Chapter 125

It was August 31, only two and a half days since the zombie virus had erupted on the afternoon of August 29.

Yet so many things had already changed.

The second outbreak of the zombie virus had not only granted people supernatural abilities and given the zombies intelligence—it had also brought changes to the little black cat, Mo Li.

His ability to express himself had grown more sophisticated.

For example, in the past, whatever he wanted to convey would be translated into Jiang Cheng’s mind as: “Us, territory.”

Now he could clearly express: “This is our territory.”

Perhaps his brain capacity had increased, or perhaps the telepathic connection had become smoother.

Jiang Cheng didn’t care which.

Everything that happened to Mo Li was good news.

She also knew that Mo Li couldn’t keep hiding how extraordinary he was forever. But during the first disaster, his changes had been far too unique. If they were exposed, the government might take him away for research.

Now, however, everyone was unique. Some could create fire or control water; others could summon lightning or stir up wind.

That was wonderful.

Jiang Cheng gently scratched the little cat’s fluffy head. “We should find a chance to introduce you to everyone properly.”

Once Mo Li’s existence was made official, many things would become more convenient.

Right, Mo Li?

The little cat bumped his head against her palm.

“Meow~”

When Jiang Cheng woke up on September 1, she found a text message waiting for her. During the night after she went to sleep and earlier that morning, two more residents had returned to the neighborhood.

Both had come back from downtown.

Neither of them possessed a supernatural ability. They had simply been lucky enough to have someone awaken an ability at their workplace. After finally escaping the building, they had fled all the way back while evading zombies, found vehicles to use, and made it home alive.

The leaders of their apartment buildings had sent Jiang Cheng messages to report:

“Medical examinations completed.”

Around noon, Zhou Wang called Jiang Cheng.

“We found a few people. How about going over to talk to them?”

Jiang Cheng agreed. “Sure. See you in a bit.”

She notified several building leaders, then went downstairs.

She had spent the entire previous night practicing her supernatural ability in the apartment, doing her best to expand her storage space, and had gone to bed rather late. She hadn’t done her morning exercises today.

Now that she was downstairs, she discovered that the entire area was packed with people working out.

Some were running. Others were doing push-ups.

The whole place was buzzing with activity.

Jiang Cheng: “...”

Since people had awakened supernatural abilities one after another over the past two days, no one knew when this window of opportunity would close.

The experts on supernatural abilities had confidently analyzed that the only requirement was having the necessary physical foundation. As a result, even those who had not yet awakened an ability had come out to train.

They had never been this motivated before.

Those who had already awakened abilities had found various corners to practice in. Some had even devoted themselves to serving the neighborhood. At everyone’s request, Aunt Pan and Cui Haiyang had made several pieces of exercise equipment for the community.

Pull-up bars, parallel bars, dumbbells, barbells, and the like.

Cui Haiyang handled the metal parts, while Aunt Pan took care of the weights. Working together, they had made everything sturdy and secure.

Yesterday, Song Jingshuo had taken the fill light Auntie Qian gave him back home, only to discover that he didn’t have any flowerpots. He couldn’t be bothered to go downstairs again to get soil.

So this morning, he simply brought several seedlings downstairs, planted them in the greenbelt, and watered them a little.

Then he began accelerating their growth.

The seedlings began to grow like footage played back from a nature documentary: leaves emerged and unfurled, flowers bloomed, withered, and fell, fruit appeared, and then ripened.

A crowd gathered around to watch.

“Wow~ Wow~”

Song Jingshuo accelerated the fruit until it was fully ripe. Each plant bore more than a dozen bright red fruits.

When they were completely mature, he noticed the people around him staring at them with shining eyes. The corners of Song Jingshuo’s mouth twitched.

“Go ahead and eat.”

Everyone surged forward to grab some.

There was no dust or pesticide on them, so there was no need to wash them. They could simply be picked and eaten.

“This is great! We don’t have to worry about running out of vegetables anymore.”

“Eating nothing but rice and canned food nearly killed me last time!”

“Same here! Just hearing the word ‘canned food’ makes me feel sick.”

“Don’t say that—ugh...”

Song Jingshuo took the opportunity to announce, “If anyone has seeds, vegetable or fruit seedlings, or fresh produce at home, bring some to me.”

“I already have seven kinds of vegetables.” He listed the seven varieties he had cultivated. “You don’t need to look for those. I’ve already started growing them. If you have anything I don’t, bring it to me as soon as possible. Don’t wait until it’s completely dried out or dead—that won’t work. The fresher it is, the better.”

The fresher something was, the easier it was for him to make it take root.

At home, he had placed each variety in a bowl of water to keep it fresh while he slowly figured out how to cultivate them on a larger scale.

Aunt Pan came over to inspect the seedlings he had accelerated to maturity and clicked her tongue in admiration.

“Not bad!”

Then she crouched down and raked her fingers through the soil. After concentrating for a moment, she said, “This soil needs fertilizer.”

She drew a circle in the air with one hand.

“All the nutrients in this patch are gone. They’ve been completely drained.”

Song Jingshuo crouched down for a closer look.

It was a patch of grass, and there was no visible difference or change in the soil beneath it.

“I can’t see anything,” he said.

“I can tell the moment I touch it,” Aunt Pan explained. “My hand feels it, and my brain just knows.”

Song Jingshuo nodded. “Okay.”

Just as the aunties had said, he could only accelerate growth. Plants still needed nutrients to grow.

This world still had to obey the law of conservation of matter and energy.

So large-scale cultivation would require a great deal of land, as well as a massive amount of fertilizer.

The word “fertilizer” filled Song Jingshuo with helplessness. He crouched beside the grass, his head drooping almost to the ground.

“What’s wrong?” Aunt Pan asked.

After understanding what was troubling Song Jingshuo, Aunt Pan burst into cackling laughter.

By the fountain, Li Jiangbing had several people lined up with their dogs.

The dog owners all knew one another, and some of the dogs that had lost their owners had found new homes in the neighborhood.

Li Jiangbing extracted pure water from the fountain pool. Extracting clean, pure water from water that was already in liquid form—even if it was unpurified—had become extremely easy for him.

The water he extracted formed a sphere around each dog, and then began washing them with a steady splashing sound.

Some of the dogs didn’t want to cooperate and ran around. The water spheres chased after them relentlessly.

Once the owners had worked up a lather, the clean water spheres came back and rinsed the dogs thoroughly. The whole process was effortless.

Afterward, the dogs shook themselves wildly, spraying water everywhere. Li Jiangbing extracted the water from their fur once more. When the owners ran a hand over the dogs, it felt as though they had just come out of a dryer.

“Wow, this is so useful!”

Li Jiangbing genuinely felt that if this zombie disaster ended like the previous one, he could quit his job at the gym and open a pet-washing shop.

Extracting pure water from any liquid, or collecting water from the surface of a solid object, was very easy for him.

Extracting water from other forms was difficult. Air, for instance, was especially exhausting. Li Jiangbing had practiced all night in his apartment the day before, until his eardrums throbbed painfully. He stopped only when even his eyeballs began to hurt.

He had already tried extracting water from living organisms at Jiang Cheng’s apartment. It was practically impossible and could be abandoned as an option.

Yesterday, at Yujing Xiangyuan, he separately tried it on living zombies and dead ones.

Later, they told Jiang Cheng, “They’re all pretty difficult. But there is a tiny bit of difference.”

“The live zombies and the little birds are about equally difficult, but they’re not the same.”

The little birds seemed to be protected by an invisible membrane; their flesh, blood, bones, and skin formed a single whole.

The live zombies, on the other hand, were like dry steamed buns that had been left out for many days.

“The dead ones are a little different too.”

The dead zombies were like shaking one of those dry buns and discovering that there was some filling inside.

Still, none of them were easy to sink one’s teeth into.

Whether alive or dead, living creatures seemed to be protected by some kind of safety protocol, Jiang Cheng thought.

When Zhou Wang led his people to the Youth Apartment, this was the scene they encountered.

Everywhere was brimming with vigorous life. Young bodies were full of vitality.

That was why Song Jingshuo couldn’t understand how anyone from Jixiang Jiayuan could be willing to accept such an insubstantial, ridiculous “payment” offered by Jiang Cheng.

Song Jingshuo was young, strong, and bursting with energy. He feared nothing. Not to mention that he had so many reliable companions and trusted comrades-in-arms.

The elderly were different.

Their children were trapped downtown or had already been confirmed dead.

They were frail, sickly, and left without anyone to rely on. A young man as strong and vigorous as Song Jingshuo could never truly understand that kind of panic and fear.

To them, Jiang Cheng’s vague promise of being “treated as a resident of the Youth Apartment” was genuinely appealing.

Zhou Wang brought several people with him, while a few other elderly residents came simply to watch the excitement.

The courtyard of the Youth Apartment was overflowing with life, exactly the sort of thing the elderly envied most.

The building heads gradually gathered. Aunt Pan came too, and everyone sat beneath the pavilion and talked.

Jiang Cheng explained her idea of setting up a communal kitchen to several of the building heads, and received unanimous support.

Quite a few of the elderly residents wanted to cook for the Youth Apartment. Two of them were full-time homemakers.

“It’s just the two of us left,” they said. “The others all went to the schools. None of them came back.”

“One of us never had children. The other’s child was in college and died during the incident in June.”

During the first zombie disaster, the population of the neighborhood had already been drastically reduced, and very few children remained.

When the zombie virus came this time, the mothers who woke up and remembered that their children were at school rushed out recklessly, determined to reach them.

Some died in the stairwells, some downstairs, and some on the roads.

There were kindergartens, primary schools, and middle schools. At present, the Science and Technology New District had no high schools; the nearest ones were inside the Fifth Ring Road.

Not every family could send their children to a prestigious school downtown like Little Huang’s family. Most children still attended nearby schools from kindergarten through middle school.

No one knew how many had managed to reach their children’s schools successfully. In any case, none of them had returned.

Zhou Wang said, “One person from our side came back last night, and two more returned this morning.”

Jiang Cheng said, “It’s the same for us. Two came back.”

Those who managed to return were not only lucky, but strong as well.

Zhou Wang said, “Who knows how many people are trapped downtown.”

It was already September 1—the fourth day.

Words of power truly did possess strength.

While Zhou Wang was bringing people over to be interviewed by Jiang Cheng, his phone rang.

“Big Brother Zhou! Is that you, Big Brother Zhou?” A woman’s voice came from the phone, hoarse and strained.

“I’m from Building One. My husband’s surname is Wang—Wang Changhe. Do you remember him?”

“He used to serve on the homeowners’ committee with you. You fought zombies together.”

“Big Brother Zhou, my child and I are trapped at the school. Can you come save us?”

Say something, and it would come to pass.