Chapter 53

S city had a total of five ring roads.

Youth Apartments was located in the development zone. Relative to the downtown area, it counted as a new district, just outside the North Fifth Ring Road, not far from the Fifth Ring itself.

It was a bit far from the city center, but the company Jiang Cheng worked for sat between the North Fourth Ring and the North Fifth Ring, so her commute wasn't actually that bad.

The closest ring road to the development zone was, of course, the North Fifth Ring. Fortunately, the first wave of the supply convoy was scheduled to travel along the Fifth Ring first.

One reason was that supplies entering the city from outside naturally hit the Fifth Ring first.

The other was that, with years of urban development and residents relocating outward, the areas inside and outside the Fifth Ring had become dense clusters of residential communities, with a very high population density.

The development zone was a prime example.

On Saturday night, the interim committee held an emergency meeting.

Still at Song Jingshuo's place.

A map was taped to the TV with transparent tape.

Everyone sat on the floor, and Jiang Cheng stood beside the TV.

"Good news is, water, electricity, and natural gas — those lifelines — are already under government control. For now, there won't be any large-scale outages."

Water, electricity, and gas were state-owned industries to begin with, and they were highly automated. As long as there were no major malfunctions, a small team of maintenance staff could keep them running.

Provided the terminal points didn't break down.

"Let's just hope we get lucky and there aren't any minor glitches nearby," Jiang Cheng said. "Because right now, if something breaks, nobody's coming to fix it."

"Same goes for people. The news bulletins these past two days haven't mentioned hospitals even once. I've been paying close attention — not a single mention. That means all hospitals have probably fallen."

Everyone sighed in unison. "Yeah, hospitals of all places..."

Open-plan spaces, packed with people.

You didn't want to think about it.

All this information had come from that night's news broadcast. And then came the most important part —

"The supply convoy sets off from here." Jiang Cheng tapped a spot at the bottom of the map with her pen.

Between that starting point and the development zone outside the North Fifth Ring lay the entire urban core of S city.

"The emergency command center says, given the difficulty residents might have in picking up supplies, the convoy will split into four groups. They'll head east and west simultaneously, not using the elevated highways. They'll stick to the service roads the whole way, and both directions of traffic will be used at the same time, dropping supplies on the inner and outer service lanes."

East and west — that way, people near the East Fifth Ring and West Fifth Ring would basically receive supplies at the same time.

And by using both directions, one convoy going with traffic and one going against, residents on both the inner and outer sides of the loop would also get supplies simultaneously.

Because the main ring roads in S city were wide roads, crossing a ring road was itself a danger for residents. And there were residential areas on both sides of the ring roads too — dropping supplies on only one side would be unfair to the residents on the other.

So the question facing Youth Apartments now was: "How many vehicles do we have? How many people can drive?"

Jiang Cheng said, "Before the meeting, Jingshuo, Jiangbing, and I took a trip down to the underground garage to scout things out. Didn't look too promising."

Youth Apartments had the lowest parking space ratio of any nearby community, at 1:0.4.

Jixiang Jiayuan, which was built much earlier than Youth Apartments, still managed 1:0.8. Word had it that Yujingxiangyuan had the best parking ratio in the area, at 1:1.

Shanshui Yayuan was a villa complex, which was a different story.

Youth Apartments had been designed from the start as "a young person's first home." The developer's thinking was that young people would be less likely to own private cars.

Unfortunately for them, and coincidentally matching the developer's assumption, the cars Jiang Cheng and the others saw in the underground garage were predominantly compact models. There were also plenty of hatchbacks, which had very limited trunk space.

There were even a few ultra-mini cars with just a single row of seats.

The hauling capacity of all these vehicles was just too poor.

"Route 535 express bus."

Jiang Cheng wanted to slam her pen down hard on the map to give her words more punch. But behind the map was Song Jingshuo's expensive flat-screen TV, so she held back.

She pointed with her pen to a spot that was a short distance from Youth Apartments: "This is the terminal station for the Route 535 express bus. It's three stops away from us."

Song Jingshuo was truly impressed by Jiang Cheng at this point.

When he'd finished watching the news and realized the government's rescue efforts were likely to be even more helpless than they'd anticipated, his heart had gone cold. And he'd also realized what kind of scene this supply distribution method might lead to, so he'd called Jiang Cheng.

At the time, his mind had been in chaos.

But Jiang Cheng's voice on the other end had been calm, and he knew immediately that she already had a plan.

He'd asked, "What are you thinking?"

Jiang Cheng had simply had the property management staff on duty broadcast over the building intercom, calling all interim committee members to an emergency meeting at Song Jingshuo's place an hour later.

And she herself had called up Li Jiangbing and Song Jingshuo to take a head start going down to the underground garage. They'd surveyed the vehicles and confirmed that the owners' private cars really weren't up to the task.

On the way back, she'd shared her idea with the two of them.

"I'm not an expert on vehicles, but that Route 535 bus really does look tougher than a regular bus. It's taller and longer, and it always drives fast — I reckon it could plow through zombies on the road without any problem."

Everyone laughed.

The development zone was outside the Fifth Ring, far from the city center. The government had planned express bus routes in these residential areas to handle the rapid flow of large crowds during rush hour.

The development zone also had a metro line planned, but word was it wouldn't be open for another five or six years. Many residents without private cars commuted into the city every day on the 535. They called it "heading downtown."

Jiang Cheng's proposal passed without any resistance.

The residents, who'd been nervously holed up at home after watching the news bulletin, heard the building intercom announcement and felt a sudden wave of relief — the interim committee was holding an emergency meeting. They'd come up with something good, right?

That Jiang Cheng, she'd have a plan, right?

Just wait for instructions.

Sure enough, before bedtime, the intercom crackled to life again:

[Tomorrow morning, the interim committee will set out early to find vehicles for supply pickup.]

[Recruiting drivers who can handle large vehicles. License doesn't matter — just guts.]

[Recruiting scavenging team members.]

[Forum recruitment post is up. Sign up fast.]

[Notice to all residents: Use abbreviations for all event names on the forum. Absolutely no discussing tomorrow's plans on the forum, to prevent neighboring communities from copying, competing, or beating us to the punch.]

[These are extraordinary times. Maintain operational security.]

[For my community, and my community for me.]

Words like "vehicles" and "scavenging" weren't used much in everyday life, but the younger residents understood immediately — these were game terms.

Since they weren't allowed to discuss it on the forum, everyone chatted in their own building's group chats instead:

[We're guarding against Jixiang Jiayuan next door, right?]

[We have to. Look at the situation we're in.]

A girl asked: [I didn't quite catch that. What was that about... vehicles? What's scavenging?]

The young men who played games eagerly explained it all to her.

[Ohh, I get it now! That makes sense. Honestly that's a perfect way to put it — I understood it instantly.]

[Hahahahahahahahahaha.]

“Um... do we really have to go? I calculated that my staple food supply is enough for three months. We already have quite a lot of supplies, is it necessary to risk another raid? There should still be plenty of people going hungry right now...”

The barrage of messages in the group chat suddenly paused for a moment, as if everyone had lost their internet connection at once.

Then the insults came flooding back:

“Saint!”

“God, what a bleeding heart!”

“In times of chaos, kill the saints first!”

“What if the rescue takes four months to arrive? Are you going to starve for that extra month?”

“Wait, why assume it’s a saintess? What if it’s a saint?”

“Then kill both saint and saintess first—kill them all!”

That person was so badly flamed that they didn’t dare speak again.

Su Yu had been watching the group chat scroll by the whole time without joining in. Because she actually kind of agreed with the person who got scolded.

Am I too much of a bleeding heart? she wondered, conflicted.

But when she went to other forums, she did see some truly distressing help-seeking posts. The situations described in those were genuinely pitiful, enough to tug at anyone’s heartstrings.

Su Yu sighed and closed the group chat.

She needed to sleep early—she had to be at Terminal 535 early the next morning.

On Sunday morning, Su Yu woke up very early. She had set the rice cooker on a timer the night before, and by the time she got up, a full pot of rice was already done.

Eating rice for breakfast wasn’t common; lately, most mornings were porridge. But today she made steamed rice because today’s mission required bringing a packed meal.

Su Yu ate a third of the rice, then seasoned the rest with furikake and pork floss, shaping it into rice balls to take as her midday ration.

She got herself ready, packed the rice balls into her backpack, and found two magazines, taping one around each forearm with duct tape.

Practice had proven that this trick was incredibly effective. Lots of people would raise their forearms to block whenever a zombie lunged at them suddenly. The magazines were hard to bite through, and in a critical moment, they really could save your life.

She glanced at the wall clock—6:05. The meeting time was 6:15.

She slung on her backpack and grabbed a steel pipe.

This pipe was something Li Jiangbing and the others had fetched from a hardware store. It was excellent—much lighter than a frying pan, yet easy to swing with force.

It was also easy to carry, just tucked casually into her belt.

It gave off a sort of ancient swordsman vibe.

The committee members gathered on time at the entrance to the underground parking garage, along with some recruited car-owning residents.

Every car was packed as full as possible to maximize transport efficiency.

When the convoy drove out of the garage, many residents were already up, leaning out of their windows to watch: “They’re leaving, they’re leaving!”

“Go get ’em!”

“We’ll be waiting for your return!”

The atmosphere was charged with excitement.

A lot of people couldn’t help rolling down their windows and waving up at the buildings.

The road outside the east gate, Jixiang West Street, had already been blocked off, so the convoy exited through the west gate. Over a dozen cars rolled out in full force, quite a sight.

Ever since Saturday night of last week, everyone’s range of movement had been restricted. The farthest they’d reached was Buyduoduo, 800 meters away. On normal days, they couldn’t even do more than step out of the east gate onto Jixiang West Street.

After a week away, seeing the street-side park and familiar buildings from the west gate gave everyone a sense of having been apart for ages.

A few original zombies staggered toward them from up ahead. The lead driver said, “Hold tight!”

He floored the gas pedal and plowed straight through them!

The convoy roared forward, smashing and crushing its way toward the destination!

Leaving a trail of zombie remains behind them.