Chapter 29

Cai Chengliang was a wretch, everyone wanted to kill him. But the kid was crafty. After he secretly framed Mei Baisheng he got jittery; that day, seeing Bai Cheng and the others leave in a hurry, he grew even more unsettled and called his grandfather in the capital. He told the story, likely laying it on thick and playing the wronged innocent, as if he hadn’t ordered the attack but that something “seemed” or “might have” caused zombie-contaminated material to rub off on Mei Baisheng, he was terrified Ye Xiao, Bai Cheng and the others would retaliate.
His grandfather was a heavyweight figure, still in office, in pre-apocalypse days he already had clout, let alone now, so he immediately reassured his grandson. Then, the next day when Bai Cheng and the others returned intent on confronting Cai Chengliang, Old Chen placed a call.
They pulled out all the stops: soft and hard tactics, threats and inducements, all to send the same message: make sure Cai Chengliang is brought back to the capital.
On its own that might not have been a huge problem; promotions and future posts didn’t mean much now. But the other side also made it clear that there were countless disaster zones across the country and only so many troops, and that Yang City was just a small city.
What did that imply?
Bai Cheng laughed in anger, but of course they couldn’t just kill that Cai kid outright.
Professor Zheng smiled awkwardly. “How could they ignore it? This is an entire city, two million people. They’re not going to ignore it. Old Chen doesn’t have that much power, but maybe… they’ll just arrive a few days late.”
With so many cities across the country, who could complain if Yang City got pushed to the back of the queue? They could easily list dozens of reasons.
If the population here suffered heavy losses, there’d be nothing to be done. It was a global disaster, where hadn’t there been grievous casualties?
“You call that ‘not much power’?” Ye Xiao spoke up. “Using an entire city to threaten a few of us, that’s eye-opening. We’re honored.”
He rarely used a sarcastic tone; clearly the move had angered him. It wasn’t just sarcasm, mostly it was disappointment. Old Chen could be forgiven; he even respected Major General Min, his direct superior, and he never imagined Min would stoop to such tricks.
Professor Zheng said, “You don’t know, I’ve been in frequent contact with the Academy these past few days. Many of the places given priority were hit on the first day of the apocalypse; those below had to step up, and their influence grew as a result.”
He put it more subtly: overnight so many of the once-powerful figures had been compromised that the next tier down, whether out for personal profit or convinced they could better save the country, had, willingly or not, been drawn into the scramble for influence.
Old Chen and Major General Min were clearly among the winners, and on the same side. Ye Xiao’s squad was only one of many small pawns under their command; they’d merely asked them to save a few people on the side. For those men to refuse orders and even try to retaliate against the mission’s target was, at least to them, a direct challenge to their authority.
Exactly how much Major General Min cared about that mother and daughter was hard to say, but he would not accept Ye Xiao treating his words as meaningless. Holding the core findings from the Academy of Sciences like a bargaining chip was his way of saying plainly: obey, and you’ll be rewarded.
How much of Old Chen’s threats were really to protect Cai Chengliang and how much were meant simply as a warning, well, that was hard to tell too.
None of the people from Unit 301 were stupid. Even the thick-skinned Mei Baisheng had realized the situation looked bad.
Professor Zheng, looking at Mei Baisheng curled up on the sofa with his arms folded, said, “And besides, isn’t he fine now? Even if Cai Chengliang had ill intentions, didn’t he fail? Attempted murder and murder, aren’t those punished the same?”
He tried hard to smooth things over. After all, the few of them still owed their livelihoods to those people; if both sides tore into open conflict, what good would that be for him? He also wanted the army to arrive sooner so he could get back to the capital.
His little calculation wasn’t unreasonable, but those words struck a raw nerve. What did he mean “failed”? What did he mean “attempted murder”? If it weren’t for Lin Tantan, Mei Baisheng would already be a rotting corpse!
But that couldn’t be said aloud. The fact that Lin Tantan could save the infected had been agreed to be kept secret, so they couldn’t let anyone know Mei Baisheng had once been infected.
In the end they broke up on bad terms. Professor Zheng and the others who had wanted to eat together left without staying.
Seeing Ye Xiao’s sour mood, Lin Tantan felt sorry for him. If things were already like this, if in the previous life Mei Baisheng had really died and Cai Chengliang had almost certainly been killed in revenge, how could Old Chen and Major General Min not hold a grudge? That would explain why Ye Xiao had clashed with the military and eventually been expelled from service in the last life.
Being targeted by the military had made his first few years difficult.
Lin Tantan felt conflicted. Getting on the wrong side of men who held military power was dangerous, but staying under them and continuing to work for them felt humiliating. Only by being in charge of her own fate could she live properly in this world; otherwise who knew when someone would stab you in the back. She wanted Ye Xiao to get out of the military, just like in the last life, the sooner the better.
She whispered to Jiang Xiaotian, “What’s Cai Chengliang’s situation now?”
“They’re starving him, making him work, and at night they lock him up among piles of zombie corpses.” Jiang Xiaotian snorted. “The guy can’t take hardship, after a few days he’s already falling apart.”
“Even if they let him go, he’ll definitely bear a grudge against us,” Lin Tantan said.
“Of course.” Jiang Xiaotian liked the sound of “us.” “When that idiot goes back to Old Chen, who knows how he’ll slander us, egg people on to take revenge, this grudge is already set in stone.”
Xu Qin beside them scoffed, “Still making an enemy out of us, like that, they’ll have to release him.”
Jiang Xiaotian fell silent and pulled out a bag of chips, crunching angrily.
Lin Tantan glanced from one to the other. “So are you all just going to let him go? Can you swallow that?”
“What’s the point if we can’t?” Xu Qin asked with a grin, as if daring her to object.
Lin Tantan took a chip from Jiang Xiaotian and popped it in her mouth. “It depends on what you plan to do next. If you intend to keep being their obedient soldiers, swearing by military orders and putting the big picture first, sacrificing yourselves for the country, then you can swallow as much as you want. Nobody blames you; they’re your superiors.”
She was egging them on.
“Give me a break, sacrificing for the country. If they were really sacrificing for the country, fine, but in the end it’ll be for those rotten old men!” Jiang Xiaotian spoke bluntly.
“Can you stop making it sound so disgusting?” Mei Baisheng shuffled from the corner of the sofa to grab some chips. “If you want to sacrifice, go do it yourself.”
“What if we have other plans?” Xu Qin ignored the two of them and steered the topic back. In the current situation, even if they sucked up to those people, they might still be punished later.
“If you don’t plan to work under them anymore, damn them,” Lin Tantan said. “They threatened to withhold sending troops to pressure you, there are two options. First: you stop caring about the people of Yang City and walk away.” That threat was laughable; if they’d threatened to hurt people they actually knew, it might be plausible, but threatening an entire city full of strangers? It only worked because those men were too soft-hearted to follow through. To Lin Tantan, thinking up that move was not only selfish, it was vicious and cheap.
“That’s impossible.” Zhong Xiong joined them. “Even if those people aren’t connected to us, if because of our actions the army delayed coming by several days…” He shook his head.
“I don’t think that will fly either,” Lin Tantan said. If they actually did that, the other side would smear them as the ones who disobeyed orders and caused the delay. The families of the dead would put that bill on Ye Xiao and the others.
“So what about the second option?” Xu Li asked.
“The second option is simple,” Lin Tantan said. “You claim you put the people of Yang City first and suffered injustice for their sake, took a beating to keep the peace, then flip it. Go after the villains directly. Drag Cai Chengliang out, film him, tell his grandfather: if you don’t send troops in a day, we’ll cut off one of his fingers; two days, we gouge out an eye; three days…”
"Ram something up his ass!" Jiang Xiaotian eagerly chimed in, grinning, why hadn't he thought of that before?
He slapped Lin Tantan on the shoulder. "Nice one, you, great idea!"
"Yeah, yeah, leave the ass-ruining to me." Mei Baisheng agreed, rubbing his hands like he was about to go wreck somebody.
These two always seemed to thirst for chaos. More level-headed and mature, Xu Qin and Zhong Xiong didn't speak up so quickly. Zhong Xiong thought for a moment: "Is this appropriate? We've never done anything this nasty, this is the sort of thing kidnappers do, isn't it?"
Jiang Xiaotian said, "They're not playing by the rules, if they're ruthless, we have to be more ruthless!"
Xu Li, who rarely voiced an opinion, added, "I think it's fine, fight fire with fire."
…
On the balcony, dusk closing in, Ye Xiao and Bai Cheng leaned on the railing, their moods heavy after Professor Zheng's words.
The crux of the matter wasn't really Cai Chengliang. They could have swallowed their anger if necessary. The real issue was which path they should take going forward.
After a long silence, Ye Xiao stared at the dim sky and said, "On my first day in the service I swore to be loyal to this country, not to any particular people."
Hearing that, Bai Cheng wasn't surprised, this time those people had truly gone too far.
"Major General Min Yande is finished," Ye Xiao said, "but who else can be trusted? I'll have to go back to the capital and see for myself."
A flicker of meaning passed through Bai Cheng's eyes and he smiled, "All right."
In a few words, they didn't say much, but the two had already reached the same conclusion about which small fork in the road to take.
They noticed the living room sounded lively, everyone eagerly talking about something.
They went in and heard Mei Baisheng's loud voice: "If you're going to wreck his ass, you need something thick and big."
"How about an ice pop? More thrilling," Jiang Xiaotian suggested.
"No, no." Lin Tantan shook her head. "If it's frozen it'll go numb, would he even feel the pain?"
Jiang Xiaotian immediately said, "Makes sense. So what do you suggest?"
"Get a spiked wooden stick, soak it in chili water till it's saturated, then, " she made a fierce thrusting motion. When her eyes landed on Ye Xiao's slightly shocked look, she almost choked on her own spit.