Ch 15: Opening a Survival School Before the Zombie Outbreak

Burdened with worry, Song Rushuang lay back down. She dozed for another hour before getting up to wash and head out for morning exercise.

After finishing her run, she opened social media and searched the keywords “R Country” and “XX Mountain Scenic Area.”

There were no new results yet. The media outlets that usually reposted foreign news either had not received the information or were still translating it.

Left with no choice, Song Rushuang ate breakfast and returned to the dorm to work on her stockpiling class assignment.

It was Saturday. Many local students had gone home, and others had made plans to head into the city to shop. The dormitory building was lively with students coming and going, a rare moment of indulgence after a week of discipline.

By noon, Zhang Han could not hold out any longer. She shoved aside the draft paper on her desk covered in zombie anatomy sketches and, threatening death in exaggerated fashion, “invited” her two roommates to accompany her into the city.

Seeing the look on her face like she was about to go insane from studying, Shen Qingqing agreed with a suppressed laugh. Song Rushuang, her mind heavy with thoughts, also wanted to clear her head.

The three quickly reached an agreement and boarded the bus outside the south gate heading toward downtown S City.

*

Old Liu was the driver of Bus Route K-713.

This line started at the foot of West Mountain and ran all the way to the city center. Usually there were hardly any passengers at the first stop, only the occasional villager heading into town to buy things. But this time, as soon as the bus reached Fengqing Village Station, a whole crowd flooded on board.

Young faces brimming with student energy, chattering nonstop.

“Finally free!”

“Don’t even mention it. We still have to come back tonight to check in for the night run. Managed to last a whole week, can’t break the streak now.”

“Only one bus per hour. Not to complain, but our school is seriously remote, isn’t it?”

Old Liu stared, stunned, and instinctively glanced at the roadside sign.

At some point, the Fengqing Village sign had been changed to “Fangzhou University South Gate.”

He had driven this route for over a decade. When had the stop name been changed?

Rubbing his eyes, he looked toward the distance and indeed saw a school gate. “Strange. It really did turn into a school.”

Though called Fengqing Village, it was only the original site. The entire village had relocated to a resettlement area years ago, leaving the old place abandoned. At night, wild cats howled, and it felt like a ghost village.

Yet this well known haunted spot had overnight transformed into rows of brand new teaching buildings.

“They’ve already started recruiting students? How come nobody mentioned such a big deal…”

Muttering to himself, Old Liu did not think much of it and turned back to watch the students scan their fare codes.

Then he noticed something else off.

Nearly every student boarding the bus was limping, like they had just climbed Mount Tai. When stepping up onto the bus, some had to manually lift their own legs. Even his eighty year old mother at home moved more nimbly than they did.

Several boys had bruised and swollen mouths, raised cheekbones, and scraped knuckles. Old Liu had been rough in his youth, and at a glance his expression sharpened: something was not right about this group.

After the boys, a group of girls got on. At an age when they should have been full of youthful fragrance, they carried not perfume but the smell of medicated patches.

…Even the girls were fighting?

Old Liu’s hand, which had been inching toward the emergency button, quietly paused. Watching them suspiciously, he smacked his fist into his palm and suddenly understood. “Oh, you’re from a sports school, right?”

The bus fell silent for a second, then burst into laughter.

“Ahahaha, yeah!”

“You figured it out, driver! Sharp eyes!”

Old Liu laughed along. “Sports school is good. Bring honor to the country someday. Maybe one of you will become an Olympic champion, and I’ll share in the good fortune.”

“Mm, mm, thanks for the blessing…”

They traded jokes for a while before several boys rushed onto the bus at the last moment. “Yes! Made it!”

The one in front wiped sweat from his bangs, swiped his bus card three times, and waved his roommates on board. One of the roommates, face tense and clearly still preoccupied, found a standing spot and could not wait to resume the earlier argument.

“I told you from the start, stabbing straight at the eyes is not reliable. What if you slip and get bitten? The eyes are so small. How can you be sure the dagger will go in precisely?”

Inside the bus: “……”

Old Liu: “……”

Roommate C said, “Exactly! I said you should cut the tendons in the hands and feet first. Disable its mobility. After that, you can do whatever you want with it!”

The boy who had swiped the card replied, “Leaving aside whether that’s feasible, how do you even know where the tendons are?!”

Roommate B scoffed. “You obviously did not pay attention in theory class. The anatomy diagrams. Did you bring them? I’ll point it out for you…”

The three argued fiercely, unaware that the once lively bus had fallen into an eerie silence.

It was not until Boy A actually began rummaging through his bag for anatomy diagrams that a nearby student finally could not stand it and stepped hard on his foot.

He yelped. “Who! Who stepped on me!”

Spinning in place and failing to find the culprit, he followed the direction of his classmates’ pointing fingers and finally noticed the driver’s back at the front of the bus.

The half bald back of Old Liu’s head looked indescribably stiff. He had hunched his shoulders, seemingly trying to shrink his presence to nothing.

Boy: “……”

The air froze.

Weakly, he opened his mouth. “If I say right now that we are actually a legitimate school, is it still salvageable?”

A random classmate muttered, “I think the principal is about to silence you.”

“Cherish your last moments.”

“+1.”

“+1.”

Boy: “……”

Boy: “Please, not that!!”

*

On the way to the city, Old Liu delivered the most stable driving performance of his entire career.

He resolved to warn his colleagues as soon as he returned to the depot. Anyone heading toward West Mountain needed to be careful. Today he had transported a bus full of vicious criminals!

They specialized in stabbing eyeballs and cutting tendons at the slightest provocation. Terrifying.

Had the anti crime crackdown somehow skipped this area back then?

Thanks to the tension, Song Rushuang did not feel carsick at all as she stared at her phone the whole way.

At five in the afternoon, a media outlet finally reposted foreign news, mentioning that a violent incident had occurred at a famous scenic viewing platform in R Country. A Chinese tourist had been caught up in it and was currently not out of life threatening danger.

Few people were paying attention. There were not many comments, most reminding everyone to be cautious when traveling abroad and never to crowd around fights.

Song Rushuang searched for several more reports. None mentioned the attacker being mentally unstable or any unknown epidemic emerging.

Perhaps she really had overthought it. Maybe it was just an accident triggered by a dispute.

Yet inexplicably, she once again recalled the young man straddling the unconscious victim, pounding downward in mechanical repetition like kneading rice cake.

For the first time, she understood that life did not slip away in silence.

It sounded like “thud. Thud. Thud.”

【Violent Group Fight at Famous Scenic Spot in R Country, Three Dead and One Injured! Chinese Tourist in Critical Condition】

Fu Qing’s phone received a news notification. She glanced down at it, not paying much attention.

Three lives lost. For the individuals involved, enough to tear a family apart. But on a global scale, such incidents happened countless times every day.

Not to mention, this one had occurred abroad.

Separated by tens of thousands of miles, it only garnered a bit of online discussion because of the scenic spot’s fame. Many tourists who had recently visited expressed lingering fear, while some keyboard warriors sneered that those middle aged and elderly tourists always loved to crowd around spectacles wherever they went and had only dragged themselves into trouble. “Serves them right.”

[Young people don’t need to worry. This has nothing to do with us.]

[That’s not fair. They’re still our compatriots. You’re too cold.]

[By the way, does anyone else feel like there’s been more bloodshed lately? This is the fourth one I’ve seen today.]

[Two of the other three were mass shootings in Country A… isn’t that basically normal there? (dog head)]

[But one was in China too. Pretty terrifying. A home invasion robbery, two dead.]

Suddenly a new comment popped up.

[Damn damn damn, there’s another one! Check the trending list. Random stabbing in a downtown area. The attacker was shot dead on the spot. Six dead, eleven injured!]

The moment the comment appeared, netizens who had felt detached because the earlier incident happened overseas immediately exploded.

[What’s going on? I’m going to check.]

[So scary. It happened right downstairs from my building. The whole place is full of crying. I can hear it from the 24th floor… contacting relatives now. Please let my family be safe.]

[Oh my god… what’s happening lately? Is it just dry weather making tempers flare?]

[The death toll has risen again. Prayers for the victims.]

Finally it was Fu Qing’s turn in line. She picked up the milk tea she had ordered online, slid a straw in with one hand, and scrolled through the comment section with the other, frowning.

Then she looked up at her surroundings.

This was a large commercial district. On a weekend evening, it was at its busiest, crowds surging shoulder to shoulder. Young men and women dressed stylishly lined up outside trendy shops. Not far away, in the open air plaza, children bounced high on trampolines, stretching out their hands as if trying to touch the lights glowing from the tall buildings above.

Peaceful. Harmonious. Not the slightest abnormality.

After spending so long in the apocalypse, Fu Qing had almost forgotten this feeling. In the internet age, that was how it was. The moment you took out your phone in the middle of a crowd, you felt a sharp sense of disconnection.

The fear online, the bloodshed dominating the trending lists, seemed not to have seeped into most people’s lives at all.

Across half of China, while victims’ families wept in grief, people in S City were still enjoying their weekend.

Fu Qing had only been browsing while waiting in line. After getting her milk tea, she put her phone away.

She moved through the crowd toward a food street next to the shopping plaza.

Compared to the brightly lit, tastefully decorated shops inside the mall, she preferred the small roadside eateries shrouded in smoke and firelight. Tables and chairs spilled onto the sidewalk. Dishes were announced with loud shouts. The owners were enthusiastic, the customers casual. It was the kind of vivid human world rarely seen after the apocalypse.

As she approached the entrance to the food street, the system issued a reminder.

【Detected: 16 Fangzhou University students nearby.】

After hearing the system’s hint yesterday, Fu Qing had gone out early that morning.

It was the first weekend since school began, and the first time students were allowed to leave campus. Perhaps some special event would be triggered.

She had deliberately come to this crowded commercial district and, as expected, encountered students out enjoying their weekend.

On campus, every move the students made was within Fu Qing’s sight. That was how she had discovered the supposedly covert actions of the 21 students who were expelled.

Of course, she was not so bored as to monitor them constantly.

With the system’s initial screening, only abnormal behavior would be pushed to her.

But once they left campus, the system could only sense their locations, not their specific actions.

It would merely send her a reminder when she came within a 300 meter radius.

It was dinner time. The food street was packed. Fu Qing opened the system map. The glowing dots representing students were scattered in small groups among the roadside eateries.

She was just about to pick a random place to sit when her vision suddenly flashed white and a notification window popped up.

【Triggered: Special Event “Bloody Barbecue Shop”】

【Description: On a rare weekend off, students leave campus to relax, only to encounter a sudden incident and nearly become involved in a violent conflict. As principal, protecting students’ safety is your duty!】

【Requirement: Escort students safely away from the dangerous location (Incomplete)】

【Reward: 200 Teaching Points】

A violent conflict?

Fu Qing thought of the recent barrage of social news and felt her heart sink.

Opening the map, she saw several glowing dots clustered less than a hundred meters away in a shop called “Have Some Barbecue.”

*

“Have Some Barbecue” was a well known trendy barbecue spot in the area.

A newly built two story structure, brightly lit every evening. In the courtyard stood an outdoor canopy. In one corner was a stage with sound equipment. Occasionally singers performed live. If customers felt like it, they could go up and sing a couple of songs themselves. It was popular among artsy youths.

But at this moment, the refined courtyard of the internet famous shop was a mess.

Tables and chairs lay overturned. Broken beer bottles littered the ground.

Several Fangzhou students stood shoulder to shoulder, shielding a girl behind them.

The girl knelt on the ground, bending over a snow white Samoyed in her arms, sobbing uncontrollably. “Baby, hang in there. Mommy called a car. We’re going to the hospital soon.”

“Damn it, it’s just a dog. You really treat it like your son.”

A few drunken middle aged men stood opposite the students. Their short sleeved undershirts were lifted, exposing the fat around their bellies. Two of them had tattoos across their backs. Their fierce appearance had already scared off several bystanders who had tried to step in. In the end, only these just turned adults stood stiff necked in front of the girl.

The leading man held an empty beer bottle and spat heavily on the ground. “If you don’t leave the dog behind, nobody’s leaving today.”

“I told you already, you tripped. It had nothing to do with Maomao!” the girl cried.

Seeing the man’s eyes turn sharp, Qin Yufei quickly stepped forward half a step.

“What are you doing! No fighting!”

As he spoke, his gaze could not help but fall on the beer bottle in the man’s hand.

He gripped the neck of the bottle. The base had been smashed against something. The jagged edge still carried fresh blood.

Qin Yufei knew it was the Samoyed’s blood.

Five minutes earlier, he and a roommate had been lining up at the barbecue shop when they ran into two female classmates from Fangzhou. The four of them decided to share a table. The outdoor area allowed pets. At the neighboring table, a girl had a particularly adorable Samoyed on a leash, its fluffy fur like a dandelion, clearly well cared for.

Halfway through the meal, the girls could not resist reaching out to pet it.

Samoyeds were known for being friendly. This one, named Maomao, was no exception.

Throughout the meal, it had sat obediently at its owner’s feet, pink tongue hanging out, letting the girls pet it. The corners of its mouth curved upward, living up to its nickname of “smiling angel.”

Aside from them, there was another table of middle aged men in the courtyard. They had been drinking for who knew how long. Empty pale green beer bottles piled at their feet. One of them, thoroughly drunk, stood up to go sing. Before he could reach the stage, he tripped over tangled wires on the ground.

His companions burst into laughter.

Perhaps embarrassed, the first thing he did after getting up was look around. When he saw the dog leash near Maomao’s feet, his face instantly twisted in fury.

Before the dog’s owner could react, a beer bottle exploded against the Samoyed’s head.

Qin Yufei and the other three froze in shock. Amid the girl’s scream, they leapt to their feet.

And the confrontation had become what it was now.

“If you’ve got the guts, check the surveillance footage! It had nothing to do with Maomao!”

The girl’s hair stuck to her tear streaked face as she used her whole body to shield the collapsed dog.

A staff member from “Have Some Barbecue,” who had initially come over to see what was happening, quickly glanced at the tattooed men and distanced himself. “Our surveillance is broken. Hasn’t been fixed yet. You call the police and handle it yourselves.”

On a Saturday night, traffic near the commercial street was heavily congested. The car the girl had called was probably stuck in the jam. The men were already growing impatient.

The leader raised his bottle. “Mind your own business. I’m slaughtering this dog today. Treating a dog like a son, lawless, disrupting social order! If your parents didn’t teach you, I will. People are people. Dogs are dogs. If a dog offends a person, it dies.”

The Fangzhou students had only trained for a week. They had some basic combat techniques, but they had never fought an armed group.

They could only hold their ground, trying not to let their momentum falter.

On the surface they put on a brave face, but their bodies told a different story.

【Warning! Elevated heart rate detected outside of exercise state】

【Current heart rate: 114 bpm】

【Are you encountering an emergency?】

【You may choose to notify the nearest wristband holders】

Qin Yufei caught the alert that popped up on his wristband. His first reaction was to blush: Why was his heart rate so high? He was definitely worked up, not scared!

If he could not handle a few bastards who only knew how to bully the weak and had to call for backup, that would be humiliating…

“Wait, what the hell, you can call people over?”

Qin Yufei’s inner monologue cut off mid-thought. He stared in shock as the roommate beside him, moving faster than the eye could follow, slammed the emergency button.

Then, trying to look casual, he secretly showed the expression of someone who had finally exhaled in relief.

A message labeled 【A Fangzhou student nearby has issued an emergency call for help】 was immediately transmitted to every student wristband within a 500 meter radius, complete with the exact address.

According to the system settings, the distress signal would be sent first to students closer by. If there was no response, or if there were no Fangzhou students within 500 meters, the range would expand to 1 km, 2 km, 5 km…

Until it found someone willing to respond.

……

Halfway through their meal, the three girls from Girls’ Dorm 1111 were startled by the urgent vibrations. Seeing the message, they shot to their feet.

“A classmate is calling for help!”

“What does this mean? Someone from our school is in danger?”

From the next table came two voices crying out in unison.

Song Rushuang and the other two froze, pushed aside the potted greenery divider in the middle of the hotpot restaurant, and saw that the two people at the neighboring table were staring in confusion at identical black watches on their wrists.

Their eyes met. The signal was correct. Rescue first.

Before leaving, Zhang Han summoned the fastest fingers of her life to pay both tables’ bills. She even remembered to shout to the waiter, “We’re coming back to finish eating later! Don’t clear the soup base or that plate of duck blood, okay, don’t you dare take it away aaaaa—”

By the end, her voice had already turned the corner with her and vanished at the street intersection.

Waiter: “……”

When the five of them arrived, they found the situation far graver than they had imagined.

Song Rushuang and Shen Qingqing did not even have time to ask what was going on. They immediately took position beside Qin Yufei, helping him hold the line for their classmates.

Behind Qin Yufei, the two girls seized the moment to shout for help: “Save the dog!”

Teacher Hao had said: in an emergency, the shorter and clearer the command, the better.

The two who had come with Song Rushuang followed their gaze to the injured dog, exchanged a look, and without another word, hoisted the Samoyed and ran.

A week of training, daily 5 km runs plus the chasing drills in P.E. class, had not necessarily built much else, but it had made their legs exceptionally quick.

And these two seemed especially gifted, recovering early from the usual post-training soreness. Their retreating backs carried a kind of enviable agility.

Before the drunken men could even react, the two were already weaving through the night market’s dense obstacles, the dog on their shoulders, and disappeared.

Drunken man: “???”

He had seen people call for backup in a brawl, but he had never seen the backup arrive and immediately steal the dog.

While their attention was fixed on the two “dog thieves” slash rescuers, Zhang Han sneaked to the corner like a thief, picked up a brick, and held it in her hands.

When Fu Qing arrived, this was the scene she saw.

Some were stealing the dog. Some were bluffing. And someone, in the chaos, had armed herself with an illegal weapon, apparently preparing to send herself straight into the police station and, after getting out, welcome the apocalypse on schedule.

Fu Qing’s eyelid twitched.

The drunk men had long since realized these were baby-faced students. They were not afraid at all. Seeing a few more young girls come to help, they laughed with open contempt. “Little girls should go home and play with dolls. Don’t meddle.”

Song Rushuang silently clenched her fists.

She suddenly remembered the feel of driving shards from a thermos into zombie flesh. Somehow, it gave her a little extra courage. Without a word, she stepped up beside Qin Yufei, refusing to yield.

Seeing them refuse to take the bait, the drunken man’s eyes filled with anger and disdain, a sense of being looked down on rising within him. “You little—”

Song Rushuang’s body tensed. Her gaze flicked past them, and suddenly froze.

“I’m their principal. Do you have business with my students?”

A hand came to rest on the drunken man. The calm voice slipped in like a slanting breeze, cutting through the stagnant air in the courtyard.

“If you have something to say, you can say it to me.”

As she spoke, Fu Qing turned and gave Zhang Han a look.

Zhang Han sheepishly set the brick down.

“Principal?” The drunken man turned to look at her, as if he had heard a joke. With his flushed face, he made an exaggerated circle toward his companions, his brows and eyes shouting: Did you hear what she just said?

His cronies roared with laughter, failing to notice that the students at the side had begun to wear expressions of secondhand embarrassment.

The students, who had been standing straight and refusing to retreat even an inch, quietly stepped back.

They gauged the distance, then took another step back.

When the drunken leader turned around, he saw the sudden empty space in front of him. Alcohol dulled his reactions. Squinting, he said, “What, scared now?”

Fu Qing thought for a moment. “I think they might just have a sharper instinct for danger than you do.”

“What danger?” The man started to laugh again. “You think you—”

Bang!!

A table stood diagonally nearby, left behind by the crowd that had just scattered. The man’s hair at the back of his head was grabbed, and with a tremendous force his body was slammed sideways, his face smashing hard onto the tabletop.

The impact made everyone watching flinch.

He was stunned senseless. When he lifted his head, two streams of blood burst from his nose like faucets.

He snapped back, furious. “I—”

Bang!!

A second crash.

“If you don’t know how to talk, you can also choose not to.”

With one hand gripping the short hair at the back of his head, Fu Qing forced him to lift his face. With the other, she patted his cheek in a friendly, almost gentle way.

When she let go, the man’s vision went dark and he collapsed bonelessly beside the table. He had clearly lost consciousness. His bloated body had, just moments ago, been lifted with one hand.

It was the first time the Fangzhou students had seen Fu Qing strike. Even they were stunned.

They had assumed the principal was formidable. They had not imagined she was this formidable.

A moment ago, the middle aged man’s companions had still been drunk and belligerent. Now, staring at him on the ground, they fell silent one by one.

As if the alcohol-controlled brain had suddenly sobered. Reason returned. In the blink of an eye, they went from rabid beasts back to civilized humans who had endured nine years of compulsory education.

Fu Qing casually nudged the drunken man’s limp body aside with her foot and asked, “Do you want a turn too?”

“It’s fine. There’s plenty of space. If we squeeze a bit, we can fit a few more bodies in here,” she said, sounding almost accommodating.

Everyone: “……”

The person in front of them looked about the same age as the students, yet carried an inexplicable aura that made the heart go cold.

The noisy shop courtyard suddenly went quiet. The troublemakers did not want to back down, but they also did not want to end up like their friend. The result was that they could only stare awkwardly at the man lying on the ground.

Thinking to themselves: they could not exactly haul him to the hospital the way those two had carried Maomao.

Fu Qing waited a few seconds. No one responded.

Not only were the drunk men playing dead, even her mind was strangely quiet.

She cleared her throat.

After several seconds of silence, the system slowly popped up a notification.

【Resolved: Special Event “Bloody Barbecue Shop”】

【Requirement: Escort students safely away from the dangerous location—】

When the text refreshed to this line, there was a tiny one-second stutter.

Nine students had been involved on scene. Escorting them away should have been a difficult, complex mission.

The system had assessed the overall difficulty before assigning a reward of 200 teaching points.

But it had never imagined the host would complete the mission in such a simple, brutal manner.

Too troublesome? She simply chose to eliminate the source of the trouble.

How was that not meeting the requirement?

In the end, the system hesitated and still appended: “Completed.”

……

【Reward obtained: 200 Teaching Points】

The corner of Fu Qing’s mouth lifted, almost imperceptibly.

Finally, she had money again!

₊˚.🎧📓✩