Ch 92: Opening a Survival School Before the Zombie Outbreak

The livestream chat was so shocked that, for a moment, the comments dropped by more than half.

A close-up shot captured the instant of the zombie’s death. The unblurred wound, and Fu Qing’s completely unhesitating movements, hit them with tremendous impact.

Even the other four people in the small on-screen window couldn’t help baring their teeth and wincing where the viewers couldn’t see.

The principal was simply too ruthless, too direct. Without warning, she dragged an audience that still hadn’t understood what was happening straight into the brutal atmosphere of the apocalypse, making them inexplicably think of how they themselves had been thrown into a fully realistic mock exam the moment they enrolled.

Some clueless passersby wandered in by mistake and were scared half to death, thinking they’d stumbled into some kind of illegal livestream.

[??? What is this, “how to kill people” lessons?]

[Mom, can we broadcast this in our country now? Did the internet cleanup campaign forget to tell you?]

[Weren’t we promised a college-student comedy skit account?! Why is it this hardcore every time the mysterious guest shows up?!]

[It’s summer break and my little brother and sister are playing at my place. They accidentally saw the stream and got scared into crying. Now they’re wailing in my ears on both sides. I can’t calm them down, what do I do TOT……]

But some people watching felt something was off.

[This is an outdoor stream. There are so many people and cars in the background, there’s no way this is just for effect, right? And you can’t even do special effects on a live stream.]

[I have a terrifying guess if you think about it. This can’t be real… can it?]

[I’m watching the stream on my computer and still scrolling news on my phone. The “zombies” TaoTao filmed look exactly the same as the ones in the news. You can’t screenshot the stream, so I suggest everyone search for the blogger “@YangyangLovesToEat.” She posted a video five minutes ago: someone in a barbecue shop got attacked by a crazed person and grabbed a metal skewer nearby and jammed it into the attacker’s face. A few skewers went into the eyes and that person stopped moving immediately. Maybe the brain really is the only weakness for this thing.]

[Uh, I have a question and I’m not sure I should ask, but even if it’s not some zombie, a normal person would stop moving if you stabbed their brain too… I mean, that’s the brain! Not an elbow!]

[Damn it, don’t make me laugh at a time like this. I can’t laugh anymore.]

[No, what I meant is “only” weakness… You’ll understand if you watch a few more videos. This thing is insanely terrifying. It can fall from the third floor and still bounce back up like nothing happened, chasing people down to bite them. Even if its spine breaks, it doesn’t stop it from looking at normal people with glowing green eyes. It’s the middle of summer and I’m breaking out in cold sweat watching this.]

[Is it really that scary? My classmate sent me something just now and I thought he was joking. Don’t scare me.]

[So what the mysterious guest said is true? She really wants to teach us how to kill this thing?]

[I’m going to lose it. These “things” are just humans except they’ve lost their minds. How can you bring yourself to do it? Are we even living in the same civilized society?]

[To the person above, didn’t you see people getting bitten and dying on the spot from severe injuries? It’s not that learning this means you have to go out and kill people, but at least you need to know how to protect yourself if you really run into something.]

[+1, I think that’s what the streamer means too.]

[Am I the only one curious how the mysterious guest even knows this thing’s weakness? It’s been less than half an hour since posts started popping up everywhere!]

[……]

In just half an hour, too much had happened. The overwhelming flood of reports and posts, plus the bloody scene unfolding live in front of them, set everyone’s nerves on fire.

People argued. Others spiraled, repeatedly questioning and confirming. Some were so frightened they quit the stream outright, as if not watching meant they wouldn’t have to face any of it.

Only a small fraction, through the livestream, truly realized how severe the situation outside was.

Most other content online was one- or two-minute clips. The people filming were in chaos, barely able to protect themselves, and didn’t dare record for long. That made a streamer like Sun Wei, who had kept her livestream running the entire time, especially valuable.

Like a war correspondent.

Silently grateful, they tried to enlarge Sun Wei’s stream, not daring to miss any scrap of intelligence it might reveal, replaying Fu Qing’s words over and over in their minds.

But before long, the livestream was abruptly cut off.

On the truck, Sun Wei fiddled with her phone for a long time, then looked up awkwardly at Fu Qing. “Principal, the stream got shut down.”

Fu Qing: “……”

The apocalypse had only arrived half an hour ago, and the platform’s moderators were still doing their jobs as usual.

There was nothing to be done. What had just been shown couldn’t even be described as “skirting the line.” It was dancing in a minefield.

Su Huaijin had already drafted a brief announcement explaining the situation and stating that the livestream would end here.

The comment section quickly turned into a boiling mess, but she didn’t reply anymore, focusing instead with the rest of the publicity team on preparing to escape.

Over on Song Rushuang’s side, while Fu Qing and Sun Wei were livestreaming, she and Zhang Han had already cleared all the zombies near the roadside around the truck.

By the old classifications, these were mostly low-level zombies. The most agile one had already been dragged away by Fu Qing to use as a teaching aid. Translated on Hololo novels. So with one holding a knife and the other wielding a fire axe, they were moving almost one kill per strike, smooth as chopping melons and slicing vegetables.

When the first zombie went down, Song Jianguo’s brain buzzed. His head was full of thoughts like what if his daughter had killed someone, were there cameras nearby, could he take the blame for her… until he saw a zombie tackle a child, about to bite into the carotid artery. Then he couldn’t think about any of that anymore.

That was too vicious. If it would even go for a child with lethal intent, it wasn’t human anymore.

Thankfully Song Rushuang reacted fast enough. As the zombie opened its mouth, she had already jumped behind it, grabbed it, and flung it aside. Zhang Han stepped in and finished it with an axe blow. The two turned their heads, saw the child was unharmed, and only then let out their breath.

After that, the entire scene was effectively taken over by Song Rushuang and Zhang Han. Zhang Feng and Song Jianguo stood to the side like wooden statues, completely stunned by how fierce the girls were.

It wasn’t that they didn’t want to help. They were killing too fast.

Song Rushuang drove her blade again and again into the temple and the eye socket. At her fastest, she could take down a zombie in a few seconds. Song Jianguo, standing there with a blunt weapon like a fire extinguisher, couldn’t really contribute anything.

A few times he swung too hard and knocked a zombie away, which actually threw off Song Rushuang’s precision.

Catching Song Rushuang’s hesitant expressions more than once, Song Jianguo felt his old face burning hot with embarrassment.

Before leaving home, he had patted his chest and promised his wife he’d protect their daughter. Yet once they were out, he’d become his daughter’s accessory. Truly…

He also found it strange how skilled Song Rushuang was when she struck, but in a crisis, those questions clearly weren’t easy to ask.

When they finished clearing the last zombie within sight, Sun Wei also came running down from the truck with her parents.

On the way, she had taken out two more zombies stuck in cars, so she was a step slower.

After killing so many zombies, it had already become muscle memory. For the people of Fangzhou now, killing a few low-level zombies was simply a matter of convenience.

But the parents were terrified.

Even after the three girls urged them into the cars, they were still dazed and unsteady, as if they hadn’t fully come back to themselves.

Before the vehicles started up, it was Song Jianguo who thought of Fu Qing and mentioned it. “Where’s your principal? She’s not coming with us?”

“The principal will come later. She told us to go first,” Sun Wei said. “It’s fine, don’t worry about her.”

Song Jianguo was a little worried. But then he remembered the glimpse he’d caught of Fu Qing casually swaying her way into the line of cars, and somehow felt there wasn’t much to worry about after all.

She could outrun an off-road vehicle on foot and subdue a vicious criminal with her bare hands. Could he do that?

He’d only be the one dragging everyone down.

The ride back was quiet. Song Rushuang tore off a scrap of paper, meaning to wipe the blood from her hands, but after a second thought she gave up, stuffed it into her pocket, and returned to the school just like that, smeared in blood from head to toe.

In the cafeteria, Xu Mingyu and Liu Zhen had been so anxious they couldn’t sit still, constantly lifting their heads to look toward the entrance.

In the short ten or so minutes the group had been gone, the internet had erupted with even more videos. Every time they scrolled past a new one, their hearts sank another notch, and their minds filled uncontrollably with grim possibilities.

Liu Zhen’s eyes were red. She kept staring at Zhang Han’s contact on her phone, over and over, but didn’t dare call. She was afraid that if something really had happened, a phone call would only distract them. “If I’d known, I never would’ve let her go out…”

She slapped her thigh in regret, not holding back her strength. Xu Mingyu hurried over to stop her. “It’s fine. It hasn’t been long. They might be back any second.”

Xu Mingyu knew Song Rushuang’s fitness. Forget everything else, her morning training intensity had practically become a neighborhood spectacle. If something happened, she could at least run. That was why Xu Mingyu wasn’t as worried as Liu Zhen.

But she couldn’t really say that out loud, so she could only keep comforting her.

Then, the very next second, the curtain at the cafeteria entrance was pulled aside. Translated on Hololo novels. The two women snapped their heads up. When they saw their daughter and husbands, they nearly burst into tears of relief.

But before their smiles could fully form, they saw the bloodstains on Song Rushuang and Zhang Han.

Other parents in the cafeteria noticed too and cried out. Liu Zhen’s legs went weak, her vision swimming dark. She almost couldn’t stay standing.

She staggered forward to Zhang Han. “You’re hurt? Where? Let me see…”

As she spoke, a sob squeezed out of her throat, tears threatening to spill in her panic.

Among the parents there were doctors. Someone rushed over, only to see Zhang Han and Song Rushuang bounce in place twice and spread their arms. “We’re fine. Both of us.”

“This isn’t our blood.”

The way they moved didn’t look like they were injured.

Liu Zhen and Xu Mingyu looked doubtfully toward Zhang Feng and Song Jianguo. When both men nodded, only then did the souls that had flown out of their bodies seem to return.

Liu Zhen pressed a hand to her chest and collapsed onto a nearby bench. Zhang Han hurried to support her.

“What happened?” she asked, panting. “Where did all this blood come from?”

The parents who’d run over to help heard that these people had just come back from outside. They didn’t leave, instead staying to listen, studying them as they did.

The blood on the three girls was far too glaring. And seeing the adults looking half out of their minds, even before hearing anything, everyone understood that the situation outside was probably truly dire.

They’d assumed the short videos online were just isolated cases, and that they only seemed numerous because they were being posted. But now, had even the area around the school fallen?

A few people who had been loudly insisting a moment ago that they go find the principal to get permission slips to leave campus stopped making noise.

If something really happened, they couldn’t leave their children alone at school.

The students standing with them were visibly delighted, and when they looked at Song Rushuang and the others, their eyes held even more gratitude.

Song Rushuang had brought Song Jianguo and the others back to campus for exactly this reason.

What Song Jianguo and Zhang Feng, adults of the same generation as the other parents, said would carry far more weight than anything the students said.

Add Sun Wei’s parents, and with four adult witnesses, persuading the rest would become much easier.

She stepped aside. “Dad, you tell them what happened outside.”

Song Jianguo was pushed forward without warning. Quite a few people had already gathered in front of them. Everyone in the cafeteria, hearing the commotion, drifted closer, waiting for information.

A sense of responsibility rose in Song Jianguo. His expression turned more solemn as he described, in full detail, what he had seen.

When he got to the part about someone being bitten and dying on the spot from injuries that were too severe, the crowd sucked in a cold breath.

“To protect themselves, people have already started fighting back against those attackers,” Song Jianguo said, glancing at Song Rushuang as he spoke carefully. “That’s where the blood on us came from.”

“There was no choice. If you don’t fight back, you can’t get out. They’re too vicious.”

In truth, the first “person fighting back” he’d seen was that principal. And after that, it was Song Rushuang.

And the principal, after killing one zombie, went to the truck to find his daughter’s roommate, and didn’t do much more. All told, Song Rushuang had killed the most.

At the thought, Song Jianguo: “……”

He’d known Xiaoshuang was fierce, but he hadn’t imagined she was this fierce.

But fierce was good. Fierce meant you could survive, and even save people.

Thinking of the child who had only been saved because Song Rushuang reacted fast enough, Song Jianguo let out a quiet sigh.

He didn’t dare share those details. Luckily, Zhang Feng, who had been there too, immediately understood what he meant. Remembering that Zhang Han had killed plenty as well, the two men covered for the girls, one sentence at a time.

“Yeah. If you don’t act, it’ll kill you. The way they throw their lives away is terrifying.”

“Better to stay at school for a few days. Don’t go out these next few days. Wait for the police and the military to handle it.”

“Right. On that trip alone, I saw at least a dozen people dead by the roadside.”

Even as he spoke, he still felt shaken.

If Song Rushuang and Zhang Han hadn’t acted decisively, it really wasn’t certain they would’ve all come back in one piece.

Everyone had grown up in peaceful times. Who had ever seen something like this? Just hearing the description, the parents’ minds painted a river of blood, and the cafeteria erupted in alarmed chatter.

At that moment, two people walked in from outside the cafeteria. A sharp-eyed student recognized them at once and called out happily, “Teacher Lu, Teacher Xu!”

Lu Yan and Xu Mingyue had been called over by Fu Qing.

She was afraid that if she didn’t find two people to help answer questions, the parents would soon be knocking on the principal’s office door.

Granny Liu was too old. Hao Zhenye looked too fierce. Bai Tang and Zhao Yunxiao looked too much like students. Bringing any of them out would only make the parents more anxious. After weighing it all, the task finally landed on Lu Yan and Xu Mingyue.

After introducing themselves, the two continued, “Please rest assured. The school is currently safe. There are cameras near the walls and the main gate, monitoring at all times for anyone trying to break in.”

“We’ve also arranged a campus patrol team. Once everyone is settled, any parents who are willing to help can also go to the administration building to sign up with me as volunteers.” Xu Mingyue gave the address of her office.

“The cafeteria’s food reserves can last a long time. The school also has a clinic, with enough medical supplies to handle the vast majority of emergencies.” As he spoke, Lu Yan mentioned that he was the school doctor. After a brief pause, he added, “Also, if any parents here are doctors or nurses, please come register with me as well.”

As soon as he finished, several people raised their hands.

Lu Yan called them to the side, recorded their names and their children’s names, along with each person’s area of expertise, and said he would contact them if needed later.

The appearance of the two teachers calmed the anxious parents somewhat.

When they thought it through, the school had walls, places to sleep, and necessities like food and medicine. With so many people gathered together, what hardship couldn’t they get through?

In any case, this chaos couldn’t possibly last that long. If they held out a few days and waited for things to settle, they would be able to leave.

₊˚.🎧📓✩

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