Blocked by Jiang Cheng, one old woman grew frantic: “How can you be like this, young lady? We’re old people. We have all kinds of illnesses. We need our medication.”
“I know. We’re leaving some for you. But we go first,” Jiang Cheng said.
The old woman scolded, “You young girl—how can you be so selfish?”
She tried to push her way in.
She was somewhat afraid of those burly young men, but Jiang Cheng was just a young woman. And a pretty one at that—pretty girls had thin skins, and the prettier they were, the more they feared losing face.
Middle-aged and elderly women feared nothing more than young girls.
The old woman didn’t dare squeeze past the men. She assumed the young woman would be the weakest link of the three, pressing her chest against Jiang Cheng’s axe as she tried to climb the steps.
But Jiang Cheng was nothing like the young women she’d dealt with before.
She thrust her axe forward sharply, sending the old woman stumbling backward. If the old man behind her hadn’t caught her in time, she might have landed flat on her backside and shattered her tailbone.
“You—” The old woman stared in disbelief.
More and more people were noticing the pharmacy now, craning their necks and looking eager to make a move. Jiang Cheng didn’t bother arguing further. She just called out, “Jiangbing.”
Li Jiangbing stood on the steps, axe in hand, brows furrowed in a fierce glare.
He was the most effective deterrent. Standing there—bulky, muscles bulging, like a guardian god at the gate—no one dared step forward.
Jiang Cheng called out again: “Su Yu! Peng Ze! Come help.”
Su Yu lived in the same building as her. Peng Ze was someone who, over the past couple of days, had come to trust her words completely.
He was the same one who’d rolled his eyes at the complainer earlier.
When he heard Jiang Cheng call for help, Su Yu immediately headed over. Peng Ze, however, shot another glance at the guy who’d muttered “What makes them the ones giving orders?”
By what right?
Now you know.
Li Jiangbing stood guard at the entrance, and no one dared approach.
The others quietly pulled out weapons from their shopping carts or belts, gripping them in their hands.
A few people also gathered the shopping carts of those who’d gone in for medicine, pulling them closer together. The group spread out in a loose circle, weapons in hand, guarding the carts.
Because there were indeed people whose eyes kept drifting toward their supplies.
They were the rear guard, bringing up the very end of the main group.
But the Jixiang Jiayuan residents lagging behind were mostly the elderly, the infirm, and the slow-moving—the ones who hadn’t managed to grab the scarce essentials they needed. Their eyes lingered on Jiang Cheng’s group’s carts with clear intent.
Once everyone pulled out their weapons and formed a protective ring, those gazes finally shifted away.
Su Yu stepped inside the pharmacy. It was a small community convenience pharmacy, not very large. Jiang Cheng and the others had already cleared the shelves of the medicines they needed and kicked open the storage room door, hauling supplies straight from the back.
“Use plastic bags,” Su Yu said, pulling out a big stack from under the checkout counter.
Jiang Cheng quickly explained to Su Yu and Peng Ze which medicines to prioritize.
Su Yu happened to be standing in front of the heart medication shelf and asked casually, “What about heart disease meds?”
“No heart meds,” Jiang Cheng replied.
“At a time like this, heart disease…” She said flatly, “What’s even the point anymore?”
The pharmacy went still for a moment.
Song Jingshuo’s hands paused as he was bagging medicine. He turned to look at Jiang Cheng.
Heart disease meant you couldn’t run, couldn’t jump—couldn’t even take a fright.
Fortunately, the youth apartment complex was mostly young people, so the likelihood of heart conditions was low.
Song Jingshuo thought he was already pretty socially Darwinian. But Jiang Cheng… Jiang Cheng seemed even more ruthless than that.
Su Yu murmured a quiet “oh” and went back to bagging.
Song Jingshuo turned back to his task as well.
They filled plastic bags with medicine, carried them out, and tied the bags to the rails of their shopping carts.
People needed so many supplies, yet their carrying capacity was so limited. If the situation deteriorated further, that would be a fatal flaw.
Jiang Cheng thought about this as she tied plastic bags to her cart’s railings.
[If only I had a storage space.]
When that thought flashed through her mind again, Jiang Cheng’s pupils dilated.
This time, she caught a glimpse of information flickering through her consciousness—
[Storage Space]?
And this time, she distinctly felt a strange sensation, as if an extremely faint electric current had raced through her body and brain.
She’d experienced this feeling a week ago—on that Saturday afternoon, when she’d suddenly become aware that she was a transmigrator. It was the same sensation, just much lighter this time.
A week ago, she’d awakened to the realization that she wasn’t originally from this world, wasn’t really “Jiang Cheng.” But as for “who am I” or “where I came from”—not a single shred of information came through.
As if her memories had been locked away.
Now, it was like a sliver of information had leaked through the cracks.
What was a “storage space”? Jiang Cheng felt like she knew, yet couldn’t articulate it.
The Jixiang Jiayuan people watched helplessly as every cart became festooned with plastic bags hanging from the rails.
“Leave some for us,” a few elderly folks pleaded, their voices cracking.
Jiang Cheng stood up and surveyed their carts. Each one was stuffed and hung with a considerable amount of medicine.
“That’s enough,” Jiang Cheng said. “Let’s go.”
Everyone put their weapons away again, grabbed their shopping carts, and headed toward the complex’s main gate.
Li Jiangbing also tucked his axe into his belt, stepped down from the steps, and pushed his cart forward.
The old folks surged into the pharmacy in a flood.
Jiang Cheng and her group had barely taken a few steps when the sounds of arguing and shouting erupted from the pharmacy behind them.
In the old days, if there was a commotion, everyone would have stopped to watch. Now, no one cared. They walked on steadily, heading straight back to their own complex.
They were the rear guard. Once they were through the gate, the security guard locked it behind them.
A wave of relief washed over them—a sense of safety.
The guard looked to be in good spirits too. He asked, “Heard none of you paid, is that right?”
Old Luo and the others had also gone to Duodu Supermarket. This time, since Jiang Cheng and Song Jingshuo weren’t footing the bill, they’d been bolder and taken whatever they could. They’d brought back way more than last time. And this haul wasn’t for themselves personally—it was for the entire property management staff.
“That’s right,” someone said. “No choice. We’ll figure it out later.”
The guard didn’t have the same high-minded principles as these college-educated folks. He thought to himself, These university types are still thinking about paying it back later—book-smart but clueless.
Still, more supplies meant more peace of mind for the guard.
Good thing he was working security at this youth apartment complex. The guard he knew across the way at Jixiang Jiayuan had apparently already died.
Sigh.
The courtyard of the complex still reeked of burning corpses.
But there was hardly anyone around—everyone had just returned from the supply run and gone home to put their things away.
The group stopped. “Jiang Cheng, what about these medicines…”
In theory, since they’d collected them as the temporary committee, the supplies were for the entire community.
Jiang Cheng said, “If we centralized them, the burden of guarding them would be too heavy. It’d also be asking for trouble. Let’s keep them distributed—everyone takes their share home. We’ll coordinate when someone needs something.”
People were bound to be selfish. Especially in such extraordinary times—the more supplies you had in hand, the better.
Medicine was a unique and vital resource.
Everyone had actually been wondering the whole way back how Jiang Cheng would handle it—whether she’d make everyone hand over their haul once they got to the complex.
But Jiang Cheng was Jiang Cheng. She’d given them the outcome everyone wanted most.
Even Su Yu, who considered herself a good, upright, kind person, felt that having the medicines spread out among their group, collectively managed, was the better arrangement.
She’d made the right call by following the temporary committee’s lead from the start. And she was especially grateful that Jiang Cheng had pulled her into the committee at noon—that was how she got to share in this bounty.
She knew she had to stick close to the core of the collective.
She’d always had stomach issues—when the pain hit, she needed her meds.
If she didn’t have direct access to the medicine supply and had to beg someone else for it when she needed it, what if they imposed conditions?
Best-case scenario, the person might not be that rotten. But what if they groped her while handing over the pills, or made some crude remark? What would she do then?
Would she snap back? Would she take the meds or refuse them?
Su Yu had been out in the working world for a few years now. Once a girl leaves campus and navigates society on her own, she stops being naive. In just these few years, she’d encountered plenty of nasty things—both blatant and subtle.
From the very beginning, Jiang Cheng had tossed a handful of meds to each person, one by one. That worked perfectly—it distributed all types of medicine evenly, so the committee’s “inner circle” wouldn’t have conflicts over unequal shares.
“Everyone’s got roughly the same amount. Each building has about the same too,” Jiang Cheng instructed. “Each building manages its own residents. If someone in your building needs something, try to help. If we can’t offer any help at all, then what’s the point of having a temporary committee?”
Everyone nodded. “Right.”
But she added, “Don’t go playing Santa Claus and handing them out everywhere. These meds might look like a lot, but think about how many households are in each building, and how many people are in the whole complex. Be tight-fisted with them.”
Everyone understood. “Got it.”
After agreeing to clear out the garage later, the group split into six teams, each heading to one of the six buildings.
At Building 2, several people waited together for the elevator. Each was pushing a shopping cart—at most, two people could squeeze into one elevator car.
Someone stepped in first and called for Su Yu, but she said, “I’ll go with Jiang Cheng.”
Everyone could tell Su Yu had something to say to her. Li Jiangbing went up ahead: “See you tonight, then.”
Once it was just Jiang Cheng and Su Yu in the elevator lobby, Jiang Cheng turned to look at her. “What’s up?”
Su Yu pressed her lips together.
Jiang Cheng said, “Go ahead.”
“I feel really uneasy,” Su Yu confessed. “Jiang Cheng, I’ve been thinking the whole way back—maybe we shouldn’t have broken into Duodu Supermarket.”
Jiang Cheng understood.
She’d sensed it on the road earlier too—Song Jingshuo had been wanting to talk to her about the same thing. He’d glanced at her several times, hesitating, but never found the right moment to start the conversation.
Because the “shouldn’t have” was something Jiang Cheng had done with her own hands. You couldn’t openly challenge a decision Jiang Cheng had made in front of everyone—it had to be discussed privately.
Jiang Cheng had a strange feeling.
Su Yu, Song Jingshuo—they were clearly still restrained by this world’s laws and morals. Of course, those weren’t ironclad rules; given more time, they’d probably break through on their own. Or, as with today, with her taking the lead, they followed.
But that restraint definitely existed—and they needed to break past it.
She, however, felt none of it.
No matter which world she’d transmigrated from, as long as human civilization and society existed, no society could function without morality and law.
Yet that thing couldn’t restrain her for even a second.
Why was that?
Leave a Reply