Chapter 87

Jiang Cheng felt moisture on her nose.

She opened her eyes with some difficulty and found Mo Li licking the tip of her nose.

When he saw that she was awake, he let out a “meow” that sounded surprisingly gentle.

He was worried about her.

Jiang Cheng closed her eyes and lay on the recliner for a moment, clearing her head.

When she opened them again, she understood why her eyes felt uncomfortable: there was sunlight.

The dark clouds had completely dispersed, and outside was actually brighter than it had been in the afternoon.

Jiang Cheng moved Mo Li off her chest, picked up her phone from the floor, and checked the time. She had been unconscious for less than an hour.

Something suddenly flashed before her eyes.

Jiang Cheng froze. When she focused, there was nothing there—only her small apartment.

It flashed again.

Jiang Cheng held her breath.

When she concentrated, the thing appeared once more before her eyes, though it was unstable.

Jiang Cheng closed her eyes.

She could still see it. So it wasn’t actually “before her eyes”; it was inside her mind.

Jiang Cheng cleared her mind and focused.

The image finally stabilized, like a television with a poor signal.

A space.

A space with no shape, yet with boundaries she could sense.

Judging by its volume, the space was about the size of her bathroom.

When she relaxed, the image wavered and vanished from her mind.

She could vaguely sense a connection between the space and her mind, but she had to concentrate in order to visualize it clearly.

What was this?

The moment Jiang Cheng wondered what it was, a crack appeared in the seal over the memories of another world inside her mind.

[Storage Space.]

Jiang Cheng understood instantly.

And she was familiar with it.

Jiang Cheng believed that before she had crossed over into this world, she must have possessed something similar in that other world.

She stood up and looked out through the floor-to-ceiling window at the courtyard. There was no one in sight.

She was probably once again among the first to wake up.

She turned on her computer and created a post on the residents’ forum:

[Reporting In: Those Who Are Awake]

[Building 2, 0306—Jiang Cheng]

After posting, she rubbed her temples and focused on sensing the storage space.

Then she relaxed.

Then she focused again.

It was like an old television with a bad signal; she had to smack it a few times.

After repeating this for several minutes, the signal on that old television finally stabilized.

Something between her and the storage space had stabilized as well.

The words [Mental Link] flashed through her mind.

What an apt description.

Yet Jiang Cheng couldn’t find anything related to it in “Jiang Cheng’s” memories or knowledge. This was not something that originally existed in this world.

Had she brought it with her from the other world?

Jiang Cheng glanced at the glass of water on the table.

She tried it, but the glass didn’t react at all.

She placed her hand on it. The instant her fingertips touched the glass, it vanished from sight and was taken into the storage space.

[Not very useful.]

That evaluation surfaced in her mind.

It came from the instinctive impression left by the locked memories of the other world.

She must have owned—or at least used—a much better storage space in that other world.

She couldn’t say how much better it had been, but surely it hadn’t required her to touch an object before she could store it. That limitation made the space far too impractical.

Li Jiangbing woke up as well.

He woke in bed. After returning home, the sensation of impending unconsciousness had arrived much sooner than expected, so he had hurried to lie down comfortably while he still could.

As expected, when he woke up, his back and waist didn’t ache.

And he hadn’t turned into a zombie!

It was only in that final moment before losing consciousness that he had thought: Wait, I could turn into a zombie too, couldn’t I?

Oh no. If I turned, I wondered whether Jiang Cheng could take me down.

I’m so big. It might be a bit difficult for her. She’d have to jump to chop me.

Luckily, he hadn’t turned.

His head did hurt terribly, though. His brain felt as if a tiny pebble had gotten inside his sneaker—grating against him and causing pain with every movement. His body also felt hot, as if he had a fever.

Li Jiangbing rubbed his temples and went to the bathroom, turning on the faucet to splash some water on his face and cool himself down.

But the moment the tap water began rushing out, he felt something strange.

Li Jiangbing stared blankly for a moment, then put his hand into the stream of water.

After a while, he focused, withdrew his hand, and held it up before his eyes.

A water ball the size of a ping-pong ball hovered and rolled above his palm. It was crystalline, clear, and sparkling.

Adorable.

Li Jiangbing was stunned.

It took him a long while to recover. His first thought was to immediately go show Jiang Cheng!

But he suppressed the impulse at once—what if Jiang Cheng had turned into a zombie?

Oh no. He couldn’t bring himself to strike her down.

He’d have to let Song Jingshuo help Jiang Cheng rest in peace. That guy would definitely be able to do it.

Song Jingshuo woke up as well.

With a splitting headache, he sat up inside the elevator.

He glanced at the display. The elevator had already stopped at the floor where he lived.

He closed his eyes and rested for a while. Once the headache had eased slightly, he stood up. He had no weapon on him, so he pressed his body tightly against the side wall before pushing the “Open Door” button.

Luckily, there were no zombies in the hallway.

After peeking out to make sure, Song Jingshuo immediately ran from the elevator. He gripped his front-door key tightly and rushed to his apartment, unlocking the door.

Once inside, he slammed it shut. Only then did he finally feel completely safe.

He swept his gaze around the apartment. A fairly nice sculpture had once sat on a display cabinet in the living room.

Later, he had removed the sculpture and placed his cleaned armor there instead.

It was meant to commemorate that special period of time.

Thank goodness the entire suit of armor was still there, along with his weapons.

And he hadn’t turned into a zombie either.

Song Jingshuo first went over to turn on his computer. Sure enough, he saw Jiang Cheng’s check-in post on the forum.

Why was Jiang Cheng always among the first to wake up?

The thought flashed through Song Jingshuo’s mind.

He opened the post and saw that Li Jiangbing had already checked in.

There still weren’t many reports—only a scattered few—but some came from people he knew well, such as Su Yu and Wu Jiancheng. There were also several names that looked familiar, though he couldn’t match them to any faces.

Good. As long as Jiang Cheng and Li Jiangbing were safe, everything was fine.

The next question he considered was: Why had Jiang Cheng known about the zombie virus in advance?

He knew that after the second outbreak of the virus, many of the survivors would be thinking about the same thing.

They would all want to know why.

When Li Jiangbing saw on the forum that Jiang Cheng was still alive, he was overjoyed.

He called her. “I’m coming over! I have something to show you!”

Jiang Cheng said, “Put on your armor before you come.”

It was better to be prepared in case a neighbor had mutated.

Li Jiangbing put on the full suit of armor.

With the virus undergoing a second outbreak, there were bound to be many more zombies. They might have to fight at any moment.

Once fully equipped, he picked up his weapon and opened the door a crack to look outside.

Safe.

He tiptoed quickly to Apartment 0306 and gently knocked. “It’s me. It’s me.”

Jiang Cheng was already waiting by the door. She opened it a crack, looked him up and down, and let him in.

“Jingshuo has woken up too. He reported on the forum.” She walked to the table and bent over to look at the computer.

She refreshed the page, and several new check-in posts appeared. People were waking up one after another.

Hearing that Song Jingshuo was safe as well, Li Jiangbing felt even more reassured.

The Iron Triangle was all here. There was nothing to fear!

But he was anxious about something else. “Jiang Cheng, Jiang Cheng! I have something to show you!”

Jiang Cheng turned to look at him, one hand braced against the tabletop.

Li Jiangbing held a loosely clenched fist out in front of her face, then opened it.

A tiny ball of water hovered and slowly spun above his broad palm.

“I think I’ve developed a superpower!” Li Jiangbing couldn’t hide his excitement. “When I woke up, I touched some water and suddenly had this... how should I put it? A feeling. I felt like I was connected to the water somehow. I don’t know how to explain it. Ugh, I just can’t find the words.”

The consequences of not studying properly during his teenage years were now on full display in his poor command of language.

Jiang Cheng straightened and stared at the hovering ball of water.

The moment her storage space appeared, it had triggered a memory of recognition, telling her with absolute certainty that she had used one before.

But the phenomenon before her eyes stirred no such recognition.

She was unfamiliar with what was happening. Judging by the knowledge system of this world, “superpower” really was the only term that could describe it.

She asked, “Be more specific. I mean, how do you form it? How do you control it? Is this all you can do? Is there a limit?”

Her storage space had a limit as well.

She couldn’t see it visually, but she could sense an invisible boundary and the approximate size of the space.

There was a limit to how much it could hold.

Before Li Jiangbing arrived, she had already tested it with the bed, sofa, coffee table, dining table, and other large pieces of furniture.

She had quickly observed and summarized several properties of the storage space.

For example, the objects stored inside were not restricted by their shape.

From what she could sense, the space’s capacity was roughly equivalent to the size of her bathroom.

If she put the bed into the bathroom, there would be no room for the sofa, because the shapes would prevent them from fitting together.

So even if plenty of empty space remained in the bathroom after the bed went in, the sofa still could not be put inside.

The storage space, however, was different. It was not affected by shape. The sofa, bed, and coffee table had all gone in together, stacked on top of one another.

Inside, they floated weightlessly.

After thinking it over, Jiang Cheng concluded that what truly determined the space’s “capacity” was not volume, but mass.

If that was the case, everything made sense.

She had later put in a few more things and tested the limit.

Only after finishing her phone call with Li Jiangbing did she release everything and restore the room to its original state.

Not a trace was left behind.

Li Jiangbing was completely thrown by her questions. “Huh?”

He had been too excited to rush over and show Jiang Cheng his discovery to think about anything else.

Now that she was testing him, he could only rack his brains on the spot. “It’s just that whenever I touch water, I can sense something.”

“Perception,” Jiang Cheng supplied.

“Right, right, that’s a better word! It’s like there’s some kind of... uh... connection between me and tap water...”

“A mental link.”

“Right, right! Exactly!”

Li Jiangbing continued, “Then I sensed it while thinking about it. By using that ‘thought,’ I can shape it like modeling clay. It listens to me and turned into this.”

“Huh?” He suddenly realized something. “How can you describe it so clearly?”

“Perception” and “mental link.”

Especially “mental link.”

Jiang Cheng extended a finger and poked the tiny ball of water.

The instant she touched it, the ball vanished.

“Huh? Huh? Huh???” Li Jiangbing was stunned. “Where did it go? Where’s my ball?”

Inside the storage space, the ball of water remained exactly as it had been, still perfectly spherical.

But the moment Jiang Cheng opened her hand and released it into her palm, the “ball” lost its shape and fell apart into a puddle. It slipped through the gaps between her fingers and dripped away.

“Huh? Huh?” Li Jiangbing was both astonished and delighted. “You have a superpower too!”

At that moment, cries for help rang out from the courtyard below.

“Help! Somebody! Is anyone there?”

Jiang Cheng and Li Jiangbing both ran to the floor-to-ceiling window and looked down.

Because they had come from different distances, the people who had believed Jiang Cheng’s warning returned at different times.

Song Jingshuo was lucky to have passed out inside the elevator. He wasn’t the last person to enter the residential complex. A few others had arrived even later, and they had the bad luck of collapsing outdoors.

Now, two of them had woken up. One had not changed.

The other had mutated—and was chasing the one who hadn’t.