opened upstairs, and a child’s voice shouted, “Help! Help!”
There really were survivors.
Xiao Huang said, “I’ll go check it out.”
He headed straight into the teaching building.
Everyone followed. They watched as Xiao Huang weaved through the zombies in the hallway—the little zombies all lunged for him but couldn’t lock on.
God-tier footwork—like walking through an empty room.
Every gamer in the group was insanely jealous.
Su Yu had specially taken an electronic watch from the supermarket to time her protective shield, recording how long it could last.
In less intense battles, she tried not to push her powers to exhaustion.
After a few days of experimentation, everyone had figured out a lot of patterns.
Using powers at a normal level built proficiency, improving techniques like precision and accuracy.
Gao Yuxuan could now output exactly the voltage he wanted—that’s how he’d practiced.
The advantage was that it didn’t overload the brain—quick recovery with a short rest.
The downside was that it did little to expand the upper limit.
The other method was to push to exhaustion—until your nose bled, your ears bled, even your eyes ached and bled.
The downside was that it was life-risking training, causing immense pain to both brain and body, with long recovery times.
Li Jiangbing would sleep all night and still feel awful the next day.
The advantage was that it was the best way to expand the power ceiling.
Su Yu now habitually walked in front as a human shield.
She couldn’t keep her shield up continuously, but even in a surprise attack, her body would instinctively activate it.
Walking in front was actually the safest for her.
Su Yu no longer feared zombies.
But seeing the little ones—who had once jumped up to the cafeteria counter with their feet dangling—now snarling and lunging at her, it still hurt.
Tears streaming, she gripped her weapon and struck through the pain.
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