There had been rumors circulating in the neighborhood that Jiang Cheng and Song Jingshuo were already a couple.
With such a large group of young people cooped up in the neighborhood for half a month, a few couples had indeed formed—some had even moved in together already.
Many people were curious about Jiang Cheng and Song Jingshuo. Some had even come asking Li Jiangbing about it.
Because Li Jiangbing should know the situation between those two best—the three of them were often together.
When Jiang Cheng had something to discuss, she’d usually communicate with the two of them first, then convene the seven-person meeting.
This was no secret.
A young woman had taken the leadership position during this critical period—there were certainly people who wanted to push her out. They just didn’t have the ability to win over the others.
Because it wasn’t only Jiang Cheng who inspired trust—Li Jiangbing and Song Jingshuo, though completely different in style, each had their own popularity.
Jiang Cheng’s position on the interim committee was rock solid.
After she publicly called Mayor Zheng and advocated for mobilizing the masses into a people’s war, no one in the Youth Apartments could overthrow her.
As for her personal life… Li Jiangbing, who’d been asked about it privately by many people, actually knew very well that Jiang Cheng and Song Jingshuo were not a couple.
Li Jiangbing even believed that in Jiang Cheng’s heart, his own standing was a bit higher than Song Jingshuo’s. Jiang Cheng highly valued him.
But at the same time, Li Jiangbing was also well aware that Song Jingshuo definitely had some feelings.
Although Li Jiangbing was also on good terms with Song Jingshuo, he was an ordinary person at heart and rather enjoyed watching the drama.
Unfortunately, Song Jingshuo disappointed him.
Song Jingshuo showed no signs of anything unusual. He just walked over and calmly spoke with the two of them as usual.
Li Jiangbing was so frustrated he scratched his head.
But Song Jingshuo did share a certain quality with Jiang Cheng—even in the face of a potential romantic rival, he could speak with composure. That very attitude was very much like Jiang Cheng.
From that perspective, the two actually had a certain couple-like vibe.
Li Jiangbing suddenly realized—this might be exactly why Jiang Cheng also valued Song Jingshuo.
Li Jiangbing had a good sense of self-awareness. He knew he didn’t have much education and lacked sound judgment on major issues. But he had street smarts—his cleverness lay in sticking close to people with good brains.
In the interim committee, he felt the two sharpest minds were Jiang Cheng and Song Jingshuo. Fortunately, the two of them didn’t clash, so he didn’t have to pick sides.
The iron triangle was the best arrangement.
Monday marked the start of July. The New Tech District had taken on a completely new look.
First of all, on July 1st, Renxin Hospital reopened.
There were seventeen doctors and five nurses. These twenty-two people managed to get the hospital up and running.
At the same time, the 535 bus route began operating.
The station master of the 535 bus lived in Deqingli.
Because Mayor Zheng had called on TV for people in the green zones to restore basic services as much as possible, the station master had come to see Li Feng yesterday to identify himself.
Li Feng immediately referred him to Jiang Cheng and the others.
Deqingli wasn’t just home to a bus station master—several drivers lived there too.
Jiang Cheng’s eyes lit up.
“We need a route like this right now,” she had told the station master yesterday. “One that covers all the neighborhoods, takes people to Buy Duo Duo and brings them back. And starting tomorrow, when Renxin Hospital opens, it needs to cover that too. Preferably with multiple trips.”
Specialization mattered. The requirements she laid out were exactly the kind of work he’d made a living doing.
Besides, fewer people in Deqingli had cars, and it was farther from Buy Duo Duo—unlike Jixiang Jiayuan and the Youth Apartments, which were only a ten-minute walk away. Their people had to walk a bit longer to collect supplies.
The need for transportation was even greater there.
The station master drew a circle on the map, connecting all the areas she’d mentioned. He planned out an internal loop line for the residential section of the New Tech District.
It was exactly what Jiang Cheng wanted.
But when the station master tried to get her to return the four 535 buses, she refused.
Jiang Cheng: “We’ll return them once all the zombies have been cleared out.”
The station master wasn’t an unreasonable person—he’d only brought it up out of professional obligation. He nodded and agreed.
Although Deqingli hadn’t yet entered into deep cooperation with Jiang Cheng, they already knew that the largest civilian force in the New Tech District was led by this young girl from the Youth Apartments.
Jixiang Jiayuan and Yujing Xiangyuan were already taking orders from her.
So, on July 1st, Renxin Hospital opened its doors, and the 535 loop line within the New Tech District also began operating.
Ten trips a day.
And because the route was really short, each bus was required to make two full loops after leaving the station before returning.
So in effect, it could be seen as twenty trips.
Every neighborhood had notified their residents.
As soon as the loop line started running today, people immediately took the bus to Renxin Hospital. Many also drove there themselves.
Renxin Hospital was a sizable facility—eight stories, each with a large floor area. Various departments were spread across the different levels.
But with only a few doctors, there was no point in making people trek all over. They simply set up tables in the outpatient lobby. They also brought down rows of seats from the corridors, arranging long lines of chairs in front of each table.
Volunteers handled registration on-site, and people queued up by number.
In front of each line were plastic chairs. Only after all the chairs were filled did people stand behind them in line.
When the person at the front finished and left, the next person moved up. Those behind just had to shift their butts forward one chair at a time.
The presence of these chairs also effectively prevented line-cutting—you couldn’t exactly sit in someone’s lap and claim you were sitting there.
The doctors tried to avoid ordering tests as much as possible. Tests were basically impossible to run right now—there was no one to operate the equipment.
They could only do blood draws, and even those were kept to a minimum, because with so many people coming in, there was only one lab technician. Ordering too many tests would run him ragged.
This meant the doctors had to rely purely on clinical experience for diagnosis—raising the difficulty level by more than a notch.
There were no pharmacists, so the intern doctor from the Youth Apartments was temporarily assigned to the pharmacy.
Everything was rudimentary, but people’s hearts were more at ease than ever.
Because everything was moving in a positive direction.
On the official map released last night, the green zones were growing more numerous. Several places in S City were like the New Tech District—having essentially restored basic functioning within a certain range.
On July 2nd, something that thrilled Zhao Yi happened: garbage trucks arrived!
Finally, they were no longer using supply trucks to haul corpses! And with the bodies mostly cleared away, the garbage trucks started picking up trash too.
Before the pandemic, no one had realized how important waste disposal was. Now everyone knew.
The Youth Apartments organized volunteers to haul the two weeks’ worth of trash from the swimming pool into the garbage trucks.
The sanitation workers spotted neatly stacked piles of cardboard boxes.
“You’ve collected this many,” they marveled, and moved to haul them away.
But several of the Youth Apartments’ cleaners rushed over with arms spread wide to block them: “These aren’t trash—these are ours!”
Things were getting better now. Even the cleaning aunties knew it was only a matter of time before normal social order returned. By then, all those cardboard boxes would be worth a nice chunk of money! They couldn’t let someone else take them.
The sanitation workers gave a dry laugh and moved on.
For the first time, the supplies that came in included vegetables—though only potatoes and eggplants, not a single leafy green. But to people who hadn’t eaten any vegetables in half a month, they were delicacies.
For the first time at Buy Duo Duo, order nearly broke down.
It happened because things had been going relatively smoothly with supply distribution over the past few days, and everyone had let their guard down. There were too many things going on elsewhere, and the strong men had been reassigned to other tasks that required more physical labor.
Nearly broke down.
Li Feng couldn’t maintain order either—there were only a few of them.
And although they carried guns, a soldier’s weapon was for enemies and zombies—how could they point it at civilians?
Li Feng’s training uniform was torn to shreds. One of his soldiers even had his shoe stepped off.
They were in a complete mess.
Fortunately, just then, the volunteers who had stayed behind to maintain order got serious.
Everyone had gotten used to carrying weapons with them these past few days—even when coming to Buy Duo Duo as volunteers.
So they pulled steel pipes from behind their backs! Crack! Crack!—they swung them right at the people in the front who were shoving the hardest.
Howls of pain rang out, finally putting an end to the chaos.
“Try pushing forward again, I dare you!” the volunteer shouted, pointing his steel pipe at the crowd. “Come on if you’ve got the guts!”
The volunteers who had seemed so friendly and polite just moments ago now had wide eyes, bulging veins, and fierce expressions.
They would actually hit people!
Those were real steel pipes!
That was real blood!
…Everyone behaved themselves.
They’d only gotten bold because today’s volunteers didn’t look as physically intimidating as the ones from the past few days.
Now, they shrank back again.
Even the most unreasonable old men and old ladies didn’t dare make a sound or push anymore.
Because everyone knew—things were different now.
They’d smashed human skulls, chopped through human necks, stomped eyeballs flat underfoot.
It was different. They couldn’t go back to how things were before.
Don’t push these people too far.
What happened when people were pushed too far—everyone had experienced that firsthand over the past half-month.
Li Feng’s feelings were extremely complicated.
There was a sense of disorder.
And yet, paradoxically, it was this disorder that had maintained order.
It was violence that had preserved civilization.
In that moment, Li Feng deeply recognized just how right the central government had been to mobilize the masses in a people’s war against the zombie crisis.
If this disaster didn’t end soon, who knew what people would become?
It had to end as quickly as possible—they had to return to a civilized, law-governed society!
Li Feng took the initiative to ask Jiang Cheng: “We still need a few more people at the supply point. It’d be best if Jiangbing could come.”
Yes—ask.
Because right now, all manpower allocation in the New Tech District was under Jiang Cheng’s direction.
The residential area of the New Tech District was basically all green now. The industrial park was far from the residential area, and Jiang Cheng had no plans to touch that for the time being.
For now, there were all kinds of miscellaneous tasks and heavy labor, but no combat needed. So Jiang Cheng assigned Li Jiangbing and Nie Kuizhang to Li Feng to help maintain order. She also required that the rotating volunteers be as tall and imposing as possible for maximum deterrent effect.
As soon as these imposing figures were swapped in, order at Buy Duo Duo immediately improved.
Everyone acted like law-abiding, well-behaved citizens.
But Li Feng could never look at these people the same way again.
Because Li Jiangbing loved to chat. While keeping watch here, he’d chat with Li Feng.
Through Li Jiangbing, Li Feng learned about many things that had happened over the past two weeks—including the blood feud between Deqingli and Shanshui Yayuan.
Finally, everything clicked into place regarding the strange things he’d observed during supply distribution over the past few days.
The more he understood, the heavier his heart felt.
On July 3rd, a new announcement suddenly aired on TV during the day.
Mayor Zheng gave a speech in the morning.
[The supply chain has been partially restored, but not yet fully.]
[We are recruiting a militia.]
[Supplies are limited. Fresh vegetables and fresh meat will be given priority to militia members.]
Fresh vegetables! Fresh meat!
People who’d been eating rice and canned food for half a month started drooling just hearing those two words!
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