Chapter 122

Zhao Yi asked, “Won’t that cause contamination?”

Zhao Yi didn’t want Jiang Cheng’s storage space used for this. His hope for the space was that it would be used to transport vital supplies—especially for storing and moving food when resources were scarce.

He was worried that the space might get dirty or contaminated. It wouldn’t be suitable for storing food afterward.

Jiang Cheng chuckled.

She explained, “This space isn’t a room. It’s more like... an empty void with a maximum capacity imposed on it. As long as the limit isn’t exceeded, anything can be put inside. There’s no such thing as dirtying the walls or floor like you would in a real space. Nothing is left behind, either.”

Zhao Yi and Gao Yuxuan leaned in until their faces were practically pressed against hers. “And then? What happened next?”

They crowded Jiang Cheng so closely that she had to take half a step back. “It isn’t a three-dimensional space as we understand it.”

She explained to them that the space had no restrictions on shape.

Their eyes lit up, and the two of them immediately agreed. “So the only limit is weight.”

“I really want to go inside and take a look,” Gao Yuxuan said excitedly. “Jiang Cheng, can living people enter? Can you go in yourself?”

Jiang Cheng shattered his dream. “No. Living creatures can’t enter.”

She described what it felt like: “All I can sense is that the objects are floating in the universe. I just can’t see any stars.”

Zhao Yi and Gao Yuxuan were filled with longing.

In the end, Jiang Cheng stored the corpses in her storage space. It was the most convenient option. They didn’t need to find a vehicle or waste manpower, and there was no need to worry about sticky blood or bits of brain matter dripping and splattering all the way there.

Zhao Yi said, “From now on, we need to factor our abilities into the way we think and plan.”

Everyone nodded.

There were three zombies in the roadside park outside the western gate.

There were snacks and drinks left on a bench, and a novel lay on a stone stool.

They must have been people who had been enjoying a moment of leisure in the park, basking in the sunlight.

The group killed the three zombies as well.

Aunt Pan dug a large pit and asked, “Is this deep enough?”

The civil engineer caught up with them. “I’ll measure it!”

It turned out he had gone home to get a tape measure.

The pit was a little over two meters deep. “That’s enough, that’s enough.”

He pressed the button on the tape measure, and it whipped back in with a rapid whir.

Zhao Yi and Gao Yuxuan both hurriedly stepped back. “Be careful! That thing’s sharp. Don’t cut anyone.”

“Relax,” the civil engineer said. “I’ve got it under control.”

Gao Yuxuan cursed, “You’ve got nothing under control!”

The civil engineer refused to back down. “Do you know how many years I’ve been using tape measures? I know exactly what I’m doing. With a flick of my hand, I can control which way it flies.”

Gao Yuxuan was about to argue again when Cui Haiyang came over. “Let me see!”

Everyone stopped what they were doing. Cui Haiyang was a metal-element superpowered individual.

The moment he took the tape measure, it was as if he had discovered a whole new world. His face was full of excitement. “How did I not think of this? How did I not think of this? I have a tape measure too!”

In his hands, the tape measure shot out and automatically snapped back, moving like a snake. Its range was still limited, though.

At present, only fire-element superpowers could use a wooden stick as a track to accelerate and launch fireballs.

Next came the electric-element users. Guo Jun was the strongest among them, and his electric current could strike targets several meters away.

The earth-element users could only attack a short distance in front of themselves for now. Zhao Yi and Aunt Pan both had to wait until the zombies came close before using their abilities, which placed tremendous demands on their nerves and courage.

Metal-element users could make their weapons change shape or suddenly extend into stabbing points at the moment of attack, but that didn’t count as ranged combat. It was still close-quarters fighting.

Electric-element abilities could barely be considered ranged attacks.

But the only ability that truly deserved to be called “ranged” at present was fire.

“A chainsaw,” Zhao Yi suddenly said.

Cui Haiyang froze, then immediately beamed. “That’s right! A chainsaw!”

At first, he had been thinking of sharpening the tape measure so that it could extend like a snake and then retract, slicing through a zombie’s neck.

But a sharpened edge was suited to chopping and stabbing. What he needed was something that could cut through.

For that, a saw was the proper tool.

Zhao Yi and Gao Yuxuan both regretted that the hardware store at the intersection had gone out of business and been completely emptied. Otherwise, they might have been able to find a chainsaw there.

They asked, “Can you make one yourself?”

“I definitely can,” Cui Haiyang said. “But a chainsaw will take some time. The main problem is that I don’t have a blueprint or a sample to work from.”

He could create objects by controlling metal and reshaping it because he had a clear idea of what he wanted to make—the shape, the size, and exactly where each part needed to be adjusted.

But a chainsaw was a relatively complicated and delicate machine. Without a blueprint, it would be troublesome. He would probably need to experiment many times.

Zhao Yi said, “Then make a sawtooth edge first.”

That was simple enough. Cui Haiyang clenched the tape measure in his palm. A few seconds later, he controlled it to shoot out again. This time, its edge had transformed into a row of teeth.

The young men were all excited. “Try it! Try it!”

Together, they found a small tree.

The toothed tape measure shot out and snapped back. It sawed several centimeters into the tree.

That was already incredibly impressive.

Cui Haiyang murmured, “I still need more practice. More practice.”

His goal was to sever a zombie’s neck in a single extension and retraction. Once the neck was severed, the zombie would be finished.

Zhao Yi gestured at his own neck. “Saw through about this far—two-thirds of the way. I’ve observed them carefully. Once you get this far, the nerve signals are completely cut off. The rest is just skin and muscle holding it together.”

Gao Yuxuan chopped the back of Zhao Yi’s neck with one hand. “Or you can saw from behind. The spine is the real target. A zombie doesn’t need its throat or windpipe. Cut through the spine and it’s done.”

“Back in the residential compound, there’s that tree you cut through with a shovel. There’s still a tall section left. Go get it and practice on that.”

Three ordinary men could still come up with two brilliant ideas between them—and useful ones at that.

Cui Haiyang turned and ran off.

Aunt Pan cracked a smile and said to Jiang Cheng, “Young people these days...”

Aunt Pan liked spending time with these young people. In this world where zombies killed and devoured people, the residential compound was nevertheless full of vibrant life. It could make a person forget their grief.

Once the pit had been dug, it had to be disinfected first.

The hardware store at the intersection had been cleared out, and there was no quicklime left. The quicklime they had taken from the store earlier had eventually been used up as well.

But chlorine-based disinfectants would work too. These were common household products. The bleaching powder, bleach, effervescent tablets, and disinfectant sold in supermarkets were generally made primarily from sodium hypochlorite or calcium hypochlorite.

During the previous disaster, Zhao Yi had directed people to empty out the stocks from Mai Duoduo in several separate batches. At the time, everything had been piled up in the clubhouse and gradually used.

When the disaster ended, quite a lot was still left. After the clubhouse owner returned, he had cursed and complained while ordering Manager Wang to deal with it and restore the former gym.

Manager Wang hadn’t actually been in charge of the gym, but he loved taking advantage of situations. He had people move all the leftover disinfectant into the property-management storeroom.

Now it came in handy. They didn’t need to go shopping at Mai Duoduo anymore; they could bring it over directly from the residential compound’s property storeroom.

Using this stuff in large quantities was somewhat troublesome. Everyone had to protect their mouths and noses, or they would be badly irritated by the fumes. It was also harmful to the human body to some extent.

That was where Li Jiangbing could be put to use.

Everyone simply unscrewed the bottles of disinfectant one by one and stacked them in front of him.

Someone else opened the sprinklers supplying water to the landscaped area of the roadside park and ran a plastic hose over to draw the water there.

Li Jiangbing channeled both the disinfectant and the water into the air, mixing and diluting them before letting the solution “leak” down into the bottom of the pit like water from a showerhead.

Gao Yuxuan immediately gave Li Jiangbing a nickname: “Rain God!”

While controlling the spray with both hands, Li Jiangbing kicked at him with one leg.

Gao Yuxuan hopped aside to dodge.

Everyone shouted, “You’re spraying crooked! Gao Yuxuan, quit messing around!”

Once the bottom of the pit had been disinfected, Jiang Cheng transferred all the zombie corpses stored in her dimensional space into it.

Then they sprayed the corpses once more.

Finally, Aunt Pan and Zhao Yi controlled the soil on both sides, filling the pit back in.

The crime-fiction enthusiast reminded them from the side, “Make sure you tamp it down properly.”

The compactness of the soil was extremely important. If it wasn’t packed firmly enough, the soil would settle and form cavities, allowing the stench of decomposition to escape. Animals with keen senses of smell would detect it.

Gao Yuxuan asked, “Buddy, are you sure you’ve never killed anyone and buried the body?”

The crime-fiction enthusiast looked delighted. “It’s an honor to be suspected like that.”

“We’ll deal with the trash the same way,” Jiang Cheng said. “Bury it.”

Zhao Yi glanced at Jiang Cheng, then took out his phone and checked it. He murmured, “It’s already this late. Why hasn’t there been an announcement yet?”

The last time they had temporarily stockpiled their trash in the clubhouse swimming pool, they had done so under the assumption that they just needed to endure for a while—that the government would come rescue them and return them to their former lives.

And later, the government really had come. Their lives had returned to normal.

The garbage trucks had appeared again and hauled all the trash away for disposal.

Everything had gone back to normal.

But this time, Jiang Cheng had directly abandoned the temporary method of storing their trash.

Zhao Yi was sometimes afraid of Jiang Cheng.

Because he trusted Jiang Cheng too much.

And precisely because he trusted her so much, he was terrified of the prophecies hidden in her words.

He was fascinated by superpowers, curious about the mysterious dimensional space, and constantly coming up with wild ideas about how to apply everyone’s abilities to daily life.

But in the end, he still wanted a normal, orderly life that functioned properly.

If returning to their former lives meant handing over their superpowers in exchange, then no matter how fascinated he was or how reluctant he felt, Zhao Yi would still give them up.

Jiang Cheng didn’t pressure Zhao Yi, either.

After all, there were only a few hundred people left in the residential compound, and the amount of trash they produced was far less than before. There was no need to hurry.

She could give him time to process and accept it.

Li Jiangbing looked around. “Where did Jingshuo go?”

Jiang Cheng replied, “Jixiang Jiayuan.”

“What’s he doing there?”

Song Jingshuo was pretending to be the Friend of the Elderly at Jixiang Jiayuan.

No, that wasn’t quite right. He was humbly exchanging tips with Auntie Lin and Auntie Qian on how to use wood-type superpowers.

“I tried three plants last night,” Song Jingshuo said. “Every one of them grew to about this height, put out seven or eight new leaves, and then stopped growing completely.”

Auntie Qian was puzzled. “That shouldn’t happen. Yesterday, I urged one plant to grow, and it produced more than twenty fruits. I ripened them until they were perfectly ready—bright red and especially delicious.”

“So did I,” Auntie Lin added.

So what was wrong with Xiao Song?

Song Jingshuo had already resigned himself to his fate. Since he was destined to farm, he might as well do it properly.

He had been a top student who scored highly all his life, yet he had encountered a setback in this particular field. All he could do was come and ask the aunties for advice.

Both aunties enthusiastically insisted that he visit their homes.

The old men nearby merely grunted. “Hmph.”