Ch 4: Opening a Survival School Before the Zombie Outbreak

Thanks to that can of ice-cold cola, Fu Qing was in a pretty good mood as she strolled through the zombie horde, forming a stark contrast with the students in the distance who were being chased around like frightened chicks.

She leisurely took another sip, savoring the familiar sensation of carbonation fizzing through her body, then wandered past another dorm building and casually opened the system interface.

The original basic menu had been replaced by an “Event in Progress” page. Like certain large-scale games that change their UI during limited-time events, the management system’s homepage was now decorated along the edges with several green chibi zombie heads. At first glance, it even gave off a bit of a Halloween vibe.

No one would guess that this was a live, blood-soaked slaughter.

Gray cobweb graphics, a dripping-blood title—at a glance, the page looked eerie and sinister.

【Event Content: Zombie Invasion!】
【Zombie Type: Basic Zombies ×1000】
【Spawn Area: Random refresh across entire campus (Click to modify)】
【Special Item Duration: 55 minutes 37 seconds】

Below that, additional tabs were divided into “Leaderboard,” “Number of Survivors,” “Remaining Zombies,” “Distribution Map,” and so on.

Fu Qing tapped into the map. A top-down layout of Fangzhou University immediately appeared before her. Once enlarged, every small path, every wall, every corner was meticulously labeled.

Anyone with experience could identify the best escape routes at a glance, determine who was heading toward survival and who toward a dead end.

Beyond that, three colors of light dots were scattered across the map.

The brightest was a golden dot marking Fu Qing’s location, its glow so vivid it seemed to swallow the surrounding area.

The most numerous were the blue circular dots fleeing in all directions.

Soft and harmless in appearance, the blue glow represented the 2,397 currently enrolled students of Fangzhou University—innocent, pitiful, and weak.

The final type, red dots covered in sea-urchin-like spikes, baring their “teeth,” were fewer in number—less than half the blue dots—but ferociously chased the blue ones, driving them into panicked flight.

Across the entire map, countless thrilling chase scenes were unfolding.

Fu Qing’s gaze swept over it and locked onto the teaching area in the lower right corner. A few blue dots had run blindly into a dead end. As expected, they were swallowed up by the red dots behind them, flickered weakly a few times, then turned gray and went still.

A pop-up appeared in the upper right corner: 【Survivors -3】.

Like playing a game, Fu Qing could oversee the entire situation without taking a single step, all through the simulation management system.

—The so-called “Zombie Tide Simulation Drill” was actually a special item Fu Qing had exchanged from the system shop using Teaching Points. It could pull all teachers and students into a simulated environment, fully recreating every sensory experience, including pain.

It could even be customized according to “customer needs,” altering zombie quantity, types, and abilities to provide a truly hardcore apocalypse survival experience.

If Fu Qing wanted, it did not have to be zombies. Alien invasion, a meteor striking Earth, Jurassic Park—she could stage a hyper-realistic holographic blockbuster.

【Full-Immersion Simulation (1 hour)】
Back-to-school special price: 30 Teaching Points.

After buying the item, Fu Qing’s pockets were emptier than her face.

Fortunately, the custom tactical watches distributed to all students were system gifts, serving as student identification. They required no points to exchange. Otherwise, this possibly most impoverished principal in history might not even have had a welcome gift to give.

Still, the effects of the full-immersion simulation were highly satisfactory. Once activated, it perfectly achieved Fu Qing’s earlier goal of “throwing them directly into the environment.” The zombie outbreak scene had been reconstructed based on her memories and was indistinguishable from what had truly happened at her former school.

The only difference was that back then, the classmates who died had truly died.

Fu Qing switched to the real-time survivor count page. It displayed 2082. Before she could speak, it jumped to 2080.

System: 【It’s only been five minutes, and more than two hundred students have already died. Isn’t that a bit too many?】

Nearly one-tenth of the entire school population. At this rate, by the end of the one-hour drill, wouldn’t they all be wiped out?

The thought sent a chill through the system. It worried both about the students’ abilities and whether the host’s teaching method was too extreme.

Starting off by giving the students psychological trauma about zombies—would that affect future training?

“Throw them directly into the environment… they’ll learn to adapt themselves.” The first half had been realized, but the latter conclusion remained to be seen.

At least from the system’s observation so far, the students showed no signs of adapting. After being “thrown in,” they had basically fallen flat on their faces, battered and crying.

And the ruthless principal was saying, “It’s not too many.”

“At the beginning, the zombies all appeared at once. The students were unprepared and mostly clustered in the residential area. Of course casualties are highest then. Once they scatter and find places to hide, the situation will improve. Lasting one hour won’t be difficult.”

The system quietly perked up its ears. Hearing the last sentence, it finally felt a bit relieved.

Fu Qing happened to finish the last sip of cola. She tossed the empty can casually. It traced a clean arc through the air and landed precisely in a trash bin.

The clanging sound made the nearby zombies swivel their heads like sunflowers turning toward the sun. Their hollow white eyes fixed on her. After staring for two seconds, they inexplicably lost interest and resumed dragging their stiff legs in search of other targets.

This kind of “being ignored” occasionally led to minor accidents.

“However.”

Fu Qing changed her tone.

“The campus is still too small. With over three thousand beings—humans and zombies combined—the population density is too high. There’s basically nowhere to hide. Before they find a safe zone…”

Mid-sentence, as if she had eyes on the back of her head, she twisted and stepped aside, nimbly dodging the pounce of a blood-smeared zombie. The reckless little zombie promptly crashed straight into one of its own kind.

The two zombies sat on the ground looking dazed for a moment before wobbling back to their feet.

“…conflict is inevitable,” Fu Qing finished calmly.

【……】The system felt faint.

Fu Qing lowered her gaze to the map.

For this first simulation drill, her purpose was simple: to use the system’s unscientific capabilities to give the students a strong shock.

If “ultra-realistic full-campus holographic simulation” was possible, then a virus outbreak and the entire world turning into zombies would not seem so unbelievable.

That saved her the trouble of persuading them.

Secondly, as she had said in the broadcast, it was to prepare for class placement.

There was only one year. Teaching according to aptitude was the most efficient approach.

In life-or-death situations, people often revealed their truest nature. The students had just arrived and knew nothing of the truth yet. Their reactions now were the most authentic. If she ran the same drill later, the effect would likely be greatly diminished.

…And if among these 2,400 people there were some unsuitable to stay, now was also the best time to observe.

On the map, a dense cluster of blue dots squeezed together and surged into a single building.

Their number was so large that they formed the biggest group on the entire map.

And within that cluster, a few blue dots were pulsing, breaking free from the mass, slowly sprouting spikes.

The three-person squad from Girls’ Dorm 1111 ran with the fleeing crowd and burst into a building.

Zhang Han collapsed to the floor with a thud. Shen Qingqing was not much better, her face drained of color, hands braced on her knees as she gasped for breath.

Song Rushuang stood beside them, dazed, her mind replaying what she had just seen.

After hesitating for a while, she reached out with trembling fingers and poked Shen Qingqing. “Did you see it just now? There was a person inside the zombie horde.”

Both roommates shook their heads together. “No.”

Zhang Han even asked, “There were so many people running around. Which one are you talking about?”

Song Rushuang was questioned into doubting her own sanity.

She tried to recall it. “It was… someone with intact features, really eye-catching, the kind you notice at a glance…”

Zhang Han almost spat blood. “There were a ton of zombies chasing us and you still had the leisure to judge which one looked best?”

Song Rushuang said, “No! And she wasn’t chasing us either. If I didn’t see wrong, she seemed to be drinking cola…”

Drinking it while strolling around so calmly. No matter how you looked at it, she did not resemble a zombie.

But if she was not a zombie, why were the zombies not biting her?

Zhang Han: “……”

Shen Qingqing: “……”

Shen Qingqing leaned over worriedly and touched Song Rushuang’s arm. Her warm palm radiated heat. “Rushuang, did you get bitten? Do you feel unwell anywhere?”

With both of them saying this, Song Rushuang started to wonder if fear had made her hallucinate.

“Forget it. Maybe I saw it wrong.”

So many bizarre things had already happened today. Remembering their current situation, she shook her overloaded head and forced herself to focus.

Suddenly, there was a loud bang behind them.

Zhang Han jumped on the spot. “What was that?!”

The three turned back in disarray. Song Rushuang’s peripheral vision swept over the interior furnishings, and only then did she realize that she had followed the crowd all the way into the cafeteria.

The hall was packed with people. More than a dozen had already worked together to drag tables and chairs over, piling them haphazardly to block the glass entrance tightly. The loud bang just now was the leading zombie smashing its head hard against the glass door.

The cafeteria hall had curved walls, almost entirely made of tall glass. The lighting was excellent and the space felt very open.

At this moment, however, the glass was smeared with blood. The zombies outside felt no pain and continued to slam into it tirelessly, as if unable to understand why prey was clearly right in front of them yet untouchable and uneatable.

Separated by a single pane of glass, the impact of the zombie horde played out in slow motion before Song Rushuang’s eyes.

Limbs gone slack, blood splattering, faces twisted and deformed from excessive force, and the fluids and sticky traces left by compressed rotten flesh…

Her stomach clenched violently. She could not hold it in and bent over with a retch.

The instincts suppressed by fear of death finally began to awaken within her.

Everyone knows vomiting is contagious, just like yawning. Once one person started throwing up and the smell spread, a chorus of gagging immediately followed.

The scene was impossible to describe as anything short of spectacular.

Worse still, to prevent zombies from finding an opening to get inside, aside from the main entrance, the students who had rushed in first had even shut all visible windows.

A perfectly good cafeteria instantly filled with an indescribable stench.

So much so that even students who had not felt like vomiting at first were overwhelmed by the smell.

Faces turning green then pale, they all cast accusatory looks toward the culprit in the end.

Song Rushuang, who felt much better after vomiting: “……”

Why did she suddenly feel a bit guilty?

She braced herself and took the floral-scented tissue Shen Qingqing handed her, wiped her mouth clean, and earned even more resentful looks from those around her.

Fortunately, the cafeteria’s glass walls were extremely sturdy. The zombies outside were furious but could not break through. After observing for a while and seeing that the horde posed no immediate risk of getting in, everyone relaxed.

The smell inside was awful, but it was still better than outside.

The atmosphere loosened slightly.

Having narrowly escaped death, the students stood around on a floor patched with mosaic-like blotches, as if they still needed time to process their situation.

Zhang Han tugged her two roommates toward the edge and whispered, “Come over here. Fewer people, better air.”

Song Rushuang looked up and saw a row of food service windows behind her.

Not long ago, the three of them had been imagining what the cafeteria would be like. They had never expected their first visit to be under these circumstances.

“Something’s strange,” Shen Qingqing suddenly frowned.

Steam curled from the windows in front of them, carrying the aroma of food, yet there was not a single person behind the counters.

She scanned the area. “Where are the cafeteria staff?”

Such a major incident had happened outside, yet not one staff member had come out to check. And all the people crowded in the hall had one thing in common: their faces were young and immature. They were all students who had just come to register.

“Where did the school’s faculty go? The teachers?” Shen Qingqing felt something was off.

Song Rushuang said, “It is strange…”

As the two lowered their heads in thought, someone nearby spoke gloomily. “Hey, have you ever seen Spirited Away? There are those snack shops run by monsters, offering food to the gods. What if the stuff here is for the dead to eat? If we eat it, we’ll turn into pigs, no, into zombies…”

Shen Qingqing: “……”

She said softly, “Hanhan, even the aunties at the village entrance aren’t this superstitious anymore.”

Zhang Han said, “Then how do you explain a whole batch of zombies dropping from the sky like this? It’s not even a Resident Evil world.”

Shen Qingqing and Song Rushuang both fell silent.

It really was strange. If it were like in movies, where a zombie virus appeared and spread from the first infected, one to ten, ten to a hundred, until it finally exploded. There should have been signs.

No screams, no fighting sounds. Such a massive zombie horde appearing all at once made no sense.

Shen Qingqing said quietly, “And there’s another problem. Who exactly was the person on the broadcast? The moment the countdown ended, the zombie horde appeared. That can’t be a coincidence.”

Both of them: “……”

Zhang Han squeezed closer to her roommates in fear, suddenly feeling a chill creep up her back.

“Thump!” “Thump!” “Thump!”

Over there, the zombies were still slamming against the glass tirelessly.

The noise snapped Song Rushuang back to herself. She hurriedly rummaged through her pockets. “Right, has anyone called the police?”

Before she could find her phone, someone spoke in a low voice. “Already tried. Can’t get through. Maybe the signal’s bad this close to the mountains.”

“Messages won’t send either.”

“All we can do is hope the school reports it fast, or that the outside world notices something’s wrong and sends rescue…”

“You don’t think it’ll be like in novels, where the whole world breaks out in some zombie tide, rescue forces are stretched too thin, and in the end we can only rely on ourselves, right?”

“Spit, spit, spit. Don’t jinx it.”

A boy nearby suddenly broke down. “What damn zombie tide! It would have been better if it broke out in senior year, or even during fourth year when we were job hunting. Why now, of all times!”

He cried with genuine emotion. “Our college life has only just begun!”

“Fair point. When I was grinding problems in senior year until my head spun, I really wanted to punch the world apart. Back then, give me a knife and I could’ve charged through a zombie horde seven times in and out,” someone who sounded like his roommate chimed in.

“Freshman me is timid and cautious. Senior-year me throws heavy punches.”

“Look on the bright side. Wouldn’t it be even more despairing if it broke out the night before the college entrance exam?”

The pre-college students were terrified by the idea. “Are you a devil?”

A few more people joined the chatter. Someone who had been sitting with their head down finally snapped, furious. “Do you people have no heart? How can you still chat? Haven’t you seen what’s outside?”

Beyond the deathly still cluster of students, the blood-smeared scene outside the windows was plain to see.

The conversation stopped abruptly, a bit awkward. In the silence, the first speaker patted his still-sobbing roommate on the shoulder and said softly, “Sorry. We just saw another roommate get dragged into the zombie horde with our own eyes. We kind of lost it.”

Someone who had just been introducing themselves, saying they would get along well over the next four years, had died before their eyes in the blink of an eye. The so-called “future” they mentioned had not even had time to be imagined before it turned into a bubble within an hour.

His college life had also only just begun.

The boy who had questioned them froze, turned his head aside, his Adam’s apple bobbing, his eyes reddening as well.

The few people who had been cracking jokes to keep the mood up also fell silent. The oppression spread slowly.

“Yu Cheng! Wang Huai asked you for help just now. Why didn’t you help him?!”

A furious shout exploding from the corner drew everyone’s attention.

“To watch a classmate die and not help, are you even human?!” A tall boy was being held back tightly by two or three others, his expression agitated. Opposite him, the boy named Yu Cheng was much thinner, freckled, and unremarkable.

Yet at this moment, he was the focus of everyone’s gaze.

Yu Cheng’s face was pale. His eyes darted as he denied it. “No, I didn’t…”

“Bullshit! I saw it clearly. When he fell, you were right next to him. You looked at him once and then turned and ran by yourself. And you still dare say you didn’t?!”

The boy grew more furious and tried to swing a punch, only to be stopped by those around him.

Yu Cheng’s lips trembled. He hunched his shoulders, desperately trying to shrink his presence, but to no avail. All he could do was stand there awkwardly, head bowed deeply.

Song Rushuang heard the murmurs around her. “They seem to be from the same dorm. The tall guy is called Qin Yufei. He’s pretty loyal. When he realized Yu Cheng didn’t help, he immediately went back himself to try to pull Wang Huai up, but he was a step too late and couldn’t save him. That’s why he’s so angry. Look, his clothes are still stained with Wang Huai’s blood…”

“That’s too much. A living person died right in front of him like that. Will this Yu Cheng even be able to sleep at night?”

“Stop it. Who knows if there even is a future. If you survive now, maybe you’ll just die even worse later…”

Song Rushuang forced herself not to listen to the pessimistic talk and looked closely. Qin Yufei really was covered in blood.

Seeing a classmate die before his eyes, no wonder he was so agitated.

At this moment, the veins in Qin Yufei’s neck bulged, his eyes slightly protruding, bloodshot lines clearly visible. His lips even curled back slightly, exposing his gums at the edges. Whether from rage or something else, he looked almost feral.

Watching him, a chill slowly crept into Song Rushuang’s heart.

He did not look quite human anymore.

Qin Yufei panted heavily, each breath longer and deeper than the last. His voice grew hoarse and indistinct. “Yu Cheng…”

When he raised his head again, the light in his eyes lit by anger gradually dimmed.

Song Rushuang was standing closer to Yu Cheng, directly opposite Qin Yufei. From her angle, she could clearly see Qin Yufei’s eyeballs roll upward convulsively, exposing bloodshot, bulging whites.

His head turned mechanically, the muscles in his neck twisting with a sharp crack.

One of the classmates holding Qin Yufei also noticed something was wrong and bent down anxiously. “Hey, what’s wrong with you…”

Before he could finish, he suddenly let out a shrill scream, clutching his face with both hands as he staggered back, collapsing to the floor and writhing in agony.

The crowd erupted in uproar.

Song Rushuang sucked in a sharp breath. The boy’s lower eye socket had been torn open, sharp fingernails carving grooves in the skin deep enough to expose bone.

Blood gushed out, adding another layer to the mottled stains on Qin Yufei’s body.

An empty circle instantly opened up around Qin Yufei.

Having lost the support holding him up, he swayed and came to a halt under the terrified gazes of the crowd.

The next second, that dull, hollow stare locked firmly onto the thin boy standing in front of him.

₊˚.🎧📓✩