Chapter 93

This building sweep went much faster than the first one.

For one thing, everyone had become much more experienced. For another... there were now far fewer people in the complex than there were apartments.

Many units were empty when they knocked on every door on a floor.

The efficiency was astonishingly high.

When the team led by Li Jiangbing and Jiang Cheng knocked on a door in Building Two, the person peeking out at them turned out to be the property manager.

Everyone was startled.

“Manager Wang? What are you doing here?”

There was no way Manager Wang could admit that he had stayed behind just to see how Jiang Cheng would handle things. He put on a miserable expression and said, “That Miss Jiang sent out a warning, didn’t she? So I found an empty apartment to hide in.”

As he had expected, hardly anyone had returned to claim their apartments after the first wave of the zombie disaster.

The apartments weren’t going anywhere, while everyone had far too many other things to deal with. Some people had probably lost their entire families.

At first, Manager Wang had looked at all those empty apartments and planned to use them to run a few little side businesses and make some extra money. Who could have known that housing prices and rents would plummet? There weren’t even any tenants to be found.

In the end, he had only called over two relatives from his hometown who worked in S City and let them stay for free. At least that was better than the overcrowded rental they had been living in.

A few other apartments housed property staff and the people under Guo Jun.

The rest were all empty, and Manager Wang often picked one at random for his afternoon nap.

Now he poked his head out and looked left and right, as frightened as a startled bird.

“Are there zombies here? Are there still zombies in our building?”

“We’re sweeping the building,” Li Jiangbing said. “We just got to this floor.”

Jiang Cheng cut in. “Master Luo is dead.”

The hallway fell silent for a moment.

Manager Wang froze. He looked as though he wanted to cry.

Jiang Cheng cut off his emotions before they could gather any momentum. “Everyone is to report to the little square at nine tomorrow morning. We’ll take a head count. Tomorrow, you’ll organize the property staff. We’re still living here, after all. Some things can’t be left unattended.”

This girl was assigning him work just like that?

Who was she?

Yet not one person around them thought there was anything inappropriate about it. She spoke with such natural authority that everyone listened as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world.

Huh?

A sudden realization flashed through Manager Wang’s mind.

“Miss Jiang?”

Jiang Cheng nodded. “That’s right.”

So this was the “Miss Jiang” everyone had been talking about.

Jiang Cheng had been sent out on a business trip on her very first day back at work and had only returned today. To Manager Wang, she had been someone who existed solely in legend.

Liu Hongwang had been driven out by her and had not been heard from since. No one knew whether he was alive or dead.

She had locked up the people in the conference room and even ended up creating an evolved zombie.

Manager Wang had finally met her in person. The ruthless woman everyone talked about was actually so young and beautiful.

Jiang Cheng asked, “Do you have anything to eat?”

Manager Wang blinked. “What?”

Jiang Cheng handed him a box of strawberry pie. “This will tide you over for tonight. It isn’t safe outside right now, so don’t go wandering around. We’ll discuss the matter tomorrow.”

Manager Wang thought his eyes were playing tricks on him.

Where had she gotten it from? She wasn’t carrying a bag, and she was wearing armor. There was nowhere on her that looked capable of holding something like that.

Everyone marveled.

“That’s so convenient.”

“If it’s big enough, couldn’t she store a ton of stuff in there? That would make things so much easier.”

“Doesn’t she feel the weight?”

“Of course she doesn’t. They’re not even in the same dimension.”

Manager Wang: “???”

What were these people talking about?

Jiang Cheng said, “Some people have turned into zombies, while others have gained superpowers. We still don’t know how many people have abilities. You should investigate and see whether you have one yourself. We’re going to continue sweeping the building.”

The moment Jiang Cheng left, everyone followed after her in a rush.

Manager Wang was left standing there in total confusion.

After they finished sweeping the building, Li Jiangbing called Su Yu.

“Are you done? I’ll come pick you up.”

Although they had killed all the zombies visible in the courtyard, it was already dark. They couldn’t conduct a thorough search, so there was no guarantee that the area was completely safe.

Su Yu said, “I’m wearing armor, and I have a protective barrier.”

Huh. So he was the one holding her back now.

Li Jiangbing smacked his lips, then remembered something else and asked, “What about Fu Duoduo? Are you bringing him over here?”

There was suddenly silence on the other end of the phone. Su Yu made no sound at all; the only thing Li Jiangbing could hear was the rush of air as she walked.

Li Jiangbing paused, wondering whether he should say something.

Then Su Yu’s voice came through.

“Zombies don’t have feelings.”

“Everyone says the third generation has developed intelligence, but I don’t think so.”

“They’ve merely learned how to run away. How does that count as intelligence?”

“Jiangbing...” Su Yu choked up. “Fu Duoduo died so horribly...”

But it wasn’t He Tian’s fault.

Su Yu understood that the He Tian she knew had died the instant she became a zombie.

The thing that had cruelly killed and eaten Fu Duoduo was merely a zombie wearing He Tian’s shell.

Li Jiangbing sighed and reminded her, “Let me know you’ve gotten home safely.”

Su Yu agreed.

A few minutes later, he received a text from her saying that she had arrived home. Only then did Li Jiangbing relax.

He was now devoting himself wholeheartedly to studying his superpower.

At first, he had been delighted and fascinated by it. But after seeing what other people’s abilities could do, he had begun to feel vaguely uneasy.

Especially after he had exchanged notes with Zhao Yi and Gao Yuxuan in the courtyard. Those two seemed to understand this sort of thing very well. They said that although everyone’s superpowers were weak for now, these abilities would definitely grow stronger over time.

They had said it with absolute confidence.

Li Jiangbing believed them.

He felt that if superpowers were truly this weak and could never grow stronger, then there would be no point in having them at all.

Besides, these abilities had appeared alongside the zombie virus. The zombies were evolving from one generation to the next, so he believed that superpowers could evolve as well.

In between killing zombies in the courtyard, he had found time to ask the two anime enthusiasts how to increase the strength of his ability.

Those two had answered with supreme confidence.

“Train. You have to train. It’s just like building muscle.”

That was excellent news. They worked out regularly; training was the last thing they were afraid of.

After returning home, Li Jiangbing plugged the sink and filled it with water. Then he began to practice.

He wasn’t the only one who had gone home and started tinkering with his superpower instead of immediately going to bed and getting some rest.

In fact, everyone with an ability had been unable to resist experimenting with it.

Su Yu was sitting on her bed, working hard to release her protective barrier and trying to control it.

She discovered that when released naturally, the barrier was tiny, like a half-open umbrella standing upright. It was just large enough to protect her alone.

If she allowed it to fade on its own, it lasted for approximately thirty seconds.

That was actually shorter than the time it had lasted when she was fighting He Tian in the courtyard.

But when the barrier faded naturally, it caused no strain on her brain. Back in the courtyard, her desperate will to survive had forced the barrier to last an extra ten seconds or so, and afterward it had felt as though a needle were repeatedly stabbing her brain. The pain had come in sharp, rhythmic bursts.

Su Yu tried to expand the area covered by the barrier and extend its duration. It wasn’t impossible, but either effort placed a burden on her brain.

In less than half an hour, Su Yu was already dizzy and nauseated, with a tight chest and an urge to vomit.

But she refused to stop.

This was a gift from heaven—a stroke of incredible luck.

Compared with the water- and fire-based abilities of her neighbors, and even compared with Jiang Cheng’s spatial ability, hers was something entirely different.

The protective shield was different from every other superpower!

If her shield became strong enough, she could protect a great many people!

Her head felt as though it were being stabbed with needles. Su Yu still went to the bathroom and vomited twice, though there was hardly anything to bring up. The first time, she vomited clear water; the second time, stomach acid.

Su Yu rinsed her mouth, then gritted her teeth and released the protective shield again.

She did not stop until her nose began to bleed and stained her clothes, and the world in front of her repeatedly went black. After wiping her nose, she collapsed onto the bed and drifted into a half-conscious sleep.

Li Jiangbing had suffered more than a nosebleed. His ears were bleeding too.

But people who worked out regularly had a high tolerance for pain. Li Jiangbing’s was especially high; otherwise, how could he have built such a muscular physique?

Li Jiangbing was also daring, with no shortage of willpower. More than that, he felt an urgent craving he could not describe. He kept going until even his eyes began to bleed, and only then did he finally lose the courage to continue.

Over the course of one night, the amount of water he could control had expanded from the size of a ping-pong ball to the size of a basketball. He was very satisfied.

He had a feeling that if he kept practicing, he might die.

People who worked as fitness instructors paid attention to regulating their clients’ exercise levels. It was not as if there had never been cases of people dropping dead from overexertion. Whenever something like that happened, the gym would usually have to pay out so much compensation that it would close down and go bankrupt.

Wu Jiancheng, the building’s floor manager, had a fire-based superpower.

He practiced at home as well.

Unlike Li Feng, he could not conjure fire out of thin air. He needed a source of flame first.

After practicing for an entire night, he had managed to make the fireball he could control somewhat larger. But the fact that he needed a source of fire really bothered him.

He began pondering what he could do about it.

Could he keep the flame on his body from ever going out?

If he controlled the flame at the smallest possible size, it would consume almost none of his brainpower.

He tried this for the whole night, carrying the tiny little flame around even when he went to the bathroom to take a dump, using it as his “source.”

He saw no problem with it and decided to keep it burning while he slept.

Then, in the middle of the night, he felt pain on his scalp. He opened his eyes to find roaring flames. His house was on fire.

As it turned out, his pillow had caught fire and singed his scalp. Otherwise, he might have slept comfortably amid the blaze.

Fire-type superpowered user Wu Jiancheng: “...Fuck.”

Gao Yuxuan and Zhao Yi were far too excited to sleep.

Zhao Yi did not return to his own home. He went straight to Gao Yuxuan’s place instead.

Zhao Yi had a single bed, while Gao Yuxuan had a double bed large enough for both of them.

The two of them kept practicing their superpowers and constantly probing for their rules and limitations.

Zhao Yi had carried a potted plant up from the main entrance downstairs. The flowerpot came with soil already in it.

Zhao Yi focused on working with that one pot of dirt.

Since the conditions limited the amount available, he decided to test its strength instead.

Under his control, the soil kept changing shape. As he practiced, the rate at which he improved rose rapidly.

Even Gao Yuxuan was astonished. “How the hell are you so good at this?”

Zhao Yi might have felt embarrassed saying it to someone else, but he had no such reservations with Gao Yuxuan.

In fact, he was a little smug. “I’ve practiced meditation.”

He had practiced for quite a long time, training himself to concentrate intensely and maintain that concentration.

He had hoped to unlock the potential of his brain and become a superpowered user.

Putting everything else aside, there was one exercise where he would place a pen on the table, focus all his attention on it, and try to lift it from a distance using mental power. Zhao Yi had once practiced that for one or two hours at a time.

With that kind of perseverance, a person could probably succeed at anything.

Except lifting a pen from a distance.

Compared with Zhao Yi, Gao Yuxuan was somewhat lacking. Although repeated practice had strengthened his tiny electric current, he soon developed a nosebleed.

Zhao Yi was startled. “Stop, stop, stop, stop! Take it easy. Don’t blow yourself up!”

The anime and manga fans had a lot of strange terminology that ordinary people were unfamiliar with.

“Blowing yourself up” was one example.

After all, that was how it always happened in manga.

Boom! The body exploded, and energy scattered in every direction.

Anime came in different varieties depending on the target audience. There were shoujo manga, shounen manga, and even grim, bloody horror stories. The manga boys read tended to be much more gory than the manga girls read.

Zhao Yi and Gao Yuxuan’s heads were crammed full of all sorts of bizarre knowledge.

The two of them even created a table, with one page for each of them.

Zhao Yi dictated his notes. “22:41. Soil reached a speed of forming a wall in two seconds. It takes three punches to smash it apart. Its hardness currently cannot directly withstand the charge of a second-generation zombie. No additional strain on the brain.”

“23:39. It takes five punches to smash it apart. It might be able to withstand one impact, providing a lifesaving defense at a critical moment. No additional strain on the brain.”

Gao Yuxuan typed rapidly on the keyboard. In addition to entering the data, he added a note: “Because the quantity is currently too small, the effects of material quality on cohesion speed, strength, and strain on the brain cannot yet be evaluated.”

“Requires a large-scale outdoor experiment next time.”

Then he recorded his own results. “Voltage reached 35 volts.”

There was a voltage tester at home, which was perfect for the job.

At the beginning, the voltage had been only five volts. It had risen little by little from there.

“Ugh.” He complained, “My rate of improvement is way too slow.”

Zhao Yi comforted him. “Don’t rush. You only awakened a few hours ago. Keep practicing and it’ll continue to improve. At thirty-six volts, you’ll break through the safe-voltage threshold.”

Gao Yuxuan said, “Thirty-six volts can barely kill a person, let alone a zombie. Zombies can lose a hand, a leg, or half their bodies and still be fine.”

The two shut-ins continued making quantitative records while discussing the matter.

“So I think attacking the body is pointless. The brain is the key. Look, a zombie’s wounds don’t rot, but once it loses its brain, the body starts decomposing.”

“The brain doesn’t just control the body’s movements. It probably also secretes something that maintains the body’s enhanced state and prevents it from decaying.”

“So we have to attack the brain. Electrifying the brain until it’s fried should have the same effect as smashing it apart.”

“Which means that in addition to power, we need to practice our aim.”

The two of them did not know that although their progress was slow, they were on the right track.

The electric-type superpowered users in the military camp had already confirmed this through battles on the brink of life and death.

The shut-ins remained immersed in the excitement of exploring a new world, unable to fall asleep.

They lay on the same bed, feet touching, talking deep into the night.