Chapter 136

In practical terms, establishing the provisional government changed very little. It was still the same group of people dividing up the work and cooperating to maintain everyone’s lives as they were.

But spiritually, it gave many people who had felt hollow and lost something to hold on to.

Breaking out of the technology district and reclaiming humanity’s living space had now become everyone’s shared conviction.

But every journey had to be taken one step at a time, and every meal had to be eaten one bite at a time.

After the general assembly ended, they held a smaller meeting inside the clubhouse. Besides the core members, many key figures were there as well.

Zhao Yi, Gao Yuxuan, and even Little Huang were among them.

For some inexplicable reason, Zhao Yi, Gao Yuxuan, and Song Jingshuo had grown close.

Song Jingshuo understood what they wanted. He was the first to speak.

Things had progressed to the point where they could no longer consider certain matters solely on the basis of personal relationships. Some things had to be made clear.

“Jiang Cheng,” Song Jingshuo asked, “are you one hundred percent certain that there are no survivors in the development-zone government?”

Everyone turned their eyes to Jiang Cheng.

Jiang Cheng faced them calmly. “Yes. One hundred percent. Mo Li wouldn’t miss a single survivor. He was the one who found the survivors at Renxin Hospital. I have absolute faith in Mo Li’s abilities.”

Song Jingshuo voiced what everyone was thinking. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“It’s not only unreasonable—it’s unscientific,” Jiang Cheng added. “That’s what I think too.”

Everyone pressed their lips together.

Jiang Cheng folded her arms and paced back and forth several times, as though weighing her options.

At last, she stopped.

“I actually didn’t want to bring this up so soon. I mentioned it to Jingshuo before—I had a theory, but without evidence, it didn’t seem appropriate to say anything too early.”

Song Jingshuo remembered. “Yes, you did. Can you tell us now?”

Jiang Cheng nodded and swept her gaze across the room.

“I suspect that our government was deliberately wiped out.”

“I suspect that the zombie virus didn’t emerge naturally. It was a terrorist attack with a specific target.”

They were gathered in the clubhouse lobby. The air fell completely silent; one could have heard a pin drop.

Jiang Cheng continued, “At first, it was only a suspicion. But think about it. As long as even one or two senior government officials were still alive, they would have their own channels and means of contacting other high-ranking officials, reaching out to various departments, and calling for military assistance. Even if only a small part of the military remained, gathering them together would still make them stronger than ordinary civilians.”

“Even if only one senior official had survived, their status alone would have been enough. If they were willing to step forward, there would certainly be many people who, regardless of the danger, would rush out to join them and form a force. We’ve experienced this ourselves. Before we had armor, didn’t we still charge out of the residential compound?”

“Even if they couldn’t completely seize the television station, they could have found a way to contact any surviving employees inside and at least broadcast an announcement telling the civilians that someone was still alive. Even a single person remaining in the government would have been enough to preserve hope in the hearts of the people. Wouldn’t it?”

“But there was no one.”

“Today is already September 2! It’s the fifth day!”

“Last night, I had Mo Li go to the development-zone government building.”

“Right now, this is the only definite sample I have. It’s an isolated sample, so it can’t serve as conclusive proof. But it has certainly strengthened my suspicion.”

“It would be simple to disprove me. We go into the city and verify for ourselves whether anyone in the government is still alive.”

“As long as a single mid- or high-ranking official is still alive, my theory can be overturned.”

“If that’s the case, it would be wonderful news.”

Everyone’s expression was grim.

Middle-aged men liked to discuss national affairs and political trends.

People in finance couldn’t separate economics from politics.

To some extent, everyone possessed a degree of political awareness.

Even Zhao Yi, a hardcore otaku, rubbed his face vigorously. “Jiang Cheng, do you realize what you’re saying?”

“I do.”

Jiang Cheng said, “I’m saying that I believe the zombie virus was part of a terrorist operation launched by an outside force—a mass slaughter of civilians and a targeted elimination of high-ranking officials.”

“Or perhaps it’s all just me imagining things.”

Everyone simply ignored the last sentence.

Zhao Yi said, “If you’re right, then what we’re facing is...”

A war on the scale of national annihilation.

Zhao Yi understood Jiang Cheng’s description all too well.

He was an anime fan. Domestic animation had been gradually catching up, but veterans like him and Gao Yuxuan mainly watched works from a certain small country to the east.

Because that country was small, its manga and anime were constantly featuring “nation-destroying” events.

But in real life, Zhao Yi lived in a great nation—a thousand-year-old country with a booming economy and rapid development.

Now someone was telling him that the country might be destroyed. To Zhao Yi, it sounded far too much like anime.

And because it sounded too much like anime, it lacked any sense of reality.

But then again...

Zhao Yi recalled the image of the enormous black cat standing beside the girl.

It had already been like something out of an anime for a long time, hadn’t it?

Perhaps fate had existed all along.

He stared at Jiang Cheng.

The Chosen Protagonist.

With the Chosen Protagonist unveiling the truth, everything suddenly seemed more logical.

Jiang Cheng hadn’t exactly lied. There was no lie in her theory.

But she had concealed the fact that she was a time traveler.

And what she called an “outside force” was not the “foreign power” everyone else assumed it to be.

A foreign country might possess the ability to release some kind of virus.

But both times the virus had broken out, the sky had turned a stormy purple. Jiang Cheng had always believed that couldn’t be a coincidence.

Based on her understanding of this world, no country currently possessed the technological power to manipulate the atmosphere and outer space on such a massive scale.

But if there were a force capable of sending a soul into a completely unfamiliar world while sealing away her memories—

And if that force had also brought along the familiar “storage space”—

Then Jiang Cheng believed that somewhere, some power must exist.

It was the mastermind behind her transmigration and amnesia, and the true culprit responsible for the mass deaths of ordinary people.

Jiang Cheng looked around at everyone. Then she pulled something from her trouser pocket and unfolded it.

Then she unfolded it again.

And again.

It turned out to be a map folded several times over.

Jiang Cheng spread the map across the small round table at the reception desk.

“Let’s set that aside for now. We need to keep our feet on the ground.”

It was a map of S City. Ring roads circled the city one after another, while the technology district lay beyond the Fifth Ring Road.

Within the First Ring Road was the old city, which contained a large number of protected historical buildings.

Within the Second Ring Road was the older urban district.

The Third and Fourth Ring Roads encompassed the city’s main urban areas.

Outside the Fifth Ring Road lay clusters of factories relocated from the city, as well as residential communities that had been moved outward.

Jiang Cheng pressed her finger against the area within the Second Ring Road. “The municipal government is here.”

Then she dragged her finger a long way across the map, all the way to the Fifth Ring Road. “We’re here.”

She drew another circle. “This is the entire technology district. We’ll put that matter aside for now. Even if I’m right, all we can do at the moment is focus on what’s directly in front of us. Let’s start by examining the technology district.”

The technology district was further divided into a residential area and an industrial park.

Zhao Yi and Gao Yuxuan’s companies were both located in the industrial park.

The industrial park was separated by a river called the Bailiang River. The development-zone government building stood beside the river.

Little Huang’s mother had an office overlooking the river.

The residential area was further divided into eastern and western districts.

The Youth Apartments were in the eastern district, which had been developed first. The western district was developed later, and many of its properties were still awaiting construction. Several projects had been left half-finished when the zombie disaster brought work to a halt.

Apparently, even before that, a shortage of workers had prevented several of the presale developments from resuming construction for an entire month.

The buyers had not made a fuss, because many of them were gone too.

Some properties had technically been handed over, but their occupancy rates were still low.

Farther west lay the land designated for the planned third phase of development. For now, it was nothing but wasteland, being held in reserve.

The population of the New Technology District was currently concentrated in this area.

Jiang Cheng spread her hand over the entire New Technology District. “Now that we’ve established ourselves as the government of the New Technology District, the first thing we need to do is reclaim the district’s entire livable area.”

“Step one is the residential areas, including every community where people are living.”

“That includes the development-zone government offices, the private school, the two private kindergartens, Renxin Hospital, and Tianfu Shopping Center.”

“Am I leaving anything out?”

When people gathered together as a collective, once they had a common goal and a concrete plan of action, the power they could unleash was astonishing.

Take Cui Haiyang and Uncle Eighty, for example. Jiang Cheng’s order was simple: everyone gets armor, and everyone gets a weapon.

“Everyone” meant every single person, including the elderly and children who had stayed behind.

That way, even if the teams at the front suffered casualties, the elderly and children could still protect themselves—and even step in as replacements if necessary.

Jiang Cheng asked, “Can you do it?”

Uncle Eighty thumped his chest and promised, “We can!”

Cui Haiyang had also developed a sense of destiny—or perhaps a sense of mission. He looked practically ready to swear a military oath. “We’ll complete the mission without fail.”

Materials were especially easy to find for a metal-element superpowered user. Cui Haiyang and the others requisitioned all the barriers along the streets and roads outside the residential communities, then used them to make armor and weapons inside the community. They worked feverishly.

Gao Yuxuan and Guo Jun had two suits of solid-metal armor specially made.

The armor had to cover their entire bodies, including their eyes and hands.

“Like medieval knights?” Cui Haiyang asked.

“More or less,” Gao Yuxuan replied. “It has to be sturdy. Make sure the zombies can’t punch through it and tear us open.”

“What are you two planning to do?” Cui Haiyang asked. “Explain it clearly so I can adjust the design for you.”

It turned out that Zhao Yi holding Zhang Lesi’s hand and sticking them both onto Gao Yuxuan while he convulsed had given Gao Yuxuan an idea earlier that day.

He said to Guo Jun, “The two of us don’t actually need to insist on killing them with a single blow.”

A one-hit kill demanded a great deal of precision and output strength. Killing the zombies one by one consumed their superpowers quickly and was exhausting.

The principle behind using electricity to kill zombies was the same as using fire or physical force.

They already knew that zombies were half-dead corpses—walking dead. But their brains still possessed some activity.

Electricity, fire, and physical attacks all worked by completely destroying the brain or eliminating that remaining activity.

Gao Yuxuan’s thought was this: “If their remaining activity can be destroyed by an electric shock, that means they should react to electricity the way a living creature does.”

“Electricity isn’t like fire. If you touch a live wire, you might not die immediately. You might start dancing instead.”

“The amount of electricity needed to make a zombie dance is far less than what’s needed to kill one.”

“And they should conduct electricity just like human beings, right?”

“So the two of us want to walk into a horde of zombies and see what happens.”

“So you understand, Old Cui—don’t cut corners. If you cut corners, I’ll die. Got it?”

“Make it sturdy. Reinforce it! Yes, reinforce it again! Reinforce it several more times!”