Ch 90: Opening a Survival School Before the Zombie Outbreak

“This… this…” Song Jianguo took two looks and immediately turned his gaze away, not daring to look any longer.

Then he thought of something and glanced toward his daughter in the front seat. Song Rushuang was staring intently at the map on her phone, discussing routes with Zhang Han as if completely unaware of what had just happened on the roadside. He let out a quiet breath of relief.

The vehicle drove out through the school gates and turned a corner, heading in the opposite direction from the man on the road.

Left behind, the two men twisted around to look through the rear window. They saw the man drop onto all fours, crouched low, licking the blood from the corner of his mouth with exaggerated, unnatural movements. Slowly, he lifted his head and looked toward the school gate nearby, sending a sudden chill through their hearts.

Xu Mingyu and the others were still inside the campus. And the school was filled with students. What if this person broke in…

No, could that thing they had just seen even still be called a “person”?

Their thoughts raced in terror, but mindful of Zhang Han and Song Rushuang in the front seats, they forced themselves not to cry out. Even now, they were afraid of leaving psychological scars on their daughters.

Zhang Feng looked toward Fu Qing, trying to hide the urgency in his voice. “That person…”

Fu Qing understood immediately. “It’s fine. Our campus security will handle it.”

Her calmness was almost frightening.

Song Jianguo and Zhang Feng could not make sense of it no matter how hard they tried.

Was this really how a normal person reacted after seeing something so bloody?

…And what kind of security guards could possibly handle something like that?

Only after their SUV turned the corner did a small side door near the east gate open. Two students poked their heads out, checked that no one was around, then cautiously approached the man lying on the ground.

With practiced efficiency, they killed the zombie, sealed it inside a body bag prepared in advance, and carried it back into the school. Avoiding crowded routes along the way, they entered an underground area.

This place lay in a remote section, far from the underground shelter wards and storage rooms. Though Fangzhou’s underground structures were all connected by corridors, few people came here under normal circumstances.

Only students and teachers with the campus map loaded into their wristbands knew that this area housed both an incinerator and a morgue. The former was specifically used for burning corpses and was separate from the garbage incinerator near the farmland, allowing for controlled staged combustion to prevent corpse explosions.

In the future, there would only be more and more bodies near Fangzhou, whether dead humans or slain zombies. Left outdoors, they would quickly rot. To prevent disease and protect the surrounding environment, the school had formed volunteer teams that regularly cleared zombies and corpses from nearby areas and brought them back for incineration.

Besides that, there were student patrol teams, exploration teams responsible for gathering supplies outside the campus, rotating guard squads stationed at the walls and gate checkpoints, teams caring for crops and livestock, and more.

Every student had assigned duties. Using wristband functions, teams scheduled rotations themselves, maintaining strict order.

Those assigned to heavy labor such as corpse transport could apply for reassignment to lighter internal patrol duties after a period of time.

Once parents eventually adapted to life in the apocalypse, they too could help shoulder part of the workload, easing the students’ responsibilities.

The two members of the corpse transport team handed the zombie remains over to fully equipped students waiting inside the cremation facility. These students performed basic processing before incineration. Temperatures exceeding nine hundred degrees Celsius completely neutralized the virus. The resulting ashes could even be used to improve soil or serve as construction material.

It sounded grim, but in an apocalypse it was an efficient use of resources. Mixed with kitchen waste and sealed to ferment, the ashes could become fertilizer after two months.

Students assigned to the morgue were carefully selected for strong psychological resilience, yet the role still rotated daily, and no one would be assigned the same position again within a month.

After completing the handoff, the transport team left without drawing any attention.

*

Meanwhile, trapped on the road, Sun Wei quietly pulled a spring knife from the storage compartment beside the driver’s seat and slipped it into her sleeve.

She felt deeply relieved now. When the chain collision happened earlier, her truck had been stopped at a red light within traffic, so despite being rear-ended, the three people inside were not injured.

Still, Liao Yahui and Sun Miao had been badly shaken.

All day, the two had sat in the back seat watching Sun Wei livestream while driving. Though they felt it wasn’t entirely safe, she mostly listened to chat and only occasionally spoke, keeping her attention on the road, so they let her continue. In fact, seeing their daughter “at work” for the first time felt strangely novel.

The dense scrolling comments represented countless viewers expressing their fondness for her.

Halfway through, Sun Miao secretly searched up the @Dormitory Escape account on his own phone, awkwardly reading audience comments and showing them to Liao Yahui.

For the first time, they understood what their daughter actually did online.

She wasn’t simply locking herself in her room doing something “pointless,” as they had once assumed.

She and her friends brought joy to many people and shared genuine ideas and values.

They still didn’t quite understand why people enjoyed watching such content, but Sun Wei had clearly reached an unimaginable number of listeners.

Tens of millions of followers. Millions of views per video. Passionate comments overflowing with support. All of it shook their traditional way of thinking.

Then the accident happened, jolting them back to reality.

Once they recovered, both immediately wanted to get out and check the situation, but Sun Wei stopped them. “It sounds pretty chaotic back there. Better not go over and get involved.”

In the past, Liao Yahui’s strong personality would never have listened to such advice. But this time, her movement toward the door slowed strangely.

Holding their breath, they heard angry shouting erupt from the tail end of the traffic jam, growing louder and more intense.

It sounded like a fight had broken out.

“We should at least see what’s going on. We don’t even know who’s responsible yet,” Liao Yahui said after hesitating, unexpectedly offering an explanation.

Sun Wei found that surprising. After a moment’s thought, she said, “Then you stay in the car and call the police. I’ll go take a look. I’ll be back soon.”

With that, she opened the door and stepped out.

Sun Miao held his phone to his ear. After a long moment, he lowered it with a deep frown. “The emergency number won’t go through.”

Before he even finished speaking, another deafening crash rang out. The entire truck lurched forward half a meter. The two people inside slammed their heads hard against the backs of the front seats. Sun Miao felt dizzy from the impact, while Liao Yahui was thrown forward, nearly sliding off her seat.

Screams erupted all around them. A sedan on the right had been forced so close that it pressed tightly against the truck without the slightest gap. Through the window, Liao Yahui saw, in horror, the driver of the sedan forcing his thick body through the narrow space between the two vehicles.

He looked as though he were desperately trying to escape something. Veins bulged along one arm as he struggled upward, finally managing to grab onto their window. His fingernails tore back from the force, yet he seemed not to feel pain. With blood-covered hands, he clawed frantically at the window frame, using it to drag himself out.

“H-help me…”

His voice came out in broken fragments.

“In the car… in my car… there’s someone…”

The crushing pressure had forced his eyes to bulge, bloodshot and filled with tears. His lips had turned a bluish purple. Watching that face inch closer and closer, Liao Yahui finally screamed.

The next second, another vehicle shot out from a side road at full speed, completely out of control.

Trapped inside the truck, the couple had only enough time to shield their heads and necks before the jeep slammed into the edge of the traffic line without slowing at all. Its front end crumpled instantly, the hood flipping up as thick smoke poured out. One collision triggered another, pushing the entire row of vehicles sideways until the shock reached the sedan beside them.

Liao Yahui squeezed her eyes shut as a thunderous blast rang through her head.

The man halfway out of the driver’s seat had his spine snapped by the impact. The light in his eyes faded instantly. His lower body remained trapped inside the car while his upper body bent backward unnaturally. His hands slid down limply. He stopped moving.

“How could this happen…” Liao Yahui gagged, half crying, the closest witness to the horror. “Why did he climb out?”

Sun Miao held his wife tightly. Over her shoulder, he suddenly saw the corpse move.

It was like something unseen beneath a dark sea had extended a long tentacle, wrapping around the body and dragging it downward. The man’s body began striking against the car again and again.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Sun Miao swallowed. “He said… there was someone in his car…”

Someone? What kind of person could frighten a strong man so badly that he would rather crawl out into danger than remain inside?

Sun Miao did not dare think further.

It felt exactly like a scene from a horror film.

They had barely checked their phones while driving, afraid of motion sickness, only briefly searching Sun Wei’s account during the earlier traffic jam. They still had no idea what was happening outside.

“We have to call Weiwei back,” Liao Yahui said, trembling. “Don’t let her see this.”

The man’s twisted corpse was simply too horrifying.

At that moment, the driver’s door opened. Sun Wei jumped back into the truck, immediately locking the doors before anything else. Spotting the phone that had fallen beneath the passenger seat, she picked it up, quickly reassured her viewers with a few words, and replied to Song Rushuang’s message.

“Don’t go out to check anymore. Just stay in the car and wait for the police and ambulance,” Liao Yahui said, feeling slightly calmer at the sight of her daughter, though she was still shaken.

After today, she thought, she might need to see a psychologist.

But Sun Wei suddenly turned, her expression urgent. “The police and emergency lines aren’t working. Mom, Dad, something’s wrong.”

Both of them froze. “Wrong? What do you mean?”

“People in the back are biting each other like they’ve gone crazy. The ones getting bitten are screaming horribly, and there’s more than one attacker,” Sun Wei said quickly. “I didn’t get too close, just watched from a distance. One of the bitten people lay on the ground for a while… then got back up and started biting the people trying to help him. It looked exactly like a zombie apocalypse movie.”

She bit her lip before adding carefully, “I also saw someone get bitten in the neck. Blood sprayed everywhere… there’s no way they survived.”

Liao Yahui covered her mouth. Sun Miao felt as though he might have a heart attack.

Yet remembering the man’s gruesome death moments earlier, neither of them could immediately deny her words.

“Maybe… maybe they’re filming a movie…” Liao Yahui tried weakly, though she didn’t dare look outside.

As long as she didn’t look, maybe the apocalypse wasn’t real.

Only those already standing in hell understood how impossible it was to accept reality in an instant. Human instinct was to deceive itself first.

Sun Wei shook her head, extinguishing the last trace of hope. “I talked briefly with some people nearby. They said the trending topics online are exploding. People all over the world are attacking and biting others. Forget zombies, it might be some unknown infectious disease outbreak.”

Silence filled the vehicle.

Sun Miao shakily reached for his phone to confirm her words when Liao Yahui suddenly jolted upright as if shocked.

“Th-there’s a hand!!”

From the corner of her eye, a blood-covered hand slowly reached out from beneath the car.

The man with the broken spine had risen again. His arm stretched forward repeatedly, but his body remained trapped, forcing him to move like a rusted machine stuck in a loop.

Liao Yahui’s heart nearly burst from her chest. The man’s eyes were empty now. All traces of pain and struggle had vanished. He no longer looked alive at all.

Could zombies really exist?

Staring in shock through the window, the couple suddenly felt a tap on their arms. Turning, they saw Sun Wei handing each of them a spring knife and a pair of thick gloves.

Without blinking, she lied smoothly. “The knives are for opening boxes and cutting fruit. The gloves are for moving cargo later. You might as well wear them now for protection.”

“In movies, zombie viruses spread through saliva and blood. Wear the gloves. If you get bitten, it’ll give you some protection.”

Still dazed and unable to fully accept reality, they took the items automatically.

The next moment, Sun Wei opened the driver’s window and, with a swift movement, climbed onto the roof of the truck. Her flexibility and smaller frame allowed her to squeeze through the opening easily, even though it was too narrow for a zombie to enter.

“I’m not getting off the vehicle. I’ll check from above,” she said, already stepping onto the roof and rising to her feet.

Looking out, she saw an endless line of vehicles stretching hundreds of meters. Voices, horns, and chaos blended together. Driving forward along the original route was impossible.

They would have to go around the side.

There were fewer cars there. If she could get into nearby vehicles and move them slightly, she could clear a narrow path wide enough for the truck to pass.

But first, the nearby zombies would have to be dealt with.

Not far away on the sidewalk, a fleeing woman was tackled by a zombie. Her screams weakened rapidly.

Sun Wei’s heart clenched. She wanted to jump down and help, but she hesitated, thinking of her parents inside the truck below.

Then her movement froze.

At the far end of her vision, a black SUV sped rapidly toward them.

₊˚.🎧📓✩

Previous