Chapter 77

Rumors had been circulating throughout the residential compounds that Jiang Cheng and Song Jingshuo were already a couple.

After being cooped up in the community for half a month, it was only natural that this large group of young people would end up producing a few couples. Some had even moved in together.

A lot of people were curious about Jiang Cheng and Song Jingshuo. Some had even gone so far as to ask Li Jiangbing about them.

After all, Li Jiangbing should have been the person who knew the most about those two. The three of them were often together.

Whenever Jiang Cheng had something to discuss, she would usually talk it over with the two of them first before calling a meeting of all seven members.

None of this was a secret.

The fact that a young woman had taken the position of leader during a crisis like this naturally meant that some people wanted to push her out. They simply lacked the ability to win over the other committee members.

Jiang Cheng was not the only one who inspired people’s trust. Although Li Jiangbing and Song Jingshuo had completely different styles, each had his own circle of friends and supporters.

Jiang Cheng’s position on the interim committee was rock solid.

After she had publicly called Vice Mayor Zheng and proposed mobilizing the masses to fight the battle, no one in the Youth Apartment could shake her position anymore.

As for her private life... Li Jiangbing, who had been quietly questioned by many people about it, actually knew very well that Jiang Cheng and Song Jingshuo were not a couple.

Li Jiangbing even felt that, in Jiang Cheng’s heart, he ranked slightly higher than Song Jingshuo. Jiang Cheng placed a great deal of trust in him.

At the same time, Li Jiangbing knew perfectly well that Song Jingshuo definitely had feelings for her.

Although Li Jiangbing had a very good relationship with Song Jingshuo, he was still an ordinary man at heart and rather enjoyed watching the drama unfold.

Unfortunately, Song Jingshuo disappointed him.

Song Jingshuo showed no unusual reaction whatsoever. He simply walked over and spoke calmly with the two of them.

Li Jiangbing was so anxious he scratched his head.

Still, Song Jingshuo did share a certain quality with Jiang Cheng. Even when facing someone who might be a potential rival in love, he could remain calm and speak evenly. That particular air about him was very much like Jiang Cheng’s.

From that perspective, the two of them really did have the bearing of a couple.

Li Jiangbing suddenly realized that this might be the reason Jiang Cheng valued Song Jingshuo as well.

Li Jiangbing had a great deal of self-awareness. He knew that his education was limited and that he lacked the ability to make brilliant decisions when it came to major matters. But he had a knack for minor cleverness. His particular talent was sticking close to people with good brains.

On the interim committee, he believed the two smartest people were Jiang Cheng and Song Jingshuo. Fortunately, the two of them never came into conflict, so he did not have to choose sides.

The three of them made the perfect iron triangle.

Monday marked the beginning of July, and the Tech New District took on an entirely new look.

First of all, Renxin Hospital reopened on July 1.

Seventeen doctors and five nurses were keeping Renxin Hospital running.

At the same time, Bus Route 535 began operating.

The route’s stationmaster lived in Deqing Li.

After Vice Mayor Zheng called on people in the Green Zones to restore as many basic services as possible, the stationmaster had gone to find Li Feng the day before and identified himself.

Li Feng immediately introduced him to Jiang Cheng and the others.

Deqing Li was home not only to a bus stationmaster, but also to several bus drivers.

Jiang Cheng’s eyes lit up.

“We need a route like this right now,” she had told the stationmaster the day before. “It should cover all the residential compounds, take people to Mai Duoduo, and bring them back afterward. It also needs to cover Renxin Hospital, since the hospital is reopening tomorrow. Ideally, there should be several runs a day.”

This was the stationmaster’s livelihood—his area of expertise.

Besides, Deqing Li had relatively few private vehicles and was a little farther from Mai Duoduo. Unlike Jixiang Jiayuan and the Youth Apartment, which were only a ten-minute walk away, residents there had to travel a greater distance to collect supplies.

Their need for transportation was therefore even stronger.

The stationmaster directly drew a circle on the map, connecting all the locations she had mentioned. He planned an inner loop through the residential area of the Tech New District.

It was exactly what Jiang Cheng wanted.

However, when the stationmaster tried to get her to return the four Route 535 buses, she refused.

Jiang Cheng said, “We’ll return them once all the zombies have been cleared out.”

The stationmaster was not being unreasonable. He simply had to mention it as part of his duty. He nodded and agreed.

Although Deqing Li had not yet formed a deep partnership with Jiang Cheng, its residents already knew that the largest force of ordinary people in the Tech New District was led by the young woman from the Youth Apartment.

Jixiang Jiayuan and Yujing Xiangyuan were already following her orders.

And so, on July 1, Renxin Hospital reopened, and Route 535 began operating its loop through the Tech New District.

There were ten runs a day.

Since the route was genuinely very short, each bus was required to make two circuits after leaving the station before returning.

In practice, that meant it could be regarded as twenty runs.

Every residential compound had notified its residents.

As soon as the loop began operating, people immediately started taking the bus to Renxin Hospital. Many others drove there themselves.

Renxin Hospital was fairly large, with eight floors, each covering a considerable area. The various departments were spread across the different floors.

But with only a handful of doctors working there, there was no need to make things difficult for everyone. Tables were simply set up in the outpatient lobby. Rows of chairs were brought down from the corridors, with a long line of seats placed in front of each table.

Volunteers handled registration at the scene, and everyone waited in line according to their number.

Plastic chairs were placed at the front of each line. People sat down until all the chairs were filled, and only then did those farther back have to stand.

When the person at the front finished seeing the doctor and left, the next person stepped forward. Everyone behind them only needed to shift forward one chair in turn.

The chairs also effectively prevented people from cutting in line. After all, no one could sit on someone else’s lap and insist that they had been sitting there all along.

The doctors tried to order as few tests as possible. Most tests could not be performed under the current circumstances, since there was no one available to operate the necessary equipment.

Bloodwork was the only option. Even that was kept to a minimum, because there was only one doctor working in the laboratory. Ordering too many tests might work him to death.

This meant that the doctors had to rely almost entirely on their experience to make diagnoses, which raised the difficulty by more than one level.

There was no pharmacist, so the young female doctor who had been an intern at the Youth Apartment was temporarily assigned to the pharmacy.

Everything was extremely rudimentary, but people felt more secure than ever.

Because everything was moving in a positive direction.

On the map released by the authorities the previous night, the Green Zones had continued to expand. Several places in S City had already reached a state similar to the Tech New District, where basic operations had more or less resumed within a certain area.

On July 2, something happened that filled Zhao Yi with excitement:

The garbage truck arrived!

At last, they no longer had to use supply trucks to transport bodies! The corpses had nearly all been cleared away, and the garbage trucks had begun collecting trash as well.

Before the outbreak, no one had realized how important garbage disposal really was. Now everyone understood.

The Youth Apartment organized volunteers to carry the trash that had accumulated in the swimming pool for two weeks into the garbage truck.

The sanitation workers saw piles of cardboard boxes stacked neatly together.

“There’s quite a lot of it,” one of them exclaimed, reaching out to haul it away.

Several cleaners from the Youth Apartment rushed over and spread their arms to block him.

“This isn’t trash. It belongs to us!”

Things were getting better and better. Even the aunties who worked as cleaners knew that normal social order would eventually be restored.

When that happened, all those cardboard boxes could be sold for a tidy sum.

How could they possibly let someone else take them away?

The sanitation worker let out a dry laugh and walked away.

Among the supplies delivered that day, there were vegetables for the first time. They were only potatoes and eggplants, with not a single leafy green in sight, but to people who hadn’t eaten vegetables in half a month, they were a feast fit for kings.

For the first time, the lines at Mai Duoduo nearly spiraled out of control.

It happened because the distribution lines had been orderly these past few days, so everyone had let their guard down. There were also countless other tasks to handle, and the strong men had been reassigned to jobs that required more physical labor elsewhere.

Nearly.

Even Li Feng couldn’t keep things under control. There were simply too few of them.

Besides, although they were carrying guns, soldiers used their guns to deal with enemies and zombies. How could they point them at civilians?

Li Feng’s combat uniform was torn to shreds. One of the soldiers even had his shoe trampled off.

They were in an especially sorry state.

Fortunately, the volunteers who had stayed behind to maintain order finally lost their tempers.

By now, everyone was used to carrying weapons with them—even when they came to Mai Duoduo to volunteer.

So the volunteers pulled steel pipes from behind their waists! Smack, smack, smack—they brought them down on the people pushing hardest at the front!

Screams rang out, and at last the chaos came to an end.

“Let’s see any of you try pushing forward again!” a volunteer roared, pointing his steel pipe at the crowd. “Come on, if you’ve got the guts!”

The volunteers, who had seemed so amiable and polite just moments ago, now had bulging veins, wide eyes, and vicious expressions.

They really would hit people!

Those really were steel pipes!

And that really was blood!

...Everyone fell silent and behaved.

They had only dared to act up because today’s volunteers didn’t look as big and intimidating as the ones from the previous few days.

After this, they shrank right back into place.

Even the most unreasonable old men and women didn’t dare complain or shove their way forward.

Because they all knew things were different now.

These people had smashed in human skulls, severed human necks, and crushed eyeballs beneath their feet.

Things were different. There was no going back.

They shouldn’t push these people too far.

Everyone had seen what happened when people were driven to the breaking point over the past half month.

Li Feng’s mood was incredibly complicated.

He felt that order had been lost.

And yet, it was precisely this disorder that was preserving order.

Violence was preserving civilization.

At that moment, Li Feng deeply understood how correct the central government had been to mobilize the masses in a people’s war against the zombie crisis.

If this disaster didn’t end soon, who knew what people would become?

It had to end as quickly as possible. Society had to return to the civilized, law-governed world it had once been!

Li Feng took the initiative to approach Jiang Cheng and submit a request. “The distribution point still needs a few more people. It would be best if Li Jiangbing could come.”

Yes, he was submitting a request.

Because all personnel assignments in the Technology New District were now under Jiang Cheng’s control.

The residential area of the Technology New District was basically fully operational now. The industrial park was a long way from the residential area, and Jiang Cheng had no intention of touching it for the time being.

For now, the work consisted mostly of odd jobs and heavy labor, and there was no immediate need for combat personnel.

So Jiang Cheng assigned Li Jiangbing and Nie Kuizhang to Li Feng to help maintain order. The volunteers working in shifts were also instructed to be as tall, broad, and intimidating as possible.

As soon as these three imposing guardians took over, order at Mai Duoduo immediately returned to normal.

Everyone put on the manner of law-abiding citizens.

But Li Feng could never again look at these people the way he had before.

That was because Li Jiangbing was a talkative man. Whenever he was stationed there to keep watch, he liked to chat with Li Feng.

Through Li Jiangbing, Li Feng learned about many of the things that had happened over the past two weeks—such as the blood feud between Deqingli and Shanshui Yayuan.

At last, he understood the strange things he had noticed while distributing supplies these past few days.

The more he understood, the heavier his heart became.

On July 3, a new announcement suddenly aired on television during the day.

Vice Mayor Zheng delivered a speech that morning.

“Part of the supply chain has been restored, but it has not yet been fully restored.”

“Volunteer militias are now being recruited.”

“Supplies are limited. Leafy greens and fresh meat will be distributed to militia members as a priority.”

Leafy greens! Fresh meat!

People who had been eating nothing but rice and canned food every day for half a month began salivating at the mere sound of those two words!