Chapter 142

On the way back, they first dropped Xu En off, then went to refuel the car.

The gas station had already been cleaned out the last time they came for fuel.

Someone brought up the issue of how much gas they had left. “How long will it last?”

There was no solution to that.

For now, the collective power of the group was enough to unite everyone and seize a place to survive. They could even use their supernatural abilities to grow food—provided land resources were inexhaustible.

But fuel for vehicles was beyond their abilities.

Fortunately, hardly anyone in the Technology Development Zone drove anymore, and the gas station was used only by them. Their fuel consumption was still relatively low.

When they returned to the residential compound, however, they saw an unexpected visitor.

Brother Dong was squatting beside the vegetable plots, chatting with Zeng Qiang.

When he saw everyone come back, Brother Dong slowly stood up. “Yo, your equipment’s all been upgraded. Not bad, not bad.”

Everyone was surprised. “What are you doing here?”

Jiang Cheng asked, “How are things at home?”

“Same as ever,” Brother Dong said.

What exactly did “same as ever” mean?

Brother Dong had come alone. If there had been anyone left at home, he would never have traveled all the way to the Technology Development Zone by himself.

His chin was clean-shaven, clearly shaved only recently, but his eye sockets were deeply sunken. His whole person seemed to carry an air of lifelessness.

Everyone understood.

Brother Dong hadn’t been as lucky this time as he had been before.

He had lost his phone and couldn’t contact his family, so he’d asked Cui Haiyang, Gao Yuxuan, Guo Jun, and the others to help him get a vehicle. He drove back home, smashing through the zombies along the way.

But when he arrived, there were four zombies standing neatly in the courtyard.

His father, his mother, his wife, and his child.

Brother Dong had killed them all, dug a large pit in the yard, buried them together, and raised a mound over the grave.

What was he supposed to do next? Keep living, of course.

After checking the house, he found that it was stocked with a considerable amount of rice, flour, cooking oil, and other supplies. A newly purchased chest freezer was packed full of meat.

His mother had planted vegetables in the yard, and they were growing lush and green.

He could easily hide there alone and live like he was in a secluded paradise.

And that was exactly what Brother Dong had done.

Until today, when he didn’t wake up until almost noon. He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling for who knew how long.

Then he got up and looked in the mirror. The man in the reflection had a scruffy beard and deeply sunken eyes.

He looked neither human nor ghost.

Brother Dong realized that he couldn’t live that kind of solitary life.

He had to live alongside other survivors. He needed the presence of other people.

After shaving, Brother Dong got into his car. He thought for a while, then drove to the Technology Development Zone to seek refuge with them.

“I didn’t come empty-handed,” Brother Dong said. “My car is packed with rice, flour, cooking oil, and other supplies. I brought over as much as I could.”

He was a despicable, treacherous man.

The young people at Youth Apartments had a clear sense of love and hate. Nobody liked him—even though he was a powerful ability user.

Jiang Cheng looked toward Zhou Wang.

Zhou Wang went over and patted Brother Dong on the back. “Come on. Come with me.”

Brother Dong joined Auspicious Garden.

Before dinner, they held a meeting to discuss the situation at the Development Zone government offices.

The mood was bleak.

“Let’s go into the city and take a look.”

“See how things are at City Hall.”

Everyone said the same thing. In the end, they still couldn’t bring themselves to give up hope.

Even now, there had been no word from the television at all.

“All right. Tomorrow we’ll make a circuit through the western district first,” Jiang Cheng agreed. “Then we’ll head into the city.”

“Aunts, I’m afraid we’ll have to trouble you to prepare tomorrow’s lunch.”

“Anyone who’s free can go help out in the cafeteria.”

After dinner, many people strolled around the courtyard.

Strawberries hung from the plants in the strawberry field, and anyone who wanted some could pick them whenever they liked.

A small apple tree had also appeared in the compound. It was short, with fruit hanging all over it. There were no pesticides, so the apples could be picked and eaten straight away.

But they were nowhere near as popular as the strawberries. Most of the people wandering around had a strawberry in hand.

Recently, a new group of lunatics had appeared in the compound: the pet owners.

Their main symptom was muttering endlessly at their animals.

“When are you finally going to transform?”

“I’m not asking for anything huge. Just transform a little so I can see what you look like.”

Some people even carried their female cats over to Mo Li.

“Mate with mine, mate with mine! She’s beautiful.”

Two female-cat owners spat at each other over whose “daughter” was prettier.

Mo Li was driven to distraction. With a whoosh, she vanished.

Jiang Cheng was at home, reclining in a comfortable chair. A tall stack of books was piled on the floor beside her.

They were all weighty tomes she had helped herself to from the district government offices that day.

As society had grown prosperous, it had also become increasingly restless and superficial. Young people found it difficult to sit down and read books like these.

But Jiang Cheng had managed to get through them.

As someone from another world, she found them completely absorbing.

Everyone slept quite well that night. The zombies in the Technology Development Zone were becoming fewer and fewer as they were cleared out. Deep down, everyone knew that there were hardly any zombies left in the surrounding area. They also knew that with a beast like Mo Li guarding the compound, even a cunning third-generation zombie couldn’t get in.

It was extremely safe.

They were well fed, had plenty to drink, and even got fruit after meals.

A house, food, and drink—wasn’t that all anyone really wanted out of life?

They slept soundly.

Who could have guessed that when they got up and went downstairs the next morning, they would find water covering part of the compound?

An underground pipe had burst.

Everyone’s first thought was, What a headache. This would require a professional to repair, and where were they going to find a professional worker now?

But then they realized something.

That way of thinking belonged to the old world. Things had changed.

Several earth-element ability users got down on their knees and crawled around, searching. It didn’t take long before they found the spot.

“It’s here! It’s underneath me!”

Once they had located it, all that remained was to dig.

Many people brought out bowls of hot porridge and ate it with pickled vegetables while watching the ability users repair the water pipe.

They broke up the paving bricks and dug into the soil. Then, suddenly, a column of water shot into the sky!

Li Jiangbing hurried over and brought it under control.

The water that had already sprayed out condensed into a huge ball floating in midair, while Li Jiangbing forcibly controlled the water still inside the pipe.

“Damn it, hurry up! This pipe’s got some serious pressure!” Li Jiangbing shouted.

Of course the pressure in the main line was immense.

Someone called out, “Shut off the water valve! The main valve!”

The idea was sound. The problem was, who knew where the main valve was?

Manager Wang didn’t know. He was the manager.

Little Fang didn’t know either. He was only a security guard.

Even Aunt Pan didn’t know. She handled the cooking.

Yang Xinyan was even less likely to know. She was just a clerical worker.

Only someone like Master Luo from the engineering department would know. But there was no one left from the engineering department.

Li Jiangbing gathered his strength and shouted, “Fine! Hurry up! I can still hold it!”

Cui Haiyang jumped into the pit.

A water pipe couldn’t just be made from any old piece of metal. It would rust within days.

They had to use the original material.

The fragments from the rupture had to be picked up piece by piece.

Cui Haiyang pressed his hands against the pipe and activated his ability. The fragments fused back together with the pipe.

After a while, Cui Haiyang released his hands. “All right. Try it.”

Li Jiangbing withdrew his power, and the water in the pipe began flowing normally again.

Cui Haiyang climbed out of the pit and had Li Jiangbing give him some water to wash his hands.

Aunt Pan and several others refilled the hole with soil and put the paving bricks back in place. They added just the right amount of dirt, leaving not even a trace of loose soil. The area looked as clean as if it had just been swept.

Jiang Cheng came over to ask what had happened.

Cui Haiyang said, “Think of it this way: there wasn’t enough of this particular color of paint, so I borrowed some from the more concentrated color beside it and spread it over. It looks about the same, but in reality, the whole thing has been diluted.”

That was the problem.

They had no way to restock the gas station.

Nor could they replace the pipes beneath their feet.

Their superpowers could patch things up here and there, but they couldn’t solve the fundamental problems.

Despite a minor incident that morning, the team still set out on time.

Xu En arrived early on his bicycle, and two children from another neighborhood came with him.

They had all been told to take care of their own neighborhood first.

The children stuck out their chins and declared, “We’re superpowered too! Xu En joined, so we want to join as well!”

“If you don’t let us go, we’ll ride our bikes and follow you!”

Their fearless, stubborn refusal to listen made everyone at the Youth Apartments suddenly realize that they were getting old.

Wang Yunya said nothing. Little Huang shot her a glance.

Little Huang and Wang Yunya were neighbors in the same residential complex, though Little Huang attended a prestigious middle school downtown.

Xu En and the others were Wang Yunya’s classmates.

That guilty look on Wang Yunya’s face made it obvious she had known about this since last night. She had either failed to stop them—or hadn’t tried very hard. More likely, she was an accomplice herself.

The children made Jiang Cheng laugh. “All right, get on.”

“Have you eaten breakfast?”

“Here, have a steamed bun!”

“Drink a bowl of porridge before you go. We’ve got some hard labor ahead of us.”

The adults all started feeding them.

The two children had snuck out without telling the elderly people in their neighborhood, and they really hadn’t eaten anything.

They wolfed down the food with loud slurps, clearly enjoying it, and even took two steamed buns with them before boarding the vehicle.

They were at that age when growing boys could eat a family out of house and home.

The western district of the New Technology Zone was filled with newly built apartment complexes, most of them with very low occupancy rates.

As the vehicles drove through, they saw only a few scattered zombies and almost failed to find any living people.

At last, they found a young couple who had moved in just after the previous disaster.

“We’d planned to move in June, but then the zombie outbreak happened and delayed us for several months. At least it gave the new apartment a few extra months to air out.”

“That day, he happened to take the day off to go with me to my prenatal checkup, so we were home. We were really lucky.”

As the young wife spoke, her face filled with the sense of life’s unpredictability and the gratitude of having survived a catastrophe.

“Both our parents are gone. Now it’s just the two of us left in this world.”

“We just hope the baby can be born safely.”

Everyone looked at her belly, feeling dazed.

There were hardly any children left to be seen. The youngest people around them were elementary school students.

They truly couldn’t see any babies anymore.

Jiang Cheng asked, “Would you like to move in with us?”

The western district’s commercial facilities had yet to be developed. The people who lived there had to go to the eastern district and rely on Mai Duoduo for their regular shopping.

The young couple exchanged a glance, but still declined.

“We stocked up on a lot of supplies beforehand, like a couple of hamsters. And there really aren’t many zombies around here. We hardly ever go downstairs.”

“We feel safer here.”

“Besides, my husband has a superpower. We didn’t realize so many people had powers now. That’s wonderful.”

The husband had an electrical ability.

The couple believed that the western district of the New Technology Zone—with its empty streets, homes, and food—was a safe haven cut off from the rest of the world, and they didn’t want to leave.

Jiang Cheng didn’t force them. She simply left them her contact information and told them to seek out the Youth Apartments if they ever needed help.

The couple waved goodbye and thanked them for clearing out the surrounding area. Now they could safely go downstairs.

Everyone boarded the vehicles again and continued into the city.

Someone sighed, “There’s still going to be a child born.”

The numb acceptance of—or perhaps indifference to—life and death that had become so familiar suddenly cracked open, and their reverence for life began to take root again.

Li Jiangbing twisted around from the front row to speak to Jiang Cheng. “Jiang Cheng, I’d like to discuss something with you.”

“Go ahead,” Jiang Cheng said.

“I was thinking that we could take a look at the municipal government offices today, then find some time to clear out Renxin Hospital when we get back.”

“Exactly!” someone immediately agreed.

There was a child on the way.

The adults wanted to see that child born safely.

Zhang Le thought even further ahead. “We need to clear out the hospital. If she has complications and needs a C-section, I can perform it while she’s conscious and then use my power to heal her. But she shouldn’t have to endure it without pain relief. She needs anesthesia.”

Protecting a new life was what everyone’s hearts were calling for.

Jiang Cheng smiled and agreed. “All right.”