Chapter 32

An elderly woman, frustrated by Jiang Cheng's obstruction, snapped, "Young lady, how can you be like this? We are old people. We have many illnesses. We need our medicine."

"I know, we're saving some for you, but we're taking ours first," Jiang Cheng said.

The old woman cursed, "Young lady, how can you be so selfish!"

She tried to push her way in.

She was somewhat afraid of the able-bodied men, but Jiang Cheng was just a young woman. And a pretty one at that. Pretty girls have thin skin; the prettier they are, the more they fear losing face.

Middle-aged and elderly women fear nothing more than young girls.

The old woman didn't dare push against the men. She assumed the young woman would be the easiest to break through. She pressed her chest against Jiang Cheng's axe and tried to climb the steps.

But Jiang Cheng was not like the young women she had dealt with before.

Jiang Cheng shoved her axe forward hard, sending the old woman stumbling backward. Had the old man behind her not caught her in time, she might have landed flat on her bottom and shattered her tailbone.

"You—" The old woman couldn't believe it.

More and more people were taking notice of the pharmacy, craning their necks, itching to make a move. Jiang Cheng didn't bother arguing with her. She just called out, "Jiangbing!"

Li Jiangbing stood on the steps, brows furrowed with rage, holding an axe.

He was the most effective one. The moment he stood there—big frame, bulging muscles, like a door god—no one dared step forward anymore.

Jiang Cheng called again, "Su Yu! Peng Ze! Come help."

Su Yu lived in the same building as her. Peng Ze was someone among the people she'd interacted with over the past couple of days who was most convinced by her words.

Peng Ze was the one who had rolled his eyes and talked back to the other person earlier.

Hearing Jiang Cheng call for help, Su Yu immediately went over. Peng Ze, however, cast one more glance at the man who had muttered, "Why should we listen to them?"

Why?

Now they knew, didn't they?

Li Jiangbing guarded the entrance, and no one dared approach.

The rest of the group, without making a fuss, either pulled weapons out of their shopping carts or from their belts, gripping them in their hands.

Some also pulled the shopping carts of the people who had gone to grab medicine closer inward. Everyone held their weapons, spreading out in a circle around the carts to guard them.

Because it was true—some people's eyes kept drifting toward their shopping carts.

They were the rear guard, at the very back of the main group.

But the ones from Jixiang Jiayuan who lagged behind were some of the old, weak, sick, and disabled—slow-moving, slow-handed—which was why they were in the back. Some hadn't managed to grab the scarce supplies they needed. Their eyes on Jiang Cheng's group's overloaded carts carried a hint of intent.

The moment everyone pulled out their weapons and formed a protective circle around the carts, those people looked away.

When Su Yu entered the pharmacy, she saw it was a tiny community convenience pharmacy, not big at all. Jiang Cheng and the others had cleared the shelves of needed medicine and even kicked open the storeroom door, hauling everything straight out of the back.

"Use plastic bags," Su Yu said, pulling a big stack of plastic bags from behind the counter.

Jiang Cheng explained the priorities for which medicines to grab to Su Yu and Peng Ze.

Su Yu happened to be standing in front of the heart medication shelf, and casually asked, "What about heart medicine?"

"Heart medicine? No need," Jiang Cheng replied.

"In times like these, heart conditions..." she said coldly, "what would be the point."

The pharmacy went silent for a moment.

Song Jingshuo's hands paused mid-motion as he was packing medicine. He turned his head to look at Jiang Cheng.

Heart patients can't run or jump, can't even take a fright.

Luckily, the youth apartment community had mostly young people, so the chances of heart conditions existing were low.

Song Jingshuo thought he was already quite survival-of-the-fittest. But Jiang Cheng... Jiang Cheng seemed even more ruthless than that.

Su Yu let out a low "oh" and continued packing medicine into the plastic bags.

Song Jingshuo turned back around as well.

They filled the plastic bags with medicine, carried them out bag by bag, and tied them to the rails of the shopping carts.

People needed so many supplies, yet their carrying capacity was so poor. If the situation worsened in the future, this would really be a deadly problem.

Jiang Cheng thought about this as she tied plastic bags to the cart rails.

[If only I had a storage space.]

The moment this thought flashed through her mind again, Jiang Cheng's pupils dilated.

This time, she caught a glimpse of the fleeting information in her mind!

[Storage space]?

And this time, she clearly felt a strange sensation—like an extremely faint electric current racing through her body and brain.

She had felt this before, a week ago. On that Saturday afternoon, she had suddenly awakened to the realization that she was a transmigrator. It was the same feeling. Only this time, it was much lighter.

A week ago, she had awakened to the awareness that she was not originally from this world, that she wasn't "Jiang Cheng." But information like "who am I" and "where do I come from" was completely absent.

As if her memories were locked away.

Now, it was like a sliver of information had leaked out through a crack.

What was a "storage space"? Jiang Cheng felt like she knew but couldn't say.

The people from Jixiang Jiayuan watched helplessly as every shopping cart was covered in hanging plastic bags.

"Leave some for us," some old men and women said, with tears in their voices.

Jiang Cheng stood up and looked around. Each of their carts was stuffed and hung full of medicine.

"That should be enough," Jiang Cheng said. "Let's go."

Everyone put their weapons away again, pushed their respective carts, and headed toward the community gate.

Li Jiangbing also tucked his axe into his belt, walked down the steps, and pushed his own cart.

The old men and women surged into the pharmacy in a flood.

Jiang Cheng and the others had only walked a few steps ahead when they heard shouts and curses erupt from the pharmacy behind them.

In the old days, if there was drama to watch, people would stop and linger over it.

Now, no one cared. They walked steadily, heading straight back into their own community.

They were the rear guard. Once they entered, the security guard locked the gate.

A full sense of safety.

The security guard seemed to be in a good mood too, and even asked, "I heard you didn't pay?"

Master Luo and the others had gone to Duoduo Supermarket too. This time, without Jiang Cheng and Song Jingshuo footing the bill, they were bolder and grabbed freely. They brought back way more than last time. Not for themselves—for the entire property management staff.

"Yeah," everyone said. "No other choice. We'll deal with it later."

The security guard didn't have their level of moral scruples, thinking that these college-educated people were still talking about paying back later—too book-smart for their own good.

Regardless, more supplies meant the security guard felt more at ease.

He was lucky to be a security guard at this youth apartment. He knew the guard across the street at Jixiang Jiayuan, and it seemed he was already dead.

Sigh.

The courtyard of the community still carried the lingering stench of burning corpses.

But there weren't many people around—they had all just finished gathering supplies and had gone home to put things away.

They stopped: "Jiang Cheng, these medicines..."

In theory, as the provisional committee, they had taken these medicines on behalf of the whole community.

Jiang Cheng said, "If we pool them all together, the responsibility of looking after them would be too great. It would also be easy for trouble to arise. Let's do it this way—we split up, each person takes their own share back. When needed, we'll coordinate."

People can't avoid selfishness. Especially in times like this, the more supplies you have in hand, the better.

Medicine is a unique and vital resource.

All the way back, everyone had actually been thinking about how Jiang Cheng would handle things, and whether she would make everyone hand over their supplies once they returned to the neighborhood.

But Jiang Cheng was, after all, Jiang Cheng. She gave everyone the solution that each person most wanted to see.

Even Su Yu—who considered herself a good person, an upright person, a kind person—believed that it was better for the group to each hold and jointly manage the medicine supplies.

Following closely with the temporary committee's actions had truly been the right choice.

And she had to thank Jiang Cheng for pulling her into the committee at noon, or she wouldn't have gotten a share of the spoils.

She knew—she had to stay close to the core of the group.

She had always had stomach problems, and when the pain flared up, she needed medicine.

If she couldn't hold her own medicine supply, and had to beg someone for medicine when she needed it, what if they made demands?

With luck, the other person might not be that twisted, but what if they copped a feel while handing you the pills, or cracked a dirty joke? What would you do then?

Would you curse them or not? Would you take the medicine or not?

Su Yu had been out in the real world for a few years now. Once a girl leaves campus and strikes out on her own in the working world, she stops being naive.

In those years alone, she'd already run into plenty of crap—both the obvious and the subtle kind.

From the very beginning, Jiang Cheng had been handing out medicine to everyone, grabbing a handful for you and a handful for me. That had worked out perfectly—each category of medicine was evenly distributed, so the "inner circle" of the committee wouldn't get into conflicts over resource gaps.

"Everyone's got around the same amount. The amounts per building are about the same too," she instructed. "Each building manages its own floor. When people in your building need help, do your best to provide it. If we can't be of any help at all, then what's the committee even for?"

Everyone nodded in agreement. "Yeah."

But then she added, "Still, don't go around acting like you're scattering alms to the poor. These meds look like a lot, but think about how many households and how many people are in one building, and then think about how many people are in the whole neighborhood. Keep a tight grip on them."

Everyone understood. "Got it."

They agreed to take care of cleaning out the underground garage later, and the group split into six parties, each heading toward one of the six buildings.

Entering Building 2, a few of them waited for the elevator together. Each person was pushing a shopping cart, so at most two people could squeeze into one elevator.

Someone went in first and called over to Su Yu, but Su Yu said, "I'm going up with Jiang Cheng."

Everyone could tell Su Yu had something to say to Jiang Cheng. Li Jiangbing went up ahead instead. "See you tonight."

In the elevator lobby, only Jiang Cheng and Su Yu were left. Jiang Cheng turned to look at Su Yu. "What's up?"

Su Yu bit her lip.

Jiang Cheng said, "Go ahead."

"I feel really uneasy, deep down," Su Yu confessed. "Jiang Cheng, I've been thinking the whole way back. Maybe we shouldn't have broken down the front door of Buydodo Sushi."

Jiang Cheng understood.

Actually, she'd felt it on the road earlier—Song Jingshuo had wanted to bring this up with her too. He'd looked at her several times, hesitating, but never found the opening to start the conversation.

Because the "shouldn't have done it" part was Jiang Cheng's own doing. You couldn't raise a criticism of Jiang Cheng in front of everyone—it had to be hashed out in private.

Jiang Cheng had a strange feeling about it.

Su Yu and Song Jingshuo—people like them—were clearly still bound by the world's laws and morality. Of course, these weren't iron rules. Give them more time, and they might break through them on their own. Or, like today, with her taking the lead, they followed.

But the restraint was definitely there for them, needing to be overcome.

Not for her, though.

No matter which world she had come from, as long as human civilization and society existed, no society could be without morality and law.

But that thing couldn't restrain her for even a second.

Why was that?