Everyone also looked at Jiang Cheng.
Many people can offer suggestions, but making decisions comes with bearing responsibility and facing the criticism that follows failure. Those who can make decisions always stand out from the crowd.
Zhou Wang also followed everyone’s gaze toward Jiang Cheng.
Jiang Cheng and Song Jingshuo quickly exchanged a glance and understood each other’s meaning.
“Agreed,” Jiang Cheng replied.
Zhou Wang breathed a sigh of relief.
“Our people will assist you,” Jiang Cheng added.
Someone among the injured gritted their teeth and said, “This is our own community’s business!”
If it weren’t for these Youth Apartment people, they would have already gone home. They were the bravest and most enthusiastic residents of their community—the only ones who dared to come downstairs and fight zombies. Why didn’t good people get good rewards?
The young people from Youth Apartment weren’t about to tolerate that and shot back immediately: “If we hadn’t come to help, several of you would already be dead.”
“Drawing territorial lines?” Jiang Cheng said. “Our two communities are separated by a path just a few meters wide, and your community’s main gate is wide open. You go home, bite your wife and kids, turn your whole family into zombies, and you can guarantee they won’t come running into our community?”
“The virus doesn’t care which community you’re from. Zombies bite anyone they see. Sir, if you go home and turn your wife and kids into zombies, and they come to our community, no one here will show them mercy.”
She wasn’t just saying this for the Jixiang Jiayuan people to hear; she was also saying it for the Youth Apartment people. With this level of contagion, there was no such thing as everyone sweeping their own doorstep.
“There aren’t enough of you. Our people will help keep watch, making sure everyone is registered and goes home to isolate.”
“Old Zhou,” Old Huang said. “Let’s do it this way. I’ll call my son down to help with registration.”
He pulled out his phone from his shorts pocket and called his son.
While waiting, the Youth Apartment people confiscated all weapons from the injured.
A half-grown boy came running over with a pen and notebook: “Dad! Dad—!”
By now, Old Huang had completely calmed down. He succinctly explained the situation to his son and said, “Help with the registration.”
Little Huang looked like a middle school student—lean and thin, pale-faced, with tears in his eyes that he was trying hard not to shed.
He had been the one helping Old Huang contact other property owners on the forum the whole time. He had wanted to come downstairs and fight zombies too, but both his parents wouldn’t let him, so only his father had come down.
Why did it turn out like this? Wasn’t his father supposed to come back like a hero?
The tension between the two groups softened because of this father and son. The young people from Youth Apartment also sighed inwardly and no longer felt like arguing with the injured from Jixiang Jiayuan.
They also thought being single was simpler—if you die, you die. So many people had died in Youth Apartment, and they had been cremated directly, with no one complaining.
Here, people had elderly above and young children below, dragging entire families along—it made their eyes sting.
Old Huang didn’t say much. He just patted his son on the shoulder.
Little Huang wiped his eyes, looked around, chose the edge of a flower bed, placed his notebook down, and crouched to start registering.
With Youth Apartment’s help, they organized by building. After registering everyone in a building, the uninjured people from that building took the lead, and a group of Youth Apartment people escorted the injured residents back to their building.
At each home, they not only explained the situation to the family members but also knocked on the doors of the neighbors to call them out and explained everything together.
The family members’ worlds collapsed.
The neighbors were also anxious and uneasy.
The Youth Apartment people said, “Lock them up. You must lock them up. If they turn, notify your community’s person in charge. Check your own property owner forum for contact details. They’ll come to handle it.”
“Don’t ignore this,” the Youth Apartment people warned. “A bite will likely cause infection and mutation. If you don’t isolate properly, your entire family won’t escape it.”
They also told the neighbors, “You need to keep watch. Report any unusual situations promptly.”
“Your doors are next to doors, balconies connected to balconies. If you don’t keep a close watch, an entire floor will be doomed.”
During this process, an unexpected situation occurred.
Not entirely unexpected—it was almost the norm now. Someone on the same floor voluntarily reported that a certain household seemed off.
They went to knock on the door, pressed their ears against it, and sure enough, something was wrong. They heard hissing breathing and hoarse throat sounds.
“Damn,” the Youth Apartment people said, already experienced. “Looks like the whole family turned.”
They first asked roughly how many people lived in the household. Then the young people gathered to strategize, using the method Jiang Cheng had used before—creating noise at the doorknob to lure the zombies into opening the door themselves.
But the zombies inside fumbled for a long time, growling continuously, yet couldn’t get the door open.
The next-door neighbor had been peeking through a crack in their door the whole time and, seeing what they were trying to do, said, “Uh… the door locks in our community… you have to twist this like this to open it…”
He even showed them his own lock.
The lock was different—not the type that opened by pressing down on the handle, but one with a mechanism that needed to be twisted.
The Youth Apartment people said, “…You couldn’t have said that earlier?”
In the end, they had to force the door open.
Inside was a family of four: a young couple, a kindergarten-aged child, and the grandmother who helped take care of the grandchild.
Three of them were second-generation zombies, quick and agile.
Fortunately, the Youth Apartment people were already very experienced. The young people had even figured out formations: those with good protection would act as shields directly in front to attract the zombies, while the main attackers would hit from the flanks. People also had to position themselves on both sides of the door to prevent the situation that had occurred in Youth Apartment—where they defended against the zombies in front but got caught off guard by the ones behind.
In short, the young people had become highly skilled and experienced at fighting zombies. With proper positioning and seamless coordination, they took down the entire family in a very short time.
The people from Jixiang Jiayuan watched in stunned silence.
Among the zombies inside, the father, mother, and grandmother were all second-generation zombies.
The original zombie was the young child.
After finishing, no one felt any sense of accomplishment from eliminating zombies. Everyone was somewhat gloomy and didn’t want to talk.
As they prepared to leave, the neighbor became a bit anxious: “You’re leaving just like that? What about these bodies? You can’t just leave them at my doorstep.”
Everyone rolled their eyes in unison.
“You deal with your own community’s bodies.”
“We came to help, not to be servants.”
Back in the courtyard of Jixiang Jiayuan, Zhou Wang had pulled in two more people, making three main organizers on their side. Together, they listened to the Youth Apartment people share the experience they had accumulated over the past day.
This included isolation, cremation, sweeping through buildings, and more.
The young people from Youth Apartment were one step ahead, and this experience was now very valuable.
Only by doing all of this could a community be thoroughly cleaned and restored to a state where people could freely move around downstairs.
Otherwise, everyone would have to hide at home in fear, trapped and unable to live normally.
The only reason someone had finally taken the lead in Jixiang Jiayuan was that some households had already run out of food.
While Jiang Cheng was explaining the process of sweeping through buildings, one of the middle-aged men casually added, “Don’t forget the underground parking garage.”
Jiang Cheng paused slightly.
That’s right—the underground parking garage! How could she have missed that?
Jiang Cheng quickly glanced at Song Jingshuo, but he didn’t look surprised or as though he had just remembered. He was very calm.
Jiang Cheng concealed her emotions and continued explaining to the Jixiang Jiayuan people what they had done and the lessons they had learned.
Truth be told, Jiang Cheng didn’t think Zhou Wang was very capable.
She had seen too much hesitation in this middle-aged man’s eyes. But the other two were even worse than him. At least Zhou Wang had been willing to step forward earlier.
These middle-aged people were sticky and dragging in everything they did—procrastinating, overthinking, and always slickly trying to avoid responsibility.
But the kind of office politics they were used to would get people killed in this situation.
In comparison, Song Jingshuo, Li Jiangbing, and the rest of the Youth Apartment people gave off a crisp, refreshing sense of decisiveness.
In any case, Jiang Cheng finished explaining everything that needed to be said.
“Be very careful,” she said. “One moment of carelessness, and if you get infected, that’s it.”
The middle-aged men sighed. “Yeah.”
No sooner had the words been spoken than Zhou Wang’s phone rang. It was an unfamiliar number.
Zhou Wang answered. A few seconds later, his expression changed. “Got it. We’ll deal with it right away. Don’t let him out, and you and your family be careful too.”
Zhou Wang folded his phone shut. Everyone looked at him.
His expression was grim. “It’s Little Huang. Old Huang… has turned.”
The other two gasped sharply, shocked. “So fast?”
“Some are fast, some are slow,” Jiang Cheng said, checking the time. “Pretty much. The fastest we saw in our community was about one to two hours after injury. There are also those who haven’t turned even after 24 hours.”
Someone asked hopefully, “Does that mean they might not turn at all? Could they be immune?”
Jiang Cheng said, “There’s no way to know for sure. Rabies can have an incubation period of several years. We’re not doctors.”
Disappointment appeared on the other person’s face. He muttered, “What do we do about this… what do we…”
Jiang Cheng didn’t want to get tangled up with these middle-aged men.
Once the Youth Apartment people returned from the various buildings, they decided it was time to step back and leave.
Zhou Wang clasped his hands together and bowed to everyone in all directions. “We owe you a great deal. On behalf of Jixiang Jiayuan, thank you!”
But the young people remembered what they had seen in the buildings—the elderly wailing as if the sky had fallen, wives whose worlds had collapsed, young children looking lost and bewildered…
The young people from Youth Apartment had come full of passion and vigor, but on the way back, they were unanimously subdued and silent.
In truth, some of them had lost contact with their families yesterday and had already braced themselves for the worst. It was just that from yesterday until now, they had been too busy—first focused on their own survival—to dwell on their families. Their emotions had been carried along by the group.
Now, the thoughts returned. As they walked, some people started dialing their phones.
“What’s going on?” the person making the call murmured.
Someone beside him asked, “What’s wrong?”
The person making the call said, “It was ringing with no answer a moment ago, and now suddenly it’s saying the number is out of service. I just talked to them yesterday.”
Several people simultaneously turned their heads to look at him.
“What’s going on?” he asked, bewildered. He looked just like the confused middle-aged uncles from Jixiang Jiayuan.
The young people from Youth Apartment hadn’t sprung from rocks—they were born to parents, just the same.
Probably everyone had already guessed.
If you remove the battery from a phone without turning it off first, the message will say, “The number you dialed is out of service.”
Zombies are sensitive to sound.
What would happen if a phone kept ringing? Zombies don’t know how to flip open a phone. Would they smash it with one slap, or knock it to the ground and separate the battery?
That would change the status from ringing with no answer to out of service.
Everyone understood.
It seemed only this person—calling his mom and dad—didn’t understand. All the way back to Youth Apartment, he gripped his phone tightly, head bowed, murmuring, “What’s going on…”
Leave a Reply