Ch 58: Opening a Survival School Before the Zombie Outbreak

Forum Hot Posts:

[Report — survived ten minutes in a hell-difficulty instance under the guidance of a cheat-level carry, here to share the good news!]

[Compiled timeline of currently known instances, click to experience the principal at different ages]

[There’s a hell instance set almost five years after the outbreak. Hardly anyone is left alive on the entire continent. When the principal saw me, she visibly froze for a moment. Kinda heartbreaking…]

[Everyone’s using 【Companion】, am I the only one who tried 【Experience】? I randomly picked a high-level instance. From the principal’s perspective, she stayed terrifyingly calm the entire time. When we were surrounded by more than ten zombies, I was about to scream, but somehow got forcibly stabilized by her emotional state.

If the simulation pod hadn’t explained that we can experience the uploader’s emotional fluctuations and that the feature was active, I would’ve thought the function was broken…]

[Reply: Anyone who can resist meeting the little principal gets this (thumbs up). I get this (thumbs down).]

…

The moment Lu Dongyu exited the instance, she rushed to post on the forum. As one of the first players to experience the newly updated feature, her post was quickly pushed onto the trending list.

As a longtime lurker, this was her first time posting. She had never expected so much attention and felt both flattered and overwhelmed.

Soon, however, even more posts flooded in and pushed hers down the rankings.

Rather than feeling disappointed, Lu Dongyu happily browsed like a melon-thief who had stumbled into a whole field of gossip.

She could only spend one hour per week with the little principal, and outside that time she could not enter the combat pod. Reading other people’s experiences was the next best thing.

Before long, even the teachers were drawn in.

Bai Tang personally went next door and knocked on Fu Qing’s dormitory door, immediately asking, “Can teachers use the simulation combat pods too?”

“Yes.”

After thinking for a moment, Fu Qing enabled the new function on the teachers’ wristbands. Once students finished making reservations, teachers could view and book unreserved time slots.

The feature had barely opened before those time slots were silently filled.

Bai Tang finally experienced what perfect physical stats felt like. She deliberately selected a high-rise escape instance and activated Fu Qing’s perspective, merging into her body as she watched “her own body” step along tiny protrusions in the wall while descending. Each landing required only the slightest buffering before moving to the next foothold, almost without pause. From the outside, it looked like a straight vertical fall from a skyscraper.

The roar of wind filled her ears, sweeping past her hair and whipping her clothes violently, yet Bai Tang felt an unprecedented exhilaration.

First-person perspective, full holographic simulation, real sensory experience. Wasn’t this far more exciting than playing games?

Unlike Bai Tang, who eagerly shared her experience immediately after leaving the pod, Hao Zhenye said nothing at all. Translated on Hololo novels. But one morning, when Fu Qing passed the training field after breakfast, she noticed he had quietly doubled the intensity of his morning workouts.

Of course, teachers differed from students. They could not simply enter for entertainment after booking sessions. Especially the newcomers Lu Yan and Xu Mingyue, who had not yet had time to upload their own instances. Taking advantage of the opportunity, they dug through their memories, and within just one week, everyone collectively added dozens of new instances to the simulation system.

Along with viewable clear records.

Unlike the system-generated instances, which mainly focused on combat and escape, the teachers’ uploaded instances were far more diverse.

With the update, instance formats also changed. Cooperative multiplayer instances now allowed more participants, role specialization, and longer time spans.

For example, Instance 093 tasked players with working alongside soldiers during the seventy-two golden hours after a shelter’s fall, rescuing as many survivors as possible.

In this mission, students could divide responsibilities: some performed emergency medical care, others cleared remaining zombies inside the shelter, while others searched for locations and constructed temporary shelters for evacuating the wounded.

This instance was jointly uploaded by Lu Yan and Xu Mingyue.

Another example, Instance 104: survive one week after water supplies are cut off, protecting personal water resources inside an increasingly chaotic apartment building while confronting rioting neighbors.

There were also Instance 99, repairing a collapsed safehouse after torrential rains; Instance 111, assisting in childbirth for a pregnant woman; Instance 108, helping a widowed mother and child trapped in an apartment building fend off looters, and more.

Each instance carried a distinct style, making it easy to guess the uploader’s identity.

The historical archive also gained several new anonymous visitors with different identification numbers.

Since even Fu Qing had shared her memories, the teachers followed her example almost without hesitation, contributing their own memories and emotions.

They were already dead. If these memories could help the living, then they might as well be used.

Through these memories, students glimpsed fragments of their teachers’ inner worlds, experiencing hours and days of their lives.

Anger, fear, anxiety, grief, regret…

When leaving the instances, those foreign emotions were instantly stripped away by the system, yet faint shadows seemed to remain in their hearts.

Without realizing it, the students began training harder.

*

After winter arrived, S City saw its first snowfall.

Fangzhou Campus, located near the mountains and beside a major river, was especially cold in winter. Cotton-like snowflakes drifted endlessly, piling thick layers across the training field. During early morning runs in the dark, people shivered uncontrollably, too cold even to speak, leaving only the crunching sound of footsteps in snow.

A thin sheet of ice formed on the tiles outside the cafeteria entrance, slippery enough to send anyone tumbling with a careless step.

The distant mountains were already buried beneath heavy snow. From the dormitory buildings, the world appeared entirely white.

Fu Qing sat in her heated office, reviewing the performance rankings displayed on the system panel.

They showed the combined rankings from three monthly exams and the midterm, along with students’ regular grades and simulation pod evaluations.

The December monthly exam had been canceled due to its proximity to finals. Once final exams concluded, Fu Qing’s “special squad” roster would be finalized.

After more than four months, clear gaps had emerged among the students, and Fu Qing already had several standout candidates in mind.

All that remained was to ask for their personal willingness.

She rotated her chair halfway and watched the red silk decorations flutter beneath the air conditioner’s airflow, feeling unexpectedly sentimental. She could not remember the last time she had experienced such a warm winter.

Although the entire school had been mobilized to search for traces of the Devout Believers on weekends, either students had begun training harder and went out less, or finding a small group skilled at hiding within a city of tens of millions was simply too difficult.

In any case, up to now, aside from Skull, Fu Qing had yet to encounter a second mutant.

There was also no further information about the woman with burn scars.

Meanwhile, over the past two months, three more large-scale casualty incidents had occurred in S City. The police were overwhelmed with work, and Officer Chen had not called again to report investigation progress. Since Fu Qing had not contacted him either, and the police had confirmed she was safe, they gradually reduced their attention toward her.

Which likely meant the cyber police had failed to uncover anything.

The investigation into the Devout Believers seemed temporarily stalled, so Fu Qing shifted her full attention back to teaching.

Final exams were scheduled for next week. After they ended would come a forty-day winter break.

To avoid raising parents’ suspicions and to allow students to return home and prepare for the apocalypse, Fangzhou’s winter break followed roughly the same schedule as other universities. The only difference was that, aside from three optional rest days during the Spring Festival, students were still required to complete daily running check-ins.

And unlike midterms, this final exam period would include a grade-wide unified examination in addition to individual subject tests.

Fu Qing had already planned the unified exam content. All that remained was scouting locations over the next couple of days.

She was deep in thought when a knock sounded at the door.

“Are you in?” Xu Mingyue peeked inside, looking mysterious. “I want to discuss something with you.”

Excitement sparkled in her eyes. To Fu Qing, who knew her well, Xu Mingyue might as well have had I want to stir up trouble written across her face.

Xu Mingyue dropped onto the sofa and eagerly explained her plan, concluding, “…So I’d like to apply for a holographic simulation prop.”

Fu Qing readily agreed.

Delighted after receiving approval, Xu Mingyue left happily, brushing past Lu Yan at the doorway.

He glanced at her, puzzled by her unusually good mood, then sat down before Fu Qing and got straight to the point. “I’d like to apply for a holographic simulation device for the exam.”

Fu Qing: “……”

Hadn’t this exact scene happened one minute ago? Why did it feel so familiar?

After approving Lu Yan’s request as well, Fu Qing watched him leave and suddenly laughed softly.

While students were nervously preparing for their first finals, the teachers also seemed eager to make a big move.

Whether this group of freshman rookies could survive exam week from hell remained to be seen.

*

One week later.

Five hundred students from the Infrastructure course gathered on the training field, visibly uneasy.

Unlike earlier courses such as Physical Training and Resource Stockpiling, the instructors for Infrastructure and Emergency Medicine had never announced exam content in advance. The students had no idea what to review and now faced their first exam in complete uncertainty.

Even worse, during the final class before the exam, neither Instructor Lu nor Instructor Xu had highlighted any key topics.

Every student on the field now wore heavy dark circles from late-night studying, anxiously awaiting the blade of fate to fall.

When Xu Mingyue, the grim reaper holding the sickle, finally entered, she was met by five hundred resentful stares.

“How the tables turn… When my sophomore-year professor said the exam scope was the entire textbook, I think I looked at her with this exact expression…” Xu Mingyue muttered.

Then she raised her hand and snapped her fingers before everyone.

With a crisp snap, the surroundings changed instantly. The clear sky vanished as winds surged and clouds roiled. Towering mountains appeared ahead, their peaks swallowed by dark mist pressing down with suffocating weight.

Rain poured violently. Lightning split the darkness, and in its brief illumination, everyone finally saw where they were.

An abandoned village.

Built along a mountainside, with the students standing in what had once been a communal gathering ground at higher elevation. Looking out, there were easily over a hundred houses. Every window gaped like a hollow eye socket. Broken bricks and shattered tiles lay silent beneath the torrential rain, giving the place the chilling atmosphere of a ghost village.

Some students instinctively edged closer to one another, feeling cold seep upward from the ground.

Snap!

Amid the darkness and desolation, Xu Mingyue calmly opened a small floral umbrella she had prepared in advance.

The heavy horror-movie atmosphere instantly collapsed at the sight of the cheerful patterned umbrella.

Everyone: “……”

“I should’ve reminded you to bring rain gear, right?” Xu Mingyue kindly said, looking at the students already soaked through.

They hurriedly scrambled to pull out their own rain gear.

“Now I’ll announce the exam content,” she continued.

“It’s the rainy season. A sudden storm has trapped you in this abandoned mountain village, surrounded by difficult terrain.”

“Your task is to complete the following objectives: evade and eliminate remaining zombies in the village, locate a suitable shelter, reinforce it, and survive safely inside until dawn, ten hours from now.”

“That concludes the exam instructions. Good luck.”

The students stared in disbelief.

Why did this… actually sound kind of easy?

With so many people gathered here and no zombies appearing yet, it suggested the village did not contain many zombies. The biggest challenge seemed to be reinforcing a shelter during heavy rain.

Compared to the physical training exam that required solo elimination of five zombies, this almost felt too relaxed.

A surreal sense of good fortune spread among them.

“Why are you still standing around? The countdown has already started,” Xu Mingyue reminded leisurely.

The students snapped back to reality and hurried off, each rushing to choose a suitable house.

…

“Looks like this should be about done, right?”

Cheng Yihui struggled to lift the final large stone and pressed it onto the tarp covering the roof. After securing it, he jumped down from the wooden ladder and stepped back to inspect their work, clearly satisfied.

“This house isn’t that old to begin with. Most of it’s still in good condition. It just leaked a little, so covering it with a tarp basically fixes everything. Next, we just sleep inside and wake up qualified, right?”

Cui Bo, his teammate, still felt uneasy. “This is the final exam. Can it really be this simple? We finished in three hours?”

“Relax,” Cheng Yihui said confidently. “Didn’t we reinforce the surrounding brick walls and set traps under the sections that are easy to climb over? Nothing’s going to happen. Maybe we just got lucky, drew an easy exam question, and get to turn it in early.”

“…Fair enough.” Cui Bo finally relaxed.

After one last inspection of the courtyard and confirming there were no hidden risks, the two walked inside with arms slung over each other’s shoulders.

They even found a box of Monopoly in the homeowner’s storage cabinet. After wiping off the dust, they happily started playing.

…Half an hour later, Cheng Yihui slammed his chips onto the table. “Haha! I win!”

“Damn it,” Cui Bo groaned, buried in debt. “Again!”

Cheng Yihui was about to agree when he suddenly frowned and looked around. “Do you hear something?”

Rain hammered loudly against the tarp, drowning out most sounds. Holding their breath, they listened carefully and finally picked out a faint rumbling beneath the storm, like rolling water.

The sound rapidly grew louder, impossible to ignore, and a sense of dread slowly crept into their hearts.

They jumped to their feet and rushed for the door.

The moment it opened, a roaring torrent mixed with massive amounts of mud and debris swallowed them whole.

Before they could even react, a flash of white light filled their vision, followed by three merciless words:

【You Died.】

【Examinee deceased. Exam automatically terminated. Calculating results.】

【Shelter completely destroyed due to landslide. Construction Score: 0】

【Total survival time: 3h26m (Fail)】

【P.S. Landslide was this exam’s bonus challenge. If safety risks were identified early and dangerous locations avoided, +5 bonus points awarded. If choosing a high-difficulty challenge by building near the landslide epicenter and successfully surviving, +100 bonus points awarded.】

【High-difficulty challenge failed. Bonus points: 0】

The two stared blankly.

“…What kind of infrastructure exam has surviving a landslide as a bonus question?!”

Cheng Yihui muttered weakly, “If you wanted to mock us for not using our brains, you could’ve just said so… Why does calling it ‘failed high-difficulty challenge’ feel even more humiliating…”

Cui Bo: “…+1.”

The two underperforming students covered their faces simultaneously, too ashamed to face anyone.

*

The next day, on the training field.

Emergency Medicine exams were being conducted in batches, with the first group scheduled for that morning. Students gathered early, animatedly discussing the previous day’s infrastructure final.

“I heard the landslide destroyed 80% of the village houses. Half the students failed.”

“Half a class needing retakes? That’s brutal!”

“So the real exam started the moment we chose a house?”

An infrastructure student chimed in, “It’s not Instructor Xu’s fault. She made us familiarize ourselves with campus terrain in the first class. Understanding geography and surroundings was lesson one. People just didn’t take it seriously.”

Liang Yi said this earnestly.

Someone nodded. “Yeah, I heard she said afterward that building a shelter isn’t about construction or repairs. It’s about choosing the right location.”

“After this exam, everyone’s definitely going to remember that lesson. Honestly, that’s kind of reassuring.”

“Yeah. Shelter safety affects everyone’s survival. It’s even more important than zombie combat skills. This is basically being responsible for everyone.”

As for the students who failed… well, that was another matter entirely.

While they sympathized with the Emergency Medicine students’ supposed misery, many forgot they themselves were already standing in the exam zone.

Then suddenly, their vision blurred.

When they steadied themselves again, they found themselves standing at the center of a stadium.

The field was packed with tents. Some people lay directly on blankets spread over the ground. Crowds shuffled past wearing clothes that clearly had not been washed for days, moving with exhausted, numb expressions.

At a glance, there were at least tens of thousands gathered here.

Two rows of portable toilets stood nearby, yet a strong stench still filled the crowded space.

Some students with sensitive noses immediately gagged and covered their mouths.

“Where are we?”

“What are we supposed to do?”

Amid the confusion, a calm voice tinged with faint amusement rang out.

“This is Primary Comprehensive Shelter No. 2 in City A, formerly the City A Olympic Sports Center. Since its establishment, it has housed a total of 27,314 displaced civilians.”

“Unfortunately, during the crisis, frontline staff suffered heavy casualties. The remaining personnel are insufficient to coordinate more than twenty thousand people, and order here has completely collapsed.”

Following Instructor Lu’s explanation, students noticed figures in white protective suits moving through the crowd. Looking down, they saw civilians lying on blankets, faces ashen, groaning weakly.

A bad feeling rose instantly.

Some patients had IV drips attached, but many more appeared untreated. Farther away, a medical worker staggered and suddenly collapsed, triggering renewed chaos.

“Now announcing the final exam task,” Lu Yan continued.

“Within forty-eight hours, assist shelter staff in establishing a complete intake and management process for refugees. Act as volunteer medical personnel and handle all emergency situations encountered by shelter residents during this period. Each successfully handled case earns 1–5 bonus points based on performance.”

Standing among the refugees in a spotless white coat, Lu Yan looked oddly out of place.

Yet he seemed completely at ease.

While speaking, he casually stopped a little girl running past, gently touched her dirty face without hesitation, observed her condition, and then handed her a piece of fruit candy from his pocket.

When he turned back, he met the students’ complicated expressions.

Those expressions clearly said: after the infrastructure exam, they would not be fooled again.

Someone stared at the patients with IV drips and unfocused eyes and said firmly, “Something’s wrong here.”

“These people couldn’t be…”

Everyone turned toward Instructor Lu.

He smiled gently as usual.

The entire group shivered.

Was there anything scarier than a teacher suddenly smiling right before handing out an exam paper?

“If, by coincidence, an epidemic were to break out here during these forty-eight hours and sweep across the entire stadium…” Lu Yan shrugged lightly. “That would naturally count as one of the emergencies you need to handle, wouldn’t it?”

Everyone: “……”

Someone even more ruthless than Instructor Xu had appeared.

₊˚.🎧📓✩

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