Chapter 67: Order
Watching the survivors stir restlessly, excited by the food, Lin Fan turned and went back into the supermarket, looking for anything useful.
How to keep them in line and how to distribute the food was Liu Bin’s problem. If he couldn’t handle it, someone else would replace him. In any case, a leader would eventually emerge from these survivors.
Lin Fan just needed to whip that leader into line when necessary. Who it was didn’t really matter to him.
’That stutterer was a piece of work, wasn’t he? A real talent. Too bad that kind of talent is always so prickly. They tend to die young...’
Liu Bin watched Lin Fan slowly walk out of the small courtyard, and his heart sank.
Seeing his moment of hesitation, the eyes of the crowd before him grew even more greedy. Like a dam on the verge of breaking, they surged forward, their raucous shouts drowning out the low growls of the zombies outside the walls.
"Brother Liu, give me an extra share! My wife is still at home waiting for me..."
"First come, first served! I haven’t eaten in two days!"
"Get out of the way! Stop pushing me!"
A few people at the front kept shoving Zhang Ziyi, Wang Zhengyang, and the others who were trying to maintain order. Except for Zhang Ziyi, who had been a soldier, the rest were just ordinary office workers. They had never seen a situation like this.
Unsure of what to do, they all turned to look at Liu Bin, who was standing to the side.
Liu Bin knew that at a time like this, if even one person rushed in, the order would completely collapse.
At that point, forget organizing the survivors; even his own buddies would probably go their separate ways.
He was just a veteran who had stepped up for his own survival and out of some small sense of justice in his heart, but he was no savior.
But then, he remembered that figure—the one who had walked alone into the horde of zombies, single-handedly clearing a safe haven for everyone.
’If someone like that is fighting to survive, what right do I have to hesitate here?’
Liu Bin took a deep breath, his eyes wide with anger. He slammed the crowbar in his hand against the warehouse’s iron door with a loud CLANG.
He mustered all his strength and let out a roar:
"Everyone, shut the fuck up!"
The sound was like a sudden clap of thunder, instantly overpowering all the noise. The commotion in the crowd halted, and everyone turned to look at the furious man.
He took a step forward, drawing on his memories from his time in the army, recalling how his platoon leader used to curse people out. His gaze swept over everyone like a blade:
"I know everyone is hungry! Everyone is desperate!"
"I’m hungry too! I’ve only eaten one pack of instant noodles in the last two days!"
"But if you just rush in and grab whatever you can, and the food gets spilled, trampled, and wasted, who’s going to take responsibility!"
"We have to distribute the supplies rationally so we can last until rescue arrives, or until we have the ability to leave this place!"
"If you want to live, you need rules! You need order!"
He held up three fingers.
"First, we distribute by headcount! One share of food for every living person! No one gets to take more!"
"Second, you line up to receive it! Everyone back up outside the courtyard. My group will be in charge of registration and distribution! Anyone who dares to cut in line, snatch food, or waste supplies is an enemy to us all!"
"Third, those who contribute get an extra share! The people who helped us saw the door, push the cart, and drag the bodies each get one extra portion!"
"But from now on, when we organize to clear buildings, move bodies, gather supplies, and collect rainwater, only those who work will get food! We’re at a point of life and death; we don’t have extra food to feed freeloaders!"
The crowd listened to Liu Bin’s three proposals. They were practical, and at the very least, fair.
They gradually fell silent, the clamorous shouting turning into a low hum.
Just then, a voice shouted from the crowd:
"Why should we listen to you? Who the hell do you think you are? This stuff belongs to everyone, it’s not yours!"
"Yeah! Just because you say it’s yours, it’s yours? Why didn’t you come out and act tough when the stutterer and his gang were holding this place?"
Another person nearby also started to jeer.
Liu Bin’s face instantly turned ashen. He clenched his fists, not knowing what to do. ’I can’t just beat these two up in front of everyone. How would that make me any different from the stutterer...?’
The key was that Lin Fan’s attitude was unclear, so Liu Bin was at a loss for what to do.
Just as the scene was about to erupt into chaos again,
"Ahem..."
A voice sounded from the back of the crowd.
It was Lin Fan.
Everyone instinctively turned at the sound. Upon seeing that figure, they all shut their mouths. The entire courtyard fell silent in an instant, leaving only the low growls of the zombies outside the walls.
Lin Fan was satisfied enough with Liu Bin’s plan, as it would at least maintain basic order among these people. ’No issues. It’s fine.’
So he said nothing, merely walking silently through the crowd to Liu Bin’s side.
He scanned the crowd, his gaze not lingering on the two troublemakers.
Then he took the short spear in his hand—still sticky with dark red blood and grayish-white brain matter—and tapped it lightly on the ground.
A dull THUD echoed, as if striking everyone in the heart.
The two who had been jeering earlier turned deathly pale. Without a single word, Lin Fan’s presence alone had already answered their questions.
Without him, not a single person here could have gotten out of the building.
Without him, the stutterer and his gang wouldn’t have shared a single bite of food.
Without him, these people couldn’t even have opened this door.
Seeing them all silent, Lin Fan saw no need to ask "Who agrees? Who objects?"
Instead, he simply lifted Liu Bin’s hand and unfolded another one of his fingers.
"Fourth, for the bottled water from the water station, each person can only take one jug. We’ll decide when to distribute more later."
"Carry it out..."
With that, he turned and walked away. Wherever he went, the crowd silently parted, clearing a path.
It wasn’t until he had left the courtyard that the crowd looked back at Liu Bin and noticed the short spear standing there quietly. From that seemingly light tap, the steel pipe had plunged straight into the concrete-brick ground...
A fragile but effective new order was born.
The food here was enough for these people to survive for some time.
If Liu Bin could really organize people to clear the buildings, then grains like rice and flour would not be in short supply.
After all, at this rate, the number of survivors in the entire residential complex wouldn’t exceed a hundred people...
But clean water, to a certain extent, was a non-renewable resource.
Unless they dug a well, they wouldn’t dare drink the surface water available now, even if it was boiled.
That’s why Lin Fan had to control the supply of this bottled water.
There were at least a hundred jugs here. At 20 liters per jug, and assuming 4 liters per person per day, it would be enough for 100 people to drink for a week.
Plus, with the mineral water they got from the gas station, he and his own group wouldn’t be short on water.
Lin Fan walked over to the RV and patted the door, signaling for Chu Zhaotian to drive it back.
As for himself, he grabbed a large power strip he had found in the supermarket and followed the RV back home.
He had found a large roll of electrical wire in the gas station warehouse earlier. It was perfect for connecting to the power strip to run electricity from the RV to his apartment upstairs.