Chapter 183: Zombie Siege Practice
The chaos on campus lasted for nearly an entire hour.
It was not until the broadcast time of the Student Union radio station was approaching that the outside world gradually returned to silence. Only the zombies that had just followed along for a marathon were still wandering aimlessly beneath the shade of the trees.
“Dear classmates, hello everyone, this is the Student Union Radio Station.”
Lili’s hypocritical voice came from the radio once again, with a clearly audible hint of schadenfreude.
By the third day, their malice was not even concealed anymore, openly displayed in front of everyone:
“Just now, an airdrop arrived at our campus. I believe many classmates participated in searching for supplies. It’s just that I wonder, exactly whose stomachs will be filled today, the students’ stomachs or the infected’s stomachs? Hehe, the Student Union is also very concerned about this…”
It was not until Tang Xinjue’s call came in that Lili’s sarcastic broadcast abruptly stopped.
“Excuse me, but personally, I think that instead of the Student Union worrying about how much the zombies have eaten, it would be better to pay more attention to the safety of some student strongholds.”
Over the phone, Tang Xinjue’s words were clear and forceful. The moment she spoke her first sentence, the Student Union had an ominous premonition of killing intent approaching.
“Ahem, let me remind everyone again that the radio regulations state that one student can only ask one…”
Lili tried to interrupt and take back control of the conversation, but Tang Xinjue calmly refuted her again:
“The regulation is limited to asking questions, and I did not ask a question. I am giving a reminder.”
The Student Union: “……”
They had no chance to react before Tang Xinjue began laying everything out without pause.
Threats and intimidation, arbitrary elimination, injecting unknown substances, refusing to give them food, keeping the students alive while preventing them from leaving…
The various inhumane acts of the two student strongholds over the past few days were exposed completely within five minutes.
This time, Tang Xinjue’s wording was extremely direct: “I don’t think a group of fanatical cult believers and a group of perverted research enthusiasts can establish a stronghold capable of sheltering the majority of tongxue. I also hope everyone pays attention to the organizers’ mental state when choosing a stronghold to join. After all, a stronghold is precious, but life is more valuable. As long as you can survive, sooner or later it will end. Thank you.”
Even though the radio was so silent that only faint electrical static could be heard, the Student Union seemed able to hear the uproar from countless people in front of their radios.
After several seconds of rustling inside the radio, the voice changed from Lili to another host named Li Lei:
“Alright, thank you for this classmate’s call. But as the Student Union that everyone deeply trusts, we also have the responsibility to remind everyone that the statements above are merely this classmate’s one-sided account. The specific contents have not yet been verified, so please do not believe them casually—”
Tang Xinjue said seriously: “If any classmates has doubts, you can take a look and see whether smoke is rising in the direction of the East Gate cafeteria. According to reliable information, this is because the cult organizers attempted to *** this morning and perish together with all the students.”
The Student Union fell silent again for a moment, still unwilling to give up: “Then there are the other strongholds…”
“There is also another medical building stronghold. After their organizers’ insane virus experiment failed, they attempted to flood the building to commit suicide. Fortunately, all the classmates inside successfully escaped.”
“Of course, it cannot be ruled out that there are normal strongholds.” Tang Xinjue changed the direction of her words: “Even if the conditions are relatively difficult, I believe that under everyone’s united efforts to build it, they will certainly be able to overcome this difficulty.”
The Student Union: …You’ve said everything. Why don’t you host the broadcast?
In the end, they could only forcibly hang up Tang Xinjue’s call on the grounds of the time limit, euphemistically saying:
“Ahem! We also have to give other classmates a chance to give feedback, right? Let’s see which classmate will call next.”
The call connected, and a somewhat hoarse young male voice politely exchanged a few words before getting straight to the point: “Sorry to disturb you. We are the normal stronghold that the previous classmate was talking about.”
The Student Union: “…”
“As a high-quality A University stronghold, we guarantee that the person in charge is mentally normal, possesses a high moral standard and awareness of obeying laws and regulations, and will absolutely not pocket even a single piece of bread. Everyone, please rest assured!”
At the same time, inside the East Gate cafeteria, which had just finished putting out the fire.
A group of organizers with soot-blackened faces squatted around a radio. They were so angered by the voices coming from inside that their already blackened faces became even blacker, nearly suffocating from anger.
Never mind everything else, they were clearly the ones who had come over and set the building on fire!
Now all the students had run away, the supplies had been robbed clean, and these robbers were actually going on the radio and accusing them first?
One of the organizers held a phone and frantically pressed the dial button: “Answer my call! I’m going to expose them!”
The others were also furious, placing their hopes of exposing those people’s “true faces” on the only phone in the entire stronghold that still had power.
However, after repeatedly calling several times, the only thing that came from the phone was the busy-line tone. The radio was actually filled with the promotional broadcast of that poor low-level stronghold that could barely feed itself.
“It’s fine. Once he hangs up, it’ll be our turn. As long as we can beat those idiots from the medical building, we’ll have the upper hand…”
That round of calls finally came to an end. Just as everyone’s hearts rose, another call came through:
“Sorry.” The person in charge of the third stronghold politely said: “It’s us again. We got too invested in promoting just now and forgot to ask a question, so this time we’ll promote ourselves while asking questions…”
“……”
The people inside the cafeteria nearly crushed their phones, angrily comforting themselves: “It’s fine, there’s still time. I refuse to believe they can keep calling after this call ends!”
“Oh right, I almost forgot to mention. The calls after this should all be ours too.” At this point, the person in charge thoughtfully added over the phone:
“Because our stronghold has slightly more phones now, if there are other classmates who want to ask questions, you can directly come to the Student Affairs Management Center and ask us. Thank you for your cooperation.”
……
If one ignored the details of the Student Union spending the entire broadcast trying to trip them up, this radio broadcast could be said to be the most relaxed one 606 had ever experienced.
They conveniently opened the two boxes of self-heating meals they had obtained from the airdrop and enjoyed a steaming, pleasant lunch while listening to the radio.
With only the final five minutes of the radio broadcast remaining, the other stronghold forces had basically given up completely, while the Student Union had regained its spirits because their working hours were about to end. The third stronghold suddenly hung up the call.
The next second, 606 seemed to have arranged it in advance and seamlessly called in.
The Student Union instantly became listless: “Time is limited. We are currently not accepting promotion, complaints, reports, or exposés…”
“No, I only want to ask one final question.”
Tang Xinjue’s voice was gentle and clear:
“Can the antidote in the school laboratory be developed ahead of time through some method?”
“—Or rather, can this disaster end ahead of time?”
After the airdrop arrived, during the chaos on campus, the four had shaken off the cafeteria stronghold’s entanglement and gone over to the medical building for a look.
They conveniently released all the students inside and took away some of the agents, further helping these organizers reduce their burden and relieve their stress.
Although the medical building organizers were fewer in number, they reacted much faster than the cafeteria. When they discovered that even after using up one batch of red injections they still could not defeat them, they stuffed the medicine into their pockets and fled, abandoning the stronghold and slipping away.
And at this moment, the two different kinds of mysterious injections from the two strongholds had both fallen into 606’s hands.
After returning to the dormitory, the first thing Tang Xinjue did was combine the cafeteria’s “screening agent” with the medical building’s black agent and observe the reaction.
They caught several zombies as experimental samples. The results showed that after being injected with the mixed agent, a zombie that had only recently mutated temporarily lost its aggressiveness, while another old zombie directly became a true “corpse,” completely losing its ability to move.
After different comparisons, it could basically be confirmed, just as they had guessed: the black injection from the medical building was close to the zombie virus and could accelerate a person’s death and mutation—but if combined with the cafeteria’s ingredient-unknown [screening agent], it might instead miraculously produce a situation that inhibited mutation.
Although it could not truly solve the virus and its effects were also obscure and unpredictable, the existence of the reaction itself was certain.
This was also why Sun Qian and Yang Hang, despite being injected with the black agent, could still return to normal halfway through. Before that, they had already been injected with another substance.
—If this discovery were handed over to the “laboratory,” could it advance the research on an antidote?
This was the most important question they had prepared for the radio today.
After Tang Xinjue asked this question, the radio seemed not to have heard clearly and asked her to repeat it. Only then did it fall into a long silence.
After an unknown amount of time, the Student Union finally answered:
“In theory, yes.”
But sometimes, the reason theory is theory is precisely because once it falls into practice, it becomes a Mariana Trench that is difficult to cross.
For example, even though they had already indirectly confirmed that the [laboratory] could be “contacted,” the Student Union still refused to reveal any method of contact. The examinees could only find it themselves.
The radio broadcast ended. Yu Wei was worried: “Then what do we do if the laboratory keeps appearing and disappearing like a divine dragon?”
Were they supposed to guard this hard-won major discovery and wait to die in the dormitory?
Even with these injections, without professional research, nobody dared to use them as an antidote on their own. But what if they left them for too long and the active ingredients lost their effectiveness?
“Sigh.” Yu Wei felt that she had not done much, but had sighed quite a lot.
Tang Xinjue, however, was not anxious: “Someone will come to us soon with the method of contacting the laboratory.”
The sunlight withdrew from the clouds sinking in the west, and dusk quietly pressed down.
The medical building stood quietly in a corner of the campus. After only half a day of being empty, it had already taken on a damp, dilapidated appearance. Fortunately, the door was still ajar, making it less easy for the few zombies wandering by the entrance to get inside.
In the final afterglow of natural light, a group of people crept out from the darkness. After looking around and confirming that there was no one nearby, they hurriedly rushed forward and knocked the few zombies out with headshots, then charged into the building in one breath.
“Whew! It’s still better here. The outside really isn’t a place for humans to stay. There are zombies everywhere.”
An organizer wiped the sweat from his forehead and let out a long sigh of relief.
They thought they had already been careful enough, yet several people had still been lost while hiding here and there. They had also spent the entire day out in the northwest wind*, making it even more miserable than the students who had originally been locked up here.
*西北风 meaning northwest wind come from the idiom "to drink the northwest wind", meaning to have nothing to eat / have no money to live on. This idiom comes from a Qing dynasty literature.
Once night fell and the zombies went berserk, staying outside meant certain death. No matter what, they had to return.
“Hmph, let those meddlesome women live one more night first. Once the virus mutates for the fourth time tomorrow, we’ll have new samples to make enhancement agents. Then we’ll properly settle the score with them!”
A short, skinny man whose glasses were thicker than bottle bottoms slammed his jacket onto the table and loudly swore.
“No need to wait until tomorrow.”
An unmistakably familiar voice suddenly sounded from above.
The few people instantly felt their hair stand on end and hurriedly looked up, only to see several female figures leaning against the staircase above them!
Tang Xinjue nodded down at them, her voice calm as water: “You can choose to take revenge right now. We’ve already been waiting here for a long time.”
……
Taking revenge was impossible. It would never be possible in this lifetime.
The few organizers who were outnumbered and outmatched were tearfully tied up tightly and bound securely to the stairway pillars.
“It’s almost dark, so we won’t waste words.”
Tang Xinjue said gently: “Tell the truth, and we’ll lock the door when we leave. You can see tomorrow morning’s sun.”
“If you don’t tell the truth, this door will stay open all night, and you can feed all the zombies within a hundred meters. Understand?”
The skinny bespectacled man who had spoken the harshest was the first to nod, his glasses almost being shaken off.
Tang Xinjue looked at him: “Then, the first question.”
“What is your relationship with the school laboratory?”
The author has something to say: ------
The Student Union Radio Station’s theme for this episode:
#How to Distinguish a High-Quality Human Stronghold#
Post a Comment