Translator: transcendentwings
As soon as Song Fei finished speaking, the zombie sitting in the chair moved. It lifted its head slightly and slowly locked onto He Zhiwen with its singular clear eye hidden behind the lens.
Not on Song Fei, who was the last to talk.
But He Zhiwen who was the first to speak.
He Zhiwen, student of the Physics department, was stared at until goosebumps broke out all over his body. He subconsciously wanted to take half a step back, but before his heel could make contact with the floor, the zombie on the chair abruptly shot to its feet and charged at him frantically!
The zombie moved so rapidly, it was as if it were ejected by its seat and by the time He Zhiwen reacted, the other was already before his eyes. The distance between them was so close that he could even catch a whiff of the faint rotting smell emanating from its body.
“Ao—” The zombie howled, stretching its mouth open wide as it tried to bite his bare neck.
“Ao—” He Zhiwen wailed back in shock and squatted down simultaneously at lightning speed!
The zombie didn’t have time to retract its jaws and chomped on empty air.
He Zhiwen scrambled back and fled behind a desk, both scared and wronged: “I was just being polite ah. I just wanted to borrow the radio from you ah!!!”
“Aoaoao—” The zombie was about to go berserk as it continued to clutch the radio and lunged towards the desk where He Zhiwen was.
At this time, even an idiot would be able to understand. Song Fei swiftly warned: “The problem is exactly that radio, don’t mention the radio again, don’t even mention the three syllables radio, can’t you see that it’s his precious and whoever wants to borrow it is whomever it will confront!”
The zombie who was originally bounding towards He Zhiwen braked abruptly, swiveled around and slowly locked onto Song Fei.
Song Fei made a face and began to back away unobtrusively: “That. . . I only wanted to explain it to him a little, I didn’t mean to bring it up, I, I don’t want to borrow it from you, really!”
Seeing that Song Fei was being cornered, Qi Yan, who had been revving up for some time, dashed over from the side and aimed directly for the zombie’s temple with one move!
However, the zombie seemed to have spotted him from the corner of its eye and the originally steady strides came to a stop, making Qi Yan’s spear brush past its nose. Just when Qi Yan retracted his spear in annoyance and wanted to launch a second attack, a shiny metal weight flew over from the side and smashed into the back of the zombie’s head.
The weight of the weight combined with the strength of the thrower itself knocked the zombie to its knees. After stabilizing its stance, the zombie no longer hesitated, whipped around and went straight for He Zhiwen. Judging by its posture, there was absolutely no possibility of it wavering again!
He Zhiwen sprinted away immediately, too bad he hadn’t even made it two steps away when he was thrown to the floor by the zombie from behind!
He Zhiwen wanted to shove the zombie off his body, but was no match for this “former professor” in terms of physique and weight. In desperation, He-tongxue could only attempt to divert its hatred: “The weight was given to me by Qi Yan, I am only a porter ah—”
Naturally, the zombie wouldn’t listen to his explanation. With one arm wrapped around the radio, and the other pressed on the back of He Zhiwen’s head, it aimed to gnaw at his fleshy, white neck!
He Zhiwen was pressed down to the extent that he couldn’t move and the shadow that enshrouded him grew larger and larger, he even felt the strange touch of the zombie’s lips rubbing against his neck!
Yet the expected pain didn’t come even after a long time. It was simply repeated caresses as if the lips were dancing demonic steps on his neck.
He Zhiwen was puzzled and struggled to flip around under the force of the zombie only to find that the hair of the zombie was tightly fisted in Qi Yan’s hand and that it was the strength of his comrade that stopped the zombie’s teeth from advancing, making it stagnant at such a subtle and extremely close distance.
Gritting his teeth, Qi Yan suddenly increased his strength and was finally able to pull the zombie’s head away from He Zhiwen’s neck.
Due to Qi Yan’s tugging, He Zhiwen keenly felt the weight on his body lighten and took the opportunity to squirm his way out. When the weight on his body completely disappeared, he turned his head around and saw that the zombie had also turned around at some point and opened its mouth to gnaw at the webbing between Qi Yan’s thumb and index finger.
He Zhiwen was terrified, his nerves exploded, and just as he was about to barge over recklessly with no holds barred, he abruptly realized that something was wrong.
The stalemate that the two were entangled in seemed not so much as if the zombie was chewing on the webbing between Qi Yan’s fingers, but rather more like Qi Yan jammed it in, in order to prevent its head from continuing its assault. And because he was wearing leather gloves, the zombie couldn’t do anything to him for a while.
In a flash, He Zhiwen felt a cold light glimmer across the ground, it was Song Fei who picked up Qi Yan’s spear!
In the blink of an eye, the tip of the spear pierced the zombie in the face. . . Uh, or was it Qi Yan’s hand?
In the middle of the sparks and flashes of light, Qi Yan suddenly used his strength to push the zombie’s head down along with his own hand, dodging the makeshift mop-spear encased in a sharp, murderous aura!
“Don’t move ah!” Song Fei missed his shot and naturally blamed his comrade for being uncooperative.
Yet the comrade who was still embroiled with the zombie couldn’t be in a sorrier state: “If I didn’t move, my hand will be skewered into a mess by you!”
Song Fei was aggrieved: “I’ve never used such a long-ranged weapon before, so I can only work it out in actual combat ah!”
Dong—
The weight soaring across the sky hit the zombie’s temple, the heavy impact caused its skin to split open as a dark red slurry oozed out.
“Str-Strike?” He Zhiwen , who was launching guerilla warfare from a few meters away, had a look of utter disbelief.
“Continue!” Qi Yan affirmed his comrade’s efforts without hesitation and at the same time resumed to spurn his other comrade, “You’re not even as good as He Zhiwen!”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
“. . .” In fact, He-tongxue didn’t like this statement very much.
Vbcu Mfl jirb vlvc’a ilxf la, rqfjxlcu bo, vlvc’a atf batfg pera vfmijgf atja tf kbeiv rabq mglalmlhlcu tlw! Oljg!
“P’w cba jr ubbv Lf Itlkfc? Po sbe’gf rb mjqjyif atfc tbk mbwf sbe kfgfc’a jyif ab filwlcjaf tlw lcrajcais fnfc joafg rb ibcu! Ccv la fnfc ujnf sbe j bcf-tjcv tjcvlmjq!”
“Who knows why the professors of the Computer Science department also possessed such top of the line skills!!!”
He Zhiwen offered a weak hint: “Might be because he regularly liked to play table tennis. . .”
“F*ck it!” Song Fei made a harsh decision and simply tossed the makeshift mop-spear aside. Picking up the metal chopsticks he was familiar with, he charged over to aid Qi Yan in close quarters combat.
The three of them wrestled with one another for a time, and who knew if the zombie sensed that Song Fei approached with nefarious intentions, but it protected the radio while it frantically twisted and rocked its head around in order to avoid both Qi Yan’s dagger and Song Fei’s chopsticks.
He Zhiwen, who didn’t dare to join the battlefield, obediently went back to chucking the weights and the chaotic brawl scene made the accuracy of his long-ranged attack drop, especially when the last weight was hurtled over. At that time, the three of them were entwined in a heap by the window, and the weight was tossed a little higher, sailing directly over their three heads, striking the glass!
With a dong, the glass spiderwebbed in an instant starting from the place hit by the weight as the epicenter. Except, it didn’t fall apart, but was still fixed there as a whole piece, making the originally transparent glass seem as if it abruptly transformed into a frosted one.
The sudden incident made Song Fei and Qi Yan pause reflexively.
But the zombie didn’t. Instead, it took this opportunity to knock the two of them away and made a beeline for He Zhiwen!
“Careful!”
“Run!”
Qi Yan and Song Fei almost spoke in unison, yet it was already too late for He Zhiwen. His body already reacted slower than his brain by default then paired with his short and stubby legs, things were even grimmer like the frost upon snow. Furthermore, he had already emptied his pockets of the weights and it was too late to draw his dagger!
At this critical juncture, He Zhiwen was struck by a sudden epiphany and just stood there, holding his ground. When the zombie was right before him, he lifted his hand and went straight for the opponent’s glasses, giving it his all!
The fierce battle just now didn’t even knock it’s glasses askew nor did it make them fall off, but He-tongxue, who also wore glasses, understood that it just meant that they were clamped tightly to the temples, so instead of smacking it off, he plucked them off, which was equivalent to reaching out and directly snatching the opponent’s glasses away!
Song Fei and Qi Yan stared blankly, befuddled as to what strategy this was supposed to be.
The zombie was also stunned as if losing his glasses was an earth-shattering event that took time to get used to.
He Zhiwen stomped on the glasses, crushing it to pieces the moment they hit the ground and at the same time explained to his comrades: “It has 900-degree nearsightedness!”
Song Fei and Qi Yan looked at each other in dismay. Know thyself and know thy enemy, then you will know no defeat in a hundred battles, which is to say, you have to pay attention even if it’s only an elective course ah!
He Zhiwen’s next move after flattening the glasses was to draw the short knife at his waist. It was unknown whether it was the glint of the dagger that brought the zombie back to its senses, but he had just drawn the knife and hadn’t even had the chance to grip it firmly when the zombie abruptly seized He Zhiwen’s shoulder with the hand that wasn’t clutching the radio!
It would be a lie to say that he wasn’t scared, thus He Zhiwen pretty much jumped back reflexively and hid underneath the desk in the next second.
Song Fei knew that He Zhiwen wasn’t adept at combat, but he still didn’t expect for the other to be this timid. Besides, if he really was that scared, he could have just hidden immediately in the first place, why did he only think to hide now after he deprived the zombie of its glasses?
Just when he was mulling it over, his hand was held by Qi Yan, and in the next second, Qi Yan stuffed him under a different desk. After doing so, Qi Yan also used the swiftest speed possible to hide in a dark corner by the walls where the moonlight barely reached.
Qi Yan completed this entire process very rapidly, but his movements and steps were so light that despite being full of doubts, Song Fei still held back, didn’t inquire further, and even subconsciously held his breath after ducking underneath the desk.
The place where Qi Yan was hiding was very dark, and from Song Fei’s perspective, only one side of his body could be spotted. However, in the next moment, the singular arm that was exposed to the side bathed in light suddenly traveled upwards and made a “shh” movement based on visual estimation.
Song Fei finally realized it.
He Zhiwen’s move of getting rid of the glasses naturally was for the sake of weakening the zombie’s combat prowess—a 900-degree myopic without their glasses who was exposed to an environment with such dim lighting where even those with good eyesight may not be able to see clearly, basically equalled to annihilating their vision. And then concealing themselves behind the desks was to completely disappear from the zombie’s line of sight. Similarly, Qi Yan stuffed him under one and hid himself away in a dark corner for the same purpose.
Let the zombie be completely at a loss, so that they, or rather Qi Yan could wait for an opportunity to take it out with one blow.
In the quiet of the night, in this empty and hollow office, the zombie surveyed around blankly, momentarily sluggish.
Qi Yan drew his dagger out soundlessly at a snail’s pace.
Still hugging the radio, the zombie began to sniff around vigorously after the loss of its sight.
Qi Yan made one step, very slowly and extremely lightly.
The zombie didn’t react.
The second one.
The zombie still didn’t move, only swaying its head slightly, trying its best to discern the scent of living human beings in the air by the sense of smell.
Then a third.
Qi Yan’s stride was very wide, already reaching the heel of the zombie. Without any further hesitation, Qi Yan stabbed the zombie straight through the back of its head!
Dadada—
It was originally supposed to be a foolproof attack, but it wasn’t known whether the zombie was blessed unto its very soul or if it grew a pair of eyes on the back of its head, but it actually bounded forward at the very last moment with steps that were so joyful that even the listener could ascertain its joyful mood.
Qi Yan watched in bewilderment as the cooked duck fluttered away, and then flitted towards. . . He Zhiwen.
“Why do you keep fixating on me ahhhh—” He Zhiwen pushed his desk aside and fled yet again!
With success falling short, Song Fei hated that the iron couldn’t be forged into steel: “Let you skimp on spritzing the Hualu shui!”
He Zhiwen: “I sprayed it ah—”
“Didn’t douse yourself enough!”
“I sprinkled so much that Luo Geng glared at me!”
“Then it must be because the aroma of your flesh is too fragrant!”
“. . .”
If it was a crime to have a delectable physical body, then He Zhiwen should be sliced into pieces.
During this conversation, Song Fei had already emerged from under the table, afterall, at this moment, it was useless to conceal oneself any longer. Although the zombie couldn’t see, they could still accurately capture the direction of their prey by detecting He Zhiwen’s scent and was currently pursuing its prey vigorously.
Song Fei chased after the zombie and aimed for the back of its head!
The zombie seemed to have noticed something and swiftly whipped around, making the tip of the knife knick the zombie’s chin and skewer it through the neck!
Song Fei immediately removed the blade causing blood to splatter out, some of it even splattered onto his goggles, making a large swath of red cloud his field of vision.
Song Fei raised his sleeve to wipe it subconsciously, but the zombie abruptly rushed over!
Song Fei hastily backtracked to dodge, but the zombie was hot on his heels until he was backed into the window sill and his waist was leaning against the edge of the window’s ledge!
There was no path for further retreat as the zombie pressed in close. Song Fei’s upper body slammed into the spiderwebbed glass and a crash resounded in an instant with a huala as the pane disintegrated completely, leaving only an empty window frame and shattered debris behind.
The frigid wind caressed the back of Song Fei’s neck, making him shiver.
Yet the zombie didn’t seem to notice it and continued to attack. The target was very clear and that was Song Fei’s neck!
Song Fei couldn’t throw it off for a while. Seeing that its bloody mouth was about to kiss his neck, he promptly raised his head and slammed his opponent in the face with his goggles!
However, Song Fei underestimated the fighting power possessed by the zombie. The collision not only didn’t make the zombie backoff, but also allowed it to scrape the goggles down, nudging it all the way down to his throat!
Life or death was only worth a moment.
There was nothing Song Fei could do.
Fortunately, Qi Yan had already arrived behind the zombie, which only had half of a clear field of vision left. This time, he didn’t give his opponent another chance and stabbed the zombie directly through the junction between its skull and neck and then angled it upwards, puncturing it directly through the back of its brain.
The zombie paused and remained motionless.
Song Fei stared closely into the zombie’s eyeball and after confirming that there were no more fluctuations, he was finally able to breathe a sigh of relief, however, he retained a trace of vigilance and didn’t dare to relax completely. Glancing at the radio that was held to the zombie’s chest, he tentatively stretched out an arm to grab it.
The moment Song Fei’s fingers made contact with the radio, the zombie’s body suddenly shuddered.
That jolt was so distinct that Song Fei’s own movement also froze in response.
The eyeball that was already like a dead fish suddenly rotated again. Song Fei’s first instinct was to shove the opponent away, but unexpectedly the zombie’s gesture was faster than his and the radio was yanked out from under his hand in one fell swoop!
Song Fei couldn’t react in time and only saw the zombie’s arm raised up high uncontrollably due to the momentum of its violent move, but the radio didn’t reach a higher point following the path of its arm, instead it slipped due to inertia of the arm during its upward movement and flew right out of its hand, soaring straight out the window!
Song Fei desperately reached out to snatch it from the air, but it was already too late and he could only watch as the radio was launched out the open window frame into the dark night sky. Not long after, he heard a noise that wasn’t deafening, but represented the absolute extermination of hope.
It was the twelfth floor, there was no need to look, the radio must’ve been smashed into smithereens.
All three of them were at a loss for a moment, as if they had struggled arduously for many years, but in the end, all was in vain.
“Aoaoao—” The zombie thrust Song Fei aside and actually climbed out of the window.
There was no balcony on the other side, only the towering building and the nihility of the night.
Pa!
The sound of splattering flesh and shattering bones was eternally so unmistakable and devastating.
No matter how many times one heard it, listening to it again would still make one’s scalp numb.
This was a kind of physiological rejection, an innate instinct from being born as a human being, even if the one plummeting from the building had already been infected and was a zombie.
Song Fei slid down the window frame into a slumped position on the floor.
What kind of obsession was it that made people retain such a marked and defined sense to safeguard something even after mutation? That little black box was perhaps the most important thing that the professor recognized at the last moment of his life.
Dong.
The sudden noise of ramming on the door shook Song Fei’s body and made his trance completely dissipate without a trace.
Qi Yan and He Zhiwen also recovered thanks to the sound and rapidly restored their vigilance.
The intermittent banging on the door lasted for about five minutes. It was unknown whether they could sense the unbreakable sturdiness of the door panel or if they found that there was no more ruckus in the room. After five minutes, the one colliding against the door gradually stopped and they could finally hear the sounds of it walking away slowly with stiff footsteps.
The three of them exchanged a knowing glance, it was clear that the racket from the fighting probably lured the zombies over.
As the sound of the footsteps faded entirely, He Zhiwen suddenly shot to his feet and whispered in a low voice: “Qi Yan, lend me the flashlight.”
Qi Yan didn’t know what he wanted to do, but it was always right to follow intuition, so he fished the flashlight out of his backpack without hesitation and handed it over directly without asking.
“Thanks.” He Zhiwen accepted the proffered flashlight.
Qi Yan pondered it for a while and then still decided to comment: “There isn’t much battery left.”
He Zhiwen nodded: “Don’t worry.”
In the next three minutes, Qi Yan and Song Fei personally witnessed what overturning boxes and ransacking closets truly meant.
With the help of the flashlight, He Zhiwen pillaged through the professor’s desk inside out, not letting go of any drawers or the various other desk compartments. Laying waste to this wasn’t enough, he even dashed to the side to rifle through the public file cabinets and lockers.
Qi Yan glanced at Song Fei suspiciously, thinking that his BF who was adept at the ways of the wicked should understand better: “He’s. . .”
Sure enough, his BF didn’t disappoint him and firmly declared: “Thieves don’t leave empty handed.”
Anyway, they were already here, they should at least bring something back as a souvenir.
However, what He Zhiwen finally dug out from the depths of the locker was far more exciting than a souvenir—it was about 65 cm long, 30 cm high, and 15 cm thick, silver-gray all over with a speaker placed on the left and right, and the black mesh drawn over them were like a pair of piercing eyes. It was a large portable radio cassette player from the 1980s!
Song Fei had only seen this thing in TV dramas with a strong sense of retro vibes. Qi Yan’s grandfather had one such at home, but it seemed to have only been a decoration. Anyway, ever since Qi Yan could remember, that thing had been placed in the cabinet of his grandfather’s house. It hadn’t been relocated or made a peep for so many years, just occupied space there quietly, gathering fallen dust along with all the other display pieces next to it.
Different from the other antiques in Qi Yan’s grandfather’s house, the one He Zhiwen discovered was wiped very clean by someone. Even if the illumination wasn’t enough, it could be seen that it had been meticulously maintained and was in mint condition.
Song Fei forced himself to calm down, to not feel happy so soon because what if he rejoiced too soon again, he really couldn’t handle that kind of torture anymore: “Is it still in working order?”
At this stage, He Zhiwen could only judge it visually: “Should be possible.”
“This is way too antiquated. . .” Song Fei sighed from the bottom of his heart and then asked curiously, “How did you know that there was another radio?”
“Actually, I wasn’t too sure either,” He Zhiwen carefully put the cassette player on the ground and scratched his head shyly, “However, anyone who likes something this much usually wouldn’t be satisfied with just collecting one. Like my dad likes maps and had posted it all over the walls at home. Domestic ones, international ones, ancient ones, modern ones, all sorts of them. I like wireless radios and have several walkie-talkies alone in my house!”
He Zhiwen smiled reservedly, but his eyes sparkled. Song Fei understood that that was the expression one had when chatting about something one likes!
“I’m the same as you! You see, I like game consoles. I have a PS2, PS3, PS4, PSP, XBOX, and Wii at home. Later I also scavenged for and collected the earlier cartridge game consoles and even the earliest red and white system! It felt very special to play, extremely retro, it really had. . .”
Qi Yan swept his gaze over lightly.
Song Fei, whose spittle was flying everywhere, had a moment of jolting awake from a dream: “It really had. . . the feeling of trifles destroying the will. I’ll deal with all of them when I return!”
He Zhiwen: “. . .”
The matter of his precious wireless equipment collection at home made He Zhiwen sink into a tangled loss of whether he still wanted to fall in love in the future. What if the girl he likes also thinks that his infatuation with these novelties would thwart lofty aspirations? Would he have to sell all of his treasures to scrap collectors?
Oh, love ah, He-tongxue from the department of Physics who hadn’t even held hands with the opposite sex since kindergarten sighed deeply in his heart, you really are such a torturous little sprite.
Author’s Chapter Summary:
Dawn after a hard-fought battle was bright, the youth was melancholy for love’s delight!
The translator has something to say: “If I can’t have it, no one can! Hasta la vista, suckers!” by The 900-degree Myopic Professor
Update 2/3
Lol at T/N.
won’t lie, when the radio was thrown out, I was immersed enough to not use my inside voice and exclaim out loud,