Ch 1: Opening a Survival School Before the Zombie Outbreak

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We, Hololo translators, started translating because others’ translation works were moving slowly and we wanted to read more novels faster. Now that we have taken on the role ourselves for a couple of years, we have to keep names, terms, and details consistent throughout the whole book, and it has started to feel more like work than pure enjoyment.

Therefore, this translation will not focus too much on smaller details, such as place names or minor terms, so there may be some inconsistencies there. Character names and the main terminology will remain consistent.

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Love,

Thingyan 💋💋💋

Translator/Admin/Editor

…

Late August, the summer heat had yet to fade.

The afternoon sun blazed, bleaching the land in harsh white light.

Greenery filled the campus. Red banners hung among the treetops, the words “Warmly Welcome the Class of 2029” rippling in the breeze.

Yet at this moment, the sounds of luggage being hauled, families saying goodbye, and welcome broadcasts were replaced by piercing screams and desperate cries.

Gray concrete paths were strewn with scattered packages. Students with still-youthful faces fled in all directions. Behind them, countless zombies crawled out of the shadows, staggering toward the nearest clusters of people.

Green-gray skin gleamed with a chilling dead sheen under the sunlight. The living dead threw back their heads and let out roars no human throat should make.

In the chaos, one person slowed by just two steps and was instantly swallowed by the surging mass of corpses.

“Don’t!”

“Help me—”

The next second, the heart-rending cries for help were cut off abruptly.

Song Rushuang, a freshman of Fangzhou University, Class 9999, was desperately swinging the red thermos she had just bought at the campus convenience store at the zombie behind her. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of flesh and blood flying everywhere. Her stomach churned violently.

The zombie horde was still closing in, the wind carrying the stench of rot.

How could this happen?

What on earth was going on?!

Song Rushuang screamed in collapse inside her mind.

For no clear reason, she suddenly recalled the campus broadcast from just minutes ago, the one that had shattered the peaceful atmosphere.

A woman’s voice had come through the loudspeakers, calm and clear, the ending notes slightly drawn out, carrying a lazy lilt. Even blurred by the rough audio quality, it had sounded pleasant to the ear.

But the words themselves were utterly at odds with that casual tone.

“All freshmen, please take note. The first zombie tide simulation drill is about to begin.”

“The assessment duration is one hour.”

“This assessment will affect class placement. Death will result in all points being reset to zero. Please prepare yourselves and do your best to survive.”

“Countdown…”

“Three… two… one. Begin!”

*

One day earlier, on the outskirts of S City.

A tall young woman stood with her arms crossed in front of a sprawling complex of buildings, raising an eyebrow as she examined the wide-open school gates and the straight, tree-lined road stretching inward.

An electronic voice chattered nonstop in her mind.

“Host, this is the default campus location. If you are dissatisfied, you may pay to change it.”

“Student recruitment has been completed nationwide, with a total of 2,400 freshmen. They will arrive to enroll tomorrow.”

“Once naming is complete, the management panel will unlock. You will be able to view and adjust building layouts, current tasks, student information, and more. Additional features may be explored at your discretion.”

After the system finished its introduction, Fu Qing still stood there with her lips pressed tightly together, saying nothing.

Reading the room, the system asked cautiously, “Host, is there something you are dissatisfied with?”

“No,” Fu Qing’s lips moved slightly as she forced the words out through clenched teeth. “I just… ate too much.”

The system fell silent.

After devouring three stuffed pancakes, six skewers of grilled squid, plus two servings of spicy hotpot with cola, how could she not be stuffed?

It forcibly suppressed the urge to complain and let out two crackling electrical noises.

Fu Qing awkwardly lowered her crossed arms, pressing a hand over her stomach, and replayed everything that had happened over the past two hours.

Two hours ago, she had still been fighting zombies in a sunless apocalypse.

An endless sea of corpses stretched to the horizon. Severed limbs piled up beneath her feet. Rotten blood soaked into the soil. Every step she took required wrenching her legs free from the mire with effort.

The weapon in her hands had lost its edge. Her limbs felt as heavy as iron. At some point, utterly exhausted, she collapsed to the ground and watched helplessly as countless gaping, blood-filled mouths lunged toward her. The final thought flickering through her mind was—

Damn, their breath is awful. How long has it been since they brushed their teeth?

Couldn’t one of them at least brush before taking a bite out of her?

When she closed her eyes and opened them again, Fu Qing found herself waking up on a park bench.

Birdsong and flowers surrounded her. A young mother nearby was blowing bubbles with her daughter.

Transparent soap bubbles drifted lazily into the sky, refracting sunlight into rainbow hues, dreamlike and unreal.

Fu Qing stared, stunned.

“Greetings, Host.”

“Congratulations on becoming the final surviving human of the apocalypse. You have been granted a special time-reversal reward.”

“It is now China Time, August 24, Year 9999, 14:30. Welcome back.”

Fu Qing’s mind began to turn mechanically.

Year 9999. The virus had broken out at the end of August in the year 10000 of the Blue Star calendar. That meant there was still one year left.

She was back.

At the end of August, Year 10000, a highly contagious unknown virus erupted, spreading across all continents in an instant. The infected lost their sanity, their senses deteriorated, and their bodies mutated. They displayed extreme violent tendencies and would even actively seek out uninfected living humans to attack.

Everything matched the zombies depicted in films and television, so survivors ignored the long string of official names and simply called it the zombie virus.

The virus spread rapidly and mutated several times along the way, causing shelters to fall. After several critical blows, official authorities completely lost the ability to organize effective resistance.

The number of infected kept rising. The remaining living humans became like rats in the gutters, hiding in the corners of cities, waiting for death to arrive.

Fu Qing survived like that for five full years.

There were fewer and fewer living people around her. Later on, months could pass without encountering another uninfected person.

But she never expected that she would be the one to survive to the very end.

After her death, her homeland would become nothing but a playground for the living dead.

Fu Qing imagined that scene. Her lashes lowered, and she blinked rapidly, unobtrusively.

When she raised her eyes again, her attention was drawn to the snack street nearby.

Half an hour later, with her mouth stuffed full of pancakes, Fu Qing finally had the leisure to listen to the system’s self-introduction.

According to the system, not only was she the last surviving human, she had even outlived the second-to-last person by three months, earning her the “honor” of time reversal.

“This proves that your survival ability, combat capability, and even luck are all top-tier globally, which is why you were given the opportunity to change the future.”

Fu Qing automatically ignored the flattery and swallowed a bite of pancake. “So can you stop the virus from breaking out?”

“Unfortunately, no.”

“Time reversal comes with conditions. The cost is that before the apocalypse arrives, you are unable to warn humanity of this crisis by any means or method.”

“This is stolen time. The outbreak of the virus is its predetermined end.”

Fu Qing fell silent.

The disappointment on her face vanished in an instant, so fast it was as if it had never appeared. She lowered her head to keep eating, quietly calculating what she could do with the coming year.

It was a shame she could not stop the apocalypse, but wasting this year would be worse.

She could still enjoy the final brilliance of human civilization. That alone made her luckier than most.

“But—” the system changed its tone. “Reversal is not without cost. Binding the system means you have tacitly accepted a task.”

“You still have a choice. If you abandon the task, I will send you back to the moment before reversal.”

Fu Qing went quiet.

There was really such a rogue policy?

In her mind flashed once more the foul, reeking mouths of zombies, the loose yellowed teeth with strips of human flesh dangling between them. Her appetite instantly dropped by half.

What kind of choice was this supposed to be?

She looked at the steaming pancake in her hand, her face stiff. “What task? Say it.”

Clang clang clang!

The system’s voice turned cheerful again.

“Allow me to introduce myself. Congratulations on binding the Campus Simulation Management System!”

“Task objective: teach survival skills, cultivate elite combat power, and fully utilize your special abilities and intelligence advantage to establish a fully equipped Survival School before the zombie virus outbreak, becoming humanity’s final refuge!”

“By the way, time remaining until the first wave of infection: 364 days, 23 hours, 35 minutes, and 48 seconds—”

*

The scene returned to the chosen campus site. Fu Qing let out a deep sigh.

Either she sacrificed a precious year of her life to help the system raise kids, over two thousand of them at that, lively, wild, fresh out of the hell that was high school and ready to unleash their nature in college, or she got sent back to be eaten by zombies who had not brushed their teeth in five years, with dried human meat still stuck between them. She honestly could not say which option was more disastrous.

After much deliberation, Fu Qing gritted her teeth and chose the former.

According to the system, the moment these 2,400 freshmen were selected, they were assigned to her faction. In other words, they were no longer bound by the rules. Fu Qing could spoil everything about the future for them.

Of course, like Fu Qing herself, they would be unable to reveal any of it to ordinary people without system assistance.

“One day, when the virus breaks out, a thousand-strong force that thoroughly understands zombie instincts and is well trained will absolutely be the most terrifying power in the apocalypse!”

If the system had a physical form, it would probably be spraying saliva everywhere by now.

Fu Qing, however, remained unmoved. After taking two digestive tablets, she began to survey her surroundings.

Since she had already made her decision, she stopped overthinking and analyzed calmly, recalling the system’s words. “This location is excellent for a school. It’s in the suburbs, far from the densely populated city center. When the virus breaks out, it won’t be hit immediately, and it will be hard for zombie hordes to attack directly in the future.”

Unlike her previous school, which had been right next to a bustling downtown area and even near a historical tourist site. It had been a hell-mode start and fell within days.

In her previous life, Fu Qing had also been an S City native, but this post-reversal world seemed to differ slightly from her original one.

For example, the land beneath her feet. If she remembered correctly, this area had been an abandoned village in her world. A few years ago there had been talk of land reclamation and development, but nothing ever came of it. Every time she passed by, she would see abandoned white walls and black tiles half-hidden in weeds, growing more dilapidated by the year.

Now, a brand-new university campus stood in the sunlight.

Not far away flowed a great river running north to south. In summer, its waters surged endlessly.

Across the river, mountain ranges rose and fell, lush and green with dense vegetation. With mountains and water as natural barriers, zombies would have difficulty approaching. They would only need to focus on defending the side of the school that faced the city.

The mountains were rich in resources. Even if it came down to shortages of food and water, they could sustain survivors for a while.

With access to water nearby, there were natural advantages for both farming and construction. In terms of geography, it was practically a heaven-sent refuge.

This would likely be her base for a long time to come. Taking things as they came, Fu Qing clasped her hands behind her back, leaned forward to look around, and felt very satisfied.

Still, there was one problem. “Even if you say I can ‘spoil’ things, how do you guarantee they’ll believe me?”

Putting herself in their shoes, if she were still an ordinary college student six years ago and someone suddenly jumped out to say, “The apocalypse is coming, run for your lives,” she would probably just tell them to watch fewer zombie movies or kindly suggest they get their head checked at the Fourth Hospital. She would never believe it.

Let alone follow their advice to train her body and spend money stockpiling supplies.

The system was quiet for two seconds. “Host, you are so intelligent. You will surely find a way to solve such a small problem.”

After a pause, it added ingratiatingly, “Of course, due to system restrictions, students cannot withdraw on their own, so you need not worry about that.”

Fu Qing fell silent.

Was that what she was worried about?

If the students decided from the start that the principal was insane, could this school really keep operating at all?

₊˚.🎧📓✩