Chapter 4

Chapter 4

“Shh.”

Qingshui motioned for them to be quiet, then slipped soundlessly into the dorm room like a cat. The chunks of flesh strewn across the floor were slick, making her stumble.

She pushed open the door. The stench of blood outside was even stronger, and the scene beyond was practically another hell.

Internal organs and severed limbs littered the floor. Several heads lay scattered in the corners, their eye sockets empty.

Qingshui crossed the hallway and entered the dorm room opposite. Its lock was still intact.

The other three hurried after her, and Chen Yuhui shut the door behind them.

A trail of blood stretched from the room to the balcony. They cautiously opened the balcony door, but no one was there. Only half a leg lay abandoned on the floor.

Li Wei’an and the others turned pale. Seeing their expressions, Qingshui stepped forward, picked up the leg, and dropped it into a bucket.

“Move the bed frames in front of the door.”

The three quickly nodded. Together, they lifted a bed frame and used it to barricade the entrance. Still not feeling secure, they piled the frames from the other three beds against the door as well.

“We should be safe… for now,” Chen Yuhui murmured. An Xiaolin sat hugging her knees in silence, while Li Wei’an stared at her phone, lost in thought.

“Is there a radio here?” Qingshui suddenly asked.

Chen Yuhui looked at her curiously. “What do you need a radio for?”

“To listen for emergency government announcements. We need to find out whether they have a response plan.”

Li Wei’an looked up and raised her phone. “We can download an FM radio app. We also have the headsets for the CET-4 and CET-6 exams, and those can pick up radio signals.”

Chen Yuhui frowned in thought. “Don’t those headsets only receive specific frequencies? They might not be able to pick up emergency broadcasts.”

“That’s true…” Li Wei’an hesitated.

Qingshui did not answer immediately. She glanced down at her phone. It showed full signal.

She tried calling a number. The line was busy. She tried again, but it was still busy.

The internet also seemed to be slowing down. A video stopped loading halfway through and buffered endlessly before a “Connection Failed” message appeared.

She refreshed the page. It came back blank.

“Everything online…” Qingshui lowered her phone, her voice calm. “It’s all chaos. Looking at it will only scare us. A radio is different. Broadcast stations have independent power systems, so they’ll stay operational longer than cell service.”

Still hugging her knees, An Xiaolin said dejectedly, “I called the police three times, but no one answered… No one at home picked up either.”

She could not help wondering whether the military might have also…

“Then where can we go?” she whispered.

“North.”

“No matter how vicious they are, they were once human. They won’t survive extreme cold either. The north is where we’ll have a chance to survive.”

The three girls stared at Qingshui in stunned disbelief.

Li Wei’an instinctively objected, “But how are we supposed to cross half the country to reach the north?”

Qingshui shook her head. “That’s only our last resort. For now, I’d rather find a radio and locate a fortified base. If that fails, we can head somewhere remote and look for an air-raid shelter.”

Before she could finish, a dull thud interrupted her.

It sounded like a solid soccer ball striking tightly packed cotton, the impact ending in a sickening vibration that made their chests tighten.

Thump.

Thump.

Chen Yuhui’s voice trembled. “W-What is that?”

Listening to the muffled impacts and the shrill laughter accompanying them, Qingshui slowly replied, “Maybe… those lunatics are playing basketball with someone’s head?”

No one could bring herself to laugh. In the span of a few short hours, the entire world had been turned upside down. They had no idea whether their families were alive or dead, or even how much longer they themselves would survive.

Li Wei’an’s eyes reddened, and An Xiaolin could no longer hold back her tears.

“Come on, don’t be so pessimistic. Haven’t we all read plenty of apocalypse novels and watched those kinds of movies before?”

Chen Yuhui forced a smile, but the quiver in her voice betrayed how she truly felt.

“B-But zombies can’t compare to those lunatics at all,” An Xiaolin choked out, her shoulders shaking with every sob. “Z-Zombies would be better than this.”

Qingshui said nothing. She did not know what to say. If anything, a world in chaos was the kind she knew best.

An Xiaolin’s sobs gradually subsided. “Qingshui, how can you be so calm?” she asked softly.

Qingshui had been the one directing them this entire time. Without her, they might have already died upstairs…

“If you want to survive, you have to stay calm,” Qingshui said.

“Qingshui is right.” Li Wei’an abruptly rose to her feet. She seemed to have reached a decision, and determination flashed in her eyes. “I know a senior named Lin Hao. We entered a competition together once. He has a radio he keeps as a collector’s item, so maybe I can ask him.”

Chen Yuhui asked, “Is he… still alive?”

Li Wei’an shook her head. “Only one way to find out.”

She sent her senior a message and was shocked when he replied instantly.

Lin Hao: Junior?! You’re still alive???

Li Wei’an fell silent for a moment before replying: Apparently.

Another message came immediately.

Lin Hao: That’s not what I meant. Damn it, this is terrifying! I thought everyone was dead!

Li Wei’an quickly explained why she had contacted him and asked for his cooperation. To her surprise, a long silence followed.

Only after some time did another message arrive.

Lin Hao: Are you alone? Or are there several of you?

Li Wei’an: I’m not alone.

Lin Hao: I can give you the radio… but I’m trapped inside a building right now. If you want it, you’ll have to come rescue me.

Qingshui’s gaze darkened.

The girls exchanged glances. Li Wei’an cautiously pressed him for more information.

Li Wei’an: Which building are you in?

Lin Hao: The Administrative Building. The broadcasting room.

This time, it was Qingshui and the others who fell into a long silence.

Never mind how far the Administrative Building was from their dorm. Its location in the very center of campus alone was enough to get them killed hundreds of times over.
An Xiaolin looked ready to cry. “How about… we try something else?”

“This is too risky.” Chen Yuhui was reluctant as well.

Lin Hao seemed to know what they were thinking and hurriedly sent a string of messages: I’m in the broadcast room. I can draw those lunatics’ attention! As long as they don’t spot you directly!

And I have a car! It’s parked nearby! I also own a house, and I have money! If you come rescue me, we can drive straight out of here!

Qingshui, however, was puzzled. “If he can distract the lunatics, why doesn’t he escape on his own?”

Lin Hao nearly burst into tears when he saw that message. Over the relentless crashes against the door, he had no choice but to explain: “I drove to the Administrative Building for a meeting because I wanted to show off. Then, just as the meeting ended, someone mutated and turned into one of those lunatics. I’d almost made it downstairs when some idiot shoved me over. In the chaos, I hid in the broadcast room.

“I survived, but the idiot who pushed me ended up joining those lunatics. Now it and a whole group of them keep throwing themselves against the broadcast room door. I can’t even sneak out.”

Qingshui said coldly, “Dorm Leader, ask him how much longer he can hold out.”

Lin Hao: The broadcast room door is sturdy. It should hold for a few days. Those lunatics got bored of ramming it and went off to torment other people.

“So it’s basically a nest of monsters,” Chen Yuhui said, her throat dry as she stared at the miniature campus map on her phone. “How are we supposed to get there? Fly?”

Li Wei’an bit her lip, her fingers flying over the screen as she tried to get more details and assurances from Lin Hao. But An Xiaolin reacted faster than she could type.

“No… no! Absolutely not!” An Xiaolin jerked her head up. Tear tracks still streaked her face, but her eyes were stretched wide with terror, filled with almost hysterical resistance. “Qingshui, are you insane? You want to go there?!”

Her voice rose to a shriek. “We might not even make it out of this building! We’ll be dead before we’ve taken two steps!”

“Xiaolin, calm down…” Li Wei’an reached out, trying to comfort her with a hand on her shoulder.

“How am I supposed to calm down?!” An Xiaolin knocked her hand away and shrank into the corner like a frightened animal, wrapping her arms around her knees. “You said we had to stay calm to survive, but your idea of staying calm is dragging us straight into a death trap! If we stay here and barricade the door, we can live a little longer! Go outside? We’ll die the moment we step out!”

She panted heavily, her chest heaving. Her voice dropped, but the despair in it only deepened. “I don’t want to be torn apart… I don’t want to end up like that… I’d rather stay here, wait for them to break down the door, and let them finish me quickly… Anything’s better than having them chase me for fun and torture me to death bit by bit…”

She began sobbing again, burying her face against her knees as her shoulders shook violently. She had clearly reached the limit of what she could bear.

Chen Yuhui looked away, unable to watch. Li Wei’an’s eyes reddened as well. She turned to Qingshui, her gaze conflicted.

Qingshui had listened in silence, her face expressionless. Only after An Xiaolin’s crying had dwindled into muffled whimpers, while the building continued to echo with those maddeningly regular thuds, did she finally speak. Her voice was ice-cold.

“An Xiaolin, you said that if we stay here and barricade the door, we can live a little longer.” Qingshui walked over to the dorm room door, which was firmly braced with bed frames and cabinets. She raised a hand and lightly rapped her knuckles against the heavy wood. “Listen.”

“Thud.”

“Thud.”

The muffled impacts outside answered her knocking in an eerie, merciless rhythm.

“That sound hasn’t stopped. They haven’t gone far. They may even know there are still ‘piglets’ on this floor.”

Qingshui lowered her hand and swept her gaze over the other three’s pale faces. “How long can this door and these bed frames hold them back?

“An hour? Three? Until nightfall? Until we’ve eaten the last of our food and drunk our final mouthful of water?”

She walked to the balcony and pushed open the door. The sun shone brightly, illuminating the blood-soaked campus.

“If we stay, there are only two possible endings. We starve or die of thirst. Or, at some point, maybe in the next second or a few hours from now, that door comes down, and you die in exactly the way you fear most.”

She turned around. Her face was hidden in shadow, but her eyes shone with startling intensity. “Going outside is dangerous.

“The Administrative Building is hell. I know that. I also know we can’t believe everything Lin Hao says. But the car he mentioned gives us a real chance.”

“Staying here means certain despair. If we leave, we may have only a one-in-ten chance, but that chance is a path to survival.”

Qingshui’s voice remained perfectly calm, yet her words struck everyone to the core. “We’re trying to survive, not waiting to die. Even if there’s only the faintest hope, we have to fight for it. Staying here means giving up every possibility and laying ourselves on the chopping block to wait for the blade to fall.”

She looked at An Xiaolin, who was still curled up in the corner. There was no coercion in her eyes, only an almost cruel clarity. “You can choose to stay. We’ll move some of the furniture away from the door so you can hide behind it. Maybe that will keep you hidden a little longer. It’s your choice.”

The room fell deathly silent. The muffled impacts outside mingled with An Xiaolin’s stifled sobs and the sound of their heavy breathing.

Li Wei’an took a deep breath, walked over to An Xiaolin, and crouched beside her. Her voice was gentle but firm. “Xiaolin, Qingshui is right. If we stay here… there won’t be a tomorrow. Come with us, okay? We can watch each other’s backs. That’s still better than staying here alone… waiting for the end.”

Chen Yuhui spoke quietly as well. “I’m terrified too. But I want to try… I want to see if I can stay alive long enough to find my parents.”

An Xiaolin did not raise her head. Her sobs gradually subsided until only a faint trembling remained in her shoulders.

The seconds crawled past, each one unbearably long. Qingshui had already turned away and begun checking the contents of her backpack.

At last, An Xiaolin lifted her tear-streaked face. Her eyes were red and swollen, her gaze unfocused and hollow. Without looking at anyone, she stared at the floor and spoke in a hoarse voice that was barely audible.

“…I’ll go with you.”

Qingshui did not turn around. She merely gave a quiet acknowledgment. “We move tonight.”

“For now, we’ll search the nearby dorm rooms.”