Ch 47: Opening a Survival School Before the Zombie Outbreak

When the eighth résumé drifted lightly down, the temperature in the room seemed to drop by two degrees.

The system, feeling guilty, didn’t dare make a sound. With nowhere else to direct her glare, Fu Qing could only grind her teeth and stare at the résumé itself.

Just like the previous seven, it was an ordinary A4 sheet of paper. No matter how she examined it from every angle, there was no sign of any radiant glow.

“System, did your lighting effect break?”

System: […]

Summoning its courage, it replied timidly: [There are still two chances left. Don’t lose heart, Host.]

[Human luck follows a conservation law between fortune and misfortune. You’ve already drawn seven N cards and one R card. Such a low hit rate is rare. The next ones will definitely be what you want!]

If the system had a physical body, it would probably be making a cute fist-pumping gesture right now to match its encouragement.

Fu Qing almost laughed at her own bad luck.

Those seven N cards, unlike Bai Tang and Liu Yingchun, were not rare talents destined for early death. Translated on Hololo novels. They possessed no notable skills, and she rejected them without hesitation.

The R card wasn’t much better, hiring them would have been a waste.

But wasn’t every ten-point “pull” itself another form of waste?

After throwing away 130 teaching points with nothing to show for it, only two chances remained for that “One Point of Luck.” Fu Qing stared at the floating button in silence, her gaze dark.

[Spend 20 teaching points]

[Click Recruit]

She drew two at once.

Two résumés descended from the air, both wrapped in dazzling golden light. Sparkling motes flickered around them like drifting petals.

Fu Qing’s mood instantly improved.

The luck bonus had been fully consumed. Two candidates matching her wish conditions had appeared.

Among the three desired talent categories, medical, infrastructure, and cultist-related knowledge, the two might share one category, or each match different ones, or one might even fulfill multiple criteria.

The specifics would only become clear after reading their résumés and speaking with them.

Fu Qing was already satisfied with the outcome. She grabbed the first résumé and glanced down at the name column, then froze.

The image before her flashed violently through memory and settled into the face of a pale, handsome young man.

The once-awkward youth she had first met had grown increasingly steady over the years. In the passport photo, Lu Yan looked straight at the camera, eyes bright, a faint teasing smile on his lips. Across time and memory, his gaze seemed to meet hers directly.

It was the same expression he wore during countless nights beside campfires, talking and joking together.

And the same look he had when she lay gravely injured, when he braved a tide of zombies to search for medicine, patting her shoulder before leaving and telling her not to worry.

Fu Qing’s fingers tightened unconsciously on the résumé, leaving faint creases in the paper. The thin sheet suddenly felt heavy.

She murmured, “I can even pull this?”

That was far too coincidental.

She had already thought it suspiciously lucky to draw Bai Tang, someone she had once briefly met. But Lu Yan’s appearance could no longer be explained as coincidence.

It seemed the system had quietly opened a back door for her after all.

She didn’t press recruit yet. Instead, she flipped to the next résumé and fell silent again.

Familiar faces appearing in clusters. Had all her luck from the first eight pulls accumulated and exploded here?

[A new applicant has arrived!]

Attribute: R
Expected salary: 7 teaching points/month

[Personal Information]

Name: Xu Mingyue
Gender: Female
Age: 29

Abilities: Intelligence A+, Combat B+, Survival Skills S-, Intelligence Gathering A

Overall Rating: A+ (A reliable all-purpose worker who fits almost any role. Hairline, health reports, and vacation time are negotiable. Salary is not.)

[A new applicant has arrived!]

Attribute: SSR
Expected salary: 0 teaching points/month

[Personal Information]

Name: Lu Yan
Gender: Male
Age: 24

Abilities: Intelligence S, Combat S-, Survival Skills S+, Intelligence Gathering S

Overall Rating: S (A precious SSR. For some reason… free?)

[Hire?]

During her escape in the apocalypse, Fu Qing had met many people and temporarily stayed within several survivor groups.

There was the survivor team where she met Xiao Juan and Uncle Liao, and the shelter that housed the first zombie cultist she encountered, the madwoman.

Some companions walked with her only briefly before parting ways. Others, because their personalities matched or their skills complemented each other, stayed together much longer.

Lu Yan and Xu Mingyue were among the latter.

She had met Lu Yan after entering university. They first knew each other through an online game. One specialized in damage output, the other a lifelong support player. Their teamwork was seamless, and they had even briefly topped the game’s rankings together.

Though they knew they attended the same university, they never met in person, until the zombie outbreak destroyed the campus and they ran into each other while escaping.

Starving and fighting over a single bucket of instant noodles, they began by trash-talking each other mid-fight. Halfway through, their voices sounded increasingly familiar, and only then did they realize who the other was.

Soon after, zombies attacked. Fu Qing rolled up her sleeves and charged forward. The young man somehow produced a knife and silently handed it to her at exactly the right moment, allowing her to stab through a zombie’s skull for the first time.

They hit it off instantly and decided to team up, with that bucket of pickled-vegetable noodles as witness.

The bond forged by instant noodles proved remarkably durable. Their team lasted more than four years.

According to Lu Yan himself, his family had practiced medicine for eighteen generations. Traditional remedies, Western medicine, folk treatments, he knew a bit of everything. By the time he could crawl, he was already clutching needles and poking cloth dolls. At three, he followed his grandfather into the mountains to gather herbs.

Although he chose forensic medicine as his university major, nearly giving his grandfather a heart attack, forensic medicine was still medicine.

And exceptionally suited for dealing with zombies.

There was no need to guess why his résumé shone so brightly. He was unquestionably a top-tier medical talent.

As for Xu Mingyue, Fu Qing and Lu Yan met her later, after Xiao Juan and Brother Liao died, while traveling toward another city after leaving that survivor team.

She won over the two starving wolf cubs with her superb repertoire of quick, budget-friendly meals every office worker relied on to save both time and money, successfully joining the team.

As the group expanded, Fu Qing and the others handled hunting and scavenging outside, while Xu Mingyue took charge of logistics.

Besides cooking and cleaning, she spent all her spare time improving their shelter. Before long, the dilapidated farmhouse courtyard they had casually found near the mountains had been reinforced by her into something as secure as an iron fortress.

Only then did Fu Qing realize that this polished white-collar woman from a prestigious university and a major corporation possessed skills forged not in the city, but during her exam-grinding youth in her rural hometown.

Xu Mingyue taught her how to identify edible plants in the mountains, how to use fallen trees and scrap materials to quickly build camps, how to set traps, and how to construct shelters.

So the reason for Xu Mingyue’s appearance here became perfectly clear.

A [Infrastructure]-type talent.

These two had stayed with Fu Qing until death itself separated them. She was certain neither of them had been zombie cultists, nor did they know more than she did.

Which meant her final wish had failed.

Fu Qing felt a small flicker of regret, but quickly let it go. Looking at the two résumés side by side, she pressed Hire.

A flash of white light passed, and two familiar figures appeared in the room.

If Yu Cheng had been present, he might have noticed that Lu Yan now looked more mature than before, taller, the youthful awkwardness gone, his shoulders broader.

Just as the Fu Qing from their camp days had once been younger than she was now, still carrying traces of student innocence.

But their way of interacting had not changed at all.

They were far too familiar with each other. Lu Yan’s first reaction upon seeing Fu Qing was to reach out and try to feel her stomach.

Fu Qing: “?”

What kind of habit was that?

Smack! A sharp sound rang out, leaving a vivid red mark across the back of his hand.

Lu Yan yelped, face scrunching in pain. Ignoring his reddened hand, he glared at her, anger flaring.

“Seriously? You had a hole that big in your abdomen and instead of lying down you’re standing here?!”

Xu Mingyue, still blinking in confusion and looking around at the unfamiliar surroundings, instantly forgot her questions upon hearing that. Before her brain caught up, her body had already moved, trying to help Fu Qing lie down on the nearby sofa.

As for where the sofa came from? Who cared!

“Where are you hurt? Where?!”

“Where’s my medical kit? Where did I put it?!”

The two of them rushed around the room in frantic circles, clearly searching for something but accomplishing nothing, like performers in a chaotic duet. Their constant movement made Fu Qing dizzy.

Where had these two clowns come from?

Her temple twitched. She reached out, one hand on each forehead, and pushed their heads away.

“The injury’s already healed. It’s been almost half a year.”

Actually, adding the two months since arriving in this world, more than half a year.

And if they were comparing injuries before death, weren’t the two of them worse off than she had been?

After all that commotion, the faint distance she had felt after years apart vanished completely. It felt as though they had returned to those days when everyone lived together in a single cramped shelter.

Back then, survival mattered more than anything. Social boundaries of civilized society meant nothing, nor did distinctions between men and women.

In winter they huddled together for warmth to save fuel. In spring they slept in shifts in the same room to guard against animals made more vicious by mating season.

They had seen each other at their worst, at their weakest, and still trusted one another enough to guard each other’s backs. That bond was far stronger than most friendships formed in peaceful society.

But after Fu Qing finished explaining her rebirth, the school, and the recruitment of teachers, she clearly saw a flicker of hesitation pass through Xu Mingyue’s eyes.

For the first time, Xu Mingyue lowered her head and noticed the dirt still embedded in her palms, carried over through transmigration, and the stains on her canvas shoes.

She wiped her hands on her work pants and looked at the spotless office around her, feeling as though she had crossed into another lifetime.

Before the apocalypse, she had worked in places like this, wearing perfectly pressed business attire and clicking through towering office buildings in small heels.

Now, she suddenly felt she didn’t quite belong here.

After many years, Xu Mingyue remembered how she had felt when she first entered the provincial capital as a rural student, overwhelmed by embarrassment.

She cleared her throat. “I see.”

A thin, invisible barrier quietly reformed between them.

Lu Yan noticed something in her tone and glanced at her.

Xu Mingyue sat on the sofa but only perched on half of it, as if worried about dirtying it, trying to chat casually.

Fu Qing raised one eyebrow. “Why are you acting reserved? I was the one who scattered your ashes.”

Xu Mingyue: “………………”

The fragile barrier shattered instantly, along with Xu Mingyue’s composure.

“How have you not died from poisoning yourself by licking your own tongue while eating?” she demanded, utterly baffled.

She reached out angrily, intending to ruffle Fu Qing’s hair like she used to when they first met, but suddenly noticed something different about her.

She seemed… harder to approach than before.

“What happened to you later?” Xu Mingyue asked instinctively, frowning, then quickly added, “Never mind. Don’t answer.”

She changed the subject at once, leaning back and sinking into the soft sofa with a satisfied sigh.

“Remember that broken shack at the foot of the mountain? It had been abandoned long before the apocalypse. Rats had chewed up all the furniture. There was only a ruined mattress with springs sticking out, crawling with bugs. We dumped out the eggs, scrubbed it clean, and dried it in the sun for two days before daring to use it. Who would’ve imagined we’d ever sit on a sofa this comfortable again?”

She turned nostalgically toward her companions, only to find both Fu Qing and Lu Yan wearing expressions of pure disgust.

Fu Qing had been drinking yogurt during the conversation. Hearing this, she immediately set it down. Nope.

Xu Mingyue: “???”

She slapped the table. “What exactly is your problem with a middle-aged person reminiscing about hardship?”

Fu Qing replied politely, “The World Health Organization defines middle age as forty-five to fifty-nine. Twenty-nine is still far from that. Also, please don’t talk about bug eggs while I’m drinking passionfruit yogurt next time.”

Lu Yan added comfortingly, “Actually, the present is still worse. Considering we’re already dead. If you want to reminisce about hardship and sweetness, why not remember when we were still alive?”

Xu Mingyue: “…”

She rolled her eyes dramatically, deciding it was impossible to get sentimental with these two.

Every serious mood was instantly ruined the moment they opened their mouths.

Lu Yan seemed lost in thought. His gaze occasionally drifted toward Fu Qing’s abdomen beneath her clothing before he restrained himself and looked away again, a faint crease forming between his brows. Xu Mingyue did not start another conversation either, instead staring eagerly at the yogurt in Fu Qing’s hand.

Understanding immediately, Fu Qing tossed them each a cup. They caught them, pierced the lids with a pop, and for a while the room was filled only with the alternating gurgling sounds of straws drawing air.

After finishing her yogurt and tossing the empty container into the trash, she finally turned to serious matters.

“Let’s talk about your work going forward.”

Former corporate slave Xu Mingyue shivered instinctively.

Fu Qing pretended not to notice. “Time is tight. We have less than a year. Most courses will hold midterms this week, and new courses officially begin next week. You have less than one week to prepare your lessons.”

“As for which courses each of you will teach, I’ve already arranged them.”

She tossed her wrist device to them. Once they had put them on, she waved a hand.

A freshly generated schedule appeared before the two teachers as a holographic projection.

[Course Information]
Name: Basic Medical First Aid (Required)
Location: Teaching Building No. 1, Room 201
Instructor: Lu Yan

[Course Information]
Name: Introduction to Safe Base Construction (Elective)
Location: Teaching Building No. 1, Room 202
Instructor: Xu Mingyue

“You can log into the teacher forum through the wristband, though no one really chats there. If you need something, just knock on the next dorm room. The campus map and facility instructions are also stored in the wristband.”

“Oh, and when you have time in the next couple of days, go to the simulation combat pods and import your scenarios. The location’s marked on the map.”

After finishing the explanation, Fu Qing turned to Lu Yan.

“I’ll be setting up a medical room soon. When you don’t have classes, please sit in there for clinic duty.”

She had not forgotten the unfinished task in the system: building a school clinic.

Back when funds were tight and medical personnel were rare, she had delayed constructing it. But the matter had always weighed on her mind.

The longer it dragged on, the more uneasy she became.

Over the past two months, students had constantly suffered scrapes and sprains during training. Most handled them themselves in the dorms. But two weeks earlier, one student had fractured a bone during training. After receiving a system alert, Fu Qing had personally driven him to the nearest hospital.

That incident served as a warning. A fracture was manageable, but if a sudden acute illness occurred, the school needed emergency treatment capability.

Now that Lu Yan had arrived, building the campus clinic could finally move forward.

She said “please,” but in practice she showed no hesitation in assigning him work. Lu Yan snapped out of his thoughts and, unexpectedly, felt a trace of nostalgia at this familiar dynamic. He nodded.

Before sending the two off to check their dorms and begin planning their courses, she stuffed a large bundle of preserved plums, jerky, chips, and assorted snacks from her desk drawer into Xu Mingyue’s arms for them to divide later. Then Fu Qing sat back down at her desk.

The shop item “A Bit of Luck” had cost 50 teaching points, and the recruitment pulls another 100. She now had 314 teaching points remaining.

Opening the shop, she navigated to medical facilities and hesitated between several options.

[Small Clinic]: 100 teaching points
[Medium Clinic]: 300 teaching points
[Medical Station]: 1000 teaching points

According to the descriptions:

The Small Clinic resembled a typical university infirmary, a room of about a dozen square meters divided into two areas. The front served as a consultation space with a desk, chairs, and a waiting bench. Behind the desk, a storage cabinet and curtain separated the treatment area, which contained an examination bed and sanitation zone for IV therapy and wound care.

Due to limited equipment and space, it could treat only minor conditions.

The Medium Clinic was larger, more like a small community hospital. It could accommodate more patients and, after upgrades, included inpatient wards, an isolation area, and a sterile operating room capable of performing basic surgeries.

The Medical Station was a full upgrade of the medium clinic. It supported advanced procedures such as organ transplants and included an ICU, psychological counseling rooms, rehabilitation facilities, and treatment capabilities for most illnesses. Its size expanded to an entire building, essentially becoming a small comprehensive hospital.

Although the Medical Station cost 1000 points and she could not yet afford it, student favorability was already nearing 40 percent. Soon she would receive a 1000-point reward, meaning it was not truly out of reach.

The question was whether it was truly necessary.

Fu Qing carefully reviewed every detail in the item descriptions before finally making her decision.

Fangzhou would eventually be transformed into a large shelter capable of housing thousands. A tiny campus infirmary would never meet its future medical demands. Compared with the other options, spending 100 points on a mere dozen-square-meter clinic was not cost-effective at all. The first option could be eliminated immediately.

The Medical Station looked impressive, but its maintenance costs were equally high. Specialized facilities such as psychological counseling rooms and rehabilitation wards could be replaced with ordinary rooms and improvised equipment. As for complex procedures like organ transplants, which consumed enormous resources, required difficult postoperative care, and might still fail, the cost-benefit ratio was far too low. Its usage and returns simply did not justify the daily upkeep.

Those same resources could instead improve the quality of life for far more ordinary people.

People often said that life was priceless and no one should ever be abandoned. But that was a belief born of peaceful times. In the apocalypse, the trolley problem played out in reality every single day. When one life and many lives were placed on opposite sides of a scale, who could truly claim they were equal?

Saving more people meant preserving humanity’s flame.

The 700-point difference between the Medium Clinic and the Medical Station could strengthen campus defenses or expand storage capacity. Every resource mattered.

More importantly, the Medium Clinic already included the essential features: an isolation ward and an operating room. Among the three options, it offered the best overall value.

Fu Qing clicked purchase. A multi-floor Medium Clinic was temporarily stored in system space.

She did not place it immediately. Instead, she continued scrolling through the shop until another building appeared.

[Pharmacy]: 300 teaching points

There was another reason she had chosen not to buy the Medical Station.

In the apocalypse, medicine mattered more than anything else. Even ordinary people, armed with basic medical knowledge and proper drugs, could save countless lives.

The Pharmacy in the system shop was sold separately from the clinic because it was not merely a building or storage space. It came bundled with large quantities of pharmaceutical supplies.

Buying it was like purchasing a freezer already filled to the brim with frozen meat.

Stockpiling medicine in the real world was extremely difficult, but the system pharmacy solved that problem perfectly.

With those saved 700 points, Fu Qing would rather buy two pharmacies outright and still have points left over.

Unfortunately, after purchasing the Medium Clinic, she had only 14 points remaining. She could only stare longingly at the pharmacy, something anyone in the apocalypse would fight desperately for, yet beyond her reach for now.

After one last reluctant glance, she opened system space and began positioning buildings alongside the campus map.

Teaching Building No. 2 had remained unused. She placed the Medium Clinic there, occupying floors one through three.

Because the isolation ward required special handling and would later serve as quarantine space for the shelter, it needed separation from living areas. The system allowed the isolation ward to be detached from the clinic’s main structure within a certain distance limit.

Besides the main gate, Fangzhou also had a smaller east gate rarely used in daily life. In emergencies, it could serve as an independent access route to quarantine.

Fu Qing therefore positioned the isolation ward near the east gate, forming a standalone structure with windows sealed by wire mesh and equipped with an internal air filtration and circulation system.

Once placement was complete, a settlement screen appeared.

[Completed: Side Quest “Build Campus – School Hospital”]

Requirement: Add campus building “School Hospital,” including at least one room equipped with basic medical supplies and facilities, and one physician with fundamental medical knowledge. (Completed)

Reward: Medical Supply Box ×100

The Medium Clinic’s treatment room already contained a small stock of medicine, enough to satisfy the quest conditions.

Finally completing the task, Fu Qing let out a quiet breath.

Each medical supply box was the size of a portable case, resembling a standard aluminum medical kit. Inside were various instruments and medications sufficient for most situations. They could also be carried off campus, making them extremely practical.

After unpacking them, the clinic’s medical inventory expanded dramatically.

Fu Qing placed thirty supply boxes into the clinic storage room and kept the rest in system space as reserves. She and the school doctor, Lu Yan, each held a key to the storage.

When everything was finished, she closed the system interface and looked up, suddenly noticing her own shadow cast across the wall by sunlight.

The sun was slowly sinking behind the hills. The room darkened, and the silhouette looked solitary and thin.

A knock suddenly sounded at the door, breaking the silence.

Xu Mingyue’s loud voice rang from outside. “Fu Qing, come eat with us!”

Inside Fangzhou, whether students or teachers, everyone habitually called her Principal. And after the lonely final stretch of her previous life, it had been a long time since anyone had called her by name.

Let alone in such a familiar, affectionate tone.

Fu Qing came back to herself and opened the door. Light spilled from the room into the hallway, illuminating the faces outside and making the pale color of his eyes gleam faintly.

Lu Yan had been about to knock and froze when the door opened suddenly. Unable to withdraw his hand in time, he simply pushed her shoulder and steered her into the hallway.

“Come on, come on. If you don’t come out now, Xu Mingyue’s going to starve to death. She hasn’t eaten for two whole minutes.”

Xu Mingyue popped her head out from behind him, protesting loudly, “You ate half those snacks too!”

The empty corridor filled with voices, lively echoes replacing the earlier stillness.

Listening to them, Fu Qing suddenly felt very lighthearted.

Her steps unconsciously grew quicker.

As if something that had once died inside her had quietly returned.

₊˚.🎧📓✩

Sandy: Awww I’m so happy for her.