On the twenty fifth day since the disaster began, the people trapped inside the dormitory building had mentally reached their breaking point.
Many had realized that the school was no longer going to take care of them. Rescue was not coming either. They had exhausted all their food and resources, and there was no hope left for survival.
So some people chose to end their own lives. Jumping from buildings, hanging themselves…
The dormitory building became quieter and quieter.
Cheng Zhi and Xiao Feiran had gone out once during this period. The hallways, once clean, orderly, and filled with laughter, had become completely unrecognizable.
Corpses were scattered throughout the corridor, men and women alike. Blood had splattered across walls that had once been spotless.
There had originally been thirty six dorm rooms on one floor.
Now only nine dorm rooms remained with their doors tightly shut.
The others either had no one left or contained nothing but corpses.
After returning from their walk around, both of them were noticeably gloomier.
After hearing how few people remained, Chen Siyu let out a sigh.
“Nine dorm rooms. We already know our dorm has five people, and Room 835 has four. Even if the remaining seven dorms are completely full, that’s only forty two people. There used to be over two hundred people on this floor. Now only a quarter are left. That’s terrifying.”
Zheng Wan finished cooking dinner and placed the last plate of vegetables onto the table before sitting down as well.
“This typhoon has been raging for almost a month now. No food, no rescue. Half the deaths came from the typhoon itself, the other half came from violent conflicts, and then there were plenty of people whose minds collapsed and who committed suicide. Honestly, having over forty people left on a floor is already a lot.”
After seeing the dorm building’s current state, even Huang Yiyi, normally the most optimistic one, became serious.
“Zhizhi, we’re not staying in the dorm forever, right? Wan and I died early in our previous life, so we never saw what happened later. Tell us. We need to start preparing in advance.”
Cheng Zhi snapped her fingers.
Huang Yiyi had hit the key point. Earlier, on the way back with Xiao Feiran, they had already been discussing countermeasures.
“Right. I’ll give you two a simple explanation of the situation.”
In their previous life, about a week after Huang Yiyi and Zheng Wan died one after another, the typhoon and torrential rain finally stopped. The floodwaters receded, and the three of them decided to leave the school.
Because their university was in the suburbs, they wanted to head into the city. Maybe rescue operations had already begun there.
After enduring countless hardships to reach the city, they discovered it was also in complete chaos.
People wailed and cried for help amid the ruins.
They randomly found a convenience store and dug through the water soaked mess inside, eventually finding half a box of water and two packs of biscuits.
That night, they hid in an unoccupied residential building across from the convenience store.
But that same night, temperatures suddenly skyrocketed.
Their phones had already run out of battery back then, so they only discovered the next morning, after checking a thermometer hanging on the wall, that it had already reached 45°C.
The temperatures kept climbing afterward, eventually reaching 50°C.
The thermometer could no longer display anything higher, but Cheng Zhi and the others could clearly feel that temperatures were still rising.
More than a month later, temperatures suddenly dropped again.
After that came earthquakes, sandstorms…
Huang Yiyi and Zheng Wan felt chills crawl across their scalps.
Under conditions like that, the three of them had somehow survived for ten whole months.
It truly had not been easy.
Chen Siyu tearfully shoveled rice into her mouth.
“Seriously, back then every day felt like I was going to die. I was mentally and physically exhausted, wuwuwu…”
For once, Huang Yiyi did not mock Chen Siyu for using an idiom incorrectly.
Instead, she used her chopsticks to place a piece of meat into her bowl.
She had really suffered. Better eat more and recover.
After Cheng Zhi finished explaining the overall situation, Xiao Feiran picked up where she left off.
“So that’s basically it. Zhizhi and I think going into the city is better. You three should think about it too. Do you think staying here is better, or should we go into the city? Let’s brainstorm.”
“…”
The other four had been fine up until that moment.
But as soon as they heard the words brainstorm, expressions of pain instantly appeared on their faces.
Cheng Zhi blinked and stared resentfully at Xiao Feiran.
“‘Let’s brainstorm.’ Just hearing that sentence instantly dragged me back into the classroom. Are we going to have group presentations next too?”
Huang Yiyi pretended not to hear and buried her head beside Chen Siyu’s while the two furiously devoured food.
Even Zheng Wan, the most well behaved person in the dorm, put on a fake smile.
“My rebellious instincts just activated. I don’t want to brainstorm anymore. I don’t want to live anymore.”
Xiao Feiran: “…”
Her mistake.
She had forgotten this group of college students was rebellious to the core.
So if she could not beat them, she would join them.
“Fine, I’m giving up too. I don’t want to live either. At least we can keep each other company on the road to the underworld.”
“I was wrong, I was wrong!”
“My laptop should still have some battery left. Let’s make a PowerPoint! Let’s make an analysis report!”
Everyone quickly finished dinner.
Room 806 unanimously decided to go into the city.
Sure, the city had more people and more trouble, but that was still better than remaining in some remote area where nobody would care if they lived or died.
The five sat around the mahjong table, all frowning deeply.
Cheng Zhi pointed toward the cabinet across from them.
“This is a major problem. Everything we own is inside it, but aside from knowing that feeding it books lets it level up, we know absolutely nothing else about it.”
Xiao Feiran placed her hand on the cabinet.
“The simplest and hardest solution is taking it with us. Wherever we go, we carry it too.”
Obviously, that would require a huge amount of physical effort.
And carrying a cabinet around everywhere in the apocalypse would attract way too much attention.
Suddenly, Xiao Feiran seemed to think of something.
She turned around.
“Friends, I have an idea. You can’t approach something like an alternate dimension with science. This stuff only exists in novels. I have over a hundred novels of this type saved on my phone. Tonight whoever’s on night watch can look through them for answers. Maybe there’s a method.”
Everyone readily agreed.
They were not in a rush to leave anyway. If reading novels could really solve the problem, then that would be perfect.
The cabinet issue was temporarily set aside.
Then Chen Siyu raised another problem.
“In our previous life, we walked all the way to the city. Forty kilometers took us an entire day. We can’t seriously walk again this time, right? Especially if we’re carrying a cabinet. Walking is impossible. The temperatures will rise before we even get halfway there.”
Cheng Zhi and Xiao Feiran immediately nodded in agreement.
In their previous life, they had walked until their feet were covered in blisters.
This time, no matter what, they refused to walk.
They had to drive.
“Come on now. Wan and I got our licenses. The school has plenty of cars too, and you still chose to walk? Impressive.”
Huang Yiyi nearly dragged all three of them into her line of thinking.
Fortunately, they reacted in time.
Cheng Zhi stared at Huang Yiyi speechlessly.
Sometimes she really wanted to pry open Yiyi’s head and see what was actually inside.
Zheng Wan could not even bear to look anymore.
She poked Huang Yiyi, who was still enthusiastically talking.
“Right, we got our licenses. But is there perhaps a tiny possibility that Wan and I had already gone to another world by then?”
Huang Yiyi’s brain spun furiously.
Then suddenly she understood.
“Right right right! We were already dead back then. Sorry!”
Chen Siyu flicked Huang Yiyi on the forehead while she frantically apologized.
“I think you did it on purpose. You just couldn’t miss the chance to insult us a little, could you?!”
Huang Yiyi hugged her head and apologized repeatedly.
She even offered up her QQ Star yogurt drink.
Only then did the anger of the other three finally subside.
The discussion continued and moved on to the issue of transportation.
Although they had licenses and knew how to drive, they were all students and had no cars on campus.
Cheng Zhi looked at Xiao Feiran with a face full of expectation.
“Master Xiao, it’s time for you to display your skills again. We don’t have car keys…”
Before she could even finish speaking, Xiao Feiran made an “OK” gesture and confidently declared:
“It’s fine. I’ll step in when the time comes.”