Chapter 54

On the way, they’d long since lost count of how many zombies they’d smashed or crushed. As long as the head wasn’t broken and was still attached to the body, even if the lower half was gone, the upper half could still crawl along.

This was the first time they’d seen anything like it.

Before, they’d always walked on foot out of the neighborhood, taking down zombies with blows to the back of the skull or the neck, killing them outright. They’d never made half-zombies like this.

It was disgusting and terrifying at once.

Someone couldn’t help but curse: “What the hell kind of twisted virus is this?”

On the big forums, students of medicine and biology had already debated fiercely, insisting that according to everything they’d learned, this thing shouldn’t exist.

But it did exist, right outside the window, downstairs, in the streets. Nobody could deny it.

At the Route 535 terminal station, there weren’t many zombies.

Because this route was mostly used by migrant workers commuting between the new development district and the city center. The zombie virus had broken out last Saturday, at night, so there was hardly anyone around.

The few zombies in the bus depot were probably the on-duty staff. They were still in their uniforms.

If you thought about it too closely, it stung. These were hardworking laborers just doing their jobs—but there was nothing for it. Everyone had to put them down.

The depot had about thirty buses, and the keys were all in the dispatch office.

The Route 535 express buses weren’t the same model as the ones in the city center. They were especially tall, and Jiang Cheng was right—they looked seriously sturdy.

“Whoa!” Li Jiangbing planted his hands on his hips in amazement.

It gave him that “it’s all ours now” feeling of plenty.

The core members huddled up to discuss: “Three? Four?”

They were figuring out how many to take to be enough.

Jiang Cheng sighed. “If only we could take them all.”

Someone couldn’t help laughing. “You’re way too greedy. Like a little hamster, stuffing everything into your cheeks.”

Jiang Cheng happily admitted to being greedy. “That’s exactly how hamsters survive the winter.”

There was no real criticism in their laughter. By now, after a week had passed, nearly the entire provisional committee had come to accept Jiang Cheng’s particular sense of crisis.

It was exactly that crisis awareness that always kept them one step ahead.

In the end, after considering all the factors, they drove away four buses with full tanks.

Four big, towering buses. None of the four drivers had any experience with vehicles that large—the biggest thing any of them had driven was a seven-seater. They were running on pure guts. As soon as they climbed up, it was all “holy shit, look at this view,” and then two of the buses scraped the pillars at the depot gate as they drove out.

The people on the buses heard the grinding sound of metal against concrete and winced right down to their molars.

Four giant buses and a dozen or so cars formed an even bigger convoy, heading back to Youth Apartments to pick people up.

At Youth Apartments, the volunteers had already gathered on Jixiang West Street, waiting for the buses to arrive. Since there were so many people, it drew the attention of residents in Fortune Garden. Someone opened a window and shouted down: “Are you guys going to pick up supplies?”

A lot of people also came down to watch out of curiosity, because the Fortune Garden residents had also planned to scavenge supplies at the Fifth Ring Road that day, and plenty of people were already standing in the courtyard.

Zhou Wang heard the commotion and brought people over to check. He asked: “Where’s Little Jiang? And Xiao Song? Where are they?”

The Youth Apartments residents hedged: “They went driving.”

Zhou Wang was an old hand. He could tell just by looking at these young people that they weren’t telling the whole truth.

But they had also stayed up all night planning, making a ton of arrangements for today. He figured Youth Apartments would be doing the same thing as his group—mobilizing residents with cars, coordinating families without them, neighbors helping neighbors.

So he didn’t push. If people don’t want to tell you something, pressing them won’t help.

But when the four 535 buses came rumbling down and pulled up to stop on the main road, Zhou Wang realized he’d underestimated these young folks from Youth Apartments yet again.

The cars all pulled into the underground garage. The four big buses stopped and swung open their doors. Li Jiangbing bellowed: “We’re moving out!”

The volunteers traveled light: each with a single pouch holding a day’s rations and water, basic protective gear, and a weapon in hand.

The towering buses fired up everyone’s spirits. They howled and scrambled over the cars blocking the intersection at Jixiang West Street, full of energy.

“Here they come!”

“Let’s go!”

“Everyone onboard!”

The people of Fortune Garden stared in astonishment. “So that’s how you do it.”

Zhou Wang watched the receding figures and suddenly let out a sigh.

He felt like he’d been playing by the old rules too long. Deep down, he was still obeying the social norms of the past. But the truth now was that survival was the first principle, and under that principle, you could ignore a lot of laws—like private property, or public property.

Young people’s brains worked better after all.

The Fortune Garden residents were envious of those four big buses, even a little tempted: “Brother Zhou, what if we...”

Zhou Wang glanced at his watch. “No time. Let’s stick to the plan and head out.”

The people felt a little disappointed.

But in last night’s news bulletin, the temporary emergency command had predicted the arrival times of the supply convoy at each drop-off point. If you went too late, you’d lose out.

Even though time seemed to still be ample, there was always the fear of crowding, everyone wanting to get a spot early.

Zhou Wang: “Let’s go. We need to move too.”

Fortune Garden rolled out a long convoy from their east gate. All private cars—they’d pulled nearly every driver they could mobilize.

They soon caught up to the Youth Apartments convoy. Anyone watching would have thought they were one big group.

But the Fortune Garden people weren’t satisfied with always coming second to Youth Apartments, and they certainly didn’t want the Youth Apartments group reaching the drop-off zone first. So more than one sedan floored the gas and overtook the big buses.

The Youth Apartments drivers didn’t dare to speed—mostly because they weren’t used to driving the large vehicles and were afraid of crashing. Cursing under their breath, they trailed along behind these cars.

But the Fortune Garden folks quickly regretted their decision. When they’d been behind the buses, even though they’d seen zombies from their windows being drawn by the noise and chasing the convoy, the ride had felt pretty smooth.

But once the smaller cars got out in front, the experience was totally different.

Zombies came charging directly from the front and the sides! Slamming into the windows! The glass was already cracking!

The driver swore, “Why are there so many of them?!” and gritted his teeth as he floored the gas pedal, crashing straight into them.

On a lucky hit, zombies were sent flying.

But sometimes luck ran out, because zombies felt no pain and feared no death. When there were too many, you could knock out a few, but one unlucky slip and a zombie would land on the hood, scramble a bit, and end up clinging to the windshield, grabbing hold of the wiper blade.

The road completely disappeared from view.

“Damn it!”

“Whip the wheel! Shake him off!”

The passengers inside were screaming.

Jiang Cheng and the others were in the lead bus. It was tall with a good view, so they could clearly see a private car ahead starting to swerve in an S-pattern. It hadn’t gone two curves before it lunged up onto the sidewalk and slammed into a roadside flower bed.

The car flipped over, its doors popped open.

A pack of zombies flooded toward it.

A second-generation zombie leaped, bouncing off a primeval zombie, and landed with a bang on top of the overturned vehicle.

The zombie bent down, upside down, and plunged its upper body into the car.

From inside came screams and shrieks.

No one came to the rescue.

There were too many zombies on the road, all drawn in by the noise of the convoy. A lot of them looked like second-generation zombies, too.

Who would dare stop and get out to help? What if you were the only one to stop, and no other car pulled over? That would be walking straight into death!

A bit of neighborly goodwill wasn't enough to make anyone volunteer to die.

But the cars up ahead were slowing down, pulling aside to clear the inner lane.

The four big buses proudly rolled back to the front. Against vehicles that big, even zombies looked small—they charged in and got knocked flat and crushed under the wheels, the sound of bones cracking deeply satisfying.

No small car dared to overtake anymore. They all obediently lined up behind the four big vehicles from the youth apartment complex.

Meanwhile, Zhou Wang got a call from Jiang Cheng: "Which drop-off point are you heading to?"

Zhou Wang: "Wanzhuang Bridge is the closest one."

Like Jiang Cheng, he was holding a map with supply drop points circled in pen.

Of course you'd head to the closest drop point to you.

Last night's announcement of these drop points, when mapped out, showed they all corresponded to large dense residential areas. Wanzhuang Bridge, Sishui Bridge, and Liujiabao Bridge were clearly meant for the newly developed districts.

Of them, Wanzhuang Bridge was the nearest to them.

Going to a farther one made no sense—people from neighborhoods closer to those points would be going there anyway. Overall, the population distribution across the drop points was fairly even.

Jiang Cheng said: "We're taking the outside."

"Good," Zhou Wang said. "Then we'll take the inside."

That meant the inner ring of the Fifth Ring Road versus the outer ring.

No need to think about it—there was bound to be a scramble.

For the past week, the youth apartment complex and Jixiang Jiayuan had been semi-allied, neighbors separated by just one street, with many faces familiar to each other.

Either way, they were going to be fighting for supplies. There was no point in getting into a conflict with people they knew. Both sides of the ring road had drop points—they'd split up and fight strangers instead.

The moment Jiang Cheng hung up, someone in the same bus suddenly started heaving. Everyone turned to look: "What's wrong?"

The lead bus had been barreling through and crushing zombies all the way, splattering sticky, disgusting gunk across the windshield. But it had been a week since the zombie outbreak. They'd seen brains split open, eyeballs stepped on, necks chopped through. Their nerves were already tempered.

So why was someone puking?

"Eating... eating people... ugh..." The man gagged as he explained. "Dogs! Cats! ... Eating people... ugh!"

There had been corpses all along the road. Left out in the summer heat for a week, they were already rotting, flies buzzing around in swarms.

Crows were pecking at them too.

But cats and dogs were a different kind of animal entirely. Not the same as crows.

Of course, there were stray cats and dogs in the city—more of them after the outbreak. Some had lost their owners; others had been thrown out when homes ran out of food.

Cats and dogs eat meat. With no food to find, they gnawed on corpses. For carnivores, a dead person was no different from a dead rat or dead bird—just a bigger chunk of meat. Totally normal.

Just his bad luck that he happened to look over at the wrong moment.

Someone leaned toward the window to peer out: "Where?"

But the bus had already driven past; it was out of sight now.

Someone muttered from their seat: "What kind of world is this..."

Even cats and dogs were eating people now.

Someone couldn't help but glance at the familiar sling bag Jiang Cheng wore, zipper open, revealing a dark hollow inside.

As the gaze landed, a pair of emerald-green eyes like jewels lit up in the darkness, glowing eerily as if sensing the stare and staring back.

The looker flinched and quickly looked away.

The traffic on the road was getting heavier—clearly, residents from the new development districts were all heading for the government supply drop-offs. Everyone was mixed in together now, all private cars, impossible to tell who was from Jixiang Jiayuan and who wasn't.

But those four number 535 public buses stood out unmistakably.

Some sharp-eyed drivers, seeing so many private cars tailing the big buses, decided to follow along too.

If this were a game, the public buses were the tankiest tanks up front.

When the convoy finally turned onto a service road off the ring road, things got noticeably cleaner—the Fifth Ring Road and the areas inside and outside it were separated by greenbelts, and it wasn't city streets anyway. There were almost no zombies on either side, just a sparse handful here and there, probably drivers who had pulled over last Saturday night.

The big buses simply crushed them outright.

The convoy began to split. The four buses turned directly onto the outer service road, while the Jixiang Jiayuan convoy passed straight through under the bridge and entered the inner side of the ring road.

Many drivers watched the dividing traffic ahead, momentarily unsure which side to follow.

The previously orderly convoy suddenly fell into chaos.