Chapter 83

The work Jiang Cheng had taken over was a real headache.

There was no point thinking about recovering her colleague’s remains—they simply couldn’t be found.

First, she had to locate her colleague’s personal effects. She needed to report the matter to the police, taking a company letter stamped with the official seal. After reviewing it, the police would issue a letter of confirmation.

She then had to take that letter to the hotel before they would hand over the belongings.

After that, she had to take the police letter to a computer repair shop, have the password cracked, open her colleague’s computer, search through the files, and locate the warehouse where the equipment had been stored.

Then she had to take both letters of confirmation to the warehouse and find her company’s equipment.

She also needed to confirm with the client whether the project was going to resume.

Only after all of that was settled could she decide whether the equipment needed to be shipped back to S City.

Every step was troublesome, because every step involved finding people who might no longer be there. Some were dead, others missing.

One warehouse had been completely abandoned. Everyone there, from the owner to the employees, was dead.

She had no choice but to seek police assistance again. In the end, with the police’s help, she opened the warehouse and recovered the equipment.

Professional lighting, projectors, audio equipment—items worth hundreds of thousands or even millions. Fortunately, because it was a major case involving a substantial sum of money, the relevant departments had moved it up the priority list and handled it as a key case.

Jiang Cheng had spent the entire day running around outside. When she returned to the hotel that evening, she opened her computer and plugged in the Ethernet cable. Only then did she see the discussion in the group chat.

That was when she remembered there might still be zombies in the conference room.

At the time, she had considered only two possible outcomes: one person left alive, or one zombie left standing.

The odds of it being one zombie were as high as 99.9 percent.

Or perhaps there were several.

For people who had already killed hundreds, even thousands, of zombies, that possibility was hardly frightening anymore.

So she had simply forgotten about it.

She hadn’t expected the zombie to evolve further.

Several people in the group had spoken with the security guards who had been on the scene, as well as Master Luo. After learning the details, they had brought them to the neighbors for discussion.

[It definitely evolved. Otherwise, how could it have run away?]

[They said it attacked the welder first. The angle grinder shaved off half his palm.]

[Then it attacked the security guard, Little Fang, and Master Luo. It was moving too fast. Both of them instinctively raised their arms to block it. Luckily, they were wearing arm guards, so those stopped the attack. But the impact still knocked them over.]

[Then the zombie ran away.]

[Isn’t it obvious? After attacking them, it realized there were too many people and that it couldn’t win, so it fled. It must have developed intelligence to do that. Otherwise, look at the second-generation zombies. Even after losing an arm or a leg, they’ll still hop straight toward you.]

[This one doesn’t just run away—it hides, too. So many of us have been searching for so long, and we still haven’t found it.]

Jiang Cheng asked: [Was anyone injured?]

[Jiang Cheng is here.]

[No. It’s just that not finding it has everyone feeling a little uneasy.]

Jiang Cheng: [Be careful recently, and remind each other to stay alert. Don’t wander around outside at night.]

The screen filled with messages saying, [Got it.]

Everyone instinctively responded to Jiang Cheng’s instructions.

Then someone realized what they were doing and burst out laughing.

[It feels like we’re back in those days.]

Someone sighed.

[I kind of miss them...]

But some things, no matter how much you missed them, you would never want to experience again.

For example, you might miss a deceased friend or relative, but you would never accept seeing them rise from the dead in front of your eyes.

As time passed, many people who had grown close during the disaster gradually drifted apart again. They went from calling one another brothers and trusting each other with their lives to merely nodding in passing when they happened to meet in the neighborhood.

Several couples who had gotten together during the disaster had broken up. Once the bridge effect wore off, they no longer felt anything for each other.

Even Song Jingshuo had returned to his original place in the social ecosystem after work resumed.

He was no longer the perennial runner-up who was constantly overshadowed by Jiang Cheng. Instead, he was a young elite with an impressive income.

He had a large house, an expensive car, and a stream of polished, glamorous professional women around him. They all regarded him as a promising golden bachelor.

Of course, he still admired Jiang Cheng, but that affection gradually faded.

After work resumed, they went an entire month without seeing each other. With no opportunity to pursue her, and with people constantly coming and going around him, he slowly lost the motivation to keep trying.

Jiang Cheng didn’t care about any of this.

She had never intended to develop a relationship with anyone in the first place.

She hadn’t wanted one when everyone else was swept up in the bridge effect, so she certainly wasn’t going to want one now.

The matter of the Youth Apartment was discussed for several days. The rapid-response team also patrolled the surrounding area for several days.

Every neighborhood office, residents’ committee, and property-management company posted notices at the entrances of all the residential buildings. Many people saw them. When children wanted to go downstairs to play after school, their parents refused.

“There’s a zombie nearby that still hasn’t been caught.”

By then, the two videotapes had already left S City and arrived at the central group of zombie-research experts.

The experts reported to the leaders that there was yet another new case.

The leader asked, “How many are there in total?”

“Seventeen.”

Across the country, seventeen cases had been reported of new zombies that were clearly different from both the original zombies and the second-generation zombies.

Compared with the country’s vast territory and enormous population, seventeen was naturally an insignificant number.

But it proved that second-generation zombies were not the upper limit of zombie mutation.

Zombies could continue to develop and change, and no one could predict what they might eventually become.

Although the zombie disaster had essentially been brought under control nationwide, the leader still felt a heavy weight in his heart.

The zombie virus had altered the human body at a genetic level, causing the dead to walk ferociously beneath the broad daylight. And even now, humanity could not decipher the virus, let alone find a way to destroy it.

“Report it upward,” he said.

The higher authorities had to be made aware of this information so that they could prepare contingency plans.

Jiang Cheng was surprised when she received a call from the police station in S City’s Science and Technology New District.

They were asking about Liu Hongwang.

“Yes. I represented all the homeowners in terminating his employment relationship with the community.”

“There were many homeowners present at the time, and nearly all the members of the interim committee were there. No one objected. So although I was the one who proposed it, it reflected the will of everyone.”

“Under those circumstances, if we couldn’t keep things under control, the entire community would have descended into chaos. You understand.”

“We didn’t kill him or physically harm him. Everything we did was in accordance with the law.”

“The homeowners’ committee hired the property-management company, which in turn hired the property staff. We had the legal right to terminate any staff member’s employment, especially during an extraordinary period.”

“Yes, thank you for your understanding.”

The officer on the other end said, “We’re just trying to understand the situation. It isn’t a homicide case, after all...”

It was a rather unusual situation.

The person who had reported it insisted that this was murder, and that they should receive the same treatment as the people from Deqingli—that they should be handcuffed, taken away, and sentenced.

The police officer had been badgered until he could no longer stand it, so he called Jiang Cheng to make inquiries.

The fact that he had called her instead of summoning her already made the police’s attitude clear.

Jiang Cheng expressed her thanks, then asked, “Was it one of the homeowners in our community who reported it?”

“No. Uh... I’m afraid I can’t disclose that,” the officer said. “The regulations prohibit us from revealing the identity of the person who filed the report.”

But his reflexive answer had already given Jiang Cheng the information she needed.

If it wasn’t one of the homeowners, then it had to be someone from the property-management company.

When that person called again, the police told him plainly, “This is a civil dispute.”

The so-called “expulsion” and “telling him to go die” were merely the informant’s subjective interpretation. In reality, what they had done was simply terminate the employment relationship. It was perfectly legal and reasonable.

“They know the law better than you do,” the police officer advised. “Otherwise, go find a lawyer and sue them. Civil disputes aren’t our responsibility.”

The man refused to give up and went to a law firm, only to be scared off by the consultation fee alone.

The police handled cases for free. Lawyers, however, didn’t work for nothing.

This man wasn’t trying to stand up for Liu Hongwang. In fact, Liu Hongwang had no friends at all. He was lazy and slippery at work, and thoroughly disliked by everyone.

The man simply couldn’t stand Jiang Cheng, Song Jingshuo, and the others.

If he could mess with them for free, he was willing to spend the time doing it.

But if he had to pay out of his own pocket, forget it.

Jiang Cheng mentioned the matter in the temporary committee’s group chat.

Just as Jiang Cheng had said, no one had objected at the time, which was equivalent to everyone’s consent.

The group chat erupted in anger, with everyone demanding to know who had reported them. The temporary committee had poured its heart and soul into leading everyone through the most difficult period, only to be stabbed in the back afterward.

It was infuriating.

Yang Xinyan was also in the group chat, but she didn’t dare say a word.

Instead, she secretly told Aunt Pan about it, and Aunt Pan passed it on to Master Luo.

“Who do you think it was?” Aunt Pan asked.

Master Luo said nothing, but he had a pretty good idea who it might have been.

Jiang Cheng spent a month traveling around, visiting three different cities.

She could clearly feel how drastically the population had declined.

Traffic in the cities was no longer congested. Some cars by the roadside and in parking lots had gathered layers of dust, with no one coming to claim them.

At the airport, she overheard people talking about how property prices had plummeted, and rents had fallen just as sharply.

The stock market, meanwhile, had suffered a panic-driven plunge before quickly rebounding and entering a structural bull market.

Ordinary people were having a hard time. Too many had lost their jobs.

A large number of small and medium-sized private companies went bankrupt.

Individual business owners were hit especially hard. Even with the rent and tax reductions offered by the government, many still couldn’t hold on.

Countless small shops along the streets had closed down.

“Prime location, shop for sublease” signs were everywhere.

At the same time, many companies had lost a considerable portion of their employees and were now hiring.

Job fairs were being held all over the country.

The mobility of the workforce was at its highest point in the past decade.

By the end of August, Jiang Cheng had finally packed up all the company’s equipment and shipped it back to S City.

She also bought a plane ticket home.

However, from the moment she arrived at the airport that morning, she had felt uncomfortable in the head. Perhaps she had been too exhausted these past few days. Or perhaps she shouldn’t have turned on the air conditioner at the hotel the night before.

It was already the end of August. The temperature should have been dropping, yet these past two days had brought an abnormal heat wave.

Jiang Cheng boarded the plane in a daze and slept through most of the flight.

By the time she got off the plane, it was afternoon. The departure city had been overcast, and so was the destination.

To her surprise, Mr. Peng himself had come to pick her up at the airport.

Jiang Cheng was stunned. “Has our company really fallen this far?”

It felt like they were on the verge of bankruptcy and couldn’t even afford a driver anymore.

Mr. Peng’s expression became awkward. “I’m a diligent and people-oriented boss. I just wanted to check on one of my employees. Don’t overthink it. We’re not going bankrupt. I’ve got plenty of money.”

Jiang Cheng relaxed. “All right, then.”

Although this world gave her the impression that everything was “far too simple,” she still had to eat, drink, and take care of her basic needs. Being unemployed was not a good thing.

All the way, Mr. Peng kept chatting with her, asking after her health and showing concern. It was rather unusual.

Mr. Peng was in his thirties and divorced. He had originally been a moderately wealthy heir, and he and his wife had made quite a bit of money running a company together. After their divorce, the couple divided the company’s operations, each taking half.

His ex-wife handled the advertising business, while he took charge of exhibitions and events. Both continued to make money.

They had amassed a fortune during the economic boom.

Unfortunately, his luck had been poor. He had run into this zombie catastrophe, and his girlfriend had died.

His girlfriend had died.

Jiang Cheng: “...”

She skipped over all the useless information and seized on the key points.

Mr. Peng was single now. Mr. Peng was thirty-one and in his prime. Mr. Peng couldn’t stand being lonely. Mr. Peng wanted to make a move on one of the young, pretty girls at the company.

Jiang Cheng was the lucky young woman he had chosen.

Jiang Cheng: “...”

Jiang Cheng felt her headache worsen.

She was in a daze, as though she had forgotten something important.

Mr. Peng’s car was quite nice too, with dark-tinted film covering the windows.

Jiang Cheng’s head felt terribly heavy. Her vacant eyes remained fixed on the road ahead while Mr. Peng talked beside her, cultivating the image of a devoted, sensitive man and pouring out his grief over the loss of his girlfriend.

He hoped to arouse the young woman’s sympathy and, from there, develop a romantic relationship.

At that moment, the sky, which had remained overcast, began to take on a faint purple hue.

Just like that Saturday two months ago.

Jiang Cheng’s head was heavy and muddled.

Just like that Saturday two months ago.