The room suddenly fell silent, and everyone looked over.
Jiang Cheng took the phone, put it on speaker, and said, “Hello? Who’s this?”
A middle-aged man’s voice came through the phone: “Young lady, what’s your name?”
Jiang Cheng replied, “My name is Jiang Cheng, Mayor Zheng.”
“You know it’s me?”
“Yes,” Jiang Cheng said. “We hear your voice every day.”
Every day on the news broadcasts, you could hear his voice and see his face.
With the severe shortage of staff right now, they weren’t bothering with a dedicated spokesperson—Mayor Zheng himself appeared on camera every day.
Mayor Zheng seemed to let out a very soft laugh.
He said, “The issue you reported has been resolved.”
Jiang Cheng: “Thank you.”
Mayor Zheng praised her: “Your feedback was very timely—it was exactly what we overlooked. I’ve also seen some of the situation in your community. You young people have done very well.”
Jiang Cheng didn’t accept the praise. She said, “We’re just doing our best to help everyone survive. As you know, it’s very difficult right now.”
Mayor Zheng was silent for a moment.
He certainly wouldn’t call an ordinary citizen for no reason. That was precisely why Jiang Cheng didn’t accept his praise—she was wary of anything unusual.
“Xiao Jiang,” Mayor Zheng said, stating his request, “I hope that you and your community can take the lead in helping other neighborhoods. I hope that you young people can take the lead in sharing the government-distributed supplies with the surrounding communities.”
“Of course, this is not a demand or an order—it is a plea.”
“Xiao Jiang, is that possible?”
Song Jingshuo’s place was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
Everyone’s eyes converged on Jiang Cheng’s face.
These men actually talked about Jiang Cheng privately from time to time. Although they all respected and admired her, they would also say things like, “Don’t you think Jiang Cheng is a little too calm?”
Her emotional stability was a point of complaint among the men.
Because when a woman excels particularly in some ability, or when a certain strength of hers stands out too conspicuously, it often makes some men uncomfortable.
But when even Jiang Cheng showed signs of “looking grim,” they forgot all those complaints and really, really didn’t want to see that.
Jiang Cheng’s expression didn’t actually change much, but her face did become grim. A person’s aura is something intangible, yet visible.
“I’m sorry, we can’t do that,” Jiang Cheng replied decisively. “And when you make such a request, we’re even less able to do it.”
Mayor Zheng was silent for a moment, then sighed.
Jiang Cheng could hear his exhaustion. This middle-aged man appeared on the news broadcasts every day, and in just a few days, he had visibly aged at a frightening speed.
Although she couldn’t accept his request, Jiang Cheng respected such a person, and she was willing to explain a bit more: “Mayor Zheng, if you’re not in that position, it’s hard to plan for that role. You are responsible for the entire city, but we are only responsible for the people in our community. If we couldn’t deliver, the people in our community wouldn’t tolerate us.”
“We are only able to function because the people in the community support us.”
“We don’t have the power to force others to obey.”
Everything she said, Mayor Zheng could fully understand.
He had only called with a faint hope, unwilling to give up trying.
Now that hope was gone. Everyone had to make sure they survived first. These people were just ordinary citizens—neither police, nor soldiers, nor public servants of any kind.
For the latter, sacrificing and giving for the public good is considered part of the job.
But for ordinary citizens, you can’t demand that they be selfless or great.
Jiang Cheng did not have the power to force the community residents to obey, nor did Mayor Zheng have the power to force citizens to be saints.
Mayor Zheng gave a wry smile, because he hadn’t held out much hope in the first place, so there wasn’t much disappointment.
He said kindly, “I know. I understand.”
“Then let’s each do our best in our respective posts.”
After that phone call ended, everyone had mixed feelings.
Some were relieved that Jiang Cheng had withstood the pressure from the mayor.
Some felt a slight regret, thinking they had missed an opportunity to establish a connection with the mayor.
After all, that was the mayor. Sure, he was someone you saw on the news every day, but in reality, ordinary people like them might never see him in person in their entire lives.
Jiang Cheng’s expression was grim, and even Song Jingshuo’s expression had turned grim as well.
Li Jiangbing asked cautiously, “What’s wrong?”
He was thinking: they had refused the mayor’s request—were they afraid of retaliation later on?
Jiang Cheng’s voice was a little hard: “The situation outside might be worse than we thought.”
Song Jingshuo nodded: “It’s very serious.”
Everyone looked at the two of them.
Jiang Cheng said, “Order has probably deteriorated. We’re shut inside the community, so we can’t feel it.”
She asked, “How does the government monitor us? Through street cameras?”
Song Jingshuo replied, “Probably.”
“And inside the community?”
“Those are independent—they use videotapes.”
Jiang Cheng sighed: “That’s even worse.”
She voiced her speculation: “There have probably already been large-scale… well, conflicts or something. If the authorities are only seeing street views, that means it’s no longer limited to internal community disputes—it may have escalated to conflicts between communities.”
“Most likely, people were starving desperately, and then supplies were suddenly distributed. Some had them, some didn’t. Some communities grabbed more, some got none.”
“When people are starving enough, they’ll dare to do anything.”
Jiang Cheng’s guess was completely correct.
Everyone had been equally hungry, and then the government distributed supplies. But they were only distributed along the city’s main ring road.
To break through all the zombies on the road and reach the main ring road, you needed a vehicle.
At that point, the wealth gap between communities became starkly apparent.
The urban layout in domestic cities is very different from that of other countries.
In some foreign countries, the poor and the rich are physically segregated. The poor live in slums—dirty, chaotic, with dilapidated public facilities. The wealthy live in beautiful residential areas with good public security and complete facilities.
More importantly, the poor simply cannot reach the areas where the wealthy live.
The guiding philosophy domestically absolutely does not allow this situation.
All areas are broken up and mixed together.
For example, there might be a wetland park next to a high-end commercial housing development, like villas. The residents are well-off and enjoy the beautiful environment the park provides—they might even want to monopolize it.
Dream on!
Right next to it, they’ll arrange a resettlement housing community for working-class families.
The middle-class and wealthy can go downstairs and take a stroll in the wetland park to enjoy themselves.
Us ordinary folks can too.
If you have money, you can go to commercial venues for high-end consumption—you can indulge in extravagance and debauchery if you want.
But all public spaces and facilities provided by the state are equally accessible to everyone, rich or poor.
Such an arrangement made society more harmonious and equitable as a whole.
But after the zombie virus outbreak, problems arose—due to limited manpower, the government could only distribute supplies along the ring road. Wealthy community residents drove their cars, plowing through zombies on the streets, breaking through block after block, to snatch up the supplies.
But many families in the resettlement communities didn’t have private cars! They couldn’t get there!
When one person is hungry and sees a group of people with food, they usually don’t dare to act.
But when a group of hungry people sees another group with food, they become enraged. Especially when they are in the majority.
A person’s primary need is the need to survive! Hungry people banding together are a terrifying force.
On Sunday and Monday, like ancient villages engaging in large-scale bloody brawls over water sources, bloody conflicts broke out between communities.
Some people had tenaciously survived a week without dying under the zombies’ teeth, only to die under the clubs and kitchen knives of residents from the neighboring community.
In just those two days, it wasn’t just one or two incidents.
The relief supplies dropped by the government were like cold water splashed into a hot oil pan—an explosion.
From the surveillance footage, Mayor Zheng watched law-abiding citizens with bloodshot eyes viciously hacking at people with kitchen knives. He felt pain in every cell of his body.
The agony spread throughout him.
He truly wished that there could be even one community—just one—that would take the lead in helping others, setting an example for the entire city.
Sometimes such benchmarks are really useful. Humans live in groups and will always need spiritual guidance.
But that goes against human nature.
Because people can only help others when they have spare capacity. When people themselves are on the verge of death, asking them to be saints just doesn’t work.
Jiang Cheng’s refusal was perfectly reasonable and not surprising at all.
The fact that she, a young woman, and her partners could hold together a community of over two thousand people without it descending into chaos was already remarkable. And they were all so young.
You couldn’t ask any more of them.
Mayor Zheng looked at the chaos on the screen and closed his eyes helplessly.
“It’s already gotten this bad?”
After listening to Jiang Cheng’s analysis, everyone sighed with emotion. Someone asked, “Why hasn’t anyone come to rob our community?”
Li Jiangbing let out a “holy shit” and waved his massive fist: “Do they think I’m dead?”
If Jiang Cheng was the lord, then Li Jiangbing was without a doubt the general.
Compared to all the miscellaneous internal affairs of the community, leaving the safety zone for field missions was clearly far more dangerous. By now, it had almost become the default that Li Jiangbing led any external missions.
The more external missions he went on, the more fixed his team became—all familiar faces.
Whenever Li Jiangbing called out, he could rally a team in no time.
Of course, the residents didn’t go on these external missions for nothing.
Although each trip was official business with specific items to acquire, everyone would pocket a little something for themselves here and there.
That had also become an unspoken rule.
When humans live in groups, they quickly adapt and establish new rules according to changes in environment and circumstances.
Youth Apartments was full of young, able-bodied fighters, unusually united, organized, disciplined, advancing and retreating together like a solid block of iron.
Who would be foolish enough to try to rob Youth Apartments?
As they were talking, everyone’s phones suddenly buzzed with text messages.
A [Disaster Communications Support Notice] from S City Telecom Service Provider:
[Dear Residents:
In response to the current major disaster and to ensure emergency communication, our company hereby activates the communications support contingency plan. All mobile phones (including those in overdue/disconnected status) have been automatically restored for calls and text messaging, with unlimited use at no charge.
Stay safe, and together we will get through this.
—S City Telecom Emergency Command Center]
Inside the community, everyone picked up their phones and read the message that had just come in.
Many people exchanged glances: “Is this a coincidence?”
Just last night, the temporary committee had asked everyone to register this issue, and this morning, out of nowhere, the whole city’s communications were guaranteed?
Does our temporary committee really have that kind of pull?
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