Ch 62: Opening a Survival School Before the Zombie Outbreak

Ding ding ding!

Ding ding ding!

Almost every few minutes, the system alerts rang out urgently.

System: [Student Fan Xingye has sent a distress signal from the southeast direction. Straight-line distance: 482 meters. Tap to view coordinates and notes.]

System: [Student Xu Chi has sent a distress signal from due west. Straight-line distance: 237 meters. Tap to view coordinates and notes.]

System: [Student Ke Xinyi has sent a distress signal from due west… no notes were left…]

Fu Qing’s interface was already filled with incoming distress messages from students.

Many of them had likely encountered the same mutant, but the fact that multiple signals were sent simultaneously showed just how urgent the situation was.

She organized the information and marked each location on the map with bright golden points.

A preliminary estimate suggested that at least six or seven mutants were currently rampaging across West Mountain.

With the campus intelligence network shared, she quickly saw nearby blue markers converging toward the golden ones, gradually forming an encirclement.

The students, fearless like newborn calves unafraid of tigers, or perhaps simply worried about their classmates’ safety, relied on their numbers and rushed toward the mutants one after another.

Fu Qing ordered the outer teams to hold position to prevent gaps in the perimeter, then dispatched simulated zombies toward locations teachers could not reach in time.

A real-time battle was forcibly turned into a strategy game.

Only a few minutes later:

System: [Student Sun Wei has canceled distress signal. Teacher Lu Yan arrived on scene. Infected individual subdued and committed suicide. Twenty tubes of blood samples collected before death. No student casualties.]

System: [Student Wang Huai has canceled distress signal. Teacher Hao Zhenye arrived on scene. Infected individual resisted violently and died during combat. Two students injured, require hospital transfer.]

System: [Student Fan Xingye has canceled distress signal. Three simulated zombies arrived on scene. Infected individual suffered critical injuries during combat and died. One student injured, hospitalization unnecessary.]

System: [Students Ke Xinyi and Xu Chi have canceled distress signals. Nearby students arrived to assist. Infected individual fled due to exhaustion. Pursuit ongoing…]

As reinforcements arrived one after another, reports of resolved crises followed in steady succession.

The system delivered updates smoothly, emitting cheerful buzzing sounds.

The fighting across multiple locations was so intense that its informational threads split into thousands of streams, distributed through student and teacher wristbands as it busily coordinated and relayed data. It did not even notice that its host had remained wandering within a single fixed area the entire time.

After committing the surrounding terrain firmly to memory, Fu Qing simply stopped, found a tree, and leaned against it with her arms folded.

The system lagged briefly, hesitating.

[…Host?]

At first, Fu Qing had struggled to accept the presence of a voice inside her head that could hear her thoughts.

But after realizing the system was not malicious and had worked hard to help her, her resistance gradually lessened. When bored, she would even chat with it to pass the time.

“Don’t you think this is going too smoothly?” she asked silently. “It feels… too smooth.”

The system sounded puzzled.

[Isn’t this proof of the students’ improvement?]

It began listing reasons:

[These infected individuals are even stronger than previously seen specially evolved zombies. They possess intelligence, and their evolution patterns and attack methods are far more unpredictable. In the apocalypse, countless people would die at their hands. The fact that the students held out without severe casualties must mean the past half year of training has paid off.]

[Besides, teachers and simulated zombies provided timely reinforcements.]

The system was optimistic.

But as it spoke, it suddenly realized something.

Up to this point, Fu Qing herself had not gone to support a single team.

She had only been dispatching simulated zombies and redirecting students while allowing Lu Yan and Hao Zhenye to handle most of the mutants.

“Haven’t you realized yet?” Fu Qing said helplessly.

The system abruptly awakened and opened the map.

Centered on Fu Qing, an empty zone had somehow formed.

No markers existed there. No students, no teachers, no simulated zombies, no mutants. For various reasons, all had either deliberately or unintentionally moved away from this area.

[What is happening?] it asked in shock.

Fu Qing straightened and brushed dust from her clothes.

“I’ve been thinking about why the person hiding in the tree didn’t attack Lu Yan and that poisoned student.”

“One of them was tied up and delirious. The other was focused on caring for the patient. It would’ve been easy to ambush them then. If the attacker were fast enough, they could have escaped before we arrived.”

“But that person didn’t act. They didn’t even move. Someone as alert as Lu Yan only sensed something vaguely wrong. Compared to the mutants currently rampaging through the forest, that level of caution was excessive.”

“So I think the person hiding in the tree wasn’t targeting the passing teacher and student at all.”

She paused.

“The real target… was someone in the nearby camp.”

The mutants were not attacking students randomly. On the contrary, while Fu Qing tried to trap them within an encirclement, they were deliberately drawing every source of reinforcement away from her position.

Both sides had a commander hidden behind the scenes. The difference was that Fu Qing stood in the open, while her opponent remained in the shadows.

So she chose to follow the opponent’s arrangement and draw the one hiding in the dark out into the open.

The winter night stretched endlessly. The system had no senses, yet even it felt a chill in the air.

A faint rustling of fabric came from the pitch-black forest. As if she had been waiting all along, Fu Qing calmly turned her head.

The woods were dense, moonlight reflecting off the snow. The newcomer wore a bright crimson hood, the only vivid color amid black shadows and white frost.

The bold, flamboyant appearance made Fu Qing raise an eyebrow in mild surprise. At that moment, the figure abruptly lifted her head.

Their eyes met, and even the system’s constant electric chatter faltered.

From her cheeks down to her neck, every inch of exposed skin was covered in twisted, grotesque burn scars. Translated on Hololo novels. Her entire face resembled weathered tree bark, shriveled and uneven, completely hairless. Her nose was little more than two holes. Only her lips were painted a vivid red, the color exaggeratedly extended outward from the corners like a clown’s smile.

Anyone could tell she had survived a fire that should have killed her. To Fu Qing, those marks looked less like scars and more like flesh that had forcibly regrown from a withered body, forming jagged ridges like colliding tectonic plates.

The last time she appeared, the woman had concealed nearly her entire body. The eyewitness auntie had remembered only the scar on the back of her left hand, and Fu Qing had instructed everyone at Fangzhou to search based on that clue.

Now it was clear that had been only a tiny fragment of the scars covering her.

Only the smooth, unblemished skin of her right hand revealed that she was no more than in her twenties or thirties.

The woman smiled, her split clownlike lips widening. “I’ve finally met you.”

Finally.

Fu Qing remained expressionless. “You wanted to meet me that badly?”

“Mhm.” The woman’s tone was gentle, but her voice was rough and hoarse, either from mutation like Skull’s or from damage to her vocal cords in the fire.

Yet outwardly she looked nothing like the other mutants who had appeared tonight. There were no obvious signs of zombification.

“After recovering Skull’s body, I’ve been searching for you.”

An ill-timed thought flashed through Fu Qing’s mind: so the guy wearing the skull mask really was named Skull.

She asked, “Why were you looking for me?”

West Mountain was far from peaceful tonight. Three mutants were already dead, and more were still fighting throughout the forest. Yet the instigator behind it all stood here as calmly as if she had only come for a casual conversation.

“Someone asked me to meet you. I was happy for the chance to fulfill His request. Unfortunately, over the past few months, I never found a suitable opportunity.”

“But tonight, you finally appeared. And I finally have the chance to ask you on His behalf.”

The woman looked at her with eager anticipation and extended a hand.

“A new era is coming. Haven’t you ever considered joining us?”

Fu Qing lowered her gaze. The woman had extended her uninjured hand.

Ignoring the question, Fu Qing tilted her head toward the forest. Powerful flashlight beams crisscrossed through the darkness like a midnight light show.

“Another one died,” she said, listening for a moment before smiling faintly and looking back. “Did you hear its scream?”

In truth, Fu Qing had heard nothing. The distance was too great. The system had relayed the update.

But she believed a mutant’s heightened hearing would not miss a companion’s dying cry.

The woman’s breathing suddenly quickened. After a pause, she seemed to restrain her emotions.

“To obtain you, these sacrifices are worth it.”

“Join us. If you’re willing, you’ll have a place in the new world that is about to descend.” Her eyes burned with fanatic devotion.

At last, Fu Qing’s expression changed. She lowered her eyes, as if recalling something. When she looked up again, her entire presence had transformed.

Gone was the calm façade. What remained was coldness and cruelty.

She asked softly, “Someone once said I outlived the last human on Earth by three months. Do you know what I thought about during those three months?”

She still hadn’t moved.

“I thought that if time ever reversed, and I met that woman who worshipped zombies again, then even if I had only my last breath left, I would kill her and drag her down to hell with me.”

“…You’re refusing me?” the woman said in disbelief.

She suddenly laughed strangely. “You still want to kill me. But you can’t.”

Fu Qing moved.

Sensing danger, the woman retreated instantly. Translated on Hololo novels. Her body, moments ago indistinguishable from a normal human’s, exploded with terrifying speed, blurring into an afterimage.

But Fu Qing’s blade was faster.

The woman felt a sudden chill in her arm as something flew into the air.

It was her only unscarred hand.

A clean cross-section remained at her wrist. Bone, tendon, and flesh severed at once. Blood sprayed outward, flooding her vision crimson as rage twisted her expression.

She tried to pull away, but Fu Qing gave her no chance.

The world spun. With a heavy crash, her back slammed into the ground, pinned beneath Fu Qing.

“You—”

The dagger plunged into her eye socket, shredding her brain. Her words cut off instantly.

She lay sprawled on the ground, limbs spread wide, expression vacant.

Then, from the severed wrist, countless writhing strands of flesh began to grow.

They squirmed and competed, expanding rapidly, regenerating the missing limb almost instantly. Only now, the new hand’s skin was no longer smooth.

“You see? I told you,” the woman said softly, the dagger still embedded in her face. Lying there, she gazed up at Fu Qing, an oddly tender expression appearing on her grotesque features.

“You can’t kill me. This is a miracle granted by the Lord.”

₊˚.🎧📓✩