Chapter 49

At the Youth Apartment, a group of men were in high spirits, installing extra anti-theft measures over the main gate of the compound. The Youth Apartment had never encountered any outside intruders.

But on Friday night, someone slipped into Jixiang Jiayuan.

The Youth Apartment and Jixiang Jiayuan were the first to rush out of their buildings to clear out zombies, and they beat every other residential compound to emptying the Buyduo Supermarket.

Anyone who kept an eye on the owners' forums would know this—it wasn't a secret.

Especially since, later on, people from nearby compounds also charged out and made a dash for Buyduo Supermarket, only to find that all the food had been cleaned out, and they had to resentfully go elsewhere to scavenge for supplies.

Some of them died out there, never making it back to their compounds.

On Tuesday, employees from Buyduo Supermarket got into a clash with these people and were injured. On Wednesday, they pushed a few carts of drinks over to trade for medicine.

After they left, Brother Dong figured this couldn't go on.

Inside the supermarket there were a few small shops, including a photo studio. Brother Dong and his men smashed the glass, went in, found the camera, and took a whole bunch of photos. Then they called the studio manager. The manager listened to their situation, sighed heavily, and walked them through how to develop the film over the phone, and they printed out the photos.

After that, when people came running to Buyduo Supermarket looking for food, they saw the banner stretched across the entrance: "All food has been cleared out. Look elsewhere!"

And they posted many photos, all showing the interior of Buyduo Supermarket— empty shelves, an empty warehouse, and an empty cold storage room.

Some people refused to believe it and went in to check for themselves. It was exactly as shown. Those people could only leave in disappointment and stopped clashing with Brother Dong and the others.

But some got mouthy about it: "Who told you to come so late? The Youth Apartment and Jixiang Jiayuan already grabbed everything. Go look for them."

This kind of talk eventually showed up on the forums of several other compounds, and plenty of people saw it.

Nearby, just about any shop that had any link to food—restaurants, convenience stores, small grocers—had been smashed open, and everything inside was empty.

Even unrelated stores, like a beauty salon, got broken into, and people combed through them, turning up the employees' personal snacks or some rice, flour, and cooking oil in the kitchen.

But the quantity was nowhere near enough to hold things together.

If people don't eat, they die, and no one wants to die, so they had to figure something out.

Friday night, after dark, someone snuck into Jixiang Jiayuan.

Why Jixiang Jiayuan? Everyone knew that the Youth Apartment people definitely had more supplies. But the Youth Apartment's gate was locked, the security booth was lit, and there was a guard on duty.

Jixiang Jiayuan's property management was gone by then—dead or scattered. Jixiang Jiayuan had no property management left at this point.

The gate was normally shut, but nobody was manning it. Unlike the Youth Apartment, there were no reinforced anti-theft measures on it either.

Jixiang Jiayuan was wide open. The two compounds were right next to each other, so when comparing them, of course one would pick Jixiang Jiayuan.

They chose the dead of night, when people were asleep.

But they weren't professional thieves, nowhere near that slick, and they still roused people.

In the middle of the night, a shrill scream of "Thief! Catch the thief!" rang out. It woke up other neighbors, who were about to go lend a hand—only to find thieves in their own homes too.

And it wasn't a solo act—they'd come as a group, a full gang.

By the time Zhou Wang came charging downstairs wearing two mismatched shoes, two people were already dead.

After the time they'd spent killing zombies, people in general had lost their sense of awe toward dead bodies. Food was the red line. Jixiang Jiayuan honestly didn't have as much food as the Youth Apartment residents had. And every household here had elders to care for and kids to feed—they had to feed a whole family. The moment food was involved, everyone's nerves were stretched tight.

Then there was the fear of zombies lurking in the dark. All these factors stacked together—there was no room for pulling their punches. They were swinging until they found it too late that the person wasn't moving anymore—already dead.

There were over a dozen of them in total in that group raid. Six or seven of the survivors had been captured alive. Word was a few still got away.

By the time Zhou Wang made it down, people were still beating and kicking the captured ones.

Everyone carried a heavy chip on their shoulder—men, women, old, and young. All of them.

Zhou Wang shouted for them to stop.

"Uncle Zhou," Little Huang called out.

Little Huang's father, Old Huang, had been the earliest organizer of Jixiang Jiayuan. Even Zhou Wang had been organized under him.

But Old Huang had gotten injured in the very first wave of fighting. He'd been locked alone in the bedroom to quarantine, and sure enough, he turned into a zombie anyway.

Little Huang ended his father's life with a kitchen cleaver, his own hands on the handle.

That left a family of three down to a middle-aged mother and a middle-schooler. At least the boy's height now surpassed his mother's, and he could wield both a rolling pin and a cleaver.

For matters inside the compound, he used the rolling pin. For going outside, he carried the cleaver.

Zhou Wang assigned him tasks, and Little Huang's mother, seeing things clearly, told her son, "You just stick with Uncle Zhou. Do whatever he tells you. Always stay with him."

Little Huang inherited his parents' sharp mind and steady, composed temperament. He listened to his mother and nodded. "I understand."

In these abnormal times, he knew he had to be the "man of the household." He couldn't be a "orphan" in some orphan-widow story.

The mother and daughter from the next building who jumped to their deaths—those were the real orphans-widow cases.

"Uncle Zhou." Little Huang was holding a rolling pin with bloodstains smeared across it. He proactively reported to Zhou Wang, who had just come downstairs, "They came to steal. We questioned them—these ones are from Yujing Xiangyuan and Deqingli."

They were all middle-aged men.

These men all lived nearby and had become acquainted by working out at the same gym.

If Li Jiangbing had been there, he could have named several of these people. That's right—they had worked out at the same gym where Li Jiangbing was employed, and some had even been his clients.

These people were backed into a corner too. Every street-facing store that could be looted had been basically wiped out. It was almost impossible to find food anywhere else. So they finally fixed their sights on the Youth Apartment and Jixiang Jiayuan, and after a screening, they picked Jixiang Jiayuan.

They organized online, recruited around a dozen people from several different compounds, and orchestrated the job.

The captured men were already beaten black and blue, some missing teeth.

These were men in good physical shape from long-term gym training, which is why they had the nerve. But they were on someone else's turf, and they were outnumbered by people defending their home.

When they realized some of their own had died, their faces went ashen.

Some had started begging: "...We know we were wrong. We're sorry! We swear we'll never do it again!"

Others played the pity card: "There's really nothing to eat at home. My kid's only three..."

Little Huang asked, "Uncle Zhou, what are we going to do with them?"

Keep them and hand them to the police later? But they'd looted Buyduo Supermarket without paying too. Everyone had looted.

And on top of that—people had been killed.

In the darkness, Zhou Wang glanced at Little Huang.

Still a young kid. But after everything he'd gone through, his eyes were no longer innocent.

Zhou Wang turned his gaze to the crowd.

Plenty of the male residents were gripping weapons.

Plenty of pairs of eyes burnt with aggression.

The people who killed those invaders—they hadn't been killed by any one person's hand. The crowd had done it, everybody together.

"Old Zhou," someone called.

Zhou Wang looked over. At that man's feet lay a body.

Their eyes met in the darkness—those were sunken, scheming eyes.

There was blood on his weapon.

Even the rolling pin in Little Huang's hand had blood on it.

What should they do about it?

The earlier incident where someone was accidentally beaten to death in a conflict had already been settled, with both families agreeing to reconcile under mediation.

The woman who jumped off the building—that was her own choice.

But the body lying on the ground right now had been beaten to death by all of them together.

It was hard to pin it on anyone specific. It was everyone. It was each and every one.

“Here’s what we’ll do,” Old Zhou said, looking around. “All the women go back inside. The kids too. The men all stay. We’ll handle it together.”

When Zhou Wang said this, the women residents exchanged glances with their husbands, then gradually scattered, taking their children back into the buildings.

A few who hadn't left yet received a firm: “Go on, go on.” from Zhou Wang.

Many people could feel a shift in the atmosphere.

The men urged their wives: “Get inside now. I’ve got this here!”

Xiao Huang's mother was also present, holding a rolling pin in her hand. But she hadn’t gotten a chance to step forward, so she remained spotless.

Old Huang was a man of some standing, and his wife was someone who had seen the world. She sensed something wrong immediately and grabbed Xiao Huang by the arm: “You’re still young. Come back with me.”

But Zhou Wang cast a glance over.

Xiao Huang, who had been hesitating, stopped hesitating at that look. He pulled himself free: “You go on back. I’ve got this. I’m not a kid anymore.”

He gripped the rolling pin with both hands, holding it diagonally across his chest.

His mother caught sight of the blood on it. She remembered when her husband had turned, and the ad hoc owners’ committee had come around, but her son had refused to let anyone else kill his own father. He had insisted on ending his father’s life with his own hands.

A child had to grow up someday. And now was not the time to keep treating him like a child.

She let go of his arm and said politely to Zhou Wang: “Please keep an eye on him for me.”

Zhou Wang nodded: “Go on back, big sister. I’m here. Don’t worry.”

She looked at him, then at her young son, a flicker of reluctance in her eyes, before she steeled herself and turned away.

The elderly also retreated into the buildings. What remained in the open area beneath the residential blocks were only able-bodied young and middle-aged men.

Xiao Huang was the youngest among them.

He took in the scene—many pairs of eyes gleaming in the dark with a look that could chill you to the bone.

A few sturdy men gathered around Zhou Wang, huddling and speaking. Xiao Huang didn’t join them. Being careful of atmosphere and glances was something he had learned sharply over these days.

The tight circle that included Zhou Wang—these few men were the ones who could decide matters of consequence for Jixiang Jiayuan.

Xiao Huang knew it was precisely because he kept close to a decision-maker like Zhou Wang that he and his mother had not been bullied the way that woman who jumped with her child had been.

Stray words drifted intermittently through the night.

“Can’t...”

“Send them back...”

“Human lives...”

“Later...”

“Legal trouble...”

“Everyone will...”

Xiao Huang strained his ears, but he couldn’t catch anything clearer. The uncles were deliberately keeping their voices low.

The others around weren’t speaking either, all waiting for these choices to be made.

But their bodies were taut, alert, watching carefully over the people who sat or half-lay on the ground.

Xiao Huang saw the uncles pass out cigarettes to one another.

The air of tension around the adults seemed even heavier. It looked like a truly difficult decision.

But when they all threw their cigarettes to the ground and ground them out viciously under their shoes, it meant the decision had been made.

“They can’t be let go.” Zhou Wang’s gaze was gloomy as he announced, “They’ve already been bitten by zombies out there.”

For a moment, the air froze.

Someone cried out in alarm: “We haven’t —”

Those with quicker reflexes sprang up, trying to bolt away to save themselves.

But quick as they were, they were no match for a plan already laid.

The cleaver swung into a neck. Blood splattered outward, spraying into Xiao Huang’s open, startled mouth.

Hot. Salty. The blood of the living.