President Xu and the director had already forgotten all the lobster and sea cucumber they’d eaten in their former lives. All they knew was that the steamed buns in front of them were so delicious they brought tears to their eyes.
Security guard Xiao Fang didn’t remember them, but the cafeteria auntie recognized them at once: “It’s you two.”
Last night, the braised pork she’d worked so hard to make had been met with ingratitude—some refugees had even vomited at the sight. Only these two and their companions had enjoyed it.
“Here, have as many buns as you want. Eat up, eat up—slow down, don’t choke.”
Just as they were eating with gusto, a phone call came in—it was one of their employees: “Come back and eat! The porridge is ready.”
President Xu said, “You all go ahead and eat. Don’t worry about us.”
“Huh? You two aren’t eating?”
President Xu: “We’re talking with the person in charge about our future options. You eat—don’t mind us. Important business comes first.”
“Oh, okay. You’ve worked hard, President Xu.”
“It’s nothing. For everyone’s sake.”
After hanging up, the employee turned to the others and said, “Those two bastards—they’ve definitely found themselves a better deal!”
Everyone agreed, and couldn’t help feeling a bit anxious: “They’d better not ditch us.”
—
The young man in charge asked the director: “How long ago did your superpower awaken?”
President Xu averted his gaze into the distance.
The director stammered: “Not long ago.”
The young man nodded knowingly: “No wonder you’re so weak. After awakening, there’s a period of rapid growth—you have to train hard during this phase. Improvement comes especially fast. Then you’ll hit a plateau. That’s when talent and effort really start to show differences—very clearly. You’ve got to work hard.”
After they’d eaten, the two went their separate ways.
The woman took President Xu to find the metal-type superpower users. When they arrived, everyone was busy as bees.
The open space was piled high with iron railings dismantled from the streets.
Some were in charge of purification. When painted or rusty iron came into their hands, with a flicker, the paint and rust crumbled into powder and fell away, leaving gleaming, pure iron to be passed to the next step.
They’d produced many long, narrow tables and benches—all shiny and bright.
The woman said: “Yesterday was too rushed—everyone had to sit on the floor to eat. We can’t let that continue. Starting today, everyone will have tables and chairs.”
On another side, several people were making armor and weapons.
President Xu saw that it was all assembly-line style division of labor—some making shoulder guards, some making arm guards, others making leg guards.
The crescent-blade shovels were the same—some specialized in making the blades, others the handles. The handles were even threaded to prevent slipping.
Though everyone would still wrap them with cloth strips or electrical tape afterward anyway.
President Xu joined the crescent-blade shovel production line, assigned to sharpening the blades.
Sharpening was delicate work, and delicate work was far from easy. After working for a while, President Xu was already sweating profusely.
The person next to him glanced over and said: “Your efficiency’s not great. Practice more.”
“When the combat team gets back in the evening, we’ll need to do repairs for everyone too. Get practicing now.”
Shovels got dull easily after a day’s use, so they’d need to be uniformly sharpened at night to maintain their edge.
—
On the other side, the young man took the director to find the electric-types.
There was a row of iron crosses, each with a light bulb fixed to the top. Electric-type superpower users were generating electricity from a distance to light them up.
Some bulbs stayed bright for long periods, others weren’t bright enough, and some flickered on and off.
The young man brought the director over: “Train here. There’s an open spot.”
The others were all young, original residents of the youth apartments. They turned to look at him: “A refugee?”
The director was polite: “Yes. You all live here?”
“We live here.”
“Oh, I see.”
“How long have you been awakened?”
“Not long.”
“Give it a try—let us see.”
The director had never tried remote activation before. So far, he’d only started a car once, and even that had taken tremendous effort.
So the director focused his energy, mimicking the young men’s posture, and shot electricity through the air—
A strand of current extended from his fingertips, crackling and sizzling in the air for a moment, then vanished.
The bulb didn’t light up.
Everyone paused for a moment, then burst into laughter.
“Uncle, you just awakened?”
“Uncle, you need to train!”
“Hahahahahaha!”
The director was displeased: “Why are you calling me ‘uncle’? You all look old enough to be working. In the workplace, you don’t downgrade each other’s seniority—colleagues are equals. No matter your age, you call each other ‘bro’ or ‘sis.’”
That was true. They all knew it; they’d just been teasing him. Now they quickly corrected themselves: “Bro, you gotta train.”
“What’s your name, big bro?”
The director: “I’m Yu.”
“Bro Yu, let me tell you—it’s like this…”
None of them held back; they shared everything they knew.
They taught him about fine control, how to use the electric pen to sense different voltages and currents, how to aim and discharge, how to create electrical nets.
Director Yu: “You all look like you’ve just awakened too, but you sure know a lot.”
They chuckled: “We have someone who specializes in studying this.”
It was now September 5th—only eight days since August 29th—and these people were already this professional. Director Yu felt a deep respect for the youth apartments.
As he trained and chatted with the young people, he quickly got a rough picture of the youth apartments’ basic setup.
Two leading figures: a woman named Jiang Cheng, in charge of external affairs; and a man named Song Jingshuo, in charge of internal matters.
Plus a few other core members.
And then…
“A cat?”
“Yeah,” they said. “Our community’s guardian cat.”
“He’s awesome.”
“You’ll see him when you join the combat team.”
It sounded like electric-types absolutely had to join the combat team.
Director Yu cautiously asked about all things related to the combat team.
“Don’t worry, don’t worry,” they reassured him. “You’re a rookie—we’ll let you stay in the back. We’ll be in front.”
These people who were still training had actually been the main zombie-killing force even before they awakened their superpowers. They’d just happened to awaken one after another, so now they had to focus on training their abilities.
After all, superpowers were clearly useful.
“This is evolution.”
They told Director Yu all about Zhao Yi’s theories. Director Yu nodded along: “Makes sense, makes sense.”
He asked again: “What are those people doing?”
The community was laid out with six buildings forming a ring around a central courtyard. The courtyard was actually quite large, but now it felt packed.
In the areas that had clearly been green belts, the original plants had been uprooted. Earth-type superpower users had tilled the soil, and a few people seemed to be fertilizing. Two older women and a young man were each working on separate plots, planting things.
President Xu and a few metal-types were on the other side, sitting on metal chairs and manufacturing things, lined up in what looked like an assembly line.
Looking closely, it really was an assembly line.
President Xu was clearly too slow—a pile of unfinished work had accumulated around him.
Some people were sweeping the yard and hauling trash. They were all very young—clearly residents of this complex. After all, this development was designed to bleed young people dry with micro-apartments too small for marriage, targeting these youngsters.
It seemed there were assigned roles, more likely a rotation system.
No one looked resentful. If it were fixed positions—sweeping and taking out trash day after day—sooner or later their grievances would show on their faces no matter how hard they tried to hide them.
There were also some people working out, jogging in neat rows along the courtyard loop.
The “those people” Director Yu had asked about were the ones exercising.
“Gotta build up your physique—evolution is built on physical foundation.”
“No one knows how much longer the window for superpower awakening will last. Everyone’s training like crazy hoping to awaken.”
“Yeah, I just awakened yesterday.”
The one speaking was the guy whose bulb kept flickering.
His comment drew laughter from the others: “You call that awakening?”
“More like you got scared awake.”
This guy had thought he had no chance of awakening and had been serving as an ordinary team member in the combat team. But yesterday, when Director Guo at the TV station had scared the hell out of everyone, he’d actually awakened.
He put his hands on his hips: “Doesn’t matter how I woke up—I’m awake now! I’ve evolved!”
He casually patted Director Yu’s belly: “Bro Yu, you need to work out too. Zhao Yi and Gao Yuxuan said the body is the foundation. If the foundation’s weak, your superpower will definitely suffer.”
“Exactly, exactly—we’re going running later too.”
“Practice a little more.”
“Bro Yu, join us.”
—
Working on an assembly line for too long, your brain gradually goes blank. Your hands get more skilled, but your mind empties out.
President Xu didn’t know how long his mind had been blank when he suddenly snapped back to attention.
It was because the people around him were all laughing: “Go for it, big bro! Go!”
He turned to follow their gaze and saw…
Old Yu?
Why was Old Yu running with a bunch of young people?
Old Yu looked like he was about to drop dead.
He was clearly on the verge of collapse.
Young people were cheering him on all along the way.
Old Yu refused to admit defeat—his pride wouldn’t let him quit, so he gritted his teeth and pushed through.
Served him right.
President Xu was a gym rat who kept himself in great shape. Otherwise, he never would have been able to suddenly take on the intense work of making armor and weapons yesterday.
He’d been willing to spend the sky-high rent on office space just to set up a gym, dragging his employees there to work out.
Old Yu had always slacked off and refused to train.
Served him right.
“What’s his superpower?”
“Electric, I think.”
“Oh, electric—yeah, he’s gotta train. He’ll need to join the combat team.”
—
The combat team had already left for the day.
Last night, the three phones had been bombarded nonstop. It had only quieted down later at night. By morning, another flood of text messages had come in.
Clearly, some people hadn’t seen the live broadcast yesterday and only learned about it when they turned on the TV this morning to catch the looping replay.
Yang Xinyan’s eyes were red from exhaustion. She handed the organized, printed materials to Jiang Cheng.
They were well-organized—location, number of people, surrounding conditions, contact numbers, sorted by district, arranged by group size, from north to south.
There were too many pages. Jiang Cheng distributed them for everyone to look through.
Li Jiangbing quickly dodged, waving his hands: “Don’t give me any—don’t give me any! Just looking at them makes my eyes hurt!”
He couldn’t handle such dense information.
This was Song Jingshuo’s forte—his eyes scanned through rapidly. He read the most and the fastest.
Everyone exchanged notes: “There’s a group of forty in Guangxiu District.”
“There’s sixty in Chaoqing District.”
“These several office towers are right next to each other—same commercial district.”
Too many people were asking for help. Who to save first? Who to save later?
It was like that classic moral dilemma: at a railway fork, one track kills a young student, the other kills ten elderly people—who do you choose to run over?
At moments like this, it became clear that not everyone could be the one making the call.
Everyone else was just a passenger on the train, choosing to close their eyes and let the driver decide.
Jiang Cheng was the driver.
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