Chapter 180

Su Yu moved the little ones to a new place.

The floor they had been living on was far too high. It was unbearable to make the little ones climb so many flights of stairs every day.

A communal dormitory was reopened for them on a lower floor.

The new public toilets had been hastily repaired, and they were already in use by the time Jiang Cheng returned from Renxin Hospital.

Everyone found using them rather miserable.

“Whatever you do, don’t look down.”

“Ugh.”

Still, it was better than using the toilets in their own homes. There was no water for flushing anymore, and people living on the tenth, fifteenth, or twentieth floors couldn’t very well carry buckets upstairs just to flush the toilet.

Using the public toilets disgusted everyone else. Using the toilets at home disgusted only themselves.

Aunt Pan shook her head with a smile, then conducted an experiment.

Afterward, she told Song Jingshuo, “It worked.”

Song Jingshuo had spent years enjoying outdoor activities, so he was actually quite tolerant of dry latrines. Even so, he sincerely said, “Thank you for your hard work.”

Everyone soon discovered that whenever Aunt Pan walked once around the public toilets, the pits inside became much cleaner.

If they saw Aunt Pan walking away from the public toilets with her hands clasped behind her back and heading toward the vegetable fields, they knew—

Aunt Pan was transporting feces.

Beneath everyone’s feet, underground, the soil began to churn on its own, coiling around everyone’s waste like an earthworm and burrowing through the earth until it reached the ground beneath the vegetable fields.

There, it became fertilizer.

The agricultural researchers were full of conflicting emotions—admiration one moment, sorrow the next.

“These supernatural abilities seem to have been designed specifically to help us survive in an environment like this,” Zeng Qiang remarked.

The speaker meant nothing by it, but the listener took it to heart.

Zhao Yi was strolling slowly with Zhang Lesi in his arms. When he heard those words, he turned his head and glanced at Zeng Qiang.

After saving themselves, the temporary governments in each district also mobilized earth- and metal-type ability users to go out into the streets and sever the gas pipelines, putting an end to the underground wells that were spewing flames everywhere.

But in the end, all they could do was cut off the networks around their own bases.

Compared with the city as a whole, the surviving humans were far too few, and the supernatural ability users among them were fewer still.

The fires raging through the rest of the city had already surpassed humanity’s ability to control them.

Humanity had done everything it could, but the entire city continued burning for four days before the flames finally went out completely.

At that point, the key to whether the existing organizations could continue was unexpectedly the presence—or absence—of water-type ability users.

Water-type abilities had no combat power and had always been regarded as useless, underwhelming abilities.

Only then did everyone realize how rare water-type ability users actually were.

At a safe settlement, having even one water-type user could solve a major problem.

Unfortunately, neither Chaoqing District, Fuyang District, nor Guangxiu District had a single one.

Guangxiu District was backed by the Science and Technology New District. The people in the small safe points there abandoned their own little shelters one after another and sought refuge in the Science and Technology New District.

The main reason Fuyang District descended into chaos in just one day was that its central figure was gone. Then, when the water shortage arose, conflicts broke out among the people.

What everyone was fighting over when they fought over supplies was bottled water.

The fighting escalated, and the district splintered into pieces.

Chaoqing District fared slightly better than Fuyang District, partly because of its location.

S City had a river to the north and another to the south, while the old city center was encircled by an ancient moat.

Chaoqing District was relatively close to the river south of the city. The people organized themselves to collect river water, let it settle, and boil it before use.

For the moment, at least, they had solved their most urgent water problem.

Over the radio, the districts came back online one after another. At last, they were able to contact one another again instead of remaining isolated islands.

After holding out for several days, Zheng Junwei of Shilong District was the first to take the lead.

“We’re moving.”

Why had civilizations so often arisen beside water in ancient times?

Because people simply could not survive without it.

Several districts were too far from natural water sources. Even when they managed to obtain water trucks from the municipal waterworks, transporting the water required too much manpower and time.

They also had to consider the future supply of fuel. The city’s fuel reserves were still sufficient for now, but sooner or later, they would be exhausted.

Each district moved in a different direction.

Some headed for the moat in the old city center.

Others moved south or north, toward the two major rivers.

Tens of thousands of survivors began a mass migration.

They rolled up their quilts, dragged their suitcases, and carried their pots, bowls, and other household goods.

Large buses arrived one after another to pick people up.

The vehicles from the Science and Technology New District also went out to help.

Although their bases had only been home for a month, many people cried when the time came to abandon them and leave.

Someone sobbed, “When will this ever end?”

“We’d finally started getting better...”

Zheng Junwei also felt dazed when he heard that.

Yes. Things had clearly begun to improve.

There were no more zombies across the vast area surrounding the base.

That girl Jiang Cheng had even begun discussing the return of residents with him. They had talked about converting the green belts in the urban districts into farmland.

He had proposed establishing a municipal government.

He had been full of ambition, dreaming of joining forces with Jiang Cheng to truly manage the city.

How had things suddenly turned out like this?

He turned his head and saw that many buildings had burned into ruins.

The people were fleeing.

Jiang Cheng had once said on television, “We are not giving up on this city.”

Who could have known that Heaven itself would force them to abandon it?

Zheng Junwei closed his eyes. Everything felt like a dream.

Before Heaven, human abilities and ambitions were as insignificant as ants.

From that point on, S City, as a city, existed in name only. Only the old city center still had a large population of survivors living along the moat.

The base in Chaoqing District remained unchanged.

Every other district abandoned its original base and moved elsewhere.

Because of the water shortage, all the small safe points lost the ability to survive independently. They voluntarily merged with the streams of people and joined the migration.

S City thus became a dying city, barely clinging to life.

The Science and Technology New District, however, was thriving.

The mechanical power aggregation system developed by Gao Yuxuan, Cui Haiyang, and the others had succeeded.

Using automobile rear axles, differentials, and belt pulleys, they combined the strength of many people to drive a single high-power generator.

It was more efficient than a human power array and suffered less energy loss.

Once the fires in the industrial district went out on their own, they went there to search and found several generators and battery banks that could still be used.

In the end, thanks to everyone’s efforts, every residential compound in the Science and Technology New District acquired its own power-generation and energy-storage equipment.

To make this possible, they collected every bicycle throughout the entire Science and Technology New District.

Since the district was far from the city center, aside from students, not many people there had ridden bicycles. Most residents had commuted to the city by private car or public transportation.

So they had no choice but to enter the city and haul the bicycles back to the Science and Technology New District, carload after carload.

A community the size of Auspicious Home needed three hundred bicycles, with three hundred people pedaling continuously from morning until night to generate electricity.

That allowed them to provide two hours of electricity at night so everyone could have light.

No one could pedal for eight hours a day. Even fitness enthusiasts couldn’t manage that.

So having “three hundred people pedaling at the same time” meant that over the course of a day, between one and two thousand people had to take part in power generation.

This solved two major problems for the entire Science and Technology New District: the potential security risks caused by having too much idle labor, and the shortage of jobs.

Back when zombies still roamed everywhere, the most plentiful jobs were in the teams.

As the urban districts grew cleaner, the number of survivors waiting for rescue dwindled, and the population of the resettlement communities increased, a problem began to emerge: too many idle people and too few jobs.

It was only because Jiang Cheng had a harsh temperament and an iron-fisted approach, daring to impose severe penalties in troubled times, that no major public-order problems arose.

In the later stages, executions were almost unheard of.

But flogging was surprisingly common.

The emergence of electricity-generating jobs greatly eased the problem.

People simply couldn’t be allowed to sit idle. They needed something to do.

If they had too much free time, they could go pedal bicycles. They would expend energy, generate heat and electricity, earn performance points, and exercise at the same time.

The electricity-generating stations were extremely popular in every community.

Li Jiangbing gave up all his other work and devoted himself entirely to water supply.

Twenty tons of water a day was more than enough for the Youth Apartments if it was used only for drinking, but in the other communities, the supply was somewhat tight.

The Youth Apartments, however, also had extensive vegetable-growing operations.

The park farm likewise required a great deal of water.

And water for drinking wasn’t the only concern. There was also water for bathing.

In fact, Li Jiangbing had once pointed out that used bathwater could be purified. It could even be used for drinking.

He had sworn that it would be absolutely clean.

But everyone had strongly objected and shut down the idea.

With water trucks delivering supplies, purifying bathwater wouldn’t improve efficiency by much. The whole thing was simply that Li Jiangbing wanted to show off his skills.

Song Jingshuo spent several days getting a clear picture of the actual figures, then established water quotas for every community.

After a trial run, the quotas landed right on the line of “basically” meeting everyone’s needs.

A new demand was born.

Every community opened its bathhouses for free two days a week, allowing residents to bathe without charge.

Anyone who wanted to bathe on other days had to pay, using performance points to purchase bath tickets.

Drinking water was rationed as well.

Each person received enough basic drinking water free of charge to meet their essential needs.

Any additional water had to be purchased.

Since there were no elevators, some people even took on odd jobs delivering water upstairs. Business was surprisingly brisk.

Gao Yuxuan also opened a game room in the Youth Apartments, with several televisions and game consoles.

It did not use the public power supply. Instead, electric-type superhumans were hired as living batteries.

The fees were expensive, and customers had to reserve a time slot each day.

Public cafeterias were established in every community, but some people still disliked eating in a large communal dining hall.

Those people could collect ingredients and cook for themselves at small private stoves.

The stoves were rented by the hour, with fire-type superhumans providing the heat.

All kinds of private businesses began to emerge as well.

Jiang Cheng and Song Jingshuo not only failed to oppose them but actively supported them.

And so, by creating new jobs and new demands, they got people moving of their own accord. A virtuous cycle formed, and a miniature society came alive.

More and more people continued to flee the city and seek refuge there, and the population of the Technology New District kept growing.

But Zhang Lesi’s eyesight still had not returned. Zhao Yi lived with her and took care of her daily needs.

Although Zhang Lesi could no longer see, her other senses had become much sharper. One day, Zhao Yi was simply lying there without making a sound, yet she sensed that something was wrong.

“What’s the matter? Can’t you sleep?”

Zhao Yi was silent for a moment.

Zhang Lesi asked, “What happened?”

When faced with the person closest to him, Zhao Yi finally revealed what was weighing on his mind.

“I’m scared.”

Zhang Lesi was startled. “Scared of what?”

They had all been through so much together. Zhang Lesi couldn’t imagine what could still frighten Zhao Yi. He wasn’t a timid or weak man.

Zhao Yi stared at the ceiling. “You know that our government... was specifically targeted for elimination.”

“Of course. Haven’t we known that for a long time?”

This was no secret among the leadership. Jiang Cheng had openly told them about her “theory,” and it had since been confirmed.

That was why the governments of the city’s eight districts and the surrounding suburbs had later been established independently.

Zhao Yi fell silent again for a long time. Only after Zhang Lesi nudged him did he speak.

“But do you know just how precise this ‘targeting’ was?”

Fear appeared in Zhao Yi’s eyes.

It had all started with a chance conversation. The other person’s family member had been a civil servant.

“He was sent out on assignment that day. He even called me to say he’d be home in the afternoon and could pick up our child, so I didn’t need to worry about it.”

That civil servant and his child had both died.

Up to that point, there was nothing unusual about it. So many people had died back then. It was perfectly normal.

But then the person continued:

“We lived in government-subsidized housing, and all our neighbors were people in the system. The neighbor next door was home on sick leave that day. She ended up mutating and bit her parents-in-law to death. I never expected to run into her husband here. Sigh... it’s already lucky if one person from a family survives.”

It sounded like nothing more than a coincidence.

If anyone else had heard it, they probably would have let it pass.

But the person who heard it was Zhao Yi.

Zhao Yi had always thought differently from everyone else.

“I borrowed Jiang Cheng’s name and privately asked the people in charge of logistics at each community to investigate whether any of the refugees were civil servants or relatives of civil servants.”

“I also had them record how those civil servants had died.”

“The results confirmed my theory.”

Most civil servants had died at their posts, inside their workplaces.

There were all kinds of ways to explain it. For example, government buildings were large, crowded, and interconnected. If one person mutated and bit several others, they could all have died in the end.

It wasn’t impossible to make that explanation fit. But that was the story you told ordinary people.

A more convincing explanation was Jiang Cheng’s: targeted elimination.

At the time, Zhao Yi had wondered how that targeting had been carried out.

People always wanted an answer—something rational, something they could convince themselves of. Only then could they suppress their unease.

“I thought that perhaps the virus concentration had been increased inside government buildings, raising the probability of mutation. Or perhaps the buildings had been deliberately sealed off so no one could escape.”

“From a logical standpoint, that explanation made sense.”

“But...”

But how could you explain the civil servants who had been out of the office, on leave, or away for any number of other reasons—yet not a single one of them had survived?

How could you explain that?

As long as the mark of “civil servant” was attached to your identity, your death on August 29 was already decided.