Ch 18: Opening a Survival School Before the Zombie Outbreak

The students stared at Fu Qing. Fu Qing stared at Hao Zhenye. Hao Zhenye, expressionless, stared at the realistic zombies.

He had dragged her into this, yet would not meet her eyes. It felt like he had dared to defy his superior, but not quite dared enough to face it.

Fu Qing seemed to think of something and let out a small laugh, shrugging. “Fine.”

It was early September. Summer was fading. A light shower had fallen the night before, and the mountain air had turned cool. Short sleeves were no longer suitable.

Today Fu Qing wore a light hoodie and jeans, practical enough for movement. She bent down to tighten her shoelaces, then straightened. “Teacher Hao is used to charging head-on. He might indeed not be very good at, well, the fighting methods of the ‘weak.’”

She pronounced the word “weak” evenly, neither heavy nor light. Hao Zhenye snapped his head toward her, his expression darkening.

Fu Qing, however, was thinking of Hao Zhenye’s ability panel.

B+ in intelligence, the lowest among the four teachers. He had never been the cerebral type.

S- in combat skill meant he could resolve most dangerous situations through sheer strength.

The students’ reasoning had its limitations, but their dissatisfaction itself was not wrong. Hao Zhenye’s one-size-fits-all teaching method truly had failed to account for students with weaker physical conditioning.

Given how points were earned and what they meant, it was normal for some to feel the system was unfair.

He likely understood that himself, but without personal experience, he had not yet figured out how to tailor instruction to different abilities. And just then, Fu Qing had happened to walk by and been pulled in.

On top of that, Hao Zhenye was not convinced by Fu Qing as his superior, and his personality was stubborn and unyielding. He could not bring himself to ask for help.

So the gunpowder in his tone had been just a little… thicker than necessary.

Fu Qing expressed her understanding and decided that when the schedule was next adjusted, she would add one more PE class per week.

The realistic zombies had only just been introduced, and Hao Zhenye had not yet handed over his lesson planning ideas. Fu Qing quickly asked through the rules on the spot.

As Hao Zhenye explained, the students could not help whispering among themselves.

If the principal was going to demonstrate, would she need teammates? Would they get to experience being carried by a top-tier player?

Some girls who had read the forum and temporarily become Fu Qing’s little fans had eyes shining brightly, ready to raise their hands the moment Teacher Hao finished explaining.

“Maybe you’re celebrating too early. The principal might not be that strong…” someone muttered nearby. “Didn’t the forum say the troublemaker was just a drunk? So drunk he couldn’t even resist. I could’ve handled that too.”

Not everyone had been won over by what happened over the weekend. Plenty still harbored doubts and seized the chance to complain under their breath.

Most others ignored them.

“…That’s it.”

The moment Hao Zhenye finished speaking, several people eagerly raised their hands.

If they wanted to know how strong the principal was, they could just see for themselves.

Fu Qing did not even glance at them. She nodded to indicate she understood, then spoke. “A-001 to A-010, input collective command.”

The ten zombies, already powered on and in standby mode, stiffly turned their heads. Their pupils locked onto Fu Qing.

The sight made people’s scalps tingle.

Recalling the operation settings for the realistic zombies, Fu Qing paused briefly, then said crisply,

“Set movement speed to 100%.”

The dozen raised hands froze.

They remembered clearly that during the morning practical class, Hao Zhenye had set movement speed to 20%.

That was beginner zombie speed.

The average adult running speed should be around 50 to 60%.

Starting at 100%… would they not be pinned to the ground before they even took off?

Several people casually lowered their hands.

But a few boys confident in their running speed kept theirs raised.

Fu Qing did not pause for a second. “Set agility to 80%.”

Those few: “……”

If they remembered correctly, beginner zombie agility had also been 20%.

Hadn’t Teacher Hao just said that in the chase battle only speed would be adjusted, not agility?

Why was the principal increasing the difficulty herself?

More hands quietly dropped.

Under the increasingly delicate gazes around her, Fu Qing continued, “As for the marker point, set it on the rooftop of the West Teaching Building. The field has a clear view.”

The West Teaching Building was the tallest structure closest to the field, six stories high. The moment they heard that last sentence, the remaining raised hands, with admirable self-awareness, slowly lowered.

Anyone with basic math skills could calculate that the straight-line distance from the entrance of the West Teaching Building to the marker point was less than fifty meters. Once activated, the zombies would head straight for the marker point.

At that point, ten zombies at 100% speed and 80% agility surrounding a single marker. Only a deity could check in successfully.

Had the principal set the difficulty too high?

After thinking it through and confirming nothing had been overlooked, Fu Qing turned and signaled Hao Zhenye with her eyes.

Reluctantly, he said, “No problem.”

The assessment difficulty she had set was even higher than what he had imagined.

One hundred percent speed meant the zombies’ maximum velocity.

Hao Zhenye thought back to his four years in the apocalypse. He was not sure he had ever encountered zombies evolved enough to reach peak speed.

Fu Qing dared to set it that high… Had she seen such things before?

His gaze darkened as he realized he might have overlooked something.

With his confirmation, Fu Qing nodded. “Then let’s begin.”

Realistic zombies A-001 to A-010 received the command. Their joints stretched, bones cracking loudly, as if they were adjusting themselves to an extreme state.

The adjustment finished in moments. In their hoarse, inhuman voices, they announced, “Settings complete. Assessment will begin in 3 seconds.”

“Countdown. Three—”

The onlookers were still stunned. They had not expected the assessment to start immediately.

Wait. Wasn’t something missing?

Where were the teammates?

No teammates. Was the principal really planning to slip past ten zombies on her own and complete the objective?

How was that even possible?

Yes, in the final exam each of them had to kill five zombies, but that came with conditions.

According to the wristband prompt:

First, the five zombies’ strength would fluctuate between beginner and intermediate level. There would absolutely not be freakish zombies like these with one stat maxed out at 100%.

Second, the zombies would spawn randomly inside a building. They would not start at the same point as the examinee.

Third, the building environment would be complex. That was an obstacle for zombies, but an advantage for humans. They would have a full hour to maneuver, deal with the zombies carefully, and eliminate them without injury.

But for Fu Qing, none of those three conditions applied.

This was a lightning battle. There was almost no time to think. The moment she was surrounded by those ten zombies, the assessment would end instantly.

For a zombie to kill a person, it only needed to open its mouth and bite once. For a person to kill a zombie was ten, a hundred times harder.

Unless the brain was destroyed, even if its arms and legs were severed, even if most of its body was gone, it would still struggle, roar, and lunge at you again. The difficulty was on an entirely different scale.

The only apparent path before Fu Qing was to reach the rooftop before they did and complete the check-in.

At that moment, many people swallowed unconsciously.

They did not know what they were expecting to see.

But they now understood what true “unfairness” looked like.

“Two—”

Fu Qing stood about ten meters away from the ten realistic zombies.

That distance, once speed exploded, could be crossed in the blink of an eye.

“One—”

Fu Qing rotated her wrist.

“Begin.”

Almost the instant the word fell, both sides moved.

Everyone felt a gust of wind sweep past. The zombies that had been standing in a row surged forward like a tidal wave of corpses, kicking up dust, baring their teeth and claws, staggering yet ferocious, like grotesque creatures from a horror film. Terrifying shrieks burst from their chests.

The roars merged together. For a moment, everyone felt their hearts constrict violently, as if they could not breathe.

The zombies accelerated to their limit almost instantly. Their limbs twisted, joints bending at angles impossible for humans, yet their speed did not slow in the slightest. In the blink of an eye, they were charging dozens of meters ahead, scrambling on hands and feet.

Only when the space in front of them was suddenly empty did the students, their attention stolen, slowly regain their senses, clutching their chests and gasping. “Wait… where’s the principal?”

Those with sharper eyesight focused in the distance and suddenly shouted, “Look!”

The zombies had already swarmed to the front of the teaching building!

Someone quick-witted blurted out, “If they go inside, we won’t be able to see—”

His words cut off abruptly.

Before their eyes, the zombies split into two groups. About half rushed into the building, startling the classes still in session into screams. The other half abruptly changed direction and sprinted straight toward a small flower bed beside the building.

They leapt over the low divider in a single stride, then, like a siege of the undead, raised both arms and charged at the outer wall, searching for handholds to climb.

“They’re trying to climb…” someone muttered, their chest tight as if stuffed with cotton.

With agility set to 80%, the zombies had changed. They no longer moved with their former clumsiness. They could actually climb now?

The students suddenly thought of humanity in the apocalypse.

If survivors had witnessed such a scene, how desperate must they have felt?

But there was one figure even faster than the zombies.

The commotion the zombies caused was too overwhelming. Even Hao Zhenye’s attention had been seized at first. When he belatedly noticed the figure darting upward, the corner of his eye twitched sharply.

No one knew how she could be that fast.

Fu Qing had left every zombie far behind. In less than ten seconds, she had already reached the top floor.

One hand hooked onto the edge of the parapet. With a clean backward flip, she landed steadily on the rooftop.

As she dropped down, the hem of her hoodie lifted in a faint arc, revealing a strip of lean, powerful waist, the lines of her abdomen sharp and defined. Several students stared so hard their eyes nearly popped out.

The zombies below had not even climbed past the third floor when Fu Qing pressed the floating 3D check-in symbol in midair.

“Check-in complete.”

“Time taken: 17 seconds.”

A zombie clinging to the wall announced in a mechanical voice. Its fingers, hooked into a climbing point, suddenly released, and its body dropped in free fall.

Then came a series of crashes as they landed scattered across the small garden below.

Fu Qing: “……”

Half crouched on the rooftop, she looked at the flower bed below, now dented with several human-shaped craters, and felt the heartache of a simulation-management gamer. “Next time, no jumping off buildings just to save time.”

The realistic zombies replied, “Understood.”

Fu Qing could not be bothered to take the stairs. She glanced down and chose to jump.

Her body fell lightly, each time precisely catching the various protruding footholds along the building’s exterior. It looked heart-stopping to the observers, yet she remained steady, as if she had done it a thousand times.

Within a few breaths, she landed safely on the ground.

When she returned to stand before Hao Zhenye, Fu Qing lifted her eyes and happened to catch his dark, unreadable expression. The corner of her lips curved slightly as she teased, “There you go. The ‘weak’ way to win.”

The field fell silent.

If that was what counted as “weak,” then what were they? A speck of dust with a combat rating of 0.5…?

Fu Qing did not forget that Hao Zhenye had essentially pulled her over to “help.” After the brief tease, she turned toward the students, who were still staring in shock, and got back to the point.

“Beginner zombies can’t climb. Only after evolving do they gain limited climbing ability. But because their bodies are rotting and their joints stiff, their flexibility is still far inferior to humans.”

“In other words, with training, anyone can potentially use this method to shake off a zombie pursuit.”

“Even those who think they have the weakest stamina are born with physical conditions superior to zombies. Isn’t that also a kind of ‘unfairness’?”

This time, though, the ones who should be complaining were the zombies.

With just a few understated sentences, Fu Qing left the students who had been shouting about unfairness stunned.

Hao Zhenye unconsciously turned to look at the outer wall of the teaching building and pressed his lips together.

When Fu Qing had climbed just now, she had stepped on hanging air-conditioning units and some barely protruding decorative ledges. It was not that Hao Zhenye could not climb, but with his weight, he would never have moved with that kind of agility, and there would have been far fewer viable footholds for him.

Many of the spots Fu Qing had stepped on simply could not bear his weight.

Hao Zhenye vaguely realized she was right. Setting aside her own strength, Fu Qing truly had demonstrated a victory method that “the weak” could reference.

Turn a stamina disadvantage into the advantage of lightness. Turn a lack of durability into agility during climbing. Teach them, in another way, how to survive amid a tide of corpses.

That was a blind spot in Hao Zhenye’s thinking, someone who had always believed in solving everything with force.

The muscles he was proud of, his formidable weight, also gave him a weakness in climbing. So during instruction, he had instinctively overlooked that aspect.

His shortcoming could become some students’ strength and lifeline.

Hao Zhenye fell silent.

The students exchanged wide-eyed looks. Slowly, one by one, they began to understand.

They realized the principal was not joking. This was truly a viable method.

They might not be as agile as she was, but surely they were more agile than those clumsy zombies.

Some of the girls listened especially intently.

Tall boys might snap branches when climbing trees, but girls could stay perched much longer. Women generally had stronger lower-body strength and lighter body weight. If they used their muscles well, they would have an advantage in climbing.

…This was their advantage.

Many girls who had already lost several rounds over the past two weeks flushed with excitement, as if they could finally see hope for earning points. They could hardly wait to try.

The few who had scoffed earlier about the forum’s credibility were slapped in the face so quickly they wished they could dig a hole and crawl into it.

Served them right for speaking too fast. For judging by appearances. Would it have killed them to wait until after the principal finished demonstrating?

Hao Zhenye took in all the students’ reactions, growing even more silent.

A few remained clear-headed and cautiously raised their hands. “But Principal, we don’t have any foundation. If we start practicing climbing buildings directly, wouldn’t that be a bit dangerous?”

What if someone slipped…

Fu Qing had, of course, already considered that. “Don’t worry. I’ll handle it.”

The student nodded and did not press further, turning to discuss excitedly with classmates.

Without realizing it, their trust in Fu Qing had increased.

A few others kept sneaking glances at her, cheeks warming, clearly already thinking about how to phrase a new forum post.

Fu Qing stopped paying attention to the crowd and began considering how to ensure climbing practice would be safe.

Like most simulation management games, the system had provided very few facilities at the start. Only the essential buildings required to keep the school running.

For example, the cafeteria, dormitories, teaching buildings, and basic desks and chairs.

All additional teaching equipment had to be obtained by Fu Qing herself.

Take the sports hall on the south side of the field. It had a shell, but very little inside. Even the gym had only been built after Zhao Tingting donated equipment.

And given that Fu Qing’s task completion progress was still rather dismal, Fangzhou was poor. Many things were makeshift.

Bai Tang’s teaching materials came from the internet. Zhao Yunxiao’s from his own knowledge. Only Granny Liu’s experimental fields and the newly introduced realistic zombies for PE had cost a bit of points.

Even so, the basic PE teaching model had been nothing more than letting students chase each other around the campus for free.

From top to bottom, the whole place had the unmistakable feel of a ramshackle operation.

Now Fu Qing was once again thinking about how to use the existing environment to achieve training goals.

There was no helping it. They were too poor.

Of course she could build a climbing wall in the sports hall, but to give over two thousand students sufficient practice, one wall would never be enough.

That was not something her remaining 50 teaching points could solve.

Fu Qing thought of a system function she had never used.

In her mind, she said, “System, bring up the upgrade panel.”

All campus facilities and buildings were upgradable.

Fu Qing could even choose whether to upgrade something overall or enhance a specific function.

Generally speaking, upgrading an existing building or facility was far cheaper than purchasing a new one with equivalent functionality, but later on, as levels increased, prices would also rise.

This time, Fu Qing planned to directly modify the existing exterior walls. Too lazy to search manually, she asked the system, “How many points to add safety ropes?”

【Report, Host. Adding safety ropes and matching wearable harnesses to a single building costs 30 teaching points.】

【If adding the same safety equipment to all buildings across campus, since the number of wearable harnesses remains unchanged, the bundled price is 100 teaching points.】

One hundred teaching points?

Fu Qing looked at the 50 points she had left and let out a quiet hiss.

Buying for just one building was not cost-effective.

Buying the bundle, she could not afford.

Around her, the students had already dispersed in small groups to practice. Fu Qing still stood there, stuck.

She frowned, about to open the shop to see if there was another solution, when someone suddenly grabbed her arm.

She turned. It was Hao Zhenye, who had been silent until now.

His expression was darker than ever, as if he had been thinking for a long time before finally fixing his gaze on her and speaking.

“You… went through the apocalypse too.”

“How long did you live?”

“You saw more powerful zombies, didn’t you? You lived longer than I did, didn’t you?”

For a brief moment, his pupils lost focus, then he forced himself back to clarity. His voice carried a barely perceptible rasp as he asked the final question in a low tone.

“…In the end, what happened to humanity?”

₊˚.🎧📓✩