Chapter 179
There was another very serious problem today: the phones had lost their signal.
Right after the explosion yesterday, the signal had still been working. Song Jingshuo had even called the other seven districts, and had spoken with Jiang Cheng as well.
Jiang Cheng had spoken with Engineer Yu.
But today, there was no signal.
No water meant losing the toilets.
No electricity meant losing communications.
The explosions and fires had destroyed a huge number of power lines, causing widespread blackouts across nearly the entire city.
The base stations had gone down too.
Thinking about it now, they were lucky to have contacted Engineer Yu yesterday. Otherwise, getting in touch with him today would have been difficult.
At the same time, everyone realized that this meant every district had become an isolated island.
Jiang Cheng and the others returned after lunch.
As soon as Song Jingshuo saw them, he asked, “Did you get it?”
Jiang Cheng nodded. “We did.”
A diesel generator and a bank of lead-acid batteries.
Gao Yuxuan and the others had also dismantled all sorts of equipment from here and there, and Jiang Cheng had packed everything up to take back.
It felt like rats raiding a granary.
Song Jingshuo said, “Engineer Yu has already arrived. He had lunch in the cafeteria and is resting now. Jiangbing and the others went to fetch water. Also, these are the locations of the other water plants that Engineer Yu brought with him.”
This was information they needed to share with the other districts.
But sharing anything had become difficult now.
Previously, they had exchanged email addresses. They could still find the electrical-type ability users to charge the computers, but the network was gone.
Jiang Cheng frowned. “We have to find a way to contact everyone. Also, we need to bring the children from No. 14 Middle School over as soon as possible. How many people do they have there now?”
Song Jingshuo said, “About twelve hundred, including students and refugees.”
The biggest problem at No. 14 Middle School was that they had no wood- or water-type ability users.
In mid-September, Jiang Cheng and the others had fought their way into No. 14 Middle School and restored order there. Song Jingshuo had personally taught them how to manage things.
For the following week, someone went there every day to oversee operations, until the children gradually became familiar with the management procedures.
Because they had no wood-type ability users, the Technology New District had continued supplying them with provisions, mainly potatoes.
But now, there was no water, electricity, or gas. The gas was not a serious issue, since fire-type ability users were everywhere. But having no water was truly life-threatening.
“We have to hurry. They must be in a panic. Let’s go this afternoon.”
“All right. I’ll make the arrangements. Go say hello to Engineer Yu first.”
Jiang Cheng went to see Engineer Yu. “Have you settled in? Are you getting used to things?”
“It’s great,” Engineer Yu said. “The steamed buns are delicious. I haven’t had buns like these in ages. These days, all you get are those big, snow-white buns, stuffed with whitening agents.”
Jiang Cheng smiled. “We grew the wheat ourselves and milled it ourselves.”
The wheat seeds had come from Taiping Town.
Gao Yuxuan, Cui Haiyang, and the others had no idea where they had dismantled an electric motor from, then tinkered with it until they had built an electric grain mill.
The flour it produced was yellowish, and the steamed buns made from it were yellowish too.
A group of city kids had made a huge fuss, asking why the steamed buns weren’t white.
Aunt Pan had looked down on them for it.
Engineer Yu nodded. “I heard you planted rice too.”
The food supply could now be developed over the long term.
The water problem was also being addressed.
One issue after another in people’s daily lives was being resolved.
Even without water, electricity, or gas, their standard of living could still be higher than that of the countryside where he had grown up.
Jiang Cheng chatted with Engineer Yu for a little while, without any particular topic or purpose.
She was doing it purely because of the overwhelming frustration and helplessness Engineer Yu had displayed during their phone call the day before.
She understood that feeling all too well.
Who didn’t?
It was just that not everyone could adapt as quickly as Jiang Cheng, adjusting themselves almost immediately.
A few words of casual conversation were simply meant as comfort.
She still had plenty of things waiting to be done, so she got up to leave.
Just as she was about to step out of the room, Engineer Yu suddenly called after her. “Jiang Cheng.”
Jiang Cheng turned around.
Engineer Yu said sincerely, “You’ve already done very well.”
Jiang Cheng smiled and nodded. “Thank you.”
I know.
Of course I’ve done very well.
Otherwise, why would that person keep raising the stakes again and again, suppressing me again and again, destroying my efforts?
...Or was this some kind of perverse amusement?
Was that person some kind of twisted psychopath who enjoyed watching others fail and despair?
Two teams were sent out that afternoon.
One team had only a single vehicle. They went to check on the governments of the other districts, see how everyone was doing, and share whatever information or response measures the Technology New District had with them.
The other team consisted of twelve vehicles and headed straight for No. 14 Middle School.
Driving now required more caution than before, because too many manholes no longer had covers.
Most of those manholes had stopped spewing fire.
But some buildings had already caught fire, and a high-rise could burn for a day or two.
Smoke filled the sky everywhere along the roads. Vehicles lay overturned on the ground. The scene had the atmosphere of an apocalypse—
There had already been two zombie outbreaks. Only now were people finally beginning to feel as if the end of the world had truly arrived.
The teachers and students of No. 14 Middle School saw the convoy from the Technology New District and reacted as if reinforcements from heaven had arrived.
They cheered and ran toward them.
“You came!”
“We knew you’d come!”
“We couldn’t get through on the phones!”
“We were so worried!”
Jiang Cheng had come in person. The first thing she asked was, “Was anyone injured yesterday?”
The students began to cry.
“The aunties died.”
“It exploded all of a sudden.”
“After we put out the fire and went inside, they were already...”
Those wonderful women.
From the very beginning, they had wielded huge iron ladles and fought alongside everyone else.
As the number of refugees grew, they had counted the food on their fingers every day, terrified of wasting even a little.
Then one explosion had taken everything.
It was more frightening than zombies. Zombies were no longer frightening at all.
They weren’t even afraid of mutated zombies.
But the sudden loss of human life was terrifying.
The complete helplessness of it.
When they saw Jiang Cheng, they could no longer hold back their tears.
The students followed Jiang Cheng’s arrangements.
The refugees, however, began buzzing among themselves, and many hesitated.
The main reason was that many of them were unfamiliar with the Technology New District. That was how big cities were. Even though Guangxiu District bordered the Technology New District, many people from Guangxiu District might never have visited it even once.
Jiang Cheng did not force them. “You can go to another district if you want. These are the base locations for each district. We’ll post them on the wall in a moment. Anyone who doesn’t know the exact locations can go and check. Those who want to come with us should start packing now.”
In truth, they did not have much to pack. They already had bedding and toiletries there. They could bring those along, so they would not have to go through the trouble of gathering everything again after arriving in the Technology New District. Things were chaotic enough as it was. Anything that saved them a little effort was worth doing.
Suddenly, two people came running over, shouting Jiang Cheng’s name.
“Jiang Cheng! Jiang Cheng!”
They were both extremely excited.
“The staff dormitory has a bathhouse! It has a boiler!”
“Let’s take the boiler with us!”
Jiang Cheng followed them there with several metal-type ability users.
After a great deal of work, they dismantled all the fixtures holding the boiler in place and separated it from the building.
“Jiang Cheng, put it away!”
Jiang Cheng stored it. It was an excellent find. They could take it back and use it to build a bathhouse for the residential compound.
She asked, “Are there any other places that might have things like this?”
“A lot of places. Schools, government offices—large institutions like that usually have them.”
Jiang Cheng instructed them, “Keep thinking. Whenever you remember something we might be able to use, and that we can actually find, let’s take it all with us.”
Everyone laughed.
Jiang Cheng’s practical, down-to-earth attitude was impossible not to appreciate.
In the end, more than eight hundred people were brought back to the Technology New District.
They also ran into three separate groups trying to stop their vehicles on the way.
Each group consisted of a dozen or twenty people who had claimed a place as their base and were living there on their own. There were quite a lot of these small safe zones scattered throughout the urban area.
The city still had plenty of surviving resources, and the area considered safe was steadily expanding. Some people simply refused to attach themselves to a larger group.
But by this point, anyone without a wood-type ability could still survive by searching for food left behind in the city.
Those without a water-type ability, however, could no longer make it.
The vehicles were far too distinctive. Anyone entering or leaving the city had to pass through Guangxiu District, not to mention that this was the only route to and from No. 14 Middle School.
Everyone knew they belonged to the Tech New District, so people stopped them to ask to join.
They accepted them all.
Construction in the Tech New District was proceeding in full swing.
Having water trucks made things much easier.
Every residential compound had added water-storage tanks. For now, the plan was to ensure that each compound had twenty tons of reserve water per day.
They would see whether that was enough and make adjustments later.
At present, the two most urgent tasks in every compound were building toilets and constructing communal kitchens with makeshift wood-burning stoves.
It was no longer possible for every household to cook separately. They could only adopt a communal-cafeteria system.
The more than eight hundred people brought back from No. 14 Middle School were assigned differently.
There were more than three hundred teachers and students. The children had already undergone education and training, and their organization, discipline, and obedience were all much better than those of the adults. In Jiang Cheng’s eyes, they were reserve troops.
They were assigned rooms in the Youth Apartments.
As for everyone else, they were given arrangements similar to those made for the refugees before, and distributed among residential compounds that still had room.
The children couldn’t sit still. The Youth Apartments were undergoing a major renovation, and they all ran over to watch.
After watching for a while, they began taking part themselves.
Engineer Yu looked at the young people in the Youth Apartments and felt that they were full of vitality.
But in the eyes of the Youth Apartments’ residents, the children who had just joined them were the truly energetic ones.
Morale was gradually recovering.
The team that had gone into the city to contact the other administrative districts did not return until nightfall, bringing bad news with them.
“Fuyang District has fallen into chaos!”
The leader of Fuyang District was dead.
When a loosely organized group formed spontaneously among ordinary people had yet to establish a sufficiently balanced structure, it sometimes depended entirely on the personal charisma and ability of its leader to hold everyone together.
The group’s central figure had died in the explosion. Flames had engulfed the city, making it seem like the apocalypse itself.
People’s hearts instantly fell apart, and the collective quickly disintegrated. In just one day, the situation had deteriorated to the point where several factions began fighting over supplies, and blood was being shed.
The people who had returned were deeply shaken. “It only took one day. One day!”
It was as hard to build something as it was quick to collapse.
Shilong District and Changxing District were both doing fine. Everyone there still appeared to have a strong sense of community, and they had already begun rebuilding on their own.
The people from the Tech New District shared the addresses of their respective waterworks with them, along with various construction plans for the Youth Apartments.
Zheng Junwei of Shilong District asked, “Are you still holding together?”
The people from the Tech New District thought about it, then nodded firmly.
“We are!”
Zheng Junwei was deeply moved.
“The people from Changxing District suggest that we use radios to stay in contact from now on. This is the frequency they gave us.”
The returning team handed Jiang Cheng a slip of paper with a series of numbers written on it.
Jiang Cheng asked, “Where are we supposed to find a radio?”
No one knew.
Jiang Cheng asked, “Would an ordinary radio work?”
At least someone knew the answer to that. “No. It can’t receive amateur radio signals—the operating frequencies are different. Ordinary radios generally use the 87–108 MHz band, while amateur radio usually operates between 430 and 440 MHz.”
Jiang Cheng asked, “Can it be modified?”
That would not work either. It would be equivalent to building an entirely new machine by hand.
There was a fundamental hardware gap between a radio receiver and a two-way radio, and there was nowhere to find the necessary components anyway.
Jiang Cheng had no choice but to abandon the idea. “There has to be somewhere we can find one of these things.”
Just then, Song Jingshuo arrived.
“What’s going on?”
Everyone explained the situation to him.
“Oh.” Song Jingshuo said, “Take the one out of my car.”
Everyone: “...”
“What’s so strange about that?” Song Jingshuo said, both hands in his pockets. “We’re into off-road driving, and pretty much everyone in that hobby uses radios.”
Great. The rich guy was showing off again.