Chapter 76

That was the thing about information asymmetry.

Everyone knew that the only way a living person could be “bitten to death” by a zombie was if, by sheer coincidence, the zombie bit through their neck, severing the connection between the brain and the rest of the body.

Otherwise, even if someone had chunks of flesh bitten off, lost a great deal of blood, or appeared to be dead, they would still mutate into a second-generation zombie.

Everyone knew that.

Everyone except the doctor who had been locked in that small room since the zombie virus first broke out.

He had dropped his phone while fleeing for his life. There was no television in the treatment room, only a landline. He had made countless calls for help, and had finally managed to get through once—only to be told that they could only save themselves for now.

The four or five zombies that had chased him there did not leave even after things quieted down. They continued wandering outside the door.

He could not get out, and had no way to obtain information from the outside world. His understanding of zombies remained limited to those first, most obvious impressions: “man-eating monsters” that were “sensitive to sound.” He knew nothing beyond that.

He had told everyone what he thought was a flawless lie, only for them all to see through it in a second.

Li Feng spent his days in the New Technology District.

He had transported supplies there that morning, where volunteers were waiting to receive them.

Jiang Cheng had sent all the stock clerks from Mai Duoduo Supermarket over to help him, leaving only the cleaners and Guo Jun, the all-purpose repairman, behind to keep things running in the residential compound.

The stock clerks had only agreed to go work at Mai Duoduo after she promised that they could continue living in the compound.

They knew the warehouse, shelves, and equipment better than anyone. With the few of them there, everyone could stay busy without falling into chaos.

The empty trucks were put to use as well: they were sent back to haul zombies away.

There were simply too many zombie corpses now. Strangely enough, when zombies were still “alive,” their skin turned a dark bluish-green or grayish-blue, but even if their bodies were injured, they did not continue to decay.

Once they were truly killed “dead,” however, their bodies rotted rapidly just like those of dead humans, becoming infested with maggots.

If so many corpses were left unprocessed, it would not be long before an epidemic broke out. Nor could they expect to burn all those zombie bodies in the city streets. The authorities had the supply trucks bring goods over, and once they had been unloaded, the empty trucks hauled the zombies back for centralized disposal.

Several large trucks made multiple round trips every day.

Zhao Yi had been hounding Li Feng for quite some time about how the trucks were being disinfected.

Li Feng did not know much about it either, but he had gotten to know Zhao Yi over the past couple of days and had received a great deal of help from him, so he answered seriously with what he did know.

“They wear masks. First, they spray everything down with high-pressure water guns to wash off the dirt. Then they put on these big tanks and spray again. It should be some kind of disinfectant. After that, they use huge electric fans—the industrial kind—to dry everything. The trucks have to be completely dry before they can load anything onto them.”

Zhao Yi insisted on knowing what kind of disinfectant they used.

“I don’t know either,” Li Feng said. “They spray several kinds. One person finishes, then another comes along and sprays again. The tanks they carry are all the same, but the writing on them is different. One of them said something like ‘er-two’ or ‘two-er’... some kind of aldehyde?”

“Glutaraldehyde?” Zhao Yi asked.

“That’s it!”

He added, “Don’t worry. We have experts.”

Zhao Yi was only barely satisfied with the disinfection process, but he still said, “Even if they disinfect the trucks every night, they really shouldn’t be using the same vehicles for corpses and food.”

Li Feng did not like hearing that. He shot back, “Then what else are we supposed to do?”

Zhao Yi was left speechless.

Because there really was no other option. The truck drivers were working nonstop and were especially exhausted.

Zhao Yi sighed.

Just then, Jiang Cheng called Li Feng. Li Feng immediately took the opportunity to get away from Zhao Yi and stepped aside to answer.

“Hello? Jiang Cheng?”

“Are you still there?”

“Yeah.”

“You’d better wait for us. Don’t leave yet. I have someone to hand over to you.”

Renshin Hospital had been successfully secured.

When Jiang Cheng led the team back, she brought someone with her for Li Feng.

The man’s hands had been tied behind his back. After realizing that his lies had been exposed, he had tried to make a run for it, but everyone had tackled him and held him down.

Li Jiangbing pinned him to the ground and shouted, “Run? Where do you think you’re going? There are still plenty of zombies outside! If you’re not afraid of dying, then go ahead and run!”

This was the first time the male doctor had heard the term “zombie,” but he immediately understood that it referred to those mutated monsters that bit people.

He did not dare run again. But he was someone who had been willing to kill, so everyone kept his hands tied, just in case.

Jiang Cheng briefly explained the situation to Li Feng.

Li Feng fell silent.

Jiang Cheng said, “We can’t find the police right now, and we don’t want to let him go either. Take him back with you.”

Li Feng nodded. “All right.”

Then he asked, “Did everything go smoothly at the hospital?”

Jiang Cheng answered cheerfully, “Once we get everyone organized tomorrow to clean up and disinfect the hospital, and gather all the doctors from nearby, we’ll have a hospital again.”

When she spoke about these things, the girl radiated light. Even with dirt on her body and damp strands of hair plastered to her forehead with sweat, she remained dazzling.

There was not the slightest trace of fear, disgust, or revulsion toward the zombies in her expression. Her eyes were bright and full of life.

She was overflowing with vitality.

Li Feng felt that, as an official representative, he ought to say a few words of praise and commend the civilians who had performed so outstandingly.

Yet for some reason, the mouth that was usually so articulate seemed unable to open properly whenever he was in front of Jiang Cheng.

After stammering for a moment, all he could squeeze out was, “Keep it up.”

Jiang Cheng smiled and accepted his encouragement before someone called her away. She was extremely busy.

Li Feng felt like an idiot. Irritated, he tugged his cap down to cover his eyes.

But when Jiang Cheng called him over to discuss the next day’s arrangements, he hurried over with long strides.

With the supply line open, hardly anyone in the New Technology District was going hungry anymore.

Zhao Yi told Jiang Cheng and the others, “People from Shanshui Yayuan have arrived too.”

They had come to collect supplies. There were not many of them, and they stuck together, staying only with people from their own residential compound. When they saw the people from Deqingli, their expressions changed.

The people from Deqingli were equally uncomfortable when they saw them. Many of them turned their heads away.

“I saw one of them looking like he wanted to go find Li Feng,” Zhao Yi said. “The others pulled him back and talked him out of it.”

He added, “I happened to be passing by with a handcart and overheard a bit.”

They had urged the man to endure it for now and wait until later...

They really did have to wait. The supply channel had been established, but the state’s law-enforcement agencies had not yet resumed operating.

Li Feng only had a handful of people escorting the trucks.

And they were soldiers, not police officers. Criminal cases were the police’s responsibility.

More importantly, so many people from Deqingli had come to collect supplies that they vastly outnumbered the residents of Shanshui Yayuan.

The time was indeed not right yet. The people from Shanshui Yayuan had decided to swallow their anger for now.

Everyone also told Zhao Yi about the doctor they had brought back.

Zhao Yi was the sort of person who waited for the light even when crossing an empty street. He remained silent for a long time before asking, “Then... will he be punished by law?”

As he said this, his eyes could not help drifting toward the people from Deqingli who had not yet left.

Judging by the behavior of the people from Shanshui Yayuan, there had to be murderers among those from Deqingli.

Would all of them eventually face legal punishment?

Zhao Yi felt a little lost.

Because he had seen the devastation at Lekang Homeland. Humans—carbon-based life-forms—really could starve to death.

When driven by a crisis of survival, should the actions one takes be judged guilty or innocent?

Would the principle of necessity apply?

“That’s not something we should be thinking about right now. Nor is it something we can decide,” Jiang Cheng said. “Let’s talk about tomorrow’s arrangements first.”

She waved to Li Feng and called out, “Li Feng, come over here and help us figure out tomorrow’s schedule.”

Li Feng strode over.

That day, Li Feng took the male doctor with him.

When he came back on Sunday, one of the four vehicles was loaded entirely with disinfecting supplies. After the other three vehicles unloaded their supplies at Maiduo, all four followed the volunteers to Renxin Hospital.

The moment they met, Li Jiangbing asked Li Feng about the man from the previous day. “What are we going to do with him?”

“He hasn’t been dealt with yet,” Li Feng said. “But he’s been interrogated.”

The man and a nursing aide had been chased by zombies and fled for their lives, eventually taking refuge in a treatment room in the outpatient wing. Several zombies had blocked the way out.

Unable to contact anyone for rescue, the man grew desperate after going hungry for several days and killed the nursing aide for meat.

“He confessed to everything,” Li Feng said. “The interrogator told me he suffered a mental breakdown afterward and seems to have gone a little crazy. We don’t have time to deal with him right now, so we’ve locked him up for the moment. We’ll figure out what to do with him later.”

Everyone was far too busy at the moment.

All the people who came today were volunteers.

Although no zombies had appeared by the end of the previous day, even after they used a loudspeaker to draw them out, they still proceeded cautiously. On each floor, combat personnel in protective armor checked every room first. Only after confirming that it was safe did the volunteers begin disinfecting with the solution they had received from Li Feng.

Zhao Yi took charge of the practical arrangements. There was a young woman in the residential compound who was an intern at Renxin Hospital, and she worked alongside him. The two of them discussed everything together.

All the corpses were loaded onto the vehicles and taken back for the government to handle collectively.

Jiang Cheng told Li Feng, “Yesterday, we contacted and confirmed the identities of twenty-two medical workers.”

They were incredibly lucky that so many doctors had chosen to buy homes in the Science and Technology New District for the sake of being close to work. Every department was represented.

“Once we finish cleaning up the hospital today, it can open and start treating patients tomorrow.”

Li Feng stood in the open, square-shaped corridor, hands braced on his hips as he looked up and down.

People were busy everywhere, both upstairs and downstairs.

After such a staggering number of deaths, what the survivors had shown instead was this astonishing vitality.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll include everything in my report when I get back.”

Jiang Cheng raised an eyebrow. “You still have to write a report?”

“They haven’t ordered us to yet.” Li Feng bared his teeth in a grin. “But once this is all over, they definitely will.”

Like the other soldiers, his skin had been darkened by the sun, which made his bright white teeth stand out even more.

From Thursday to Sunday, he had already become completely familiar with many of the key people here.

Conditions in the Science and Technology New District were improving steadily as well. Almost the entire main residential area had become a safe zone, and now even Renxin Hospital had been reclaimed.

People’s spirits were no longer so heavy. They could even talk with smiles on their faces.

After Song Jingshuo finished sweeping the buildings with his team, he met up with Li Jiangbing, and the two went to look for Jiang Cheng.

As soon as they reached the floor, they spotted Li Feng in the distance, grinning foolishly at Jiang Cheng.

Look at that stance—with his hands planted on his hips, showing off both his chest and biceps. What a shameless poser.

Li Jiangbing covertly stole a glance at Song Jingshuo.