Chapter 140

The solution to the soybean problem was actually quite simple.

They could have just asked the cafeteria workers to dry the beans in the sun.

But there was an even easier way. Zeng Qiang told Song Jingshuo, “Just let them ripen completely and dry out on their own.”

Song Jingshuo had never tried anything like that before, but when he did, it actually worked.

The pods visibly turned yellow and brittle. Shake one, and the beans inside rattled.

Zeng Qiang sighed. “That was fast.”

In ordinary circumstances, it took twelve to twenty days for soybeans to go from their plumpest stage of ripeness to the point where the pods and beans had dehydrated and hardened.

With a superpower, it took only a few minutes.

The team gathered again and headed out.

For some reason, everyone had started killing zombies with the weary air of people clocking in at work.

Gao Yuxuan and Guo Jun had given up the two suits of full-body metal armor, which were inconvenient to move around in. They had put their regular armor back on.

Those who remained in the neighborhood waved goodbye to the team, but they were hardly idle themselves.

There was no dedicated cleaning staff anymore, so sanitation within the neighborhood had been assigned among the residents who were not part of the team.

Everyone was registered now. Song Jingshuo had the roster and had drawn up a work schedule.

Some residents swept the courtyards. Others hauled away garbage, accompanied by earth-type superpowered individuals. They took it to the street-side park outside the west gate, opened up the soil, dumped the garbage in, and buried it.

Song Jingshuo rose from his vegetable plot and gazed across the fairly clean and orderly courtyards of the neighborhood. A thought suddenly occurred to him.

Maybe living like this forever wouldn’t be so bad.

He asked Zeng Qiang, “Have I gone crazy?”

Where were his promotion, his raise, his luxury apartment? Where was the life that was supposed to rise steadily toward its peak?

Zeng Qiang had now become Song Jingshuo’s regular work partner—a senior agricultural technology specialist.

He crouched in the field and chuckled.

The schools and kindergartens had been listed as the top priority. Clearing them out and rescuing survivors had put everyone’s minds at ease.

Today, they began patrolling the residential areas.

Overall, there were very few zombies in the residential district.

Any scattered zombies they encountered on the streets were dealt with along the way.

Most of the residential compounds had already cleared out the zombies within their own walls over the past few days.

The situation in each compound was much like that of Auspicious Garden: the vast majority of residents were elderly.

They also ran into the students rescued from Gaoxin Middle School two days earlier.

Wearing the metal armor donated by Cui Haiyang and the others and carrying weapons, the students became excited when they saw the familiar 535 truck and ran over.

“It’s you guys! What are you doing here?”

It had only been a day since they last met, yet it felt like they had been apart for ages.

Jiang Cheng told them that several residential compounds had joined together to establish the High-Tech District Provisional Government.

The students immediately began talking over one another.

“Our neighborhood wants to join too!”

In practice, though, it would be rather inconvenient. This group of neighborhoods was some distance away from theirs.

The children said, “We have bicycles! We want to join the team!”

Jiang Cheng neither agreed outright nor rejected them bluntly. Instead, she said, “First, get your own neighborhood organized. Choose someone to take charge. Are there any adults managing things right now?”

At that, the students grew indignant.

The population structure of this compound was similar to that of Auspicious Garden. But its current situation was closer to that of Imperial View Garden—in other words, no one had stepped up to take the lead.

Imperial View Garden was close to Youth Apartments and Auspicious Garden. Thanks to the influence of those two communities, someone had at least been willing to shoulder the responsibility there. They had joined the High-Tech District Provisional Government and managed to keep up with everyone else.

But in this compound, the few able-bodied adults had quickly realized that if they took charge, they would become responsible for all the elderly residents.

The elderly were seen as a burden.

No young adults were willing to step forward. After looting the nearby convenience supermarkets and stocking up on enough supplies, everyone simply shut their doors and settled into living on their own.

In the end, it was the elderly who took matters in hand.

When the children came back and found that their parents were gone, it was the elderly who organized things and cooked for them.

More than twenty children, armed and wearing armor, took on the responsibility of clearing out the zombies. They hunted down every zombie lurking in corners or locked inside rooms throughout the compound.

The old and the young clung to one another for warmth and support.

Jiang Cheng nodded. “If the adults won’t take charge, then you do it. Consider yourselves adults.”

The students tightened their grips on their weapons and nodded hard.

“Okay!”

Most of the elderly had no armor, and their weapons were little more than kitchen knives and the like.

After counting the residents, Cui Haiyang brought metal-type superpowered individuals over to make armor on the spot.

The goal was to ensure that everyone had armor and everyone had a weapon.

That way, everyone could fight—or at the very least, protect themselves. The High-Tech District team would not need to spare people to protect them.

Jiang Cheng told them, “Get the neighborhood organized. Your main priorities are sanitation and security. Either elect a general leader or establish a committee to manage things collectively. You also need to appoint someone to maintain contact with us. Can you get online? The specific contact information is posted on our neighborhood’s residents’ forum. We have a dedicated thread open to everyone. You’ll know it when you see it.”

“Does your neighborhood have a wood-type superpowered person who can provide a steady supply of food? If not, contact us and we’ll find a way to help.”

Jiang Cheng could sense that she herself had changed.

Two months ago, she might have helped the neighboring Auspicious Garden at most. After all, it was close by, and the two communities depended on each other.

Back then, supplies had been scarce. She had insisted on an exchange of benefits for everything and absolutely refused to do anything for free.

But things were different now.

Was it because they still had plenty of supplies?

When the government she had admired so much failed to appear again, and when she decided to shoulder the banner of “government” herself, all her logic and principles had changed.

Responsibility had come crashing down on her.

It was heavy.

But that was all right. She could carry it.

And it was interesting.

She was a time-traveler, after all. She wanted to see how far she could go in this world.

The students looked as if they had been injected with a shot of strength. The light in their eyes shone even brighter.

It was hard to believe that these children had all lost their parents.

And yet they were still so strong. They held their weapons and smiled.

Everyone climbed into the vehicles, preparing to head to the next neighborhood.

Someone said, “I’ll call them first.”

They had classmates there. After returning two days earlier and clearing out the zombies in their own neighborhood, the students had also managed to get in touch with them.

The students did not have cell phones. Phones had not yet become common enough for everyone to own one. At most, college students might have them. Middle school students generally did not.

But they knew how to use the communication software Jiang Cheng and the others relied on, so they could stay in contact with their classmates.

Afterward, they found several phones in the neighborhood.

That gave everyone a way to contact one another.

“Xu En’s mother is in charge over there now,” one student said. “She’s pretty capable.”

Apart from Wang Yunya’s mother, Xiao Dan, there had been several other parents at the school that day. Xu En’s mother was one of them.

Those parents had all shown courage and a willingness to take responsibility.

Unfortunately, this neighborhood had no one like that.

By the time the convoy arrived, Xu En’s mother was already leading a group of people outside.

“Our neighborhood doesn’t have any zombies left,” she said.

She was astonished to hear that Youth Apartments had taken the lead in establishing the High-Tech District Provisional Government.

She looked a little lost.

“Are there really no officials left in our development district government? It’s completely gone?”

“Nothing else.” Jiang Cheng glanced at the time. “We finished much sooner than expected today. Next, we’ll check Deqingli and Shanshui Yayuan. Depending on how things look over there, if we have time this afternoon, we’ll go take a look at the Development Zone government offices.”

Xu En’s mother asked a few questions about the situation, then fell silent in thought for a moment.

Xu En was a boy with a faint fuzz of hair on his upper lip. He, too, wore silver metal armor, and he was an earth-type esper.

He called out, “Mom!”

After looking at each other for a moment, his mother finally nodded. Turning back to Jiang Cheng, she said, “Let my boy join you too.”

Xu En’s mother had already taken charge of managing the residential complex, which was excellent.

And Xu En was an esper. Jiang Cheng jerked his chin toward the large buses. “Get on!”

Xu En was a little excited. “Which bus is the cat on?”

Everyone laughed. “That one.”

Xu En boarded the bus Mo Li was on and became a member of the temporary government’s zombie-clearing squad in the New Technology District.

As soon as he got on, he saw Wang Yunya. “You’re here too?”

Wang Yunya grinned. “Hee-hee.”

The people of Deqingli still remembered Jiang Cheng.

They had been hoping for the government to come, never expecting that Jiang Cheng would be the one to arrive instead.

Four large buses rolled in. Everyone wore armor and carried standard-issue weapons, giving the whole group an imposing air.

The people of Deqingli immediately regarded them as their salvation and rushed to ask for help.

“There are two zombies!”

“These zombies have actually developed some intelligence. They can run!”

“We’ve been trying to catch them for days, but they’re too fast.”

“We’ve dealt with all the other zombies. These are the only two we can’t catch. Now nobody dares go outside alone.”

No one knew where the two zombies were lying in wait. Several people who had gone out alone had been attacked and eaten. Those zombies had been dealt with, but the two culprits still couldn’t be caught.

It was driving everyone crazy.

If someone had told them this two months ago, they would have found it hard to believe. Even the elderly were no longer afraid of zombies.

A few sets of armor had completely turned the tables.

Humanity had started chasing zombies instead.

People really were astonishingly adaptable.

From the sound of it, these two were third-generation zombies. They had developed intelligence.

Li Jiangbing hoisted his crescent shovel onto his shoulder and shouted toward the bus, “We’ve got work!”

“Brother Zhou, quit dozing off and wake up! It’s your turn to work!”

“Little Huang, yes, you too.”

“Oh, look at our Mo Li! He’s already darting out—he knows there’s work to do, huh? Wow, you’ve gotten so big! So cute, so cute, so cute!”

Spring made people sleepy, and autumn made people sluggish. Zhou Wang was suffering from the autumn version. Rubbing his eyes, he got off the bus.

First, he stretched lazily. Then he bent to the left, bent to the right, twisted backward to the left, and then twisted backward to the right.

After that, he stretched his legs.

Li Jiangbing was speechless.

Zhou Wang complained, “These lousy bus seats are killing my back and my ass.”

“Don’t you carry your own cushion?”

“It’s still uncomfortable. I can’t stretch my legs out, and sitting all scrunched up is miserable.”

Zhou Wang was a successful middle-aged professional with a private car. He hadn’t ridden a bus in many years.

This was torture.

Once he had stretched enough, he took a breath, and the air currents began to gather around him.

With a whoosh, he vanished.

Deqingli was a truly enormous residential complex.

Unlike commercial developments such as Jixiang Jiayuan and Yujing Xiangyuan, which consisted of only a few buildings, Deqingli occupied a vast area.

Little Huang wasn’t as fast as Mo Li or Zhou Wang, so he borrowed a bicycle from the residents and rode around the complex.

The people of Deqingli were left speechless.

This wasn’t how they had imagined things would go.

They had pictured four busloads of people splitting into teams, wearing armor and carrying weapons, their faces stern as they conducted a thorough, methodical search of the complex.

Instead, they got a middle-aged office worker, a junior-high-school boy, and... was that a cat or a leopard?

Before long, the black cat that had previously been the size of a leopard returned in a form as large as an elephant.

It had a zombie clenched in its jaws.

At that size, carrying one didn’t hinder its movements.

In its leopard-sized form, the zombie would have been dragged along the ground. It generally used that form inside buildings, where agility was more important.

As for its maximum size?

That form was mainly for making a dramatic entrance.

After waiting a while longer, everyone began to get bored. Some people had even started dozing off.

Several students from Deqingli were catching up with Xu En and Wang Yunya, telling each other about everything that had happened during the past two days since they had parted.

Suddenly, Little Huang’s voice rang out in the distance.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah—!”

Everyone sprang to their feet!

Had Little Huang run into danger?

But then they thought about it and realized that couldn’t be right. Little Huang’s superpower was avoiding danger.

He was a young powerhouse who could move through a horde of zombies as easily as walking through an empty street.

Everyone was baffled.