Chapter 47

But the youth apartment couldn't just go over there alone as unpaid labor—why would they? This street was shared by both residential complexes. And by now, everyone was already pretty fed up with Jixiang Jiayuan.

"Either we all suffer together."

"Or both complexes go out and do the work together."

"Exactly!"

That was everyone's opinion, remarkably unified.

The meeting was lively and ran until past one in the afternoon, when stomachs finally started grumbling and they called it adjourned.

A satisfying session, all things considered.

Many people took on tasks—small, trivial things, but having something to do gave a sense of purpose.

Some couldn't be bothered to wait for the elevator and hurried down the stairwell instead, eager to rope people into helping.

Li Jiangbing took charge of coordinating with Jixiang Jiayuan. He picked a few people, and none of them hesitated—they agreed on the spot and went with him to handle the matter.

Jiang Cheng took all of this in.

As they say, wherever there are people, there are factions. In just five or six days, several small cliques had quietly formed among the dozens of residents.

The interim committee sprang into action with enthusiasm.

For anything needing manpower or ideas, they'd post threads in the forum recruiting volunteers or brainstorming.

After lunch, many people went downstairs for a stroll and saw a crowd gathered at the east gate, discussing how to reinforce the security measures, talking a mile a minute.

Li Jiangbing replied that afternoon about the communication with Jixiang Jiayuan: "It's settled—we'll do it together tomorrow morning."

Then he added: "Old Zhou looks terrifyingly thin."

Friday morning, the interim committee organized a crew to clean up Jixiang West Street. When they met the Jixiang Jiayuan group again, Jiang Cheng and Song Jingshuo saw Zhou Wang—and despite Li Jiangbing's warning, they were still taken aback.

It had only been a few days, and he looked gaunt—downright skeletal.

He seemed to have aged more than ten years overnight.

When he spoke, his demeanor had changed drastically too.

Before, he'd come across as a slick, worldly middle-aged man—not like the hot-blooded young guys in the youth apartment who were willing to take responsibility. He'd had a way of wanting both power and deniability, talking in vague circles, laughing things off.

Now, when he opened his mouth, he was much harder. The people from Jixiang Jiayuan seemed more organized and obedient than they'd been a few days prior.

When he spoke, people listened.

Jiang Cheng and Song Jingshuo exchanged a glance.

There were dark circles under Zhou Wang's eyes. Even though no one had to go to work now—everyone could sleep until they naturally woke—he'd developed bags under his eyes.

Song Jingshuo said, "Brother Zhou, you need to take care of yourself."

Zhou Wang nodded, then looked at them.

The girl was young and pretty; the young man was tall and handsome. Li Jiangbing, who'd come to discuss things with him yesterday afternoon, wasn't even thirty, a bit rough around the edges—what you'd call street-smart—but he was competent too.

These young people had completely taken charge of a community of several thousand people, keeping it running in good order.

His eyes were bloodshot, a little cloudy, as he stared at them.

"Little Jiang," he said. "You guys are impressive."

Unlike him—he couldn't sleep, no matter what.

Jiang Cheng asked, "What else happened?"

Zhou Wang could tell right away they'd already heard about the earlier incident where someone had been beaten to death. It was those people's fault for posting all over the forum.

He wasn't too good with the internet; he'd reacted too slowly.

He'd actually been trying to keep all these things under wraps, not let too many people know.

But Jiang Cheng and her group were different. These young people had been showing goodwill from the very start and had genuinely helped Jixiang Jiayuan.

If they hadn't brought people to help that Monday, who knew how many more might have died.

Besides, Zhou Wang had been losing sleep night after night, in real agony, and desperately wanted someone to understand him.

Not just anyone—it had to be someone in the same position as him. Otherwise, they couldn't grasp the pressure he was under.

The ones who could empathize with him most were the people right in front of him.

The middle-aged man looked off toward the street corner in the distance, seeming lost for a moment, then turned back and said, "A lot of things."

"At times like this, you see who people really are—who's decent and who's a bastard."

"There are scumbags everywhere."

Yesterday—just yesterday—a young mother had jumped off a building with her baby in her arms.

She'd been part of a family of four. Her mother-in-law and father had both turned one after another, and she'd hidden in the bedroom with her child, surviving on baby formula. Only when Jixiang Jiayuan organized a sweep of the buildings did they discover her—they broke down the door and killed the two zombies in her home.

But she'd missed the group supermarket run, and her household supplies were completely exhausted.

She had no choice but to ask neighbors for help.

But everyone had witnessed the chaos and disorder at Pinduoduo Supermarket—they all understood that order had already collapsed to some degree. No one knew what was coming next. People were clinging tight to their own supplies, and no one was willing to lend a hand.

Finally, a male neighbor said he was willing to help her, but in return, he made inappropriate demands of the young mother.

She was shocked, furious, and terrified. She refused in panic, and of course, received no help after that.

That was Tuesday.

She rummaged through her home for food, scraping by on a few snacks. Her baby only had half a can of formula left.

Tuesday afternoon, the TV and radio announced that the government had begun rescue efforts, and she began to hope.

Wednesday night, the news broadcast the progress of the rescue.

She thought it over all night, wrote a suicide note, and at dawn on Thursday, jumped with her child.

Jiang Cheng and Song Jingshuo both fell silent.

Jiang Cheng said, "That wasn't in the forum."

Zhou Wang: "I couldn't let them talk nonsense. I had Little Huang—oh, Old Huang's son, remember him?"

He looked around, then pointed him out to Jiang Cheng and the others: "He's over there."

Jiang Cheng and Song Jingshuo both turned to look, and sure enough, they saw the teenage boy who'd earlier held back tears while helping the adults register people.

"I've got him following me now. Old Huang's gone—it's just him and his mother left now," Zhou Wang said. "The kid knows his way around the internet. I put him in charge of the forum. He's the 'moderator' now."

Their interaction with Old Huang had been brief, but the impression lingered. Old Huang was older, more commanding, with more presence than Zhou Wang. If he'd survived, he'd have been the one leading Jixiang Jiayuan.

Even Zhou Wang said, "If Old Huang were still here..."

Then maybe he wouldn't be lying awake every night—at least there'd be someone sharing the burden.

The young mother's suicide was just one of the many horrible things that had happened in the past few days. It wasn't the only thing he'd had to deal with.

He was exhausted, heart and soul. His hair was falling out, he couldn't sleep—but he'd also grown colder, harder.

Because right now, being smooth and tactful didn't solve a damned thing.

What was happening in Jixiang Jiayuan was exactly the kind of situation Jiang Cheng had discussed with Song Jingshuo beforehand—the thing they absolutely had to prevent from happening in the youth apartment.

That was disorder.

When the government talked about rebuilding "survival order," those people in power saw things more clearly than anyone—they knew better what was happening and what was about to happen.

Song Jingshuo expected her to ask about the male neighbor.

He expected that a girl would naturally feel empathy for another woman—like how Su Yu from Building Two had been brought into the interim committee by her.

A girl like her—decisive, commanding, with real leadership ability—might well want to avenge the young mother, or at least teach that male neighbor a lesson.

But Jiang Cheng just nodded and said, "Don't overthink it. We did everything we could," and that was the end of that topic.

Song Jingshuo wondered if he really was overthinking it.

Jixiang West Street had been cleared.

The rotting, stinking corpses, the round heads, the eyeballs rolling on the ground—all of it was piled up and burned.

Jiang Cheng used this moment to do something she had wanted to do for a while: block off the road.

Her idea was to use the cars parked along Jixiang West Street to seal off both ends of the street. That way, a vacuum-secure zone would form between the west gate of Jixiang Jiayuan and the east gate of the Youth Apartment.

Even if residents from either complex walked out of their gates and onto the street by themselves, they would be basically safe.

In the past, Zhou Wang would definitely have said things like "Is this appropriate?" or "What if the car owners come after us?"—all that shirking of responsibility. But now, the moment Jiang Cheng proposed it, he nodded in agreement.

Accountability can only be pursued against the living.

First, you have to stay alive.

The fact that people from both complexes worked together on this not only made it easy but also soothed the resentment on the Youth Apartment side.

Nobody likes being taken advantage of by their neighbors all the time. The neighbors ought to step up and do their part too.

They picked cars that were boxy vans or taller SUVs.

The able-bodied men chanted in unison as they lifted the fronts of the cars and pulled them out from the curbside. At first, they tried not to damage other people's vehicles, but later they got frustrated and just smashed the windows, released the handbrakes, and steered while pushing—much easier that way.

Whatever private property—none of it mattered much anymore.

Many hands make light work. The closed-off street Jiang Cheng wanted was completed quickly.

From a certain angle, this could be seen as connecting the Youth Apartment and Jixiang Jiayuan together.

What Jiang Cheng really wanted was to expand the safe zone.

The most basic safe zone was, of course, the Youth Apartment itself. If something happened, they would just lock the gates tight and defend to the death.

No people or zombies getting in.

But on top of that, the bigger the safe zone, the better.

Sure enough, once both ends of Jixiang West Street were sealed off, everyone felt a sense of expanded space.

The confined, suffocating feeling of being trapped inside the complex lightened considerably.

Zhou Wang also consulted Jiang Cheng on other matters.

His task for Little Huang was to check the resident forum boards of nearby complexes every day, with special attention to the Youth Apartment, and report anything noteworthy to him promptly.

Ever since the Youth Apartment had its broadcast system set up, communication on many matters had become much more convenient. Many specific arrangements were made through the group chats.

So there wasn't much discussion on the forums anymore.

But Su Yu's post about centralized disposal of recyclable waste was published before Gao Yuxuan had gotten the broadcast system up and running.

Little Huang saw it and reported it to Zhou Wang.

That was on Tuesday, and now it was already Friday. The garbage problem at Jixiang Jiayuan had become serious.

Jiang Cheng asked, "What about your property management people?"

It was bad. They weren't as lucky as the Youth Apartment—no one in the management dorm had turned.

Someone in the Jixiang Jiayuan management dorm had mutated, followed by second-generation zombies from later injuries. Almost all the property management staff who had been in the complex at the time were wiped out, and the few who survived weren't of much use.

Zhou Wang asked in detail how the Youth Apartment handled their garbage.

But Jixiang Jiayuan didn't have a clubhouse or a swimming pool. In the past, residents of their complex used to come to the Youth Apartment's clubhouse to swim.

Zhou Wang said, "Could our complex's garbage also..."

Jiang Cheng flat out refused: "No."

According to Zhao Yi's calculations, the swimming pool's storage space could handle their garbage until rescue arrived—with room to spare.

But it certainly couldn't support two communities.

There was no way Jiang Cheng would agree to that.

One good thing about Zhou Wang was that he understood rejection and didn't push it. He changed his tune: "Then could you spare the environmental engineering person to come help us? Have him consult for our complex too."

That wasn't out of the question.

Jiang Cheng had always kept a close eye on Jixiang Jiayuan precisely because it was right next to the Youth Apartment. Anything that happened there would inevitably affect her complex.

If the garbage wasn't dealt with, flies and mosquitoes would inevitably breed and spread.

Jiang Cheng turned to Song Jingshuo and asked, "If we send Zhao Yi and the others over to help, what would be a fair price to charge?"

Song Jingshuo's mouth twitched.

So now she remembers him?

Jiang Cheng smiled.

Go on, finance guy! Go haggle down to the last penny!