Chapter 41

From Saturday night when the zombie virus broke out until now, Tuesday, three days had already passed.

The S City Emergency Management Command had finally released a new announcement.

This time, the citizens who had been trapped for days and steeped in fear finally heard the words "rescue."

【To all citizens:】(Note)

【By order of the Central Emergency Committee, the garrison forces of the Eastern Region have overcome numerous difficulties, completed reorganization, assembly, and supply allocation, and formed the first batch of rescue troops. According to unified deployment, they will depart at 18:00 today for S City to carry out cleanup of the mutated and municipal rescue operations.】

【Water, electricity, gas, communications, and networks—all critical infrastructure has been taken over by the government, with professionals remaining at their posts to ensure the operation and stability of all system hubs.】

【We are deeply aware that every moment of waiting is agony, and every second of perseverance is hope. Citizens are asked to remain calm and take all necessary measures to ensure their own safety.】

【Through wind and rain, racing against time, we will never abandon a single citizen.】

【You are not fighting alone! All rescue personnel will do their utmost to open the channels of life and rebuild the order of survival!】

A STEM-oriented guy named Gao Yuxuan had already hacked the property management's broadcast system.

He connected the TV news to the system, and the government spokesperson's voice floated throughout the entire residential complex—everyone could hear it.

At first, cheers even broke out in the complex. But as the announcement went into detailed explanation of the specific rescue arrangements, the cheers died down.

The rescue forces were to enter from the southern edge of the city, advancing zone by zone. But the Youth Apartment complex was in the new tech development zone in the northern part of the city—very far north.

S City was a megacity with a population of over ten million. How long would it take the troops to advance from the south to the north?

Everyone fell silent.

Someone even posted on a forum, saying: 【Comparing public data from disaster relief in past years, the number of troops sent to rescue S City doesn't even reach one-eighth of what was deployed for a single flood relief in the past.】

People replied one after another: 【Is it because this time it's nationwide? Before, all forces were concentrated on one disaster zone; now it's like the whole country is a disaster zone. We can't just save S City and ignore the surrounding cities, right?】

【The military itself also lost a lot of personnel, right? I mean, with the zombie thing.】

【Jiang Cheng said it before—military living quarters are so densely packed, even more high-risk than ordinary neighborhoods. She was right.】

【But no matter what, since government rescue has begun, it'll get better eventually, right? Right?】

【Should... be, right?】

【It should be, just don't know how long it'll take for them to clear their way up to us.】

【Initial estimate—a week?】

【Damn, that long?】

【Think about how big S City is—a city with a population of over ten million!】

【Did you all know that some owners from Royal View Garden came out and got bitten to death?】

【Huh? What happened?】

【When did that happen?】

【Just today. People from Lucky Gardens saw it from upstairs, on Lucky East Street.】

Royal View Garden and the Youth Apartment are separated by Lucky Gardens.

Lucky Gardens is to the east of Youth Apartment, with Lucky West Street between the two complexes.

Royal View Garden is to the east of Lucky Gardens, with Lucky East Street between the two complexes.

【What happened?】

【They ran out of food and came out to look for some. But there are a lot of zombies over there.】

【Why didn't they clear them out first?】

【What "clear them out"? Think everyone's like our complex—organized, disciplined, and capable of fighting. Hell, Lucky Gardens has been leeching off us. Lucky West Street all the way to Maiduoduo—that stretch was cleared by us! The zombies in their complex were also killed by us. If it weren't for us, they wouldn't even dare come down from their buildings.】

【Exactly.】

【True.】

【Shit, people from Lucky Gardens are badmouthing our complex!】

【???】

【???】

【Where?】

【On their owners' forum.】

Everyone went over to check.

It turned out that Li Jiangbing had led dozens of people to Maiduoduo to stock up on disinfectant supplies, and people from Lucky Gardens had seen them.

The street between Lucky Gardens and the east gate of Youth Apartment is Lucky West Street. Although it had been cleared by Youth Apartment residents more than once, it was ultimately an open road, not an enclosed one, so stray zombies from farther off were bound to wander in.

Lucky Gardens couldn't organize their own people—individual households were too small and too scared to go out. Suddenly they saw a team from Youth Apartment pushing carts back and forth.

When the team from Youth Apartment made that round trip, any stray zombies on the road were inevitably taken care of as they went.

Some people from Lucky Gardens dithered and hesitated, then finally mustered the courage to go out—pure freeloading.

But when they got back, they started cursing on the forum, saying the supermarket shelves were empty of food. They seemed to have forgotten that just yesterday, they themselves had gone out and grabbed a haul. Anyway, they blamed it all on Youth Apartment, saying that trip after trip from Youth Apartment had stripped Maiduoduo bare.

Damn it!

The Youth Apartment residents were furious. Everyone flooded over to the Lucky Gardens forum to trade insults.

At first, a few people tried to argue back, but honestly, Lucky Gardens was completely in the wrong, and not many were willing to step up and defend their own complex—they soon went quiet.

In a short time, the front page of Lucky Gardens' forum was flooded by Youth Apartment residents.

Jiang Cheng only skimmed through all this quickly.

She checked the owners' forums of the nearby communities. By today, a few complexes had finally managed to organize themselves, but there were also communities where no one took the lead and everyone remained scattered.

Many posts were crying out that their homes had no food left, that their babies had no formula.

Switching to a major well-known forum, the hot topic was "What exactly is the zombie virus?" Many experts in biology and medicine were voicing their opinions, questioning the biological characteristics of "zombies" and denying from a biological standpoint the possibility of such a thing existing. Yet this thing was really there, right downstairs or next door in every home, lunging at the scent of flesh and blood.

All kinds of viewpoints were muddled into a chaotic mess.

Everyone's understanding of zombies had also been updated. Previously, they had thought that people bitten to death by zombies were simply dead. Now they discovered that only those whose necks had been chewed completely through actually died. As long as the neck was intact and the head was whole—even if the person lay on the ground in a pool of blood looking "dead"—after a while, they would sit up and turn into a zombie.

Jiang Cheng suddenly understood. No wonder the corpses dragged out of the double room earlier all had their necks gnawed through.

In that small room, with the environment quiet, the zombie's biting was undisturbed—it just kept biting and biting, until it chewed through the neck completely and finished the person off for real.

Li Ziqing's boyfriend, who was on the same floor as Jiang Cheng, had his neck broken that way.

Then a small number of those infected, for reasons unknown, whose necks weren't broken, mutated into second-generation zombies—like that one on the fifth floor that stepped on the back of a first-generation zombie and leaped out to bite someone.

The first encounter in the garden happened at night, and back then no one dared go downstairs, so this phenomenon hadn't been observed.

With this new information, Jiang Cheng realized the transmissibility of the zombie virus was stronger than she had previously thought.

The situation they were facing was more severe than expected.

Another hot topic on the forum was that major cities like S City had finally received rescue, with some people optimistic and others pessimistic.

The central government had established an emergency command headquarters, but the specific rescue efforts were managed and directed by local emergency command centers. Resources across cities were highly uneven.

The phrase "rebuilding the order of survival" in S City's government announcement was interpreted in various ways.

Residents of slightly smaller cities were furious that rescue priority went to the big cities, feeling their right to life was being ignored.

People in even smaller places, such as rural areas, had no voice at all.

Broadband had only been developed for a few years? Only in a metropolis like S City could most households have broadband. In many small cities, broadband penetration was still low, and rural areas were essentially silent zones.

Other issues, such as power outages, water cuts, gas shutoffs, and even fires, had occurred on a small scale in many places.

S City was a major metropolis. After the initial panic, surviving government personnel established a temporary emergency command department. Professionals risked their lives to break through zombies, rushed to key posts, and stood by their duties.

But not every place could be like S City.

With current technology, water plants and power plants could basically operate automatically for long periods without obstruction. But that didn't mean malfunctions wouldn't happen.

And when it came down to the user end—water pipes, wires, electrical boxes—failures were completely normal.

In normal times, someone would come to fix them immediately, and they'd be back in service quickly. The downtime was so short that residents never even felt the inconvenience.

But now, these failures couldn't be repaired in time. Broken meant broken. Shut off meant it never came back.

Residents were in complete despair.

Even fires that received firefighter rescue were a minority.

City fire departments were arguably the first government force to mobilize after the zombie virus outbreak. Yet they were simultaneously caught between two dangers: massive fires and zombies.

In the past two days, the death rate among brave and steadfast firefighters had been extremely high. Most died at the jaws of zombies within the fires.

That was why, even though fire truck sirens were heard on Sunday, they had all disappeared over the past two days.

In fact, any area where no lines or pipes were damaged, and no fires or explosions had occurred at all, was extremely lucky.

Jiang Cheng had actually interpreted and analyzed S City's new announcement today too. But thinking about it in the abstract was useless—she'd have to wait until tomorrow to see the actual situation to know what was really going on.

What Jiang Cheng was thinking about now was another question. She clicked the X to close the browser, and her chair spun 180 degrees to face the bed.

Mo Li was lying at the foot of the bed.

Jiang Cheng could reach him just by scooting her chair forward.

His fur was jet black and glossy, with an incredible texture.

Mo Li opened his eyes, jade green, with Jiang Cheng's reflection in them.

Jiang Cheng gently scratched his fluffy little head with her fingers. Mo Li stretched his neck back in pleasure, chin tilted high toward the ceiling.

Jiang Cheng observed him, paused her fingers, and asked softly, "Mo Li... do you... need to bask in the sun?"

Mo Li now appeared to be in a basically healthy state. "Basically" meant he could walk on his own, go eat cat food, and drink water on his own.

Although it was strange that the litter box remained so clean that not a single grain of litter had even been disturbed, Mo Li had clearly recovered his basic mobility.

But Jiang Cheng wouldn't be fooled by such simple appearances. She could observe subtler issues.

From body temperature, mental state, and energy levels, Mo Li displayed completely different states between day and night.

Once the sun went down, Mo Li appeared to be in a state of running low on power, lying still for long periods. This was completely different from when Jiang Cheng first encountered him a week ago.

But during the day, when sunlight could reach him, he seemed to recharge like a battery.

Others might not notice the difference, but Jiang Cheng could perceive it.

Mo Li's jade green eyes simply looked at her, unable to understand what she was saying.

Jiang Cheng decided to try an experiment. She cupped both hands together and wrapped them around Mo Li's head.

A week ago, she had awakened to the fact that she was a transmigrator. Back then, she still wanted to continue her current peaceful, uneventful life, so some of the strange phenomena from her first encounter with Mo Li had been overlooked.

But over the past two days, information from before her transmigration had been leaking into her mind like seepage through cracks.

And so she remembered those things she'd ignored—

A faint electric current flowing through her heart.

A sense of telepathic understanding that seemed to grasp what the kitten meant.

And it had happened more than once.

[Mo Li, Mo Li.]

Cupping her hands around Mo Li's fuzzy little head, Jiang Cheng stared into his eyes and attempted to communicate through consciousness.

[Mo Li, do you need to bask in the sun to regain energy?]

[Do you need to bask in the sun?]

[The sun?]

Suddenly, an unusual sensation flowed through her heart for a brief instant.

At the same time, Mo Li lifted his head slightly: "Meow."

[Yes.]

It worked! She could actually communicate with Mo Li!

Jiang Cheng held her breath, focusing her mind: [Can you transform again?]

"Meow."

[%¥#]

The meaning was unclear. It seemed Mo Li himself didn't know the answer.

Jiang Cheng changed the question: [Besides basking in the sun and eating cat food, do you need me to do anything else?]

But this question seemed too complex for Mo Li. He let out a soft "meow," this time without any meaning—pure confusion.

For a kitten, this question was too complicated.

He might understand "basking in the sun" and "eating cat food," but he couldn't grasp the meaning of the entire sentence.

Jiang Cheng released her hands. Mo Li's clear green eyes looked at her.

Jiang Cheng looked back at him.

So, this communication—was it her ability? Or his ability?

Did it have anything to do with the infection mutation?

No, no, no.

Her first electric connection with Mo Li had happened when she encountered the flasher in Building Four.

That had nothing to do with the zombie virus at all. It had happened days before the zombie virus even appeared.

It was only about her and Mo Li.

Or maybe only about her?

Why was this happening?