The Believer had only just begun screaming when Fu Qing stopped it, less than half a minute later.

The woman who had been waiting nearby to play her part was also arrested on the spot, and the phone used for filming was seized as evidence. They were caught red handed.

Several uninfected Believers hidden among the crowd were stunned.

By the time they thought of fleeing or switching to Plan B, slipping into the shelter and spreading their faith slowly afterward, it was already too late.

Every escape route had been blocked by armed soldiers standing watchfully. Ordinary civilians felt reassured by soldiers, but those with guilty consciences stiffened under their gaze.

Nothing was unfolding the way they had planned.

Before setting out, their strategy had been flawless. First, send out intelligent infected who looked like ordinary people as a suicide squad. After enough of them were killed and bodies filled the streets, the disguised couple would step forward and perform their staged drama, forcing the authorities into public condemnation.

But just as the setup ended and the main act was about to begin, everything was abruptly shut down.

Dozens of Believers had died for nothing, and the number of witnesses reached was far below expectations. Escape was no longer even their primary concern.

If they returned without completing the mission, the consequences would be worse than falling into enemy hands.

One of them forced himself to act like an innocent civilian and trembled as he spoke up.

“What’s going on? I thought I heard someone calling for help just now!”

As soon as one spoke, the others followed in tacit coordination.

“Did they kill the wrong person?”

“That can’t be… killing someone isn’t like slaughtering a chicken. Besides, zombies aren’t the same as living people. How could a zombie talk?”

Some genuine bystanders were drawn into the discussion.

“If he could talk, he definitely wasn’t a zombie… but then…”

But a corpse clearly lay on the ground, killed only after speaking.

What exactly had happened?

Many people had been busy fleeing and had not seen who screamed. Some had stopped not out of curiosity but because they heard a cry for help and acted on instinct. Only now, listening to the surrounding whispers, did they realize the person shot dead was the very one who had begged for rescue.

The desperate pleas and final screams still echoed in their ears, yet the person had become a cold corpse in an instant. The contrast left many unsettled.

Still, people instinctively trusted the authorities. And because the Believer had died so quickly, before any spectacle could fully unfold, most still did not understand what had happened.

The hidden Believers hardened their resolve. They had to keep steering public opinion.

Speaking again would attract suspicion, but they no longer cared.

Just as one prepared to speak, a cold gaze swept across the crowd and locked precisely onto him.

The words froze in his throat. Though hidden among people, he suddenly felt completely exposed under broad daylight.

That brief hesitation drew attention elsewhere.

Other onlookers finally noticed Fu Qing.

Someone stared closely, then suddenly exclaimed, “You… aren’t you that person from the trending posts?”

The shout instantly shifted everyone’s attention.

Trending meant celebrity. Someone immediately asked, “What trending post?”

“The one who livestreamed teaching people how to kill zombies!” the man said, slapping his thigh excitedly. “No wonder she looked familiar!”

The livestream from @DormitoryEscape had been cut off midway. Clips that later trended were quickly buried under official announcements and other zombie footage.

Not many people had seen it.

But with such a large crowd present, a few viewers inevitably appeared.

Others had stopped because of the screams. This man, however, had paused simply because Fu Qing looked familiar.

Looking at him closely, he was broad and heavyset, unlike the gaunt refugees stranded outside for days. His well fed appearance gave him an oddly calm presence, relaxed enough to watch events unfold.

The moment he confirmed it was truly Fu Qing, his composure vanished, replaced by excitement and barely hidden admiration, like an enthusiastic fan.

“Teaching people to kill zombies?” others asked, confused.

The heavyset man explained, “I only saw a clip, so I don’t know the full story. But in it she explained zombie weaknesses and how to kill them, and even demonstrated on the spot. Her moves were incredibly clean and efficient.”

One person let out an “oh” and chimed in, “I’ve seen similar videos too, teaching self-defense. Though with the trending topics being controlled these past few days, the one I saw was reposted by another creator.”

The internet was now less than one ten-thousandth as active as before. The few pieces of information still spreading were almost all either cries for help or instructional content.

Some taught people how to kill zombies. Others demonstrated self-defense techniques for dealing with unreasonable fellow humans. Translated on Hololo novels. Some explained how to cook simple meals without water or electricity. The topics were varied and practical.

Hearing the dismissive tone, the heavyset man widened his eyes. “Don’t talk nonsense if you don’t understand. Do you know when I saw that video?”

As he spoke, he pulled out his phone to show them. “Look. I realized it was useful and saved it immediately. Check the timestamp, 3:17 p.m., the very day the virus broke out!”

“The outbreak hadn’t even been going for an hour when she posted that tutorial. How is that the same as people posting later? Timing matters!” he said, growing animated. “I was sitting in a café when everything outside suddenly went crazy, and that’s when I happened to scroll past her video.”

“Right after I finished watching and looked up, a corpse slammed straight into the café window.”

Sensing something was wrong, he grabbed a small cake knife from the shop and fled outside with the others.

The commercial district had been crowded. Along the way they encountered countless zombies, two or three of which lunged directly at him.

“Luckily I’d already watched her explanation. I tried stabbing their eyes like she showed, and it actually worked! If I hadn’t known their weak points beforehand, I’d be dead,” he said, still shaken. “Good thing I learned how to kill zombies. Look at me now. I’ve been stuck outside for days and I’m still fine, even able to scavenge food…”

He patted his stomach. Everyone looked. That clearly wasn’t the result of scavenging “a little.” Whatever he’d been eating definitely had oil and calories, because his well-fed figure stood out sharply among the refugees.

It was obvious he had survived quite comfortably.

The people from Fangzhou who knew Fu Qing heard everything and were unsurprised.

Killing zombies, in truth, became easier after the first attempt.

What held most people back was simply fear of striking first. Once that barrier was crossed, basic zombies were not difficult to kill.

Even the elderly or physically weak could fight back with weapons and proper protection, let alone a strong adult.

The heavyset man had started with a weapon, theoretical knowledge, and had even watched Fu Qing demonstrate once. Knowing that zombies could be killed removed much of the fear of the unknown. Driven by survival instinct, successfully killing zombies was not strange at all.

He had also likely been lucky enough never to encounter evolved zombies, allowing him to survive safely until now.

Judging by how relaxed he seemed while watching events unfold, many zombies had probably died by his hand. He had already shifted from prey to hunter, and his mindset had changed accordingly.

Others listened in amazement.

“She posted a tutorial within an hour? Seriously?”

Some people’s expressions darkened, thinking of loved ones who had died.

If their families had seen that video earlier, would they still be alive?

“As if I’d lie,” the heavyset man said.

Several people standing beside him immediately backed him up. “It’s true. Brother Wang even saved us. We’ve been hiding together these past days, and he’s been teaching us zombie-killing techniques. We’ve all seen that video.”

They had done far more than watch it. The one-minute clip had practically been worn smooth from repeated viewing.

Though they did not look as well off as the heavyset man, they were still in far better condition than most refugees. Aside from their backpacks, each of them also carried a weapon.

The crowd finally believed.

Heads turned in unison toward Fu Qing. Seeing her standing with the soldiers, they assumed she was affiliated with the authorities and pleaded eagerly.

“How exactly do you kill zombies? We want to learn too!”

“Will the shelters teach this? Are there group classes?”

“Please, teach us!”

Seven days into the apocalypse, they had survived by luck but endured immense hardship.

Just as peace had been easily destroyed, even though they were now heading toward shelters, who could guarantee those shelters would never fall?

Everyone had realized deeply that entrusting their lives to others was far less reliable than holding survival skills in their own hands.

Bai Xianglei had never expected things to take this turn. While he was still brainstorming how to manage the situation, the crowd’s attention had already been completely redirected by the heavyset man.

He immediately nodded and said loudly, “There will be. The shelters have arranged group training activities. You’ll understand once you arrive.”

He left half the truth unsaid.

The so-called training actually meant running, military calisthenics, and gentler exercises like tai chi for older residents.

There was absolutely no plan for a “one hundred ways to kill zombies” course.

Since the outbreak, nearly every government policy aimed to preserve social order. If official shelters suddenly began teaching killing techniques, how could order be maintained?

Who could guarantee someone wouldn’t claim an enemy had turned into a zombie and attack a living person?

Perhaps sensing the implication behind Bai Xianglei’s words, the crowd collectively turned toward the heavyset man again. The rare video in his possession suddenly became extremely valuable.

Fu Qing herself, the instructor in question, stood nearby, but blood from a close-range headshot still stained her clothes. No one dared approach her directly.

They could only glance at her with awe and reverence before quietly edging toward the heavyset man and asking cautiously:

“Could you send me that video via Bluetooth later?”

“I just want to watch it once. I’ve got a piece of chocolate I’ve been saving. Can I trade you for it?”

“And me too…”

For a moment, the atmosphere even grew oddly lively.

The Believers hidden among the crowd were completely dumbfounded.

Wait… this wasn’t how things were supposed to go at all.

₊˚.🎧📓✩

The people inside the vehicle did not understand at first. Zhou Lingxi looked confused. “What?”

If not the assembly point, then what?

The Fangzhou students?

Before anyone could think further, Chu Hai slammed the accelerator at Fu Qing’s signal, and the vehicle shot forward toward Donglin Avenue.

Fu Qing said nothing more. Her gaze fixed faintly on a point in empty space, as though something invisible to the others existed there.

No one dared disturb her. They exchanged uneasy glances, a sense of an approaching storm settling over them.

…

With one downward slash, Su Huaijin’s wristband suddenly lit up. She instinctively lowered her head.

Seeing her pause, the two teammates beside her immediately stepped forward to fill the gap, blocking the zombie away from her.

Seizing the brief moment to breathe, Su Huaijin quickly checked the message that had appeared on her wristband.

During combat, the wristband could be set to Do Not Disturb so sudden alerts would not break concentration.

Under that mode, only messages from specially marked contacts could come through.

For Su Huaijin, that meant only one name.

Fu Qing.

She stepped back half a pace and opened the message. It contained only a single short line:

[Accelerate elimination of the Believers, especially those without special evolution.]

The message had been broadcast to all students near Assembly Point One.

Accelerate elimination?

Su Huaijin frowned and scanned her surroundings.

The street had been divided into countless small battle zones. Believers clashed with student teams, while soldiers stationed along both sides guided evacuees toward Donglin High School. Some provided covering fire, stepping in whenever civilians were attacked, while others guarded key positions as people slipped past the fighting and fled.

The situation was no longer chaotic like at the beginning. In fact, it was almost fully under control.

There were casualties, but far fewer than expected, and most of the dead were Believers.

Over the past week, soldiers had suffered terribly against specially evolved zombies such as runners and brutes. Countless comrades had died at their hands. So this time, after Fangzhou’s advance warning that Believers might include many special evolutions and that intelligent zombies would be even more dangerous, the soldiers showed absolutely no restraint.

First, civilians were everywhere. If an attack failed to kill instantly, provoking the enemy could endanger innocent people.

Second, after witnessing the brutal deaths of comrades fighting beside them, it was impossible not to carry hatred.

Knowing Believers would appear, Tian Xuejun had already informed all participating soldiers beforehand.

Every informed soldier had reacted with fury.

In one week, hundreds of millions had been infected and killed. Learning that these people had willingly sided with the zombies, standing against humanity itself, how could they not hate them?

Believer corpses lay scattered across the street, most with shattered skulls, dead beyond doubt.

Blood flowed along the roadside into drains, the thick metallic stench spreading through the air.

Su Huaijin believed their clearing speed was already fast enough.

So why was the principal urging them to hurry?

She stared at the corpses. After a while, something began to feel wrong.

The principal had emphasized Believers without special evolution. In other words, those like the earlier skeletal type. Physically enhanced overall, but without obvious mutation.

Among today’s attackers, this type seemed unusually numerous.

Unlike runner zombies, gaunt like skeletons wrapped in skin, or giant brutes whose massive bodies remained imposing even after death, these ordinary Believers looked almost identical to normal humans once dead.

And since appearing, they had focused mainly on entangling students and soldiers in combat. Even though they stood among crowds, far fewer civilians had died at their hands than expected.

A strong sense of unease crept into Su Huaijin’s chest.

She had not fully pieced it together yet, but she did not dare waste time thinking. She turned to urge her teammates to speed up.

At that moment, however, a captured Believer nearby suddenly began struggling violently.

Two armed soldiers held its shoulders firmly, but it thrashed wildly. A student bringing down a blade missed by several centimeters, carving a vertical gash across its face deep enough to expose bone.

Its face was nearly split in half. Its body convulsed in agony. For a fleeting instant, Su Huaijin thought she saw a look of grim resolve in its eyes.

So brief it almost felt like an illusion.

The next second, the Believer, dressed like an ordinary refugee and wrapped in heavy clothing, suddenly threw its head back and screamed with all its strength.

“Aaaaaaah—!!!”

“The soldiers are killing people! Help! Help!!!”

“I’m not a zombie! I’m still alive!! Don’t kill me! Don’t kill me!!”

“Please! Please!!!”

Blood covered half its face, wounds distorting its speech, yet the desperate cries rang out across the sky.

Students and soldiers nearby froze in shock.

Even fleeing civilians slowed, drawn by the cries, turning back to look.

Su Huaijin’s expression changed instantly.

She finally understood.

Her eyes widened in fury as realization struck, and she shouted urgently,

“Quick! Kill it! Shut it up!!”

Before anyone else could react, Su Huaijin had already lunged forward.

She was never a front line fighter, but at this moment she no longer cared. Killing intent filled her completely as she drew her blade and charged ahead.

In her urgency, she did not even notice the sharp screech of brakes beside her.

No one saw how Fu Qing appeared. Translated on Hololo novels. The vehicle had barely stopped when she was already out, vaulting past Su Huaijin and the others who reacted a beat too slowly, shooting forward like an arrow released from a bow.

The screaming stopped abruptly.

The Believer blinked once before a kick struck its chest, caving in its sternum. Its body flew several meters through the air, hit the ground hard, and rolled several times. When it finally stopped, the cracking of skull, spine, and limbs breaking together could almost be heard.

Paralyzed instantly, it lay helpless, watching in terror as Fu Qing approached with a cold expression.

The vehicle skidded forward several meters before stopping. Bai Xianglei and the others jumped out in a rush, brushing past Fu Qing as they ran.

“Borrow this.”

Zhou Lingxi suddenly felt lighter. Looking down, she realized her automatic rifle was already gone.

“…!!”

Everyone’s gaze followed Fu Qing.

She stepped onto the Believer’s collapsed chest, raised the rifle one handed, forced the barrel between its teeth, and shoved it straight into its half open mouth.

Pain exploded through its body, even into its throat.

Its tongue tasted cold metal, rust, and gunpowder.

Yet none of that terrified it as much as the look in Fu Qing’s eyes.

“Go on,” she said calmly. “Why did you stop shouting?”

As she spoke, she flicked off the safety.

Click.

The crisp sound made the Believer’s expression change instantly.

With its chest pinned, breathing already difficult, oxygen deprivation turned its pale face an ashen gray. The barrel pressed deep into its throat triggered tears, mucus, and saliva to spill uncontrollably. Fear made its body tremble, yet clinging to its mission, it forced out a weak whimper.

Maybe… maybe there was still hope.

So many witnesses. Maybe she would not dare kill it.

Maybe it could survive.

That fragile hope froze the moment it met Fu Qing’s eyes again.

People were gathering nearby, yet Fu Qing did not even blink.

Her finger settled on the trigger.

At the brink of death, survival instinct finally exploded. The Believer tried desperately to push the gun away with its tongue, pupils dilating in terror.

No. Don’t!

Bang!

Blood burst across the ground, and silence fell.

At the gunshot, a suppressed gasp sounded nearby.

Fu Qing turned her head.

Not far away, a woman holding a child staggered backward, covering her mouth in shock. Their eyes met, and her legs nearly gave out as she turned to disappear into the crowd.

Too late.

Su Huaijin and Song Rushuang, who had rushed over at the sound, reacted instantly and seized her. Seeing the infant in her arms, they eased their grip slightly and dragged her toward the principal.

The woman collapsed limply, trembling violently, unable to look at the mangled corpse on the ground.

“Principal.” Xue Ran, Qin Yufei, and the others arrived as well, watching her warily.

“Principal, were they trying to…” Su Huaijin began, then stopped.

Too many people were nearby. She already knew the answer.

Bai Xianglei and the others had heard cries for help earlier but had not seen who made them. Now, combining Fu Qing’s actions with what she had said in the car, realization struck them all at once.

The Believers’ objective today had never been to infiltrate the shelters.

They wanted a public demonstration.

They intended to reveal the existence of intelligent zombies in front of a crowd, planting a dangerous idea:

That infection did not necessarily mean death. That one could remain alive and rational even after being infected.

Even worse, they aimed to make uninformed civilians believe the authorities were hiding the truth and slaughtering innocent people.

If such rumors spread, what would families of the infected think?

What about those who had witnessed official zombie purges?

Since the outbreak, circumstances changed every moment. Translated on Hololo novels. As infections increased, rescuing survivors inevitably required eliminating infected individuals nearby.

The early policy of capturing and imprisoning the infected had already become impossible. Confinement consumed precious safe space needed for survivors.

It was a decision born of necessity.

People had gradually accepted that infection meant death.

To expose intelligent zombies now would be like dropping a bomb into calm waters.

The fragile unity between military and civilians could collapse instantly.

A chill ran up Bai Xianglei’s spine. Cold sweat broke out across his back.

A few Believers sneaking into shelters meant nothing.

Their true aim was to turn every shelter resident into a potential follower of the Zombie King.

Fangzhou’s people and the soldiers could identify infected Believers, but they could never distinguish ordinary humans harboring hidden allegiance.

In the previous life, society had collapsed quickly, survivors scattered and disconnected. But this time was different. Networks existed. Shelters were everywhere. Believer ideology could spread far faster.

Bai Xianglei watched as Fu Qing bent down and snatched the phone the woman had tried desperately to hide.

The woman offered no resistance, her face gray with defeat.

Fu Qing unlocked the screen. The gallery was open, filled with secretly recorded videos of students and soldiers killing Believers.

After a quick scan, she turned off the screen and tossed the phone to Bai Xianglei.

“She’s not alone. Among the crowd are uninfected accomplices as well as infected Believers. Your cybersecurity department is going to be busy.”

The Zombie King was far more skilled with networks than any ordinary hacker. Even if communications were temporarily cut, it would likely find ways to spread the footage and bypass censorship.

Chu Hai stared, stunned. He had never imagined things would develop this way.

Weren’t they fighting zombies? A disaster, a disease, an alien threat, that made sense. But now it felt like a strategic struggle between opposing factions, almost like espionage.

He could not understand how anyone could stand against humanity, worship another species, and climb upward over the bodies of their own kind.

Disgust crept into his gaze as he looked at the woman.

Then he noticed the baby in her arms.

“There’s a child too!”

“Probably stolen,” Bai Xianglei said, taking the infant away. Among the young people present, he unexpectedly had the most experience holding a child. “The kid’s malnourished, but she looks well fed. Just smeared dirt on her face for disguise.”

Zhou Lingxi immediately grasped the plan. “They wanted to pose as a family of three. After the man died, the ‘wife’ would cry publicly while holding the child. With a baby involved, sympathy would come easily. No one would suspect it was a zombie scheme.”

Even for those who knew the truth, accepting that zombies were now engaging in psychological warfare was difficult.

Popular media had ingrained the image of mindless monsters relying only on brute force.

And this time, they even had human collaborators.

Bai Xianglei called people over, handed the child off for care, instructed them to check whether anyone nearby was searching for a missing infant, then quietly issued further orders.

Personnel subtly gathered around, separating those who had stopped to watch from the larger fleeing crowd.

There was a high chance Believer collaborators responsible for filming were among them.

The remaining civilians were innocent, but they still had to be isolated afterward. First, to prevent hidden threats. Second, because the incident itself might already have influenced them.

A quick count showed several dozen people.

If Fu Qing had realized the Believers’ intent even a moment later, if she had been two seconds slower, if she had not noticed the woman with the child…

The number needing isolation would have been far greater.

Once crowds mixed, the situation would become hundreds of times more complicated.

But Bai Xianglei noticed something else.

Whispers were already spreading through the crowd.

What came next?

How were they supposed to calm and convince these people?

Looking at the horrific corpse on the ground, his mind began racing for an answer.

₊˚.🎧📓✩

The assembly group plunged into chaos.

Zhao Tingting scrambled up from the ground, somehow finding strength from nowhere. She scooped up Maomao, who was still barking his head off, and ran after the flow in a daze. As she brushed past Song Rushuang, she suddenly stopped. “I’m sorry. It’s my fault for not keeping him under control…”

Song Rushuang was already in the fight. Even as she moved, she found a split second to shout back, “What are you apologizing for? He did a huge service!”

There were not many of the Believers, so they could not rely on numbers. Fu Qing was almost certain their first choice would be to blend into the shelter system and find a way to create chaos from inside.

This was not the first time they had used a method like this.

The students had mixed into the crowd for one reason: to find traces of the Believers.

But the people who had been trapped outside for a week looked little better than the pale, reeking zombies themselves. And to avoid being bitten, everyone had wrapped up heavily, covering every patch of exposed skin. From appearances alone, there was no way to tell.

They had even brought in police dogs, but the dogs stood out too much. After patrolling along the edge of the line with their handlers for ages, they found nothing.

Most likely the Believers had spotted them from afar and avoided them in advance.

They had been at a loss, and the crowd had already reached the assembly point. If Maomao had not scented that something was wrong, the farce would likely have played out right in front of the buses.

During the registration checks before boarding, staff would have verified identities strictly. The Believers would certainly have been exposed then, but the surroundings would have been even worse: tighter, more crowded, more dangerous.

No matter what, this Samoyed had earned real credit.

Song Rushuang kicked the man down. The two beside her, disguised as a married couple, stepped in immediately. They produced guns from nowhere and poured ammunition out without mercy.

The body on the ground jerked twice under the impact, then went still.

Song Rushuang, who had been about to draw her blade, quietly sheathed it again and could not help thinking: firearms really were convenient.

Zhao Tingting’s eyes nearly popped out of her head. She swallowed hard, hugged the dog with one arm, and hurried her parents away.

Pei Man, who had been shoved aside at the very start, finally snapped back to herself. Trembling, she lifted Zhaozhao into her arms. She cast one last glance at the young woman’s back, the one who had chatted with her all the way here, and finally realized that girl was probably not a fellow refugee at all.

She had approached them to protect them.

Pei Man etched Song Rushuang’s profile into her memory, then ran without looking back.

People shoved and jostled, scattering like headless flies. In the end, under the soldiers’ constant shouted commands to keep order, the crowd was gradually gathered up and driven in a single direction.

Their destination was a high school. Through a side gate, they could reach the gymnasium directly.

The school had been cleared in advance and staffed with guards, precisely so it could receive a surge of fleeing civilians at moments like this.

On other routes toward other shelters, several similar emergency refuge points had also been set up.

In the morning meeting, Fu Qing, Tian Xuejun, and the others had discussed in detail how the Believers might create chaos. When the air-raid siren sounded, it was the best time for civilians to assemble and move toward shelters. But without question, it was also the best time for the Believers to strike.

The gathering could not be halted, and there was no reliable way to pick Believers out of a crowd. So how could they protect civilians as much as possible?

In the end, the plan was to use public facilities along the way, schools and community centers, as transfer stations. Translated on Hololo novels. Checkpoints at the entrances would block Believers, funnel fleeing civilians inside, then manage them in smaller, separated groups.

The crowd flowed like a rushing river, naturally splitting around obstacles. And at the center of each “obstacle” was a knot of combat: Believers grappling with students and soldiers.

On rooftops along the street, several students with binoculars kept directing the battle.

“…Twelve o’clock, the woman in the gray long-sleeved hoodie.”

“Qi Chu, behind you at four o’clock. Man in a brown jacket, black baseball cap.”

“By the street corner at nine o’clock, next to that Mc’s sign…”

A three-dimensional map hovered in midair from a wristband projection. Blue dots representing students flickered constantly, while their collaborators, temporarily wearing ordinary wristbands, showed as gray dots.

These specially selected students had exceptional spatial awareness and command ability.

They combined the Believers’ positions in their line of sight with their teammates’ locations on the map. Based on distance, and on how each squad was faring, they continuously redirected forces across the field.

Amid the tangled noise, Liang Yi’s voice cut through the clearest, always anticipating danger a step ahead, even calling out each student by name.

The situation shifted by the second, yet under his command, it was like watching someone move pieces on a chessboard, calm and precise, one deliberate step after another.

“Help!”

In the crowd, a middle-aged woman was suddenly tackled by a Believer and cried out.

The half-zombified man bent over her, about to bite, when someone grabbed him by the collar and yanked him up. With that immense force, he went flying sideways and slammed into a trash can by the curb, knocking it over in a spill of rotting, stinking garbage.

A bullet met him next.

Qin Yufei turned back just in time to see the soldier responsible for finishing blows flash an OK sign. He nodded, bent down to pull the fallen middle-aged woman to her feet, and his expression suddenly changed as he looked up.

A runner-type Believer was scrambling up the exterior wall of a building using both hands and feet. Its movements were so agile it looked like it was running along the eaves. In the blink of an eye it had climbed four or five meters, already closing in on the window where Liang Yi and the others were hiding.

“Watch out!”

Qin Yufei saw the creature’s claws hook over the edge of the top window. Its back arched. One final movement and it would bare a savage grin at the people inside.

But before he finished shouting, glass shattered with an explosive crash. The Believer thrust its head inside the window and saw exactly what awaited it there.

A leather boot, gleaming coldly, slammed straight into its face and kicked it flying backward.

The kick carried full force. Translated on Hololo novels. From Qin Yufei’s angle, the Believer’s neck twisted violently under the impact. Its body still leaned forward while its head bent nearly two hundred seventy degrees backward, eyes wide with shock.

Even so, it did not die.

Realization flashed through its eyes, followed by vicious intent. It even managed to adjust its posture midair, preparing to spring again the moment it landed.

This time, it would not charge in blindly.

That was the difference between these Believers and ordinary zombies. They could learn, and that made them far harder to deal with.

Qin Yufei cursed inwardly and rushed toward where it would land, but then he saw Xue Ran, the one who had delivered the kick, crouch as she landed inside the room and immediately sidestep, yielding space.

Filling that space seamlessly was a submachine gun.

The soldier holding it wore a cold, focused expression. He aimed at the Believer, still suspended in midair with nowhere to escape, and pulled the trigger.

A torrent of fire erupted outward. Even the opposite building’s wall was riddled with dense bullet holes. The Believer, turned into a living target, did not even have time to make a sound before being shredded.

One magazine emptied. It exploded into a cloud of blood before hitting the ground.

Qin Yufei stared, stunned, suddenly understanding how ancient warriors must have felt when cold weapons first met firearms.

He looked down at the fire axe in his hands and felt it had suddenly lost its appeal.

The battle on the street continued.

To avoid drawing back the mindless zombies lured away by the siren, every soldier’s weapon was fitted with a suppressor. Still, aside from pistols, the gunfire from larger weapons remained thunderous even when muffled.

For many people, it was the first time in their lives hearing gunshots.

Yet as they ran amid the rolling bursts of fire, brushing past soldiers advancing in the opposite direction, watching zombies collapse wherever the muzzles pointed, an overwhelming sense of safety rose within them.

The sudden appearance of “zombies” hidden among the crowd was clearly something the authorities had anticipated. Realizing this, people’s fear eased, and order gradually returned. Guided by shouted instructions, the crowd hurried toward the school that marked their destination.

Inside another vehicle, Bai Xianglei lowered his radio and turned to Fu Qing.

“The Believers have appeared. Near Assembly Point One, on Donglin Avenue.”

“The evacuees are being redirected to Donglin High School according to plan.”

Fu Qing felt a faint tremor through the jeep’s chassis and heard distant unrest. “I hear it.”

Zhou Lingxi glanced at her in surprise.

Their waiting point was also near Assembly Point One. Donglin Avenue was not far away, but the sirens drowned everything out. She herself had heard nothing.

This principal was not only powerful, her senses were sharper than ordinary people’s.

Zhou Lingxi was strong through training, but Fu Qing’s extraordinary hearing, vision, and reflexes could only be called talent.

Something impossible to envy into existence.

After responding, Fu Qing fell silent again, her expression slightly dark as if deep in thought.

Since she did not speak, no one else interrupted. The chaos outside could be handled by the students and soldiers. Their only task was to stay with her.

Whatever happened, they would not leave.

“Any Believers at the other assembly points?” Fu Qing suddenly asked.

In truth, she already knew the answer.

The system panel before her displayed the status of every student wristband. Fangzhou had sent over a hundred students to each assembly point. The communication channels for Points Two through Eight were quiet, while the channel near Point One was bustling.

Bai Xianglei confirmed it. “No. There are eight assembly points in the city. Aside from Point One, Points Two through Eight have already fired orange signal flares. The buses should depart within ten minutes at most.”

From the front seat, Chu Hai muttered, “Eight assembly points, and they just happened to collide with ours. That’s too much of a coincidence.”

Fu Qing lowered her gaze, tapping the armrest lightly with her fingers, and said meaningfully, “Yes… quite a pleasant coincidence.”

The others did not immediately understand.

She turned to Chu Hai in the driver’s seat. “Head straight to Donglin Avenue. No need to wait anymore.”

Chu Hai obediently stepped on the accelerator. As the vehicle started moving, he asked, “We’re not waiting at the assembly point?”

They had stayed there because it held the largest crowd and was the most likely place for chaos.

“No need,” Fu Qing said coldly. “If I’m right… their real target was never the assembly point.”

₊˚.🎧📓✩

“Mom, I’m scared.”

Pei Man lowered her head. Her daughter clung tightly to her arm, her expression timid.

“Zhaozhao, don’t be afraid. Mommy’s here.” Pei Man gently stroked Pei Zhaozhao’s hair. “If we run into infected on the way later, don’t scream or cry, okay? Just run with Mommy. We’ll be fine.”

Zhaozhao nodded obediently.

She carried her own little backpack on her back, filled with some clothes and daily necessities. The more important items, along with their last remaining food, were packed in Pei Man’s larger bag.

If Zhaozhao hadn’t insisted on helping carry part of the load while they packed, Pei Man would have taken everything herself.

These things were too important.

Pei Man had little money. She had fallen out with her family to get married, and after her divorce she raised her daughter alone, surviving on wages from waitressing. What the mother and daughter carried with them now was nearly everything they owned.

Their food had run out two days ago. Although there was a supply drop point two streets away where food was distributed at fixed times each day, it was too far and difficult to reach.

Pei Man had tried teaming up with neighbors from the same residential complex to go together. But by the time they finally arrived, the supplies had already been taken by people living closer.

Only then did they learn that to get supplies, you had to leave before dawn and wait there early in the morning.

Pei Man simply didn’t dare leave her daughter home alone in the dark. Besides, the round trip took hours each time. Though the distance was short, every step was dangerous, and she feared what would happen if something went wrong.

While she hesitated, news arrived that shelters were opening.

Though the emergency shelters had poor conditions, they became the greatest hope for survival for the mother and daughter.

Pei Man hurriedly packed. Besides clothes, drinking water, and medicine, she stuffed the remaining toothpaste, soap, and other household items into her bag as well. She thought that once they reached the shelter and had food and water provided, perhaps she could trade these for extra snacks to treat Zhaozhao.

After observing the minute of silence, they watched as the zombies in the neighborhood were indeed drawn away one by one by the sirens, leaving chaos behind.

The siren sounded for thirty-six seconds, followed by a twenty-four-second pause. At first Pei Man didn’t understand the purpose of this pattern, but after listening for a while, she figured it out.

If the alarm sounded continuously for too long, human ears would gradually grow accustomed to it. If zombies behaved similarly and began subconsciously ignoring the sound, they might suddenly turn back toward fleeing survivors. That would be disastrous.

Besides, the noise was unbearably loud. Since it would continue for an entire hour, pauses were necessary to prevent hearing damage. Predictable interruptions were far better than sudden, unpredictable silence.

Those twenty-four seconds were just enough time to let hearing recover.

Seeing the zombies leave, Pei Man felt a surge of relief. Translated on Hololo novels. She waited another five minutes, then decisively took her daughter’s hand and left the rented apartment they had lived in for years.

Before even reaching the residential gate, they encountered more than ten other people.

Like her, they carried large bags and moved silently toward the assembly point, faces tense but filled with anticipation for a new life.

As the group grew larger, the unease on people’s faces eased somewhat. Some even began chatting quietly.

Pei Man, with her child beside her, remained vigilant, frequently scanning their surroundings.

Once they reached the main road, the number of people increased sharply, gradually forming a small stream of evacuees.

Every few dozen meters stood a riot-control vehicle or a military-green armored car, armed soldiers positioned in front, providing immense reassurance.

For the first time, Pei Man no longer felt constantly on edge. She almost wanted to cry.

At every intersection or building entrance, small groups emerged and joined the procession.

Watching the crowd grow larger, Pei Man suddenly felt uneasy and whispered, “Zhaozhao, let’s walk faster.”

Mother and daughter subtly quickened their pace, Zhaozhao’s short legs pumping rapidly.

In moments, they had passed several people.

Just then, a flare shot into the sky with a sharp hiss.

A streak of green smoke stretched upward like a long dragon, lingering before slowly dispersing. The crowd immediately stirred.

Since it was impossible to broadcast real-time passenger counts for buses heading to the shelters, officials had announced in later broadcasts that different colored signal flares would indicate different stages:

A green flare would be launched when buses reached 50 percent capacity.

An orange flare at 80 percent.

A red flare when buses were completely full.

Within three minutes of a red flare, the buses and escort teams would depart the assembly point. Anyone still far away upon seeing an orange flare was advised to give up and return.

After all, the sirens lasted only one hour. Including the return trip, many people would spend more than that just traveling.

So when the green flare appeared, panic spread through the crowd.

“How is it already half full?”

“This is bad. What if there’s no space when it’s our turn?”

Some people began running forward. Others shoved those ahead of them. A nearby soldier quickly shouted to restore order.

“Don’t run!”

“The assembly point isn’t far. You’ll make it. Slow down and keep walking!”

Many people had gone days without eating and had little strength left. One push could knock someone down. If the chaos continued, a stampede was inevitable.

After several shouted warnings, someone suddenly yelled, “Quiet! You’ll bring the zombies back if you make too much noise!”

The crowd fell silent in fearful obedience.

Pei Man glanced sideways. She clearly heard that the warning had come from the girl beside her.

The girl looked under twenty, wearing a grimy jacket. Two exhausted, haggard middle-aged adults followed closely behind her, like a family fleeing together.

Though they didn’t resemble one another very much.

They hadn’t been near Pei Man and her daughter earlier. When the crowd became chaotic, they suddenly appeared, likely pushed over by the shifting mass of people.

Even in a moment like this, she could stay calm and help maintain order. Pei Man could not help admiring her. “You’re really impressive.”

The young girl smiled at the compliment. Noticing Zhaozhao pressed close beside her, she said with feeling, “You’ve taken such good care of her.”

Zhaozhao’s hair was tied into two neat little pigtails, carefully combed, and her clothes were clean.

With water rationed for so many days and no chance to bathe, staying clean meant wiping down little by little with a damp cloth, a task that took patience and effort.

And since the apocalypse began, many adults trapped at home had suffered emotional breakdowns from hopelessness. Yet Zhaozhao neither cried nor made trouble. Though she clung fearfully to her mother, her eyes curiously scanned their surroundings, a clear sign that she felt secure. That kind of calm could only come from careful care by her family.

Pei Man felt a little embarrassed.

Then Song Rushuang pulled a lollipop from her pocket, peeled off the wrapper, and handed it to Zhaozhao. “This is for you.”

Pei Man hurriedly refused. “No, that’s too precious.”

“It’s fine, I still have more,” Song Rushuang whispered, patting her pocket.

Pei Man immediately fell silent, afraid of attracting attention and causing trouble for her. She even stepped closer to shield her slightly from view.

Then she gently nudged Zhaozhao and whispered, “Say thank you to your sister.”

Imitating their hushed tone, Zhaozhao said softly, “Thank you, big sister.”

Song Rushuang grinned at the girl.

She withdrew her gaze and looked up. Through a gap in the crowd, her eyes met Su Huaijin’s from some distance away.

Su Huaijin was dressed similarly to her, standing beside an ordinarily dressed middle-aged woman.

But a closer look revealed the faint outline beneath the woman’s coat.

She was carrying a gun.

The pocket Song Rushuang had taken the candy from also held a knife.

Not just the two of them. Translated on Hololo novels. Other members of the elite team were scattered throughout the crowd. Under the cover of soldiers disguised in civilian clothes, they blended among the evacuees, positioned close enough to support one another quickly. With silent understanding, each of them had chosen to walk beside elderly people, women, and children.

Pei Man’s feeling that Song Rushuang had suddenly appeared was not imagination. It had been intentional.

During the earlier chaos, she had moved closer to block people behind them, afraid Zhaozhao might be knocked down.

She had done it subtly, her expression natural, as if she had simply been pushed along by the crowd.

The other students were equally convincing actors. Only the occasional sharp glint in their eyes when they scanned their surroundings betrayed them.

Song Rushuang chatted casually with Pei Man as they walked when an uncertain voice suddenly called from behind.

“Hey, aren’t you…?”

Someone tapped her shoulder. Song Rushuang turned around. A young woman stood there, vaguely familiar.

She held the leash of a very eye-catching large white dog.

The moment she saw Song Rushuang’s face clearly, the girl cried out excitedly, “It really is you! I’m Zhao Tingting!”

“Don’t you remember? The barbecue restaurant a year ago. You saved me and my dog!”

At the mention of the barbecue place, Song Rushuang remembered, along with the fruit gift set she had received from Zhao Tingting afterward.

Zhao Tingting. A grateful and wealthy girl.

“So it’s you. What a coincidence.” Song Rushuang stepped aside to make room.

Zhao Tingting and her family joining them made the group livelier.

Song Rushuang looked her over. Probably out of fear of being bitten, Zhao Tingting was dressed heavily, but compared to a year ago, her physique and spirit had clearly changed. “You seem… different?”

“You noticed? Thanks to your principal, I’ve been training in sanda for a whole year.” Zhao Tingting rolled up her sleeve to show off her muscles. “If I hadn’t trained, I probably would’ve died on the first day of the outbreak. Meeting you back then was the luckiest thing that ever happened to me.”

She spoke sincerely.

Song Rushuang was happy to hear it, but worried Zhao Tingting might start talking about Fangzhou and attract unwanted attention, so she quickly changed the subject.

“By the way, did you get a new dog?”

The large white dog circling her legs wagged its tail wildly. Hearing this, it suddenly froze, as if it understood, then lifted its head in shock. Its black bean-like eyes filled with a complicated mix of hurt, accusation, and disbelief.

Zhao Tingting pretended to be angry. “That’s so rude! This is Maomao!”

“This is Maomao?” Song Rushuang was stunned.

Looking at the agile, muscular, energetic white dog at her feet, she could hardly connect it with the round, fluffy Samoyed she remembered. “Did you shave its fur?”

Maomao looked utterly devastated.

“It lost weight! Lost weight!” Zhao Tingting explained helplessly. “Maomao’s been training with me for a year. Now he’s an outstanding student at a dog training school.”

Afraid Maomao might be bullied again, she had sought out a top trainer after leaving Fangzhou, supposedly a former police dog trainer. After a year of intense training, the once chubby little dog had completely transformed, moving with lightning speed.

The only frustrating part was that whenever she took Maomao outside, everyone assumed she had changed dogs.

Song Rushuang quickly apologized to Maomao.

After receiving forgiveness, she straightened and hesitated. “You’re heading to the shelter, right? Are dogs allowed there?”

“No. We were out traveling when the outbreak happened and got stuck downtown. There happens to be an apartment near the assembly point, and there’s a car in the underground garage. We’re planning to rest there first, then drive back to our villa.”

Zhao Tingting said cheerfully, “The road to the assembly point is guarded by soldiers. Much safer than going on our own.”

Her explanation left Song Rushuang and the others momentarily silent.

An apartment just happened to be near the assembly point…

That word “happened” stung a little.

As they drew closer, the crowd slowed significantly. Registration and boarding ahead were clearly taking time.

Streams of people from different roads merged together. Though Song Rushuang still joked outwardly, the smile at her lips faded, and her heart gradually tightened.

She discreetly confirmed the positions of Su Huaijin, Qin Yufei, and the others again.

As she scanned the area, sudden barking erupted beside her.

Zhao Tingting struggled to hold the leash. Maomao’s fur stood on end as he bared his teeth and barked fiercely at a man not far away, a low growl rumbling in his throat.

People nearby grew nervous.

“Hey, make your dog quiet!”

“Who brings a dog here?”

“You’ll attract zombies!”

“Maomao, Maomao, stop!” Zhao Tingting flushed red, whispering sharp commands, but Maomao refused to listen. His tail lowered, and if not for Zhao Tingting’s strength, he would have broken free.

“I don’t understand,” she said anxiously. “He’s trained. He’s well behaved. He never barks like this… Maomao, quiet!”

Song Rushuang frowned, exchanging a glance with the two teammates beside her disguised as a middle-aged couple while watching the restless dog standing protectively before his owners.

Maomao suddenly lunged forward again, teeth bared. His usually cute appearance vanished, replaced by the imposing presence of a true large dog.

People backed away in fear, the crowded mass opening into an empty circle. Only the man Maomao had locked onto remained standing still.

He wore a baseball cap and said nothing, yet Maomao sensed danger.

Afraid he might bite, Zhao Tingting bent down to grab him. “Maomao, what’s wrong? Why are you barking at this brother—”

She followed Maomao’s gaze upward.

Beneath the brim of the cap were cold, unfocused eyes.

The man stared at her without emotion, then suddenly split his lips into a grin, revealing rows of sharp, gleaming teeth.

Zhao Tingting collapsed to the ground in terror.

Before anyone else could react, Song Rushuang shoved Pei Man aside.

“Run!!”

The shout shattered the silence like a signal.

In an instant, barking exploded, screams rose from every direction, and the Hidden Believers concealed within the crowd tore away their disguises.

Waiting for them were countless dark gun barrels and blades flashing toward them head-on.

₊˚.🎧📓✩

While the students were busy saying their goodbyes to their families, the teachers were also strolling quietly across campus.

Not long before, Grandma Liu had approached Fu Qing, somewhat embarrassed, to ask whether she could use the teaching points she had saved to purchase a Full Simulation item.

“You mentioned before, the one used for exams. Three hours costs one hundred points, right? But I’ve only saved this much. I was wondering… could I buy just half an hour… no, even ten minutes?”

Awkwardly, Grandma Liu opened the interface on her wristband and showed Fu Qing her balance.

Her monthly salary of two teaching points had been entirely saved.

Only then did Fu Qing understand why Grandma Liu had asked about the price of Full Simulation during the first monthly exam. She must have already been planning to save up for it back then.

But after saving for an entire year, she had accumulated only twenty-four points, still far from the required hundred.

Fu Qing checked the shop interface. There was no ten-minute version. There was, however, a one-hour version like the entrance exam simulation. After the enrollment discount period ended, it cost fifty points.

Still not enough.

“That’s fine…”

Without changing expression, Fu Qing accepted Grandma Liu’s transferred points and was about to purchase the one-hour version.

Before she finished speaking, another voice cut in.

“If it’s not enough, I have some here.”

Bai Tang appeared out of nowhere. She first turned to Grandma Liu and explained, “I just left the dorm and saw you hurrying toward the administration building, so I followed to check what was going on.”

Then she looked at Fu Qing. “I still have nine points.”

Her monthly pay was even lower than Grandma Liu’s, and she had saved nearly all of it. The only points she had ever spent were a few used one weekend when she and Xu Mingyue went out for hot pot.

Behind Bai Tang stood Xu Mingyue, Lu Yan, and even Hao Zhenye. Apparently, after noticing Grandma Liu looked troubled, they had all followed out of concern.

Xu Mingyue checked her own account as well.

Her salary was the second highest among the teachers, but she rarely managed to save anything, always running around eating and exploring whenever she had free time. After checking, she looked embarrassed.

“…I only have the seven points from last month’s pay left.”

The three of them pooled their points together with great effort, managing only forty points, not even half of the required hundred. They stared at each other helplessly.

Fu Qing: “…”

Apparently no one had heard her say “that’s fine.”

In the end, Hao Zhenye, the wealthy one with a monthly salary of ten teaching points, stepped forward and generously transferred sixty points.

“That should be enough now, right?”

Fu Qing looked at the three transfer requests and couldn’t help laughing.

As for Lu Yan, he had always been unpaid labor. Like Zhao Yunxiao, when he applied, the system listed his expected salary as zero points, and Fu Qing had never bothered offering him pay. Now he could only stand nearby as moral support.

Still, he knew Fu Qing well and suspected everyone’s money had been gathered for nothing.

Sure enough, Fu Qing rejected the three transfers and accepted only the points Grandma Liu had originally sent.

“This is enough. It won’t cost that much.”

After purchasing the item, she asked gently, “What kind of scene would you like to simulate?”

Everyone turned toward Liu Yingchun.

Grandma Liu hesitated before asking carefully, “Anything is allowed? If… I wanted to simulate a memory?”

Just as expected.

Fu Qing sighed inwardly. “I’m sorry. Full Simulation is different from the simulation pods. It can only recreate environments. There may be NPCs, like zombies or passersby, but they follow fixed programs. There’s almost no interaction possible, and they can’t become the person from your memories.”

It was more like a “map” in a game, whereas the simulation pods were story-driven instances.

And the pods could only import memories from after the apocalypse began. Since Grandma Liu’s loved one had died at the very beginning, aside from that brief twilight memory in the residential district, no other memories could be recreated.

Fu Qing knew exactly whom she wanted to see, and also knew it was impossible.

Even she felt reluctant to shatter that final hope.

A faint shadow crossed Grandma Liu’s face, but she shook her head with a small, resigned smile.

“It’s alright. I prepared myself before coming.”

She had asked others about the item after hearing it was used in midterms and finals, so she already understood roughly how it worked and hadn’t dared ask too many questions.

She feared that if hope disappeared too soon, the days ahead would become unbearable.

Those days spent holding onto hope, believing they might meet again someday, had themselves been a kind of happiness.

“Since memories can’t be simulated,” she said softly, “then let’s simulate a place instead.”

She named a park.

“When my granddaughter was little, I used to take her there all the time.”

A trace of nostalgia welled up in her eyes.

Every tree and blade of grass in that park had witnessed her granddaughter growing up. Translated on Hololo novels. Seeing them again would, in a way, feel like meeting her granddaughter once more.

“And besides,” Grandma Liu said softly, “everyone has been staying on campus for so long. They probably want to see what the outside world looks like too. The scenes in the simulation pods are still different from what things were like before the apocalypse.”

Those only made people feel more despair the longer they looked.

Fu Qing nodded. “I understand.”

Half an hour later, when most people had finished lunch, the Full Simulation activated. Like a miraculous gift falling from the sky, the entire Fangzhou campus transformed into a lush green park.

In those brief ten minutes, they completed an escape.

They left behind the cruel apocalypse and briefly returned to peaceful ordinary life.

Ten minutes later, the simulation ended. The campus broadcast began playing the assembly notice, waking everyone from the lucid dream.

After the daze faded, what replaced it was a firmer resolve.

Students embraced their families, said their farewells, then shouldered backpacks filled with weapons and boarded the buses heading for assembly.

*

Time passed second by second.

As two-thirty approached, the outside world grew increasingly quiet.

Aside from the noises made by zombies and scattered fugitives with nowhere left to hide, all activity had ceased. Everyone focused, waiting for the same moment to arrive.

Inside a reinforced off-road vehicle, Fu Qing sat with members of the special operations team, all eyes fixed on the countdown.

Without realizing it, Zhou Lingxi whispered the numbers under her breath.

“60, 59, 58…”

The final minute.

Fu Qing sat by the window, gazing at the empty street when her eyes suddenly sharpened.

Bai Xianglei, seated beside her, followed her gaze. At a nearby street corner, a flicker of fabric seemed to vanish from sight.

Someone?

He frowned. Half a second later, Fu Qing had already pulled open the car door and jumped out.

“I’ll be right back,” she tossed over her shoulder.

There was no way they would let her act alone. Bai Xianglei signaled silently, and the others hurried after her.

Members of the special team in the other two vehicles began opening their doors but were stopped by Bai Xianglei’s hand signal.

Too many people would draw attention.

He, Zhou Lingxi, and Chu Hai followed quietly behind Fu Qing, the four of them moving almost without sound.

Fu Qing moved fastest. She had already realized what was happening before Bai Xianglei did. Rounding the corner swiftly, she found a dead-end alley, where two overlapping figures struggled on the ground.

A thin young man was pinned beneath a zombie. Translated on Hololo novels. Clutching a wooden stick he had picked up somewhere, he strained desperately to hold it against the creature’s neck. The zombie’s jaws hung wide open, saliva dripping onto his face.

Afraid of attracting more zombies, the young man dared not cry out. When he saw the four of them over the creature’s shoulder, he mouthed silently in despair:

“Help me…”

It was only a single zombie. No need to call for assistance.

Fu Qing stepped forward with her blade, unconcerned, when a familiar sound suddenly rose overhead.

Woooo—

She halted instinctively and looked up.

The air-raid siren began to swell, rising from a low hum into a piercing, resounding wail, like an invisible tide spreading outward across the entire city.

The zombie atop the young man lifted its head, distracted by the sound, letting out a low growl while searching aimlessly for the source.

The young man relaxed slightly, though he still couldn’t move. Fu Qing stepped forward again.

A soft gunshot sounded behind her.

A pistol fitted with a suppressor fired a precise shot. The faint noise was nearly swallowed by the siren.

The bullet pierced the back of the zombie’s head. A clean kill. A round hole appeared in its forehead as it collapsed instantly.

Fu Qing turned back.

Zhou Lingxi still held her firing stance and tilted her head slightly. “Sorry. Looks like we were faster this time.”

They exchanged a glance. Zhou Lingxi smiled faintly, holstered her weapon, then stood straight and lowered her head in silent mourning.

No other zombies had been drawn in for now. Bai Xianglei and Chu Hai, arriving moments later, halted sharply as well, their expressions turning solemn.

The surroundings were still dangerous. After ten seconds, Fu Qing moved first, striding toward the young man. She pushed the corpse aside and quickly examined him for injuries while Zhou Lingxi and the others drew their pistols again, guarding the perimeter.

Once Fu Qing confirmed he wasn’t wounded, she straightened.

“Do you know how to get to the assembly point?”

“Yes, yes,” the young man nodded frantically. “I heard the broadcast.”

Fu Qing pointed down the road. “Follow the main street. The military will be stationed along the way. You’re safe now.”

Such a simple sentence made tears instantly spill from his eyes.

“Thank you…” he said, forcing himself to stand before stumbling off in the direction she indicated, running through the wailing siren.

Fu Qing remained standing in the narrow alley, not leaving immediately.

The one minute of silence had passed. With the sirens now at maximum power, the sound vibrated through bone and organ alike.

Long, piercing, overwhelming.

Zombies across the city lifted their heads and began moving blindly toward the sound. People trapped indoors watched through windows and peepholes, sobbing uncontrollably.

Among those departing infected were their own loved ones.

Their bodies had died, summoned forward by the harsh mechanical cry, while their souls seemed to rise with the siren’s endless call.

Move forward. Do not look back.

The dead were gone. The living must continue on.

It was both a bell mourning the fallen and a horn calling the living onward.

The earth trembled beneath the synchronized footsteps of countless zombies moving through the city.

The previous ten seconds had been for those who died in this life.

Fu Qing closed her eyes again and bowed her head. Familiar faces surfaced in her mind one after another.

At that same moment, countless people opened their eyes and wiped away their tears.

Taking one last look at their homes, they lifted their bags and, gritting their teeth, stepped onto the road toward the shelters.

₊˚.🎧📓✩

There were roughly five hours left until 2:30 p.m. The time was extremely tight, and everyone began preparations at full speed.

Inside the conference room, Bai Xianglei printed an enlarged city map and marked all assembly points with bold highlights.

Before Zhou Lingxi could even lower her head to compare it with the map on her tablet, Song Rushuang, a local, had already stepped forward. Using different colored markers, she quickly labeled nearby major population clusters, densely populated residential communities, high-traffic main roads, and major intersections around each assembly point.

“The main evacuation crowds will probably appear from and pass through these areas, and the core security forces should also be positioned here, right?” Song Rushuang said, knowing Zhou Lingxi was about to explain guard placements.

But Zhou Lingxi was from the capital and unfamiliar with S City’s layout. Matching everything against the map would have taken too long.

Zhou Lingxi compared it with her own map in surprise. “…Impressive. That’s almost exactly right.”

Song Rushuang waved it off modestly. “Nothing special. I’m just more familiar with S City.”

“However…”

Just as Zhou Lingxi reached out to take back the marker, it suddenly changed hands.

Fu Qing, who had been standing beside the conference table with arms folded while studying the map, stepped forward. She swiftly circled several shopping malls and supermarkets along the major arterial roads, then casually marked several office towers in the CBD district.

“These places may not be residential areas,” she said, “but they still hold large concentrations of people. Especially malls and supermarkets. They cover large areas, offer few hiding spots, and have heavy weekend foot traffic. They fall quickly, but exits are limited and interiors are complex, which makes zombies easy to trap inside.”

She paused briefly, remembering a supermarket she had once entered during the apocalypse, only to see a dense mass of overwintering zombies suddenly turn their heads toward her all at once.

Seeing it once was enough to remember forever.

“If large crowds pass nearby, the zombies inside are very likely to gather instinctively and be drawn toward the exits.”

As for the office towers, most housed regional headquarters of major companies in S City. Fu Qing did not even need to explain further. Everyone understood immediately.

Overtime disaster zones.

The outbreak had occurred on a weekend, around August twentieth. Most primary and secondary schools had not yet reopened, and the few high schools already in session had been listed as priority rescue targets. Teachers and students trapped there were among the first rescued.

Universities typically reopened later. Like Song Rushuang’s cousin Song Xiang’s school, early starts were rare.

After rescuing those unfortunate “flowers of the nation,” rescue forces had shifted elsewhere.

Office workers scattered across various companies, though not ignored entirely, had been pushed to the lowest priority simply because they were less concentrated.

Yet in reality, these landmark office buildings often rose forty or fifty stories high, housing enormous populations with complex personnel flow. Including cleaners, visitors, and property staff, no one knew how many zombies might now be inside.

Everyone silently mourned those overworked employees for two seconds.

Even Zhou Lingxi and Bai Xianglei fell quiet.

Zhou Lingxi finally said dryly, “That’s right. Including these locations, we’ve basically covered all key guard placements. Nothing important is missing.”

Clearing zombies from inside office buildings would be extremely difficult. Guards could only be stationed outside to prevent hordes from pouring out and colliding with evacuation crowds.

If survivors escaped from within, they could also receive immediate assistance.

Those stranded outside without supplies or water, as well as migrant workers without stable housing, were the primary targets for the first wave of shelter admissions.

For many residents who still had stored food at home, staying indoors with limited electricity and water was still preferable to sleeping in crowded shelter halls and sharing packed restrooms.

To them, the opening of shelters meant an additional fallback option, not an immediate reason to leave.

Going outside still meant risk. Even if the danger had been reduced to a minimum, few people would willingly take that risk unless they had no alternative.

Moreover, later broadcasts had made it clear that the first batch of emergency shelters was meant mainly to provide safety and basic food and lodging for displaced civilians. Most were converted from large public buildings, and living conditions were unlikely to be comfortable.

At best, they would guarantee a meal and a place to sleep.

More advanced shelters were still under construction. These would be entirely different in scale, modeled after Fangzhou itself, functioning more like self-sufficient “micro-cities” integrating living, production, and defense, complete with stronger fortifications, independent power stations, water recycling systems, and waste treatment facilities.

They would take longer to build, but once completed, they would be far safer and more livable than emergency shelters.

After weighing the options, many residents would likely choose to wait.

Discussion continued. Translated on Hololo novels. With time running short, countless scenarios had to be considered. One after another, those present stepped forward to offer suggestions.

At eleven in the morning, the meeting finally concluded. Bai Xianglei hurried off with his team, while Fu Qing issued a notice instructing the already prepared students to head early to the cafeteria for lunch.

After eating and resting briefly, at exactly noon, buses sent by Tian Xuejun would escort them to the stadium where Xue Ran had been training teams, allowing them to regroup with their respective units.

After a short period of coordination and tactical discussion within each team, they would depart again. There was no time to waste.

Everyone left the room and dispersed in different directions. Fu Qing was about to head toward the cafeteria when she nearly ran into an unexpected visitor coming the other way.

Liu Yingchun. Grandma Liu.

She seemed to have been waiting in the hallway for quite some time. With a gentle, kindly smile, Grandma Liu responded warmly to each passing student who greeted her. When she spotted Fu Qing, she quickly stepped forward.

“After lunch… you’re heading out, right?”

Along the path from the dormitories to the administration building, students hurried past one another, all moving with purpose. Everyone had already entered a combat mindset.

“Yes.” Fu Qing stopped. “Is something wrong?”

She noticed Grandma Liu’s hesitation, as if she were carefully considering her words.

Grandma Liu finally spoke, somewhat uncertain. “Before you leave… could you spare ten minutes for me?”

Fu Qing was slightly surprised. This was the first time Grandma Liu had made a request unrelated to lessons.

“Of course,” she said patiently. “But what do you want to do?”

“It’s what you mentioned before…”

*

After lunch, about half an hour remained before departure. Some students returned to their dorms to prepare, while others strolled around the track in small groups to digest their meal.

They were already accustomed to combat, but this would be their first confrontation with the Believers since the apocalypse began. Alongside excitement came unavoidable tension.

Compared with usual days, the atmosphere on the field was far more solemn.

Parents sensed it too. Knowing their children were about to leave, many grew even more anxious than the students themselves. Some had reddened eyes.

“Do you really have to go?”

“Will it be dangerous?”

“If anything happens to you, what will your father and I do?” one mother said, gripping her daughter’s hand tightly. “Isn’t staying here in the shelter good enough? Why must you go out?”

The girl knew her mother had never stepped outside since the apocalypse began and didn’t understand the situation beyond the campus. For a moment, she wondered if she had protected her parents too well.

She explained gently, “This shelter is safe because people go out every day to patrol and clear zombies.”

Her mother fell silent, but her grip only tightened, as if afraid her daughter might disappear the moment she let go.

A bittersweet ache rose in the girl’s chest. She squeezed her mother’s hand back and said calmly, “There’s still time. I’ll walk another lap with you.”

All around the field were families just like them, parents reluctant to part, students doing their best to reassure them.

Near noon, the sun blazed overhead. Translated on Hololo novels. As they walked, the sunlight felt dazzlingly bright. After a brief moment of disorientation, the scene before them suddenly changed.

They stepped directly into a bustling crowd.

It was a park located in a busy urban district. Lush trees filled the space, and beyond the railings lay a city alive with traffic.

Cars honked. Street vendors called out their wares. Construction crews drilled into pavement with a constant buzzing roar. A passing subway made the ground tremble faintly beneath their feet. The city noises that once felt irritating now carried an unexpected warmth.

Fangzhou had everything, except noise. Life near the mountains was too quiet.

Inside the park, couples pushed strollers along shaded paths. Elderly people in exercise clothes practiced tai chi slowly and gracefully. Lovers sat on benches, hands entwined, faces shy and sweet. Children ran past in laughter.

A cotton candy vendor stood beside the bushes, colorful clouds of sugar giving off a sweet fragrance. Balloons tied to the cart handle swayed in the wind, their bright colors vivid and alive.

Light. Sound. Color. Smell. Touch.

All five senses awakened at once. For a moment, it felt as if they truly stood in a familiar park from before the apocalypse.

Everyone on the field stared wide-eyed in stunned silence.

People inside the teaching buildings and dormitories rushed out, gazing in disbelief at the scene.

Parents thought they were dreaming.

The students realized first.

“This is… the principal’s full holographic simulation?”

There had been no announcement, no exam context. The scene looked nothing like any previous simulation.

There was no danger here. No attacking zombies. Passersby even smiled kindly at the bewildered group standing still.

Sunlight filtered through leaves. A gentle breeze carried the scent of trees. Everything felt real.

Perfectly recreating an ordinary corner of the pre-apocalypse world.

Shock turned into nostalgia, and nostalgia into quiet sorrow.

They slowed their steps, even their breathing growing careful, as if the scene were a fragile soap bubble that might burst at a touch. They only dared trace it with their eyes, memorizing every detail.

When the simulation ended, it would vanish.

Never before had they realized so clearly that the ordinary daily life they once overlooked had become so distant.

So distant that standing within it again first awakened longing.

Only what is lost becomes something one longs for.

Families wandered silently from the park’s edge toward its center. A fountain rose in the plaza, forming a rainbow in the sunlight. Children watching nearby clapped and jumped excitedly, drawing smiles from everyone around.

After a long silence, the girl’s mother loosened her grip first.

“Mom?” the girl asked, surprised.

Her mother’s voice was dry as she tried to sound normal. “It’s about time. Go on.”

The girl came back to herself, hugged her tightly, and whispered, “Don’t worry. I’ll come back early.”

The simulation was brief. Soon the image blurred, and the noise faded away little by little.

The people inside the scene remained unaware. Only the observers were pulled away.

Someone instinctively reached out, trying to hold onto it, but the next moment they were standing once more on the athletic field.

A vast sense of loss settled over everyone.

“What a pity,” the girl’s mother murmured. “I wish we could’ve stayed longer.”

The girl suddenly said, “It’s okay, Mom. That was fake anyway.”

“But…” her mother began, meeting her daughter’s bright eyes.

“What’s the point of something fake?” the girl grinned. “I’ll bring the real thing back for you. Later we’ll go to the park every day, until you start complaining again about the dancing grandpas and grandmas being too noisy, about cotton candy getting dusty, about kids splashing water on your skirt. Deal?”

Her mother stared at her in surprise. After a long moment, she lowered her gaze to hide the complicated emotions in her eyes, then burst into laughter.

“Deal,” she said softly. “That sounds perfect.”

₊˚.🎧📓✩

【Your influence on this world has deepened!】

【You have received a reward of 300 teaching points】

【Keep it up!】

…

【Your influence on this world has deepened again!】

【You have received a reward of 200 teaching points】

【Keep it up!】

…

Soothing notification chimes kept sounding in Fu Qing’s ear.

Reaching the top of the trending list and being pushed across the entire internet was nothing like the earlier, smaller efforts.

Back when the @DormEscape account was at its peak, its total followers across platforms had been only around ten million, with heavy overlap, plus a portion of bot followers granted by some platforms. The true number of real followers was nowhere near that high.

This time, @FangzhouRescue surpassed ten million followers in a single day, and it was still skyrocketing at an astonishing pace.

After receiving over a thousand teaching points in one go, Fu Qing bought the groundwater extraction system. Once it was installed, she left all the remaining points for Zhao Yunxiao.

Quietly, she felt a little regret.

If the system was like a game, then on the “influence” progression path alone, China region had basically reached the highest level. The next step should have been to expand outward to the world.

But in the nearly week since the virus outbreak began, the situation overseas had already undergone earthshaking changes.

Most of the countries that had scoffed at China’s warning on the first day did not even hold out until the second before issuing mandatory quarantine orders. By then, they no longer cared about saving face, already terrified by the speed at which the zombie virus spread.

In contrast, the countries wise enough to heed the warning, though many were smaller nations friendly with China, had acted quickly enough that the virus spread far more slowly.

Public infrastructure such as hydroelectric stations, nuclear plants, and waterworks was rescued in time before falling, ensuring that key areas such as capitals and hospitals retained water and power.

Had those efforts been delayed even slightly, the consequences would have been unthinkable.

As for those who, due to political stance or other reasons, chose to stand by and watch, most paid the price for missing the golden window of action.

Some countries with chaotic internal situations fared even worse. With governments too weak to organize any meaningful response, they lost contact with the outside world entirely within two days of the outbreak.

With the storm crashing down, everyone was left fighting to survive.

Against that backdrop, China’s one hour of electricity per day and uninterrupted water supply became unimaginably precious.

With overseas conditions in such chaos, expanding Fangzhou’s influence beyond the country clearly had little hope. Fu Qing regretted it for two seconds, then stopped thinking about it.

Now that they had groundwater, they could finally bathe every day.

Even though showers still had to be limited to five minutes, at least they no longer had to sleep reeking of sweat.

That major good news naturally triggered cheers across campus.

Fu Qing glanced again at the current population on campus.

More than sixty percent of students had already returned. With the family and friends they brought, the number of people living on campus had risen to over four thousand.

After crossing the four-thousand mark, growth slowed dramatically. Only when another student returned did the number suddenly jump again.

Many students, like Song Rushuang, still had unused slots, yet had not decided whom to assign them to.

The students seemed to have reached a consensus: if the person they brought in was unreliable, it was better to leave the slot empty.

That said, after the @FangzhouRescue account was created, there were a few more newcomers on campus, scattered here and there.

Most were children brought back by students from outside.

Those half-grown kids had lost their parents in zombie attacks, surviving only because someone protected them, left as orphans.

With official shelters not yet fully established, they had no ability to protect themselves in this new world. The students could not bear it, and brought them back.

Aside from two or three very young children who could not be cared for properly, and were handed over to soldiers and armed police outside, the rest were partly turned over elsewhere and partly brought to Fangzhou, totaling around sixteen or seventeen.

No new resident in Fangzhou escaped Fu Qing’s notice. Translated on Hololo novels. She knew, and she did not object.

This was still far from the final moment of survival for the entire people. While they still had the capacity, no one should be abandoned.

And with the system, Fangzhou’s automation level was extremely high. It required far less labor than an ordinary shelter, while its average combat strength was far higher.

The students’ original drive to train so fiercely had been to protect others.

As long as they believed they could shoulder that responsibility, Fu Qing would not stop them.

Children ate less. They counted as half a laborer, and unlike adults, they were generally more obedient and less complicated. They were placed in an empty classroom in the teaching building, separated by gender, sleeping on shared bunks.

Grandma Liu liked children, and together with two other parents who were teachers by profession, she took charge of their daily care.

Every morning, they washed up and went to the track for exercise on schedule. After breakfast they studied together, and there were even three daily lessons in Chinese, math, and English, rotating each day.

After lunch, they helped with work in the afternoon, exercised again before dinner, and had free time at night.

With that schedule, anyone passing the teaching building in the morning could hear the clear sound of reading aloud.

It really did bring back the feeling of being on a school campus.

…

Yet as rescue missions continued and the number of people they encountered grew, the students gradually developed a new kind of distress.

They realized it was hard to turn away from others’ suffering.

When those they rescued begged the students to take them somewhere safe, to a shelter… how could they refuse? That became unbearably difficult.

Those people only wanted to live.

The more people pleaded, the worse their circumstances, the harder it became to speak that refusal.

Especially when elderly people with graying hair trembled and knelt before them, begging them to take their grandchildren away, or when severely injured, weakened parents pleaded for their children to have a chance to live, the students could not even bring themselves to meet the hopeless eyes of those asking for help.

Scenes like this played out constantly. They could help one person, two people, but they could not help everyone trapped in misery.

They began to understand the same pain Mo Chen felt.

For the students, that pain may have arrived later, but it was just as sharp.

…

On the morning of the seventh day after the outbreak, Bai Xianglei suddenly knocked on the principal’s office door.

The moment he entered, he beamed. “The official shelter is finished!”

Fu Qing lifted her eyes from behind the desk in surprise. “So fast?”

She remembered that in her previous life it had not been this fast. Many early shelters had been created by converting stadiums, air-raid shelters, and similar facilities. The priority had been taking in more homeless people wandering the streets and blocking zombies from outside. But due to lack of experience, they neglected the virus incubation period and failed to prepare adequate isolation space, leading to outbreaks from within and the collapse of entire shelters.

This time, after Fu Qing’s warning, the authorities learned from that lesson. They abandoned air-raid shelters and other spaces that were hard to retrofit and difficult to escape from, prioritizing stadiums or abandoned factories in the outskirts. While strengthening defenses, they also built large isolation zones, which greatly increased the workload.

So Fu Qing truly had not expected construction to be completed this quickly.

“The higher authorities set a hard deadline. It had to be finished within one week. The construction teams have been working day and night these past few days,” Bai Xianglei said, unable to hide his excitement despite his usually steady demeanor. “According to the latest update, emergency shelters in the major first- and second-tier cities have basically all been completed.”

He paused, steadying his emotions before continuing, “The engineering teams that finished early are already heading to other cities to help with construction. It shouldn’t be long before shelters across the entire country are operational.”

After a brief hesitation, he added, “We just received a notice. At exactly nine o’clock there will be a nationwide emergency broadcast. Could you use the campus broadcast system so everyone here can listen together?”

To ensure that most citizens could hear the announcement, the government had not only prepared shortwave broadcasts but also deployed communication vehicles to drive through streets broadcasting messages, along with drones carrying loudspeakers flying at low altitude.

However, Fangzhou’s location was too remote to receive any of those. They could only rely on personal radios and the campus broadcasting system.

“No problem,” Fu Qing nodded.

She opened the system and immediately sent a listening reminder to the entire campus.

Less than ten minutes remained before nine. People gradually stopped what they were doing. Worried that indoor reception might be unclear, many voluntarily gathered in open spaces such as the athletic field.

Before the broadcast began, anxious discussions spread quietly through the crowd.

“Do you know what they’re going to announce?”

“No idea… maybe the virus evolved again or something?”

“Come to think of it, today marks exactly one week since the outbreak.”

Many people suddenly realized it.

Without noticing, this nightmare had already lasted an entire week.

Living inside Fangzhou, shielded from outside changes, they were already far luckier than most people.

Yet the changes in daily life were still enormous. Some still woke in the middle of the night believing they were in their own homes, instinctively stumbling toward where the bathroom should be, only to bump into unfamiliar walls and realize they had long since left that place behind.

The immense sense of loss and uncertainty that followed was hard to share with others, something each person could only digest alone.

Soft conversations continued until nine o’clock arrived.

“Bzzzz—”

A sudden hum sounded, and everyone instantly fell silent.

Pairs of eyes stared at the campus loudspeakers, filled with both expectation and unease.

After a burst of harsh static, a woman’s voice gradually became clear.

“…This is the National Emergency Command Center… issuing an emergency broadcast to compatriots across the country…”

The announcer’s voice was calm and solemn. Someone whispered excitedly, “It’s working!”

Then, under others’ warning looks, they hurriedly fell silent and listened attentively.

“…First, with the deepest sorrow, we, on behalf of the government and the people, express our most profound condolences to those compatriots who have tragically lost their lives during the past seven days.”

The words dimmed everyone’s expressions.

Some lowered their heads quietly. Others closed their eyes, imagining what was happening across the world, their faces tense.

“…This has been the darkest week in the history of our nation and perhaps the world. In these seven days, we have endured loss, fear, and separation from loved ones. Yet we have never given up, and we have never surrendered.”

“At this very moment, countless brave soldiers, medical personnel, and workers from all walks of life continue to fight on the front lines, safeguarding the flame of hope with their lives.”

After a brief pause, the announcer’s voice grew firm and uplifting.

“We now officially announce that the national emergency shelter system in all major cities has been fully completed and is now operational!”

For a moment, silence blanketed the crowd, followed immediately by an uproar.

The announcer continued, describing the shelters’ comprehensive protection measures, isolation facilities, medical systems, and ample supply reserves, sending waves of excitement through listeners.

The shelters were finished.

They themselves might not need them, but those still stranded outside, homeless, surviving on dwindling food supplies, or suffering illness while facing death at any moment…

They now had hope.

Nearly everyone had friends or relatives trapped somewhere outside. Hearing the news, some wiped away tears.

Others were deeply moved by the nation’s efficiency.

The announcer added that cities with completed shelters would have their locations announced in subsequent broadcasts for public reference.

“To mourn the deceased and to open a path of hope for the living, at 14:30 this afternoon, air-raid sirens will sound nationwide.”

The crowd froze in confusion as she continued:

“When the sirens sound, all citizens are requested, while ensuring personal safety, to pause their activities and observe a moment of silence for those we have lost.”

“Please note: no vehicle horns are required. Personal safety must remain the priority.”

“After one minute of silence, the sirens will enter a cycle of 36 seconds sounding and 24 seconds silent, continuing for one hour.”

“During this hour, siren systems nationwide will operate at maximum power, using sustained high-decibel sound to attract the attention of infected individuals and redirect threats.”

“All citizens needing evacuation should use this one-hour safety window to proceed to the nearest community assembly point. Transport convoys and fully armed military personnel will be waiting there to escort you safely to shelters.”

“Assembly point locations will be repeatedly broadcast afterward. Please listen carefully.”

“Once again, the sirens will attract most infected individuals, but you must still maintain protective measures. Travel light, remain quiet, evacuate in an orderly manner, and do not stop midway…”

Everyone listened wide-eyed, afraid of missing a single word. Even after the announcement ended and the broadcast shifted into listing shelter locations nationwide, no one spoke for a long time.

Eventually, someone let out a long sigh, as if releasing all the emotion filling their chest.

Fearing loved ones might not have heard the broadcast, people pulled out their phones, sending texts and messages through every possible channel to spread the news.

Even phone calls were made in hushed voices.

…

Inside the administrative building’s conference room, the atmosphere was equally heavy.

Fu Qing broke the silence first, turning to Bai Xianglei.

“Has Xue Ran finished the training on his side?”

Xue Ran had been staying off campus these past few days and had not reported back yet, so she was unsure.

Bai Xianglei nodded instinctively. “It should be about done. Why…?”

He suddenly stopped speaking. Pulling himself out of the emotional weight of the broadcast, his expression darkened.

“You mean… the believers might ambush civilians heading to the shelters?”

“Very likely,” Fu Qing said with a nod. “I can’t think of a better opportunity for them.”

“During the gathering period, the city will have large numbers of patrol vehicles, and all major roads will be guarded by armed forces…” Chu Hai said.

Even that wouldn’t be enough?

After all, things were different now from the first days of the outbreak. Encountering infected individuals outside often meant immediate elimination rather than containment, because civilians had already learned how dangerous they were and no longer reacted as strongly to soldiers killing them.

Although zombie numbers had increased, elimination efficiency had improved significantly.

Fu Qing shook her head and cut him off.

“They don’t understand the believers well enough.”

“And those armed forces are obvious targets. After observation, they’re easy to avoid. A few zombies appearing inside a crowd would throw the entire evacuation into chaos.”

Chu Hai and the others’ expressions turned grim.

Since the outbreak began, the believers had remained inactive, and neither side had confronted the other directly. The special operations team only understood them conceptually, without firsthand experience.

But Fu Qing had never been wrong before.

Bai Xianglei stood up without hesitation.

“I’ll go find Commander Tian right now.”

₊˚.🎧📓✩

After hanging up the call with Mo Chen, Freckles immediately dialed the next number without pause.

Several attempts in a row failed to connect.

For a moment, she could not tell whether something had happened to the other party or whether the call simply could not go through.

Power rationing also affected communication networks. When base stations lost electricity, phone calls naturally failed as well. Because of this, the team held a long contact list arranged according to each region’s electricity schedule.

They could only place calls when the target area had power.

Even then, once electricity returned, countless people simultaneously rushed to make calls and access the internet, overwhelming signal channels. Often, after finally connecting, the call would drop after only a few sentences.

And this was under the condition that Fangzhou itself had twenty-four-hour external communication.

Freckles sighed quietly, imagining how difficult it must be for people trapped outside to contact family and friends.

It was hardly different from sending messages in bottles adrift at sea.

She forced herself not to dwell on it, marked the failed attempt, steadied her emotions, and continued dialing.

Around the conference room, many other students were doing exactly the same thing.

On the other end, after ending the call, Mo Chen immediately began drafting a volunteer recruitment message in her group chat.

…

That same morning, as electricity returned across several regions nationwide, countless people like Mo Chen flooded online the moment communication resumed, eager to check the latest updates.

And almost all of them noticed the same post.

【@FangzhouRescue V: The Fangzhou Volunteer Team is now accepting help requests from across the country! We will dispatch available local members to respond as quickly as possible.

Please complete the following form according to the required format and submit via private message to the following accounts: @SparkMutualAidDocument, @LighthouseRescue, @CityA_LocalRescue, @WenwenWantsToGrowStronger (24-hour reply service)… and other listed accounts.

All listed accounts accept submissions 24 hours a day. Once your request is registered, you will receive confirmation via private message. Please do not submit repeatedly to avoid wasting resources.

Manpower is limited. Thank you for your understanding. If your situation has been resolved, please notify the account you submitted to promptly.

This account will provide real-time updates on resolved cases and does not accept submissions directly.

Important: Please clearly state your available electricity hours for contact and any observable information about infected individuals. Concealing information grants volunteers the right to withdraw immediately and retain records for future accountability.

Detailed requirements and format are shown below…】

The @FangzhouRescue account tagged more than a dozen accounts in one post, and these were only the contacts successfully reached since the previous night.

Some, like Spark Mutual Aid Document, had been created after the apocalypse began. Others were long-standing civilian rescue organizations. Still others were major personal influencers who, after the outbreak, had redirected nearly all their time toward reposting help requests and amplifying the voices of those with nowhere else to turn.

Every account contacted agreed without hesitation to Fangzhou’s proposal.

They organized teams overnight, arranged duty schedules, and opened private message channels that very day.

At the same moment Fangzhou’s post went live, several of the nation’s largest platforms used algorithmic recommendation systems to push the @FangzhouRescue account to vast numbers of users.

Because the account was not officially governmental, it could not receive top-of-trending placement, but this was the strongest promotion the platforms could legally provide.

Within moments, @FangzhouRescue attracted tens of millions of views and attention.

And that was only the beginning.

The account quickly released several additional posts.

The first called for civilian volunteers to assist with verification missions. For cases where conditions could not be confirmed or requesters stopped responding, volunteers could use drones or vehicles to observe from a safe distance and confirm the situation.

Requirements included radio communication equipment, drones, protective gear, and preferably sturdy vehicles such as off-road cars.

Participants did not need to engage directly. Remaining inside vehicles eliminated most risk.

Although zombies now roamed the streets in large numbers, conditions had not yet reached the late-apocalypse stage where massive hordes blocked entire roads.

Moreover, Fu Qing had earlier warned the military that zombies tended to cluster. Whenever small gatherings began forming into proto-hordes, armed police or soldiers on patrol would disperse or eliminate them.

As long as one avoided large hordes, driving through the streets remained relatively safe.

This task was ideal for well-equipped civilian rescue teams that lacked combat experience.

The second post announced that Fangzhou would provide free remote guidance for civilian volunteers. Anyone in need could contact them through private messages.

At present, Fangzhou could only directly handle requests submitted through the standardized format.

Many others did not even know this help channel existed.

Across cities, numerous small civilian rescue groups possessed valuable local information. Yet many lacked training or confidence. Even when they knew people were trapped, they hesitated, unsure how to conduct rescues safely.

With Fangzhou offering remote guidance, those scattered efforts could finally be mobilized.

As long as evolved zombies were not encountered and proper precautions were taken, basic infected were not especially difficult to handle.

Every Fangzhou student was capable of serving as a remote instructor.

Requests for guidance were organized by publicity-team volunteers and uploaded to the wristband system, allowing available students to claim them freely.

Since it required no travel or team formation, students could simply sit anywhere on campus and assist during spare moments.

The third post was a warning.

【Reminder: Non-professional teams should NOT conduct rescue operations independently. Follow stay-at-home recommendations. Personal safety must remain the top priority!】

Although residents had been instructed to stay home since the first day of the outbreak, enforcement had never been absolute.

For one thing, the outbreak began on a weekend. Countless people had already been outside, and many remained stranded with unknown whereabouts.

Anyone trying to return home inevitably had to step onto the streets.

The authorities had no way to distinguish who had been outside from the beginning and who had run out later.

Second, many neighborhoods and residential compounds did not have enough manpower to enforce stay-at-home measures. More often, they were like the compound where Shi Guangyao lived: not only was the residents’ committee unmanned, even the security guards had fled.

With the main gate standing open and people coming and going freely, there were plenty of people like Jiājia’s parents who went out searching for family.

Zombies were terrifying, but compared with the risks they themselves faced, they feared even more for the lives of their loved ones.

So the stay-at-home directive remained only a “recommendation.”

No mandatory measures were implemented, and there were no punishments for going out.

Starting from the fourth post, the account began archiving the various help requests Fangzhou had resolved from yesterday through this morning.

Some students had taken photos for records before leaving and uploaded them with identifying details censored. Others wrote text summaries describing the situation and the number of people successfully rescued.

In the comments, many survivors and their relatives appeared, leaving messages of gratitude and reposting. This further boosted the account’s credibility.

Well-meaning users continued to repost and spread the word.

FangzhouRescue# climbed to the top of the trending list in under half an hour and held firmly onto the number-one spot.

No one knew how many trapped people saw a glimmer of hope there, read the submission requirements carefully, then, hands shaking, began filling out the form.

Submissions from every corner of the country poured like snowflakes into the backends of those dozen-plus accounts. Translated on Hololo novels. Volunteers who had received basic training rapidly categorized them by region, urgency, rescue difficulty, and number of trapped people, then forwarded them onward to Fangzhou’s inbox.

*

A village in Jianghe County.

A husband and wife clung tightly to each other, their terrified eyes fixed on the front door.

Bang.

The old wooden door shuddered violently again, the metal hinges creaking under the strain.

Outside, the zombie kept clawing at the door. The sharp scrape of nails against wood made the hairs on their arms stand up.

“Don’t cry, don’t cry,” the wife whispered.

She was holding a baby. Perhaps sensing the parents’ tension, the infant wailed nonstop, agitating the zombie outside into even greater frenzy.

The husband cursed, eyes bloodshot, and started to get off the bed, reaching for a knife.

“To hell with it. I’ll fight it!”

It was the fourth day they had been trapped. The household ran out of food two days ago, leaving only the baby’s formula, which neither of them dared touch.

If this continued, they would either be eaten by zombies or starve to death.

He instructed his wife, “I’ll lure it away and lock it somewhere. You take the chance to go next door and find food, grab as much as you can. Then come back, lock the door, and don’t open it no matter who knocks.”

The infected outside was their neighbor, an elderly man who lived alone and likely still had some stored food.

They had hidden inside and watched him get mauled by another infected, collapsing helplessly at their doorstep.

Now it was their turn.

Cradling the baby, the wife’s eyes brimmed with tears. She closed her eyes and nodded hard.

Don’t open the door for anyone.

She knew her husband had already accepted that he might not return.

“I’ll protect Xiaoman. Don’t worry,” she choked out.

He said nothing more. He kissed the baby’s forehead and gripped the knife, striding toward the door with grim resolve.

Just before he turned the lock, the sounds outside vanished without warning.

He froze, then moved to the window and peered through the glass toward the doorway.

A young woman was sheathing her blade, brushing dust from her hands as she said casually, “Just one zombie? This mission’s way too easy.”

Meeting the gaze of the people inside, she blinked, then bent down and dragged the corpse away from the doorway.

“Alright, you can come out now.”

“I’ve got other things to do, so I’m heading off.”

The infected that had trapped them for three full days had been dealt with, effortlessly.

So easily that it did not even have time to cry out before dying.

The young woman waved, jumped into a car parked by the roadside, and drove away.

The husband stared as the car disappeared into the distance. Translated on Hololo novels. The fierce expression that had formed when he resolved to die fighting drained from his face. The knife clattered to the floor as his hands went limp.

He dropped to his knees with a thud, and when his wife stumbled over, the two embraced and wept.

*

A supermarket in City S.

A group of people crouched behind shelving, watching zombies wander between the aisles, swallowing nervously.

They had all been trapped in the supermarket on the day the virus erupted.

Outside was too open, so they had hidden in a nearby staff break room and survived by luck.

But there was little to eat in the break room. After days of hunger, they finally could not endure it and ventured out to look for food.

They quickly discovered how foolish that decision was.

A rough estimate suggested at least dozens of zombies inside the supermarket.

And with the complex layout and shelves blocking sightlines, it was nearly impossible to retrieve food without attracting attention.

They had barely made it a few dozen meters from the break room when a cluster of zombies cut off their route, trapping them among the shelves.

As several zombies lurched closer, cold sweat poured down their backs.

A supermarket was not like home. They could not even find a decent tool to use as a weapon. Unarmed, if they met zombies head-on, they had no chance.

“If only we’d gone to the meat section first and grabbed a knife,” one person whispered miserably, voice trembling.

The others fell silent. …Right. Why hadn’t they thought of that?

After so many days without food, their minds had dulled.

A burly man beside them nearly exploded. “Damn it, if you thought of it, why didn’t you say so earlier!”

“I thought the food shelves were close, we could grab something and go,” the man muttered, clutching his head in despair. “If we go to the meat section, we’d have to detour…”

The zombies drew nearer. Their rasping breaths were practically in their ears.

Someone could not wait any longer. Turning back, he flashed the signal they had agreed on.

The others’ hearts leapt.

And then—

“RUN!!”

Someone shouted.

In an instant, everyone spun and sprinted. The entire supermarket erupted as zombies were alerted, roaring and surging in their direction.

In the chaos, someone knocked over a shelf and products scattered everywhere. Someone collided with either a teammate or a zombie and let out a howl, shoving them away before running on without looking back. Someone else ran the wrong direction entirely, not even toward the staff break room, only realizing they were lost after a long sprint, their heart turning cold.

The supermarket became complete pandemonium.

And then, from the entrance, more than a dozen people poured in, just in time to see the panicked survivors scattering, with zombies snapping and clawing behind them.

They rushed in to join the fight.

The situation flipped quickly from one-sided doom to one-sided advantage.

Yet perhaps the trapped people were too panicked, too immersed in flight, to notice what was happening around them. Some did not even realize the students had arrived.

They ran screaming, wailing, begging the heavens, and no matter how hard the students tried, they could not draw the zombies’ attention away.

The students: “……”

The lead student spotted a pyramid of stacked liquor bottles nearby. He shrugged off his backpack and swung it hard.

The bottle pyramid, taller than a person, crashed to the ground.

Liquor flooded across the floor, filling the air with sharp alcohol scent. The huge crash finally snapped everyone, including the zombies, back to awareness.

“If you don’t want to die, shut up!” he barked, pushed beyond patience. “The zombies can’t even scream as loud as you.”

The trapped civilians stared at the students who had appeared out of nowhere, as if divine reinforcements had fallen from the sky.

They… were going to live?

…

The same kinds of scenes unfolded in countless corners of Huaguo.

Students surged into streets and alleys, into high-rises, into dark basements, into crowded department stores and remote mountain outskirts, rescuing one trapped person after another.

Before death could claim them, someone reached them first.

Refusing all thanks, they handed survivors over to official personnel and turned to rush toward the next scene.

With nowhere else to pour out their gratitude, survivors went online as soon as they regained strength and left thankful replies.

This mysterious organization, appearing from nowhere, created what could only be called an unbelievable rescue record in a single day.

As time passed, the number of people rescued continued to climb.

That day, no one knew how many people etched the name Fangzhou into their hearts, remembered the student team, and remembered the miracle they created.

₊˚.🎧📓✩

12:00 a.m., City C.

The alarm rang, and Mo Chen sprang out of bed, quickly turning it off before plugging her phone, tablet, and other electronic devices into their chargers.

A checklist was taped beside her bed, filled with tasks that had to be completed within the one hour of electricity each day.

Charge devices, boil water, heat food on the induction cooker…

After finishing these preparations, she glanced at the time. It was exactly 12:10 a.m.

During the first ten minutes after power returned, connecting to the internet was nearly impossible, so she had long since adjusted her routine to handle other chores during that window.

The kettle hummed loudly, while the rice cooker and induction stove worked simultaneously. Over the next hour, all three appliances would run continuously, boiling and sterilizing as much stored water as possible for the entire day ahead.

While waiting for the water to boil, Mo Chen opened her phone and refreshed her feeds as she ate.

Her district had unfortunately been assigned the midnight electricity slot. Even getting a hot meal required staying awake until midnight, completely disrupting her sleep schedule and daily meals.

Before the apocalypse, Mo Chen had been a typical young person. Staying up late and eating midnight snacks had been routine, and going to bed early used to feel uncomfortable.

Now, being forced to wake up at midnight just to eat made her long for a healthy schedule instead.

Fortunately, the local government had promised that electricity schedules would rotate between districts every two weeks to ensure fairness.

After persistently refreshing for six minutes, she finally connected to the internet.

She checked the safety messages her family and friends sent punctually every day, replying to each one, then glanced at her pinned group chat and saw several hundred unread messages waiting.

The group was large, but members logged in at staggered times, so real conversations rarely happened. Most people summarized key information, dropped it into the chat, and disappeared again.

Despite being only a few hundred messages, the amount of information inside was overwhelming.

Mo Chen’s expression grew serious. Bracing herself, she tapped into the chat, already prepared to see bad news.

She wondered how many people had died while she was offline this time.

Mo Chen had graduated from university only this year. On the afternoon the virus outbreak began, numerous classmates posted pleas for help in their university group chat. With so many participants, messages were quickly buried. Many people reposted repeatedly, while others were lost entirely in the flood.

Noticing the problem, Mo Chen created a shared document to compile all help requests in one place.

The method proved extremely effective. The document was quickly forwarded into other alumni groups, then to graduate students, faculty members, and even teachers’ families, all of whom began submitting requests.

By that evening, the document had spread across the entire city and even neighboring provinces, accumulating thousands of help entries.

Although many people nationwide were doing similar work, Mo Chen’s document had appeared early, and its clear, simple formatting made it easy to understand. By coincidence, it spread widely.

That very night, people from other regions contacted her asking permission to copy her format and create help documents for their own provinces and cities.

With lives at stake, Mo Chen readily agreed.

As traffic increased, formatting errors and accidental edits became common, so she organized a volunteer team dedicated to maintaining the document. Translated on Hololo novels. She also created a Weibo account to aggregate documents from across the country, both to promote the resource and recruit volunteers.

The account, named “@Spark Mutual Aid Document,” gained massive attention overnight, boosted by reposts from major influencers.

Before nationwide power restrictions began, fewer than twenty-four hours later, hundreds of volunteers had joined, and the account had surpassed one million followers.

After electricity rationing started, Mo Chen coordinated volunteers according to their regional power schedules, ensuring that someone was always online twenty-four hours a day.

From an outsider’s perspective, this was already an extraordinary achievement.

But as the organizer, Mo Chen felt no joy.

At the beginning, she had been energized, secretly believing her actions might save many people.

But over the next two days, as entries in the document appeared and disappeared, she realized something devastating: most entries were removed not because help had arrived, but because the victims were confirmed dead, prompting volunteers to delete them manually.

Many others vanished after registering, all contact lost. Mo Chen already knew what that likely meant.

Unupdated entries slowly sank to the bottom, like a long list of the dead.

Only then did she realize that having more information also meant carrying more pain.

The desperate pleas filling private messages and comment sections, the names of people dying one by one while waiting for rescue, made her increasingly afraid to log in.

She began to dread seeing them.

She continued out of responsibility, yet her empathy dragged her into overwhelming anguish.

Yesterday, she had heard news that nearly broke her.

A civilian volunteer rescue team that had set out after seeing her document encountered an infected individual with terrifying speed. Of the eight rescuers, only one escaped alive, and even he had been bitten. After reporting his companions’ deaths, he locked himself inside a room and mutated two hours later.

Since hearing that, Mo Chen could not stop questioning herself.

She could not suppress the thought: if the document had never existed, would those eight people still be alive?

This virus was different from previous natural disasters. Civilian rescue teams could not truly intervene. Perhaps the correct choice was for everyone to remain at home and wait for official rescue…

She had barely rested all day, yet when midnight arrived again, Mo Chen still logged in on time.

What greeted her this time, however, was completely unexpected.

The moment she opened the group chat, instead of death notices, she was met with a stream of uplifting messages.

[Update: In City D today, 47 help requests were removed because the people involved were rescued safely. Thirty were saved by official teams, and seventeen by unidentified volunteers.]

[City S had 458 entries removed today… wait, what is happening?? A huge chunk disappeared all at once. I thought someone deleted things by mistake.]

[City A reported 53 rescues today. Thirty-one were carried out by civilian volunteers. Are civilian rescuers suddenly overpowered or something?]

[That City S number is kind of terrifying.]

[Why did the number of rescues suddenly jump so much today? I compared it with official rescue data, and there’s no major increase. So the change must come from civilian volunteers. But I asked around, and none of the local rescue teams say it was them.]

[Good news! Remember the person I mentioned before, the one trapped near an extremely fast infected? She was honest about the danger, so nobody dared approach. I was honestly losing hope… but she got rescued today! And it was done by a group of students. I almost cried when I heard.]

[Congratulations! That’s amazing. But seriously, those students are unbelievably brave.]

[They’re like warriors descending from the sky!]

[Go check the trending page. Someone posted about it.]

After days filled with death reports, the group chat finally carried a hint of vitality. Even the volunteers’ tone felt lighter.

Of course, the rescue numbers being discussed only reflected entries within the Spark Mutual Aid Document. Many more rescued people had never registered there at all.

Those who left requests in the shared document were typically skilled internet users. Naturally, they did not seek help in only one place.

Documents, chat groups, social platforms… their pleas existed everywhere.

As a result, although Fangzhou students often obtained information from other sources, the outcomes partially fed back into the document’s statistics.

The more Mo Chen read, the more unbelievable it felt. Translated on Hololo novels. Across provinces nationwide, the number of rescues had suddenly surged in a single day. Even more astonishing, despite infection numbers rising sharply and infected individuals becoming more common on the streets, not a single rescue volunteer had been reported injured or killed.

What was going on?

Seeing the last message in the group chat, she hurriedly opened Weibo.

There were fewer new trending topics these days. Even when people had internet access, most no longer wasted time browsing social media. Yet today, several bloggers she followed had reposted similar updates.

Most posts came from people who had previously asked for help and were now reporting back.

They began by thanking everyone for their concern and reposts, confirming that they or their loved ones were safe, then describing their rescuers.

Mo Chen quickly noticed that nearly half of them mentioned the same keyword:

Fangzhou.

Perhaps by unspoken agreement, even before Sun Wei and the others created an official account, students responding to grateful survivors had consistently left behind that single name.

And when survivors described their rescuers, the wording was strikingly similar: “very young,” “students,” “extremely capable,” “well-equipped.”

Some rescuers arrived alone; others came in groups of three or five. Judging from the locations and posting times, they could not possibly be the same team, yet their characteristics were astonishingly alike.

Mo Chen felt confused.

Where had this mysterious organization suddenly come from?

The answer finally appeared in a post from City S.

It was written by a mother who had previously posted a plea searching for her daughter. In detail, she explained that the rescuers were students from a local university in City S called Fangzhou. According to her, nearly the entire student body had spontaneously formed a massive volunteer organization. Some students organized help requests, while others with combat capability formed teams to conduct rescues.

They had not only saved her daughter and parents-in-law but also rescued more than a dozen other trapped people.

After reading it, Mo Chen felt both admiration and confusion.

She marveled at the students’ kindness and courage, but she was equally astonished by their capabilities.

…So were the rescue cases outside City S also done by those same students while traveling back to campus?

Impossible, she thought, smiling at her own imagination and quickly dismissing the idea, unaware she had nearly guessed the truth.

No matter what, the name Fangzhou had now etched itself deeply into her mind.

Nearly twenty minutes had already passed. Not daring to waste more time, she prepared to resume her work when her phone suddenly vibrated.

An incoming call.

The caller ID showed City S.

A strange intuition rose in her chest.

She answered. “Hello?”

A clear female voice came through the line.

“Hello, may I confirm that you are Ms. Mo, the owner of the ‘Spark Mutual Aid Document’ account?”

“Yes, that’s me.”

“Thank you. I’m a contact representative from the civilian volunteer organization ‘Fangzhou.’ My surname is Tian. The situation is urgent, and we were worried you might miss a private message, so we contacted the platform to obtain your phone number. We sincerely apologize for the intrusion.”

The young woman named Tian spoke apologetically, then briefly introduced Fangzhou’s situation.

The moment Mo Chen heard the name, her eyes widened. When she learned that Fangzhou had nearly two thousand volunteers, each capable of independently confronting infected individuals, her breathing quickened.

She understood completely what such a force meant.

“…We are currently compiling help requests from across the country and assigning them to volunteer teams after sorting. We hope to cooperate with you by organizing the information you currently manage…” Tian Tiantian continued explaining.

Mo Chen snapped back to attention and interrupted excitedly.

“No problem!”

She was intelligent enough to understand that if Fangzhou could obtain her contact information directly through the platform, they must have official backing or at least official trust.

As for the data they requested, it was already public information. The only thing she needed to contribute was manpower.

What was there to hesitate about?

Manpower was the one thing they had in abundance.

“You can ask us to do anything you need.”

Thinking of the thousands of people Fangzhou had helped rescue across the country that day, Mo Chen felt tears welling up.

For the first time in days, she saw hope.

₊˚.🎧📓✩

The moment Sun Wei returned to campus, she hurried off without pause to discuss things with Su Huaijin.

The two gathered the publicity team members currently on campus and held a meeting. Yue Yuxuan, who was still on the road, joined remotely through her wristband, while the others had already arrived with their families.

The @Dormitory Battle Royale account had temporarily stopped updating. Having grown accustomed to the fast-paced rhythm of filming and editing videos, the group suddenly found themselves idle and unsure what to do. Hearing the proposal, their eyes lit up immediately.

The more they listened, the more they felt it was an excellent idea.

Sun Wei spoke first. “Since we’ve decided, let’s divide responsibilities. I can handle creating the account and daily operations.”

Her original role in the publicity team had been operations management. No one was better suited.

Now that the apocalypse had arrived and her family had been relocated to Fangzhou, she no longer needed to worry about Devotees tracking her down through her identity. After a year-long hiatus, she planned to log back into her original self-media account and directly convert it into Fangzhou’s official account.

Her @Sister Wei of Society account had been inactive for a year. Although it had lost some followers, many loyal fans still checked in regularly, sending concerned private messages. The number of dedicated followers remained significant.

Across multiple platforms, her combined audience exceeded one million followers. That level of exposure could instantly bypass the painful early stage of building a new account from obscurity like @Dormitory Battle Royale had experienced.

As for the original content on the account, she intended to delete it outright and felt no regret.

Videos could always be made again. Right now, giving people with nowhere else to turn a channel to be heard was far more important.

Of course, if the account succeeded and began receiving massive numbers of help requests, additional manpower would be required. Sun Wei’s main responsibility would be establishing the account in its early phase and later managing the operations team.

“Then I’ll handle contacting the other online help-aggregation accounts and volunteer organizations,” said Freckles. “I’ll start negotiating with them right away.”

“I can manage the forum posts,” Yue Yuxuan’s voice came through the wristband. “Xiao Su will be going out with the principal soon, so she probably won’t have much time to oversee the forum.”

Since the hooded woman could be discovered at any moment, Su Huaijin did not refuse. “Alright. But I’ll still have time to help over the next few days.”

Zhuo Xiaoliang thought for a moment. “Right now students are camping on the forum trying to ‘grab missions,’ which is really inefficient. They waste a lot of time waiting, and they can’t even leave the forum while competing for tasks. I’m wondering if we could ask the principal to use the wristband registration system so teams can register their availability, location, team size, and capability in advance. Then I can assign suitable missions directly to the right teams.”

That would save a great deal of time.

His suggestion was clearly important. The previous model, where people refreshed the forum for one or even two hours just to secure a mission, was far too wasteful.

Su Huaijin nodded. “I’ll leave that to you.”

After nearly a year of working together, the five publicity team members coordinated seamlessly. Within moments, responsibilities were fully assigned through quick exchanges.

Aside from Sun Wei and Su Huaijin, the rest were non-combat personnel and had ample time to handle their respective tasks.

Sun Wei had always been extremely action-oriented. Translated on Hololo novels. The fact that she had built a nearly million-follower account while still in high school proved that. Hunting Devotees during the day and managing the account at night posed no difficulty for her.

Daytime account management could later be handed over to additional operations staff.

However, even though the five had reached consensus, they still needed Fu Qing’s approval before officially creating the account.

For Fu Qing, this was an opportunity she had no reason to refuse.

After listening to Su Huaijin’s explanation, she rejected only one part of their plan: Sun Wei converting her personal account into Fangzhou’s official account.

“Leave account creation to me. You don’t need to worry about it.”

Fu Qing had already decided she would speak with Bai Xianglei and ask him to pass along a request for the platforms themselves to promote the account through official channels.

Just like how @Dormitory Battle Royale had once been featured on a platform’s homepage, once official authorities made the request, the platforms would cooperate with maximum enthusiasm. That approach would be far more efficient than relying solely on organic sharing by bloggers and netizens.

“As for your account, keep it for yourself,” Fu Qing added casually. “Don’t delete the content either. It would be a shame.”

When she first decided to delete everything, Sun Wei had not felt much regret. She believed what she was about to do now mattered far more than preserving an inactive account.

But that account represented years of effort. Countless hours had gone into it, and the videos and comment sections held memories of her entire journey.

Hearing she could keep it, Sun Wei’s emotions grew complicated. “Alright. Thank you, Principal.”

Fu Qing, however, was already thinking several steps further ahead.

If possible, Fu Qing still did not want a certain student to become too deeply tied to Fangzhou in the outside world.

If Sun Wei used her original account, even after deleting the old videos, it would still be easy for others to trace her real identity.

The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.

Just like when they first released videos, Fu Qing had made herself the only person whose face appeared on camera.

If someone had to stand at the forefront, it should be her.

*

As Fu Qing expected, the moment she informed Bai Xianglei about the students’ decision to establish a rescue account, she received his full support.

In addition to contacting social media platforms to promote the account, Bai Xianglei proposed something extra: installing a dedicated fiber-optic line for Fangzhou.

As long as the communication hubs along the route maintained twenty-four-hour power, Fangzhou would have continuous internet access.

Naturally, this would consume a significant amount of electricity. Network resources were extremely scarce, so the connection could only be provided to a small number of people within Fangzhou, such as Fu Qing, the five publicity team members, and future volunteers responsible for operations and coordination.

Everyone else would still need to wait for the government’s daily one-hour electricity window to access the internet.

“That’s on me,” Bai Xianglei said awkwardly. “I knew you had your own communication tools and didn’t rely much on the internet, so I never brought it up before.”

Fu Qing understood. Providing network access required power support. With nearby base stations completely shut down, setting up an independent line capable of running twenty-four hours a day was no simple task.

The reason it had not been mentioned earlier was likely the enormous energy cost.

Now they were willing because the benefits outweighed the expense.

Tian Xuejun and Bai Xianglei were specifically responsible for Fangzhou affairs. The students’ rescue operations that day could not possibly escape their notice.

In truth, Fu Qing did not feel she needed so many privileges. Over the past year, Fangzhou’s teachers and students had prepared to face the apocalypse alone. Receiving official trust and support now was already better than she had expected.

“Then I’ll trouble you with it,” she said politely.

“What trouble? We’re already short on manpower. You helping with rescues is a huge benefit to us!” Bai Xianglei replied enthusiastically, patting his chest. “I’ll contact people right away. Once you create the account, send it to me. As for the fiber line, our technicians will handle it. Ten hours at most. I guarantee the connection will be operational today.”

*

After Tian Xuejun received the notice, the command center immediately dispatched communications soldiers that very day. Translated on Hololo novels. Carrying fiber cables, equipment, and technical staff, they laid the line step by step along the route. Two technicians headed directly to Fangzhou to install the terminal equipment, finally completing debugging just before midnight.

The loading icon spun a few times, and the webpage opened successfully.

“It worked!” The publicity team members, gathered in the conference room, burst into excitement.

The technician exhaled in relief. “The router is installed here, so the signal range is limited. If you need internet access in the future, you’ll have to bring your devices to the administrative building.”

Fu Qing’s office, being nearby, could connect directly without needing to relocate.

The students nodded repeatedly.

Besides the four publicity team members, several new faces were present, volunteers they had recruited.

With no internet during the day, there had been little else to do. Sun Wei and the others had first assembled manpower and asked Fu Qing to activate the registration function.

After hours of work, they had already compiled a rough duty schedule covering the next three days.

Students never lacked energy. Just like when the simulation pods had once been insufficient and they rotated usage twenty-four hours a day, this schedule now filled every time slot, even late-night hours that people competed to claim.

The coming days still fell within the golden rescue window. After that, the chances of survival for trapped victims without food or water would decline rapidly.

Time was life. Those trapped could not wait for rescuers to wake up well-rested.

Meanwhile, other students continued going out on rescue missions without pause.

After Sun Wei left the team, Song Rushhuang and Zhang Han simply teamed up with Qin Yufei and his group, forming a five-person squad that successfully secured a major mission.

Rescuing trapped teachers and students from a summer tutoring center.

More than twenty first-year high school students and two teachers, twenty-eight people in total, had been trapped inside an office building for three days.

As Zhang Han complained, reaching the tutoring center required passing through three elevators and countless winding corridors.

“It was hidden even deeper than that underground card room!”

Another large-scale rescue followed. The bus that had just dropped off the elderly survivors was immediately called back by Zhang Han. When they picked up the students secretly attending summer classes, the teenagers looked even more frightened and helpless than the elderly gamblers had been.

Having all once been students themselves, the five university students said little. They simply patted the younger students’ shoulders with solemn encouragement, acting like older siblings as they guided them onto the bus.

Across two missions that day alone, they rescued forty-seven people.

Even Song Rushhuang and the others were stunned by the number.

Including Sun Wei, six people had saved that many lives in a single day. If the entire student body was counted, how many people had Fangzhou saved altogether?

In the early days of the apocalypse, the number of uninfected people still exceeded zombies. Just a few zombies could trap large groups, and humans naturally gathered together when endangered, which greatly improved search-and-rescue efficiency.

That number, in turn, motivated the students even more. The weight of human lives pressed heavily on their hearts. Many barely dared to sleep, rushing to claim new missions with renewed intensity. Even late into the night, students continued moving in and out of Fangzhou.

If Fu Qing had not intervened in time by issuing a notice requiring minimum daily sleep, forbidding exhausted students from going out, and activating the wristband’s sleep-monitoring function, many would likely have stayed awake all night conducting rescues.

As for those who slept during the day intending to go out at night when fewer people competed for missions, Fu Qing instructed Zhuo Xiaoliang to strictly screen their capabilities before assigning tasks.

Anyone lacking sufficient strength was forbidden from nighttime missions, and all night operations required teams of at least five.

With streetlights gone, zombies held a far greater advantage at night. If not for urgent rescue situations, Fu Qing would not have allowed students to go out after dark at all.

…

Meanwhile, at midnight, once internet access finally became available, Sun Wei quickly registered accounts across all major platforms.

The account name was simply “Fangzhou Rescue.” At a time like this, a clear and direct name was far better than something flashy.

After verifying the account, each platform immediately adjusted users with duplicate names to temporary defaults, compensating them with rename vouchers. They raised Fangzhou’s account priority, removed posting and reply restrictions, and provided substantial promotional traffic.

The treatment was second only to officially operated rescue accounts.

Once again, Fu Qing found herself impressed by official efficiency.

She watched as Sun Wei focused intensely on her laptop, fingers flying as she finalized usernames, edited profiles, uploaded submission guidelines, and pinned prepared posts. She was completely immersed in work.

The other students were the same. Some managed forum operations through wristbands, others typed rapidly on computers drafting posts. Occasional brief exchanges punctuated the constant clatter of keyboards filling the room.

Everyone worked in perfect coordination. If one ignored their ages, they looked no different from a professional workplace team.

After watching quietly for a while, Fu Qing slipped out of the conference room without a sound.

₊˚.🎧📓✩