Chapter 146

The survivors were all so hungry that they no longer had the strength to run or resist.

When the people from the Technology New District charged in, many of them simply closed their eyes and waited to die.

After a moment, when nothing happened, they cautiously opened their eyes. What they saw was not the monster, but a group of young people wearing armor and carrying strange weapons. There were even children among them.

Everyone’s minds had grown sluggish. After staring blankly for a while, someone finally asked in a hoarse voice, “You... you...”

Someone else hurriedly asked, “Where’s Director Guo? Have you seen Director Guo?”

The question made no sense. Who knew which Director Guo they were talking about?

Jiang Cheng asked, “Who is Director Guo?”

“He’s...” someone said. “A monster.”

“A giant.”

“An especially huge zombie.”

Oh. Now everyone understood. So Director Guo was the giant zombie.

“That giant zombie? We’ve already taken him out.”

Mo Li was Jiang Cheng’s cat.

Jiang Cheng was their leader.

By several degrees of separation, that meant we had taken him out.

Mo Li puffed out her belly proudly. We’re amazing!

“He’s dead?”

“Director Guo is dead?”

“He’s dead! Director Guo is dead!”

Only then did light return to the survivors’ eyes. Only then did they finally believe they had been saved.

“Do you have anything to eat?”

“Do you have food?”

“I need water! Please, give me some water!”

Their eyes gleamed with a hungry, almost feral light. Sometimes, starving people were more frightening than zombies.

Jiang Cheng took out several large barrels of drinking water.

They were water-cooler jugs collected from empty houses. The water inside had been purified from tap water by Li Jiangbing and was safe to drink directly.

Li Jiangbing drew circles in the air with his finger.

The water in several jugs floated out, forming several circular rings in midair. They rotated slowly, positioned at about neck and chin height.

“Drink,” Li Jiangbing said.

The thirsty, starving survivors rushed toward them with shining eyes, stumbling as they went. Some of them reached through the water rings and fell flat on the ground.

“Hey, hey, stand up and drink! Don’t throw yourselves at it!” Li Jiangbing called.

The others stood outside the water rings and opened their mouths to “bite” into the water. Gulp, gulp, gulp!

Several of the water rings disappeared almost instantly. Many people still had not gotten a drink, so Li Jiangbing condensed several more.

He noticed that some people who had already drunk were still trying to push their way forward. With a little cunning, he formed the next water rings among those who had not yet had any and shouted, “Stop pushing! Let the others drink too!”

People kept asking, “Do you have anything to eat?”

Everyone looked toward Jiang Cheng.

Some of the people who were starving noticed where everyone’s attention was focused and charged straight at her.

“Please, give me something to eat!”

“Stop them,” Jiang Cheng said.

The members of the combat team formed a line in front of her and stretched out their arms to block the survivors.

They couldn’t push them away. One shove and they would fall over; everyone’s legs were too weak. All they could do was hold them back with their arms.

Jiang Cheng did have food.

But she couldn’t simply hand it over to them.

The emergency supplies she kept in her spatial storage were compressed biscuits.

After the previous disaster at the youth apartments, Jiang Cheng had retrieved the supplies from the basement. The rice, flour, cooking oil, and other staples had already been put to use.

No one had been willing to eat the compressed biscuits, so Jiang Cheng had stored them in her own home.

Her home had now been opened up and connected to Rooms 0304 and 0302, making three rooms in total. She had accumulated quite a lot of supplies there.

As for compressed biscuits—emergency rations meant to keep people alive—she stored some in her spatial storage whenever she went out, just in case.

And now, they had finally come in handy.

She couldn’t give them directly to the survivors because they were far too hungry. If they ate too much, they might die from overeating.

She took the biscuits out and handed them to her own people.

“Break them into pieces. Give each person only a small piece. Don’t give them too much.”

Just how potent were compressed biscuits? A normal adult could eat half of one, drink a cup of water, and feel full.

They were genuinely awful to eat, but they were also genuinely effective.

If these starving people ate too much, their stomachs might burst.

Everyone received a small piece of compressed biscuit.

Some ate the biscuit first and then drank water. Others drank first and ate the biscuit afterward. It didn’t matter. Once everything reached their stomachs, it would all mix together and the biscuit would quickly swell.

Some of the people were wearing clothes that were wrinkled and filthy, but it was still obvious that they had once been expensive designer brands. They clearly came from comfortable financial backgrounds.

Yet now, those well-off people were sitting on the floor with their legs sprawled out, sighing that there was nothing in the world more blissful than eating a crumb of compressed biscuit.

Gold and silver meant nothing compared to food and water.

If Song Jingshuo had been there to hear that, he probably would have attained enlightenment.

The hall was unbearably stinky. It was an enclosed space without even a window.

With the doors wide open, Zhou Wang controlled fresh air, drawing it in through a hole in the outer wall and sending it all the way into the studio. The foul air was gradually forced out.

Only then did the hall finally become breathable.

Jiang Cheng and Zhao Yi began communicating with the survivors.

There were more than five hundred of them.

Those wearing badges were television-station employees. The rest were members of the studio audience who had come to participate in the recording of a program.

“Director Guo—Guo Liwei. You really haven’t heard of him?” the employees asked, gradually regaining the strength to speak.

Of course Jiang Cheng had never heard of him. Neither had Zhao Yi. But someone else had.

“Oh, him.”

Why had they heard of him? Because the tabloids had reported that Director Guo had slept with a great many female celebrities.

“Was that true?”

The employee nodded blankly. “Most of it was true.”

A member of the combat team asked, “The tabloids also said he had powerful connections?”

That was true as well. Director Guo had powerful backing, which was why he had exploited so many people through unspoken rules, including actresses, female hosts, female reporters, and female employees.

He was notorious for taking a cut of everything.

But his backer had died during the first zombie disaster, along with his entire family.

Director Guo had lost his influence.

Everyone knew the station director was going to take him down.

Director Guo wasn’t merely a lecher. He was also a massive embezzler. He kept everything for himself and abused his authority.

The station director had wanted to deal with him for a long time. Now that his backer was gone, the director was finally preparing to make his move. Rumors were flying throughout the station that Director Guo the Great Embezzler would soon be dismissed and sent to prison.

Who could have known that before that happened, the zombie virus would erupt again?

With so many people at the station, naturally a large number of zombies appeared—first-generation, second-generation, third-generation, and all the rest.

And then...

“Director Guo ate them.”

“After that, he became bigger than the other zombies. Then he ate even more zombies—and people too,” they said.

They spoke with wooden, emotionless faces.

Because there had originally been far more people in the studio.

Guo the Great Embezzler had dragged every living person in the building inside. But he needed to feed every day. After eating for so many days, these five hundred or so people were all that remained.

Zhao Yi’s guess had been right. He had been using the studio as a granary.

Zhao Yi asked, “So he became that huge by constantly eating zombies and people?”

“No,” one of the survivors replied. “He was already quite big. From the very beginning, he was larger than the other zombies. He was like a giant corpse swollen by decomposition. You know what that looks like, right?”

“I know, I know,” Zhao Yi said.

Survivor: “Then he ate a lot of other zombies and people, and grew a little bigger. But the reason he became this huge was because he ate Shen Yuehong.”

Several anguished cries rose from the members of the team.

“What? He ate Shen Yuehong!”

“Shen Yuehong was eaten by him?”

“Ahhhhhhh, Shen Yuehong!”

Shen Yuehong had been a young TV host who rose to fame over the past two years. She was beautiful and sweet, with a warm, approachable personality.

Her fans ranged across every age group.

There were fans of hers in the young adults’ apartment building too. When they heard she was dead, they were devastated.

Zhao Yi asked, “How can you be sure he became like this because he ate Shen Yuehong?”

“Because we watched it happen,” the survivor said. “He ate Shen Yuehong right in front of everyone. He’d been slowly growing larger every time he ate a zombie or a person, just a little bigger each time. But after he ate Shen Yuehong—he must have been especially satisfied, I guess—we watched him swell up like a balloon. It only took a few minutes for him to become a giant.”

Zhao Yi asked, “Was Shen Yuehong a zombie too?”

“No. She never turned into a zombie. She was alive when Director Guo ate her.”

Zhao Yi had to understand the logic and cause-and-effect behind all this. He asked, “Why did eating her turn him into a giant? Do you know the reason? Was there anything special about the two of them?”

Naturally, the survivor had no idea.

They had been trapped there since the afternoon of August 29.

At the time, a live program was scheduled to be recorded in the studio. Programs like that never lacked an audience; they were always packed. Everyone wanted to see celebrities, actors, and hosts up close.

In reality, though, recording a program took far longer than the version viewers saw on television.

It was perfectly normal for some celebrity or host to throw a tantrum and arrive two or three hours late.

The twelve hundred audience members could only sit there on their hard chairs and wait.

The television station had plenty of experience dealing with this kind of thing. Each audience member was given a plastic bag containing a bread roll, a bottle of mineral water, a vacuum-packed braised egg, a braised chicken leg, a packet of pickled vegetables, and a chocolate pie.

Many of the audience members hadn’t eaten them at the time.

Later, those provisions became the lifeline of the people trapped there.

Now, torn wrappers littered the floor. Every last trace of oil and sauce had been licked clean from the packages that had held the braised eggs and chicken legs.

Eventually, there was no water left to drink. Even wealthy audience members dressed in designer clothes had been willing to drink urine.

Everyone reeked.

The surviving staff members didn’t know what had caused the mutation, but they did know about the grudge between Director Guo and Shen Yuehong.

Director Guo had always wanted to force Shen Yuehong into sleeping with him.

Shen Yuehong looked sweet and approachable, but in reality she was proud and strong-willed. She had always refused him.

The station had high hopes for her and wanted to groom her into one of its leading stars, while the station chief had protected her.

Still, Shen Yuehong had certainly suffered at Director Guo’s hands—perhaps he had taken advantage of her in some way. In any case, she hated him bitterly.

Director Guo had already lost his influence and was clearly on the verge of collapse.

One day, Shen Yuehong had humiliated him harshly in front of a large crowd.

Director Guo no longer had the power to fight back and could only endure it, but he had surely come to hate her.

When he began randomly selecting people from the crowd as food, he discovered Shen Yuehong hiding among them.

“He made this sound. It was terrifying.” As the surviving staff member recalled and described the scene, his eyes were empty. “Only later did I realize that he was laughing. Zombies can laugh too.”

“He ate Shen Yuehong alive right in front of us. He started with her feet, then ate her limbs, then her stomach...”

“Shen Yuehong never died.”

“He did it on purpose. He could bite off most people’s heads in one bite. He did it on purpose.”

“He was taking revenge. He’d already turned into a zombie, so how could he still take revenge?”

Zhao Yi sighed. “The zombies have evolved. Third-generation zombies have developed intelligence.”

“Third generation?”

Zhao Yi said, “He can’t really be considered third generation. He underwent a complete mutation. He’s a monster.”

“Exactly. That’s what we called him too—a monster. Zombies aren’t actually that frightening. Everyone’s killed them before. But he was a monster...”

The survivors murmured, “He was a monster.”

Zhao Yi and Jiang Cheng exchanged a glance.

Many of the survivors looked as if they had gone insane. Who wouldn’t? In a situation like this, going mad was the normal reaction.

Did Zhao Yi really seem like a normal person to you?

Did Gao Yuxuan seem like a normal person?

Brother Dong had come to seek refuge yesterday. He looked alive, but his soul was already gone.

The survivors gradually came back to life after eating and drinking.

But they stank terribly.

Li Jiangbing brought water over from the restroom in the hallway. This was a high-end television station, and the restrooms had both hot and cold water. He brought the hot water straight over.

Several water spheres as tall as people spun and whirled with a whooshing sound.

Li Jiangbing shouted, “Everyone, wash yourselves! Wash yourselves—you stink! Don’t bother taking off your clothes. Hold your noses and step inside. Stay in there for at least a minute. When you can’t hold your breath anymore, stick your head out and take a breath.”

The water spheres were large enough to enclose a person’s head.

Because these people’s heads smelled unbelievably bad. The stench was enough to make someone retch.

There was no laundry detergent or shampoo, but at least they could rinse themselves with clean water and make the smell less unbearable.

Once they had rinsed themselves, Li Jiangbing would reach out and dry them completely with a single grab.

One of the staff members asked Zhao Yi, “Do a lot of people have special abilities now?”

Zhao Yi said, “You still don’t know anything? This wave...both humans and zombies have evolved. These days, when we hunt zombies, the people with superpowers take the lead. They’re incredibly useful.”

“I see.” The staff member licked his cracked lips again and again. “Actually...”

He rubbed his fingers together. A tiny electric current appeared at his fingertips, flickering with a faint light.

“I have one too.”

Zhao Yi: “...”

“I didn’t dare say anything.”

“When the people who had special abilities first revealed themselves, they were the first ones to be eaten.”

“After that, no one dared say anything, even if they developed an ability.”

“It’s just this tiny little spark. How could it beat any zombie, let alone Director Guo?”

Only those with extraordinary innate talent had powerful abilities from the moment they awakened.

For most ordinary people with superpowers, their abilities were actually extremely weak at first. For example, when Li Jiangbing’s ability first awakened, he could control only a small water sphere about the size of a ping-pong ball.

Later, everyone had to risk their lives practicing or break through and advance during actual combat.

But the survivors hadn’t even dared reveal their abilities. Director Guo would pick them out and eat them first. Everyone kept their abilities hidden.

They were also afraid that someone else would inform on them—because people really had done so.

Otherwise, how could Director Guo have discovered Shen Yuehong among so many people? It was because a member of the television station had been caught and shouted, “Don’t eat me! Don’t eat me! Eat Shen Yuehong! Shen Yuehong is over there!”

The survivors with superpowers kept them hidden. They hadn’t even had a chance to practice.

The people in the Technology New District, meanwhile, had already become a force of powerful superhuman fighters. The survivors here were still stuck at the level they had been when their abilities first awakened.

“Right,” the staff member added. “After Director Guo turned into that giant, all the other zombies started obeying him.”

Zhao Yi and Jiang Cheng exchanged another glance.

Jiang Cheng asked, “What do you mean?”

The staff member said, “Those zombies would come over whenever Director Guo crooked his finger. When Director Guo grabbed them and ate them, they didn’t run away either. They were like puppets.”

“Director Guo ate every last one of them.”

Zhao Yi muttered, “Fuck, it evolved again. Is this ever going to end?”

A lot of questions had been answered—so many that they almost wished they hadn’t known. They might as well have never gone to the TV station.

Without anything to compare it to, they would never have felt that the New Technology District was paradise.

But going to the TV station was something they had to do sooner or later.

Because yesterday, the entire assembly had passed a resolution—

If they confirmed tomorrow that no one was left in the municipal government, then they would be the only government remaining in S City.

And since they were a government, they had to shoulder the responsibilities of a government.