Translator: transcendentwings
The sports equipment room was in disarray and just as Zhao He imagined, some people had resided here before.
All the equipment was pushed to a corner, while a large open space had been vacated in the middle and was covered with high jump mats and sit-up mats. There were messy food residues all over the mats as well as on the ground. Instant noodles, snack bags, and empty drink bottles were littered around as far as the eye could see.
“It seems that quite a few people had lived here for a time before ah,” Luo Geng inspected the space before coming back to report, “There are also mats in the compartments inside.”
Qi Yan nodded: “It’s just unknown if it’s just one batch or if several groups lived here before and after in waves.”
After all, the sea of corpses on that lawn wasn’t built in one day.
“It doesn’t matter how many squads there were, they were all mad warriors anyway,” Song Fei felt depressed when he recalled the field of scattered bodies outside.
“Stop guessing, the main force must be from our department.” The three musketeers of the sports department also returned from their check on the cubicle-like sections.
“You’re sure?” Song Fei scanned around and didn’t find any conclusive evidence.
Fu Xiyuan sat on the ground with his legs crossed and sighed: “All the weapons in there, such as the hammer, shot put, and javelin, are all gone, leaving only two d*mn discus behind. Only our compatriots of the same department would do this, it wouldn’t be so easy if it were anyone else ah.”
“Besides the track and field arena is the structure next to our departmental building,” Wu Zhou added. “These snack bags and drink bottles on the ground also look like the ones from within our building.”
“No need to discuss these things at all,” Zhao He rolled his eyes and plopped down next to Fu Xiyuan, “You will know once you go in and take a whiff, it’s the typical scent of the male dorms from the sports department.”
Song Fei was dubious: “Aren’t all the boys’ dormitories pretty much the same, a stench that ascends the heavens, so why are only yours special?”
“You are too naive.” Zhao He sneered and gave Luo Geng an arrogant look, “You say it.”
Luo Geng looked away: “I have deleted this memory, clearing out all aspects of color, smell, and taste completely!”
Zhao He curled his lip and had no choice but to step up to the plate himself: “Fine, I’ll bring you over to sniff. . .”
“No need!” Song Fei pressed down on the hand that Zhao He used to grip his arm. He glanced at Luo Geng’s pale face, and then seriously refused, “I believe it.”
Cherish life and try to avoid unnecessary risks.
Zhao He also didn’t force himself. He let go of Song Fei and stared off in a daze alone for a while before he suddenly sighed quietly: “I wonder where they are now.”
“Maybe after they finished all their rations, then they had no choice, and had to run off somewhere else.” After Qi Yan finished postulating, he mulled it over and added, “Maybe they escaped off campus like us.”
“No matter where they’ve disappeared off to, I wish them safety and peace ba.” Zhao He shrugged, then suddenly thought of something and his mood rose again, “It isn’t beyond the realm of possibility that my buddies are included ne.”
“If that’s true, then we need to thank your pals,” Song Fei added casually, “If they had closed the door when they left, we wouldn’t have been able to get in.”
“They wouldn’t.” Zhao He blurted without hesitation.
Song Fei was confused and the other companions didn’t understand either.
Zhao He: “The door was left open on purpose, the dead bolt was twisted out and pinned ne.”
The companions were stunned.
After Zhao He finished speaking, he was also a little befuddled. He was the first one to enter and also the last to shut the door, thus he had the most say on the lock situation, but it was also the first time that he thought about the reason behind it all, “Why did they deliberately leave this door ajar?”
“It’s not that the door was left ajar, but that they purposely propped the door open for those coming later.” Song Fei had already figured out the meaning, “If someone else escaped and reached here, then at least, they could have a place of refuge.”
“Would you be thinking too highly of them?” Zhao He had already assumed that the past residents were his own classmates from the same department and couldn’t help but superimpose their notions.
Song Fei chuckled and didn’t argue with him any further.
Zhao He shrugged, he felt that choosing to have faith, didn’t seem all that bad.
Sometimes, the human heart was more heinous than one could imagine.
Other times, the human heart was brighter and warmer than one could conceive.
“Are you okay?” He Zhiwen saw Lin Dilei resting in a corner so he quietly crept over.
Luo Geng, who had been sitting nearby and had struggled to find an opportunity to speak up, immediately asked with concern: “What’s wrong?”
Lin Dilei didn’t want to answer either question.
As a result, He-tongxue who was happy to aid others unraveled the mystery—
“She is now on the second day of her great aunt’s arrival, Huang Mo said before that the second day is usually the most uncomfortable.”
Luo Geng was stunned and couldn’t find the right words for a moment.
Lin Dilei’s eyes widened in disbelief: “You even. . . asked Huang Mo?”
He Zhiwen nodded matter-of-factly: “I didn’t know what was so special about the second day and when you encounter a problem that you don’t understand, of course you have to make an inquiry to shed some light upon it.”
Lin Dilei studied He Zhiwen for a full minute. Finally, when her breathing stabilized, she suggested with a smile: “Do you want to consider giving up on looking for a girlfriend?”
To prevent herself from going completely berserk, Lin Dilei decided that she must distance herself from this pair of comrades temporarily.
When she straightened, a pang of pain shot through her stomach, making her mind tense up swiftly, but then she realized belatedly that it wasn’t as serious as she had initially assumed. In fact, she had already found it puzzling as early as yesterday. Over the past few years, she couldn’t count it as actually coming if she wasn’t rolling on the bed in agony. Including last month, she was tortured by it until she nearly collapsed mentally. Yet this time, although she was uncomfortable, the severity eased up a lot and compared with the previous hell mode, this time it was definitely an easy pass.
She didn’t know if it was because she exercised more this past month than in previous years, that her muscles and tendons became more active and her blood circulation became more smooth.
“Why are you hovering over there like an idiot?” Qiao Siqi’s voice was transmitted from below.
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.
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Lin Dilei swept her gaze across it meticulously, the so-called ruin was just a circle of tooth marks around the tip of the shoe.
It was impossible to remove as the chewed up part was already sunken in, but after a good scrub, it may not be so obvious.
“Isn’t it just a pair of shoes, that’s all.” Lin Dilei couldn’t understand.
“Little Landmine!” Zhou Yilu felt as if he had found a relative in an instant.
Qiao Siqi emphasized: “Limited edition, this is a limited edition Jordans, you can’t buy it even if you had money now!”
Lin Dilei rolled her eyes and recalled an incident from the past: “No wonder you were so agitated when your shoe was chomped on at Xuezhi Avenue. In fact, if you didn’t make a noise at that time, we would have been able to quietly dispatch that zombie while those lying on the ground may not have been roused and possibly just hibernate forever.”
Qiao Siqi muttered in a low voice with a little guilt: “I really couldn’t control it ah. . .”
Zhou Yilu sneered: “Qie, excuses, just admit that you were flustered already.”
Qiao Siqi: “Little Landmine!”
Lin Dilei: “Ah?”
Qiao Siqi: “If someone took a bite out of your most expensive and beloved brand name bag, would you be able to remain calm?”
Lin Dilei: “I’m just a student, I’m already pushing my limits by buying perfume, how could I afford purchasing bags.”
Qiao Siqi: “Suppose you’ve graduated, found a job, could afford to buy it, and then the LV, Chanel, Hermès, and Prada bags were all covered in bite marks?”
LIn Dilei: “I’ll, rip, him, apart.”
Zhou Yilu: “. . .”
After a short rest, the companions all recovered from their long-distance sprint in hell.
The ruckus outside the door had died down, but if one listened carefully, it hadn’t completely dissipated.
However, time waited for no one.
It was necessary for them to race against time to slip into the underground parking garage before dawn.
How they would leave the track and field area wasn’t technically a difficult task, but after they left, which path they would take became a hotly debated issue.
Luo Geng: “We must go from Xuezhi Avenue ah, that’s what we decided on previously.”
He Zhiwen: “And the field of view is wide, able to capture everything at a glance.”
Zhou Yilu: “The distance traveled is also short.”
—The three above were firm supporters of returning to the original track.
Song Fei: “Since we have already detoured here, let’s just go from this side bei.”
Li Jingyu: “It just so happened to be directly connected to the rear of the Houde Building.”
Qiao Siqi: “And the narrow road makes it easier to hide.”
—The three above strongly supported improvisation.
Luo Geng retorted: “This is a concentrated area for cultural and sports activities, stadiums, sports fields, swimming pools, basketball halls, academic centers, auditoriums, and much more, each of which could contain hidden dangers. We can resolve the issues that crop up as we go along, but we can’t bury landmines for ourselves.”
Song Fei disagreed: “Although the terrain here is more complex and the situations we may encounter could also be more complicated, have you ever considered that the more convoluted environment would leave us more possibilities? You are worried that there are zombies concealed in these places, then have you ever thought that these places could also double as bunkers?”
Zhou Yilu: “We can climb trees when we encounter danger ah, why insist on hiding in places where the presence of zombies is questionable.”
Qiao Siqi: “What if we don’t get to the parking lot before dawn? What if we need a place to spend the night? We’ll freeze to death perched in the tree!”
He Zhiwen: “I’m going to pass out, you liberal arts students love to let your imaginations run wild, can’t you guys venture forth on logic?”
Li Jingyu: “You science students are single-celled, simple and crude!”
Qi Yan: “If you have something to say then just say it, don’t make it so that you are attacking indiscriminately.”
Wang Qingyuan: “You guys should start first ba.”
. . .
The battle between liberal arts and the sciences was a raging topic that could be hotly debated for a millennia without pause, and so, in the blink of an eye, all the companions joined the battle.
Uh, excluding the three musketeers of the sports department.
Zhao He actually wasn’t reconciled to just watch on the sidelines as his comrades tore into each other, but if he wanted to jump into the fray without having his pants down, he’d at least need a definite clear-cut position.
After hesitating for a long time, he finally couldn’t hold it any longer and blurted out: “Does the sports department count towards liberal or science?”
Wu Zhou patted him on the shoulder: “You overestimate yourself.”
Fu Xiyuan sighed: “Ours is considered a cultural class.”
Xuezhi Avenue or the side road in the campus life area by the liberal and sports department, similar to the dispute between liberal arts and the sciences, no resolution was concluded in the end.
“Flip a coin ba,” Song Fei put his foot down decisively, no longer wanting to waste precious time, “If it’s heads where the number is then we’ll take the avenue, if it’s tails, the side road, let’s have fate take its course.”
“To depend on the Heavens for such a serious decision. . . Is not too good ba.”
The companions were somewhat hesitant.
“You think our survival to this day was all due to our own efforts, it’s because the Lord in the Heavens was protecting us.”
After saying this, Song Fei didn’t wait for anyone to refute, fished a shiny golden fifty cent coin from his wallet, then flicked it into the air. . .
The coin crashed into Qi Yan’s face.
Then it bounced onto the ground.
Song Fei: “. . .”
All the comrades: “. . .”
Tails.
Qi Yan bent down to pick the coin up, slipped it casually into his pocket, and then smiled calmly at his companions: “Let’s go ba.”
All the comrades-in-arms swiftly turned around and picked up their belongings, nodding vigorously with bright eyes.
Outside the door of the equipment room embedded below the rostrum, there were only three or four zombies left.
The rest were scattered on the track and field course, either in the lane, or on the lawn, or were attempting to climb the stands on a whim.
They seem to have forgotten what they came here for, but were reluctant to leave. It seemed that they were seeking out a safe haven, but there was no such place on the empty track and field course.
The door to the equipment room opened quickly and then closed again in a flash.
The zombies at the door didn’t even have time to track down the origin of the sound.
A small remote-controlled aircraft appeared on the ground beyond the door. The moment the door was closed and locked, several small propellers suddenly began rotating rapidly and the aircraft instantly took off into open space, making a swishing shuashuashua sound with the stirring of the air.
The zombies heard the sound and looked up, only to see an aircraft stop at a height where it could be seen clearly but was out of reach.
In the next second, the aircraft suddenly began to head for the running track.
The zombies outside the equipment cellar door instinctively chased after it, but the aircraft stopped in mid-air not long after reaching the circuit and started hovering in place.
More and more zombies gathered underneath the aircraft. Originally there were only a few outside the equipment room door, later, most of the zombies wandering around the track and field turf congregated over.
In the equipment room, He Zhiwen was operating the remote controller, sweat beading on his forehead slightly.
He couldn’t see what was going on outside and could only rely on his intuition, so he didn’t dare to make too drastic operations. When he thought that the aircraft had nearly entered the track and was at a bit of a distance away from the equipment room, he decisively halted his machinations and had the aircraft just hover in mid-air.
“It should be about right.” Song Fei, who had been plastered to the door to listen for any movement made his judgment.
Qi Yan gave him a glance and then nodded.
Song Fei opened the door again carefully and then gently pushed open a very narrow gap to scan the surroundings through it. It was empty as could be.
He plucked up his courage, widened the crack, stuck half of his head out and finally spotted clearly that He Zhiwen had parked the drone diagonally ahead where the curve of the track met the field more than thirty meters away.
Nearly all the zombies in the track and field area were also gathered there.
Fortunately, their numbers hadn’t increased, remaining at the dozen or so they had brought over themselves.
He Zhiwen moved closer to Song Fei and finally got a better view and at last felt comfortable enough to operate the controller again.
Not a long while after, the aircraft brought the zombie flock back towards the entrance to the track and field arena.
Below the stage, all fourteen companions of the Wusheng Class were also dispatched.
The aircraft was leading the way in front, the zombies below it followed, and then the Wusheng Class trailed even further behind.
When departing from the equipment room, Song Fei also twisted the latch out to falsely seal the door.
Turning around and looking at the corpses strewn across the field, Song Fei fell into a trance for a moment, as if he had returned to the sports meet not too long ago where the stands erupted in cheers and the stadium was full of people.
In what was a sea of corpses now, two months ago, he had been dancing with a Tai Chi fan unwillingly.
If he could turn back time, he would definitely have danced very seriously.
Song Fei raised his head slightly, blinked, and let the wind carry away the heat.
Beijing time, evening, 10:20, the temperature began to drop at night.
The squad successfully arrived at the entrance of the track and field arena and Zhao He retrieved his suitcase from under the stands next to him.
This thing has now become a part of his soul. No matter how heavy it was, it was indispensable.
The aircraft strategy went very smoothly. After exiting the track and field, even the zombies along the path were attracted, so it became a powerful tool for the team to clear the area. As long as it was a place where the aircraft passed by, it basically became empty and safe.
However, after someone has been immersed in danger for too long, once the sense of safety stabilizes, at first, one may not adapt too well. At one moment, he felt that the flowers and plants around him were hiding murderous intent, then in the next moment, he was worried that the battery life of the hovercraft wasn’t enough.
“It was fully charged before leaving the canteen, don’t worry.” He Zhiwen lowered his voice and reassured Qiao Siqi, who was muttering to himself.
Qiao Siqi has been loved by zombies for a long time, and always felt frantic and anxious in his heart no matter what. Even though he was in the middle of the team, he still swept his gaze around, highly alert.
Xixisusu.
Qiao Siqi stopped abruptly, his nerves tense.
“Wind.” Zhou Yilu nudged him irately.
Qiao Siqi exhaled and continued moving.
Ahead of them was an elegant-styled school auditorium.
The team couldn’t cross in a straight line and could only go around the side.
He Zhiwen chose the tree-lined path to the left. He first remotely controlled the aircraft above the woods to prevent the propeller from scraping the branches, waited until all the zombies entered the path before resuming their advance.
Xixisusu.
Qiao Siqi braked again, this time at the entrance of the tree-lined path.
Zhou Yilu became inpatient: “Are you done yet?”
Qiao Siqi refused to take another step forward even if he were to die: “There’s definitely something off.”
The companions behind them also came to a standstill because of them, but the companions who were in the lead had already stepped onto the side path.
There was no shade in winter, but the interlaced shadows formed by the dry branches under the moonlight were darker and deeper.
Song Fei followed closely behind Qi Yan. He held his breath and was very cautious with every step.
The cold wind blew across his back, bringing a chill.
Song Fei suddenly felt a void open up behind him and when he looked back, he realized that the latter half of his comrades were already lagging a few meters behind.
Song Fei frowned and was about to wave at them to urge them forward when his shoulder suddenly bumped into Qi Yan’s back.
Qi Yan and the three musketeers of the sports department also stopped.
Before Song Fei could finish wondering whether he should be looking forward or backward, two zombies rushed out in front of Zhao He and knocked him down together!
Zhao He violently yanked one and kicked the other, successfully throwing both off!
Fu Xiyuan and Wu Zhou reacted instantly, split up into one and one, raised their weapons and stabbed down!
Fu Xiyuan’s boning knife pierced the zombie through the right eye, stabbing in deeply and brutally into the brain matter. The zombie didn’t even get to struggle when its life was snuffed out.
Yet Wu Zhou’s blade only had a bit of luck and just injured the zombie in the face.
Qi Yan charged over, wanting to assist with his spear, but it was too late. The zombie, whose face was covered in dark red blood, twisted its facial features and let out a shrill howl!
The companions were all too familiar with this sound—It was calling for its comrades!
The companions who were blocking the entrance to the tree-lined path exchanged glances, no longer regarding Qiao Siqi with disdain.
Qi Yan gave up on his assist with the spear and directly hauled Wu Zhou over and ran: “Get over here, go up the tree!”
There were trees on both sides of the three-lined path, but this small forest went for the gentle and homey style, setting the mood where one could just lift a hand to pick a leaf. The tree was not only short, but also slender, not to mention Zhao He, even Qiao Siqi could snap its branches.
The tacit understanding formed by fighting side by side for a long time made the companions instantly comprehend what Qi Yan wanted to do and they swiftly dispersed.
The auditorium was surrounded by a small tree grove, but there were also some big trees planted in spots closest to the auditorium. They were straight and tall, strong and unbending, one year, three seasons, their branches were luxuriant throughout with a coat of leaves as if they were guards defending the place, making the auditorium more dignified and upright.
Fourteen companions ascended six trees.
He Zhiwen was pulled up by a rope like always. While his comrades were digging out the rope, he landed the hovercraft steadily on the roof of the auditorium.
Only when He Zhiwen was hoisted into the air did the zombie army congregate under the tree.
One dozen turned into dozens. They were unable to shake the tree and began to jump and ram it in desperation.
He Zhiwen had one of his shoes yanked off.
He wasn’t wearing his limited edition Jordans, so he wasn’t reluctant at all. He was even glad that it wasn’t one of his legs that was ripped off.
As for his bare foot, He Zhiwen hugged the branch of the tree tightly, feeling shaken, that was going to be a d*mned problem for later ba.
The lights in the hall and lobby of the auditorium were on, it shone through the floor-to-ceiling glass at the front entrance and illuminated Luo Geng’s face, who was on the closet tree.
The LED display on the door had been broken since three months ago, thus all the activities after that could only use the original method of putting up promotional banners.
For example, right now, the red banner covering the LED screen originated from Feng Qibai and his department.
“Make Your Youth Dance•Stir Your Artistic Soul”—The Third Cultural Arts Festival Closing Ceremony and the Arts Department’s New Year Literary and Arts Performance.
Author’s Chapter Summary:
It’s hard to choose between the big path and the small, but a prompt decision is the wise call!
The translator has something to say: the case of one daring to ask (HZW) and one being able to answer so nonchalantly (HM), the pursuit of knowledge is endless even in such dire circumstances (also quite fitting since a direct translation of HZW’s name is 何 (What/How/Why) 之 (of) 问 (Ask)
Update 2/2
kid fans are 8 in., adult fans are 12 in., and competition fans are 14 in.
