Chapter 81

Jiang Cheng went back to work.

The moment Mr. Peng saw her, he said, “I’m promoting you.”

She had to be promoted. There was simply no one left.

Mr. Peng said, “You’ll have to go on a business trip.”

All of Jiang Cheng’s colleagues who had been away on business when the zombie outbreak began had gone missing.

No one knew whether they were alive or dead. That was the norm during the zombie crisis.

The bodies burned at the youth apartment, as well as those later taken away by the government, were also people whose families had no idea whether they were alive or dead.

That is, if their families were still alive.

The people were gone, but the company’s equipment and supplies were still there. They were company assets, after all.

There were also unfinished projects for clients. Should their contracts be terminated under the “force majeure” clause, or postponed until later?

Someone had to deal with all of it.

And so Jiang Cheng was promoted. She really had become the “Supervisor Dong” she had called herself when speaking to Li Jiangbing.

She went to the office that morning, then returned home in the afternoon to pack.

Mo Li actually ate very little cat food, but Jiang Cheng still left him a large basinful.

Mo Li could open the window by himself and came and went freely every day. He didn’t need Jiang Cheng to carry him in and out through the main entrance.

Besides, Jiang Cheng believed that Mo Li must be capable of hunting outdoors as well.

“I’m going to be away for a long time. Stay home and don’t transform without reason,” Jiang Cheng said.

She did her best to simplify the message and transmit it to Mo Li through telepathy.

When they attacked Renxin Hospital, Jiang Cheng had known from the condition of the several zombies lying in the corridor outside the cannibal doctor’s room that Mo Li must have transformed at the time.

No one had seen it.

But after transforming for the second time, Mo Li had not been left in the completely exhausted state he had been in after the first transformation.

Perhaps the first time had been like that because he had already suffered serious injuries and had not yet recovered.

Now there was nothing to fear. Her little black cat was a miraculous creature capable of absorbing the sun’s essence and transforming into a gigantic beast.

Jiang Cheng turned the faucet until it dripped, so Mo Li could drink from it if he needed water. There was also a pond in the residential compound, and the water had recently been changed. Many of the neighborhood cats drank from it.

In any case, after making all the necessary arrangements, Jiang Cheng dragged her suitcase toward the door.

But Mo Li bit down on her pant leg.

“No. I can’t take you this time. I’m flying.”

Mo Li refused to let go.

Jiang Cheng had no choice but to crouch down and stroke his fluffy little head, doing her best to send him a message:

【Going out.】

【For a long time.】

【Safe.】

Mo Li finally released her and watched her leave.

With a sharp bang, the front door closed, leaving Mo Li alone in the apartment.

He sat in the entryway, his tail curled around his paws, looking up at the tall, imposing door.

All alone.

Jiang Cheng boarded the plane without a hitch. Just after she got off the plane and arrived at the hotel, her phone rang. It was Song Jingshuo.

“Our company has a very stylish new restaurant opening here. I managed to get a reservation. Do you want to have dinner together tonight?” he asked.

“Can’t. I’m on a business trip.” Jiang Cheng held the phone between her head and shoulder while busy taking her clothes and shoes out of her suitcase. “Let’s wait until I get back. The three of us can have dinner together then.”

Song Jingshuo: “...”

In fact, Song Jingshuo had wanted to have dinner with Jiang Cheng alone.

But she sounded busy, and it didn’t seem like a good time to talk.

He asked, “When will you be back?”

“Hard to say. I have to visit three cities. We’re short-staffed now, so my boss is using each of us as if we were three people.”

Song Jingshuo could only say, “Then we’ll wait until you get back.”

Jiang Cheng agreed. “Okay.”

Even while away from home, Jiang Cheng continued watching the news every day.

S City was highly efficient and introduced numerous policies, such as reducing or waiving rent for merchants and offering tax rebates and other incentives to businesses.

Merchants and companies whose property had been damaged during the disaster could also apply for government compensation.

Deputy Mayor Zheng became Vice Mayor Zheng.

Secretary Sun became Vice Mayor Sun.

Vice Mayor Sun made his first appearance on television. He might have appeared before, but back then Jiang Cheng had not known who he was.

She had spoken with him on the phone several times, so she finally knew what he looked like.

Mayor or vice mayor, they had once again become distant, untouchable figures far above her station.

Government agencies began resuming operations.

The police, firefighters, and doctors all returned to their posts.

The markets and supermarkets reopened. Freight drivers worked at full capacity, transporting all kinds of daily necessities from production sites to distribution centers, and from distribution centers into the cities.

It was a massive blood transfusion. The entire city was replenished with fresh blood.

New developments kept emerging, and new policies were continually issued to address them.

For example, the police stations would not accept missing-person cases from during the pandemic.

They had no way to handle them. If they did, merely recording all the information would exhaust the police.

The responsibility was delegated to the various neighborhoods, residents’ committees, and property management companies, which carried out a comprehensive census of everyone who normally lived in the area.

Cases involving the seizure of property—especially essential survival supplies—were likewise not accepted.

This included the people who had taken goods from Duoduo Supermarket without paying.

At first, they had taken only essential supplies. Later, mysterious disappearances of nonessential items such as bowls, plates, mops, rags, dish soap, and washbasins were also reported. But the supermarket no longer had the energy to investigate. They simply applied for state compensation for everything.

Murder cases, however, still had to be accepted.

The residents of Shanshui Yayuan reported the matter collectively.

And they had evidence.

At a time like this, owning a digital camera or handheld camcorder was considered extremely advanced and fashionable.

Some households in Deqingli had those as well.

But in most people’s minds, surveillance cameras existed only on the streets. Most people had no idea that cameras could also be installed inside their homes.

After all, most people lived in small houses and had no need for surveillance.

But the owners of the large villas in Shanshui Yayuan had generally installed security cameras throughout their homes.

The survivors of Shanshui Yayuan had preserved the evidence.

The entire process of the families being wiped out had been recorded. The proof was conclusive.

Many people from Deqingli were taken away, handcuffed and shoved into police cars.

Their family members wailed and sobbed. “Then how are we supposed to survive? That bunch of selfish bastards only cared about themselves!”

But it made no difference.

Murder was murder. Murderers had to pay with their lives.

A few households from nearby residential compounds also reported, one after another, that their husbands—the fathers of their children—had arranged to meet someone at Jixiang Jiayuan one night and never returned.

Technically, these were missing-person cases and would not be accepted.

But in one of the families, the wife’s father was a police officer. His son-in-law had disappeared, so the father-in-law went to investigate anyway.

Zhou Wang, who had been the manager and organizer of the residential compound at the time, was questioned at his home.

Zhou Wang said, “Yes, there was one day when thieves got into our compound. I was so rushed when I went downstairs that I even put on the wrong shoes. Pretty much everyone ran off. We caught a few of them, beat them up, and chased them away.”

The middle-aged man was extraordinarily calm.

He met the officer’s gaze directly and answered smoothly, without stumbling over a single word.

And so, with his wealth of experience in criminal investigations, the father-in-law knew that the man was lying.

He questioned several more residents, mostly those living on the lower floors. Since the son-in-law and his companions had actually come to steal, they would naturally have chosen the lower levels.

Everyone told the same story as Zhou Wang.

They were all lying.

They had clearly coordinated their statements.

The father-in-law wandered around the complex for a while. Then he looked up and spotted the cameras in the courtyard, and asked to check the surveillance footage.

Zhou Wang said apologetically, “It was all burned. There was a fire, and the equipment was destroyed.”

There was no evidence left, and no one to prove otherwise.

The father-in-law understood that the matter of his son-in-law had come to an end.

When he told his daughter, she burst into tears. “He must have been beaten to death, right? He’s dead, isn’t he—”

Maybe he had been beaten to death. Maybe he had been thrown to the zombies. Either way, there was no way to investigate any further.

The father-in-law smoked several cigarettes and urged her to live on for the sake of her child.

The past was the past.

The gym where Li Jiangbing worked had reopened.

His boss had spent the past few days applying for rent relief under the government’s policy, while pressuring them every day to bring in new customers.

Otherwise, the gym would go under, and they would all lose their jobs and end up starving.

Li Jiangbing was no longer the Li everyone in the complex had once feared.

He was once again the big, wisecracking personal trainer at the gym, handing out flyers around the complex and trying to recruit new members.

He had built up quite a few connections during the disaster. And back then, everyone had genuinely been eager to exercise to stay alive, so he had coached many of them.

Remembering the favor he had done them during the disaster, many people signed up for memberships with him.

Li Jiangbing thanked them profusely, smiling obsequiously.

After a long day, he went home and collapsed onto his bed. When he turned his head, he saw the protective armor sitting in the corner.

It was white as bone.

Some stains could no longer be washed out. They were the marks of his victories.

Many of the people who used to call him “Li” now addressed him as “Jiangbing.”

Lying on his bed, Li Jiangbing felt as though the era when everyone called him “Li” had taken place a hundred years ago.

The owner of the clubhouse finally returned.

And then all hell broke loose.

The swimming pool was horribly contaminated.

The trash had already been cleared away, but the pool itself was indeed filthy.

Everything had its priorities. At the time, Zhao Yi had still been occupied with providing labor for Li Feng at the Mai Duoduo supply station, so once the trash here had been removed, the pool was no longer considered urgent. He had left it unattended.

By the time the supply station was withdrawn, Zhao Yi had thought about dealing with the swimming pool, but by then he could no longer organize any volunteers.

The strength that had come together during the crisis had scattered like quicksilver once the crisis passed.

The clubhouse owner therefore stormed into the property management office, demanding compensation for the cleaning costs.

The property manager was no pushover and refused to acknowledge any responsibility.

He tore a sheet of paper off the wall and shoved it at the clubhouse owner. “Take it up with them.”

The sheet was a contact list for the members of the interim committee during the crisis.

Everyone’s apartment number and contact information were listed on it.

The first name was Jiang Cheng, Apartment 0306 in Building 2.

The manager even added, with a particularly nasty smirk, “The first person listed is the one mainly in charge.”

He had heard far too many stories about Jiang Cheng in recent days.

The property management staff were all terrified of her.

She had driven Liu Hongwang out.

In a sense, she had sentenced Liu Hongwang to death at the time.

The moment the manager heard about it, he knew that this “Miss Jiang” was not someone to be trifled with.

When there was trouble, the best thing to do was shove it toward someone who was even harder to deal with.

The clubhouse owner went straight to Jiang Cheng’s apartment, but she was away on a business trip. So he called Jiang Cheng instead.

After listening to him, Jiang Cheng told him, “You can apply for government compensation.”

The owner said, “That’s my problem. You people dirtied my swimming pool, so you have to pay for it.”

Jiang Cheng said, “Then go ahead and sue all the homeowners. If the court rules that we have to pay, we will.”

Jiang Cheng hung up, plugged the hotel’s network cable into her laptop, opened the group chat, and notified everyone:

【The clubhouse owner has come after us. I advised him to apply for state compensation. He wants us to pay, so I told him he could sue all the homeowners.】

Everyone replied:

【The state has policies in place.】

【Let him do whatever he wants. The court won’t accept the case.】

【I sympathize with him, but there’s nothing we can do.】

The owner really did file a lawsuit.

He applied for state compensation while suing all the homeowners at the same time. He was trying to have it both ways.

In the end, the court refused to accept the case.

“Cases involving this kind of situation during a disaster aren’t accepted. Just apply for state compensation.”

The court poured cold water directly on his plans.

The police refused to accept the case as well. The policy was that property damage caused by people trying to survive during the disaster would not be handled through lawsuits. The losses would be covered by state compensation instead.

The owner’s scheme had fallen through, and he left in a huff.

In the end, he paid to have the pool cleaned himself and waited for the state compensation to come through.

The exercise equipment that had been distributed among the lobbies of the various buildings was moved back into the clubhouse, and the small fitness room reopened.

But word got around that he had tried to sue all the homeowners. On top of that, his attitude had been truly awful, earning him everyone’s resentment.

Not only had garbage been dumped into that swimming pool—the remains of the cremated bodies had also been put in it.

Even after the pool was cleaned and reopened, no one went back.

Whenever people from other residential compounds came over to swim, someone couldn’t help mentioning it. Before long, the surrounding compounds knew about it too.

Business at the clubhouse became especially bleak. No one went to the café or the gym anymore.

Before long, a sign appeared on the main gate:

“Space for Lease—Contact 139xxxxxxxx.”

As for the gym where Li Jiangbing worked, this was actually good news. One competitor had disappeared.

At that point, Master Zhou finally got in touch with a welder who had experience with cutting metal.

The property manager agreed on a price with him, and the welder arrived at the Youth Apartments carrying his tools.