Chapter 128

Autumn in S City was relatively dry. After a few showers in late August, the autumn rains had more or less come to an end.

For the past few days, the sky had been clear and cloudless, the autumn sunshine bright and beautiful.

The little black cat, perched on Jiang Cheng’s shoulder, even yawned.

Everyone knew how much it loved basking in the sun. Every day, it searched around the residential complex for a spot where it could sunbathe and sleep.

But who could have imagined that it could transform into a gigantic creature as large as a house?

At that size, the most immediate impression it gave people was no longer “animal.”

It was enough to trigger a full-blown fear of gigantic things.

The passageway inside the east gate fell utterly silent.

Li Jiangbing rolled over and came back to life.

In theory, although Wu Jiancheng had extinguished the flames on his body within seconds, and Zhang Lesi had used her lightning-fast healing ability to mend his burns and internal injuries, those few seconds of scorching heat, agony, and terror at the brink of death would have been enough to scar him for life.

But before that trauma had time to carve itself into his heart, the little black cat had transformed!

The process was interrupted completely.

Li Jiangbing had already skipped past the fact that he had just been burned. He scrambled to his feet and, amid the silence in which one could hear a pin drop, walked over and pointed at Mo Li.

“Was that him just now?”

His finger nearly poked Mo Li between the eyes. Mo Li opened his mouth to bite, and Li Jiangbing snatched his hand back like lightning.

They had been playing together for so long that they were quite familiar with each other.

Jiang Cheng said, “It was him.”

Li Jiangbing planted his hands on his hips and glared at Mo Li. After a long moment, he finally spoke.

“Well, I’ll be damned. I thought he was vicious when I saw him scratch Gao Yuxuan’s ass. Turns out he was holding back!”

His mind automatically supplied an image of Mo Li biting down on Gao Yuxuan with a loud “chomp.”

Li Jiangbing’s booming voice broke through the frozen atmosphere, and the tension suddenly melted away.

A whole crowd came rushing over.

“How did Blackie transform?”

“That’s amazing!”

“You scared the life out of me just now! Thank goodness for Mo Li!”

“Our Coalball is the best!”

Only Zhao Yi didn’t dare approach. He kept his distance and watched from afar with reverence.

Looking at the girl and the cat bathed in golden sunlight, he felt that he had no regrets left in this life.

Song Jingshuo always played the annoying person who interrupted moments like this.

“What are we going to do with these people?”

The scene fell silent again.

This incident was much more serious than what Liu Hongwang had done. Liu Hongwang had merely wanted to go on strike and demand that things be distributed according to whoever made the most noise.

This time, it was the Cao family who had actually wanted to kill Jiang Cheng.

Cao Jiacai had attempted murder, and now, right before everyone’s eyes... he was about to die.

As everyone looked at the dying man on the ground, Zhang Lesi quietly took a step backward. She didn’t want anyone to call on her.

The healing ability Heaven had bestowed upon her was not meant to save someone like him.

Fortunately, everyone seemed to have collectively forgotten that there was someone at the scene who might be able to save Cao Jiacai’s life.

No one thought he deserved to go on living.

When Cao Jiacai shouted that “everyone could just lie around and eat and drink without working,” anyone with an education immediately understood what level of awareness he possessed.

This wasn’t the first time everyone had gone through a zombie disaster.

During the previous outbreak, each person had volunteered at least four or five times.

It took an enormous number of people working hard simply to keep one residential complex functioning properly!

Take Zhao Yi, for example. He had a master’s degree in environmental engineering, yet every day he had to deal with the smell of garbage until the stench clung to his entire body.

If everyone followed Cao Jiacai’s idea of doing no work while lying around and eating and drinking, then during the last disaster they should have all been lying in garbage heaps, eating flies.

It was absurd.

And someone like that still wanted to seize power and become a leader. No—in truth, what he really wanted to become was a ruler, an emperor of his own little kingdom.

And what about the others?

Everyone turned to look at the remaining conspirators.

Oh, I see. They wanted to earn credit by helping the future ruler rise to power, did they?

Jiang Cheng turned around.

The others instinctively took a step back.

Of them all, the most regrettable was Young Wang, the metal-type ability user. Everyone had worked with him yesterday, and things had gone quite pleasantly.

His ability was powerful, too.

Jiang Cheng asked, “What did he promise you?”

Young Wang and Little Zhao both stared at the tiles and said nothing.

One of the cleaners hurriedly tried to curry favor by selling out his accomplices.

“He promised them a lot. He said he’d let the two of them manage the people and take charge of things from now on. He said the young lady would let them choose first.”

His words once again froze the air.

The hairs on the back of Zhang Lesi’s neck stood on end.

She raised her eyes to look for Su Yu, and Su Yu was looking for her as well.

The two girls met each other’s gaze. In one another’s eyes, they saw anger, disgust, and lingering fear.

Li Jiangbing had nearly died.

If not for Jiang Cheng’s little black cat transforming, who could have stopped Cao Jiacai?

A lot of people cursed.

“Fuck.”

“He was even planning to build himself a harem.”

“Damn, I’ve never even dared to fantasize that big.”

The women’s expressions changed completely. They were shaking with rage.

Cao Jiacai tried to call for help, but blood gushed from his mouth the moment he opened it.

No one pitied him as they watched him bleed, convulse—

Little Fang, the security guard, shouted angrily, “Wang Jinchuan, Zhao Hai, I can’t believe you’re that kind of people!”

Young Wang held his neck stiffly. “That was just something he said on his own! I never agreed to it! I never had any such thoughts! I was only angry about the way they—”

He had grievances and dissatisfaction he wanted to vent.

He hadn’t wanted to join Cao Jiacai in building a harem. Ever since what happened with Liu Hongwang, he had strongly felt the inequality and unequal status between himself and the residents.

That inequality had always infuriated him.

He had so many emotions he wanted to express.

But Jiang Cheng drew two fingers through the air, cutting off his outpouring.

She had no interest in hearing about his wounded pride, inferiority complex, dysfunctional family, childhood trauma, difficult adulthood, personal journey, or anything else of the sort.

Every extra word was a waste of her time.

“You, you, you, you—and you.”

Jiang Cheng pointed to them one by one.

There were three security guards and two cleaners in all.

Jiang Cheng announced, “You’re fired.”

That was all—she was only firing them.

The men, especially the three without supernatural abilities, felt their shoulders sag with relief. They looked as though they had just escaped death and were too drained to remain standing.

No one dared plead with Jiang Cheng on their behalf.

The residents involved in Liu Hongwang’s incident had gradually forgotten about it, but the property-management workers who had witnessed it in person could never forget.

Only now did they finally understand what the phrase “thank you for sparing my life” meant when it appeared so often in television dramas.

Jiang Cheng pointed out several people who had not participated in the rescue operation.

“You keep an eye on them and make sure they pack their things and leave.”

Everyone nodded.

“Got it. Leave it to us.”

Cao Jiacai continued to spew blood and convulse, and finally died.

No one paid him any attention. Once the cleaner testified that “he said the young lady would let them choose first,” Jiang Cheng’s moral standing rose to an untouchable height.

If the government had still existed, then of course the people who had committed wrongdoing should have been handed over to the authorities.

But the government still hadn’t appeared.

Under these extraordinary circumstances, with neither a government nor any coercive institution in existence, it was entirely justified for ordinary people to carry out their own simple sense of justice.

Even so, everyone’s eyes couldn’t help drifting toward another direction.

There were still two people left. Everyone had seen that two residents had been in league with Cao Jiacai.

Some were curious about what they had been thinking and why they had chosen to stand with him.

Wang Haotian’s thoughts were actually very simple. He wasn’t the sort of person suited to leadership, so he needed to follow the right leader if he wanted to drink more of the broth.

Unfortunately, the leadership of the Youth Apartments was firmly held by a woman named Jiang Cheng.

What effect would one woman have on a group of men?

You can’t smoke during meetings.

You can’t use filthy language involving genitalia.

And you certainly can’t make lewd jokes.

But that wasn’t even the worst part.

The worst part was that someone like Nie Kuizhang, who had done so much for the residential compound, had actually been punished just for making a lewd joke at a woman and touching her once—just taking a little advantage of her.

There was no justice!

How many zombies had Nie Kuizhang killed, compared with the few that woman had taken down?

In the deepest layer of many men’s thinking was the assumption that “once my contributions are great enough, women should be part of the reward.”

Wang Haotian felt that if the provisional committee had been an all-male organization, this wouldn’t have been an issue at all.

Everyone would even have treated it as an unspoken rule.

In Wang Haotian’s eyes, Nie Kuizhang’s punishment was like a whip lashing all men collectively.

Although Li Jiangbing and Song Jingshuo had stepped forward to deliver the punishment, Wang Haotian knew that the hand holding the whip actually belonged to Jiang Cheng.

If the provisional committee had not had Jiang Cheng, the matter with He Tian would have been brushed off with a few curses and laughs.

From the very beginning, Wang Haotian had wanted Jiang Cheng removed.

He had even tried to stir up gender conflict in front of Song Jingshuo, hoping to provoke him into fighting for power.

Unfortunately, Song Jingshuo had refused to take the bait and had instead mocked him.

Wang Haotian and his accomplice were terrified now.

The property-management staff had been expelled, but what about the two of them? Would they be dealt with differently?

Could it be... that they intended to kill them?

Did Jiang Cheng consider their betrayal, as property owners, more unforgivable than the crimes of those property-management employees?

Wang Haotian trembled with fear.

But he had no idea that his way of thinking was worlds apart from Jiang Cheng’s.

Jiang Cheng acted as though she hadn’t even noticed the two of them. “Let’s go.”

She took the lead and started toward the east gate.

Everyone glanced at the person sprawled on the ground, unable to get up. Pinching their noses, they went around him and followed Jiang Cheng.

Outside the east gate, only the first vehicle was facing directly toward it. The people inside that vehicle had witnessed everything that happened at the gate—from beginning to end.

Their faces were practically pressed against the windows!

They just wanted a better look.

What had happened? Why was the little black cat...?!

As soon as Zhao Yi got into the vehicle, he called out to Gao Yuxuan. “Yuxuan!”

He leaned over and brought his face close.

Without a word, Gao Yuxuan swung his hand and slapped him hard across the face!

The crack of it rang out, startling everyone.

“Ow...” Zhao Yi covered his cheek, blissful. “I’m not dreaming.”

Everyone else: “...”

Jiang Cheng laughed.

Back in the residential compound, those who had stayed behind whispered, “Is Jiang Cheng really going to keep those two?”

“What else can she do?” someone replied. “They’re property owners too.”

Jiang Cheng hadn’t even driven those property-management employees away. She had fired them.

But how could she fire property owners?

They had bought their homes here and therefore had the right to live here. No one could drive them out.

Someone muttered, “Actually...”

Everyone understood what he was about to say.

There still hadn’t been a single piece of information on television. The government had made no move at all.

Perhaps this really was the end.

But the people at Youth Apartments were neither despairing nor depressed. In fact, they were in remarkably high spirits.

Because they had something supporting them spiritually.

The government might be gone. Law-enforcement agencies might be gone. But in Youth Apartments, what was considered right under a law-based society remained right, and what ought to be done still ought to be done.

For example, anyone who had paid money to buy a home had the right to live there. No one could drive them away.

Jiang Cheng was preserving the entire framework of society.

That was what made her different from Cao Jiacai.

Cao Jiacai didn’t understand how society functioned at all. He wanted to ascend the throne, become a local emperor, have absolute authority, open a vast harem, and indulge in wine, women, and luxury.

Song Jingshuo was thinking about this in the vehicle as well.

He glanced at Jiang Cheng sitting beside him. The wind blowing in through the window stirred the hair above her forehead, and in the shifting strands was a tranquil beauty.

Jiang Cheng had never wanted to become a local emperor.

She certainly had the power to drive out the property owners who held legal title to their homes.

But if she did that, she would no longer be a leader. She would become a wielder of hegemony, a dictator.

Hegemony and dictatorship were certainly satisfying in the short term.

But where there was light, there was shadow; where there was good, there was evil. Everything had two sides. There was never any absolute good.

The ultimate outcome of hegemony and dictatorship was not merely a minority profiting while the majority suffered.

Its final form was one person profiting while everyone else suffered.

Under hegemony and dictatorship, the legal framework and moral order would be reduced to ashes. In the end, one person would win, and everyone else would lose.

That was not what Jiang Cheng wanted at all.

Everything Jiang Cheng had been doing was aimed at achieving the best possible outcome under the conditions already in place, using every available person and resource.

It might not be perfect, but within the existing circumstances, it was the best that could be achieved.

What kind of thinking was this? What kind of person was Jiang Cheng?

In the breeze flowing through the vehicle window, Song Jingshuo found his answer—

A manager.

Yes, that was it.

Jiang Cheng was a quintessential manager—a successful one.

That was why a professional wage earner like Song Jingshuo could not help but gather around her.