But Jiang Cheng’s choice surprised Song Jingshuo.
In the nearest district, Guangxiu, Jiang Cheng chose a group that had a relatively large number of people but fewer superpower users—one that was on the verge of collapse.
Song Jingshuo looked up—
This didn’t align with his choice.
His and Jiang Cheng’s thinking were usually very close, so this actually didn’t align with Jiang Cheng’s choice either.
Many groups had clearly stated that they’d already taken control of an entire building or at least several floors, and listed how many superpower users they had.
If it were up to him, he’d prioritize those—bringing them in would add combat strength and capable allies.
Prioritizing the strong was his logic—and it should have been Jiang Cheng’s too.
Why was she going the opposite way?
He didn’t know that if she were considering only the act of rescuing people, Jiang Cheng would indeed have made the same choice as him.
But Jiang Cheng couldn’t consider only the act of rescuing people.
Jiang Cheng had thought very seriously about the relationship between herself and this world.
And about the mysterious force behind the scenes, manipulating and toying with everything.
Jiang Cheng clearly understood that she was, in fact, being manipulated and controlled.
This world was her trial ground—and also her cage.
She was essentially a prisoner.
Whatever had happened between her and that force before, clearly she had lost.
That meant her old methods and thought processes wouldn’t work.
She had to change.
Jiang Cheng’s underlying logic was the same as Song Jingshuo’s—
Rally the strong. Eliminate the weak.
The two of them had both originally been that kind of person.
But if operating on that logic had already led to failure last time, then this time Jiang Cheng had to take a different path.
Jiang Cheng wasn’t considering the act of “rescuing people” in isolation—she was playing a game against the force behind this whole catastrophe.
Everyone had different reactions. Some were visibly relieved or even moved.
Others had no opinion at all.
Some seemed to have differing views but lacked the drive or will to push back.
Since they’d acknowledged they weren’t capable of being the driver and had dumped all the hard decisions on the driver, they might as well follow the driver’s lead.
Song Jingshuo didn’t object either.
It wasn’t some life-or-death decision where it was either him or her. Maybe it wouldn’t maximize the benefits he wanted—but so what?
Look—plenty of people actually supported Jiang Cheng’s choice.
A considerable number genuinely believed they should save the weaker ones first. The strong could hold out longer; the weak might die if they weren’t rescued in time.
The logic behind this choice was actually the same as emergency room triage.
Save the ones closest to death first.
Once the decision was made, the combat team set out.
This time, they not only brought four 535s but also two of the TV station’s buses.
Guangxiu District was the closest district to the tech district. Xiao Huang’s school, No. 14 High School, was in this district.
The blade-equipped vehicles sliced through roadside zombies like cutting vegetables.
Everyone remarked: “At this rate, we’ll have cleared the entire route in and out of the city before long.”
“Humans really do need to use tools effectively after all.”
The target building had a dental clinic on the first floor. Seeing people outside, zombies inside the glass doors started ramming against them.
Gao Yuxuan began shaking out his wrists and rotating his ankles.
The zombies smashed through the glass doors after a few hits and swarmed out.
Gao Yuxuan spread his hands wide, looking like a pervert about to grab someone’s chest, as crackling arcs of electricity shot out.
The zombies instantly slowed down.
Li Jiangbing led the charge—one shovel, one head.
Guo Jun walked with his hands behind his back like an old man: “Let’s go, let’s go—into the building.”
With a twenty- or thirty-story commercial tower like this, you couldn’t lure all the zombies out. You had to go in and clear them floor by floor.
According to the intel, two floors in this building had sent distress messages. They’d survived on snacks hoarded in their offices—a habit formed after the first disaster—but they were running out and couldn’t hold on much longer.
The combat team cleared floor by floor, moving with practiced ease. Xiao Huang and Moli showed no signs of anything unusual—there were no mutant zombies in the building.
Not every company or every floor had access to TV. In addition to the two floors that had sent distress signals, they also found several other survivors on other floors—people who were so gaunt from hunger their cheeks had caved in.
There were over sixty survivors in total.
They were all reeking and listless.
Each person was given a piece of steamed potato—cut from a potato the size of a basketball, into neat square chunks, sprinkled with salt.
Not particularly tasty, but far better than having nothing to eat.
No one complained. They all wolfed it down.
A trip into the city couldn’t just be for one building.
They flipped through the distress message records—there were two more buildings in this commercial district. They went and cleared those too.
There were also survivors in nearby buildings who hadn’t seen the TV broadcast but had spotted the combat team from their windows. They shouted and waved for help.
By the end of it, they’d rescued over two hundred people from several buildings in the area.
Jiang Cheng also raided convenience stores, restaurant kitchens, and premium supermarkets in the commercial district. She took everything—food, drinks, ingredients, toilet paper, sanitary pads, and other consumables. She swept through, and the shelves emptied behind her.
Everyone genuinely felt that Jiang Cheng’s spatial superpower was incredibly practical.
If only everyone could have one.
There was also a shopping mall nearby.
The mall wasn’t originally on the plan, but they went anyway—because they wanted the stuff inside.
They found over a dozen survivors scattered throughout the mall.
After all the zombies were cleared out, everyone started grabbing things. Coming to the mall was all about grabbing things.
Even the two hundred-plus survivors from the office buildings—Jiang Cheng told them: “Take whatever you need. Especially clothes. At least one fall/winter outerwear per person. Better to grab a few extra.”
The mall layout was very standard.
B1 was a supermarket and food court. The first floor had shoes, bags, skincare, cosmetics, watches, and jewelry. The second floor was young women’s fashion. The third floor was mature women’s fashion. The fourth floor had lingerie, sportswear, menswear, and outdoor gear. The fifth floor had bedding, children’s clothing, and electronics.
Jiang Cheng went straight to the third floor.
Many of the combat team members and survivors—mostly women—were on the third floor, looking for clothes. Following Jiang Cheng’s reminder, everyone made a point of grabbing winter coats and down jackets.
Jiang Cheng went straight into the stockrooms of various brands and loaded bundled winter outerwear into her spatial storage.
Then she went to the fourth floor to grab men’s fall/winter outerwear.
Then to the fifth floor to collect bedding and children’s clothes.
She kept going until her storage space was completely full—stuffed to the brim, with no room for anything else.
She called Li Jiangbing to bring people up and move whatever fall/winter clothes, coats, and bedding they could carry.
They had six vehicles today—enough space.
Everyone was busy and having a great time. There was a strange satisfaction in taking whatever you wanted without paying.
Jiang Cheng leaned against the railing of the central corridor, looking down through the open atrium.
Every floor had people, grabbing all sorts of things.
On the first floor, many were changing shoes. Zombie-killing really wore out footwear—many people’s shoes were too dirty to even clean. Some had been wearing daily shoes that weren’t suitable for all that walking.
The vast majority switched to sneakers.
Others grabbed bags—cross-body backpacks and sling bags were the most popular, for carrying snacks and water on the go.
Clothes were the most popular—thin, thick, underwear, outerwear—people grabbed everything.
Those were the mainstream choices. But there were some non-mainstream ones too.
Someone grabbed a laptop from the electronics section on the fifth floor. When asked, they said their own computer wasn’t great—they wanted a good one to play games back home.
Someone else grabbed a digital camera and a whole box of memory cards.
“I’ll carry it with me from now on and take lots of photos. Maybe future history books will have pictures I took.”
Li Jiangbing had changed into a new pair of outdoor shoes, clomping over to find Jiang Cheng: “Everything’s loaded onto the vehicles. What are you looking at?”
Seeing Jiang Cheng staring intently downstairs, he leaned over to look too.
On the first floor, two people were rifling through the counters of a jewelry store, stuffing gold necklaces and bracelets into their pockets.
Li Jiangbing: “…”
“Are they out of their minds?” Li Jiangbing cursed. “Two idiots.”
Jiang Cheng curled her lips: “How interesting.”
The gap between people could be this vast.
Li Jiangbing muttered: “Even with my low education, I know that from now on, only food and drink will be worth anything. Could a big gold bracelet buy you a single steamed bun?”
—
The vehicles were packed full on the return trip.
By the time they got back to the youth apartments, it was already dark.
The cafeteria had prepared meals based on the headcount they’d been notified of. This time, no one had to eat sitting on the floor—rows of long tables had been set up, each with stools, so everyone had a seat.
President Xu and Director Yu had already eaten earlier with the community residents, but they didn’t head back. Instead, they found a spot to hole up, chatting and observing.
Director Yu sighed: “No one’s recruiting us to move in.”
President Xu tried to comfort him: “Maybe the person in charge isn’t here. Let’s wait until they’re done with their work and see.”
Director Yu knew it was just empty comfort. That handsome guy surnamed Song was clearly in charge—while the combat team was out, everyone in the community took orders from him. When issues came up, people went to him.
Of course, Song knew there were two new superpower users—he’d said “I’ll have someone pick them up at the east gate” over the walkie-talkie that morning.
But Song hadn’t come over in tears, begging them to move into the youth apartments for better treatment.
Like Master Luo had.
Master Luo had been taken away first thing this morning and relocated directly.
The two men ate strawberries in silence, neither willing to admit that the real reason was that their superpowers were too weak to be worth recruiting.
In truth, they’d both improved a lot after training all day. Especially President Xu—he was in far better physical condition than Director Yu to begin with. He’d just been at a disadvantage because he’d barely had any practice over the past few days.
President Xu suddenly elbowed Director Yu: “That’s Jiang Cheng.”
Director Yu looked over. Yes, no doubt about it. They’d both seen her on TV—that young girl talking to Song was definitely Jiang Cheng.
“The big guy next to her should be Li Jiangbing.”
“Those two over there—that should be Zhao Yi and Gao Yuxuan. Matches the descriptions.”
“And the two talking to them—that’s the shield user and the healer? Can’t tell which is which.”
“Easy—the shield user’s on the left, the healer’s on the right.”
“…How can you tell?”
“Didn’t they say the healer has a temper? Look—the girl on the right has smacked that guy twice in three sentences. Okay—the one getting hit is definitely Gao Yuxuan, so the calmer one next to him is Zhao Yi. Now we can tell them apart too.”
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