Chapter 161

The survivors they had just rescued were, as a rule, in terrible condition.

Jiang Cheng quickly discussed the situation with everyone. In the end, they decided that Li Jiangbing would lead a team and drive the large truck back to the New Technology District with the survivors so they could be settled there.

The others found a business van on the street. Jiang Cheng and Zhou Wang took several people with them and headed for the television station in S City.

Three of those accompanying them were technical staff from the station.

There was no such thing as a traffic jam or traffic lights anymore. They sped along the empty roads and arrived at the television station half an hour later, where they met the people from Shilong District.

It looked as though nearly all of the district’s more than one hundred people had come. At the front was a middle-aged man whose words and bearing carried a certain authority. He was part of the management of their state-owned enterprise.

Jiang Cheng shook his hand. “I’m Jiang Cheng.”

“My surname is Zheng. Zheng Junwei.” The middle-aged man sighed. “Jiang Cheng, I’ve finally met you in person. You’re even younger than we imagined.”

“In the current situation, age is no longer a standard by which anyone can be judged,” Jiang Cheng replied. “Brother Zheng, let’s go up to the third floor and have a proper talk.”

The third floor contained a large broadcasting studio with plenty of chairs, enough to accommodate so many people.

As everyone looked up, they saw a huge hole in the wall of the second floor.

“What happened here?”

Jiang Cheng said, “There was a mutated zombie in the television station. It had grown to an enormous size, and it took quite a bit of effort to kill it.”

The people from Shilong District clicked their tongues in astonishment. “That must have been one terrifying zombie.”

“We’ve encountered mutated zombies too,” they said.

Everyone sat down in the broadcasting studio on the third floor and had a thorough discussion.

Jiang Cheng kept nothing to himself. He took out several sheets of paper and handed them to Zheng Junwei. “This is the system we’re currently implementing.”

Zheng Junwei was thoroughly familiar with administrative matters. He only needed to glance through the pages before understanding the general framework.

“Can you give this to us?” he asked.

“It’s for you,” Jiang Cheng replied.

Zheng Junwei was delighted. “That’s wonderful. We can just copy your homework.”

The structure of a system was one thing. The key was maintaining a balance among all the figures within it.

If the differences in performance between various positions and the price differences among various supplies failed to reach a balance, the entire system would quickly descend into chaos.

Zheng Junwei praised them. “You clearly have an experienced financial professional on your team.”

Jiang Cheng smiled. “We do. Someone with a background in finance. They’re very good at this sort of thing.”

There was truth in the saying that every profession had its own specialty. But in these chaotic times, being able to identify professionals among a crowd and put them in charge of what they were good at—that was the ability of a leader.

Being a leader was never easy.

Zheng Junwei understood that.

Jiang Cheng gave him one instruction in particular. “You must maintain order. Even if it means using force, even if blood has to be shed.”

“You must protect the elderly, children, and women. If you can protect those three groups, you’ll establish the atmosphere of order for the entire community.”

“Otherwise, once the strong begin preying on the weak, it will spread like an infectious disease.”

Zheng Junwei sat with both hands resting on his knees, his posture broad and imposing. His expression grew solemn.

“I understand. It’s like corruption in a company.”

“If that happens, what you establish won’t be a government. It’ll be a gang.”

“Jiang Cheng, you can rest assured. If we’re willing to step forward, it means we have the right convictions. Don’t underestimate us middle-aged men.”

The atmosphere finally lightened, and everyone laughed.

Jiang Cheng took out several more sheets of paper. He looked through them first, then selected a few and handed them to Zheng Junwei.

“These are for Shilong District.”

They were all pleas for help that Yang Xinyan had compiled and printed.

This was not a transfer of power, but a transfer of responsibility—a handing over of human lives.

Zheng Junwei accepted the papers solemnly.

The blood of middle-aged men could run hot too.

Yue Chao came upstairs. “Jiang Cheng, everything’s ready downstairs.”

But Jiang Cheng suddenly had another idea.

“Yue Chao, can we put this information on television?”

“Huh?”

Jiang Cheng’s eyes shone. “When I was just handing things over to Brother Zheng, I suddenly realized that there must still be people in different parts of the city who can protect themselves and even have strength to spare. If that’s the case, let’s broadcast all the pleas for help. We can ask those who have the means to help rescue people too.”

“Instead of relying on our own limited strength to do little more than put out a few cups of water on a blazing fire, we might as well let sparks spread across the entire plain.”

Guangxiu District, No. 14 Middle School.

“Teacher Wang! Teacher Zhang!” A student ran out of the cafeteria and shouted, “There’s something new on TV!”

“That Jiang Cheng is on again!”

“Hurry up and come over!”

The teachers and students all rushed into the cafeteria.

The content that had been playing on repeat for two days had finally been updated.

Jiang Cheng appeared again.

But this time, many other people appeared on the screen as well.

[The Shilong District Provisional Government has been established.]

[All pleas for help from Shilong District have been handed over.]

“Hello, everyone. I’m Zheng Junwei, formerly the general manager of the XX Division of XXXX Company. I’m now the person in charge of the new Shilong District Provisional Government.”

The man surnamed Zheng announced a hotline for requesting assistance, as well as the address of a residential compound in Shilong District.

They had occupied the compound and turned it into their base. Anyone could seek refuge there, regardless of which district they came from. Just like the New Technology District, it was open to everyone.

From now on, there were two safe zones people could take refuge in.

The difference was that the Shilong District Provisional Government would handle Shilong District’s affairs, relieving the New Technology District Provisional Government of the burden of managing an entire district.

One of the students turned around in surprise. “Teacher Wang, why are you crying?”

Teacher Wang wiped her eyes. “It’s nothing.”

Children of that age might not have been able to understand.

But adults could understand one another.

When the New Technology District Provisional Government announced that the district was secure and open to anyone seeking refuge, parents and teachers did not immediately take the children there.

Doubts still remained in their hearts.

They were afraid that the young people’s enthusiasm would fade. Afraid that this was merely the result of personal heroism, and that once the initial excitement wore off, they would be unable to hold on.

But now, one small flame had ignited another.

How could that not bring tears to people’s eyes?

Especially when Jiang Cheng spoke again afterward:

[Our strength is limited and faint, but when countless limited and faint strengths come together, they become powerful.]

[Does anyone still remember these words? I didn’t say them. They were spoken by Vice Mayor Zheng during a speech at the time of the previous zombie disaster.]

[Vice Mayor Zheng is already gone. We tried to contact the central government and the other governments, but we lost contact with all of them.]

[But it doesn’t matter. We’re still here.]

[Right now, we have only two provisional district governments. Compared with the number of survivors across the entire city, that is nowhere near enough.]

[I call on everyone who can already protect themselves and still has strength to spare to lend a hand to those around them.]

[Every survivor we rescue gives us one more comrade to fight beside us and one more partner with whom we can work.]

[No one can live entirely alone.]

[Please, look around you.]

Before the broadcast, Jiang Cheng had already called Yang Xinyan and asked her to send the electronic versions of the compiled pleas for help to Yue Chao’s email address.

They had now been edited into captions.

After Jiang Cheng finished speaking, the captions began to scroll slowly across the screen. The pleas for help, categorized by district and street, were displayed for every viewer to see.

Jiang Cheng also emphasized that if a mutated zombie was involved, the person sending the plea for help had to make that clear in the message, so that rescuers could organize an appropriate team.

A student suddenly shouted, “There are people from Guangxiu District!”

“That building isn’t far from us! I ride past it on my way to school every day!”

“There are more than a dozen people trapped inside.”

“Where’s a pen? Quick, write down the floor and the phone number!”

Yesterday, the students had not only successfully taken down Hong’an Market, killed the long-tongued mutated zombie, and rescued the survivors trapped in the nearby vehicle administration bureau.

Those survivors were now staying at No. 14 Middle School as well. Their group had grown.

Over the past two days, both the adults and the children had gone out together. Like ants carrying food back to their nest, they had nearly emptied Hong’an Market.

Conditions at the school had improved, and everyone’s quality of life was much better than before.

Not a single child had considered seeking shelter in one of the safe zones.

The school was their safe zone.

Not a single child felt that they were people in need of rescue. Instead, they had reached the astonishingly unanimous conclusion that they were people capable of protecting themselves—with strength left to spare!

They were people who could go and save others!

Taking it a step further, some students had already begun asking, “Teacher, why can’t we establish a provisional government for Guangxiu District? We have quite a lot of people!”

The teachers had only just wiped away their tears when the students hit them with such a soul-searching question.

For a moment, the teachers had no answer.

The adults looked at one another.

“Because...” one teacher began, carefully choosing their words. “Because we still don’t know whether anyone from the Guangxiu District government is left.”

“What if no one’s left?”

“If there were someone, I think they would have come forward and said something by now.”

“Exactly, exactly. That’s what I thought too.”

“So if no one’s left, then we can do it, right?”

The adults were speechless again.

Why couldn’t they? No one had said they couldn’t. Who had the authority to say they weren’t allowed?

A spark was lit in the children’s hearts.

Today, besides these reports, the television also showcased the blade car and the crescent shovel, explaining in detail how useful they were.

That was because Jiang Cheng and the others had discovered that the vehicles used by the people from Shilong District merely had their windows covered with metal grilles. They had never thought of an invention like the blade car.

Sometimes, something one person took for granted might be something another person could never have imagined.

Jiang Cheng had become aware of the differences in knowledge between individuals—and even between different groups—so he had taken the opportunity to introduce both the blade car and the crescent shovel during this broadcast.

Wu Shuchen and several ninth-grade students were practically pressing their faces against the television.

The high school students stared at them in confusion. “What are you doing?”

Wu Shuchen hurriedly waved them off. “Wait, wait!”

They stared fixedly at the television screen, patiently waiting for the current loop to finish before the broadcast began again.

They waited until the scene changed to show a large group of people, then watched the screen with intense concentration.

Suddenly, the middle school students cried out, “There! We saw him!”

“It’s him!”

“He’s still alive!”

The middle school students jumped and cheered, celebrating wildly.

The high school students asked, “Who?”

“Senior Huang Xuetao! We saw Senior Huang Xuetao!”

“He’s alive!”

The high school students finally remembered. “Oh, that guy!”

Many people were already putting on their armor, forming up, and distributing weapons.

No. 14 Middle School was now divided into several teams. Each team included adults, high school students, and middle school students.

The superpowered individuals were distributed as evenly as possible, too.

The cafeteria was filled with bustling activity.

“A shovel! I still don’t have a shovel!”

“I’m missing one leg guard! Who took an extra one? I need a small!”

“I’ve got a medium! Make do with this for now!”

Armor was strapped on, and weapons were taken up.

“Let’s go! Move out!”

“When we have strength to spare, we study!”

“Now that we have strength to spare, we save people!”

“Hahahahahaha! I hereby appoint you two as representatives for Chinese class!”