Among the more than 500 survivors from the TV station, some said they wanted to go home.
Li Jiangbing simply asked: “How are you going to get back?”
No one said a word.
It wasn’t realistic.
Even if they wanted to go home, that could wait until later.
These people—weak in the legs, blank-eyed, some mumbling to themselves, others crying and laughing—none of them seemed quite right in the head. If they were allowed to leave on their own now, stepping outside the TV station compound would be a death sentence.
For now, the Science and Technology New District team needed to pack these 500-plus people up and take them back to the development zone first. The first issue was transportation.
The 200-person Science and Technology New District combat team had arrived in four 535 city buses, each carrying 50 people.
One of these buses could hold up to 150–200 people at max capacity. They decided not to pack them too tightly—each bus could take another 50, which would absorb 200 people.
Yue Chao said: “The station has shuttle buses.”
TV station employees were spread across all districts of S City, and the station had 16 shuttle routes with 16 buses in total—all 36-seat coaches.
Including the aisle in the middle, squeezing 50 people in each was no problem.
After some discussion, they decided to take six coaches.
Too many vehicles would just waste fuel—better to pack more people per bus.
Just then, looking out through the large hole in the second-floor wall, they noticed that after Director Guo’s death, a few zombies had started wandering into the courtyard.
Earlier, when the Science and Technology New District convoy had rolled in with all that rumbling, those zombies hadn’t followed them in—they’d just dispersed on their own.
“Mental control,” Zhao Yi said.
Gao Yuxuan agreed: “The range must be pretty large—covering a certain area, basically forming a domain.”
Zhou Wang felt he wasn’t actually that old, and he had no problem communicating with others at the Youth Apartments.
But he could never quite understand what those two were saying—they kept throwing out bizarre terms.
Su Yu used her protective barrier as an example to explain it to him, and Zhou Wang finally got the gist, scratching his neck: “This is already unscientific—what kind of monsters and demons are these?”
Gao Yuxuan: “Why jump straight to monsters and demons? This is the evolution of the human brain. Zhou, you should read more sci-fi—what do you usually watch, anyway?”
Zhao Yi, who was of the same mind as Gao Yuxuan, added: “I’ve always believed that humans haven’t stopped evolving. The next direction of human evolution should be the brain. I never thought I’d live to witness it with my own eyes. Our superpowers—at their source—all come from the brain.”
Zombies had brains too.
A zombie was essentially a dead thing—only that brain seemed alive, commanding the dead body to walk under the sun.
Human brains had developed superpowers, and zombie brains had also advanced—new mutated zombies could now control other ordinary zombies.
Zhao Yi looked worried.
Wu Jiancheng led teams to search every floor and found over a dozen more survivors from the upper levels.
They had actually survived thanks to Director Guo.
Director Guo had eaten all the other zombies. Those zombies couldn’t hide—when Guo summoned them with his psychic power, they obediently came to him to be devoured.
As a result, there were no zombies left upstairs at all, giving these people room to survive.
Director Guo’s body was too huge—every movement made a tremendous noise. When he went upstairs, the survivors would immediately hide. There were many nooks and crannies he couldn’t get into, so he missed them.
Anyway, he had a whole granary of people to eat slowly.
In the end, four 535 buses and six coaches were all packed full of people.
Cui Haiyang and the other Metal-type superhumans converted the coaches into blade vehicles as well. Everyone set off together toward the Science and Technology New District.
They’d come from the city government earlier, but this return route was different.
There were a lot of zombies on the road. The drivers got hyped up, ramming right into them—heads popping skyward, bodies falling under the wheels, guts and feces squelching out.
Gao Yuxuan and Cui Haiyang sat together the whole way, discussing how to further modify the vehicles into new weapons.
During the last outbreak, they’d also driven big vehicles to ram and crush. Now, blade vehicles looked even more efficient—perfect for clearing the zombie-dense areas in the city center.
A proper crowd-clearing massacre weapon.
Even small cars could be modified this way—Gao Yuxuan was itching to drive a little blade-covered car solo, slicing in and out of zombie hordes.
Just thinking about it was thrilling.
On the way, they passed a gas station, and the convoy stopped to fill up.
The people from the Science and Technology New District were like fuel thieves now—whenever they saw a gas station, they definitely had to stop.
The development zone had two gas stations of its own, but they needed to save that fuel and prioritize using the city’s supply.
Zhao Yi asked Jiang Cheng: “Can you store fuel in your space?”
Jiang Cheng said: “It needs to be in a container.”
Jiang Cheng had tried—things like water and fire couldn’t be directly absorbed into her storage space.
But a bottle of water or a bucket of water could.
If you lit a piece of paper on fire in a bowl, you could store the bowl along with the fire.
But a puddle of water on the ground, or a flame in a fire-type superhuman’s hand—that couldn’t be stored.
【Boundary cannot be defined.】
That was the message that floated up from her mind.
Before her memories were locked away, she must have been very familiar with this storage space and known all its rules. Now she had to figure everything out from scratch.
When that bowl was retrieved, the fire was out.
Jiang Cheng deduced that this was because there was no oxygen in the space—fire couldn’t keep burning.
The big steamed buns the aunties had made in the morning, when taken out at noon, were still slightly warm. Heat could dissipate, and time didn’t stop flowing.
Zhao Yi was seriously pondering Jiang Cheng’s spatial ability.
Jiang Cheng looked at him and suddenly felt that everything happening now was strange.
If time rewound two months, Jiang Cheng felt she wouldn’t have casually revealed her superpower to anyone—or at least, she wouldn’t have let anyone know its limitations.
She would have kept every advantage in her grasp, letting no one know her trump card.
Yes, that was the kind of person she was.
But now, she was telling Zhao Yi and Gao Yuxuan all this so openly, trusting them completely.
Since when had she changed?
…Undefinable.
Jiang Cheng couldn’t pinpoint when or how she had changed.
Some changes don’t happen because of specific events or moments—they happen gradually, imperceptibly.
But in the end, they found plenty of oil drums in the gas station’s warehouse. They filled them all up, and Jiang Cheng stored them in her space.
She also had a giant zombie corpse in that space.
It really can hold a lot, Zhao Yi marveled.
The convoy of ten large vehicles rolled back into the Science and Technology New District in grand fashion.
The people who had stayed behind braced themselves—because next, they had to provide dinner for 700 people.
Song Jingshuo looked rather exhausted.
No kidding—how could he not be?!
“Try providing food for several hundred people,” Song Jingshuo said darkly, “and with only three hours to prepare.”
It had nearly cost Song Jingshuo his life.
Everyone who had stayed behind was mobilized—even the elderly men and women from Jixiang Jiayuan came to help.
The stoves in the clubhouse were clearly insufficient, so Earth-type superhumans built stoves right in the small square. Metal-types made cookware on the spot. Fire-types were in charge of stoking the flames.
The potatoes and eggplants that Song Jingshuo had hastily sprouted were each the size of basketballs.
Everyone grabbed a peeler and got to work. The potatoes were steamed and mashed into potato puree, sprinkled with salt and pepper. The eggplants were steamed into a mash and drizzled with garlic sauce.
The survivors lined up to collect their metal lunch trays.
Each person received a mound of potato puree, a mound of eggplant mash, one piece of braised pork, a scoop of rice, a bowl of seaweed soup, and a strawberry as big as a pear.
Compared to a proper meal, it was a bit rough—but considering the crowd size and time crunch, it was pretty good.
These 500 people had drunk their own urine—they weren’t about to complain.
They’d had a small piece of compressed biscuit in the afternoon, which had swollen in their stomachs and provided a good transition, easing their digestive systems. Now they were hungry again—just in time for dinner.
As it turned out, almost everyone refused the braised pork—some even threw up.
The aunties and uncles were completely baffled.
“Just give it to our people,” Jiang Cheng said, arms crossed, to the aunties. “It’s fine. Let them eat vegetarian. They might need to eat vegetarian for a while.”
Or maybe for the rest of their lives.
Some memories just couldn’t be forgotten, no matter how hard you tried.
Song Jingshuo quietly asked Gao Yuxuan what had happened, and Gao Yuxuan told him.
Song Jingshuo already knew from Wu Jiancheng’s earlier phone call about the zombie mutating into a giant, but he hadn’t realized there was so much more to it.
These survivors were now the refugees of the Science and Technology New District.
The refugees found spots on the ground wherever they could and started eating. No one complained about the floor being dirty.
Compared to the studio hall where they’d spent seven days, this ground was practically spotless.
Jiang Cheng asked Song Jingshuo: “Have you arranged accommodations?”
“Arranged,” Song Jingshuo nodded. “Everyone’s going to Jixiang Jiayuan. We’re not letting just anyone into our compound for now.”
Song Jingshuo was indeed reliable.
The Youth Apartments certainly had plenty of empty units, but neither Jiang Cheng nor Song Jingshuo planned to let people move in casually.
The Youth Apartments were the core of the entire Science and Technology New District—many critical operations happened here. The unity and rapport among the 400 residents had been forged through two rounds of zombie outbreaks. It was best not to introduce destabilizing factors.
Zhou Wang was also willing to take these people in.
He now fully understood ancient rulers—after a war, you needed to rest and recuperate, give the people time to have children.
Population—how crucial population was.
Zhou Wang couldn’t make the hundred-plus elderly in the compound disappear, so the only option was to bring in people from outside to share the burden.
Last time, they’d taken in over thirty middle schoolers and two teachers from a private school. Now, another five hundred able-bodied adults—and several superpowered individuals had already been identified among them.
There were likely more, but many were in poor mental shape and staying quiet for now.
Let them recover first.
Over at the food distribution area, a group of people stood holding their metal trays, swallowing hard, and asked pitifully: “Could we have an extra piece of meat?”
The aunties were thrilled to hear that!
They’d thought these refugees must not have eaten properly for six or seven days—so pitiful—and had gone through all the trouble of making all that braised pork. Yet these people didn’t appreciate it—everyone wanted to eat vegetarian, couldn’t even stand the smell of meat.
The aunties’ warm hearts had been trampled.
It was disheartening.
Then suddenly, a group showed up wanting meat—the aunties couldn’t have been happier. “Here, here—have a few extra pieces. Is that enough?”
Mr. Xu was on the verge of tears: “Enough, enough.”
Mr. Xu—a man who was normally sick of lobster and sea cucumber—never thought he’d one day be moved to tears over a few pieces of braised pork.
This group was Mr. Xu and his colleagues, who had fought their way out of the office building and come seeking refuge in the Science and Technology New District.
They’d driven straight toward the district, but unfamiliar with the area, they’d followed the signs and ended up in the industrial park zone.
Luckily, the zombies there were mostly inside the corporate buildings or factory yards, so the roads weren’t too bad. The blade car fought its way out, then accidentally cut through to the western residential zone.
There was no one in the west zone.
No people, no zombies either—just a post-apocalyptic ghost town.
With night about to fall, Mr. Xu and his group finally made it to the east zone, found Deqing Lane, asked for directions, and eventually located the Youth Apartments.
There were so many people at the Youth Apartments—what were they all doing?
A lot of them were holding metal trays—weren’t those the kind used in cafeterias?
They looked around, and among the crowd, they spotted a young man in a security uniform.
“Hey, young man!” Mr. Xu and his group went over to talk to Xiao Fang. “Excuse us…”
Xiao Fang turned around and nearly gagged from the stench.
He looked them over—their clothes had clearly not been changed in days. Their faces were relatively clean, but the moment they opened their mouths—a big stinky breath from a week of unbrushed teeth—it was obvious they were refugees.
“Over there, get your trays over there,” Xiao Fang said, pinching his nose and pointing. “Then go get your food over there. Someone will handle accommodations later—eat first.”
And just like that, Mr. Xu and his crew haphazardly joined the refugee crowd of the Science and Technology New District.
Tears in their eyes, they dug into the braised pork.
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