Before anyone else could react, Jiang Cheng had already shifted her grip on the baseball bat from holding it loosely at her side to holding it with both hands, angled slightly over her shoulder. It was a stance ready to swing at any moment. “Maybe don’t bring the weapons in there. Li Jiangbing, hold onto them for now, will you?”
Her wording was polite, her tone gentle, but the meaning behind her words was not gentle at all.
The air still carried a faint scent of blood, mixed with a bit of stench. Everyone found it hard to breathe.
When the first wave of injured had been sent to the property management office, people hadn’t been this pessimistic. Deep down, they had harbored the hope that “maybe turning is just a probability.” They had felt there was still a chance.
But now, a concrete example stood right in front of them, shattering that hope.
Everyone tightened their grip on their weapons, following Jiang Cheng’s lead. The atmosphere turned icy.
The two injured men stood surrounded by so many people.
In theory, these were all law-abiding citizens. And apart from a few shared rental units, most people who chose the youth apartments were young, had respectable jobs, and cared about their quality of life.
But that very day, every single one of them had picked up a weapon and piled up a mountain of corpses in the central plaza.
This mountain wouldn’t mind two more bodies.
The two men dejectedly handed over their kitchen knife and hammer to someone nearby. Their faces blank, they said, “Let’s go.”
The one holding the hammer looked like he was about to cry.
Then, the next second, he did cry. “Let me call my mom…”
Everyone, including Li Jiangbing, looked at Jiang Cheng. She nodded, her voice very gentle. “Go ahead. Tell her not to worry.”
The man pulled out his phone, sniffled, and dialed the landline at home.
No one picked up.
He murmured, “That’s not right. It’s Sunday. They should be home.”
The rhythmic beep—beep—beep—was faintly audible to those standing close.
Many people had already thought of something. Their lips moved, but no words came out.
The man making the call gradually looked lost.
Li Jiangbing glanced around. He didn’t have the heart to rush him. But he had just witnessed a case of infection and mutation happening in a very short time, so he was now especially wary of anyone with injuries. He wouldn’t feel at ease until they were locked up.
He turned to Jiang Cheng.
Jiang Cheng said, “They might have hidden somewhere. It’s too chaotic right now. Hiding is safer. Look—so many people upstairs are hiding.”
The man looked up. The youth apartments were all floor-to-ceiling glass windows. Looking up, he could see many people who hadn’t dared to come down to help pressing their hands against the glass and peering downward.
“Oh…” He closed his phone and looked up at Jiang Cheng.
He had left the garden relatively early, back when Jiang Cheng had just stepped up to speak and assign tasks. But in this short time, he could feel that Jiang Cheng had already become the center of this group.
“So…” He hesitated, then held out his phone to her. “Could you hold onto my phone for me? If my parents call, could you tell them I’m okay? The last outgoing call is my home number.”
Without hesitation, Jiang Cheng took the phone and agreed. “Okay.”
She said, “I’ll go with you.”
She shot a glance at the people around her.
The representatives from each building—the ones who had stepped forward to take charge—were all sharp people. Catching Jiang Cheng’s look, the leader from Building 4 immediately chimed in, “Let’s go, let’s all go together.”
Exchanging glances, everyone headed off in a large group toward the property management office—a much bigger procession than when they had escorted the first dozen or so.
That first group had been quite docile, going in without even having their weapons confiscated.
On the way, they ran into the people carrying fuel back to the central plaza, led by the one in the property management uniform. They weren’t just carrying fuel—they were also carrying two bodies, both wearing property management uniforms. They were probably the staff who had been on duty the night before.
So that was why no one had answered the property management office phone.
“What are you all doing?” they asked.
Everyone told them, “Someone turned. These two got hurt. We’re taking them over.”
Jiang Cheng asked, “How’s it going at the meeting room?”
The man in uniform looked at the large crowd swarming past, shrank his neck a little, and said, “It’s fine. They’re watching them.”
Jiang Cheng nodded. “We’ll take them over. You guys start burning. Be careful—move anything flammable out of the way first.”
The man in uniform, being an employee of the property management company, nodded. “Don’t worry. There’s a fire hydrant in the garden.”
Jiang Cheng acknowledged him with a nod, and the large group escorted the two injured men to the property management office.
The office was located in the basement of Building 1. The few people on guard duty looked surprised to see so many people crowding in. “What’s wrong?”
Everyone explained the situation concisely. The guards exchanged uneasy glances, their expressions growing more serious.
The meeting room had double doors secured with a U-shaped lock. Inside, there was a security camera, and the feed could be viewed on the computer at the reception desk.
The dozen or so people inside looked quite docile. Some were sitting, others had simply stretched out on the large meeting table. They all looked very bored.
The guard unlocked the U-shaped lock and pulled the doors open.
Those sitting and lying inside all stood up. “What’s wrong?”
Jiang Cheng didn’t tell them that someone had already turned. She only said, “A few more people got hurt. We’re bringing them over.”
Li Jiangbing and the leader from Building 4 each gave a gentle push. The man reluctantly stepped inside. Immediately, the people outside closed the door and clicked the U-shaped lock shut.
But no one left. Jiang Cheng included, they all stood gathered around, staring at the meeting room door.
So many people were crammed into the hallway that they could barely turn around, yet it was eerily quiet.
Finally, Jiang Cheng said, “Let’s go talk in the lobby.”
Everyone filed through the corridor back to the property management lobby. It was still silent.
Jiang Cheng broke the silence first. “Our complex is lucky.”
“Everyone has their own place.”
“In other neighborhoods—those with large units where four or five people live together, three generations under one roof—it’s impossible to imagine what’s happening there.”
Still, it was grim. Everyone knew in their hearts that the people in that meeting room were as good as dead.
Some worried whether that door could even hold someone after they turned. Infected mutants were far more dangerous than primary ones.
A few people even secretly entertained the thought of “dealing with” those people right now. But they didn’t dare voice it, held back by the bottom line of social morality.
Jiang Cheng changed the subject and explained the shift rotation she had discussed with the others to the guards. “We’ll come relieve you after lunch. You can go home and eat.”
For now, “eating” still meant going back to your own place. Whether you stewed ribs or boiled instant noodles at home depended on how much food you had stocked up.
Given the situation, Jiang Cheng had already done her best to organize the people and get them to follow her lead. No one in this community had the ability to redistribute supplies yet.
Jiang Cheng noticed another person in a property management uniform in the lobby and asked, “Is there any food here? We can’t just let them go hungry.”
The property management employee said, “I think so. Let me look.”
She rummaged around, muttering to herself, “I remember so-and-so just bought a case of ham sausages… and so-and-so had some instant noodles…”
Sure enough, she pulled out an unopened case of ham sausages and a few packs of instant noodles from a coworker’s desk cabinet.
Seeing the food, someone’s stomach let out an untimely growl.
Everyone turned to look. It was the big guy from Building 2.
Jiang Cheng understood exactly why Li Jiangbing was hungry—he had no food at home. What he had scavenged from 0308 the day before wasn’t much, completely out of proportion to his large frame, and nowhere near enough to fill his stomach.
Jiang Cheng picked up a box cutter from the desk, sliced open the case of sausages, and naturally grabbed a handful, holding them out to everyone. “You’re all hungry, right? Have something to tide you over.”
One by one, everyone reached out and took a sausage from her hand. One each.
When only three were left, Jiang Cheng stuffed them all into Li Jiangbing’s hand. He understood her silent gesture, and while everyone else was looking down peeling the red plastic wrappers, he slipped the sausages into his pocket.
Of course, not everyone missed it. Someone glanced at him. But Li Jiangbing was too big, and those who noticed weren’t tactless enough to question “why does he get more” right then.
Jiang Cheng patted the remaining half-case. “We’ll give these to the meet—”
Her voice stopped abruptly. “What’s that?”
Everyone followed her gaze. The reception desk was built like a typical front desk—higher on the outside, lower on the inside. Someone had been looking for scissors to open their sausage wrapper and shifted aside, creating a gap that allowed Jiang Cheng to see what was stacked behind the counter.
The guard said, “We figured they were going in to be observed, so we had them leave their things here first.”
Stacked behind the counter were sticks and clubs, kitchen knives, hardware tools—the weapons from the first group of injured people. The guards had confiscated them.
Everyone thought that was only right.
But Jiang Cheng cupped her chin.
The room was filled with the sounds of chewing. Everyone had been fighting all morning, expending a lot of energy. They were all hungry.
As they ate, they heard Jiang Cheng say, “Send these in too.”
She pulled the kitchen knives and cleavers out of the pile and pushed them aside. The remaining blunt weapons were what she meant by “these.”
“It’s unlikely they’ll all turn at the same time,” she said. “That way, if someone turns, the others can deal with it themselves. No need for us outside to go in and risk danger.”
The chewing sounds in the room suddenly stopped.
Li Jiangbing had just crammed an entire ham sausage into his mouth, his cheeks bulging. He froze at her words.
If that happened, what would the meeting room become? Just imagining it made cold sweat prickle at the back of their necks.
But the girl who made this decision seemed completely unaware that she was tossing desperate insects into a deadly jar.
Her eyes were clear, sharply black and white. “Our first principle is to protect the normal people who aren’t infected.”
Who could argue with that?
Everyone wanted to protect themselves. They were the “normal people who aren’t infected.”
No one voiced any objection. Many silently lowered their eyes and started chewing again. But the ham sausages in their mouths tasted so strongly of artificial flavoring that it killed their appetite.
Some even felt like throwing up.
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