Chapter 13

“I’m the owner of Unit 0306, Building 2. I was the first person to post on the owners’ forum. I’m probably also the first person in this community to have dealt with a Mutant.” Jiang Cheng said. “I have a bit more experience than the rest of you.”

In reality, she only had a little more. Because after that battle just now, everyone had faced plenty of Mutants. When it came to practical combat experience, they had all caught up—there wasn’t really much of a gap left.

But most people were willing to cooperate with the group and follow orders, yet they themselves weren’t the kind to plan things out or give commands. It was like how the owners’ committee usually had just a few people taking the lead and doing the actual work, while everyone else just signed their names on the agreement forms.

When a large group gathered, people hoped someone would step forward and tell them what to do next.

“My suggestion,” Jiang Cheng said, “is that the injured should bear with it for now and have their freedom restricted. I think the property management’s conference room is a good spot. Settle them there and have someone guard them.”

The crowd buzzed again.

A man whose arm had been bitten was the first to agree: “Fine, I don’t mind. If I really do turn, I don’t want to hurt anyone either. Just put me down directly if it comes to that.”

This man was one of the initiators of this operation on the owners’ forum and the leader for their particular building. He had already built some authority in the fight just now. With him agreeing, others didn’t have much credibility in objecting. So many eyes were watching, and everyone had weapons. The will of the majority took on very real meaning in times like this.

All they could ask was: “Then how long are we locked up for?”

Jiang Cheng said: “Let’s do 24 hours for now. If there’s no problem by this time tomorrow, we’ll release them.”

Li Jiangbing spoke up in agreement: “Fine, that works for me.”

One by one, others voiced approval. The injured few looked uneasy, but they were sensible enough not to cause a fuss.

Jiang Cheng said: “With things as they are, we need to get organized. We can’t just stay in chaos. We have six buildings total. Let’s pick a few liaison people for each building to handle the work and stay in contact, instead of becoming a tangled mess.”

She first volunteered herself: “Building 2 has me, Jiang Cheng. This is my neighbor, Li Jiangbing. Who else from our building is stepping up?”

Li Jiangbing, having been singled out by name, didn’t object and simply stood behind her. Two more people from Building 2 voluntarily stepped forward, and the four of them formed a core team with Jiang Cheng as the lead.

The other buildings also gathered in groups and quickly found their own representatives.

While the others stepped back, those who had voluntarily stepped up stood at the center.

Jiang Cheng nodded: “No need to exchange numbers one by one. When we get back, let’s open a thread on the forum and share contact info there.”

“For now, each building will send one person to walk the injured to the property management office and stay with them there. Let’s get this done first—it’s the most urgent.”

Those willing to stand at the center were usually the ones willing to take charge. Each building assigned one person, so six people in total “escorted” the dozen or so injured to the property office.

Jiang Cheng instructed: “The office has computers that can log onto the owners’ forum. Keep an eye on it. We’ll post our contact info there soon, so stay in touch if anything comes up.”

She also had them give their building reps their unit numbers before sending them off.

The crowd parted to let them through, then closed up again once they had walked off.

The dozen or so people at the center started discussing: “What do we do now? What about the bodies? We can’t just leave them lying here, can we?”

But Jiang Cheng said: “Right now, we have something more important than the bodies.”

Everyone looked at her.

Jiang Cheng said: “A bit earlier, from upstairs, I saw injured people running back into the buildings.”

Li Jiangbing let out a curse: “Damn.”

Everyone’s faces turned grim.

“They should be easy enough to find,” Jiang Cheng said. “There weren’t that many people at that point—just those who had signed up on the forum at first. And when you signed up, you all filled in your unit numbers. Seven, eight, maybe nine or ten people. Shouldn’t be hard to narrow them down.”

She stressed: “We have to find them and get them to the property office.”

This was the most urgent task—they were afraid those who ran back would turn, bite someone else, and lead to more infections. That would be endless trouble, wouldn’t it?

They confirmed on-site that only Buildings 2 and 5 had wounded running back inside. Then they double-checked the unit numbers of the earliest participants. Li Jiangbing led the team for Building 2, and one person from Building 5 also stepped up to lead, raising their voices and rallying five or six people to head back into the buildings.

They would first cross-check against the forum list to see which units those people belonged to, then go and grab them.

Once this group left too, someone asked Jiang Cheng: “How about the bodies? We have to deal with them, right?”

In just a short time, it had become natural to ask Jiang Cheng about arrangements first, seeking her opinion before anything else.

Jiang Cheng said: “For now, pile them all in the central plaza. That’s the furthest point from every building, and it’s spacious around it. If we end up having to burn them, it’ll be safer there.”

Someone hesitated: “Burn them?”

“Ever since midnight last night, I’ve been hearing police sirens and ambulance sounds,” Jiang Cheng said. “But as everyone knows now, this isn’t just our community or our city—it’s basically nationwide. Even if the government gets running again, there’s no way they can handle a volume of bodies this size in a short time. Even if crematoriums ran 24/7, it wouldn’t be fast enough.”

“Given this temperature, if we leave them lying around for a few days, we’ll have a plague on our hands.”

“My take is this: pile them here for now, then contact the police and see what they say. If they’re available to take care of it, great. But if they can’t, we burn them ourselves. We can’t just watch the corpses rot and spread disease.”

“Did anyone bring a phone? Call the police right now.”

Everyone fumbled in their pockets. One man pulled out his phone, flipped it open, and dialed the emergency number in front of the group.

Nothing went through.

“No go,” the man said, closing his phone. “Constant busy signal. It just keeps ringing engaged.”

Jiang Cheng nodded. “Then let’s clean up for now.”

Led by Jiang Cheng and the others, the owners began clearing the battleground.

Almost nobody slacked off. This was their own courtyard—if they didn’t take care of the bodies, they’d be the ones to suffer.

In the end, all the bodies were stacked in the central plaza. Killing hadn’t really registered at the time, but looking at them now came with shock and a lingering fear.

“They look pretty different from humans.”

“Yeah, look at the skin color. A living person wouldn’t have this shade.”

“Look at that one—that’s the infected Mutant type. See how its skin tone is different from the others?”

“God, that one’s really creepy. I almost didn’t dodge it in time.”

“That one was my neighbor from the same building... ugh.”

Everyone stared at the bodies, remarking on how “inhuman” the Mutants were.

Just then, someone upstairs threw open a window and shouted down toward the center of the courtyard: “There’s news—on now! Quick, watch the news broadcast—!”

Several people ran to the foot of their buildings, craning their necks to call up: “What does it say? Has the government issued a notice? What’s the word?”

Several people upstairs poked their heads out, chiming in all at once: "They say it's a large-scale virus."

"Told us to stay safe, and that we can use force to fight back if necessary."

"Told us to stay home as much as possible and not run around."

"Called on police, doctors, and firefighters to stay at their posts."

A person downstairs put his hands on his hips and asked, "Did they say anything about work tomorrow?"

The reply from upstairs came: "N—o."

Jiang Cheng exchanged glances with a few of the leaders among the group.

She said to the one who had a phone, "Try calling again."

The man pulled out his phone, flipped it open with a snap, and dialed again. This time, on the fifth try, they were lucky enough to get through.

"Can't come?" the man said to the operator. "So what do we do on our end? There are a lot of bodies here."

"Huh? Oh... got it."

"Alright then."

He hung up and told everyone: "They said unless it's a fire or an explosion needing emergency rescue, don't call about mutants—handle it ourselves. Said they don't have enough police."

"Of course," Jiang Cheng said. "How many cops does a city have compared to residents? And if it's a virus, cops aren't immune either—they've lost people too."

She added, "Given how widespread this virus is, at least in the short term, we can't count on the government."

Someone muttered, "Then isn't everything going to fall into chaos?"

Jiang Cheng didn't answer. She just glanced at the pile of corpses, taller than a person, and then at the one who had spoken.

The sun was blazing, but everyone still felt cold.

Jiang Cheng said, "Let's burn them now. No point waiting for them to stink."

She asked everyone, "Does anyone have anything flammable? Gasoline? Alcohol or the like?"

A man in a property management uniform said, "There's disinfectant alcohol, gasoline, and diesel in the utility shed. Some of each. We use them for the lawnmower."

So several people went to fetch the fuel.

Jiang Cheng discussed shift rotations for the property security staff with the leaders from the other buildings: "Eat lunch first, then swap in new people, then switch again in the evening."

"By the way, I'm Jiang Cheng."

Everyone exchanged names.

There were quite a few people, and not everyone could remember everyone else, but they all remembered Jiang Cheng.

"You're really strong," someone said.

They had all seen how she swung the bat and cracked open a mutant's skull. A few swings and the mutant stopped moving. They had realized right away that she was extremely strong.

Because when they used blunt weapons to beat a mutant to death, they generally needed more swings and more time.

No one had actually counted in the moment, but the speed of the kill was immediately obvious.

After observing all morning, Jiang Cheng had basically confirmed that no one else had experienced the same "increase in strength" she had.

She kept her composure: "I've been strong since I was a kid. No man can beat me in a fight."

Her self-set image was accepted right away.

In fact, it was one of the reasons these people were willing to listen to her when she stepped up to take charge.

At that moment, noise came from the direction of Building Two.

Li Jiangbing came back with his group, his face stone-gray.

Jiang Cheng knew right away something had gone wrong: "Already mutated?"

"Yeah," Li Jiangbing said, his expression grim. "We killed it. But we lost two of our people."

He turned and gestured.

Everyone saw that behind him, among those who had gone to capture the injured person, two were clearly wounded.

Everyone's faces turned grim.

Someone asked, "It mutated that fast?"

Li Jiangbing nodded: "We matched up the online registration with the apartment numbers and found it. We went to knock on the door, and the knock startled it—it opened the door and lunged out. We weren't ready, and two of us got cut and bled."

Infected mutants had agile, coordinated limbs; "opening a door" was hard for a primary mutant, but not at all for an infected one.

That was where Li Jiangbing's group got caught out. They had no experience dealing with an infected mutant and hadn't expected the mutation to happen so fast.

Jiang Cheng's gaze settled on the two behind him: "Then send them to the property office too."

The two men's faces went pale as death.

It was almost certain that anyone wounded and bleeding from a mutant would turn a hundred percent. Going there likely meant death—just like the mutant they had just killed.

Both of them still clutched their weapons—one a cleaver, the other a hammer.

The one holding the cleaver tightened his grip, the veins on the back of his hand bulging.