Ch 9: Opening a Survival School Before the Zombie Outbreak

Perhaps many people were still exploring the watch’s functions, or hesitating to speak freely out of caution. The thread accumulated replies slowly, floor by floor, but the discussion itself was serious.

It began with a few lucky survivors joking around, then others pushed back, conspiracy theories about the principal emerged, and those theories were dismantled in turn. In just a few dozen posts, the prevailing mood shifted again and again.

Still, those with the energy to joke were clearly a minority. Most people were mired in shock and anxiety.

……

43L: So are we just assuming the apocalypse thing is real now? I still find it kind of surreal.

44L: After what happened this afternoon, I’ve more or less made peace with life and death. I’ve decided to stay. If the principal is lying, worst case I waste a year or two, repeat a year, and reapply to university. I’m still young. But if this is real, then getting a whole year of preparation before the apocalypse hits is an insane advantage. Walking away would be stupid.
Besides… I actually hope it’s fake. If it’s real, it’s just too terrifying.

46L replying to 44L: Agreed. When I read novels, I’d get all fired up imagining what I’d do if the apocalypse came… only for it to actually happen and I realize I’m not the protagonist at all, just the unlucky extra who gets bitten at the beginning to warn the main character.

50L: I’m not withdrawing. I don’t dare gamble.

……

51L: I can’t believe this. You’re all way too naive. Have you considered that this might not be a simple “apocalypse or not” question? It’s very possible the apocalypse is fake, and the principal’s scheme is real. Once you enter this school, even if no apocalypse comes after a year, you might not be able to withdraw and go back to a normal university anyway. Use your brains.

52L: That’s fair, but I only have one question: what does she gain from this?

53L replying to 51L: If you want to withdraw, then go withdraw. No need for the snide tone. Let’s discuss normally instead of acting like you’re the only sober person in a room full of drunks.

56L: But 52L has a point. I was already leaning toward staying, and now I’m hesitating again…

58L: Is there a chance that if this really is a trap, then debating whether to withdraw is meaningless anyway? Do villains ever play fair?

60L: Help! Is there anyone who traveled back from the future who can give me a definitive answer? Who am I supposed to believe?!

……

Academics and survival are both enormous matters. It was only natural that the students felt lost.

When resolve was already shaky, the moment a dissenting voice appeared, people were easily swayed again, slipping back into indecision.

Song Rushuang curled her fingers slightly, hesitating as they hovered over the holographic keyboard projected by her watch.

At that moment, the forum refreshed automatically, and a new reply popped up at the very bottom.

It was long, densely packed with text. Song Rushuang froze for a moment, then was immediately drawn in by its contents.

63L: I am one of the victims of the misconduct committed by one of the twenty-one people expelled today. I have to say this: I believe the principal.

This afternoon, during the drill, several other students and I fled to a secluded side path by the teaching building. There were no zombies there at first. We planned to hide inside trash bins and use the stench to mask our scent. After about half an hour of observation, we tentatively concluded that zombies track people through sight and smell. As long as they couldn’t see us or smell us, there was a good chance we could escape.

But just as we lifted the lid of a trash bin, a classroom window above us opened. Some bastard stuck his head out and shouted, drawing every zombie nearby straight to us.

Seven or eight zombies. If this hadn’t been a simulation, I would’ve died on the spot. As it turned out, I did die anyway.

It was too late to hide in the trash bin with zombies right in front of us. There were no trees we could climb, and the path was a dead end. The four or five of us were trapped there and killed.

In the chaos before death, we didn’t even have time to see who did it.

I couldn’t understand why he would do something like that.

Later, at the auditorium, when the principal explained the reasons, we finally learned the truth. From his vantage point, he had seen zombies gathering near the entrance of the teaching building and was afraid they might enter and threaten him. On a sudden impulse, he chose to use us to lure them away.

But the problem is, according to the principal, he was in a locked, secure classroom at the time. He wasn’t in danger at all. And he could have waited until we were safely inside the trash bins before calling the zombies over. If he had done that, we might have survived.

But he was afraid that if the zombies discovered there were no living people there, they would head back to the building. So he deliberately chose to attract them before we were fully hidden.

He did it on purpose. He deliberately lured the zombies to attack us. He deliberately used us as bait to ensure his own safety.

While the zombie wave caught all of us off guard, when we were scrambling just to survive with no time to think, someone was already calculating, scheming to pave his own escape route with the lives of his classmates. Every time I think of that, my back goes cold.

I believe everyone here has already seen how terrifying zombies are. But I want to say this: compared to a zombie’s attack, betrayal and harm from one of our own is far more frightening.

What’s worse is that after shouting, he retreated back into the classroom, hid behind the curtains, and watched us run, struggle, and die, just like a child pouring water on ants and watching them desperately try to survive.

Because of the angle, none of us saw his face.

Without the principal, someone like that would have returned to the crowd, acting as if nothing happened. He would’ve gone to class with us, eaten with us, showered alongside us, greeted us in passing, and we would never have known what kind of person he was.

When I woke up again, I felt utterly hopeless. But you all know what happened afterward.

For me, the luckiest moment today was when the principal called his name, when he stood up from the crowd and his carefully crafted disguise fell away.

Because of that alone, I’m willing to believe the principal.

I know that in most people’s eyes, it was the principal who brought the zombies and the danger. But this experience gave me a different perspective.

I’m actually grateful for this simulation drill. It exposed someone like him, ensured he was punished, and spared me from ever having to be his classmate again. I don’t have to worry about studying for four years only to be framed by him and lose a graduate recommendation. Or worse, losing my life to his schemes when a real zombie wave arrives in the future.

That’s my view. I’m sharing it here. How you choose to see it is up to you.

……

After this long reply was posted, there were no new responses for several minutes. It was hard to tell whether everyone was carefully reading, or simply stunned by what had been said.

After a long while, only a few replies appeared: “pat pat,” “oh my god,” “that’s heartbreaking, OP.”

To avoid wasting words, Fu Qing had kept the reasons for expulsion extremely brief. Even so, they had already stirred up quite a commotion in the auditorium.

Now, hearing a firsthand account filled with vivid detail and immediacy, the anger simmering in people’s hearts could no longer be contained.

Even those who opposed the principal would probably need to think carefully about their wording before speaking again.

Song Rushuang’s feelings were even more complicated than theirs. As she read, Shi Guangyao’s smug, self-satisfied face flashed through her mind more than once.

The bruise on her shoulder from being slammed earlier had still been aching faintly when she left the cafeteria. Yet for some reason, by the time she reached the auditorium, it had completely healed. Her body was intact, uninjured. That only confirmed her belief that this really had been nothing more than a “drill.”

The principal hadn’t harmed them.

But she had, without question, punished those who had done wrong.

“…,” Song Rushuang finally made up her mind.

She seized the lull in the discussion, organized the fleeting thought that had crossed her mind when she heard Zhang Han earlier, and slowly typed it out.

70L (you):
[Is it possible that only a drill that’s realistic enough, cruel enough, can force people with malicious intent to reveal their true nature and eliminate hidden dangers at the very start? Otherwise, once they know everything is fake, it won’t be so easy to bait them out again.
I know the principal’s approach, dragging us into the drill without explanation and pursuing total realism, looks ruthless and cold-blooded. But from another angle, if she’d taken a gentler approach, it might not have worked at all.]

Almost as soon as she posted, another reply appeared beneath it.

71L: [I’m also one of the victims. I’m grateful to the principal.]

Song Rushuang’s heart stirred. She turned her head and happened to see Shen Qingqing staring intently at empty space in front of her, completely absorbed.

Although the forum was anonymous, there were many default avatars to choose from. Song Rushuang had picked a cat’s head, while 71L’s avatar was a vivid green bamboo leaf.

She guessed the truth, pressed her lips together, and curved them into a faint smile.

Replies began to trickle in.

73L: [Holy crap, when 70L puts it like that, I think I finally get why there had to be a drill.]

74L: [Never thought of it that way. So it was to fish out those twenty-one people? I can kind of understand it now.]

76L: [I’ve also been stabbed in the back by people like that before. My experience doesn’t compare to 63L’s even one ten-thousandth, but I still empathize hard. I support 70L’s take.]

……

63L’s account had been so detailed that it stirred up painful memories buried deep in some readers’ hearts, and many people changed their stance because of it.

……

77L: [Setting skepticism aside for a moment, haven’t you noticed that if the principal wasn’t lying, then everything actually makes sense? Maybe from the start we were just overthinking it.]

80L: [I’m still reserving judgment, but I’ve decided to stay.]

85L: [Same.]

……

There were many more who stayed silent in the shadows, but at this point the discussion in the thread seemed to have reached a temporary conclusion. Song Rushuang had reached one of her own.

“So what do you think?” Zhang Han suddenly asked.

She was hugging a pillow printed with the oversized face of some unknown idol, looking at her two roommates. Her jet-black round eyes somehow made her look like a puppy waiting hopefully for attention.

“I’m staying,” Shen Qingqing said. “My family can’t afford for me to repeat a year. If I withdraw, I’ll probably have to work to support myself through school. And there’s no guarantee I could score this high again.”

Zhang Han hadn’t realized things were so hard for her. She let out a small “oh.”

After hesitating for two seconds, Song Rushuang said, “I’m staying too.”

She didn’t explain. Zhang Han immediately deflated. “You’re both staying… then I won’t leave either.”

Maybe it was confidence born of a comfortable family background, or maybe because she hadn’t actually been bitten and her trauma wasn’t as deep. Zhang Han had the reckless fearlessness of a calf not yet afraid of tigers. Once she’d thought it through, she promptly shoved the whole matter to the back of her mind.

She jumped off the bed and clapped her hands. “Since nobody’s leaving, how about we go eat at the cafeteria? First day of school, my treat!”

The word “cafeteria” hit like a trigger. Song Rushuang and Shen Qingqing’s expressions suddenly turned strange.

It felt like… they’d forgotten something important.

*

Fifteen minutes later, everyone was sitting in the cafeteria with all sorts of complicated expressions.

When Song Rushuang left the serving window carrying her tray, she couldn’t help, out of sheer psychological reflex, lowering her head to glance at the floor.

Only after confirming it was spotless did she return to her seat.

She had barely sat down when Zhang Han called her over to look at the forum.

Song Rushuang had assumed something urgent had happened, but instead she saw that the forum’s front page had been overtaken by a brand-new topic—

[The principal said there’d be punishment for being late, but she never said the punishment was cleaning a cafeteria full of #%￥*…&!]

[Alright, confirmed again. The principal really has no humanity.]

[Waaah, I’m not clean anymore…]

[Global manhunt for everyone who ran to the cafeteria earlier. What on earth did you people do in here (smile)]

Song Rushuang: “……”

Her finger slipped and she refreshed the page. A brand-new post popped up, like a thunderous cry of despair.

—[Mom, this cafeteria has a smell!!!]

₊˚.🎧📓✩