Chapter 147

Everyone had their own assignment.

Although Little Huang said he could no longer sense any danger in the building, Cui Haiyang and Wu Jiancheng still led their teams in searching the floors one by one.

Li Jiangbing and Su Yu took people to look after the survivors in the broadcasting hall.

Of the more than five hundred survivors, over a hundred were staff members.

“We all worked on the upper floors. We were dragged down here.”

Jiang Cheng gathered the staff together and asked, “Can you broadcast live?”

Then she added, “If not, a recorded broadcast will do.”

The staff member who had been answering their questions was named Yue Chao. He asked, “Who exactly are you people?”

Everyone was wearing armor—some of the old white kind, some made of gleaming silver metal. Many of them carried identical weapons that looked like ancient polearms.

If not for the zombie outbreak, seeing them in the television station’s corridors would have made him think they were performers about to go onstage.

They were well organized, but they were not an army. They still fell far short of an army’s discipline and structure.

“Are you a militia?” he asked.

More than a month ago, S City had had a great many militia members. Among his colleagues, relatives, and friends, there had been plenty of people who served in the militia.

“No,” Jiang Cheng replied. “We’re the Provisional Government of the High-Tech Development Zone.”

“We were established by the residents living in the Technology Zone.”

“Because there are no survivors left in either the municipal government or the Development Zone government.”

Yue Chao stood there blankly for a moment. “None left?”

The survivors in the broadcasting hall all seemed slow and numb to some degree, probably because of the physical hunger and psychological terror they had endured over the past seven days.

It was hard to blame them. Without protection or weapons, ordinary humans were nothing but meat when facing zombies.

One bite from a zombie meant: humans -1, zombies +1.

They had searched the broadcasting hall as well, but could not even find a chair that could be used as a weapon. All the seats were fixed in connected rows across multiple tiers.

A school would have been better. At least there, you could swing a chair around to defend yourself.

Jiang Cheng asked, “Can this place broadcast live?”

Yue Chao took a moment to react. “Here? No. Director Guo tore out all the cables.”

He pointed at the floor. Only then did everyone notice that many of the black cables lying there had been severed, exposing the metal inside.

Zhao Yi pressed him further. “Why did he do that?”

“I’ve wondered about that too,” Yue Chao said. “Maybe he was afraid we’d call for help? I don’t know. Anyway, he understands human speech. He really has evolved.”

He gestured with his hands. “He was already this tall from the beginning—two heads taller than me. He looked just like that guy over there, only even taller and stronger.”

The “guy” he pointed to was none other than Li Jiangbing, who was famous for his massive build.

“But actually,” Yue Chao continued, “Director Guo was only 168 centimeters tall.”

For a man, that was undeniably short.

“He was different from the other zombies right from the start. He was unusually tall and powerful from the beginning.”

Zhao Yi wanted to ask more, but Jiang Cheng cut him off. “We’ll talk about that later.”

She told Yue Chao and the other staff members, “I want to make an announcement to everyone in the city. You’ll operate the equipment. Live or recorded, either is fine. Just like the former Emergency Response Committee did—like Vice Mayor Zheng.”

Everyone understood at once.

“Oh, this room won’t work. There’s another studio downstairs.”

Together, they went down to the second floor. Yue Chao and the others found a studio.

“This one will do.”

When they entered, it was much smaller than the broadcasting hall upstairs and had no audience seating. But it looked extremely familiar.

Gao Yuxuan glanced around. “Isn’t this where they broadcast the news every day?”

A closer look confirmed it. No wonder it had seemed familiar.

Back at their familiar posts, with their hands on the familiar equipment, the staff seemed to gradually regain their souls. Their spirits and bodies finally began to fall back into sync, and the numbness slowly faded.

They busied themselves for a while, and numerous screens lit up.

Jiang Cheng stood behind the desk where the daily news was usually broadcast. Her image appeared on all the screens.

“Remember, this is a live broadcast,” Yue Chao reminded her.

Jiang Cheng nodded.

“Attention. Three, two, one—”

Yue Chao lowered three fingers one by one.

“Begin!”

On the screens, Jiang Cheng raised her eyes.

Technology Zone, Youth Apartments.

Everyone was packed into the clubhouse.

“Why hasn’t it started yet?”

After the team seized the municipal government building, they had contacted the apartments. Everyone already knew that the municipal government had been completely wiped out. They also knew that Jiang Cheng had led everyone toward the television station and planned to take it today.

Just moments ago, they had received a call from Wu Jiancheng informing them that the television station had been secured.

“Damn, the zombies evolved again. If not for Mo Li today, we would’ve lost at least dozens of people there.”

“There are two things to handle. First, we have to bring everyone back today and prepare a proper meal for them.”

“Second, Jiang Cheng is about to appear on television.”

The municipal government and the district government really had been wiped out exactly as Jiang Cheng had said.

Song Jingshuo’s emotions were complicated. He stayed with everyone in the clubhouse, craning his neck to stare at the television mounted on the wall.

While they waited, Zeng Qiang and Brother Dong kept talking.

Brother Dong was not in good shape mentally, and neither Jiang Cheng nor Zhou Wang approved of him joining the team.

They could simply leave him at home. He was considered a strong fighter now, and the team had enough people. Let him stay behind and guard the place.

Song Jingshuo turned his head and exchanged a few words with them as well. Then someone suddenly shouted, “It’s on! It’s starting!”

Everyone looked up.

On the television, Jiang Cheng raised her eyes.

“To all the citizens of S City, hello. My name is Jiang Cheng.”

“I’m sorry that I have to be the one to deliver this news.”

“Today, September 4, at 3:00 p.m., my companions and I eliminated every zombie in the S City municipal government compound.”

“I regret to inform you that there are no survivors in the municipal government.”

“Vice Mayor Zheng and every municipal government employee have perished.”

Jiang Cheng paused after saying this, giving the people in front of their televisions time to understand and absorb the news.

Even the residents of the Youth Apartments, who had already been warned in advance, were left dazed and bewildered as they heard Jiang Cheng confirm it with her own mouth.

The government was truly gone.

“Even earlier, we confirmed that there were no survivors left in the government of the High-Tech Development Zone.”

“Therefore, led by the residents of the Youth Apartments in the Technology Zone, and with the joint participation of the residents of Auspicious Garden and Imperial View Garden, we established the Provisional Government of the High-Tech Development Zone.”

“Unfortunately, as a provisional government formed by ordinary citizens, we have no way to contact the central government or the military to request assistance.”

“We have only ourselves.”

“At present, we have formed a combat force of two hundred people. Our team has eliminated most of the zombies in the residential areas of the Technology Zone and cleared the zombies from the district government.”

“If we had not needed to confirm whether the municipal government still existed, we should have been clearing the zombies from the Development Zone’s technology park today.”

“Today, we eliminated every zombie in the municipal government compound. We have also essentially regained control of the S City television station and are currently cleaning up the battlefield and confirming the results.”

The senior high school section of S City No. 14 High School.

Five days ago, the high school and middle school students who had finally reunited in the streets had, with only a few exceptions, remained on campus.

Most of them had been unable to contact their parents. Even those who had managed to get through found that their parents were either not at home or not in a safe place.

Under these circumstances, going home was pointless—never mind the number of zombies along the way.

At the teachers’ urging, everyone stayed in the high school section.

The school had iron fences and gates. They might not be enough to stop second-generation zombies that could jump, or third-generation zombies that had developed intelligence, but at least they could keep out the mindless original zombies.

There were still supplies in the cafeteria. Although the fresh vegetables were gone, the staple foods and frozen meat could last for quite some time.

On the second day, a parent arrived.

He was the parent of a high school student, and had only managed to reach the school after awakening a superpower and surviving countless brushes with death.

The teachers realized that middle school parents might also come looking for their children, so they organized a team to return to the middle school campus. Using chalk, they wrote the following message in prominent places:

“The survivors are at the high school section on Huachen North Road.”

Sure enough, several more parents arrived in succession. Some had children in high school, while others had children in middle school. The middle school parents had found their way there after seeing the messages.

Some of these parents found their children. Others did not.

For those who could not find their children, it was almost certain—one hundred percent certain—that they had perished.

But none of these parents left.

Given the current situation, home did not necessarily mean safety, and the journey there was even more dangerous.

So everyone stayed.

These parents were either superpowered, clever, or exceptionally brave in battle. They also had one thing in common: they all loved their children deeply.

The arrival of these adults was a tremendous help to the teachers.

For the past few days, everyone with a superpower—adults and children alike—had been training desperately, striving to improve and advance.

The few metal-element users in particular had been working especially hard.

Wu Shuchen, a middle school student with metal powers, had already stopped wearing his little glasses. His constitution had improved, and, like Zhao Yi, he no longer needed them.

His superpower was now on an entirely different level. He had become one of the main workers among the metal-element users.

Every day, he made armor from the moment he opened his eyes. He would take breaks when exhaustion overcame him, but otherwise he worked until nightfall.

The selfless contributions of these metal-element users had given every student, teacher, and parent at the school armor and weapons. At the same time, the high-intensity output, exhaustion, recovery, and repeated use of their abilities had helped their own powers advance by leaps and bounds.

Two of the parents had served in militia units and were exceptionally experienced at killing zombies. They organized the children into training groups and taught them techniques for fighting zombies.

Middle school students were at the age when their blood ran hot. Once they had armor and weapons, their enthusiasm burned even brighter, and they clamored to go outside and kill zombies.

The adults agreed.

Looking back now, the first zombie outbreak seemed almost like a rehearsal.

After the nationwide mobilization during the first outbreak, when people had left their homes and fought back, everyone understood that they could not simply wait for death. Humanity had to take the initiative and reclaim its right to survive.

Naturally, the first choices for the teams going outside were the older students and the stronger people.

Adults and students, ordinary people and superpowered individuals—bolstered by their armor, they left the school together. Step by step, they cleared the streets around the campus.

For the past two nights, everyone had slept much more soundly.

The children did not think too deeply about things. They were immersed in the exhilaration of “I can kill zombies too!”

But the adults grew heavier-hearted with each passing day. The cafeteria television had been left on all day, every day, for many days now, yet they were still waiting in vain for any announcement from the government.

Then, today—September 4, the seventh day since the second outbreak of the zombie virus—a student helping in the cafeteria suddenly rushed outside and shouted:

“Come quickly! Hurry! Someone’s appeared on television!”