That pause—it meant there was someone she thought was “handsome.”
“Who? Who is it?” Zhang Lesi asked.
Su Yu averted her gaze: “No one. They’re all the same, all pretty much alike.”
Yeah, right. Like anyone would believe that.
Zhang Lesi thought for a moment, then her expression changed: “It’s not Old Song, is it?”
“Don’t you dare.” Zhang Lesi urgently tried to talk her out of it. “My cousin works in finance, and he warned me long ago—never go for guys in finance, advertising, or civil engineering. They’re all terrible in their own ways.”
Su Yu immediately denied it: “Don’t talk nonsense. I just think they’re all pretty much the same.”
Even if they could be friends, everyone had different personalities.
Zhang Lesi was bold and outspoken—she said what she thought and went after what she liked.
Su Yu clearly came from a more conservative family background, the kind of girl who waited for a guy to pursue her.
Zhang Lesi grinned and didn’t press further.
Over on the other side, Gao Yuxuan really didn’t dare sit too close to everyone—he still couldn’t fully control the energy in his body, and he kept leaking electricity now and then.
Zhao Yi naturally stayed with him.
Gao Yuxuan was a bit worried about Zhao Yi: “Why is your face so red? Did the shock get to your heart?”
Zhao Yi: “It’s the autumn heat.”
Gao Yuxuan looked up at the sky: “Is it? It’s not that hot right now. It gets hot at noon.”
He was still concerned: “Maybe go see Zhang Lesi. Electric shock counts as an external injury—she can treat that.”
Zhao Yi waved him off: “I told you, it’s just the heat. I’m hot.”
Why was his face getting even redder?
Huh?
That’s not right.
Gao Yuxuan stared at Zhao Yi.
Zhao Yi turned his head away.
The little ones were playing with the ball.
“Mo Li! Mo Li!”
They called Mo Li’s name and kicked the ball toward him.
Mo Li appeared to be lazily sprawled on the ground sunbathing, but whenever the ball came flying, he’d whip it back with his tail.
The children burst into laughter.
Then they suddenly grew quiet.
Over where the adults were gathered, that auntie had picked up a megaphone and started speaking.
All the kids knew her—she was Mo Li’s owner.
“Alright, looks like just about everyone’s here.” Jiang Cheng raised the megaphone and spoke. “Let’s begin.”
Manager Wang had found her a red plastic stool from the property management office, so she sat on it, slightly higher than everyone else on the ground.
The small square fell silent.
Jiang Cheng began to speak.
“This time around, the situation is much better than last time. In every way. I won’t waste words on that.”
“Today’s meeting has one theme: What do we do from here?”
“Today is… September 2nd.” Jiang Cheng said. “This wave of the virus has been going on for five days now.”
“I came downstairs a bit late because I just couldn’t give up—I stared at the TV for a while.”
“But unfortunately, there’s nothing. Nothing at all.”
Sighs echoed from many directions.
The interim government that had gritted its teeth and held on, leading everyone to defeat the zombies—that government hadn’t shown up this time.
Silence.
“Compared to last time—when did the government start responding last time?”
“I remember clearly. It was Sunday morning, just after we’d finished clearing the zombies from the courtyard. Around ten-something, before eleven.”
“Twelve—no, thirteen hours.”
“Last time, when the zombie virus broke out, with no prior experience to draw on, the government responded in just thirteen hours and issued its first public announcement.”
“Even though that announcement didn’t have much substance, it at least showed that the government had organized people to take over a television station.”
“Today is already the fifth day, and the TV is still playing nothing but pre-recorded programs. I’ve heard that if such programs aren’t manually stopped, they just loop indefinitely?”
“That means—by day five, the government hasn’t even been able to take back a TV station.”
“Or maybe—no one has organized any effort to seize a TV station at all.”
Jiang Cheng paused and swept her gaze across everyone.
The atmosphere grew heavy. No one spoke.
Jiang Cheng raised the megaphone again.
“Alright, I’ll stop with the nonsense. I’ll get straight to the conclusion—”
“I.”
“I believe that we no longer have a government.”
“Raise your hand if you agree with my conclusion.”
Hands went up.
Even the new members of the youth apartment—Auntie Ma and Auntie Jiang—raised their hands.
But some of the elderly from Jixiang Jiayuan did not.
Including Uncle Eighty.
Uncle Eighty’s eyes were moist: “How can there be no government? How can there be no government…”
He kept muttering, his lips trembling.
It was clear that the reality of “no government” was a heavy blow to him.
These elderly people had followed the government their entire lives, watching the country flourish and prosper. Suddenly, such a capable government was gone.
Who could bear that?
“This time is different. We have superpowers, and we can grow our own food.”
“We’ll gather all kinds of seeds later—then we can grow whatever we want and eat whatever we grow.”
“Let’s think about where we can get some chickens, ducks, and geese to raise. Even pigs, cattle, and sheep. If we raise them, we’ll have meat.”
“All of this used to be very difficult for us, but now that we have superpowers, a lot of things have become easier, right?”
“So is that what we want?”
Jiang Cheng asked: “Is that what we want?”
“Lock ourselves in the neighborhood, farm and raise chickens, be self-sufficient? Is that the life we’re going to live from now on?”
It didn’t sound entirely impossible.
But a sense of bewilderment hung over everyone.
Jiang Cheng was about to speak when someone below shouted: “Jiang Cheng, lead us into the city!”
Jiang Cheng looked over. It was someone she didn’t know very well.
Not very well—meaning not a core member, not close to the center, just an ordinary person.
Usually, such people weren’t very strong either, because the strong tended to gravitate toward the center, and the center was also willing to gather them.
But this ordinary resident—whose name she couldn’t quite recall and whose face wasn’t very familiar—shouted out: “We can’t stay trapped here!”
His cry dispelled the confusion in everyone’s hearts.
Life was still long—how could they stay trapped here?
Was their living space only going to be as big as a few neighborhoods?
How could that be!
No!
“That’s right! Jiang Cheng, let’s fight our way out!”
“First take the Science and Technology New District! Then march into the city!”
“This world belongs to us, not to those damn zombies!”
Everyone was sitting low on the ground, but their fists rose high, one after another.
“Fight our way out!”
“Fight our way out!”
A chorus of shouts.
“Jiang Cheng, you take command—we’ll follow you!”
“We trust you!”
Jiang Cheng lowered the megaphone and looked at these people.
In the autumn sunlight, every face was clear.
She hadn’t said anything yet. She hadn’t even laid out the options.
And they had already chosen the path she wanted them to take.
They hadn’t been swayed or manipulated by her. They were acting spontaneously, of their own accord.
They had made their own choice.
Everyone’s eyes were bright, and they all saw the direction forward.
Gazing at those eyes, Jiang Cheng felt a sense of satisfaction that was hard to put into words.
She raised the megaphone.
Everyone fell silent.
Jiang Cheng said: “I had prepared a lot of emotional speeches…”
The crowd burst into laughter.
“Well, now I don’t need any of them.” Jiang Cheng said, “My will is the same as everyone’s.”
“We were born human—how could we be trapped in a space no bigger than a few neighborhoods?”
“We must reclaim living space for humanity.”
“Now, let me tell you all a piece of bad news that has already been confirmed.” Jiang Cheng’s expression turned serious.
Everyone focused their attention.
Jiang Cheng shared the information: “The Development Zone government—no survivors.”
“Mo Li confirmed it.”
Someone below asked: “Not a single one?”
“Not one.” Jiang Cheng was certain. “Mo Li is different from us—he doesn’t search with his eyes. His search ability is probably an enhanced version of a cat’s natural skill, or it might even be a psychic-type superpower. I can’t say for sure which, but I know—it’s very accurate.”
Everyone couldn’t help but turn their heads to look.
Because the adults were having a meeting, the children who had lost their guardians had grown sensitively quiet, no longer kicking the ball around or making noise.
They gathered around Mo Li, gently petting him, pretending to lull him to sleep.
Mo Li played along.
Or maybe he really had fallen asleep.
This good-tempered little cat and the house-sized beast from yesterday were the same cat.
You might not believe how capable a little cat could be, but you would definitely believe in the power of that giant beast.
It was a beast that could bite through a human body with its teeth.
“So,” Jiang Cheng said, “it’s now confirmed that the Science and Technology New District has no government.”
“How could this happen?” Many people murmured, muttering to each other, “How could this happen?”
Even the elementary school had survivors. How could such a large government office building have none?
Zhao Yi, Gao Yuxuan, and Song Jingshuo all had the same thought flash through their minds—
This didn’t make sense.
It wasn’t logical.
Even from a probability standpoint.
“So, I hereby announce—”
Jiang Cheng’s voice rang out across the square.
“I hereby announce—”
“The Science and Technology New District Interim Government—is hereby established!”
The little ones all looked up.
Because the adults had suddenly gone dead quiet.
Then, a huge roar of cheers erupted from the adults!
“That’s right—we are the government!”
“If the government is gone, we rebuild it!”
“So what if it’s gone? What’s there to fear? As long as people are still alive, everything is possible!”
Uncle Eighty, a veteran, had tears in his eyes.
“I wasn’t keeping up with the times,” he said. “I was being foolish.”
“As long as the people are still here, what’s there to fear?”
“We came from the masses in the first place!”
On September 2nd, the fifth day after the second zombie virus outbreak—
The Science and Technology New District Interim Government was declared established at the youth apartment.
More than six hundred people gathered on site.
On the spot, the Science and Technology New District Zombie Elimination Combat Team was formed—abbreviated as the Science and Technology New District Combat Team.
The newly established Combat Team would no longer recruit volunteers on an ad-hoc, fluid basis like before.
From today onward, there would be formal, fixed personnel structures.
With the forty-five superpower users from the youth apartment, Jixiang Jiayuan, and Yujing Xiangyuan as its core, the total membership was two hundred people.
Two hundred was already a large number.
There was no need for the Combat Team to be bloated and cumbersome.
By now, everyone had integrated superpowers into their way of thinking. For example, at Jiang Cheng’s suggestion, the “blade carts” controlled by metal-type superpower users had already been tested and proven to be a game-changer for outdoor operations.
In just one day, they had already developed a new operational model: first, eliminating zombie hordes outdoors in large numbers, then clearing buildings point by point.
Under this model, the blade carts handled outdoor work, and since many buildings couldn’t accommodate large numbers of people at once, after discussion, they set the team size at two hundred—ideal for securing buildings like schools and hospitals.
The core members of the interim government grew out of the youth apartment’s interim committee, including Jiang Cheng and all six floor leaders.
They were joined by Zhou Wang, Huang Xuetao, and Xiao Dan from Jixiang Jiayuan.
And two superpower users from Yujing Xiangyuan.
These individuals formed the founding leadership team of the interim government.
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