Jing Shu frowned deeply, the phone cold against her ear. Truth be told, she had been worrying about steel bars and wire mesh these past few days, their absence a nagging hole in her defensive plans.
In her previous life, struggling day to day, she had never had the foresight or means to stockpile large amounts of these construction materials. She only knew from fragmented memory that around this time, every household with any resources was frantically installing security bars and reinforcing doors with steel plates, causing the prices of rebar and mesh to skyrocket in the black markets. By the time she realized she needed them in this life, the factories had already been shuttered for months, stripped bare.
She had even considered simply stealing some from abandoned construction sites or warehouses but found every major factory and storage yard picked clean, not a scrap left. That was when the cold realization hit her, all strategic supplies, steel, copper, fuel, bulk chemicals, had long been quietly seized and centrally stored by the government or military for large scale emergency projects and fortifications.
After all, there was a standing law stating that during declared national crises, local governments had the right to requisition all privately held strategic materials for public welfare and defense. The notice had probably scrolled past on the news months ago, unremarked upon by most.
At least half of Wu City's police and auxiliary forces were likely tied up in these logistics and security operations. Otherwise, how could she explain why everything she suddenly needed was gone, and why the armed police and SWAT teams had mysteriously vanished from regular patrols, their commanders claiming that catching ordinary criminals was "no longer their primary jurisdiction" in the new directives?
And then there was the case of Heng Jin, the young master from a wealthy family who had become the unofficial logistics king of Wu City even before the apocalypse. Over the past half year of societal collapse, according to his social media, he was somehow busier than Jing Shu herself, constantly on the move.
Three months ago, the entire express delivery and logistics industry had suddenly been consolidated into a single, massive state owned enterprise. Giants like SF Express, China Post, and Cainiao became the administrative leaders managing all other smaller delivery companies, and soon after, all private, independent logistics services disappeared entirely from the market.
Even Alipay's popular credit services, Huabei and Jiebei, had ceased operations without fanfare. Jack Ma, it was rumored, had quietly shifted his focus and investments elsewhere, into survivalist tech and sustainable energy.
Wanda's Wang Jianlin, still publicly burdened with hundreds of billions in debt, remained a towering, un toppled figure. If such a giant truly fell, countless associated businesses and jobs would be crushed, so it was in the state's interest to ensure he was still supplied with the best resources to maintain stability. His son Wang Congsi even grandly announced on social media that he had personally established dozens of "Wang Congsi's Secret Granaries" across the country, stocked and ready to be opened to the public in truly desperate times.
People across China sighed in mingled awe and bitterness. Seeing Wang Congsi still able to squander resources and make such flamboyant gestures was proof enough that his father was still immensely wealthy and connected, cushioned from the worst.
In her previous life, Jing Shu had been too busy trying to survive, to find the next meal, to notice any of these macro economic and political shifts. In this life, with a measure of security, she began to see the signs clearly, many industry giants and tycoons had received early warnings or possessed the insight to switch industries in time, and were now carving out new, essential slices of the apocalyptic economic pie.
In her WeChat fitness feed, which still functioned intermittently, Heng Jin was always in first place on the step count leaderboard, consistently logging over twenty thousand steps per day, an astonishing feat when most people were confined to their homes. When asked in comments what he was doing, his answer was always the same, vague yet telling, Delivering goods, unloading shipments, fulfilling orders.
Even in the depths of the apocalypse, why was a logistics guy so busy? Who was still placing large orders, and for what?
Now, holding the phone, Jing Shu finally understood. Real power, real resource networks, always remained concentrated in the hands of the top three percent, and they were busy restructuring the world from the ashes.
"Hello? Hello? Jing Shu, are you still there?" The anxious, strained voice on the other end of the line interrupted her racing thoughts.
"Alright," Jing Shu said, her voice decisive. "Send me your precise location. I'll come get you." She didn't ask for details, the sounds in the background were explanation enough.
She immediately grabbed her pre packed medical kit, bandages, rubbing alcohol, hemostatic powder, and strong antibiotics, and hurried out to the energy car, setting off for Wu City County, thirty kilometers to the east. The roads were eerily empty, the usual checkpoints abandoned.
Wang Dazhao lay deathly pale on a stained mattress in a closed down roadside motel, the room smelling of mildew and blood. He was groaning faintly through clenched teeth. His right shoulder down to his collarbone was split open by a deep, jagged cleaver wound, the bone visible in the gash. Blood had soaked through the thin mattress and pooled in a dark, sticky puddle on the concrete floor. When Jing Shu pushed open the broken door, guided by Wang Qiqi's frantic wave, Wang Dazhao was close to shock, his lips blue, but he still forced his eyes open at the sound of footsteps.
The first thing Wang Dazhao said to Jing Shu, his voice a papery whisper, was, "Save me. I thought I killed them all, but one… one got away. I have to kill him myself." He panted heavily, each breath a wet rattle, speaking in broken, agonized sentences. "I got my revenge… mostly. This life… if I live… it's yours now."
Wang Qiqi paced in a tight, panicked circle nearby, wringing his hands. "Every hospital and clinic is out of medicine, out of everything! The blade's still lodged right next to his artery! Pulling it out is certain death! You should… you should say some last words, Wang Dazhao. I'll avenge you properly, I swear. Let's at least try to get you home. I have some basic medicine there. We can try taking it to that retired army doctor, see if he'll help…"
Wang Dazhao gave a bitter, blood flecked smile. "Without my wife and daughter… it's not a home anymore. Just a tomb. If I die here… don't waste your life avenging me. Live."
"This wound will kill him long before we get back to the city," Jing Shu stated flatly, kneeling beside the bed and opening her kit. "Let me handle it." Without ceremony, she dropped the bag and tore open Wang Dazhao's blood soaked shirt in one swift, ruthless motion, exposing the ghastly injury.
"Hey! Hey, Jing Shu, what are you doing?!" Wang Qiqi rushed forward, hands outstretched as if to stop her. "You can't just pull that knife out! Look at the size of the wound! We need surgical clamps and sutures, proper tools!"
Jing Shu ignored him completely, her focus absolute.
"You said this life is mine now if I save it," she said, her voice low and direct, looking into Wang Dazhao's glazing eyes. "So take better care of it from now on." She pried his mouth open, ignoring his weak resistance, and poured in a single, precious drop of undiluted Spirit Spring water from a hidden vial, followed by a mix of powdered hemostatic agents and antibiotics, then forced a sip of clean water from her canteen down his throat. Before either man could fully react, she wrapped her hand around the cleaver's handle, took a firm stance, and yanked the embedded blade out in one smooth, brutal motion. Blood, held back by the pressure of the metal, sprayed in a hot arc across Wang Qiqi's face and the wall.
"It's over," Wang Qiqi thought in despair, his stomach lurching as Wang Dazhao arched off the bed with a raw, guttural scream of agony.
But within minutes, as Wang Qiqi watched in stunned disbelief, Jing Shu worked with speed and a strange, practiced confidence. She packed the deep wound with hemostatic gauze, applied direct, unflinching pressure until the pulsing flow slowed to an ooze, then swiftly cleaned and dressed it, binding the entire shoulder and chest with tight, professional bandages. "Done. Help me get him to the car. Let's go."
Wang Qiqi stared, frozen in place, mechanically swallowing a mouthful of coppery tasting blood that had sprayed onto his lips. "It's… done? How did you stop the bleeding so fast? It clearly severed something major. He should have bled out in seconds."
"Caught the vessel off guard, clamped it with the gauze pressure," Jing Shu said calmly, as if discussing a minor repair. It was a lie, of course, the Spirit Spring water was already working, stimulating cellular regeneration and constricting blood vessels at an unnatural rate. "Help me lift him. Take him to your place to recover. Keep him hidden. Once he's healed, after he finishes his business with the one who got away, I still have tasks for him."
Her eyes narrowed as she looked at the unconscious but now steadily breathing Wang Dazhao. Jing Shu had lived through ten years of apocalypse, often eating her meager meals while watching people die around her, some from rampant illness, some from the cold, some simply abandoned in the snow during forced migrations. She never developed the habit of playing savior to everyone like some mythical Hua Tuo. Death was an everyday, unremarkable occurrence.
But if saving Wang Dazhao, a man hollowed out by grief and hardened by vengeance, could earn his absolute loyalty, his skills, and his willingness to do the dark, necessary jobs, she was willing to invest the resources and take the risk. She needed someone for certain tasks that were beyond her family. If he later disappointed her, or proved unstable, she could always reclaim the life she'd given him. The calculus was cold, but clear.
Before they left the motel room, Wang Qiqi, ever thoughtful, carefully spread layers of old, yellowed newspapers he found in a corner over the backseat of Jing Shu's energy car. "Didn't want to dirty your car with… all this," he explained weakly, gesturing to their blood stained clothes. "Found some paper."
Wang Qiqi was detail oriented and good at handling people and logistics, which was why he had maintained connections even at the shuttered steel processing plant. He had even managed to secure a small batch of rebar for Jing Shu as promised, though not nearly the amount she envisioned.
At the plant later, seeing the massive, idle cutting and bending machinery covered in dust, Jing Shu proposed a new idea, manufacturing heavy, spiked steel plates that could be buried or deployed as area denial weapons. She also discovered rolls of heavy duty rebar mesh in a storage shed, the sight of which gave her a strong, visceral sense of security.
Ultimately, after negotiation, Jing Shu traded a single, live black pig, a treasure beyond price, for steel bars and mesh that would have been worth tens of thousands of yuan before the apocalypse. From this material, the remaining workers at the plant, paid in food, produced five heavy spiked steel plates and a large section of steel mesh designed to span the villa's courtyard entrance.
Of course, the pig's value far exceeded the metal. As part of the unspoken bargain, Jing Shu also commissioned the craftsmen to forge a true, medieval style spiked mace. Due to their limited tooling and time, the mace and its spiked head were made separately, designed to connect via a heavy internal latch and pin.
The mace head itself was a fearsome thing, an oval steel sphere densely welded with twenty centimeter long, sharpened steel spikes. Its destructive power against unarmored humans would be terrifying.
The benefit of the modular design was its versatility. Separated, the handle could become a solid steel cudgel, or, with the addition of a chain, the spiked head could be turned into a flail.
The entire assembled mace weighed approximately 52 kilograms, about the same as Jing Shu's own body weight. It was a bit heavy for her to wield fluidly now, but without the spiked head attached, the steel shaft alone felt just right, a solid and balanced weapon.
Jing Shu's strength was still growing, fed by the Spirit Spring. She believed it wouldn't be long before she could fully wield this brutal instrument. With her unnatural strength, the spiked mace would be the best way to maximize her advantage in close combat, to deliver overwhelming, armor defeating force.
After several days of overseeing the work and making multiple trips, Jing Shu finally brought all the finished products home. Jing An and Grandpa Jing immediately started on the final modifications, welding the mesh into frames, setting the spiked plates into prepared holes near the gate.
On the morning of May 16th, as a light, unseasonal drizzle fell, Wang Dazhao, his right arm in a sling but his color much improved, came to the villa gate. He stood stiffly, then bowed deeply from the waist, ignoring the pain in his shoulder. "You saved my life that day in that hellhole. I've gotten my final revenge. The last one is gone. From now on," he said, his voice rough but clear, "this life is yours. The debt is paid, but the life is yours to command."
===
Hua Tuo was a real historical figure from the late Eastern Han period, and he later became almost mythic in Chinese culture. People talk about him the way you might talk about an impossible standard of a healer who can fix anything.
A legendary physician
Hua Tuo is remembered as a brilliant doctor who could diagnose illnesses with uncanny accuracy. Stories say he could cure things no one else could, even conditions that would normally mean certain death.
Creator of miraculous techniques
He is often credited with inventing an early form of anesthesia made from herbal medicine. In tales and later novels, he could perform major surgeries that seemed centuries ahead of his time.
Symbol of the perfect healer
Because of how impressive his skills seemed, later storytellers turned him into a symbol of the doctor who never fails.