Thankfully, the supermarket’s background music had never stopped playing. Dong Ge and Guo Jun could still whisper to each other under its cover.
Dong Ge: “We need to figure out a way to close that door.”
That way, the warehouse would become their safe zone, trapping all the zombies in the shopping area.
The warehouse had everything—food, drinks, you name it.
They’d spent the night peeing into mineral water bottles. If they could close the door, they’d be able to find a basin and take care of the other business in peace.
There were basins and toilet paper, anyway.
Just as they were thinking about closing the door, two more zombies wandered in.
Dong Ge and Guo Jun quickly ducked their heads back down, not daring to make a sound.
If it were just two zombies, they could probably take them on—but the fear was that the noise from a fight would attract even more zombies from outside.
Those two zombies wandered deeper and deeper in. Damn—it looked like they weren’t going to wander back out anytime soon. Fortunately, they were just original zombies.
Guo Jun pulled out his phone to check the time and saw that his battery was nearly dead.
He patted his pockets and realized he hadn’t brought a spare battery. That was bad—once his phone died, they’d be truly waiting for death.
With the battery bar down to a red sliver, Guo Jun sent a text to Jiang Cheng, pleading for help on the slim chance she might respond.
His regret now was no less than Zhou Wang’s.
When he’d seen Jiang Cheng’s text yesterday, he should have just turned around and run straight back to the youth apartment complex. It was only eight or nine hundred meters away—a few minutes’ run at most.
Now it had become an insurmountable chasm between life and death.
Guo Jun regretted it bitterly.
But they weren’t residents of the youth apartment complex. When they’d first sought refuge there and moved in, Jiang Cheng had already led the effort to reopen the supply lines. Li Feng had set up the distribution point. Jiang Cheng had directly reassigned them to help out. Only Guo Jun had stayed at the youth apartment complex, following Master Luo around doing repairs.
But back then, Jiang Cheng had been out fighting zombies all the time.
They’d had little opportunity to interact. Guo Jun knew Jiang Cheng was capable, but he hadn’t trusted her as deeply as the people close to her did.
Yesterday, he’d shown the text to a few of the stock clerks. He’d actually felt a bit uneasy about it.
But when he went to the manager, the manager had chewed him out: “Do you trust the government or her? We finally got rid of the zombies, and she’s spreading these rumors—she should be arrested for causing panic. We’re already short-staffed—don’t cause me any trouble!”
People always tend to trust those they’ve spent a long time around, so Guo Jun chose to believe the manager.
Now he regretted it to the core.
Dong Ge was sitting right next to him, leaning in and watching him text. He saw the name on the screen and mouthed silently: “Jiang Cheng?”
There were two zombies wandering around below—they couldn’t make a sound.
Guo Jun nodded.
Yesterday, Dong Ge hadn’t taken Jiang Cheng’s text seriously at all—he’d even laughed it off.
Now, he understood Guo Jun.
Jiang Cheng was probably the only person who might come to save them.
During the last zombie outbreak, which had hit on a Saturday night, government rescue efforts hadn’t started until Wednesday. And even then, they’d found they couldn’t save everyone and had to mobilize the masses.
Now with another wave, the military and police would have suffered huge losses again.
Manpower was even tighter. Government rescue was out of the question.
Right now, the youth apartment complex was their best hope.
Hurry up and come loot the supermarket, youth apartment!
The two men lay back on the mattress, still wrapped in plastic, staring blankly at the high ceiling above.
Suddenly, a blue light lit up!
A reply text!
The two of them shot upright in an instant!
When Jiang Cheng received the text, Li Jiangbing had just noisily led a group of people off to search for armor.
Jiang Cheng let out an “Ah” and showed everyone the message: “Guo Jun is asking for help.”
Master Guo was a jack-of-all-trades repairman. Even after the zombie disaster had passed, he’d still worked part-time at the youth apartment complex.
Because property management was so short-staffed, he’d had to do everything from changing light bulbs and fixing power supplies to unclogging drains and toilets. Everyone knew him.
Guo Jun could never have imagined back then that these little jobs—replacing outlets, tightening fuses, clearing pipes—would end up affecting his fate at a time like this.
Because as soon as everyone heard it was him, they were inclined to go rescue him.
Of course, the main reason was that even though everyone had enough food this time and it wasn’t as urgent as the first time, eventually they’d have to “pay a visit” to Duomai Duomai.
Whether they went early or late, the zombies wouldn’t starve to death—they’d just keep waiting there for you.
But Master Guo might starve, get trapped, or get bitten.
In that case, they might as well go while he was still alive.
For Jiang Cheng, this was even better. Originally, they would have had to go in blind to reclaim Duomai Duomai—now they had a scout on the inside.
She quickly texted Guo Jun back: [Describe the situation on site. Roughly how many zombies? How many are second-generation? Any newly evolved intelligent ones? Percentage breakdown of each type? The more detail, the better.]
The other party was texting, which meant the environment wasn’t suitable for a phone call, so she replied by text as well.
A lifesaver!
Guo Jun immediately composed a reply, his thumbs flying over the T9 keypad:
[Not many zombies! Really not many! Thursday afternoon—very few people! Only about a hundred or two! Mostly in the shopping area! I’m hiding in the warehouse—there are two in here! We can’t see what’s outside, but there really aren’t many! Really!]
He desperately emphasized “not many,” terrified that if he said too many, they wouldn’t come.
The text went out just before the phone shut down.
Then the phone died completely—screen black.
Guo Jun mouthed to Dong Ge: “Where’s your phone?”
Dong Ge mimed patting his empty pockets, indicating he’d lost it. In yesterday’s panic, he had no idea where it had fallen.
Guo Jun cursed under his breath.
Li Jiangbing led the group to break down doors and search for armor.
The youth apartment complex had many group operations, and neighbors on the same floors generally knew who had armor and still remembered.
The complex had received 400 sets of armor total—though some had been lost after the disaster.
Jiang Cheng made an announcement over the building PA system about the situation at Duomai Duomai. Li Jiangbing said: “Oh, Old Guo! Good that he’s still alive.”
In fact, compared to many of the white-collar workers at the youth apartment complex, Li Jiangbing and Guo Jun—both with similar educational backgrounds—felt a closer kinship.
One had gone to a vocational high school, the other a technical school.
Jiang Cheng called Li Jiangbing directly and asked when he’d be done.
She needed at least two hundred people.
Li Jiangbing said: “That’s hard to say—we’re breaking down doors one by one.”
Jiang Cheng thought for a moment, then called Cui Haiyang over: “Can you pick locks?”
Cui Haiyang had a metal-type ability—he could control metal. He’d been over there practicing turning steel pipes into spikes when he was called over.
Cui Haiyang hadn’t expected this kind of request. All he could say was: “I’ll try?”
They immediately found the nearest door and gave it a shot.
As soon as Cui Haiyang touched the keyhole, he knew: “I can do it!”
Click—the lock opened.
“I can feel the shape and structure just by touching it,” Cui Haiyang marveled. “Then I just control the bolt.”
Who would have thought the first practical use of a metal-type ability would be this?
Cui Haiyang ran off to find Li Jiangbing—picking locks was a breeze.
Li Jiangbing warned him: “Take it easy—don’t get a nosebleed.”
“This one’s fine,” Cui Haiyang said. “Barely any strain—feels effortless.”
In the end, they scrounged up just under 340 sets of armor.
With only a little over 400 people in the entire complex now, the coverage rate was pretty high.
Jiang Cheng organized a fully armored team of 200 people. She left 140 sets of armor in the complex: “From now on, there needs to be a fixed rotation of people wearing armor and patrolling the complex.”
Things were different now. Third-generation zombies had developed intelligence—they wouldn’t just charge out blindly at the sound of a living person. They might be lurking somewhere, waiting to ambush.
The complex wasn’t as safe as before.
She also called Zhou Wang: “We’re going to take back Duomai Duomai.”
As for Zhou Wang’s elderly commando team, Jiang Cheng and her people didn’t really expect them to contribute much. But if you wanted protection, you had to show some willingness to help.
Sitting around waiting to be fed wasn’t going to fly.
Zhou Wang understood perfectly and said earnestly: “We can send the people you saw earlier.”
That was about thirty people—half of them elderly, half of the elderly being old women, plus one middle school student.
Jiang Cheng: “…Fine.”
They set the time for the afternoon, and everyone went off to eat lunch first.
When they set out in the afternoon, it was indeed the same group they’d seen that morning.
In theory, these elderly folks from Jixiang Jiayuan were already the bravest and most responsible among their old folks.
The youth apartment residents weren’t particularly put off by them, either.
Many young people had parents or elders who weren’t in S City—they were back in their hometowns. Those parents might have to pick up kitchen knives and rolling pins and fight through their own gray hair.
Also, the reality was that many people’s parents had died in either the first wave or this one.
It wasn’t obvious from the outside.
Everyone just closed their doors and cried in private. Once they stepped outside, you couldn’t tell. The living just had to keep living.
Many young people whose parents had gone missing in the first wave hadn’t even gone back to mourn. There was no body to see and no body to bury.
The whole country was in this state. Once someone went missing, you just had to stop dwelling on it.
Everyone’s perspective on life and death had been fundamentally changed by the zombies.
The streets outside were actually not that dangerous.
Because on a weekday afternoon, the tech district was essentially a ghost town—especially the residential areas. There weren’t many people on the streets.
The zombies in the complex were concentrated there because the people had been in the complex, turned into zombies there, and stayed there.
But as they walked toward Duomai Duomai, they noticed something—the little convenience pharmacy that Jiang Cheng had once led a raid on had already been looted.
Many small shops in the area had gone out of business. Even with government rent relief and compensation, a huge wave of closures had still happened.
Only pharmacies and supermarkets—essential for daily life, backed by government support—had resumed business quickly, restocking their shelves and warehouses.
Now, the pharmacy’s newly replaced glass door had been smashed in. Looking inside, medicine boxes were scattered all over the floor.
Though it hadn’t been completely cleaned out—quite a bit remained—everyone was still speechless.
Zhou Wang looked especially embarrassed and explained: “The elderly have a lot of chronic conditions… so… um…”
A few of the armored elderly chimed in: “It wasn’t us.”
At that time, they’d followed Zhou Wang to the youth apartment complex.
The elderly left behind in their complex had peeked out, noticed that West Jixiang Street was safe—the only zombie there had already been taken care of by Zhou Wang’s group.
Someone remembered how the youth apartment complex people had cleaned out that pharmacy last time.
The old folks came to a quick consensus: strike first!
Jiang Cheng’s mouth twitched.
In reality, this time was vastly different from last time. In the tech district, aside from hospitals, supermarkets, and schools, most places were completely empty.
Supplies were still sitting where they’d been left, but the surviving population had dropped sharply compared to last time. In theory, supplies were much more abundant now.
Plus, everyone was experienced now and had armor.
With this pharmacy gone, they could easily go to a pharmacy on a farther street.
There was no need to be this desperate—it looked pretty ugly.
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