Chapter 21

The complex had six buildings, over two thousand apartment units, and over two thousand owners. Although the mutated ones in the garden had been cleaned up, there were surely still original mutated ones like Little White’s Dad and Li Ziqing trapped in their own homes, not yet emerging.

Also, today had been so busy that some of the bodies in the buildings still hadn’t been brought out and dealt with.

While the temporary homeowner’s committee members were still around, Jiang Cheng organized a meeting to nail down the details of these issues that had been brought up since noon.

She also said, “We should each building have one designated contact person. That way, people in each building can go to him, he comes to me, and I coordinate—guaranteeing that communication gets relayed in a timely manner.”

No one objected, and on the spot they elected the contact persons for each building.

Building Four was Song Jingshuo; Building Two was Li Jiangbing.

Jiang Cheng—well, of course Jiang Cheng was the overall contact for the whole complex. No one needed to nominate her; it was simply the established fact everyone had naturally accepted over the course of the day—Jiang Cheng of 0306, Building Two. She was now the organizer, the manager, the liaison for all matters concerning the Youth Apartments.

Given the unusually unanimous attitude, Song Jingshuo had no complaints and could only accept it.

Yang Xinyan was used to desk work. She quickly compiled everyone’s information from the owners’ forum into a table, printed it using the property office’s printer, and handed a copy to each person.

It was organized by building. She had thoughtfully placed each building’s contact person at the top row of that building’s table.

Jiang Cheng was at the very top.

When Song Jingshuo got his copy, he lost whatever remaining steam he had.

Jiang Cheng asked Master Luo, “How many walkie-talkies does the property have? Any spare ones we can use?”

Even though everyone had each other’s contact info, phone calls were one-on-one and inefficient. Walkie-talkies allowed one-to-many communication, which was better suited for the current situation.

“Let me think... Twelve are in use, and there are four backup units in the cabinet,” Master Luo said. “The latest batch of twenty new ones hasn’t been handed out yet—the manager said they’d be distributed next Monday.”

Jiang Cheng said plainly: “Give them out now.”

Jiang Cheng had solved the issue of meals for the property staff, so Master Luo didn’t hesitate. He went and grabbed a cardboard box: “They’re all here.”

Jiang Cheng asked, “Battery powered?”

Master Luo said, “Rechargeable.”

The property manager had indeed planned to have the staff charge the new walkie-talkies over the weekend so they’d be ready for Monday’s distribution.

Conveniently, they were now fully charged and available for the temporary committee.

Plus the four backups, that made twenty-four units in total—old and new mixed—that they could use.

Each building had seven or eight representatives, and over forty people were cramming the property hall. They definitely weren’t enough, but it was better than nothing.

“Four per building,” Jiang Cheng assigned. “The contact person takes one; the other three circulate. The contact person handles the allocation.”

Master Luo had good sense. He squeezed one out of the property’s active stock to give Jiang Cheng: “You take one too.”

That way, Jiang Cheng didn’t have to dip into Building Two’s share.

Jiang Cheng accepted it: “Perfect. Do you have enough?”

“Enough,” Master Luo said. “You keep it.”

This was precisely why Song Jingshuo loved being the one in control.

When you’re the controller of an event, you naturally get the power to distribute resources, and resources naturally tilt your way.

What was involved here was nothing more than a walkie-talkie, but the principle stood.

Everyone learned and tested how to use the walkie-talkies.

Jiang Cheng finalized the tasks ahead and emphasized, “Whatever you do, don’t split up—make sure you’re protected.”

“If anyone gets hurt during the process, lock him in his own home. Take his keys and deadbolt the door from the outside.”

The apartment doors were designed so that once locked from the outside, they couldn’t be opened from the inside.

“Mark the door, notify his neighbors nearby. Observe at regular intervals. If he mutates, then we handle it.”

Everyone agreed enthusiastically: “Got it!”

As they were about to dismiss, sounds came from the corridor. They came from the meeting room—screaming, cries for help, and the sound of collisions.

The hall suddenly went quiet, everyone listening. Moments later, the screaming and crashing in the meeting room stopped. But then someone started pounding on the door, sobbing, “Let me out, let me out!” and someone else shouted curses.

Clearly, the meeting room’s population had decreased again.

Despairing, wasn’t it? Completely hopeless.

Every mutation further proved the high probability and inescapability of the infection.

The wailing cries were hard to listen to.

“That’s it, then,” Jiang Cheng said. “Everyone grab dinner as soon as you can. Recruit as many volunteers as possible on the forum—the more people, the safer.”

“Dismissed.”

Amid the cries from the meeting room, the dozens of committee members filtered out of the property center.

It was close to 6 PM now—early evening. The sky was no longer as bright as in the afternoon, the sunlight shifting from white to gold. Shadows grew longer.

The air carried a strange smell—the odor of bodies being cremated in the square. It permeated the whole complex, lingering for a long time.

Everyone felt the grime in their nostrils.

“See you around.”

“Heading back.”

“Take care.”

Having fought together once, the dozens of people—though they might not all know each other’s names—had become familiar faces. They exchanged goodbyes and split into six groups, heading toward their respective buildings.

Jiang Cheng got on the elevator with a few people from Building Two. She and Li Jiangbing lived on the third floor, so they were the first to get off.

They said to the others, “Keep an eye on the forum and group messages later.”

“Will do.”

The elevator door closed, and Li Jiangbing glanced at her before asking, “Are you going to keep carrying that cat around all the time?”

Jiang Cheng said, “It doesn’t really hinder my movements.”

That was true—on the way to the supermarket, she’d had a big lump on her chest, but she still swung her axe just fine.

What Li Jiangbing had really meant was “We’re in an emergency, and you’re still worrying about a cat.” But the cat hadn’t stopped Jiang Cheng from cleaving open a mutated one’s skull, and it hadn’t stopped her from thinking clearly and organizing everything with sharp logic.

Li Jiangbing clicked his tongue and decided against making a tactless comment.

Jiang Cheng reminded him, “You’re in charge of posting the volunteer recruitment thread for our building.”

A person couldn’t do everything single-handedly, especially the overall leader. If she tried to do all the work herself, she’d exhaust herself to death.

Li Jiangbing was the contact for Building Two—this was his job.

He gave a thumbs-up: “Don’t worry.”

Jiang Cheng returned home, hung up her keys, and lifted her shirt.

Mo Li had been tucked against her chest for hours. His body was warm now, as if gradually recovering. That was good.

Because of the situation in the meeting room, the supplies bought from the supermarket hadn’t been unpacked yet.

She put him back on the bed, first pulling out the new hot water bottle she’d bought that afternoon. She filled it with hot water, wrapped it in a towel, and had Mo Li hug it with all four limbs. Then she covered him with a thin blanket.

After that, Jiang Cheng rinsed the rice, put it in the rice cooker, sliced some preserved sausage over the rice, added a couple of greens, closed the lid, and pressed the switch.

Only after starting the rice did she dry her hands and begin unpacking and sorting the supplies.

The handcart had limited space, but she managed to squeeze two bags of rice into it anyway.

People couldn't survive without their staple food, and she didn't think that was enough, so she stuffed another bag into her hiking backpack. Three bags totaling fifteen kilos of rice.

Next came the canned goods—luncheon meat, tuna, and various other meat cans, thirty tins in all. Two large bundles of pickled vegetables, each containing several smaller packs. And fermented bean curd, that incredibly salty condiment perfect for eating with rice.

Thirty salted duck eggs.

Compared to fresh eggs, salted duck eggs clearly kept much longer, and shelf life was a major factor in her food choices.

They still had plenty of toilet paper at home, so she skipped grabbing any this time—it took up too much space. But she did restock sanitary pads, soap, shampoo, and other daily essentials, since they were nearly out at home. There was no way around that.

The reason her backpack was so heavy, though, was that on top of that one bag of rice, she'd also packed a large bag of cat food. Those two items alone were enough to weigh anyone down.

She couldn't ignore Mo Li's existence. When she'd first gotten the cat, she'd only bought small bags of food, and if grocery runs became inconvenient from now on, that definitely wouldn't last.

Jiang Cheng organized and stowed everything away, then opened her computer to take a look.

Every building's contact person had posted a call for volunteers to sweep their floors. Clicking into any of them, she saw loads of people signing up enthusiastically. One nice thing about a community full of young people—they were passionate and quick to act.

Li Jiangbing had posted his own notice too, with already over twenty responses. They were set to gather in the first-floor lobby at seven-thirty in the evening for a coordinated effort.

In the afternoon, everyone had gone to the supermarket on a group shopping run, and even those who hadn't joined the morning's garden cleanup now had some experience under their belts.

People were having heated discussions on the forum about how to protect their vital areas.

Some were even itching for action, proposing that the community respond to the government's second notice and mobilize to clear out the mutants from the nearby streets.

Jiang Cheng took a look at the owner forums for other nearby neighborhoods, and the tone there was completely different—nothing like the enthusiasm back home.

Gloom and mourning were the norm, the real deal.

The community across the street from the east gate of the youth apartment complex was the "normal" case—so many people grieving, terrified, lost, even hopeless over the deaths of family members.

The youth apartment complex was just too unusual: almost everyone lived alone, young, with no family right there with them.

Sure, some people had relatives they couldn't get in touch with and were worried sick. But still, unlike the neighboring complex—where people watched loved ones die horribly right outside the building and didn't dare go save them, or where a family member had turned and was locked in a room by the rest of the household but no one could bring themselves to deal with it—this was different.

Completely different circumstances.

The youth apartment complex was truly exceptional, one could even say extraordinarily lucky.

Jiang Cheng clicked into the forums of several nearby residential compounds and saw tons of desperate pleas for help.

There were people trying to organize residents to fight for themselves, but it was nearly impossible. The elderly wouldn't leave, children were terrified and clutching their parents' legs, crying, "Don't go!" They were scattered like loose sand, impossible to rally.

Jiang Cheng even noticed people in the neighboring complex's forum talking about today's panic buying at the youth apartments. Residents of other buildings had spotted it from their high-rise windows.

"How did they manage to organize like that?"

"Are there really no mutants left in their complex?"

"I saw them clear out the mutants on the street too. I want to go out and buy stuff, my rice is almost gone. But there are still so many mutants in our compound, there's no way to even get downstairs!"

"Their complex is all young people, not like ours, sigh..."

The aroma of claypot rice began to fill the room.

Jiang Cheng clicked into a few major forums and saw fresh content.

"Zombies."

"Let's just call them zombies."

"It's from a foreign sci-fi horror movie, I think the mutants look a lot like that."

That was a new film from overseas this year, a horror flick with a fresh, original concept—practically a new genre of its own.

It had premiered in March, at least in theaters abroad. Apparently, there were plans to bring it to China domestically next year.

Right now, only a very small number of people the country had seen it overseas or watched a pirated version online. The pirated copies had only just started circulating, and they were all cam rips. Based on past patterns, a proper clear version wouldn't be hitting the streets for at least another month.

Someone had uploaded a few seconds of footage from the movie as an animated GIF to the forum.

The way those "zombies" in the film moved—that lurching gait, how they chased and tore at their victims—really did resemble what people were seeing with the mutants right now.

The only real difference was the skin. Mutants had grayish-blue skin. The original ones were a deep, mottled blue, while the infected ones were slightly lighter, a grey-blue.

That thread had gone up in the afternoon. By the time Jiang Cheng saw it, there were already hundreds of pages of replies.

It had spread to other forums by now, and it seemed everyone was adopting the term.

And so, whether they were original mutants or infected ones, they all got a single new name—

"Zombies."

But what about Mo Li?

What exactly was Mo Li?