Chapter 124

Zhang Lesi asked again, “What if he pushes Jiang Cheng out and becomes the big shot of our residential complex?”

It was a very realistic question.

They only had to look at how many people had scrambled to team up with Cao Jiacai during today’s building sweep to know that.

Su Yu thought about it for a moment.

She realized that she wasn’t actually as anxious as she had assumed.

After all, she already possessed an incredibly powerful superpower—one that was completely unique. It gave her confidence.

But precisely because of that, she understood Cao Jiacai’s arrogance and sense of invulnerability all the more.

“In that case, given Jiang Cheng’s personality...” Su Yu mused, making a guess. “She might leave.”

“Someone like Cao Jiacai belongs to the low-awareness crowd. Put on a security guard’s uniform and he thinks he has the authority of a police officer. Give him a chair and he’ll think he’s been crowned emperor.”

“If he became the big shot of the complex, he’d definitely throw his weight around and abuse his power. The complex would become unsafe.”

“Jiang Cheng wouldn’t stay in an unsafe environment. She’d definitely leave.”

Zhang Lesi didn’t hesitate. “If Jiang Cheng leaves, I’ll go with her.”

Su Yu made up her mind as well. “Then I’ll leave too.”

They began wondering who else would go with them.

“Jiangbing definitely will. Jingshuo probably will too. Zhao Yi and Gao Yuxuan go without saying—they definitely will.”

The two girls were utterly determined to follow Jiang Cheng.

But all these decisions were based on their pessimistic predictions: that Jiang Cheng couldn’t beat Cao Jiacai, that she had no way to deal with him, and that she would most likely be driven out.

They sighed.

Then they both turned toward the room and asked, “Still no announcement?”

“Nothing yet,” the girls inside replied as they snacked, chatted, and sorted vegetables. “The TV’s been on the whole time. There hasn’t been anything.”

Inside Jiang Cheng’s apartment, all the furniture and belongings were “flickering.”

The frequency of the flickering was growing faster and faster, and Jiang Cheng was becoming increasingly adept at using her storage space.

She sat on the sofa, gazing at everything in the apartment.

“Meow.”

A black shadow appeared at the window and slipped in through the half-open pane.

It was Mo Li.

Mo Li no longer needed to stay by Jiang Cheng’s side, but whenever Jiang Cheng went out, she was sure to spot him somewhere nearby.

Jiang Cheng’s building sweep had gone so quickly today because, once she reached the upper floors, she discovered that Mo Li had already taken care of all the zombies in the upper half of the building.

She knew at a glance that it was his work.

The little black cat was used to the furniture and belongings at home vanishing and reappearing. He didn’t care in the slightest. He leaped straight onto Jiang Cheng’s lap, stretched lazily, then lay down and began licking his paws.

“You’re back,” Jiang Cheng said, gently scratching the cat’s head.

The little black cat licked his paw, sensed that something was wrong, and raised his head to look at Jiang Cheng.

“Meow?”

Jiang Cheng replied, “I’ve run into trouble.”

Mo Li: “Meow? Meow—”

Jiang Cheng nodded. “You’re right. This is our territory.”

As a human, Jiang Cheng still had all sorts of concerns and considerations.

But how could a little cat’s tiny brain hold so many thoughts?

This is our territory.

Drive him away.

Bite him.

Su Yu and Zhang Lesi’s concerns were entirely justified.

When a person grew powerful, people would naturally gather around him.

Cao Jiacai had gotten into an argument with Zhao Yi halfway through the workday, then simply quit and stormed off. Little Zhao and Young Wang followed him back.

Little Zhao was a superpowered earth-element user. Young Wang was a metal-element user. Little Zhao still couldn’t match Aunt Pan for the time being, but Young Wang was already about on par with Cui Haiyang. At the rate he was improving, he would soon surpass him.

“The three of us together? What the hell do we have to fear?” Cao Jiacai cursed.

The three of them went back and drank together.

Young Wang was still somewhat uneasy. “Everyone else is still working...”

“What the hell does that have to do with me?” Cao Jiacai glared. “I’m not working. Let’s see if Jiang Cheng has the guts to kick me out. I’m not Liu Hongwang!”

Aunt Pan didn’t have time to fry peanuts for him, so he drank with potato chips instead, eating one after another.

“If Liu Hongwang had had my abilities back then, he wouldn’t have been driven out and died outside.”

Young Wang and Little Zhao had always been bothered by that incident.

It had made them painfully aware that they and the apartment owners belonged to different groups. The realization had been deeply uncomfortable.

Only Little Fang had foolishly thought that Jiang Cheng was in the right.

Later, when Cao Jiacai said he was going to report Jiang Cheng to the police and have her arrested, the two of them hadn’t gone with him, but they had supported him.

When Cao Jiacai returned disappointed, they had even chipped in to buy him drinks and cursed the state of the world together.

Why were other people college graduates and white-collar workers while they were only security guards?

They blamed heaven, blamed earth, and blamed everyone else.

After the drinks ran out, Little Zhao and Young Wang left. Cao Jiacai remained alone in the apartment. Through the window, he watched the apartment owners return one after another.

He also saw Jiang Cheng and the others walking straight across the complex toward the west gate.

As they walked, they naturally let Jiang Cheng take the very center and lead the group.

Everyone gathered around her.

Cao Jiacai had seen scenes like that back when he was still part of the complex’s security staff, but this was the first time he had looked down on one from above.

From this vantage point, the formation was even clearer.

The person in the middle was the leader. Only the leader would be surrounded by everyone, placed at the center, and allowed to walk at the front.

Cao Jiacai’s heart began to burn.

He wanted to stand in that position too.

Cao Jiacai thought he was the only one who had such ambitions. He never imagined that some of the apartment owners actually wanted him to become the big shot.

After dinner, when he returned to his apartment and was getting ready for bed, someone knocked on his door.

Cao Jiacai had originally had a roommate, because that was Jiang Cheng’s rule: two people to a room.

Later, when the zombie crisis was over and everything returned to normal, the temporary committee was dissolved, and Jiang Cheng left town on a business trip, disappearing from sight. But there were so many empty apartments in the complex that Cao Jiacai had driven his roommate into the unit next door and claimed one apartment for himself.

When he opened the door, he found two male apartment owners he recognized. They greeted him.

“Brother Cao.”

The owners used to call him Old Cao. Over the past two days, many of them had started calling him Guard Cao. Calling him Guard Cao was probably the greatest respect these bastards were willing to show him.

To hell with that.

Look at this—someone was calling him Brother Cao.

“You are... what was your surname again?” Cao Jiacai asked. “I remember you. You’re from Building Four, right?”

The man smiled. “That’s right. I’m from Building Four. My name is Wang Haotian.”

“Brother Cao,” he said. “Can we come in and talk?”

Why had two apartment owners lowered themselves enough to come looking for him?

Suspicious, Cao Jiacai let them in.

The three of them sat on the sofa and the bed, talking.

Wang Haotian began with some small talk. “Brother Cao, this apartment is pretty comfortable, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

Wang Haotian asked, “You live here alone? I remember there were supposed to be two people.”

Cao Jiacai grew wary. “What are you getting at?”

Wang Haotian said, “Brother Cao, there are so many empty apartments. Do you know why they still arranged for two of you to share one?”

Cao Jiacai frowned.

Wang Haotian revealed the answer himself. “It’s because they were afraid you’d get too comfortable and forget your place. They forced you to live together in a cramped room, refusing to let you use an empty apartment even when there were plenty available. It was a reminder to remember that you were beneath the apartment owners, that you worked for them. Guess whose idea that was?”

Cao Jiacai exploded with rage. “Jiang Cheng! It was her, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it?”

Wang Haotian gave him a thumbs-up. “Brother Cao, you’re sharp. You guessed it right away.”

Cao Jiacai launched into a string of curses.

Every now and then, Wang Haotian and the other man chimed in. “Exactly. You can say that again. Right. Damn straight. That’s fucked-up.”

Once Cao Jiacai had vented enough, he stopped and asked, “What exactly did you two come here for? Don’t beat around the bush. Just say it.”

Wang Haotian and the other man exchanged a glance.

Wang Haotian sat up straight, his face full of righteous indignation. “Brother Cao, this is such a huge residential compound, and it’s not like we’re short on people! So tell me, why should Jiang Cheng be the one leading us just because she’s a woman?”

Those words struck straight at Cao Jiacai’s heart.

Back when the interim committee had first been established, he had complained, “Those people actually let a woman boss them around.”

At the time, it had looked as though that Song guy was going to compete for power, but somehow he had ended up becoming Jiang Cheng’s lackey.

Jiang Cheng—a woman—was ordering around a whole bunch of grown men.

This time, Jiang Cheng had sent out a mass text warning everyone. More than four hundred people from the youth apartments had returned, and most of them had survived.

You could say it had been a screening process.

The people who had come back and survived were, for the most part, those who trusted Jiang Cheng.

But nothing was ever absolute.

Among those four hundred-plus people were Wang Haotian and the other man. They had not returned because they trusted Jiang Cheng.

First and foremost, they were afraid of dying. They were afraid of the possibility that something might happen. Second, they had simply followed the crowd. In several group chats, many people had said they were going back. Once the numbers grew, they had panicked and followed along.

Finally, they had put their jobs on hold to return, which gave them the moral high ground. If it turned out that everything had been a false alarm, they would have been entitled to criticize Jiang Cheng.

Who would have thought it would really happen?

The zombies had come again.

Wang Haotian had finally found someone who shared his views!

“It’s only because we’re all on the same side that we can talk like this,” Wang Haotian said. “There’s no way to discuss it with those people.”

Wang Haotian had been snapped at by Peng Ze and mocked by Song Jingshuo. In front of Li Jiangbing, one of Jiang Cheng’s trusted inner-circle men, he had not even dared to bring up such a subject.

After searching for so long, he had finally found three people who shared his foul-minded outlook. This time, two of them had died, leaving only him and this other man alive.

Now there was someone cursing Jiang Cheng in such vile, filthy language, and Wang Haotian was loving every second of it.

He kept chiming in, adding a few curses about how spineless everyone else was.

After Cao Jiacai finished venting, he looked the two men up and down. “You two have a grudge against Jiang Cheng?”

“Whether we do or not, we can’t let a woman ride on our heads and shit on us!” Wang Haotian said.

That sentiment struck Cao Jiacai right in the heart. “Exactly!”

Some crime and mystery novels deliberately describe criminals’ motives in an insidious, convoluted way.

But in real life, one person’s resentment toward another can be exceedingly simple: she’s a woman.

Some men’s most basic logic really is that simple and straightforward. They don’t take even one unnecessary turn.

Novelists lavishly embellish them with all kinds of explanations—their backgrounds, their families of origin, childhood trauma, the hardships of adulthood, and how one thing after another twisted their minds and drove them to commit crimes... It practically romanticizes them.

Reality is often much simpler: she’s a woman.

“If it were a man, I wouldn’t say a thing,” Wang Haotian said. “But she’s a woman. Who does she think she is?”

Cao Jiacai slapped his thigh. “Exactly.”

Wang Haotian fixed his eyes on Cao Jiacai. “Brother Cao, every one of them is a coward.”

There had been a Nie Kuizhang before. Wang Haotian had tried to egg him on when the matter involving He Tian came up.

But Nie Kuizhang was no fool. He knew how to read the situation. Besides, at the time, overthrowing and replacing Jiang Cheng would have cost too much, while the benefits were not especially appealing.

The country had also established an interim government, giving people hope that society would eventually return to the rule of law.

So Nie Kuizhang had ignored him.

But things were different now.

Wang Haotian pulled out his phone and showed it to Cao Jiacai. “Look at the time. What has the government done? Nothing.”

“I heard them say that Jiang Cheng analyzed the situation too. This time, the government might be completely finished.”

“If that’s the case, then we absolutely can’t let a woman ride on our heads and shit on us. It’s not as though she’s the strongest person here.”

“Li Jiangbing used to be formidable, but what is he now?”

“Come to think of it, you’re the strongest person here now, Brother Cao.”

“The two of us discussed it. We can’t keep putting up with this.”

“A man like you—why should you be taking orders from anyone else?”