Zombie UniversityCh67 - The Sun Rises in the East

Translator: transcendentwings


Picking up on the faint but clearly audible noise, He Zhiwen snapped his eyes open with a xiu, his gaze holding no trace of confusion. He swiftly placed the radio down, got to his feet rapidly and opened the door without hesitation. 0Cbegq

Song Fei and Qi Yan squeezed in through the gap of the door, like shadow puppets, their vigorous and robust figures were breathtaking.

After closing the door, He Zhiwen’s first reaction was to check whether his comrades were safe and sound. Only after confirming that neither had visible wounds on their respective bodies did he discover that his comrades had brought back a good half of a backpack full of number 1 batteries and three long coils of fire hoses severed at the base.

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“You two looted all the batteries we had in stock from our department, didn’t you?”

“No, there’s quite a bit left. It was too heavy so Qi Yan decided that taking this much was already enough.” Song Fei panted, “The main concern is that the electricity may have similarly been cut off back at the canteen, thus in order to keep maintaining an open line of communication to the outside world, we can only stock up on more batteries.” 7RdOrN

He Zhiwen made a face and pointed at the three rolls of fire hoses: “Then what is the reason for destroying our department’s fire safety measures?”

Song Fei shrugged: “Qi Yan said that they can be used to climb down directly from the top floor, making it more convenient and safer to leave.”

“Is that all, Qi Yan didn’t say anything else?”

“That’s it. But when we were at the entrance of the lab just now, Qi Yan had no choice but to open the valve for the fire hose and make it double as a gun for a while. I suppose that some of the apparatuses in the lab may have gotten flooded.”

Itde84

“. . .” To the dean, whose whereabouts are currently unknown, I, He Zhiwen, a student of the Physics Department, solemnly swear to you here and now that I truly am not too familiar with these two people at all and this pupil will not bear the blame for the destruction of the department’s public property.

On this side, Song Fei and Qi Yan were sitting on the floor, catching their breaths, while He Zhiwen on that side couldn’t wait to insert the batteries into the radio tape player. After taking a few deep breaths, he turned the radio on with a grave expression.

Putong.

Putong. z1JjNk

While waiting on pins and needles, He Zhiwen heard his own heartbeat.

Zizilala

The crackle of radio waves were emitted and He Zhiwen’s heart thumped wildly with a putongtong!

Qi Yan had already adjusted the brightness of the flashlight to the highest setting and the whole office was lit up like it was daytime. uHXU6Q

He Zhiwen held his breath and turned the knob slightly to adjust the bandwidth.

Song Fei and Qi Yan gulped subconsciously and held their breaths.

Zizilala

ZizilalaLdGVWo

“#¥%. . .&*! @#. . .”

The electrical noise like whispers of a human voice made the eyes of the three of them widen in an instant. He Zhiwen didn’t dare to act rashly anymore. Originally, he used two hands to adjust the knobs together, one twisting this here, while the other was turning that there. Now, he only used one hand as he began to fine-tune the knob with extremely slow and miniscule adjustments.

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Qi Yan and Song Fei couldn’t understand his professional debugging, but they could hear that the voice was gradually becoming clearer under He Zhiwen’s machinations—

ta wolia hadmen hulushi. . .” 9XCMW5

However, they still didn’t seem to comprehend it.

Song Fei and Qi Yan exchanged glances and the latter sighed melancholically: “It seems to be. . . Arabic.”

“And so, what was it saying?”

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.

“How would I know!” jhRG3H

“Cgfc’a sbe jc jmjvfwlm asgjca?”

Song Fei rolled his eyes in disappointment at his boyfriend who fell short of expectations and swiveled around to beam radiantly at the highly tech-savvy He-tongxue to discuss gently: “Look, let’s not take a trip abroad and just travel within the country’s borders. . .”

Gfqgfrrfv jcv offilcu uelias, Lf Itlkfc klqfv atf rkfja boo tlr obgftfjv jcv mbcalcefv.

Mlnf wlceafr ijafg. kE6HmI

全国民は注意してください. . .”

Ktlr alwf atfgf kjr cb cffv obg tlr mbwgjvf-lc-jgwr, Lf Itlkfc tlwrfio gfmbuclhfv la, Ajqjcfrf.

Vbcu Mfl ibbxfv ja Hl Tjc.

Hl Tjc ujhfv bea atf klcvbk. UMOobk

Song Fei sighed and continued to encourage He Zhiwen: “You can do it, the distance is shrinking, the motherland is waving at you!”

Twenty minutes later.

We are facing an unprecedented war! Pick up your weapon and fighting! Destroy those who behave strangely. . .

Both He Zhiwen and Qi Yan’s eyes lit up, English! OH2Dse

Song Fei silently peered out the window.

However, his ears were alert.

Story translated by Chrysanthemum Garden.

Qi Yan understood the content faster than He Zhiwen: “We are facing an unprecedented war, pick up your weapons and fight, eliminate those who behave strangely.

The English was basically only repeatedly circulating the same content—to encourage the citizens to fight. Yet from the beginning to the end, there was no specific country or radio station named, thus although the accent sounded American, they couldn’t be sure and there was no way to judge whether this was a public radio station or a private radio wave. MZ5ioL

“People who are behaving strangely, are they referring to the zombies?” Song Fei asked with uncertainty.

“Besides this, I can’t think of any other explanation.” Qi Yan stated, wiping off a palmful of cold sweat from his forehead.

The three of them fell silent.

Previously, Class 1 inferred from the delay in rescue that the scope of the virus’s impact was likely to be the entire country. Now, at least one English-speaking region or country was also experiencing a similar crisis. If they were to consider this in the worst case possible, the urgent-sounding Arabic earlier and the grave-sounding Japanese after that may have also been a warning? Does that mean that this viral catastrophe was far more dire than they originally imagined? 6HFJBC

But—

“That shouldn’t be right ah.” Qi Yan couldn’t figure it out and unprecedentedly started to mutter to himself, “Infectious diseases are usually only spread within the area where the source originated and are geographically isolated by the segregation of the continental plates. Although one can’t rule out the possibility of it being introduced to other locations by patients, there have rarely been cases of widespread and rapid outbreaks elsewhere simultaneously.”

“It’s not impossible,” Song Fei analyzed, “Just think, this virus is transmitted and exhibits symptoms so swiftly, perhaps within a few minutes, one can infect two, three can infect six, and then nine can infect eighteen, twenty seven becomes eighty-one, this sort of exponential growth isn’t impossible.”

“But what about the original source of infection?” Qi Yan asked, “If the outbreak really occurred in multiple regions at the same time, how did the source of infection appear in different places around the world synchronously?” h27qWV

“My friend, the Earth is a village. What if the initial source of infection was at an international airport ne, after everyone is infected, each will return to whence they came from and seek out their own mum. Assuming that the initial incubation period of the virus is very long, like that classmate we bumped into at the beginning, then it isn’t impossible for these people to become symptomatic after they have all already returned to their own countries.”

Qi Yan was taken aback and after some thought: “That’s true ha.”

Song Fei rolled his eyes and turned his nose up at the sky: “I just don’t like to study, if I were to actually get serious, then I would be able to annihilate you in a second.”

Qi Yan was like an elder crying tears of joy: “Please sec-kill me, I’m being sincere.” lK7pbq

Zizilala. . . Save me. . .”

The abrupt call for help put a stop to the two’s bickering and time also stopped at this moment as if only those two words remained in this world.

Yet the moment one tried to listen more carefully, it just morphed back into the zilala electrical current crackle again.

“Don’t worry, don’t be anxious,” He Zhiwen already knew before his comrades could speak, “I’ll tune back into it immediately.” pXZ16

Zizilala. . . To repeat it again, the one who asked for help, I don’t know where you are. Anyway, you’ve been calling out for ten days. If you really need help, then report your location and if you don’t need it, then don’t hog resources. In case you really can’t hold back broadcasting live, just send some positive energy, like your bro here, with a stand-up comedy session every day, a regular fix of poisonous chicken soup, those who don’t want to live will be inspired by it, and those who don’t want to fight will grow brave after hearing it. This is who I am, big bro B, a proud MC!”

Song Fei, Qi Yan: “. . .”

Chrysanthemum Garden.

He Zhiwen: “Uh, it seems that the adjustments went awry. . .”

In the following fifteen minutes, He Zhiwen-tongxue tuned into a few dozen short-wave stations, the contents of which were rich and the personalities of the broadcasters were truly an array of bright and flourishing colors. But it seemed that everyone was aware of what the current situation was and the audience also tacitly understood what the current state of affairs was like. None of them were backed by a serious scientific background, all were just seeking cheer in bitterness. CLFirU

But to be able to have a laugh while still immersed in suffering is a good sign, isn’t it?

The fine-tuning went on for almost an hour. Song Fei and Qi Yan went from being excited, to lost, then feeling wave after wave of disappointment. Their initial expectations were worn away, leaving behind only dejection. They even started to quietly persuade themselves that if they couldn’t tap into the right radio wave, then maybe there was none in the first place. Taking a step back, maybe they would be able to gain something from persisting to tuning into those weird short-wave stations.

However contemplating it was just that, neither of them brought this up to He Zhiwen.

Because from the beginning to the end, He Zhiwen didn’t waver at all, let alone experience ups and downs like the two of them. After each failure, he would swiftly dive into another adjustment, concentrated and staunch. SpXA5R

Just like when the two of them went to retrieve the battery.

He Zhiwen didn’t ask them how they located the batteries and they didn’t inform him of the dangers and their persistence in charging downwards again and again after being met with failure after failure. But they knew that He Zhiwen understood it and was currently responding to them with the same steadfast insistence.

Zilala. . . Through contact with saliva and blood transmission. . .”

The sudden voice instantly raised Song Fei and Qi Yan’s spirits simultaneously! 5VMNRb

He Zhiwen also caught it, yet the more excited he was, the more stable his hands became. With a turn of the knob, the words of the electronic voice became clearer and clearer—

“. . . No other route of infection has been discovered yet. Once infected with this virus, most people will develop symptoms within 10 seconds to about 5 minutes, while very few people will present with a longer incubation period. As of now, the infected person with the longest incubation period was 23 hours. Symptoms of the infected include loss of reason, memory, emotions, and sensation of pain, decreased mobility, vision, and the flexibility of their joints to varying degrees, with a heightened sense of smell, they will attack healthy people based on scent, and at the same time they may retain a modicum of memories or behavioral habits from before they became infected. At this stage, there is no cure for this virus. Most experts believe that the damage caused by the virus to the infected is irreversible, and the general public is urged to stay away from the infected. . .”

He Zhiwen carefully released the knob to keep the channel in the current band. At this time, Qi Yan and Song Fei had already come forward to gather around the radio and the three of them surrounded it at a very close distance, but didn’t dare to touch it, as if any slight nudge would cause this hard-won short-wave signal to be lost.

“In Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shandong, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, Hainan, and other regions, the viral infection has already been completely contained and in parts of Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang, and Inner Mongolia, etc., the viral infection has been basically brought under control. It is expected that in the next month, the infection situation across the country will be effectively controlled. . .” iB19rV

“During this state of emergency, it is recommended that you choose to take cover at the nearest shelter. Unless absolutely necessary, try not to go out, and don’t believe in the rumors so as not to cause unnecessary panic. All information subject to the release of the state is the standard. If supplies are insufficient, you must protect yourself well when venturing out to ensure your own safety. When seeking asylum, it’s best to take refuge in large-scale supermarkets, stadiums, etc., the state will send aerial troops to airdrop supplies to densely populated areas in various provinces and cities. . .”

“The Chinese nation is facing the most severe tribulation in history, but please believe that the people of the entire country are of one heart and united, and will surely overcome these difficulties and usher in a brand new tomorrow!”

“The following will be international news. Following the United States, Canada and Mexico have also declared a state of emergency. As of now, the unknown virus has broken out in 32 countries around the world, and there has been no progress in researching the virus thus far. . .”

The three of them remained motionless, just listening to the news in silence until the white belly of a fish surfaced in the East. jc3ita

In the end, only when the news cycled back, becoming old news, and the broadcaster’s voice was subtly altered by the depletion of power did He Zhiwen gently turn off the radio.

He moved very carefully for fear of touching the knob that tuned the bandwidths.

Story translated by Chrysanthemum Garden.

In fact, so what if it was accidentally touched, after all, they had to take it back and no matter whether they held it in their hand or carried it on their shoulder, the adjusted settings would definitely be messed up and it would have to be 100% re-tuned after their return. But at this moment, perhaps it was because they felt that this short-wave news station was too hard-won, that even if it was messed up even a bit later, that would be better.

The Ren Zhe brand flashlight was completely out of power. wSaT6B

However the three of them knew that very soon, the rising sun would drive away the cold and darkness and usher in warmth and light.

“What should we do now?” He Zhiwen sniffled, while the base of his eyes still couldn’t help gathering heat.

“Wait for rescue ba,” Qi Yan tried hard to suppress the elation in his heart, attempting to keep himself calm and objective, “If what the news says is true, it will take at most ten days before the rescue squad arrives where we are.”

“There is no if.” Song Fei was unlike Qi Yan who still maintained a skeptical view at this time, he was always more emotional than rational and was willing to listen to his inner voice, “Just going by the news still being announced in a broadcaster’s tone and the experts playing hooky, despite those abroad still sunken in deep water and bathed in scorching flames, I feel that the situation isn’t out of control.” bn5FcD

He Zhiwen: “The reason for your self-confidence is really. . .”

Qi Yan: “Unable to be refuted.”

“Besides ah,” Song Fei gazed into the distance, his eyes gleaming with determination and trust, “If our ragtag bunch can deal with the zombies and were able to survive until now, there’s no reason why those armed with golden spears and paired with armored horses can’t level the mountain and rivers!”

He Zhiwen: “. . .” P2oIas

Qi Yan: “Was the phrase ragtag bunch agreed upon by the students of both classes with a show of hands?”

Song Fei retracted his distant gaze and stroked his chin, pondering hard: “Uh, a couple heads of rotten garlic?”

He Zhiwen: “Fei-ge, if you continue to draw aggro like this, you may not be able to survive until the rescue. . .”

DongdongdongodZhqw

Before the sun rose, the sound of a drum suddenly soared to the sky.

The three companions in the office got up at the same time and approached the window in confusion. It was good that there was no pane now as there was no need to open the window anymore.

Dongdongdongdongdongdong

The drumming was getting more and more intense, they could tell that the drummer was trying their best. But there was only a drumbeat, it was impossible to tell whether it was a cry for help, a summons, or a demonstration of some other emotion. TJj6D0

However, the direction of the sound seemed to originate from the Yixin building.

The Gewu building was neither too close nor too far from the Yixin building. During the day, the windows of the Yixing building could be vaguely seen from the office where the three of them were located, but now that the sky was hazy with the light of dawn, nothing could be truly seen clearly.

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There was only the sound of the drums shaking the sky.

“Is it Feng Qibai and the others?” He Zhiwen questioned with uncertainty. cKiI3

Qi Yan didn’t speak.

Song Fei also hesitated, after all, it has been a day and two nights since they were separated: “It’s hard to say. . .”

The heart-pounding drumbeat lasted for about two minutes. It started inexplicably and ended neatly and cleanly.

Just when the trio were at a loss, the wind at daybreak faintly transmitted a completely different sound. That was the beginnings of another musical instrument being played. The sound was subtle, deep, desolate, and resentful. OKUoVR

Qi Yan narrowed his eyes: “Xiao.”

In this situation where zombies have surrounded the school, the weeping-like howl of the xiao fit the desperate and mournful mood the trapped students possessed, and yet. . . He Zhiwen scratched his head in confusion, why was this tune so familiar?

“Could it really be them?” He Zhiwen ventured again.

Song Fei held his forehead in resignation, did that still need to be asked at this time ma, who in this entire university, other than their Wusheng class, would be crazy enough to play “Little Apple” with a xiao ah!!! I4qwSX


Author’s Chapter Summary:

The citizens of the entire country are united, swearing to fight against this virus until the very end!


The translator has something to say: there’s never a dull moment


Translator’s Note: long time no see! I apologize for the long radio silence. I want to say that I’ve been trying to get a backlog of chapters so the upload speed isn’t so delayed, but to be honest it’s because a lot of stuff has been happening in RL and at work so I’ve had to cut down my translating hours. I’m trying to get back on track as I’ve gotten certain things under control now and/or know which direction I will be going in to deal with it, but to be honest a lot still needs to be done. I am very sorry, but I swear I will complete this translation, not abandon it, and hope that you all will continue reading it and show your continued support to the author as well as this translation despite the slow pace (I hope to do more regular releases soon), thank you and have a happy and healthy (lunar) New Year! UToDmQ

Translator's Note

驴皮影 (lúpíyǐng) – lit. “donkey-skin shadows”, refers to the semi-transparent 2-D silhouettes cut from animal hide and colored with semi-transparent dyes used to carry out shadow puppetry by projecting them onto thin screens. The exact origin of this form of entertainment is unknown but can be traced back to the Han and Tang Dynasties. Customs, traditions, values, folklore and more are passed down through these performances and such shows are still popular in Xi’An and Beijing today

Translator's Note

unfortunately I couldn’t figure out what this actually meant

Translator's Note

Japanese, lit. “Attention all citizens”

Translator's Note

reminder that this bold means originally English in the RAWs, also was so tempted to fix the grammatical error here. . . It was a good try on our author-dada’s part

Translator's Note

and this was a Chinese to English translation of QY’s English to Chinese translation

Translator's Note

*cough* COVID *cough*, stay safe everyone!

Translator's Note

各回各家各找各妈 (gèhuí gèjiā gèzhǎo gèmā) – they beat of this phrase was lost in translation, I tried to stick to the rhyme though, sorry if it’s very awkward

Translator's Note

poisonous in this case is like a jinx, like the “poisoned” milk in gaming novels

Translator's Note

东方泛起鱼肚白 (dōngfāng fànqǐ yúdùbái) – fig. “the rising of the sun in the East”

Translator's Note

RAWs was lit. “four words” because ragtag bunch was an idiom 歪瓜裂枣 (wāiguālièzǎo) – lit. “crooked melons and split dates”

Translator's Note

br-lazy" a Chinese vertical flute, generally made of bamboo or solid wood that is carved and hollowed out. The commonly used pitch is the G key or F key and generally has eight finger holes (six in the past)

Translator's Note

let’s reintroduce this song by the Chopstick Brothers

Translator's Note

全国人民齐协力,誓与病毒磕到底!(quánguó rénmíng qí xiélì, shì yǔ bìngdú kè dàodǐ!)

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