Chapter 36

“Have you managed to get in touch with your families? Is everyone safe?”

Jiang Cheng’s words snapped everyone out of their daze. Safe? How could they be, when things next door were still in such chaos?

Even if they had food in hand for now, as long as they hadn’t seen government rescue, they knew the day they’d finally see the light was still far off.

In the pavilion, those standing, sitting, and leaning all let out sighs.

Some even shed tears.

Jiang Cheng’s expression showed she was completely unaffected by these emotions.

Li Jiangbing and Song Jingshuo couldn’t help but think—maybe it was because her parents had both passed away, leaving her with no ties or worries.

Jiang Cheng continued:

“Someone left last night. Given the current situation outside, the policy is: exit allowed, entry denied.”

“Non-residents of this compound are not permitted to enter.”

“Any resident who leaves and wants to come back must undergo a full-body check.”

“Anyone returning from outside must also be examined to ensure they’re not carrying injuries.”

Everyone nodded—no one disagreed.

“Master Luo.” Jiang Cheng turned and called out.

This meeting had also notified Master Luo and his crew. Master Luo responded.

Jiang Cheng said to him earnestly, “Given what’s going on outside, the truth is none of us can really leave. The property management staff will, of course, have to stick it out with us.”

“I hope that until this virus is completely resolved, we can keep up the daily maintenance of the compound,” she said.

Master Luo looked a bit troubled: “There are only three of us in the maintenance department, including me.”

The other maintenance workers’ wives also worked in this city as migrant laborers, but unlike Master Luo, whose wife worked in the same place and could live with him in the dorms, the others spent weekends at their rented rooms with their wives. Now they couldn’t come back either.

What remained in the compound were mostly elderly cleaners and young security guards, along with a young office clerk named Yang Xinyan.

Things like clogged toilets or burned-out light bulbs might seem trivial, but in practice they could cause tremendous inconvenience in a person’s daily life.

Then there was the sanitation issue.

Just these past two days, without regular cleaning, the compound had visibly deteriorated. Because people generated trash every single day.

This was a serious problem. A community of several thousand people produced an astonishing amount of garbage daily.

But the current problem was: even if the property staff could resume cleaning services, how would the collected trash be disposed of?

Right now, all city public services had shut down. The fact that they still had running water, electricity, and internet was mainly thanks to automated modern systems and a handful of dedicated staff still on duty.

But garbage—that relied on sanitation workers driving garbage trucks around the city every day to pick up from each community, then delivering to waste stations for sorting, burial, or incineration.

No one was doing that anymore.

Jiang Cheng had called this meeting today precisely to solve the practical problems at hand.

What were the practical problems?

Food, water, and waste.

The moment the trash issue came up, everyone turned serious.

Zombies were a big deal, but garbage wasn’t a small matter either. It affected everyone’s everyday life.

These past two days, every household had piled up several bags of trash. Some young men with poor hygiene habits hadn’t changed their trash bags in time, and their homes were already smelling bad and had little black flies.

Mixed with the stench of corpses drifting in through the windows—don’t even get started.

Even the slobs themselves couldn’t stand it anymore.

No wonder Jiang Cheng had called the meeting today. Repairs and upkeep weren’t minor concerns.

The young people who chose these single-apartment units over shared rentals generally had some standards for quality of life. According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, once basic safety and food concerns were met, people’s needs moved up a level.

But Master Luo’s concerns were also very real: first, not enough hands for repairs. Second, no way to transport trash out.

The interim committee now had dozens of members, and they launched into a heated discussion on the topic.

Residents kept drifting over to watch and couldn’t help but chime in. Since it affected their own interests, everyone wanted to hear and offer suggestions.

Eventually, people crowded around in layers, several deep.

After all the noise and debate, they somehow managed to reach a conclusion.

First, for repairs: the property office had tools, but were short-staffed, so they’d need volunteers. But while some might volunteer to change light bulbs, getting people to unclog toilets or drains would be a tough sell.

In the end, they decided to assign duties.

The specifics—whether by drawing lots or by assigning according to unit numbers—would be left to each building to decide.

For now, the six building leaders, now called “building captains,” had all shown credible organizational skills and a spirit of stepping up, and they carried some weight in the community.

Within their own buildings, they could rally eight or nine people, sometimes a dozen, to help out, and they could keep things under control.

Everyone believed they could handle it.

If they couldn’t, they’d be replaced. Whoever had what it takes would take over.

Whenever humans gather in groups, capable people always emerge.

The real headache was the trash problem. With a community this large, the waste station only had to miss a single day of collections for the compound to be overflowing.

After much discussion, they finally decided to commandeer the clubhouse swimming pool as a temporary trash staging area.

The community clubhouse was outsourced, and after the zombie outbreak on Saturday night, the staff hadn’t come to work. The clubhouse was empty now.

First, they’d have to drain the pool.

One advantage of this singles apartment complex: most owners had at least a bachelor’s degree, and there were a particular number of engineering-minded men.

The moment the call went out, there was no need to search the whole compound—right among the onlookers, several engineers stepped forward on their own.

Perfect.

Though Jiang Cheng had initially deflated their spirits, seeing this crowd of eager volunteers gave everyone a morale boost and a sense of security again.

Those who arrived later heard from the early birds that the interim committee had decided to strictly prohibit outsiders from entering the compound, and they felt even more at ease.

In just two days, the interim committee had already earned a lot of trust.

Some people followed the group to the clubhouse to deal with the pool. The rest continued discussing the garbage and the follow-up issues it raised.

“We need to make another trip to BuyDuoDuo supermarket,” Jiang Cheng declared.

The previous two large-scale shopping trips for the compound had mainly focused on personal essentials—food, toilet paper, and the like. Because people’s carrying capacity was limited, everyone had to skip non-essentials.

No one had thought to grab anything for the community itself.

“Disinfectant, bleach... anything that can sanitize,” Jiang Cheng said. “And whatever else they still have—if we can carry it, we take it.”

If the trash was just piled up and didn’t get processed, the consequences were unthinkable.

This time, there was no need for a full mobilization—just the people present were enough. On the spot, they organized a team of over forty.

Those who didn’t sign up also pitched in, helping find shopping carts.

People had already wheeled back a lot of shopping carts from the supermarket. The carts at that store were big—great for hauling, but they took up space too.

Apart from a few buildings in the youth apartment complex that had slightly larger duplex layouts, most people's units were quite small. After moving their belongings, many people left their carts in the hallways, or in the building lobbies, and some even pushed them out into the courtyard.

It didn't take long to find more than enough shopping carts.

Everything needed had already been made clear, so Jiang Cheng didn't have to go herself. Li Jiangbing led that trip.

The street between the youth apartment complex and Jixiang Jiayuan had been completely cleared—no zombies in sight.

Buy Duoduo faced the main road, and while it had been cleaned up, the occasional distant zombie would still be drawn over by the noise. But they posed no real threat.

Everyone had plenty of combat experience by now.

"Leave it to me," Li Jiangbing said. "Brothers, follow me!"

A crowd of people noisily pushed their carts off.

"Disperse, disperse," Jiang Cheng said to the onlookers.

She raised her hand.

Mo Li wanted to sunbathe, but with so many people around, Jiang Cheng was afraid he'd get stepped on, so she simply placed him on top of the pavilion roof.

The meeting had gone on for over an hour, and Mo Li had basked in the sun for just as long.

Jiang Cheng reached up and lifted him down, setting him back in her shoulder bag. She gently stroked his fur and felt the warmth in her palm—completely different from his body temperature at night.

Was sunbathing really that effective? Then she'd have to let the little cat get more sun.

"Su Yu," Jiang Cheng called. "Organize those two things we just discussed and post them online."

Su Yu immediately took the task: "Got it."

Jiang Cheng turned to the building heads and asked, "Want to go take a look at the clubhouse?"

All the building heads nodded. "Sure, let's go check it out."

Su Yu went home to post the announcement.

The building heads, along with a few people who were especially active in various activities—like Peng Ze—and Yang Xinyan from the property management, all headed to the clubhouse together.

On the way, Song Jingshuo walked beside Jiang Cheng and said in a low voice, "Next time we have a meeting, we need to find an enclosed space."

There were too many onlookers, and people kept butting in.

Even though the topics discussed that day weren't really sensitive to interruption, Song Jingshuo still didn't like it.

Jiang Cheng felt the same way and agreed. "Okay."

She thought to ask Yang Xinyan, "How are things with the conference room?"

Yang Xinyan's expression darkened. "No sound. Not a single peep."

She was a clerical worker who spent all day in the office answering phones and checking group messages, separated from the conference room by only a short hallway.

Although others had been with her in the property management center, the young woman had watched, from the very beginning, as so many people were locked in that conference room. She'd watched the monitors as people mutated, watched someone from Building 4 destroy the camera, and then, as time went on, she'd heard the periodic commotion, the welded-shut door, and finally—utter silence.

The girl felt that these past two days had been longer than the rest of her life put together.

In no time, they arrived at the clubhouse.

The clubhouse used to be a sales center, but it had been built with the intention of becoming a clubhouse. The interior was well planned, with a swimming pool, a gym, and a small coffee bar.

The first group to arrive was already draining the swimming pool, though very slowly.

Master Luo said, "This can't be rushed; the water only flows at this speed."

He added, "Good thing these guys showed up. Otherwise, I wouldn't have known how to handle these machines."

A young man came over to tell them, "This pool is a non-standard 25-meter pool. I calculated that if we assume all our garbage is unsorted mixed waste, the density is roughly estimated at 0.15 to 0.3 tons per cubic meter. So filling the pool should hold about 200 to 380 tons."

"A community like ours generates about 3 tons of waste per day. This pool should support about 65 to 120 days."

"Of course, this is directly related to how compacted the waste is. If we can compact it to some degree, that number can be pushed even higher."

He wore a plaid shirt and thick-framed glasses, practically with the words "tech nerd" written all over his face.

He liked to support his statements with data.

Jiang Cheng and Song Jingshuo both liked tech nerds like him—these were the real workhorses who got things done.