Ch 6: Opening a Survival School Before the Zombie Outbreak

After turning off the microphone, Fu Qing finally remembered to ask the system, “By the way, what about the students who turned into zombies?”

System: 【……】

You already handed out punishments before asking this question. Were you planning to penalize them all at once if they could not make it?

It really felt like the students’ future days were not going to be easy.

Although, judging from this utterly ruthless opening-day simulation exam, that much was already obvious…

System: 【To maintain immersion, the effects of the full-scale simulation will gradually fade. Within ten minutes, the students will slowly return to normal.】

That said, accepting all of this would probably take far longer than ten minutes.

Fu Qing nodded.

There was a notebook by her hand, filled with densely packed notes, all written down over the course of that one hour.

She flipped through it casually, circled a few names with her pen, and asked, “What about the memories from after they turned into zombies? Will those remain?”

System: 【No. The moment a human turns into a zombie, they are already brain-dead. No memories will be retained.】

Fu Qing paused slightly, closed the notebook, her expression unchanged.

“Got it.” She stood up and said casually, “Let’s go.”

*

After the broadcast ended, the restroom fell into complete silence.

The three of them almost doubted their own ears.

Go gather at the auditorium while surrounded by zombies? And there would be punishment if they did not make it within ten minutes?

And it even ended with a flirtatious “oh~”??

Listen to that. Does this sound like something a human would say.jpg

“With so many zombies outside, how are we supposed to get there…”

Zhang Han braced herself against the wall, stepped on the edge of the sink used for rinsing mops, and stood on tiptoe, straining to reach the restroom’s only small ventilation window.

When she finally managed to see out, she let out a surprised “Eh?”

Shen Qingqing: “What is it?”

Zhang Han poked half her head out by the window, her eyes darting around as she hesitated. “It looks like all the zombies outside are gone. There are only a few scattered ones left, and none of them are surrounding the cafeteria anymore. They all seem to be heading toward… the auditorium?”

She pointed uncertainly. “That direction should be the auditorium, right?”

“Yes.” Shen Qingqing had arrived early and had already walked around the entire campus, so she gave a firm answer.

But once that was confirmed, it only made things more confusing.

What did this mean? They turned into zombies and still had to attend the opening ceremony? What kind of authoritarian rule was this?

Song Rushuang pressed her ear to the door and suddenly whispered, “Shh. I think the zombie outside has left.”

They had hidden there when there were still ten minutes left. A zombie had suddenly appeared outside. It must have heard something and become convinced there were people inside, because it had scratched at the door nonstop for ten minutes.

During that time, it even attracted two more zombies.

The three of them had listened in terror. They never expected that once the broadcast sounded, the noise outside would suddenly vanish.

Now, Song Rushuang could clearly hear footsteps fading into the distance.

She listened for a moment, straightened up, and said something that made even herself feel a bit crazy. “How about… we go take a look at the auditorium?”

The broadcast had said a zombie tide drill was starting, and the zombie tide had indeed appeared.

The broadcast had said the drill would end within one hour. When the countdown stopped, the zombies really did retreat.

It seemed that even the zombies had to obey her commands.

Song Rushuang had a strong feeling that, in this school, following the broadcast instructions was the wisest course of action.

She explained her reasoning and tried to persuade them. “When we go out, we will close the door behind us. We will be careful along the way. If anything seems off, we will hide again immediately.”

“Actually, I also think it is better to do what the broadcast says,” Shen Qingqing said hesitantly. “It is just a kind of gut feeling.”

Maybe it was the speaker’s indifferent tone when mentioning the “zombie tide”. Such a terrifying existence, yet dismissed so lightly in her words.

Then at the very least, she had to be more formidable than the zombie tide itself.

Although Shen Qingqing truly could not imagine what kind of person could be more terrifying than those monsters.

Zhang Han was scared, but when the minority obeys the majority, and both her roommates said so, she could only shakily pick up a mop.

“L-let’s go.”

*

On the way to the auditorium, they witnessed the most surreal scene of their lives.

At first, the three of them were still nervous, hugging the walls and sneaking along. But they soon realized that every zombie they encountered along the way showed zero interest in them.

Outdoors, the zombies poured into the woods and quickly disappeared into corners where sunlight could not reach.

They came like a rising tide, and they retreated like a receding tide as well. Fierce and swift.

Only a few dozen stragglers were left behind, wandering around like headless flies. Wearing AJ sneakers, hoodies, some even carrying backpacks. At a glance, they were clearly their classmates.

The zombified classmates wandered about with confused expressions. Two of them happened to collide, their heads bumping together, as if the impact knocked some sense back into them.

They stared blankly at each other for a moment, then both let out piercing screams.

A zombie screaming because it saw another zombie.

The onlookers: “……”

The suddenly “revived” zombie classmates were frightened by their own kind and scrambled all over the ground. In turn, they scared classmates who had just crawled out of hiding, still unaware of what was going on, into fleeing in panic.

A chubby boy stood at a doorway, face full of terror, frantically waving at the classmates behind him.

“Go back, go back, go back! They have already evolved into aberrant types!”

Song Rushuang: “……”

It took a full five minutes for the misunderstanding to finally be cleared up.

One by one, the students who had turned into zombies regained consciousness. The severed limbs and scattered remains on the ground vanished without a trace, and the bloodstained clothes miraculously returned to their original state. If not for the dirt still clinging to their bodies and the disheveled signs left by running and struggling, Song Rushuang might have thought everything that had just happened was nothing more than a nightmare before the start of school.

“I’m… actually still alive…”
“Didn’t I get bitten? Why am I lying here?”
“What just happened?”
“Zhao Yang! Thank goodness you’re not dead!”
“Chen Jia!”

Those who had survived rushed out of the buildings, throwing themselves into the arms of classmates who had once “died,” crying and laughing at the same time.

Though they had only just met as roommates, this crisis had somehow forged a brotherly/sisterly bond between them.

Others had reverted from mindless zombies back into humans. Their brains, hit with too much shock all at once, could not process it immediately, and they could only stand in place, trying to digest everything.

Even more people had been injured in the attacks. Some with extremely serious wounds stared blankly at their own injuries.

Severed limbs regenerated, wriggling as new flesh grew back. The entire process was painless, yet the pain left behind at the time could not be erased.

As Song Rushuang passed by, she saw a familiar-looking boy kneeling on one knee, clutching his arm and trembling.

In the earlier tragedy, his right hand had been torn off alive by a zombie.

Sunlight bathed the land, yet many people were still trapped inside the nightmare, unable to wake up.

A trace of shameful relief suddenly surfaced in her heart. Thankfully, she herself had not gone through that. Otherwise, she would probably never sleep well again at night, tossing and turning, feeling phantom pain in her limbs.

And immediately after, a surge of anger flared up, burning toward the creator of this tragedy—

The voice from the broadcast.

For what purpose had she dragged them into hell?

Would something like this happen again in the future?

The more Song Rushuang thought about it, the more tangled her mind became. Just then, Shen Qingqing nudged her with an elbow, signaling in a certain direction.

She turned her head and happened to see the boy who had locked them outside the storage room.

He saw the three of them at the same time. His expression froze for a moment, as if he felt a twinge of guilt.

But very quickly, he turned his body aside as if nothing had happened and strode off, pretending he had not seen them.

“What the hell.” Zhang Han’s eyes widened as she lunged forward to block him. “Hey, you’re not seriously going to act like nothing happened, are you?”

When she reached out to grab him, he shook her off. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Zhang Han: “?”

She let out a cold laugh. “You locked us outside and almost got us bitten to death by zombies. You’re just going to forget that happened? That’s not possible.”

An apology would not have helped much, but not even having the attitude to apologize was a real problem.

Zhang Han raised her voice slightly. The boy immediately frowned, but his face remained solemn. He even took two steps back in disgust. “Don’t try to scam me. Who can prove any of that? I’ve been hiding in one place since the zombie tide broke out. Don’t slander innocent people.”

Shen Qingqing immediately stepped forward. “We can all prove it.”

“There aren’t any cameras. You say you can prove it, and that means you can? Don’t tell me you’re ganging up to extort me. Besides, how do you prove it was me and not someone else? Maybe you got the wrong person and are trying to pin it on me.” He pointed disdainfully at the sky, as if to say, “No one up there is watching.”

“Anything else? If not, I’m leaving.”

Zhang Han was so stunned by his shamelessness that she was speechless. By the time she snapped out of it, he was already several meters away. She was furious. “Just you wait!”

The boy turned his head and shot her a vicious glare.

Shen Qingqing grabbed Zhang Han. “Forget it, forget it.”

“He still dares to glare at me! Qingqing, don’t stop me, how can we just let this go!” Zhang Han was so angry she was like an untamable little bull.

The next second, the little bull was dragged away by her two roommates.

Shen Qingqing lowered her voice in exasperation. “I’m telling you not to be so impulsive.”

“Exactly,” Song Rushuang added, lecturing her. “If you want revenge, you have to do it quietly. Otherwise, if he remembers your face and corners you someday, what then?”

As she spoke, she reached out and pinched Zhang Han’s thin little arm.

When she pulled her hand back, she inconspicuously rubbed her own shoulder.

The spot where the boy had slammed into her was still throbbing faintly. By nightfall, it would probably turn into a large bruise.

Zhang Han felt like she had learned something. She calmed down a bit and said viciously, “Got it. Tonight I’ll post him on the confession wall and ruin his reputation!”

Song Rushuang looked conflicted. “Could you maybe come up with a more mature form of revenge…”

Zhang Han hesitated. “But even if we call the police about something like this, they won’t take the case, right…”

She deflated. “And it’s not like we’re guaranteed to win a fight. Are we really supposed to wait until dark and sack him outside the boys’ dorm?”

Song Rushuang: “……”

To be honest, she had no good plan either.

The other party was tall and strong. The three of them were girls. If things turned physical, they really might not come out on top.

One of the most frustrating things about this world was that good people did not always get good outcomes, and bad people did not always get punished. More often, it was this kind of nausea-inducing helplessness, like having swallowed a fly.

Because of this incident, the mood among the trio grew heavy. They walked in silence all the way to the auditorium, only to realize that the ten-minute countdown was almost over.

Scattered people were already seated inside the auditorium. Those who arrived later were all drenched in sweat from running.

At the very front, the projection screen on the stage had been lowered. Displayed on it was the ten-minute countdown, another trick of the system.

More and more people gathered. Everyone craned their necks, looking around. Compared to the joking mood when they first heard the broadcast, there was now much more tension. Staring at the numbers on the screen, some people even swallowed unconsciously, wound tight to the extreme.

No matter who was about to step onto the stage, at least they now knew this person was serious.

Watching everything unfold in secret, the system gave a small “zi” sound of realization.

It finally understood the meaning of Fu Qing’s actions.

This sudden zombie tide did not just convince the freshmen that “the apocalypse” was coming. It also firmly established Fu Qing’s authority.

No one dared move around below the stage. The freshmen sat properly with both hands on their knees, just like elementary school students listening to a lesson.

But…

The system began to worry again.

What filled the students’ hearts was not obedience or trust, but fear.

On top of that, there was likely deeply suppressed resentment.

This was absolutely not the kind of emotion a healthy teacher-student relationship should have.

If this continued, while it might make the students obedient in the short term, it would probably be harmful to long-term relations in the future…

They said that filial children come from under the rod, but what the rod produces is not only filial children. It can also produce “greatly filial” children.

Fu Qing had no idea about the system’s twisted inner thoughts. She timed it perfectly, finishing the last sip of Wangzai milk in her hand as the countdown hit its final second, tossed the carton away, and leisurely walked onto the stage, sweeping her gaze across the audience.

The flowers of the motherland were disheveled and bedraggled. Some had sleeves torn halfway off, buttons hanging by crooked threads. Others had lost one shoe while running and were desperately trying to hide socks with Pleasant Goat patterns under the sole of their remaining shoe.

They looked like they had just come back from a massive brawl involving thousands of people.

In the eyes of any ordinary teacher, such a scene would surely spell doom for the school’s future, making them want to grab a bucket and run away immediately.

Fu Qing, however, nodded in satisfaction. “Very good. Full of spirit.”

The freshmen: “……??”

They stared at each other, wide-eyed, watching Fu Qing walk over to the podium.

She looked far too young. Dressed casually, her tall, slender figure wrapped in a loose long T-shirt, bare-faced, she looked no older than twenty at most. She should have been their peer.

—So how did she end up standing on the stage?

Many people even secretly wondered whether she had taken the wrong path and should be sitting among them instead.

In the crowd, only Song Rushuang nearly jumped up.

There was no mistake!

The person standing on the stage was the same one she had seen walking through the zombie horde!

……

Fu Qing adjusted the microphone.

The podium height was fixed. She was 1.73 meters tall, considered tall, and had to lean forward slightly when speaking. Maintaining that bent posture, Fu Qing flipped open a small notebook in her hand and glanced at it.

“Before we begin, the students whose names I call, please stand up.”

The way she spoke was quite proper, carrying the air of a teacher.

Reading from her notes, Fu Qing called out names one by one, her tone steady.

“Fan Hua, Liu Jun, Zhao Xinyu, Luo Jiao, Liu Shuxu…”

Those whose names were called stood up one after another. The people around them watched, completely baffled.

And on the faces of those standing, a trace of fear appeared.

At a time like this, standing out was never a good thing.

What was more…

More and more people stood up, until—

“Shi Guangyao.”

Song Rushuang, Shen Qingqing, and Zhang Han widened their eyes almost simultaneously.

The one who stood up this time was the very boy who had locked them outside the room!

When his name was called, the malice on Shi Guangyao’s face vanished instantly, replaced by timid panic in the presence of someone in power.

Tall and broad, he stood out sharply among the seats. Almost instinctively, he hunched his shoulders and lowered his head like Yu Cheng earlier, staring uneasily at Fu Qing on the stage.

Shi Guangyao seemed to be the last person on the list. After reading his name, Fu Qing snapped the notebook shut.

Her cool voice, no longer filtered through electronic distortion, rang clearly through the entire auditorium.

“The above 21 individuals engaged in serious misconduct during the exercise, in severe violation of school regulations. They are hereby expelled. Please leave the school before eight o’clock tomorrow morning. Anyone who fails to leave on time will be considered unlawfully remaining on campus and will be escorted out by security.”

As the final word fell, the auditorium became so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

Fu Qing looked around, nodded politely, and said, “If there are no questions, you may now return to pack your belongings.”

₊˚.🎧📓✩