This round of building clearing went especially fast—much faster than the first time.
One reason was that everyone was now highly experienced. Another was that… the number of people currently in the complex was far lower than the number of residents who actually lived there.
Knocking on doors across an entire floor, many units turned out to be empty.
That made things incredibly efficient.
When Jiang Bing and Jiang Cheng’s Building 2 team knocked on one particular door, the person who peeked out turned out to be the property manager himself.
Everyone was surprised: “Manager Wang? What are you doing here?”
How could Manager Wang admit that he’d stayed just to watch how Jiang Cheng would handle things? He put on a miserable face and said: “Well, Miss Jiang sent out that warning message, so I found an empty unit to hide in.”
After the first wave of the zombie disaster, just as he’d expected, hardly anyone had come to claim the empty apartments.
The apartments weren’t going anywhere, but people had too many other things to deal with. Some families had likely lost everyone entirely.
Manager Wang had initially planned to use all those empty units for some small-time profiteering on the side. But then property prices and rents both crashed. He couldn’t find any tenants at all.
In the end, he’d only brought in two relatives of his who’d come to S City for work, letting them stay for free—at least it was better than the cramped group rental they’d been living in.
He’d also given a few units to property management staff and Guo Jun’s people.
The rest sat empty, and he’d often pick one at random for an afternoon nap.
Manager Wang peeked around nervously, looking left and right like a frightened bird: “Zombies? Are there still zombies in our building?”
Jiang Bing said: “We’re clearing the building right now. We just got to this floor.”
Jiang Cheng cut in: “Master Luo is gone.”
The hallway fell silent for a moment.
Manager Wang froze, then looked like he was about to cry.
Jiang Cheng interrupted his emotional reaction directly: “Tomorrow at nine, everyone gathers at the small plaza for roll call. We’re counting heads. Tomorrow, you get the property management staff organized. We’re still living here—some things can’t be left unattended.”
This girl was just giving him orders?
Who did she think she was?
But not a single person around her thought it was wrong or out of place. She spoke with such conviction, and they all accepted it as perfectly natural.
Huh?
Manager Wang suddenly had a flash of insight: “Miss Jiang?”
Jiang Cheng nodded: “Yes.”
So this was the “Miss Jiang” everyone talked about.
Jiang Cheng had been sent on a business trip on her very first day back at work and hadn’t returned until today. To Manager Wang, she was someone who existed only in legend.
She was the one who’d expelled Liu Hongwang—he’d vanished without a trace, no one knew if he was dead or alive.
She was the one who’d locked people in the conference room, and one of them had even evolved into an advanced zombie.
Manager Wang finally got to see the real person. So this ruthless figure everyone talked about was actually this young and good-looking.
Jiang Cheng asked: “Do you have food?”
Manager Wang: “Huh?”
Jiang Cheng handed him a box of strawberry pies: “Make do with this for now. It’s not safe outside right now, so don’t go wandering around. We’ll address the food issue tomorrow.”
Manager Wang felt his eyes blur for a second.
Where had she pulled that from? She wasn’t carrying a backpack, and she was wearing body armor—there was nowhere to stash anything.
Everyone exclaimed in amazement: “That’s so convenient.”
“If it were big enough, you could carry a ton of stuff! How easy would that be?”
“You can’t feel the weight, right?”
“Definitely not—it’s not even in the same dimension.”
Manager Wang: “???”
What were these people talking about?
Jiang Cheng said: “Some people turned into zombies, some awakened superpowers. We still don’t know how many have them. Go ahead and see if you’ve got one yourself. We’re going to keep clearing the buildings.”
As soon as Jiang Cheng left, everyone followed in a rush.
Leaving Manager Wang standing there completely dumbfounded.
After finishing the building clearing, Jiang Bing called Su Yu: “You done? I’ll come pick you up.”
Even though they’d killed every zombie they could see in the courtyard, it was dark now and they couldn’t do a thorough search—they couldn’t guarantee it was completely safe.
Su Yu said: “I’m wearing body armor, and I have my shield.”
Well. So he was the dead weight now.
Jiang Bing smacked his lips, then remembered to ask: “What about Fuduoduo? Are you bringing her over here?”
The call suddenly went silent. Su Yu made no sound at all, only the faint rustle of her footsteps as she walked.
Jiang Bing paused, wanting to say something.
Su Yu’s voice came through: “Zombies have no feelings.”
“People say the third-generation ones have intelligence, but I don’t buy it.”
“They just learned to run away—how is that intelligence?”
“Jiang Bing…” Su Yu’s voice choked up. “Fuduoduo died so horribly…”
But it wasn’t He Tian’s fault.
Su Yu understood—the He Tian she knew had died the moment she turned into a zombie.
The thing that had cruelly killed and eaten Fuduoduo was just a zombie wearing He Tian’s shell.
Jiang Bing sighed and told her: “Text me when you get home.”
Su Yu agreed.
A few minutes later, he indeed received a text from Su Yu saying she’d made it home. Jiang Bing felt relieved.
He now threw himself wholeheartedly into studying his superpower.
At first, he’d been thrilled and excited. But after seeing what others could do, a vague unease began to creep in.
Especially when he’d huddled up with Zhao Yi and Gao Yuxuan in the courtyard earlier—those two seemed to know their stuff. They’d said that although everyone’s powers were weak now, this stuff was bound to grow stronger over time.
They’d said it with absolute conviction.
Jiang Bing believed them.
Because Jiang Bing figured that if superpowers were so weak that they couldn’t get stronger, they’d have no reason to exist at all.
And this thing had come alongside the zombie virus. If zombies could evolve generation after generation, he believed superpowers could too.
In between fighting zombies in the courtyard, he’d stolen a moment to ask the two otakus how to increase the strength of his ability.
Those two had told him with supreme confidence: “Practice. You’ve just got to practice. It’s just like your muscles.”
Well, that was great. As fitness guys, practicing was the one thing they weren’t afraid of.
Jiang Bing plugged the bathroom sink, filled it with water, and started practicing.
He wasn’t the only one who went home and stayed up messing with his superpower instead of resting.
In fact, pretty much everyone with a superpower couldn’t resist tinkering with it.
Su Yu also sat on her bed, trying hard to release her protective shield and experimenting with controlling it.
She found that the shield naturally formed small, like an umbrella half-open and standing upright—just big enough to cover herself alone.
If she let it fade naturally, it lasted about 30 seconds.
That was actually shorter than the time her shield had held up against He Tian in the courtyard earlier.
But when the shield faded naturally, there was no impact on her brain. Back in the yard, her survival instinct had kept the shield going for that extra ten-odd seconds—and it had felt like needles stabbing her brain, one sharp pang after another.
Su Yu tried expanding the shield’s coverage area or extending its duration. She could do it, but it all put a heavy strain on her brain.
In less than half an hour, Su Yu started feeling dizzy, nauseous, tight-chested, and like she was about to throw up.
But Su Yu wouldn’t stop.
This was a gift from heaven.
Compared to the water, fire, and other powers her neighbors had—even compared to Jiang Cheng’s spatial ability—hers was different.
Only the protective shield was unlike all the other superpowers!
If the shield became strong enough, she could protect a lot of people!
With needles stabbing in her brain, Su Yu went to the bathroom and threw up twice. There wasn’t much to bring up—the first time was clear water, the second time stomach acid.
She rinsed her mouth, gritted her teeth, and released the shield again.
It wasn’t until her nose started bleeding, staining her clothes, and her vision kept going black that she finally stopped. She wiped her nose, collapsed onto the bed, and fell into a half-asleep, half-unconscious slumber.
Jiang Bing’s nose bled too—and so did his ears.
But fitness people had a high tolerance for pain. Jiang Bing especially so—otherwise, how could he have built all that muscle?
He was bold, had no shortage of willpower, and carried a desperate urgency he couldn’t quite put into words. He only stopped when his eyes started bleeding too.
In one night, the amount of water he could control had grown from the size of a ping-pong ball to the size of a basketball—he was very satisfied.
Time to stop. If he kept going, he might die—Jiang Bing had that gut feeling.
As a fitness trainer, he also knew to monitor his clients’ workout volumes. Sudden deaths during exercise weren’t unheard of—just one case like that, and after paying out compensation, the gym would basically have to shut down.
Wu Jiancheng, the floor captain of Building 1, had a fire-type ability.
He was also practicing at home.
Unlike Li Feng, he couldn’t conjure fire out of thin air—he needed an ignition source first.
After a night of practice, although the fireball he could control had grown a bit, the fact that he needed a flame source really bothered him.
He kept mulling over what to do about it.
Could he keep a flame on his body from ever going out?
If he kept the flame at its absolute minimum, it barely consumed any of his brainpower.
He spent the entire night experimenting—even while using the bathroom, he kept that tiny little flame alive as his “source.”
He figured it was fine and decided to keep it going even while sleeping.
Then, in the middle of the night, he felt a stinging pain on his scalp. He opened his eyes to find roaring flames—the apartment was on fire.
Turns out his pillow had caught fire and was scorching his scalp. Otherwise, he’d been sleeping quite comfortably amid the blaze.
Fire-type user Wu Jiancheng: “…Fuck.”
Gao Yuxuan and Zhao Yi were way too excited.
Zhao Yi didn’t go back to his own place—he went straight to Gao Yuxuan’s apartment.
Because Zhao Yi’s bed was a twin, but Gao Yuxuan’s was a double, so there was room for both of them.
The two kept practicing their superpowers over and over, constantly exploring the rules.
Zhao Yi had brought up a potted plant from the building entrance—the pot came with its own soil.
So Zhao Yi practiced with that one pot of dirt.
Limited by the amount of material, he couldn’t increase quantity—so he tested intensity instead.
Under his control, the soil in the pot kept changing shape. His proficiency improved rapidly with practice.
Gao Yuxuan was a bit startled: “How are you so good at this?”
If it were anyone else, Zhao Yi might have been too embarrassed to say. But with Gao Yuxuan, he had no qualms.
Zhao Yi even looked a little proud: “I’ve practiced meditation.”
He’d practiced for a considerable amount of time—intense, sustained concentration.
Hoping to unlock his brain’s potential and become a superpowered being.
Putting a pen on a table, staring at it with focused intent, trying to use mental force to levitate it—Zhao Yi used to do that for one to two hours at a time.
With that kind of perseverance, honestly, he could succeed at anything.
Except levitating pens.
Compared to Zhao Yi, Gao Yuxuan was a step behind. Although his little electric current had grown stronger through repeated practice, he soon got a nosebleed.
Zhao Yi was startled: “Stop, stop, stop, take it easy—don’t explode.”
Otakus had a lot of terms that ordinary people weren’t familiar with.
For example, “exploding.”
After all, that’s how it was depicted in manga.
Boom—the body bursts apart, energy scatters everywhere, that kind of thing.
Anime also came in different genres—there were shoujo (girls’) manga and shonen (boys’) manga. There were also hardcore horror ones. The manga guys read were way more bloody than what girls read.
Zhao Yi and Gao Yuxuan’s heads were packed with all sorts of weird knowledge.
The two even created a spreadsheet, one page each.
Zhao Yi dictated: “22:41—soil reaches 2-second wall formation speed. Takes three punches to shatter. Hardness currently insufficient to withstand a second-generation zombie’s charge. No additional brain strain.”
“23:39—takes five punches to shatter. Might be able to withstand one impact, potentially saving your life in a critical moment. No additional brain strain.”
Gao Yuxuan typed rapidly, not just entering data but adding notes: “Due to small sample size, cannot currently assess the effect of material quality on setting speed, strength, and brain strain.”
“Awaiting next large-scale outdoor experiment.”
He also recorded his own: “Voltage reaches 35V.”
They had a voltage tester at home, which came in handy.
It had started at just 5V and had gradually climbed up.
“Sigh,” he complained. “My improvement speed is way too slow.”
Zhao Yi comforted him: “Don’t rush—it’s only been a few hours since we awakened. Keep practicing, and it’ll keep increasing. 36V will break the safety voltage threshold.”
Gao Yuxuan: “Even 36V would barely electrocute a person to death, let alone a zombie. Zombies don’t even care if they lose a limb or half their body.”
The two otakus carried on their discussion while keeping quantitative records.
“So I think attacking the body is useless—the key with zombies is the brain. Look, zombies don’t rot even with wounds, but once the brain is destroyed, they start decaying.”
“The brain doesn’t just control body movement—it probably also secretes something that maintains the body’s reinforcement and prevents decay.”
“So we have to attack the brain. Electrocuting the brain should have the same effect as smashing it.”
“So besides power, we also need to practice accuracy.”
Neither of them knew that although their progress was slow, they were on the right track.
Because in the military camp, electric-type users had already proven that in life-or-death combat.
The otakus were still immersed in the excitement of exploring a new world, unable to fall asleep.
Lying in the same bed, they chatted late into the night.
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