Song Jingshuo drove the van straight back to Jixiang West Street. By the time Gao Yuxuan called Jiang Cheng, they’d already returned to the complex.
Everyone had divided up the fresh produce, fruits, and meat from Mai Duoduo.
With fewer people, things seemed more plentiful.
During the month after the last disaster, it was said that refrigerator and freezer sales had skyrocketed.
The Youth Apartments, with their small unit sizes, rarely saw anyone buy a chest freezer. But it was true that during the time Jiang Cheng was away, many people had swapped out their fridges for larger ones.
Delivery trucks came every day.
Song Jingshuo was no exception—he’d replaced his with a French-door model. French-door refrigerators were still rare, just entering the market with no domestic brands yet—all imports. They were still in the luxury stage.
But the capacity was indeed huge, holding a lot more food.
Very friendly to post-disaster hoarding tendencies.
But this time, everyone had brought back so much. Having been through it once before, they skipped many steps—like payment, like transport.
It was obvious that many people’s own refrigerators might not even hold everything.
Many at the Youth Apartments simply opened up their neighbors’ doors.
There were too many empty units. Jiang Cheng lived on the third floor of Building 2. On her floor, counting Auntie Pan, there were only seven people. The rest were all empty.
And Building 2 was the most populated building in the whole complex.
Other buildings had entire floors with no one at all.
When the second outbreak hit, people seemed to have no qualms about not paying, taking shopping carts, illegal entry, or occupying others’ resources.
Naturally, they’d pushed shopping carts full of goods all the way back.
Even someone with a strong moral compass like Su Yu didn’t think twice about it.
She looked at the mountain of meat piled in Li Jiangbing’s cart and exclaimed: “You took that much meat?”
Li Jiangbing said: “You need to eat meat to have the strength to kill zombies.”
“True enough.” Su Yu asked, “How do you usually cook your meat? Braised pork?”
Li Jiangbing honestly admitted: “I don’t know how to cook.”
Su Yu said “Oh,” thought for a moment, and suggested: “Why don’t we team up for meals?”
She thought it was a great idea. They were really familiar now, and she’d come to realize that Li Jiangbing was a reliable person—rough on the outside but meticulous underneath. Compared to other men she didn’t know well, she trusted his character.
Two people cooking together would be more efficient too—they could make an extra dish.
But Li Jiangbing waved his hand and declined: “No need, no need. I’ve already made arrangements with Auntie Pan—I’m joining their meal group.”
Auntie Pan was cooking for the property management crew. So the meat he’d taken wasn’t just for himself.
Su Yu praised him: “You’re really resourceful. Auntie Pan’s cooking smells amazing.”
When the security guards were on duty, they’d take their meal trays to get food and eat at their posts.
Walking past, you could smell the delicious aroma—enough to make your mouth water. Just from the smell, you knew it had to be good.
Some other girls behind her called out to Su Yu, pushing their carts. Su Yu said: “You go ahead.”
She stopped to wait for them.
Li Jiangbing pushed his cart full of meat and continued on.
Someone sidled up to him, exasperated: “Are you stupid?”
Eating with Auntie Pan and the security guards—how could that compare to teaming up with a young woman like Su Yu!
Why couldn’t he see it?
Li Jiangbing said: “What are you talking about? Auntie Pan’s cooking is delicious—I’m drooling just thinking about it.”
Humming a tune, he pushed his cart and walked off.
He didn’t engage.
Whether he was genuinely clueless or playing dumb, who knew.
—
Jiang Cheng put her haul back in her apartment and emptied her storage space, releasing everything she’d stowed from Mai Duoduo.
The moment she did, her place was completely packed.
It really highlighted the difference between the physical rules of her storage space and those of the real world.
In the real world, storage was about volume.
The storage space she’d complained was “too small” had actually held four hundred quilts. And the entire Youth Apartments currently had just over four hundred people.
Now the problem was, she couldn’t keep all this stuff occupying her storage space forever. But her apartment was tiny.
She didn’t have time to solve that now, though—Gao Yuxuan had called.
Jiang Cheng called a girl first: “Lesi, head to the East Gate. I’m on my way too. They’ve rescued Xiao Huang.”
The girl’s name was Zhang Lesi. She was an intern doctor at Renxin Hospital.
During the previous disaster, when everyone was trapped in the complex, if anyone got sick, they’d go to her. She’d do a simple preliminary diagnosis and advise what medication to take.
After Renxin Hospital was retaken, she’d been temporarily put in charge of the pharmacy until things returned to normal.
But her supervising doctor was gone.
Even though work had resumed everywhere, many businesses and institutions were still chaotic inside. Plenty of important and unimportant people had died, leaving many vacancies and disrupted internal processes.
To this day, she still hadn’t been assigned a new supervising doctor.
In Zhang Lesi’s own words, it had been the easiest month of her medical career.
If she could go back, she said she’d never choose to be a doctor again.
“Advising someone to become a doctor—may you be struck by lightning.”
It really was too exhausting.
According to her, after society returned to normal and Renxin Hospital resumed regular operations, despite the shortage of medical staff, the pressure on the hospital wasn’t actually that great.
There weren’t that many patients.
Only in the first few days after retaking Renxin Hospital, when people who’d been enduring illnesses during the disaster all came in at once, did it seem busy.
Once things truly returned to normal, the numbers actually thinned out.
“How should I put it,” she said. “One way to put it is—the old, the weak, and the sick didn’t make it.”
Yes, a lot of people died in the first zombie outbreak—and some of them weren’t killed directly by zombies. The old, the weak, the sick—many didn’t survive that month and a half. They couldn’t hold out until supply lines were restored, until the state could deliver food and medicine.
Zhang Lesi said: “It’s pretty scary when you think about it—like human society went through a screening process.”
The van drove to a spot right between the two gates of Jixiang West Street.
The street was actually one-way—they’d driven in the wrong direction. But who cared now? No one.
Besides Zhang Lesi, a crowd had gathered at the gate, mostly from the Youth Apartments.
Many had received word that Xiao Huang was in bad shape and might need help—so everyone came.
This was where Li Jiangbing’s practical wisdom shone. Hearing that Xiao Huang was basically unconscious, he had someone bring two wheeled office chairs from the property management office.
When the van arrived and the door opened, as soon as Zhou Wang stepped out, applause erupted all around.
Deep down, people still gravitated toward goodness, kindness, and positivity.
Even if they’d squabbled over vegetables and meat in the supermarket together, they still applauded heroic rescues.
The two office chairs were pushed forward, and everyone worked together to lift Xiao Huang out.
The boy was completely spent.
A middle schooler’s frame was still smaller than an adult’s—thin and lean, with that unripened look.
This child had gone alone to save his mother.
Someone quietly asked Gao Yuxuan: “What about his mother?”
Gao Yuxuan said: “Ah—”
Everyone understood.
Their hearts ached even more.
Both office chairs had wheels and were hard to control.
Cui Haiyang pulled a steel pipe from behind his back, crouched down, and pressed it against the central shafts of the two chairs. The three pieces of metal fused without welding, connecting the two chairs into a single unit.
Someone tilted the back of one chair down, and Li Jiangbing lifted Xiao Huang onto it by himself.
When everyone saw the blood and tear tracks on Xiao Huang’s face, they were stunned.
Li Jiangbing had experience and knew at a glance: “Overused his ability.”
“Eyes bleed too?” everyone was shocked. “I thought it was just nosebleeds?”
“Nose, eyes, ears—they all bleed. Mouth too, probably. Last night when I practiced, my throat tasted sweet—now I realize I was about to cough up blood.”
“Whoa, so that’s bleeding from all seven orifices?”
“…Seems like it.”
Jiang Cheng asked first: “Any external injuries?”
Zhou Wang quickly said: “No, no, we checked thoroughly.”
“This kid is incredible—went in alone, hallways full of zombies, and he didn’t get a single scratch.”
“It’s just that his mother… ah.”
Zhao Yi asked Gao Yuxuan: “What’s his ability?”
Gao Yuxuan was curious too: “No idea. He was unconscious when we got him out. Let Zhang Lesi take a look first.”
Zhang Lesi went over to lift Xiao Huang’s eyelid for an exam—but the moment her hand touched him, she froze.
Everyone sensed something wrong and asked quickly: “What is it?”
“Everything okay?”
They all thought something was wrong with Xiao Huang, but then… Zhang Lesi looked up, her voice slightly trembling: “I…”
She said: “I have an ability.”
According to the ability experts, the sign of having an ability was a stabbing pain in the brain. If that were true, Zhang Lesi was sure she should have one too.
From yesterday to today, she’d touched all kinds of things—metal, wood, water, fire, earth—everything. Nothing had awakened.
But the moment her palm touched the unconscious Xiao Huang, the blocked, stabbing sensation in her brain suddenly popped open.
Zhao Yi and Gao Yuxuan crowded in eagerly: “What is it? What’s your ability?”
Zhang Lesi was about to say when Gao Yuxuan pressed a finger to his lips: “Don’t say it, don’t say it—let me guess! Is it healing? Is it?”
Zhang Lesi was excited too: “Yes! You’re amazing!”
She said: “There’s nothing seriously wrong with this kid—just exhaustion. He’s still very weak, and his stomach is acidic—I think he hasn’t eaten for a long time.”
In short: overworked and starving, completely drained.
The moment her palm touched Xiao Huang’s face, she knew his condition.
Gao Yuxuan and Zhao Yi pumped their fists in the air excitedly and high-fived each other!
With a loud slap!
Li Jiangbing saw it and put his hands on his hips: “You two figured it out, didn’t you? When you’re done, explain it to me! I need to hear it!”
Li Jiangbing desperately needed to know how to work on his seemingly useless ability.
Everyone else’s abilities were so useful—he was dying of anxiety.
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