Chapter 192

Song Jingshuo activated the crops’ growth and then left them alone to grow on their own. They should naturally ripen by tomorrow.

Li Jiangbing filled the drinking-water supply, then came over and called out to him, “Let’s go outside and take a look around.”

Jiang Cheng went with them.

They also brought Mo Li and the three little ones.

Only six of the little ones had survived in total. Jiang Cheng and Su Yu had taken three each.

Since no one could be sure which side would survive, they had divided even the children equally.

Now, Song Jingshuo was carrying one in his arms, while Li Jiangbing and Mo Li each had one riding on their shoulders.

Walking down the street, the scene looked bizarre: a beautiful young woman in front, followed by three men of entirely different styles, each carrying a child.

People along the road stared and sighed. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen children this young...”

Jiang Cheng turned her head when she heard that. Many people seemed moved by the remark, and some even had tears glimmering in their eyes.

Jiang Cheng and Song Jingshuo exchanged a glance.

“There’s probably not enough food,” Song Jingshuo said.

Many people were so thin they barely looked human, hunger written plainly across their faces.

Jiang Cheng nodded. “The water supply probably can’t keep up, either.”

Most people were filthy.

The streets were dirty as well. Although many people had gathered here, the place clearly wasn’t being managed very well.

Back in the Technology District, sanitation jobs had been divided into street sweeping and garbage collection. Garbage collection paid slightly more performance points.

Since there was enough manpower and everyone needed to earn performance points, the residential compounds and surrounding streets were kept very clean.

Of course, that was also connected to the fact that the water supply had always been sufficient.

The group only wandered around for a short while before heading back.

One reason was that dinner would be ready soon. Another was that there really wasn’t much to see.

There were only a few street stalls, where people bartered goods.

Food was the hard currency.

Pulling out a packet of instant noodles with the casual flourish of someone producing a black card with no spending limit, one could immediately attract countless stares—and many of them were deeply unsettling.

It wasn’t only women like Jiang Cheng who felt uncomfortable.

Even Song Jingshuo and the other men felt uneasy.

Some people looked so hungry they seemed capable of eating human flesh.

Those who had gone out returned one after another as dinnertime approached.

No one had stayed outside for long.

Everyone had noticed that same feeling of unease.

No one dared to go out alone, especially the women. This place offered none of the sense of security provided by the Technology District.

Dinner was ready.

The earth-element ability users had set up rows of long tables and benches on the school athletic field, and everyone ate outdoors.

They chatted and discussed what they had seen while they were out.

“She asked me if I was an ability user. I said I wasn’t.”

“Then she asked how I could be so clean.”

“I told her, ‘By washing.’”

“She said, ‘Where would we get the water? It’s so cold—we can’t stand bathing in the river.’”

“I told her, ‘Have the fire and water ability users heat the water.’”

“She just stared at me.”

The girl who was speaking hadn’t finished her flatbread at lunchtime, so she had stuffed the rest into her pocket. When she saw a pitifully thin girl nearly fainting from hunger, she took it out and gave it to her.

That was how the conversation had begun.

The girl had said, “How could people with special abilities do this kind of work for us?”

To the people from the Technology District, those words had been deeply shocking.

It wasn’t only that girl. In the short time they had spent outside, many of them had already noticed that, in this small city, ability users and ordinary people seemed to belong to entirely different social classes.

If one saw several people walking together while the passersby hurriedly moved aside, it was obvious that all of them were ability users.

Ability users stayed with ability users, while ordinary people stayed with ordinary people.

The ability users looked well-fed. Not one of them had a sallow face, hollow cheeks, or a starving appearance.

Nor did they look timid. They walked with swagger.

By contrast, people like those from the Technology District—an entire group made up of both ability users and ordinary people, laughing and chatting together—seemed not to exist here.

They had even witnessed a fire-element ability user set an ordinary person on fire in the street.

Since Zhao Yi still had to stay at the school to oversee the infrastructure work, Zhang Lesi had gone out with some others.

Two of the girls accompanying her were fire-element ability users.

They immediately acted and extinguished the flames, while Zhang Lesi treated the injured person on the spot.

The person they had rescued fled in panic without even saying thank you.

The perpetrators looked vicious and cursed angrily, but in the end they didn’t dare cause trouble for Zhang Lesi and the others.

The people from the Technology District all looked well-fed and strong.

The two fire-element girls were clearly powerful as well. With a simple grab of their hands from a distance, they had snuffed out the flames, making the others wary of them.

But the incident quickly destroyed everyone’s interest in sightseeing, and they soon returned.

Many people ate dinner in silence.

One major reason they had left the school was to see how people outside S City lived.

Now they knew.

Life here was completely different from life in S City, and from life in the Technology District.

Yet many of them couldn’t help realizing that this might be what the chaotic end of the world was really supposed to look like.

Early the next morning, everyone awoke to find that the crops on the athletic field had ripened.

After washing up, everyone threw themselves into the harvest.

Almost everyone was experienced. The moment they picked up their tools, their movements became practiced and efficient.

Food was simply too important.

At its peak, the Technology District had a population of more than thirty thousand.

All the wood-element ability users from the various residential compounds had been gathered at the Youth Apartments.

At the time, some residents from other compounds had objected. There had certainly been people who wanted to keep control of the food supply in their own hands.

But in reality, it was precisely because all the wood-element ability users had been brought together to work as one and grow crops on a large scale that the Technology District’s food supply had remained secure.

The ability users grew the crops, while ordinary people without abilities handled harvesting, threshing, grinding, and processing.

It didn’t matter if the city residents had no prior experience. People like Aunt Pan and Master Luo taught them step by step.

Everyone received a different amount of performance points based on their position and how arduous the work was, enough to maintain a life of food and warmth.

To the people of the Technology District, this was only natural: ability users were no different from everyone else. They were simply more capable and made greater contributions, so it was only fair that they received more performance points.

Only after coming outside did they learn that things were not like this everywhere.

Hunger, a lack of cooperation, and inequality were the norm here.

A convoy of green vehicles rumbled into the city.

People along the road watched the convoy with awe. It was the largest force in the city, and no one dared provoke it.

The convoy went straight to a luxurious hotel, where someone came out to greet them.

“The boss is back!”

Many sturdy men in camouflage climbed down from the trucks. The man known as the boss had a broad back and a narrow waist, with a thick, unkempt beard that made him look intensely masculine.

But if one looked closely at his eyes and brows, it became clear that he was actually quite young.

“Not bad. We brought back plenty of supplies. Go unload everything,” the boss said, lighting a cigarette.

Many people busily began carrying goods down from the trucks.

There was all kinds of stuff: bags of rice and flour, instant noodles and biscuits, whole barrels of cooking oil and even half-empty ones.

Toilet paper, clothes, shoes, bedding...

There weren’t many supplies in a small city, so they had gone out to search the nearest major city for materials.

The people who had stayed behind reported, “A convoy came yesterday. There were a lot of them—probably around a thousand.”

The boss narrowed his eyes and looked up. “Huh?”

His subordinate continued, “They set up camp at the elementary school on Gusi Street. I don’t know if they plan to stay, but they have quite a few ability users, and many of them are strong. They all look like tough customers.”

The subordinate paused.

The boss took the cigarette from his mouth. “What is it?”

The man said, “They’re highly organized and disciplined.”

The boss was momentarily dazed.

Organization.

Discipline.

They sounded like words from the last century.

So distant.

The boss took a drag and said, “I’ll go take a look.”

Then he casually asked, “Where did they come from?”

“Apparently S City. I honestly don’t know how they managed to survive.”

Several months ago, they had considered going to S City themselves.

But after driving west through this small city for several hours, they realized something was wrong.

The temperature was dropping at an alarming rate. The snow on the ground was already knee-deep.

And it wasn’t even snow season yet. S City shouldn’t have had snow this deep at all.

Of course, they didn’t know that the snow was only knee-deep because they were still far from S City.

At that time, the snow in S City was already higher than a person.

But they had realized that something was seriously wrong.

When one of their vehicles stalled and nearly failed to start again, the boss decisively ordered them to turn back.

They abandoned their plans to go to S City and returned to the small city they had passed through, settling there. Before long, they had become the largest power in the area.

It was only because they were there that the place could barely maintain the appearance of human society.

Before they arrived, things had been even worse than they were now.

They later made several trips to investigate and confirmed that S City had been plunged into extreme cold.

Eventually, this was confirmed by a local resident who operated a radio.

The man had a shortwave radio and could listen in on communications from across the country and even overseas.

He had also heard Uncle Jiang, Sister Mao, and the mysterious man.

“They said it covers the entire central region and parts of the east,” he told them.

S City was considered part of the east, so it lay within the affected area.

“We’re really lucky. Our city just happens to be outside the range.”

They never quite gave up on S City. Every so often, they would drive closer to see if they could get through, but each time, they turned back as soon as they saw the snow.

The temperature was simply too low. Considering that the city’s water and electricity supplies must have been cut off, and that centralized heating was no longer available, they had always assumed that there probably weren’t many survivors left in S City.

They never expected there to still be living people there.

And they certainly hadn’t expected those people to come here.

Gusi Street Elementary School.

The people from the New Technology District were holding a meeting after breakfast.

This small city was called D City. Along Jiang Cheng’s entire journey, it marked roughly the two-thirds point.

Although there had been zombies along the way—and quite a few of them in some places—they had never encountered anything like the “zombie emperor commanding tens of thousands of zombies” that Uncle Jiang and Sister Mao had described.

“Could it really be in Q City?” everyone wondered, somewhat puzzled.

They had even put on their armor and taken up their weapons while still on the road, prepared to fight a massive horde of zombies at any moment.

But the journey had been far too peaceful. It was completely different from what they had expected.

Before the meeting could even finish, visitors arrived.

Several vehicles pulled up. The local powers had come together to pay them a visit.

With their numbers, armor, weapons, and ability users backing them up, the local factions were remarkably polite and friendly toward these outsiders. Everyone exchanged courteous greetings.

Jiang Cheng said, “We’re only passing through. We’re on our way to Q City.”

The local leaders let out a collective sigh of relief. “That’s good. That’s good.”

Jiang Cheng and the others were just about to ask about the situation farther east when another group arrived.

This time, several green military jeeps drove up.

The local leaders all stood.

Their attitude changed immediately, becoming noticeably cautious.

“Is that Li Feng coming back?”

“By my count, he should be back by now. He’s been gone for three or four days.”

“He must have brought back plenty of supplies again.”

The name Li Feng was so common and ordinary that everyone heard it without reacting.

They had endured too many brushes with death. Even the companions who had stayed by their sides all along were gone, while the people they had met during earlier stages of the journey had long since become nothing more than fading memories.

But Li Feng had shaved off his beard before returning.

So when he stepped out of the vehicle and stood there, his long legs carrying him down first, many of the people from the Youth Apartment recognized him at once.

Li Feng recognized them too.

Their reunion brought no cheers or joy. They simply stood there in silence, staring at one another.

Between them lay nearly ten months of time—and countless brushes with death.

Only after Li Feng finally called out, “Jiang Cheng,” did he stride forward.

Jiang Cheng narrowed his eyes. Mo Li gathered her strength.

Just as Zhao Yi and Song Jingshuo were about to greet Li Feng, he drew a gun from behind his waist and aimed it directly at Jiang Cheng’s brow.