Shouts erupted from deep within the third floor.
Everyone’s hearts tightened, and they charged over in a thunderous rush.
Fortunately, the shouting wasn’t screams of agony—it was the roar of exertion.
The two electric-type superpower students had put themselves in harm’s way and finally lured the “tentacle” into taking the bait.
As soon as it wrapped around him, the electric-type student immediately unleashed maximum power.
Electricity works on any living organism with biological activity—even corpses conduct electricity.
The tentacle indeed convulsed and slowed down, but it hadn’t stopped completely.
The other electric-type student caught up, grabbed on, and with a yell of “AHHHHHHHHHH!” poured every ounce of strength into his ability.
Full power output!
The tentacle writhed a few more times, then finally collapsed to the ground and lay still.
That student quickly untangled the tentacle from his companion’s neck.
The rescued one gasped for air and started coughing.
The classmates, teachers, and parents all caught up.
The teacher said, “Check if it’s playing dead.”
This tentacle was quite cunning—no one dared let their guard down. Everyone with a shovel charged in, chopping down like they were slicing vegetables, one cut after another.
The tentacle was hacked into many pieces and still didn’t move.
After all, it had taken the full-power output of two electric-type superpowers.
Following the tentacle’s trail, they found a curtain shop.
Talk about cunning—it had been hiding inside a huge pile of curtain fabric on the floor!
Who could possibly find that? It was too sneaky!
Several teams had actually passed right by this curtain shop without noticing a thing.
The crafty tentacle must have retracted and hidden itself.
Once they pulled all the curtain fabric aside and saw what was underneath, they were all stunned.
The boy who’d had the “tentacle” wrapped around his mouth turned pale.
He turned around and started throwing up again: “Ughhhhhh~~”
That was rough. Everyone sympathized with him.
Because someone had first shouted “tentacle,” everyone had been picturing some kind of octopus monster from a horror movie.
But in reality, it was a person. Well, no—it was a zombie that used to be a person. Yes, she was now a zombie.
It was an elderly lady.
“Elderly lady” was how the middle school students thought of her.
After all, to them, even someone in their twenties was already “old.”
She was actually a robust, middle-aged woman in her prime.
How “robust”? The kind who could shove you right off the bus during morning rush hour.
The “tentacle” wasn’t a tentacle at all—it was the woman’s tongue.
Her mouth had split horizontally all the way to her ears, and her tongue had become wide, thick, and impossibly long, extending from her mouth and dragging across the floor, stretching over a hundred meters. Based on the earlier situation, it could probably extend even further.
What kind of monster was this?
The woman was dressed in floral prints from head to toe.
A small-floral-print top and matching pants—enough to make anyone’s eyes go crossed.
The teacher walked over for a closer look: “So it’s her.”
The students were surprised: “You know her?”
The teacher sighed: “This is the infamous ‘Hong’an Market Screeching Queen.’”
The teacher rode her bike to work every day, stopping by Hong’an Market in the morning to buy groceries, taking them to school, then bringing them home after work.
Because the morning produce was the best quality—if you waited until after work, all the good stuff would be picked over.
The teacher had been at No. 14 High School for many years, so she’d also been shopping at Hong’an Market for many years. She knew the “Hong’an Market Screeching Queen” very well.
This woman was an absolute master at cursing people out—undefeated across the entire market.
The teacher had heard plenty of gossip while buying vegetables: at home, she cursed so fiercely that her daughter-in-law wanted to jump off a building, and her daughter ran away. At Hong’an Market, she’d cursed out every single vegetable vendor, and had gotten into fights with many shop owners on the third floor.
One parent pulled out a phone: “Teacher, move aside—I want to take a photo.”
It was a newer model that could take pictures.
This zombie was too unusual—they’d never seen anything like it. Worth keeping a photo.
The students buzzed with discussion: “Is this a third-gen?”
“Definitely not—third-gen ones run away and use tricks. This is on a whole different level.”
“A mutant zombie! That auntie on TV mentioned mutant zombies.”
“Right, right—I remember her talking about mutant zombies too.”
The kids didn’t realize how lucky they were.
This mutant zombie was just a loud-mouthed common market woman, not like Director Guo from the TV station, who had seen the big world and harbored grand ambitions.
However fierce the woman had been in life, she’d only turned into a long-tongued monster. A bit tricky to deal with, but not that difficult.
They were lucky.
After searching the market, they found several survivors in a small grocery store on the first floor.
The shop owner—a woman—had been quick enough to pull down the rolling shutter, sealing off the grocery section from the zombies in the vegetable area. With food and drink inside, they’d managed to hold out.
The only issue was that they’d had to use basins and buckets for bathroom needs. Though they’d kept everything tucked away in the corner, the stench was still overwhelming.
But the students didn’t mind.
The shop owner, relieved to have survived, generously waved her hand: “Take it, take it—help yourselves. No charge. What use is money now anyway?”
The students cheered and rushed into the store to grab supplies.
The teachers and parents found several flatbed tricycles for hauling goods, along with a few of those elderly-style tricycles with a cart in the back that could carry people or cargo.
The meat displayed outside the butcher shops had all rotted, buzzing with flies.
But the meat in the freezers was still well-preserved. All of it needed to be transported back to the school.
The students had already started snacking and drinking.
These past seven or eight days had been brutal—they’d all been deprived and needed a little indulgence.
It wasn’t until the teachers called out that they wiped their mouths, stuffed their pockets with snacks, and got to work.
Most of the vegetables were wilted or even rotten.
The adults sorted through them, picking out what was still edible—mostly radishes, potatoes, and the like.
“These potatoes have sprouted—we can plant them,” one parent said.
The teachers’ hands paused for a moment.
The implication of that statement was that they were in for a long haul. Sigh.
The students went down to the second floor and brought back a bunch of hand-pulled carts—one for each person.
The teachers instructed them to prioritize food first, saving other items for the next trip. But many students still quietly grabbed what they personally needed.
The girls, for instance, all slipped up to the third floor to grab underwear and bras.
In the end, several tricycles of all sizes were loaded to the brim. Everyone had a hand-cart.
It was a successful haul.
The shop owner and a few lucky customers had nowhere else to go—they certainly wouldn’t dare travel alone. So they followed the No. 14 High School group back to campus.
By the time the main force had transported all the meat and vegetables back to school, it was already noon, and the cafeteria had prepared lunch.
After eating, they rode the tricycles back to Hong’an Market for another “shopping trip.”
The school had staff dormitories, and the first floor had a bathhouse with showers. But they needed change of clothes. And countless other necessities—toothbrushes, toothpaste, and more.
The teachers needed to find blankets and mattresses for everyone.
Over the past few days, the metal parts of the desks had been stripped to make armor and weapons.
The desk tops were pieced together as bed boards, backpacks used as pillows. Everyone slept in their clothes.
It had been manageable a few days ago, but the temperature had noticeably dropped over the last couple of days—it was no longer tolerable. Too cold at night. They absolutely needed blankets and bedding.
The bedding shops on the third floor of Hong’an Market were ransacked clean. Even the curtain shops weren’t spared—curtain fabric wasn’t the most comfortable, but it was thick, and layered together it could serve as bedding too.
The second trip was also fully loaded. Whatever else they needed would have to wait for the next run.
The teacher said, “Don’t rush—we’ll need several trips anyway. Tomorrow works too.”
There were simply too many things they needed.
Everyone trudged back with their hand-carts, when someone turned their head and suddenly squinted: “Hey—what’s that moving over there?”
Across the road.
And it was a main road, not a side street—wide, with metal railings in the middle. On the other side of that road stood a building—the Vehicle Management Office.
Now, a window on the upper floor of the Vehicle Management Office was open. Someone was leaning out, frantically waving a curtain they’d ripped down.
They were too far away to shout—afraid of attracting zombies. If they hadn’t torn down the curtain to use as a flag, they’d have been nearly impossible to spot from such a distance.
“Someone’s calling for help!” Everyone understood.
What to do?
They exchanged glances.
Before the teachers or parents could say a word, the students had already dropped their hand-carts, rolled up their sleeves, and gripped their crescent-blade shovels: “Let’s go—! Rescue mission—!”
Heaven helps those who help themselves. Heaven saves those who save themselves.
We don’t need to wait to be saved—we’ll save ourselves.
And we can still save others too!
—
Tech District.
Zhou Wang brought Aunt Lin, Aunt Qian, and the new Master Luo to meet with Song Jingshuo.
They had already reached an agreement: although the refugees were uniformly housed in Jixiang Jiayuan, everyone—including the original Jixiang Jiayuan residents—would be managed collectively by the Development Zone Provisional Government.
Simply put, everyone would be eating from the Development Zone Government’s supply.
All wood-type superpower users would work at the youth apartments, with food production centrally managed there.
Xiao Dan had still been short-sighted.
Jixiang Jiayuan had few original residents and, despite having a couple of superpower users, its overall combat strength was insufficient.
With such a sudden influx of people, if crops were grown inside their own community, what if these newcomers refused to follow orders and just took whatever they wanted?
During the first zombie disaster, as long as a household had a man, the man handled all external matters.
So back then, it had been Xiao Dan’s husband—Wang Yunya’s father—who dealt with things, while Xiao Dan stayed home watching Wang Yunya.
Though she later learned what had happened, she had never directly faced it.
She had never directly faced the alienation of human nature. She lacked experience.
Her mindset was still stuck in a society governed by the rule of law.
Song Jingshuo took those few people off to a meeting.
Yujing Xiangyuan also had a wood-type superpower user, but since that community had few residents and was self-sufficient, they’d leave that one alone for now—let them keep him.
From now on, the old small-scale style of planting—growing whatever you felt like eating, planting today for today’s meal—was over. From now on, proper planning was required.
Staples would be potatoes and sweet potatoes. Main vegetables would be radishes and napa cabbage.
Because these crops not only had high yields but were also easy to store. They needed to be planted on a large scale and stockpiled in advance, to prepare for the refugees they would take in in the future.
Peanuts would need to be planned—they were a source of oil.
Beans would need to be planned—the cafeteria auntie said they could make fermented bean paste and soy sauce.
In truth, all vegetables could be grown, as long as priorities were clear.
Fruits would be rationed and controlled.
Treatment tiers must be established.
Jiang Cheng said to Zhou Wang, “You don’t have to go today. You can stay.”
With over five hundred refugees now in Jixiang Jiayuan, Jiang Cheng felt Zhou Wang should stay—if anything came up, his presence would give everyone a sense of stability.
Zhou Wang rested his hands on his belly: “It’s fine. Xiao Dan’s there.”
His eyes flickered: “And Xiao Song’s here too. Xiao Song has plenty of management experience. If anything happens, she can go to Xiao Song.”
That look in his eyes said it all.
Jiang Cheng didn’t want to meddle in Jixiang Jiayuan’s internal issues—as long as nothing major went wrong. She nodded: “Alright. Then go.”
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