Chapter 156

Mr. Xu and the director no longer remembered how much lobster and sea cucumber they had eaten in the first half of their lives. All they knew was that the steamed buns in front of them were so delicious they could bring tears to their eyes.

The security guard, Little Fang, no longer recognized them, but the cafeteria auntie recognized them at a glance. “It’s you two!”

The refugees had shown no appreciation for the braised pork she had painstakingly prepared the night before. Some had even vomited on the spot. Only these two and the companions they had brought had eaten with relish.

“Here, there are plenty of steamed buns. Eat, eat! Slow down—don’t choke.”

They were in the middle of eating when a call came in. It was an employee. “Come back for dinner! The porridge is ready!”

Mr. Xu said, “You eat. Don’t worry about us.”

“Huh? You two aren’t coming to eat?”

Mr. Xu replied, “We’re going to talk to the person in charge about our future prospects. You eat. Don’t worry about us. The important thing is to take care of yourselves.”

“Oh, all right. Thank you for your hard work, Mr. Xu.”

“It’s nothing. It’s for everyone.”

After hanging up, the employee turned to the others and said, “Those two bastards must have found a way to live the good life without us!”

Everyone agreed. They couldn’t help feeling anxious. “They’d better not ditch us.”

The young man in charge asked the director, “How long ago did your superpower awaken?”

Mr. Xu turned his gaze toward the distance.

The director hemmed and hawed. “Not long ago.”

The young man understood. “No wonder you’re so weak. After awakening, there’s a period of rapid growth. You have to practice hard—the improvement during this stage is especially fast. After that, you’ll hit a bottleneck. That’s when everyone’s talent and effort will begin to show, and the gap between people will become especially obvious. You have to work hard!”

Once they had eaten their fill, the two men went their separate ways.

The girl took Mr. Xu to find the metal-element superpower users. When they arrived, everyone was already working in full swing.

The open ground was piled high with iron railings dismantled from the roads.

One group was responsible for purification. Whenever painted or rusty iron came into their hands, the paint and rust would instantly turn into powder and fall to the ground, leaving behind gleaming metal. That was then passed on to the next stage.

They had made many narrow, elongated tables and stools, all shining brightly.

The girl said, “Yesterday was too rushed, and everyone had to sit on the ground to eat. We can’t keep doing that. Today, we’re making tables and stools so everyone will have somewhere to sit.”

Elsewhere, several people were making armor and weapons.

Mr. Xu took a look and saw that everything was being done on an assembly line. One person made shoulder armor, another made arm guards, and another made leg guards.

The crescent-shaped shovels were made the same way. Some people specialized in making the blades, while others made the handles. The handles even had threads carved into them to prevent people’s hands from slipping.

Even so, once people received them, they would still wrap the handles with strips of cloth, electrical tape, or something similar.

Mr. Xu joined the crescent-shovel production line, taking responsibility for sharpening the blades.

Sharpening required delicate precision, and delicate precision was by no means easy. After working for a while, Mr. Xu was already sweating all over his forehead.

Someone beside him glanced over and said, “Your efficiency is too low. Practice more.”

“The teams will be coming back tonight, and we’ll have to repair everyone’s weapons. Hurry up and practice.”

A shovel could easily become dull after a day’s use, so all the weapons had to be repaired together at night to keep them sharp.

On the other side, the young man took the director to find several electricity-element superpower users.

A row of iron crosses stood there, with a light bulb fixed to the top of each one. The electricity-element users generated power from a distance and lit the bulbs.

Some bulbs stayed brightly lit for a long time. Others were too dim, while one flickered on and off.

The young man led the director over. “You can practice here. There’s a vacant spot.”

The others were all young people, residents of the Youth Apartments. They turned to look at him.

“Refugee?”

The director was very polite. “Yes. And you are?”

“We live here.”

“Oh, I see.”

“When did your power awaken?”

“Not long ago.”

“Give it a try. Let’s see what you can do.”

The director had never tried firing his power from a distance before. So far, he had only managed to hail a taxi once, and even that had taken an enormous amount of effort.

So the director gathered his strength from his core and imitated the young people beside him, firing electricity through the air.

A current extended from his fingertip and crackled for a few moments before disappearing.

The light bulb did not turn on.

Everyone fell silent for a moment before bursting into laughter.

“Uncle, did your power just awaken?”

“Uncle, you need to practice!”

“Hahahahahaha!”

The director was displeased. “Why are you calling me ‘uncle’? You all look old enough to be working already. You shouldn’t lower your seniority in the workplace. Colleagues should address one another as equals. No matter how old someone is, you should still call them brother or sister.”

That was true. Everyone understood the principle. They had only been teasing him on purpose just now, and they promptly changed the way they addressed him.

“Brother, you need to practice.”

“Big Brother, what should we call you?”

The director replied, “My surname is Yu.”

“Brother Yu, let me explain how this works.”

The group did not hold anything back. They shared everything they knew.

They explained how to perform delicate operations, how to use a test pen to sense the differences between various voltages and currents, how to aim when discharging electricity, and how to build an electrical grid.

Director Yu said, “You all look like you only awakened your powers recently, but you certainly know a lot.”

Everyone laughed. “We have someone who specializes in researching this stuff.”

It was September 5. Only eight days had passed since August 29. These people were already this professional. Director Yu felt a deep respect for the Youth Apartments.

As he practiced and chatted with the young people, he soon got a rough understanding of the basic situation at the Youth Apartments.

There were two central figures: the woman was called Jiang Cheng, and she handled external affairs. The man was called Song Jingshuo, and he handled internal affairs.

There were also several other key members.

And then...

“A cat?”

“That’s right,” everyone said. “Our neighborhood’s Guardian Cat.”

“It’s incredibly powerful.”

“You’ll see it once you join a team.”

It sounded as though electricity-element superpower users were required to join the combat teams.

Director Yu cautiously asked about all sorts of things related to the teams.

“Don’t be afraid,” the others reassured him. “You’re new, so they’ll definitely have you stay toward the back. We’ll be in front.”

These people who were still practicing had already been the main fighters against the zombies before their powers awakened. However, since their abilities had suddenly awakened one after another, they had to hurry and practice them first.

After all, judging from the situation so far, superpowers really were useful.

“This is evolution.”

Everyone repeated Zhao Yi’s theory to Director Yu. Director Yu nodded along as he listened. “That makes sense. That makes sense.”

Then he asked, “What are those people doing?”

The residential complex consisted of six buildings arranged in a circle, with a courtyard in the middle. The courtyard was actually quite large, but it was now packed with activity.

The areas that had clearly once been landscaped greenbelts had been stripped of their original plants. The earth-element superpower users were turning over and preparing the soil, while several people seemed to be applying fertilizer. Two older women and a young man were each tending several plots and planting things.

Mr. Xu was sitting on a metal chair with several metal-element users on the other side, making various items. Everyone was arranged in a line, working like an assembly line.

Well, looking closely, it really was an assembly line.

Mr. Xu’s speed was obviously not keeping up, and a pile of unfinished items was accumulating beside him.

Some people were sweeping the courtyard and hauling away garbage. They were all very young. It was easy to guess that they were residents of the complex. After all, this development had been designed to profit off young people, with tiny apartments that were practically unsuitable for marriage, marketed to them as a way to take advantage of their limited finances.

It appeared that everyone had been assigned a position. More likely, they were operating on a rotation system.

It looked as though no one had any complaints. If people were assigned permanently to jobs like sweeping floors and taking out the trash, anyone would eventually wear their grievances plainly on their faces.

There were also some people working out. Others were lined up, running laps around the courtyard in neat formation.

The “people” Director Yu had asked about were the ones running and exercising.

“You have to train your body. Physical fitness is the foundation of evolution.”

“No one knows how long the window for awakening superpowers will remain open. Everyone’s working themselves to the bone, hoping to awaken.”

“Exactly. I awakened yesterday.”

The speaker was the man whose lightbulb kept flickering.

His words drew a round of laughter.

“You call that awakening?”

“You just got scared awake.”

This man had originally thought he had no hope of awakening and was prepared to remain an ordinary member of the team. But yesterday, after being frightened by Guo the Great Embezzler at the television station, he had unexpectedly awakened.

He put his hands on his hips. “Who cares how I woke up? The point is, I’m awake. I’ve evolved!”

Then he casually patted Director Yu’s belly. “Brother Yu, you should exercise too. Zhao Yi and Gao Yuxuan said it themselves: the body is the foundation. If the foundation is weak, it’ll definitely affect your superpower.”

“That’s right. We’ll go running later too.”

“Let’s train a little longer.”

“Come on, Brother Yu. Join us.”

After working on an assembly line for long enough, a person’s mind gradually went blank. Their hands became more and more skilled, while their thoughts became emptier and emptier.

Mr. Xu didn’t know how long his mind had been blank when he suddenly came to his senses.

It turned out that everyone around him was laughing.

“Keep it up, big brother! You can do it!”

He turned his head and followed everyone’s gaze.

“...”

Old Yu?

Why was Old Yu running with a group of young people?

Old Yu was already exhausted, running like a dying dog.

He was practically about to collapse.

Young people along the entire route cheered him on.

Old Yu refused to admit he was getting old. Unable to bear losing face, he clenched his teeth and forced himself to keep going.

Served him right.

Mr. Xu was a serious weightlifter who kept himself in excellent shape. If he hadn’t been, it would have been impossible for him to withstand the sudden increase in workload yesterday as he created armor and weapons for everyone.

The office building’s rent was so expensive, yet he had still been willing to set aside a separate gym and work out there with his employees.

Only Old Yu spent every day slacking off and refusing to train.

Served him right.

“What kind of superpower does he have?”

“Seems to be electricity.”

“Oh, electricity. Then he really does need to train. He’ll have to join the team in the future.”

The team had already left for the day.

The three phones had been bombarded with calls and messages last night. Things only eased up toward midnight, but as soon as morning came, another barrage of text messages began.

Clearly, some people hadn’t seen the livestream right away yesterday. They had only seen the replay when they turned on the television this morning.

Yang Xinyan, her eyes red from lack of sleep, handed the organized and printed materials to Jiang Cheng.

They had been sorted beautifully: locations, numbers of people, surrounding conditions, and contact information, categorized by district and arranged from north to south.

There was far too much. The stack was several pages thick, so Jiang Cheng distributed it among everyone for them to read together.

Li Jiangbing quickly dodged away, waving both hands. “Don’t give me any! Don’t give me any! My eyes hurt just looking at it!”

He couldn’t stand such densely packed information.

This was Song Jingshuo’s strong suit. His eyes darted across the pages, and he finished reading them in the blink of an eye. He had read the most and the fastest.

Everyone exchanged information.

“There’s a group of forty in Guangxiu District.”

“There’s one of sixty in Chaoyang District.”

“These office towers are next to each other, all in the same business district.”

Too many people were calling for help. Who should they save first, and who should they save later?

It was like that hypothetical moral dilemma: at a railway junction, one track would kill a young student, while the other would kill ten elderly people. Which would you choose?

At a moment like this, you realized that not everyone was capable of making the decision.

In truth, everyone else was merely a passenger on the train. They could only close their eyes and leave the choice to the driver.

Jiang Cheng was the driver.