Chapter 52

The chat group interface on the screen suddenly refreshed.

“Once this is over!”

“Once everything gets back to normal!”

“We’ll go to the police and get that scumbag arrested!”

A few sparse responses like “Right” and “Exactly” trickled in.

But more people stayed silent.

When would the zombie virus pass? When would everything return to how it was before?

The progress of government rescue efforts gave little reason for optimism.

Everyone felt lost.

At the same time, the troops sent to rescue City S were clearing out a residential complex in the southern district.

The captain of the second squad had a grim look on his face.

The team members threw a middle-aged man and woman onto the ground: “Captain! It’s them!”

The team members gritted their teeth in hatred.

Among them, one team member looked ashen, with a bloody, torn wound on his neck and obvious bite marks.

So far, no case had been reported where an infected person did not mutate. All infected would eventually turn. The time varied, but in the end, everyone became a zombie.

None of the soldiers had expected that someone would keep a zombie at home, or even lie to them to protect it — resulting in one soldier getting infected.

The team members were furious! Every pair of eyes was bloodshot.

“That’s not a monster, that’s my son — ”

The middle-aged woman collapsed to the ground, wailing.

“You killed him! You killed my son!”

She sobbed hysterically.

Her husband stared blankly at the ground — a middle-aged man who had lost his son, as if his soul had left him.

A young soldier, veins bulging on his neck, couldn’t hold back and raised his rifle, shouting: “Your son died long ago!”

From the moment a person was infected with the virus, they were already dead.

Just like his comrade at this very moment.

The captain reached out and pressed down on his rifle, barking: “Lower your weapon!”

The young soldier gritted his teeth, obeyed the order, and lowered his rifle.

The captain was furious too, of course.

Their current unit was a temporary formation — when the zombie virus broke out, places like military camps, densely packed with people, were hit hardest. They had already lost too many comrades on Saturday night.

Only after the survivors regrouped did their current unit take shape.

And now this soldier who was bitten and infected — he had originally been the captain’s own man.

The captain had no patience for these two despicable middle-aged people.

He looked at his soldier and said in a low voice: “Xiao Xu, you first...”

Although everyone knew that infection meant inevitable mutation, regulations required that before mutation, the person should still be treated as a “human” — kept under supervision until mutation, at which point they could be “dealt with.”

“No need to bother, Captain.” Xiao Xu gave a bitter smile, refusing to submit to supervision. He drew his sidearm and pressed the muzzle against his temple.

“Xiao Xu!”

“Brother Xu!”

“Xu Gang!”

Xiao Xu looked around at everyone.

Many faces here he hadn’t known before Wednesday, because they hadn’t been in the same unit. But over the past few days, they had become brothers who would die for one another.

“Too bad I can’t treat you all to my kid’s first-birthday banquet.” He said, “Captain, when my child grows up, help me tell them...”

“Your dad wasn’t a coward.”

Bang — !

Everyone closed their eyes.

They had faced original zombies and second-generation zombies without blinking, but at this moment, they couldn’t bear to watch.

Xiao Xu’s body fell at the captain’s feet.

His child was about to turn one. Before the virus outbreak, he had said he was going to hold a birthday party.

He would never attend his own child’s first birthday.

The captain clenched his fists so hard the veins on his hands stood out.

He ground his teeth, turned, and kicked the kneeling man rolling across the ground.

The woman screamed loudly.

The captain paid them no more attention. He gave the order: “Keep clearing.”

“Zombies — kill on sight.”

In the southern part of City S, the rescue forces advanced slowly.

Meanwhile, at the Youth Apartments in the tech district, Su Yu had barely left when Li Jiangbing and Song Jingshuo arrived right after.

Jiang Cheng invited the two of them to sit inside.

Actually, the apartment layouts here were mostly the same; Jiang Cheng’s unit was exactly the same as Li Jiangbing’s.

But the two still couldn’t help glancing around — not out of curiosity about the layout, but about a girl’s home.

Song Jingshuo was surprised: “What happened here?”

The mirror behind the door was shattered, only a few shards still hanging from the frame.

The spots on the sideboard where glass should have been were empty — clearly the broken glass had already been cleaned up. One cabinet door had also fallen off and was now hanging on haphazardly.

There were cracks on the TV, but it was still on and barely working.

There were three dining chairs. The fourth one had fallen apart; it hadn’t been thrown out yet, just stacked in the corner.

The place was actually cleaned up quite neatly — like a battlefield tidied up after a fight.

Li Jiangbing knew: “Don’t you remember? The first person in our complex to encounter a zombie was Jiang Cheng. She was also the one who killed the first second-generation zombie.”

Song Jingshuo suddenly understood.

He remembered now — he had seen it on the forum. Jiang Cheng had shared it.

Later, when Jiang Cheng stepped up and took on a leading voice, he learned she was the girl on the forum who had shared tips on killing zombies. At the time, he’d thought, “No wonder.”

Jiang Cheng pulled up a chair across from the sofa, and the three sat down.

Li Jiangbing told Jiang Cheng how Nie Kuizhang had been dealt with. He and Song Jingshuo both subtly watched her reaction.

Jiang Cheng’s reaction was — no reaction at all.

She didn’t even need Su Yu to have informed her of the outcome in advance. Whatever result Li Jiangbing and the others told her, she would have accepted it.

Rather than standing against the six male building leaders and cutting ties with their position, she had handed the matter over to Song Jingshuo and Li Jiangbing — turning a gender conflict into an internal male conflict. Jiang Cheng had already gotten what she wanted.

She had no complaints.

The female residents, of course, were dissatisfied.

But all the female residents combined, even with Jiang Cheng, still had no real power to restrain the male residents.

As Su Yu had said, morality and law seemed to still exist on the surface, but in reality, they had quietly lost their force.

It was precisely Jiang Cheng and the Interim Committee that maintained the inertia of order, keeping things “seeming” to still exist.

If the conflict were forced to escalate, it would pierce through this thin layer of paper — making everyone suddenly realize that what “seemed” to exist was actually already gone.

“We’ve all communicated, and things like this are strictly prohibited from happening again.” Song Jingshuo promised. “The survival order covers all residents — regardless of gender, everyone should be protected under that order.”

Li Jiangbing held out two large bags: “And this — confiscated from Nie Kuizhang. All for you.”

Jiang Cheng took them. Sure enough, it was the half of the medicine that had been taken away.

“Alright, then that settles it.” Jiang Cheng said.

The matter was done.

Li Jiangbing and Song Jingshuo’s shoulders relaxed. They stood up to leave.

Jiang Cheng stood up as well.

“We just need to hold out until government rescue arrives,” she said as she walked them out.

Song Jingshuo and Li Jiangbing reached the door and turned to look at her.

She leaned against the doorframe, smiling. "I should remind everyone—we're all just ordinary citizens. Just because we helped out with some organization and coordination during a special time doesn't mean we've earned any special privileges or become some kind of big shots."

"When all this is over," Jiang Cheng pushed her hair back, "we go back to work, back to our lives. People in my line of work—event planning—might go hungry for a while, but you finance guys should be fine. Gyms should do okay too. Everyone's lives are about to get back on track."

Hearing Jiang Cheng say this, even Song Jingshuo felt a momentary daze.

Not to mention Li Jiangbing.

Li Jiangbing was a fitness coach. For all his imposing, intimidating build, his job meant putting on a smile every day, hustling for clients, bowing and scraping to get people to sign up or renew memberships.

But for the past week, Li Jiangbing had been strutting around like he owned the place. He'd started to see himself as some kind of street boss.

When Jiang Cheng said "get back on track," somewhere inside him, he actually felt a pang of reluctance.

Li Jiangbing quickly caught himself and let out a sigh. "Ain't that right—we're all just regular folks."

Jiang Cheng gave a faint nod and a smile, then stepped back and closed the door.

Song Jingshuo headed for the elevator. Li Jiangbing followed him, only snapping out of it when they reached the elevator lobby. "Why am I following you? My place is the other way."

He turned and headed back toward his own unit.

Song Jingshuo let out a quiet laugh.

He stepped into the elevator alone and faced the doors.

The stainless-steel mirrored door reflected his image.

Song Jingshuo ran a hand through his hair, too. He hadn't bothered much with grooming these past days—not as polished as he used to be.

Better to get back to ordinary life sooner rather than later.

Any normal person would want to return to normalcy.

Unfortunately, they'd all be disappointed.

Saturday evening's broadcast: the rescue teams were still advancing at a frustratingly slow pace.

After the progress report, it was supposed to loop like the previous days. But today there was new content.

[......Citizens are encouraged to actively carry out self-rescue operations and establish safe blocks. All streets, residential communities, property management offices, and homeowners' committees are to take the lead in organizing......]

The moment this guiding principle aired, the city of S exploded.

Wails and cries rang out across the city.

Some people started cursing: "What do they mean by this?! What do they mean?! Are they telling us to go get ourselves killed?"

Even at the youth apartment building, Jiang Cheng could hear someone throw open a window and shout and swear at the garden below.

Another window opened, someone trying to calm things down: "Stop yelling. Yelling won't help anything."

Another voice: "It's not over yet! There's more! Get back inside and watch!"

[......Armored vehicles leading the way, supply trucks will break through all obstacles and drop supplies along the main thoroughfares first. Offering the strongest possible support to the citizens.]

The rescue forces had to thoroughly clear every area they passed through. Otherwise, even one zombie left behind could bite a few people, and those few would mutate and infect even more.

That was why the rescue forces were advancing so slowly. But the civilians couldn't wait any longer—they were on the brink of starvation.

So the logistics units pushed forward first. Armored vehicles took point, speeding along the city's ring roads and tossing supplies as they went.

But according to the city surveillance system, the zombie numbers inside the urban area were massive. And with government combat personnel stretched thin, the supply convoys couldn't afford to stop or take side roads—otherwise, they'd risk getting surrounded.

They could only drop supplies along the main roads.

Then it was up to the citizens to collect.

That was what the emergency command center meant by "self-rescue."

Jiang Cheng turned and rummaged through the drawer of her computer desk, pulling out a map of S City.

When she'd first come to S City alone, not knowing where anything was, she'd deliberately bought a paper map. Now it finally came in handy.

She spread the map across the desk and bent over to study it closely.

Her phone rang—unsurprisingly, it was Song Jingshuo: "Jiang Cheng, what do you think?"

"Nothing good," Jiang Cheng said. "Brace yourself."

Civilized society was, for now, coming to an end. S City was about to enter full-on survival mode.