Song Jingshuo silently focused his power, and Jiang Bing watched as the radish in his hand sprouted root hairs and grew a small green leaf right before his eyes.
Jiang Bing paused for a moment, then turned his head and yelled: “Old Zhao! Come look! Is this what you call the wood type?”
Zhao Yi, Gao Yuxuan, and a whole crowd of people rushed over.
Zhao Yi had long felt that the five elements—metal, wood, water, fire, earth—couldn’t possibly remain incomplete, but he never would have imagined that the wood type they’d been waiting for all night would turn out to be Song Jingshuo.
Zhao Yi fell silent too.
Gao Yuxuan exclaimed loudly: “That’s it, that’s it! This is definitely the wood type!”
Sister Pan suddenly said: “I get it now. So that’s how it works.”
She’d been listening to Zhao Yi and the others explain for a while, only half-understanding. But now, seeing Song Jingshuo, it suddenly clicked.
She pointed at Zhao Yi and said: “You deal with trash, so you’re earth.”
She pointed at Gao Yuxuan: “You’re an electrician, so you’re lightning.”
She pointed at Song Jingshuo: “You deal with money, so you’re wood.”
Zhao Yi: “…”
No, I don’t deal with trash.
Gao Yuxuan: “…”
I’m not an electrician.
Song Jingshuo: “…”
Song Jingshuo didn’t see the connection between “dealing with money” and “wood.”
But Master Luo had passed away yesterday, and his body had already been brought down and piled together with the others.
Sister Pan appeared very calm—she wasn’t crying or making a scene. But no one dared speak too loudly to her, as if afraid of startling her.
Sister Pan muttered to herself: “My head hurts too. I should have a superpower too. So what should mine be?”
She seemed quite certain: “It’s either wood or earth—probably earth.”
She walked straight to the lawn, crouched down, and touched the grass.
A few seconds passed. Nothing happened.
Gao Yuxuan stepped forward, wanting to console her that not everyone had superpowers.
But Sister Pan suddenly drew a deep breath from her core and let out a loud shout! It startled Gao Yuxuan.
With that shout, the soil beneath the lawn suddenly bulged upward, reaching knee height! That was even taller than what Zhao Yi had demonstrated yesterday.
Sister Pan, uneducated and without formal schooling, had accurately predicted her own superpower.
Zhao Yi and Gao Yuxuan stared in stunned disbelief.
Jiang Cheng walked over and crouched down beside Sister Pan, pushing her hand against the earthen mound—it was firm and solid.
She turned to Zhao Yi and said: “Give it a try.”
Zhao Yi crouched down too and tried to break it apart with his hands. He couldn’t. Then he punched it several times—his hand hurt.
Zhao Yi shook his hand, grimacing in pain, and admitted: “This is stronger than what I can make.”
Jiang Cheng rested her chin on her knees and said: “Sister, this is really useful.”
Sister Pan was delighted: “Yes, it is. For turning the soil, I wouldn’t even need a hoe.”
Jiang Cheng said: “I’m thinking we might be stuck in this complex for who knows how long this time. Let’s turn over all the garden beds in the complex later. You and Jingshuo can team up—let’s develop our superpowers for farming and see if we can grow some vegetables.”
Jiang Cheng’s voice was gentle and soft, carrying a soothing quality.
Everyone’s hearts softened.
Even Song Jingshuo came over and crouched down: “Sister, I don’t know how to farm, but I can make plants take root and sprout. When the time comes, you can guide me.”
Everyone could tell today that Sister Pan’s eyes were actually hollow and lifeless.
In fact, everyone in the complex knew Master Luo well, but not so much Sister Pan. She’d always been a very transparent presence.
It wasn’t until the government called on the masses to take up arms and defend themselves—and Master Luo and his wife went into battle together—that people began to grow familiar with her.
After that, Su Yu would greet her every time she passed by.
Back then, everyone had been trapped in the safe zone, living day after day on canned food. But Sister Pan’s smile had always been bright, radiating an uplifting sense that “life isn’t so bad.”
A glimmer of light returned to Sister Pan’s eyes: “You’re all office workers—you don’t know anything about growing vegetables. Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.”
She muttered again: “I’d actually started a little vegetable patch behind Building 6, but the manager wouldn’t allow it and had it dug up. What a waste of my seedlings.”
During the disaster, she’d often thought about it. Back then, no one could get fresh vegetables or meat.
If only her little patch had still been there.
Zhao Yi and Gao Yuxuan had been going on about the wood type yesterday precisely because of the vegetable problem.
Even when supply lines were restored and distribution points were set up, fresh vegetables had only started appearing in the final few days.
But Zhao Yi never imagined that the first wood-type superpower user to appear would be Song Jingshuo. Just thinking about the scene—Song Jingshuo taking off his shiny cufflinks, rolling up his white shirt sleeves, and following Sister Pan around the garden—was almost too much to handle.
Jiang Cheng spoke softly with Sister Pan for a moment, and Sister Pan’s expression softened considerably.
Her husband was gone, but life had to go on.
People needed something to look forward to.
Both Xiao Jiang and Xiao Song had told her that her superpower was incredibly useful—it gave her hope.
Jiang Cheng’s phone suddenly rang. She pulled it out, glanced at the screen, and a look of surprise crossed her face. She said to Song Jingshuo: “It’s Zhou Wang.”
Everyone was surprised, but also a little relieved—Zhou Wang was still alive.
Jiang Cheng answered: “Hello?”
“Xiao Jiang, it’s me, Old Zhou.” Zhou Wang asked, “How are things at your complex?”
Jiang Cheng: “We’re fine—we’re doing a head count right now. How about on your end?”
Zhou Wang let out a deep sigh and said: “We just finished clearing the zombies in the courtyard. Haven’t finished going through the buildings yet.”
That sounded like they’d done a bit better than last time—they’d managed to clear their own courtyard without outside help.
Jiang Cheng asked: “How many people do you have?”
Zhou Wang paused, then admitted helplessly: “Mostly elderly.”
Elderly people, housewives, and a handful of preschool-aged children.
Able-bodied men, including Zhou Wang himself, totaled 11 people.
Several of them were unemployed and happened to be home; a few others were lucky enough to be home for various reasons. One of them was even a middle school student on leave from school—since he was as tall as an adult, he’d been counted among the “able-bodied.”
But relatively speaking, they were still fortunate. On weekdays, the entire tech district was essentially a ghost town, and a complex like Jixiang Jiayuan was mostly empty too.
Plus, at that time of day, many elderly residents and housewives were already at home starting dinner preparations. So there were very few people in the courtyard, and very few zombies—just a handful.
Zhou Wang had learned to use the internet now. He put out a call on the complex’s resident forum. The eleven able-bodied men came downstairs in armor, and a few elderly residents, seeing them, put on their sons’ armor, grabbed clubs, and came down too. They scraped together a team of fewer than 30 people and cleared the zombies from the complex.
Once the courtyard was clear and some stairwells were confirmed zombie-free, a few residents came downstairs.
Zhou Wang took a look around: a sea of white and gray hair, with even more old women than old men. It was the very picture of “the old, the weak, the women, and the young.”
Zhou Wang felt a sense of despair about this new crisis.
That was yesterday evening. This morning, Zhou Wang organized people to go door-to-door clearing the buildings. They also found a few sets of body armor.
Yesterday, some able-bodied men had no armor while some elderly residents did. A few of the young men tried to take the old folks’ armor by force, nearly coming to blows.
He’d put a stop to it.
He’d established his authority during the last zombie disaster, and it carried over to this one—people were still willing to listen to him.
Some among them had also awakened superpowers. Everyone felt like they were dreaming.
After clearing two buildings today, someone said during a break: “What are we supposed to do this time?”
There were so few people, and most were old and weak. They couldn’t even compete with others when it came to looting supplies.
Zhou Wang immediately thought of their neighbors next door.
Zhou Wang said: “I’ll come over to see you.”
Jiang Cheng asked: “Is West Street safe?”
Zhou Wang said: “Safe—there’s just one zombie wandering around over there, from your complex. Oh, oh, never mind—it’s dead.”
It sounded like he was already on West Street.
Jiang Cheng called out to security guard Xiao Fang: “Is the east gate locked?”
Xiao Fang was quite diligent—he’d locked it last night after they finished off the zombies.
Jiang Cheng took a few people over to open the gate.
Zhou Wang looked deeply somber.
Jiang Cheng saw him and asked first: “How’s your family?”
Zhou Wang shook his head.
When Zhou Wang received Jiang Cheng’s text, he hadn’t believed it at first. But he felt deeply uneasy inside, and in the end, he followed that unease and decided to go home.
His thought process was exactly what Su Yu had imagined for herself: he didn’t have the courage to publicly warn those around him, so he quietly slipped away on his own.
He was a mid-level manager anyway—he didn’t need to ask anyone for permission. He just told his subordinate, “I’m stepping out,” and left.
On his way out, he called his wife and told her to pick up their child. His wife worked at a state-owned enterprise that had an affiliated school for employees’ children—better teaching resources than the schools in the tech district. Their child attended that school, which was close to his wife’s office.
But by the time Zhou Wang got home, his wife still hadn’t arrived.
He called—she said the kid was hungry and insisted on eating pizza.
Zhou Wang said a few words, and his wife got upset: “How does this Jiang Cheng know anything? What connections does she have to know? Didn’t you check—she doesn’t have any background at all.”
His wife actually didn’t believe it. She’d only taken leave to pick up their child because Zhou Wang insisted.
What his wife said was exactly the reason Zhou Wang himself hadn’t believed Jiang Cheng at first.
Zhou Wang hadn’t been all that certain either.
Since he wasn’t firm, his wife was even more casual about it: “We’ll head back after we eat.”
In the end, Zhou Wang never got his wife and child back.
Zhou Wang was consumed by regret. If only he’d been a little more resolute back then. If he’d firmly believed Jiang Cheng, he would have had the conviction to argue with his wife and make her come back quickly.
But he didn’t.
And there was no cure for regret in this world.
Of course, Zhou Wang desperately wanted to know why Jiang Cheng had been able to predict the zombie virus outbreak.
But he knew that in Jixiang Jiayuan, Jiang Cheng only had three people’s phone numbers. If she had selflessly sent a mass message to everyone, then only three people in Jixiang Jiayuan would have received it.
The other two hadn’t come back.
The rest of the people in his complex didn’t know about this. The matter was genuinely suspicious, and Zhou Wang didn’t want to let it cause trouble at a time like this, so he held back and didn’t ask.
He only asked: “How many people are in your complex?”
Jiang Cheng said: “Over four hundred.”
As soon as Zhou Wang heard that number, he guessed that these people must have believed Jiang Cheng and come back. Otherwise, they’d all still be trapped at their workplaces—there wouldn’t have been so many young people at home at that time yesterday.
Zhou Wang asked again: “Has anyone in your complex developed anything unusual?”
Everyone knew what he was talking about.
Jiang Bing laughed and asked: “You mean superpowers?”
He raised his hand, revealing a tiny water ball in his palm. He’d just taken the water from the complex’s fountain.
Zhou Wang let out a relieved breath: “So you have them too.”
Jiang Bing asked: “What kind of superpowers do you have over there?”
Zhou Wang said: “I run fast.”
Jiang Bing: “Huh?”
Zhou Wang knew words weren’t enough, so he demonstrated.
In a flash, he shot past everyone and sprinted down the path inside the east gate for about a hundred meters, then shot back—all in the span of a few seconds.
Everyone was dumbfounded.
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