Ch 39: Opening a Survival School Before the Zombie Outbreak

“It was incredible!” Zhao Yun exclaimed from the bottom of her heart.

Her heart was still pounding, unable to shake off the shock brought by the mysterious sixth person’s clean and decisive elimination of the zombie at the end.

After calming down a little, Zhao Yun dragged the progress bar, preparing to watch it again, when she suddenly felt something was off.

She turned around, only to be scared out of her wits by a face pressed close behind her.

Looking carefully, it was actually the roommate who had always claimed she had no interest in this kind of video.

Her roommate stared unblinkingly at Zhao Yun’s computer screen. Seeing her pause, she urged, “Weren’t you going to watch it again? Why’d you stop?”

Zhao Yun: “…When did you come over?”

“Right when the zombie chase started.” Her roommate grinned. “Gotta say, it’s actually pretty interesting. That last scene was seriously cool.”

“Oh right, what was the name of that account you mentioned earlier? I want to follow it too.”

As a textbook face-lover, she had been completely conquered by the final two seconds of the video.

…

The logic of the internet is simple: as long as one thing is pushed to the extreme, or is distinctive enough, it can attract massive attention.

For example, some people create all kinds of bizarre inventions that are clearly impractical in real life, yet make perfect video material precisely because they embody the internet’s selling points: unique enough, interesting enough, and useless enough to be entertaining.

Applied to the publicity team’s video, the same rule held true.

Their previous video had made it onto the homepage recommendations because the concept of “dorm survival in a peaceful era without a zombie outbreak” was novel and creative, unprecedented and unmatched. As for why this new video exploded in popularity, the reason was even simpler.

Because the zombie looked realistic enough, and Fu Qing’s entrance was cool enough.

The five members of the publicity team had originally believed their last upload, which was also their fifth video and the one that made them go viral and gain followers, was already the peak they could reach in a short period of time.

After that, they expected only gradual growth.

Unexpectedly, once the new video was released, their follower count doubled overnight, with growth even more terrifying than last time.

This time, the audience was no longer limited to young people who enjoyed funny videos. It also included tech geeks who loved analyzing details, horror movie enthusiasts, and fans obsessed with the “mysterious sixth person’s” looks.

Three groups with completely different tastes had somehow met within the same video.

In the comment section, some people were busy screaming “ahhh,” while others spammed laughter.

Some debated whether the zombie was a robot, special effects, or a real person in a suit. Translated on Hololo novels. Others analyzed the chase scene frame by frame, studying filming techniques and the makeup methods used to create rotting flesh and blood. It was a true blooming of diverse discussions.

Many viewers sent private messages asking about the truth behind the hyper-realistic zombie, but Sun Wei and the others replied to none of them.

The current level of discussion was exactly what Fu Qing intended when she posted the video.

Using system rules and the properties of the realistic zombie to exploit loopholes and lure out those with ulterior motives.

…

In an underground parking garage, Fu Qing sat in her newly purchased car. She opened her phone one last time to glance at the bustling comment section, then turned off the screen.

The vehicle’s navigation pointed toward a small courtyard house in the suburbs.

This was an unoccupied property the system had traded for using part of her tuition fees.

Since the system could obtain a plot of land as large as Fangzhou to build a school, it clearly possessed some power to influence reality. Having the system purchase a house was the simplest and fastest option, and it also concealed the property’s origin and ownership information well enough to avoid investigation.

However, unlike Fangzhou, construction could not be carried out here. What Fu Qing obtained was merely the right to use the courtyard.

The latest video had been filmed at this very location.

The house still contained furniture left behind by the previous owner. No one knew why such a large place had been abandoned for so many years. Spiderwebs and dust came ready-made, saving them even the effort of setting up a haunted-house atmosphere.

The furniture was worthless anyway. After bringing the publicity team there, Fu Qing waved her hand and granted them full permission to wreck the place as they pleased.

That was how the chaotic, completely unrestrained video content came into being.

At this moment, several tents and recently purchased supplies still waiting to be sorted lay in her trunk.

She would most likely spend the night in the courtyard.

Before editing the video, Fu Qing had deliberately reminded the boy responsible for post-production to censor road signs along the route, but not to obscure the terrain around the courtyard too thoroughly.

This would greatly increase the difficulty of locating the filming site without making it impossible, effectively filtering out idle fans curious about the creator’s privacy but lacking the technical ability, leaving only those who truly had skills and ulterior motives.

Both Fu Qing and the police believed Liu Yong most likely contacted other zombie believers through the internet. The group had already evaded preliminary cyber-police investigations, which meant at least one of them was highly proficient online. Finding the courtyard would not be difficult for such people.

Because of the deliberate concealment, they would likely assume Fu Qing and the others had simply been careless, never suspecting it had been a trap from the beginning.

With no clues about the devout believers, she had to create her own.

Using an extremely realistic zombie in the video and filming kill scenes from the zombie’s first-person perspective were all meant to provoke those hiding in the shadows.

The video had been uploaded from within Fangzhou campus, making the IP address untraceable. The only location they could find was this courtyard.

All other on-screen members wore full-face masks. Only Fu Qing used a half-face gas mask, allowing her to be identified through her eyes and hairstyle.

Among the six of them traveling together, she would likely be the only one recognized.

And Fu Qing had absolute confidence in withdrawing safely.

After eliminating every possible risk, she calculated how long it would take for them to locate the courtyard based on the video’s rate of spread, and chose tonight to stake it out alone.

【Alone】

That had been Fu Qing’s original plan.

Until she drove out of the underground garage, turned the steering wheel, and saw the publicity team’s F5 crouching neatly at the school gate like five stone guardian statues.

Fu Qing: “…”

All five of them were there, not a single one missing, apparently waiting for quite some time.

When Fu Qing’s car stopped, they hurriedly jumped up, only to bare their teeth in pain as their legs, numb from squatting too long, protested in unison.

Freckles: “Whose idea was it to wait squatting down?”

Sun Wei: “Hiss… I’d like to know too.”

As the official spokesperson, Su Huaijin stepped forward first.

As she walked, her lips moved slightly, as if reviewing a memorized speech. Then she gathered her courage and said to Fu Qing, “Principal, are you going to that courtyard? We want to go too.”

Fu Qing lowered the car window halfway, resting her elbow on the steering wheel. Instead of refusing outright, she asked, “Why?”

If a school leader in the past had said those words, Su Huaijin would have immediately apologized and abandoned her idea without hesitation.

Because when adults asked such questions, they often concealed rejection, even reproach.

It was not truly a question, but a test of whether you understood social cues.

But Fu Qing’s question was genuinely just a question.

Which meant she had been given a chance to persuade her.

Su Huaijin did not feel afraid. Instead, she used the question to reorganize her thoughts, took a deep breath, and once her expression and tone had grown noticeably steadier, she said, “You never interfered with the creative content of the previous videos. So we have reason to suspect, no, to believe, that this video has a special purpose.”

It was a question she had been considering ever since Fu Qing began involving herself in the video script.

From Su Huaijin’s quiet observations of the principal, she had always seemed like someone who disliked trouble, appearing only when necessary and doing only what needed to be done. Therefore, this video had to be important.

So what was the principal’s objective?

She tried analyzing the differences between this video and the previous ones:

“First, the filming location changed, moving off campus. Second, props from the school were used, and the hyper-realistic zombie previously couldn’t be filmed and uploaded to external networks, which means you deliberately altered the terms. Third, among the on-screen participants, someone revealed facial skin for the first time, even though it was only half a face.”

Su Huaijin could not figure out the reason behind the second point, but the first and third clearly indicated that the principal had intentionally released partial privacy information.

When she had accidentally noticed comments analyzing the surrounding greenery and road features to guess which school the “survival squad” came from, Su Huaijin suddenly understood the principal’s intention.

Perhaps someone meant harm toward the school. Translated on Hololo novels. The principal might be worried they would locate Fangzhou and threaten student safety, so she intended to lure them to that remote courtyard instead.

If the teachers and students of Fangzhou were compared to the protagonists saving the world, then having a few antagonists opposing them was only natural, wasn’t it?

“If you really plan to go to the courtyard, bring us along and pretend you’re filming another video. They’ll be more likely to take the bait.” Su Huaijin had already prepared her reasoning for persuading Fu Qing. “That house clearly looks uninhabited and used only for filming. If you go alone and stay there for a long time, they might realize it’s a trap.”

Fu Qing pondered. “You figured all this out yourself?”

Su Huaijin nodded.

“And you were the one who called them over too?”

She nodded again.

Excellent intelligence analysis and leadership ability. Fu Qing silently raised her evaluation of Su Huaijin once more. Looking at the remaining four, even after being told there might be danger, not one of them had stayed behind.

The members of the publicity team felt the principal’s gaze sweep quickly across them and instinctively straightened their backs.

The sound of the car doors unlocking rang beside them.

“Get in,” Fu Qing said.

Everyone brightened, afraid she might change her mind, and hurried into the car.

For convenience in transporting supplies, Fu Qing had bought an SUV with a spacious interior, easily fitting all five of them.

They quickly found seats and settled in as the vehicle started moving.

Fu Qing habitually rolled up her sleeves while driving, and Su Huaijin found herself staring absentmindedly at her silhouette behind the wheel.

She had not expected the principal to actually agree to let them come along.

Although she had prepared her reasoning and believed the principal would probably at least listen, Su Huaijin had not truly been confident she could persuade her.

Even among Fangzhou’s students, probably only a small number realized that the person who had arrogantly declared at the opening ceremony, “If I tell you to leave, then you leave,” was, in private, someone who consistently communicated with students as equals.

“Which one is the real her, anyway?” she muttered softly.

She sat some distance from the driver’s seat, so Fu Qing did not hear, but everyone else in the car did.

After hearing Su Huaijin’s explanation earlier, the group quietly reflected on the stereotypes they had previously held about the principal.

In the silent car, the girl studying broadcasting and hosting spoke softly, her voice faint and eerie: “Is it possible, I’m just saying, is it possible that equal communication is real, and being kicked out for not studying properly is also real?”

Su Huaijin: “…”

What was this supposed to be, the principal’s wave-particle duality?

She patted her chest in relief. “Good thing I’m a top student.”

The moment the words fell, the top student surnamed Su successfully earned a car full of glares.

*

To avoid being linked back to Fangzhou, the abandoned courtyard Fu Qing had the system locate was extremely remote, positioned in a completely different direction from Fangzhou University, which already sat on the outskirts of S City.

Instead of taking the shortest route straight across the city, she detoured along smaller roads, nearly driving into the mountains at one point. Fortunately, Fu Qing’s driving skills were good, otherwise the bumpy journey alone would have made all five passengers vomit.

After nearly two hours, they finally reached their destination. Night had fully fallen.

The area was completely removed from urban life. Only a lone streetlamp stood in the distance, and nearby households had long since gone to sleep. The surroundings were eerily silent. As Sun Wei got out of the car, a thought suddenly crossed her mind. This really was the perfect place to dump a body after a murder.

No, no, that thought was too terrifying.

She hurriedly pushed it away and subtly moved a little closer behind the principal.

With the principal there, it felt like having a stabilizing pillar holding everything steady, as if there was nothing to fear.

Fu Qing opened the trunk and gestured for them to carry the supplies inside.

Tents, sleeping bags, canned food, compressed biscuits, and a case of bottled water, enough for all six of them to keep watch here through the night.

By the time Fu Qing finished parking the car and entered the house, the supplies had already been piled onto the living room floor. The remaining five stood there watching her expectantly, unsure what they were supposed to do.

Fu Qing sighed, not sure why she suddenly felt like she was looking after children.

She pointed at the tent bags. “You should’ve learned how to set these up in the stockpiling class. Perfect timing, practice it now. I’ll supervise.”

Although the course was called “hoarding,” it actually covered far more than hoarding supplies. Besides stockpiling techniques, it included survival nutrition and intake methods, food preservation, emergency responses for various situations (such as medications for different illnesses and first aid for cuts or diarrhea), and the use of common survival equipment like tents and generators.

If Fu Qing had to describe it, it was more like a “survival course,” with stockpiling simply serving as the entry point. The later lessons covered a wide range of topics. While not deeply specialized, they were sufficient for ordinary people to handle most emergencies they might encounter while sheltering at home.

It was absolutely a foundational general course every survival school needed.

Hearing her words, the five froze.

They had assumed the next step would involve searching for weapons, setting up tactics, and taking positions in ambush. In short, serious and formal combat preparation. How had this suddenly turned into after-class practice?

Traveling with the principal meant even dangerous missions came with homework squeezed in along the way?

No one reacted at first, and nobody moved. Fu Qing raised an eyebrow. “Do I need to teach you how to pitch a tent too?”

She looked as though she might check their stockpiling course grades any second.

They all jolted and hurriedly bent down to unpack the gear.

After a moment, Su Huaijin cautiously looked up. “Principal, there are two tents. How should we divide them?”

“Pairs of two. The remaining person times you with a stopwatch,” Fu Qing said casually.

She had even designed the assessment format!

The five nearly cried. At last, they were certain the principal was not joking.

Once everyone began working, Fu Qing went upstairs and downstairs to look around.

The courtyard gate lock had long since rusted and offered no real security. Last time she left, Fu Qing had looped a ring of grass around it. If anyone opened the door, the grass ring would snap without drawing attention.

When she entered earlier, she had checked carefully. The grass ring remained intact.

The dust inside the house also looked exactly as it had after filming last time. Together, the two signs confirmed that no one had come here since.

That group had not arrived yet.

As for whether the believers would definitely see the video and trace it here, Fu Qing could not claim absolute certainty, but she was seventy to eighty percent confident.

Not only because of her deliberate provocation, but also because the account @Dormitory Battle Royale had explicitly made a “prediction” that the apocalypse would break out within the next year.

To ordinary viewers unaware of the truth, it was merely a hypothetical scenario. But to zombie believers, it was a genuine prophecy.

They would never ignore such a potential threat. At the very least, they would investigate whether the survival squad truly knew something, or had merely guessed the correct timing by coincidence.

Additionally, Fu Qing had deliberately refrained from letting the publicity team clarify that the hyper-realistic zombie was just a “prop,” guiding viewers toward misunderstanding it as a real zombie killed during filming.

The simulated zombie was simply too realistic, so realistic that Bai Tang, who had encountered real zombies before, had panicked on the spot, losing rationality and forgetting that the apocalypse had not yet begun and that the environment was actually safe.

If even Bai Tang, a victim, reacted like that, how would those who worshipped zombies and believed them to be an evolved species interpret it?

Fu Qing was gambling, and testing, probing just how much the other side truly understood about zombies.

While thinking, she completed another round of inspection. Along the way, she dismantled two chairs, removed their wooden legs, and carried her newly acquired weapons downstairs.

After accomplishing all this, the five downstairs were still struggling. The tents were only half assembled, and everyone was already dusty and disheveled. Even the usually refined Sun Wei looked like a pampered city dog that had returned to the countryside for the holidays and rolled around in the fields.

Fu Qing could now tell that none of the publicity team members were used to manual work.

Considering she had recruited them precisely because they excelled at online matters, she reluctantly forgave their clumsiness.

She crouched beside Su Huaijin and unfastened a buckle she had just attached incorrectly. “Wrong way. This one connects to the outer pole.”

“Where’d this murder weapon come from? The pole tip’s pointing at the ceiling… see that hole? Lock it inside.”

“This tent’s support poles cross, not run parallel. Didn’t Bai Tang teach this? What was she teaching in class then, her dramatic love-hate story with some scheming green-tea boyfriend?”

The five-person team: “…”

Fu Qing stepped in. In less than three minutes, she sorted out the chaos, set up both tents, and corrected all their small mistakes along the way.

Multitasking flawlessly, nothing delayed.

Of course, neither was the commentary.

The five listened, sweating nervously.

Suddenly, they felt it might not be such a bad thing that the principal did not personally teach classes. Translated on Hololo novels. On her course, even the smallest mistake would probably be exposed. She would simply look at you, list your errors one by one, and you would die of embarrassment on the spot.

However…

Looking at the two perfectly assembled tents standing in the living room, they realized they had already memorized the entire setup process.

Ignoring the countless mistakes that had just been pointed out and corrected, everyone suddenly felt that pitching a tent was not actually that difficult.

Fu Qing glanced at them and decided she would purchase a batch of supplies later for classroom practice.

The rest of the house was too dusty to sit in, but fortunately the living room was large enough for both tents. They opened the flaps and sat inside. Someone spread leftover packaging bags on the floor as makeshift mats, and finally everyone had a place to sit.

Then once again, no one knew what to do.

Su Huaijin cautiously looked at Fu Qing. Understanding the look, Fu Qing said a single word: “Wait.”

“Just… wait like this?” Freckles asked.

For two or three seconds, the principal did not answer. Suddenly, Su Huaijin jolted as if struck by inspiration, achieving enlightenment out of nowhere.

“No!” she declared firmly. “How can we waste such precious time!”

The other four: “?”

Su Huaijin: “We can do homework!”

The four stared at her in shock. “???”

The appearance of an academic overachiever completely shattered the serious, tense, and formal atmosphere of the dangerous mission.

Half a minute later, the remaining four followed the suddenly energized Su Huaijin and began doing homework with blank expressions.

Fu Qing glanced at them and gave a faint smile before turning to look out the window.

Dark clouds covered the moonlight.

Rain was coming tonight.

₊˚.🎧📓✩