On the way back, they dropped off Xu En first, then went to refuel the vehicles.
The gas station had already been cleared out during their previous visit.
Someone brought up the issue of fuel: “How long can it last?”
There was no solution to that.
For now, the collective strength could band together to secure living space, and they could use superpowers to grow food—provided that land resources were inexhaustible.
But things like vehicle fuel were beyond their capabilities.
Fortunately, almost no one in the Tech New District was driving around anymore; only they were using the gas station. Consumption wasn’t too fast.
When they returned to the neighborhood, they saw an unexpected person.
Brother Dong was squatting by the vegetable patch, chatting with Zeng Qiang.
When he saw everyone coming back, Brother Dong slowly stood up: “Yo, you’ve all upgraded your gear—nice, nice.”
Everyone was surprised: “What are you doing here?”
Jiang Cheng asked: “How are things at home?”
Brother Dong said: “Same as it is.”
Same as what?
Brother Dong had come alone. If there had been even one person left at home, he wouldn’t have traveled all the way back to the Tech New District by himself.
His chin was completely smooth, clearly freshly shaved, but his eye sockets were sunken, and there was a lifelessness about him.
Everyone understood.
Brother Dong hadn’t been as lucky this time as last.
He’d lost his phone and couldn’t reach his family. He’d asked Cui Haiyang, Gao Yuxuan, and Guo Jun to help him get a vehicle, and he’d driven all the way home, crashing through zombies along the way.
But when he got there, there were four zombies neatly arranged in the yard.
Father, mother, wife, child.
Brother Dong killed them all, dug a big pit in the yard, buried them together, and raised a grave mound.
What now? Just keep living.
He checked the house—there was a considerable stockpile of rice, flour, and cooking oil. A new large freezer was packed full of meat.
In the yard were vegetables his mother had planted, a lush patch of green.
It could have been a perfect hermit’s retreat, hiding out there alone.
And that’s exactly how Brother Dong lived.
Until today, when he woke up close to noon. He lay there staring at the ceiling with his eyes open for who knows how long.
He got up and looked in the mirror—the person staring back was unshaven, with sunken eyes.
Not quite human, not quite ghost.
That’s when Brother Dong realized he couldn’t live that kind of solitary life. He needed to be around other living people. He needed to absorb some human energy.
Brother Dong shaved, sat in his car and thought for a moment, then drove to the Tech New District to seek them out.
“I’m not coming empty-handed,” Brother Dong said. “My car is packed with rice, flour, and oil—I brought as much as I could carry.”
He was a treacherous, despicable man.
The young people at Youth Apartments had clear-cut likes and dislikes. No one liked him—even though he was a powerful superhuman.
Jiang Cheng looked at Zhou Wang.
Zhou Wang walked over and patted him on the back: “Come on, come on, come with me.”
Brother Dong joined Jixiang Jiayuan.
Before dinner, they held a meeting and briefed everyone on the situation at the Development Zone Government.
The atmosphere was somber.
“Let’s go into the city and take a look.”
“Check on the municipal government.”
Everyone was saying the same thing—they still couldn’t let go.
Even now, there was still no word on TV.
“Alright. Tomorrow, we’ll circle through the West District first,” Jiang Cheng agreed. “Then we’ll head into the city.”
“The aunties, please put in a little extra effort and prepare tomorrow’s lunch.”
“Anyone free can go help out in the kitchen.”
After dinner, many people were strolling around the yard.
Strawberries hung in the strawberry patch—anyone who wanted some could pick them anytime.
There was also a new apple tree in the neighborhood, low-growing and laden with fruit. Pesticide-free, so they could be picked and eaten right off the branch.
But they were far less popular than the strawberries. Almost everyone out for a walk had a strawberry in hand.
Lately, a new batch of eccentrics had appeared in the neighborhood—the pet owners.
Their specific symptoms mainly involved muttering endlessly at their pets.
“When are you finally going to transform?”
“I’m not asking for much—just show me a little change, that’s all.”
One person even brought a female cat to find Mo Li: “Breed with mine, breed with mine—my girl’s a beauty.”
The owners of the two female cats ended up trading spittle over whose cat daughter was prettier.
Mo Li was thoroughly annoyed and vanished with a whoosh.
Jiang Cheng was at home, lying in a comfortable lounge chair, with a tall stack of books piled on the floor beside her.
They were all the hefty tomes she’d swiped from the district government office that day.
Social prosperity often brought restlessness along with it, and it was hard for young people to get through such dense reading these days.
But Jiang Cheng managed it.
As a visitor from another world, she found herself quite immersed.
Everyone slept well that night. The zombies in the Tech New District were dwindling by the day. They knew there were hardly any zombies left in the surrounding area, and more importantly, they knew that with a strange beast like Mo Li guarding the neighborhood, even those cunning third-generation zombies couldn’t get in.
It was extremely safe.
They were well-fed, and there was even after-dinner fruit.
Food, drink, and a roof over their heads—wasn’t that all a person could really ask for in life?
They slept soundly.
But the next morning, when they went downstairs, a large area of the neighborhood was flooded.
An underground pipe had burst.
Everyone’s first thought was, “This is a problem,” because it required professional repairmen, and there were none to be found nowadays.
But then it hit them—no, times had changed—
Several earth-type superhumans got down on their hands and knees, crawling around and searching. Before long, one of them found it: “Right here! It’s right under here!”
Once they found it, they started digging.
Many people stood around with bowls of hot porridge and pickled vegetables, slurping away as they watched the superhumans fix the water pipe.
The tiles were pried up, the dirt dug out—and whoa! A geyser of water shot up into the air!
Li Jiangbing rushed over to get it under control.
The water that had already sprayed out coalesced into a giant orb floating in midair, while the water still in the pipe was forcibly restrained by Li Jiangbing.
“Holy crap, hurry up—this pipe has serious pressure!” Li Jiangbing yelled.
Of course the main water line had high pressure.
Someone said: “Turn off the water valve! Find the main shutoff!”
The logic was sound. The problem was—who knew where the main valve was?
Manager Wang didn’t know! He was management.
Xiao Fang didn’t know either! He was just security.
Even Aunt Pan didn’t know! She was the cook.
Yang Xinyan, even less so. She was just an office clerk.
Only someone from the engineering department, like Master Luo, would know. And the engineering department had long since been empty.
Li Jiangbing took a deep breath and steadied himself: “Alright, just hurry up—I can hold it a while longer!”
Cui Haiyang jumped down into the pit.
Water pipes couldn’t just be patched with any old iron pipe—it would rust in a matter of days.
They had to use the original material.
The shattered fragments had to be picked up piece by piece.
Cui Haiyang pressed his hands against the pipe and activated his superpower, fusing the fragments back into the pipe.
After a moment, he let go: “Done. Give it a try.”
Li Jiangbing withdrew his superpower, and the water from the main line began flowing again.
Cui Haiyang climbed out of the pit and had Li Jiangbing give him some water to wash his hands.
Aunt Pan and the others filled the soil back in and relaid the tiles. Not a speck of dust remained—it looked as clean as if it had just been swept.
Jiang Cheng came over to ask about the situation.
Cui Haiyang said: “Think of it this way—there wasn’t enough pigment in this area, so I pulled some from the darker sections nearby to even it out. It looks about the same, but actually the whole thing has become a shade lighter overall.”
That was the crux of the problem.
They had no way to replenish the gas station’s reserves.
Nor did they have the means to replace the pipes underground with new ones.
Superpowers could patch things up, but they couldn’t solve fundamental issues.
Though there’d been a small hiccup that morning, the team still set off on time.
Xu En had shown up early on his bicycle, along with two other kids from another neighborhood.
They’d been told clearly to take care of their own neighborhoods first.
The kids stuck out their chins stubbornly: “We’re superhumans too! Xu En already joined, so we want to join too!”
“If you won’t let us come, we’ll just ride our bikes and follow you!”
That fearless, reckless, stubborn refusal to take advice made the young people at Youth Apartments suddenly feel old.
Wang Yunya kept her mouth shut. Little Huang shot her a glance.
Little Huang and Wang Yunya were neighbors from the same neighborhood. But Little Huang attended a key middle school in the city proper.
Xu En and the others were schoolmates of Wang Yunya.
The guilty look on Wang Yunya’s face made it clear she’d known about this since last night. She either hadn’t tried to stop them, or had tried and failed—or more likely, she was an accomplice herself.
The kids made Jiang Cheng laugh: “Alright, get in the car.”
“Have you had breakfast?”
“Here—have a bun!”
“Have a bowl of porridge before we go. We’re doing heavy work, you know.”
The adults started feeding them one after another.
Those two kids had snuck out without telling the older folks in their neighborhood, so they really hadn’t eaten.
They slurped away noisily, eating with relish, and even grabbed a couple of buns before getting in the car.
Truly the age where growing boys eat their parents out of house and home.
The West District of the Tech New District was full of new developments with very low occupancy rates.
As the vehicle drove through, they spotted only a few scattered zombies, and almost couldn’t find any living people.
Finally, they came across a young couple who had moved in right after the last disaster.
“We were supposed to move in back in June, but then the zombies hit. It got delayed a few months, which actually gave the new place more time to air out.”
“He happened to take the day off to go with me to my prenatal checkup—that’s why he was home. We were really lucky.”
The young wife spoke, a look of life’s unpredictability and post-calamity relief on her face.
“Both our parents are gone. It’s just the two of us left in this world now.”
“We hope this baby can be born safely.”
Everyone stared at her belly, feeling dazed.
You didn’t see many kids around anymore. The youngest people they encountered were elementary schoolers.
You just didn’t see infants anymore.
Jiang Cheng asked: “Do you want to move over to our place?”
Over in the West District, commercial amenities hadn’t caught up yet. The people living there now all went to the East District’s Buy Duoduo for regular shopping.
The young couple exchanged a glance, then declined.
“We stocked up on a ton of stuff beforehand—like a pair of hamsters. And there really aren’t any zombies around here. We hardly ever go downstairs.”
“We feel safer here.”
“Plus my husband has superpowers. I didn’t realize so many of you had them too—that’s great.”
The husband was an electric-type.
The couple felt that the empty West District of the Tech New District, with its housing and food, was a safe haven—an island of paradise—and didn’t want to leave.
Jiang Cheng didn’t force them. She just left contact information and told them to come to Youth Apartments if they needed anything.
The young couple waved goodbye, thanking them for clearing up the surrounding area as well. Now they could finally go downstairs with peace of mind.
Everyone got back in the vehicle and headed into the city.
Someone sighed: “So there’s still a baby on the way.”
The indifference—or numbness—borne of seeing so much life and death suddenly cracked. A new sprout of reverence for life had begun to grow.
Li Jiangbing twisted around from the front seat to talk to Jiang Cheng: “Jiang Cheng, can we discuss something?”
Jiang Cheng: “Go ahead.”
Li Jiangbing: “I was thinking—today we’ll take a look at the municipal government, and then when we come back, let’s find time to clear out Renxin Hospital.”
Immediately, someone chimed in: “Yeah!”
There was a baby about to be born.
The adults wanted this child to come into the world safely.
Zhang Le was thinking even further ahead: “If we clear out the hospital, then if she has complications and needs a C-section, I can do a live incision and heal her with my powers. But she can’t just tough it out—she’ll need anesthesia.”
Protecting a new little life—that was something everyone’s heart was set on.
Jiang Cheng smiled and agreed: “Alright.”
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