Chapter 58

The originally open and connected space was cut off by a door, separating the supply storage area from the rest of the garage and turning it into an independent, sealed-off space.

Master Luo had long since become close with the engineering guys, getting along well with them. Everyone came up together and forcefully turned the ship's-wheel style locking mechanism, which let out a creaking, grinding sound, until a series of clicks rang out and the blast door was locked from the outside.

For safety's sake, they also wrapped a chain lock around the wheel and locked that too.

This way, to open the blast door, you first had to unlock the chain lock, and then at least two men were needed to turn the wheel with ease—one person alone would struggle considerably.

And you'd also need a key.

In short, once locked up, there was no need for a dedicated guard.

Jiang Cheng and the others went down into the underground garage, while the other scavenger team volunteers were still in the courtyard. A crowd of people surrounded them, asking all kinds of questions, curious about the situation at the supply drop point.

Su Yu was also surrounded by several girls, all of whom she'd gotten familiar with recently—the ones who chatted frequently in the group chat.

They crowded around Su Yu asking about everything, and Su Yu recounted what had happened at Wan'an Bridge: "Jiang Cheng talked things over with the neighboring community, so we split up into two sides—avoided our own people fighting each other."

"Our side looked organized and disciplined from the start, nobody dared to rush us."

"They were grabbing stuff from each other."

"Pretty rough over there."

Once she'd explained enough, the girls dispersed, and only two who were closer stayed behind to chat—one of them being He Tian.

Su Yu looked around and asked the two of them, "None of you went down to the garage to help?"

One of the other girls said, "There are plenty of guys for that. Why go steal the heavy-lifting jobs?"

Su Yu paused, then said, "There are shopping carts..."

It was just using shopping carts to push the supplies down—going down was a slope, and coming back up the cart was empty. It wasn't that tiring.

He Tian changed the subject, asking, "What's in all those cardboard boxes?"

Su Yu told them: "Mostly rice and flour."

The content of the "supplies" disappointed the girls. Because over the past week, while they could eat their fill, it was only "eat their fill." The vegetables and meat stockpiled in the fridge had run out in half a week.

Everyone had been living on "staples plus pickles" for a while now, and they were just about sick of it.

The other girl complained, "How much longer do we have to eat like this?"

Su Yu was about to say something, but He Tian tapped the back of her hand, and Su Yu held it in.

Once the other girl walked off, He Tian said, "It's impressive how you guys step up and join every operation."

"You guys" referred to the girls who'd joined the scavenger team along with Su Yu. Out of the four public buses, nine girls had gone in total.

"Zhang Lesi and Xue Yiqing also applied to be scavenger volunteers," He Tian said. "But their building leaders said there were enough people and didn't let them go."

He Tian hadn't applied at all.

Because her building leader was Nie Kuizhang.

After he'd harassed her, he'd only been punished with an apology and had half his medication confiscated—he was still the building leader of Building 3.

All activities that the residents of Building 3 signed up for had to go through him.

Last night, He Tian had messaged Su Yu privately: 【I'm not signing up for any more operations from now on, unless I can sign up directly with Jiang Cheng's side.】

But as things stood, there was no chance. Because all operations were assigned down to each building and organized by the building leaders.

He Tian could only avoid Nie Kuizhang by not participating in any operations at all.

【So annoying,】He Tian had said. 【And I can't move out either.】

That had all been their private chat before bed last night.

Otherwise, He Tian wouldn't have skipped the scavenger team today. The reason she and Su Yu had become friends so quickly was that they had similar personalities and shared the same values.

He Tian said, "I've got no right to tell them they have to go do labor. Because I didn't sign up myself, I've got no standing. Someone would definitely call me out on it."

Su Yu didn't agree with what the other girl had said earlier, and her attitude—He Tian could tell.

He Tian tried to comfort Su Yu: "Right now we've got more people than we know what to do with. The last thing this community is short on is manpower."

What she said wasn't wrong.

But it didn't make Su Yu feel any better.

He Tian knew what she was worried about. Her own experience had shown her that if there weren't a few women on the interim committee, it really wouldn't work. All men—that really didn't work.

After the Nie Kuizhang incident, Su Yu had shared everything Jiang Cheng said with the girls in the group. But it was obvious that everyone understood and accepted it differently—and the direction of their thinking even differed.

"Anyway, you just stay on the committee," He Tian said. "Having you on the committee makes me feel at ease."

She turned around and used the Nie Kuizhang situation to reassure Su Yu: "Even though we're not entirely satisfied, it's not like he got off scot-free. No matter what, at the end of the day this is still a society ruled by law... well, more or less, I guess."

"I think it's awesome that you can think about how we women, as a minority group, could lose our rights. But don't worry too much."

"You seem a bit too wound up."

But that wasn't originally Su Yu's idea—it had actually been Jiang Cheng who first raised it to warn Su Yu.

In that moment, Su Yu felt that the only person who could truly understand her anxiety was probably Jiang Cheng.

But the Jiang Cheng of now seemed different from the person who, on Sunday night, had warned her not to lose her rights or get pushed to the margins.

But even if she said it out loud, nobody would believe her, would they?

Brother Dong from the Buy More store arrived with his people.

Brother Dong and his crew hadn't gone to the Fifth Ring Road—first, because they had supplies hidden in their dorm and weren't that hard up at the moment, and second, because their problem was they didn't have a vehicle.

Without a car, going on foot from the development zone to the Fifth Ring Road—imagine how many zombies you'd have to fight through on the way, and whether you'd even make it back alive was a real question.

Not having a car was a huge disadvantage.

When Brother Dong saw the news, he started cursing. He immediately realized that the owners of Jixiang Jiayuan, the Youth Apartments, and the surrounding communities would definitely drive there. But what about those of them without cars?

Then he got a call from Jiang Cheng, asking for shelving racks.

He never expected shelving racks to become trade goods. But he immediately understood what Jiang Cheng needed them for.

He was envious, but there was nothing he could do—while the shelf trade was still on, he might as well exchange them for something from Jiang Cheng.

He didn't dare go home now either—stocking up as much as he could, little by little.

Jiang Cheng gave Brother Dong two cardboard boxes and one sack.

Li Jiangbing made a point of warning them: "With the compressed biscuits, you can only eat a little bit at a time. Once those things hit your stomach and meet water, they expand—and they expand like crazy, bloating your gut."

Brother Dong laughed. "I know. My little brother was in the military; he gave me some before."

He untied the sack and took a look—all basic survival supplies. He sighed, "When is this life going to end?"

The joy everyone had felt about gaining more supplies was silenced by that one sentence.

Brother Dong and his people loaded the stuff into shopping carts, and before they left, they looked at the four public buses parked in the community, full of admiration: "Why didn't I think of that."

There were plenty of cars on the streets, some of them even with doors open and keys in the ignition.

It was just that people's minds were still bound by the law.

Law-abiding citizens—that's how they were.

As for the issue of "how residents without cars can obtain supplies," the authorities actually weren't unaware of it.

Vice Mayor Zheng had expended tremendous effort to gather those supplies, and he spent the entire night coordinating vehicles and personnel. Since the supply convoy departed on Sunday, he had not left the monitoring command center.

His eyes were shot through with bloodshot veins.

Seeing the bloody brawls and stampedes that broke out as people fought over the supplies, he closed his eyes in grief.

Society had enjoyed a long era of peace, and people had lived in prosperity. Who would have thought that one day there would be scenes like this, people fighting over rice and grain?

But Vice Mayor Zheng had truly done everything he could.

The fact that many households did not own private cars—that had occurred to him from the very beginning, but there was simply no solution.

The only option was to deliver the supplies to residents first, then hope that redistribution and circulation could happen among the residents themselves. As for how that “distribution and circulation” would be carried out and what price would be paid, that was beyond anyone’s control.

Vice Mayor Zheng felt tormented.

But he could not hide. He had been placed in this position, and he had to face it all head-on.

His gaze swept across one screen after another, then suddenly snapped back.

On one screen, a group of people was clearly moving in an organized, disciplined manner. Similar situations were not uncommon—several residential compounds showed obvious signs of organization.

But this group had formed a human wall to block others and monopolized a stretch of supplies along the road. What caught Vice Mayor Zheng’s attention was a young woman standing with her arms crossed behind that human wall.

In front of her stood the wall of people; behind her, her companions worked busily, moving supplies like worker bees.

She stood there, clearly managing the scene.

A woman in control of a group—rare, but not unprecedented.

It was precisely because he had seen this before that Vice Mayor Zheng found her familiar.

“Zoom in on that,” he said.

Once magnified, even his secretary recognized her: “Oh—it’s that young woman from the Youth Apartment.”

Vice Mayor Zheng nodded. “Indeed, the Youth Apartment.”

Vice Mayor Zheng could not say whether he wanted more people like Jiang Cheng or fewer.

If there were more people like her, capable of organizing others, the chance of individual residents facing the zombie plague alone and dying would be lower. The Youth Apartment and the Jixiang Jiayuan community joining together to seal off connecting roads and form one continuous safe zone was a typical positive example.

But when the enemy was no longer zombies but “other people,” the situation changed.

Those unorganized individuals appeared especially vulnerable in the face of organized groups.

And human hearts naturally lean toward sympathizing with the weak.

Sure enough, his secretary frowned. “Based on our surveillance, the Youth Apartment has already emptied out the nearby Buiduo supermarket. They should not be short on supplies...”

In a time of uncertain road ahead and pervasive confusion, wanting to grab a little more and hoard a little more is only human nature.

But that directly clashed with the higher-ups’ hope that supplies would be spread as widely as possible to as many people as possible.

Vice Mayor Zheng stared at the young woman on the screen, his emotions equally complicated.

Jiang Cheng had no idea she was being watched from afar. She had turned on the public broadcast and was addressing all residents of the compound:

【The supplies acquired this time are collectively owned by the community.】

【But we must not let this acquisition lull us into complacency. Quite the opposite—when the rescue we hoped for turns into scavenging supplies, it only proves that the situation is worse than we imagined.】

【We must absolutely put an end to wasting food. As everyone has noticed over these past few days, with very few supplemental foods available, the consumption rate of staple foods is faster than we expected. In other words, the food each of you holds in your own hands is not as long-lasting as you might think.】

【Community supplies are to be used only for emergencies. Under normal circumstances, circulation of supplies among individuals is encouraged.】

【No opening of the stores unless absolutely necessary.】

The evening news announcement had now become a must-watch for everyone in S City.

In Sunday evening’s announcement, some footage was shown of civilians picking up supplies—basically only those few minutes when the supplies first hit the ground and people rushed forward to grab them.

What came after was never broadcast. Anyone who had participated in the scavenging teams knew that afterward, fights broke out, and the scenes turned ugly.

But at least the footage that was shown was still inspiring, conveying the message that “supplies have reached the hands of the people.”

For those still living within the Fourth Ring Road, the Third Ring, the Second Ring, and the First Ring, it added fuel to the nearly extinguished flame of hope.

The latest news was that the supply convoy would push forward to the Fourth Ring Road on Monday and deliver supplies there, just like today.

Everyone knew that the Fourth Ring was manageable, but starting from the Third Ring, the difficulty would escalate sharply.

Because the Fourth and Fifth Ring Roads had been built later—fully enclosed roads with wide open spaces. On both sides of the Fifth Ring Road, there were already wild tracts, and places like Wan’an Bridge were surrounded by corporate offices and industrial parks. As for the Fourth Ring, there were many office buildings and high-rises. At that time on Saturday night, most of these places were closed and relatively sparsely populated, meaning fewer mutated zombies.

But starting from the Third Ring, it was all old roads built in earlier years. The roads ran close to buildings on either side, and there were many residential areas and commercial districts. On certain stretches of the Third Ring Road, on weekend nights at nine or ten o’clock, there would even be traffic jams.

The Second Ring was much the same.

The First Ring was another story entirely—inside it lay the old city. The so-called First Ring Road was just the circular road surrounding the ancient city walls.

The Youth Apartment, located in the new tech district, was even a bit of a drive beyond the Fifth Ring Road, and the zombie situation there was already this severe.

It was unimaginable what it was like inside the Third Ring Road.

【This is an unprecedented time of hardship, and the nation and its people are bearing this heavy trial together.】

【The first batch of rescue supplies reached only some of our compatriots. For those who did not receive supplies and are hiding at home enduring hunger—your anxiety and longing, we feel with you.】

【Faced with the limits of human strength, I sincerely plead and call upon all of you: in this darkest hour, let the ancient traditional virtue of our nation and people, that of mutual aid and assistance, become the faint light that pierces the darkness. If you have surplus food at home, please extend a helping hand to those around you in need.】

【A single act of sharing, a single spark of selflessness, can gather into a formidable force.】

【Your kindness is, at this very moment, the most precious rescue supply—the backbone that upholds life and hope.】

Jiang Cheng listened with her arms crossed as Deputy Mayor Zheng gave his speech on television.

And yet, that very morning, people had been beating each other bloody, cracking skulls open, fighting over supplies.