Chapter 82

Whether in the corners of the city or among the green silk-cotton fields of the countryside, scattered zombies still lurked in places, undiscovered for one reason or another.

The military had already withdrawn, and S City had established its own Urban Crisis Rapid Response Teams, stationed throughout the various districts.

Whenever a missed zombie was discovered, the team had to respond immediately. They were responsible not only for eliminating the zombie, but also for screening people in the vicinity in case any infected individuals were hiding their condition.

The electrician had never been to the Tech New District before and had not expected it to be so far from downtown. As a result, he had failed to allow enough time for the journey, and by the time he arrived, dusk had already fallen.

The property manager complained that the electrician was keeping him from getting off work, while the electrician complained that the place was too far away and demanded extra pay.

The two of them haggled bitterly for a while. By the time they finally reached a compromise, it was completely dark.

“Are you sure there aren’t any zombies inside?” the electrician asked.

The property manager slapped the door several times. “Hey! Hey! Zombie! If there’s a zombie in there, make a sound!”

But no sound came from the meeting room.

The property manager spread his hands.

“Fine,” said the electrician.

But Master Luo still didn’t feel at ease. He called over two security guards, and the three of them put on protective armor. They slipped on their arm guards for appearance’s sake, but didn’t bother with leg guards. They still had all their weapons, and brought them along.

The property manager kept saying, “There’s no need. There’s no sound coming from inside.”

Yet he retreated to the back.

The electrician looked at the several men around him. Even if there really was a zombie, they should be able to take it down.

After experiencing that month-and-a-half-long zombie crisis, people were no longer as terrified of zombies as they had been. They had grown somewhat accustomed to them.

Some even felt that encountering a zombie was no different from running into an oversized stray dog.

The electrician boldly began cutting through the door.

As the welding seam gradually split beneath the shrill buzz of the cutting wheel, the meeting room remained completely still.

Even with that enormous noise, there was no reaction from inside. Everyone grew even more confident.

The two security guards relaxed their stances.

Only Master Luo couldn’t relax.

Could the last human really have been left inside, starving to death?

The thought made the whole situation feel unbearably cruel.

The seam in the middle had been cut all the way through.

The electrician tugged on the power cord and stepped back, jerking his chin toward the door. “Try it. See if you can open it now.”

One of the guards stepped forward, seized the two handles of the double doors, and shook them. “Feels like it’s stuck.”

“Use some strength!” the electrician said.

Muttering under his breath, the guard shook the handles harder. The metal doors clattered loudly.

“Hey, I think...”

The guard felt that the doors were about to give way.

But before he could finish, an enormous force slammed into them!

The doors suddenly burst open, and a foul stench hit them in the face!

The electrician instinctively raised the angle grinder in his hands and pressed the switch.

Something crashed into him. The angle grinder flew from his grip, and he was hurled against the wall along with it, sending sparks crackling everywhere!

Jiang Cheng had yet to return from his business trip, leaving Mo Li home alone.

His daily routine was very regular. At dawn, he would go out through the window and bask in the sun in the courtyard. When night fell, he would return home, where Jiang Cheng’s scent lingered everywhere.

Today was no different.

Night had fallen. Mo Li had finished patrolling his territory and was just about to go home when he suddenly turned his head toward the direction of Building One.

His green eyes were wide and round in the darkness.

Humans would have found him adorable.

But anyone familiar with cats knew that this wide-eyed, round-pupiled “adorable” state was actually a hunting stance!

Mo Li let out a sharp, clipped meow. In an instant, his body transformed into a black streak and vanished.

The electrician sat on the floor with his back pressed tightly against the wall, gasping for breath as he stared at the object between his feet.

Half of a human hand.

The skin was blue, and the fingernails were black.

The blood seeping from the severed end was dark brown and viscous, like porridge.

That stench was all too familiar.

It was definitely a zombie.

The electrician looked up.

One security guard had been knocked unconscious by the door and lay sprawled to the side.

The other guard and Master Luo were both on the floor. Like the electrician, they sat up in shock, staring blankly.

The property manager crouched behind them, trembling all over.

The electrician took a deep breath, leaped to his feet, and shouted, “You said there were no zombies!”

As he cursed, he picked up the unconscious guard’s weapon and looked around warily. “Where’s that zombie?”

Compared with the white-collar workers who sat in offices across the city, the laborers and tradesmen had displayed relatively greater physical strength and combat ability during the month-long zombie crisis.

Master Luo and the other security guard climbed to their feet as well. They checked the guard who had been knocked unconscious by the door, confirmed that he was all right, and picked up their weapons.

When they had entered earlier, the main door of the property management center had been left open.

They rushed outside. A staircase lay beyond the door.

One flight up led to Building One’s lobby. Downstairs was the parking garage.

They chased after the zombie, but there were no security guards on the first floor.

The guard on duty that day had been the one who had just been knocked unconscious. Just then, a resident happened to enter. Master Luo anxiously asked, “Did you see a zombie?”

The resident was shocked. “There’s a zombie?”

Master Luo and the others exchanged glances.

“Could it have gone down to the basement garage?” someone suggested.

“We have to warn everyone!” Master Luo said urgently.

The property manager hurriedly pulled out his phone. “I’m calling the police!”

He dialed the emergency number and explained what had happened.

The operator asked, “How many are there?”

The manager replied, “There should only be one. It was incredibly fast. We couldn’t even get a good look at it before it ran off.”

The voice on the other end changed. It rose sharply as the operator pressed, “You’re saying it ran away?”

The manager froze, then suddenly realized that something was wrong.

How could a zombie run away? No one had ever heard of such a thing. Didn’t zombies always pounce at the smell of blood and flesh?

They would even smash through glass doors to get at people.

Sweat broke out across the manager’s forehead. “Yes, it ran away. And... and...”

And before that, he had knocked on the door and called out more than once, yet the zombie inside had remained completely silent.

It had practically pretended not to exist in order to mislead them.

Master Luo turned and hurried downstairs, heading straight for the equipment room.

The manager had just ended the call when Master Luo’s voice rang out overhead, his Mandarin carrying a strong accent from his hometown:

“Attention, everyone! Attention, everyone! There’s a zombie in the residential compound! There’s a zombie in the residential compound! Be careful!”

“This zombie is extremely fast! It’s different from ordinary zombies! It can even run away!”

“Everyone, be careful!”

The residents who had already gone home opened their doors one after another, trying to hear the announcement more clearly.

After listening, they looked at one another in bewilderment.

Someone shouted, “Holy crap!” and spun around, rushing back into their apartment.

When they came out again, they were already wearing full protective armor and carrying weapons.

There was no fear or panic on their faces. Instead, they looked excited.

The property manager stared blankly up at the broadcast speaker in the lobby ceiling. “What’s that?”

“A loudspeaker,” a security guard answered.

“I know it’s a loudspeaker. Wait—isn’t this the fire alarm system?” The manager was incredulous. “You can use it like this too?”

No one had ever told him.

The Urban Crisis Rapid Response Team arrived very quickly.

They opened the main gate and drove directly into the residential compound’s courtyard.

The entire courtyard was filled with residents wearing white protective armor and carrying weapons. They moved in groups of three or five, poking at the bushes with sticks and shining flashlights into the shadows behind the buildings.

“Anything there?”

“No.”

“Nothing here either.”

The members of the Rapid Response Team stared in silence.

Unable to hold back, one of them asked, “Why do so many people in your residential compound have protective armor?”

One of the homeowners overheard them and turned to look him over. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

“Huh? I was just transferred to the Technology New District. How did you know?”

The homeowner laughed. “Who in the Technology New District doesn’t know about our Youth Apartments? We’re the main fighting force around here.”

The rapid response team members were all wearing protective armor as well.

They went down to the property management center and inspected the meeting room first.

The meeting room reeked of zombies. But it wasn’t as bad as they had imagined.

It didn’t smell as bad as a room containing more than a dozen corpses should have.

That was because the bodies had disappeared. All that remained on the floor were clothes, scattered white bones, and hair.

The clothes were horrifying enough. The hair was even more terrifying.

Everyone who went in and saw the scene felt their hair stand on end.

The rapid response team members repeatedly confirmed, “You’re saying there were more than a dozen people inside before?”

Master Luo thought for a moment. “The first group alone had more than a dozen. Then another group went in later. After that, they sealed the doors.”

Master Luo showed them the surveillance footage from that time. It clearly showed that there had indeed been that many people.

The tapes were reused in a forty-five-day loop. The footage from the first day should have already been overwritten.

They had deliberately preserved it, just in case it was ever needed. As it turned out, it had come in handy.

After watching that person destroy the meeting room’s surveillance camera, the members of the rapid response team fell silent.

They thought of the bones that had been gnawed completely clean inside the meeting room.

It might not have been that person.

But the thought alone was enough to make their hair stand on end.

The homeowners searched the courtyard. They looked extremely experienced.

The rapid response team went down to the basement to search the underground parking garage.

The property manager had gone down to the basement once after returning, but he had never explored such a large area.

This time, he finally saw the section separated by the blast-resistant civil-defense door.

“What’s this?” he asked. “Why is the door still closed?”

He had been away from work for more than a month, and there were changes everywhere that he knew nothing about.

Master Luo said, “These are the supplies the government distributed back then. The residential compound seized them and stored them here. We planned to hand them out if everyone ever went hungry.”

But that day had never come. Under the leadership and organization of the interim committee, the people in the Youth Apartments had continued to live very well.

“Supplies?” The manager’s eyes lit up. “What kind?”

Master Luo said, “Compressed biscuits, canned food, things like that...”

The manager couldn’t even stand hearing those two items mentioned. The moment he heard them, he felt a little sick.

“Don’t say it. Don’t say it.” He waved his hand, instantly losing interest.

Who would buy canned food nowadays? Everyone felt like throwing up at the sight of it.

And compressed biscuits were even worse.

After an extensive search, they still failed to find the zombie.

Someone from the rapid response team took several photographs of the scene inside the meeting room, snapping away with a camera. Others used black body bags to collect the bones, hair, and clothing.

There were no surveillance cameras in the corridor. The camera was positioned at the customer service desk, facing outward.

The surveillance footage showed only a dark shadow darting past the front desk.

Even slowed down, the image was terribly blurry. The compound’s surveillance system was neither high-definition nor particularly advanced. It could barely make out the shape of an individual.

After checking, the team found no injuries on anyone present. The rapid response team took both videotapes with them.

“Call us immediately if anything happens,” they instructed.

At the same time, they had to notify the nearby subdistrict office, neighborhood committees, and property management offices, making sure everyone knew there was a zombie in the area and warning them to be careful.

Li Jiangbing’s work schedule was different from that of people who worked regular shifts.

He often had no work in the morning and wouldn’t go in until noon. His quitting time depended on whether any students had booked lessons.

He had a class that day and didn’t return to the compound until nearly ten. By then, the rapid response team had already withdrawn.

But as soon as he entered the compound, he saw scattered groups of people in protective armor still searching the grounds.

Li Jiangbing: “...”

He ran over. “What’s going on?”

Everyone knew him well, so they told him, “The zombie from the meeting room got out.”

Li Jiangbing fell silent for a moment, then cursed. “Fuck! I completely forgot about the meeting room!”

He asked, “No one took care of it afterward?”

“We all forgot too. Jiang Cheng probably forgot as well.”

“Of course she did,” Li Jiangbing said. “She’s the busiest person of all.”

Back then, Jiang Cheng had had to worry about everything.

How nostalgic.

Li Jiangbing turned and started toward the building, intending to go upstairs and put on his armor, but someone stopped him.

“Forget it. We’ve already searched for three or four hours. A lot of people have gone home, and we’re heading back too. We probably won’t find it.”

Li Jiangbing finally realized what they meant. “How can you lose a zombie?”

That was precisely why everyone had persisted in searching for so long.

Someone said, “Maybe... it evolved?”

Li Jiangbing’s mouth fell open in astonishment.

In the end, everyone returned home empty-handed.

The various group chats, which had gradually quieted down in recent days, grew lively again. Everyone was discussing the zombie that had appeared that day.

Li Jiangbing didn’t go to sleep until very late. He kept wondering where a zombie could possibly have run off to.

The thought kept him awake.

By August, cool breezes had begun to blow.

The moon was dark, and the night was windy.

The courtyard lay quiet and still.

As the clouds drifted by, the moon emerged, illuminating the high rooftop.

A zombie’s body had been torn apart.

Beside the mangled corpse, the shadow of a beast sat crouched.

If Jiang Cheng had been there, she would have discovered that the beast was far larger than the transformed form she had seen before.

Moonlight was, in truth, only sunlight reflected by the moon.

The beast absorbed it for a while, replenishing the energy consumed during its transformation.

Absorbing energy in its gigantic form would actually have been more effective.

But the beast knew it could not do that during the day.

Unfortunately, moonlight could not compare with sunlight. The absorption efficiency was far too low. It would be better to go home and sleep, then wait until tomorrow to bask in the sun.

The beast suddenly shrank, transforming into a small cat. Light and nimble, it leaped down from the rooftop.

Home.