Chapter 101 - 97: Big Rat

Stepping into the room, Zhao Pu paused at the sight of the drastically changed space and clicked his tongue in wonder. "Is this your Card building? Pretty interesting. What’s it for?"

Deng Guang chuckled and said, "For raising some small fish and shrimp. You can also raise crabs and eels."

"Not bad at all. Congratulations," Zhao Pu said. He took a light leap over the channel at his feet, landing in the center.

Deng Guang asked curiously, "Was the fight you mentioned the one downstairs just now?"

"Yeah, you all saw it, huh? Man, what a mess." Zhao Pu sounded exasperated just bringing it up. "Some people really take any little bit of power they get and blow it way out of proportion."

Since the topic came up, Zhao Pu just let it all out in a rant. "There’s a building manager over in Building 3. He claimed a whole family was infected, so he posted a notice on their door, forbidding them from going out.

The man of the house wouldn’t stand for it. He snuck out and tore off the seal. The building manager discovered him and told him to go back inside, but he refused. And that’s when they came to blows."

Hearing this, Deng Wen asked in surprise, "Uncle Zhao, isn’t that the right thing to do? If you’re sick, shouldn’t you stay home? Otherwise, you’ll just infect other people."

Zhao Pu replied, "That was the building manager’s side of the story. The man of the house has another version. He says he wasn’t infected, just his wife. He was getting ready to go out and find food, but the manager tried to solicit a bribe, telling him he had to pay up to be allowed outside. The manager claimed that since he was in charge, the man had to listen to him. The man got so angry that he started a fight."

"So, was the man infected?"

Zhao Pu shook his head. "I don’t know. That manager has been temporarily dismissed, though, and they’ve appointed a new one. But I heard from others that the man showed no symptoms at all. The manager said he was in the incubation period.

So, just now the Alliance Association was discussing whether they could form some special teams—for hunting or gathering, for example—and have the family members of sick patients form their own separate groups."

Xiao Xuemei thought the idea was decent but knew it wouldn’t be that simple to execute. "It’s a good thing. No one can guarantee that their own family members won’t get infected, but implementing it might not be so easy."

"Of course it’s difficult. Healthy people certainly won’t want to team up with the family members of patients. And those family members will be suspicious of one another, worried others might be in the incubation period. Who wouldn’t want to team up with healthy people? But if you’re one of the healthy ones, are you willing to take that gamble?" Zhao Pu clapped his hands. "To put it bluntly, it’s a trust issue. There’s a lack of trust between everyone."

At this, Zhao Pu shook his head. "It’ll probably be a mess for a while. But once they face reality, they’ll form the teams anyway."

Deng Guang sighed silently at these words. After a moment’s hesitation, he turned to Qin Ziwen. "Brother Qin, I’d like to stay home tomorrow to catch more fish and shrimp to raise in the channels."

Qin Ziwen teased, "Sure thing. The Earth Cage is here with you, right? Catch a lot tomorrow, Brother Deng. My future supply of fresh river delicacies depends on you."

After leaving Deng Guang’s place, Zhao Pu lowered his voice. "By the way, Mr. Qin, the manager of Building Six, Unit Two, spoke to me about something today."

"What is it?"

"There are rats inside the Alliance Association."

Qin Ziwen’s expression grew guarded. ’Aren’t *you* a manager in the Alliance Association?’

Sensing Qin Ziwen’s stare, Zhao Pu gave a bitter smile. "I’m just a figurehead. The real mid-level managers are the captains who can rally people."

He continued, "The Alliance Association is developing very quickly. It’s mainly because it’s the only large, organized group in the Gated Community at the moment. With the outbreak of this infectious disease, many families have joined. Right now, the Alliance Association has fifteen Hunting Teams alone, and even more gathering teams—nineteen of them. If you add the logistics teams responsible for weaving cages, making simple masks, and drying herbs, we have almost forty teams. And that number is still growing. A single team has ten people. Mr. Qin, you can imagine the scale the Alliance Association has reached."

Hearing this, Qin Ziwen was inwardly shocked. ’The Alliance Association has developed this quickly?’

"At this scale, the food the Alliance Association is able to hunt and gather daily should not only cover its needs but also leave a surplus. After all, we’re in a forest. Resources are quite plentiful here.

And I’ve heard that some homeowners who have Cards have also privately reached agreements with the Alliance Association, selling them some of the resources produced by their Cards at a favorable price. But almost no one inside the Alliance has ever seen these resources, and internal supplies are still frequently in short supply. That is absolutely not normal."

"Who do you think is doing it?"

Zhao Pu said, "Do we even need to guess? Only a few people are capable of pulling this off."

Qin Ziwen found it hard to believe. "Are they morons? After all the hard work to build up the Alliance Association, they pull this kind of self-sabotaging crap?"

Zhao Pu sounded resigned. "There are plenty of people like that. A lot of people aren’t greedy only because they lack the opportunity. The moment they get a chance, their true nature is exposed.

Back when I was at the hospital, we got a new director. The first thing he did after taking office was to make drastic reforms, causing no end of misery and complaints from the staff. Less than half a year later, he was arrested. I heard he embezzled hundreds of millions and was keeping four mistresses on the side. He managed all of that in just those six months."

"So what are you planning to do?"

"Gather evidence first. It’s hard to make a solid case without concrete proof. Food isn’t like other assets. It’s only been a few days; they can’t have consumed much. When the time comes, they can just claim it was being temporarily stored. What could we do to them then?"

The two talked for a while longer, and in the end, Qin Ziwen warned Zhao Pu to be careful.

...

The soggy riverbank.

A group of people walked along the riverbank.

Weeds grew rampant, and the ground was covered in mud that hadn’t fully dried. It was a scene left behind by a flood that had just receded.

Someone stopped in their tracks. "Captain Zheng, I smell a strong scent of blood."

"Isn’t that just the smell of the mud? I don’t smell any blood."

As they were talking, they all suddenly stopped.

They rounded a bend, and ahead of them lay a cove.

The surface of the water was stained red with blood.

On the shore of the cove, seven or eight massive carcasses lay packed together.

"Is that a hippo!?" one of them yelled, pointing to a half-eaten carcass at the edge of the cove, its stark white bones exposed to the air.

The hippo had been dead for who knows how long.

"A hippo, eaten just like that... Who could possibly hunt something like this? Don’t tell me it was a crocodile," someone muttered.

Zheng Yuan’s expression was grave. "Looking at the wounds, it doesn’t seem like the work of a crocodile. Besides, this was a pod of hippos. A typical crocodile wouldn’t dare to provoke them."

"Captain Zheng, look over there! I think there’s something in the water."

Following his team member’s finger, Zheng Yuan looked into the water. Near the hippo carcass, it looked like there were things moving.

The distance was too great and the water’s surface was reflecting the light, so he couldn’t see clearly.

He didn’t dare get a closer look.

Zheng Yuan said decisively, "We’re heading back."

As they were leaving, Zheng Yuan glanced back one last time.

He thought he saw, crawling on the hippo’s carcass, a large, pitch-black creature that looked like a water centipede.

...

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