Chapter 173

What do heavenly soldiers and generals look like?

Probably like a convoy of gleaming Blade vehicles traveling all that way for you.

This was the outer suburbs, practically beyond the administrative boundaries of S City and almost touching the neighboring province.

They had to study the map painstakingly to find their way. They must have taken a wrong turn somewhere along the way, since the entire convoy had to reverse.

To arrive before noon, they must have set out at daybreak.

With a thunderous roar, they surrounded the village.

At first, the bullies asked, “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

But when the young woman who frequently appeared on television stepped out of one of the vehicles, the bullies understood.

The footage had been edited off everyone else’s television, but the televisions in the bullies’ homes could still receive the broadcasts. They had watched almost every episode.

They had been extremely pleased with themselves for being so clever, cutting off the village’s channels for receiving and sending information from the very beginning.

But the auntie who cooked for them came and went, and she could see what was happening.

Every time she returned, the auntie told the others. Acting on everyone’s pleas, she risked stealing a phone while they were eating and sent out that message.

Everyone had assumed they would have to wait desperately, straining their eyes for help.

Who could have guessed that the very next day, a large convoy of silver Blade vehicles would come roaring in?

The village bullies knew perfectly well why the convoy had come. Just two days earlier, this woman had executed a principal.

What that principal had done was not much different from what they had done.

People like that would never surrender meekly.

The interesting thing about them was that every one of them wanted to strike at Jiang Cheng directly, going straight for the head.

Jiang Cheng’s face was simply too recognizable. Everyone knew her, and everyone knew that she was the central figure.

There was no need for this battle at all.

Several streaks of purple electricity pierced the air at once. The bullies’ fireballs, weapons, and bolts of electricity had only just begun to take shape when they were zapped away.

Every one of them collapsed to the ground, convulsing.

When the electricity vanished, Gao Yuxuan blew on the tips of all ten fingers.

There were not actually many genuine village bullies. Six in total. The other seven were lackeys who had followed them because they saw an opportunity to profit.

The bullies with supernatural abilities were dragged up like dead dogs, while the lackeys trembled so violently their legs nearly gave way.

They tried to slip away quietly, but the villagers had suffered at their hands for far too long. How could they possibly let them escape? They rushed forward and grabbed hold of them.

Someone struggled desperately, shouting, “You—you people from that new district! What right do you have to interfere? We’re not under your jurisdiction!”

Jiang Cheng ignored him and announced directly to the villagers, “I am a representative of the provisional governments of the Science and Technology New District and Guangxiu District. These seven are representatives of the provisional governments of the other seven urban districts.”

“This is joint law enforcement by all eight urban districts of S City.”

“You may now report what happened to you.”

After receiving the message and confirming the location, Jiang Cheng had contacted the provisional governments of the other seven urban districts and proposed joint law enforcement.

All seven districts had agreed without hesitation.

No single district should be allowed to grow too powerful on its own. Of course, the Science and Technology New District was the strongest in terms of raw power, but when it came to public authority, all the districts should stand on equal footing.

Zheng Junwei especially admired Jiang Cheng for initiating joint law enforcement.

She had not tried to keep all the power in her own hands. Instead, she acknowledged the law-enforcement authority of every district.

That allowed them to restrain one another. If the leader of any district dared to abuse their power, the provisional governments of all the other districts would have the authority to enforce the law against them.

The purpose of deterrence had never been to use it, but to prevent trouble in the first place.

The moment Jiang Cheng finished speaking, a tremendous wave of crying broke out among the crowd.

It was not just one or two people. It was many, many people.

There was no need to go into detail about the bullying, sexual violence, and abuse. The villagers led the enforcement team to the zombie pit.

The pit was nearly three meters deep, filled with a mass of zombies and covered by an iron grating arranged in a grid.

An old man pointed at one of them, crying, “That’s my son!”

Young men who had resisted the village bullies had been thrown into the pit with the zombies.

More than twenty women had been assaulted, ranging in age from eighteen or nineteen to their thirties.

The perpetrators included all six village bullies and all seven of their lackeys—a total of thirteen people.

The nature of the crimes was exceptionally vile.

All eight district representatives unanimously approved the death penalty.

The villagers asked, “Can we carry out the executions ourselves?”

Their hatred ran too deep.

Everyone agreed.

The thirteen men were beaten to death by the villagers with hoes and iron shovels.

Zhang Lesi had come along as a doctor, and as expected, some villagers needed medical treatment. Jiang Cheng had thought of everything.

Zhang Lesi asked the villagers, “Why didn’t you run?”

This was already the countryside, where the density of zombies was far lower than in the urban areas.

Aunt Pan sighed. “You city girls don’t understand.”

The villagers explained to Zhang Lesi, “How could we run? If one family fled, several other families would be dragged into it.”

Many people in the village were related. If your family ran, your eldest uncle’s family, your second uncle’s family, and your third aunt’s family would all suffer because of it.

Even if an entire clan fled, the neighbors would still be implicated.

In fact, even the village bullies were related to many of the villagers. But being relatives had not spared any of them from the bullies’ cruelty.

Su Yu murmured, “How could anyone be so evil? How could they be so evil?”

Aunt Pan said, “That’s how the countryside is. You young girls must never go to the countryside. You have to go to the big cities instead. The big cities are much better. They have room for people.”

After the executions, the villagers asked Jiang Cheng, “What are we supposed to do now?”

Jiang Cheng said, “You’re too far from us. This distance makes it difficult to manage your affairs. It would be best for you to govern yourselves. Elect a village committee.”

One advantage the countryside had over the cities was that the villagers did not have to worry about their food supply.

Jiang Cheng had one particularly important question. “Do you have any wheat or rice seeds?”

The villagers replied, “We have wheat. Rice won’t grow here; that’s a southern crop. We do have upland rice, though. Do you want some?”

Jiang Cheng was overjoyed. “Yes! We’ll take all of it!”

A problem that had plagued the Science and Technology New District for a long time had finally been solved: their staple food supply.

In the urban areas, they had only found sweet potatoes, potatoes, and corn—foods that could barely be considered staples. But genuine staples like rice and flour came from rice plants and wheat, and they had never been able to obtain seeds for either crop.

The villagers each went home and brought out large quantities of seeds for the enforcement team.

“Is this enough? If it isn’t, we have more!”

Aunt Pan knew how to farm, so she inspected the seeds. “It’s enough, it’s enough.”

The eight districts divided the seeds among themselves and began the journey back to the city.

Even after the vehicles had gone a long way, the villagers could still be seen gathered at the entrance to the village, waving and wiping away their tears.

Su Yu sighed. “People are worse than zombies.”

After leaving the suburbs, they reached the fork in the road leading into the city. Since everyone was heading in different directions, they stopped their vehicles to say goodbye.

When Zheng Junwei shook hands with Jiang Cheng, he said, “Jiang Cheng, we should put the formation of a municipal government on the agenda.”

Jiang Cheng nodded. “All right.”

On the way back, Zhao Yi asked quietly, “Are we going to establish a municipal government?”

But Jiang Cheng said, “Let’s wait and see. Right now, I’m thinking about resettling the residents.”

The Science and Technology New District had taken in far too many residents. The burden on its food supply was enormous.

Now that the urban environment was gradually becoming safer, Jiang Cheng was considering sending the residents back to their own homes.

If the residents were dispersed among the various districts, the pressure on the Science and Technology New District would be greatly reduced.

But that was only one of the reasons. Whenever Jiang Cheng thought about “establishing a municipal government,” she always felt that something was off.

Was that really all there was to it?

It looked as though she had won again.

This trial she was being put through still seemed far too easy.

The first time, she had regarded the zombies as her greatest opponents.

But this time, she was gradually coming to realize that the zombies might merely be tools.

The real difficulty lay with people.

She decisively changed course. Rather than doing everything in her power to wipe out the zombies, she focused on solving the problems people were facing as best she could.

If that counted as winning, it still felt a little too easy.

As it turned out, Jiang Cheng’s instincts had been right.

Things were never that simple.

And people were very prone to overlooking what was right under their noses.

Every day, they thought about solving all kinds of problems and accomplishing great things, yet neglected the most basic necessities.

That was also because, although they called themselves a “government” and were doing some of the things a government was supposed to do, they ultimately were not a real government and lacked experience.

Someone called Yang Xinyan and was connected to Jiang Cheng.

“Is this Jiang Cheng? We’re from the water treatment plant. We can’t hold out much longer.”

Even someone as quick-minded as Jiang Cheng felt her thoughts grind to a halt for several seconds when she heard those words. Her mind rang with a loud roar.

The water treatment plant!

How could she have forgotten something so fundamental?

It was probably because of habit.

When the first zombie crisis broke out, after Vice Mayor Zheng secured control of the situation, he had immediately dispatched people to guarantee basic public services such as water, electricity, gas, and communications.

As a government official, he had naturally possessed access to a great deal of information and had many resources at his disposal, including the forces of the Eastern Military Region and enormous supplies of provisions.

His administration had operated from the top down.

Jiang Cheng was different. The first problem she had faced was survival. She had to leave her home and fight the zombies first.

First the courtyard, then the building. After that, she had to find food and make sure she could stay alive before she could think about anything else.

She had worked from the bottom up.

Working from the bottom up meant surviving first. With no information and no resources, everything had to be done by oneself.

During the early stages of the second zombie disaster, every day had been unbearably hectic. She had either been rescuing people or on her way to rescue them.

The early days of any disaster were always the busiest period for rescue efforts.

Day after day, she had been busy from the moment she opened her eyes in the morning until she closed them at night.

By the time everything had finally fallen into order in the middle and later stages, she was already supporting more than a thousand refugees.

At that point, it was not only Jiang Cheng, but everyone—including the residents and refugees in the Technology New District, as well as the people in all the other provisional governments—who had completely overlooked the basic necessities of life.

The reason was that Vice Mayor Zheng had done such an excellent job safeguarding those necessities the first time around. Water, electricity, and gas had never been cut off. That sense of stability had carried over into this crisis, as though everyone simply assumed that uninterrupted utilities were a matter of course.

Ordinary people were ordinary people in the end. It was difficult for them to imagine how much effort the government had poured into maintaining that “uninterrupted” service.

And the real government was already gone.

Jiang Cheng was, in the end, only an imitator.