It proved that bad things spread the fastest.
Especially in a disaster apocalypse.
After the first flu patient appeared in Room 402 of Lanzhou Garden Building 2 last night, severe cold cases had spread throughout the entire building by this morning.
In better situations, a dorm still had one or two people who remained unaffected.
In worse cases, the entire dorm had come down with fever and illness.
The situation in Room 618 was not optimistic either.
Aside from Ying Ran, the other three were all running fevers.
After some discussion, they believed Ying Ran had avoided getting sick because she happened to be on her period yesterday. She had been drinking hot water and wearing thick cotton clothing, which allowed her to escape it by chance.
Chen Jianwei, wrapped in a blanket and feeling lightheaded, climbed down from her bed. Ying Ran was busy taking Duan Minmin’s temperature, and when she turned and saw Chen Jianwei getting down, she immediately pointed at her and said, “Put on proper clothes, do you want to get even sicker?”
Chen Jianwei lowered her head and glanced hazily at what she was wearing, then took her padded jacket and pants, climbed back onto the bed to change, and only then came down again.
Duan Minmin was also sitting wrapped in a blanket on the electric blanket cushion, looking half asleep.
Even Luo Mushi, who had the mildest symptoms, kept sneezing.
Ying Ran checked the thermometer she had just used for Duan Minmin, 38.7°C.
She shook it a few times and then measured Chen Jianwei and Luo Mushi in turn, one was 38.1°C, the other 37.7°C. Just like that, the entire dorm became a ward full of patients.
They each drank a cup of oatmeal, then took cold medicine and fever reducers.
Ying Ran wrapped a scarf around herself, put on a mask, and pushed open the balcony door to look outside.
A thin layer of snow had accumulated along the railing, and the roads and buildings outside were dusted white.
In previous years, Haishi’s first snowfall usually came in mid December, which showed how drastically the temperature had dropped.
Ying Ran swept the snow off the railing with a broom, then returned to the dorm and shut the balcony door.
The cold air outside was temporarily blocked, and with the electric blanket and heater running inside, the room immediately felt much warmer by comparison.
“What do you want to eat at noon?” Ying Ran asked, seeing how listless they all looked.
They had just had oatmeal and taken medicine, and being sick, they had no appetite.
Hearing her question, they all weakly shook their heads.
Duan Minmin leaned back with her eyes closed, maintaining an oddly stiff posture.
Chen Jianwei waved her hand. “You eat, I do not have an appetite.”
Ying Ran sighed and only drank a bowl of lotus root powder for lunch.
She thought of the first snowfall last winter.
It had been in December, just before winter break.
They had been sitting by the window in a beef hotpot restaurant outside the school, eating steaming hot food, drinking cold cola, and watching snow fall outside.
That warm, satisfying memory stood in stark contrast to the desolation now.
After finishing the last spoonful of lotus root soup, Ying Ran sighed as she looked out the window.
Today, every update in the Lanzhou Garden Building 2 group chat was about people getting sick.
Scrolling through, it was filled with reports of who had developed a fever, which was alarming to see.
Some were asking for medicine, some were tagging Auntie Lian to ask if they could be sent out for treatment, and others complained about the cold weather.
Soon, Auntie Lian sent out another mini program in the group chat, asking each dorm to report their health status.
Ying Ran glanced at the three sick roommates in front of her and did not rush to fill it out. Instead, she slowly scrolled through the unread messages, trying to guess how the school would handle this outbreak of illness.
There were already so many cases just in this one dorm building. Across the entire campus, the number of sick students must be even higher.
Especially in this season of sudden temperature drops and flu outbreaks, even without zombies, hospitals would already be overcrowded. Most likely, patients would be told to stay in place and take medicine.
Haishi University did have a medical school, but even those students did not dare go out freely, afraid they might become zombie prey.
Compared to the flu, zombies were the real threat to life.
After filling in the dorm’s health report in the mini program, Ying Ran returned to the group chat and saw that Auntie Lian had updated the pinned announcement.
[Pinned Announcement]
1. Ensure proper ventilation in dorms
2. Drink more hot water, hot water can help with basic disinfection
3. Keep warm at night, and dorms using electric blankets or heaters should pay attention to fire and electrical safety
4. Students with fever can wipe their bodies with warm water for physical cooling, or diluted alcohol if available
5. Dorms with the means can drink ginger water or soak feet in ginger water to promote circulation
6. Students with fever above 38.5°C should report abnormal temperature in the mini program
It seemed the flu situation was quite serious, otherwise Auntie Lian would not have issued such a notice.
Although Duan Minmin, Chen Jianwei, and Luo Mushi all had fevers, only Duan Minmin’s exceeded 38.5°C.
She had taken ibuprofen earlier, so her temperature might drop somewhat.
Ying Ran measured Duan Minmin’s temperature again, then updated the abnormal temperature report in the mini program.
[Room 618]
Current residents: 4
Health status:
Ying Ran, healthy, no flu symptoms
Luo Mushi, fever, 37.7°C
Chen Jianwei, fever, 38.1°C
Duan Minmin, fever, 38.7°C
[Abnormal Temperature Report] → [Duan Minmin]
After updating the report, Ying Ran continued browsing the group chat.
After taking medicine, Chen Jianwei had gone back to bed and drifted into a drowsy sleep. After a short rest, she pulled open her curtain and called hoarsely, “Did anyone from Room 619 come to you?”
“619?” Ying Ran paused, then remembered that someone from Room 619 had contacted them last night.
Chen Jianwei had said they would discuss it today before replying to Liu Huan, but now that they were all sick, the matter had been temporarily forgotten.
They still had not reached a unified decision about forming an alliance.
Since it concerned their future survival, Ying Ran could not decide easily.
However, since Liu Huan had extended an olive branch, perhaps they could at least talk first.
After a night’s rest, it would also prevent making impulsive decisions.
Ying Ran searched for Liu Huan’s account in the group chat and sent a friend request.
There was no response yet, so she returned to the mini program and checked the health reports of other dorms nearby, including Room 619.
Room 618 had been reported. Scrolling further, she saw Room 619, but its health report section was blank.
Liu Huan was now living alone in Room 619.
At a time like this, the risks of living alone became apparent.
If she fell ill or got injured, no one would even know, even if something serious happened.
There were hundreds of students in the dorm building, and it was impossible for the dorm manager to check each room individually.
Ying Ran checked the neighboring dorms as well.
Rooms 613, 614, 615, and 616 belonged to senior students who were out on internships, so those rooms were empty.
Room 617 housed two students, Chen Xiaoqi and Liu Ruyan from the computer science major.
Room 619 had only Liu Huan.
Room 620 also had only two students remaining, Wu Zhenyi from new media and Ye Wan from landscape design.
A bold idea suddenly formed in Ying Ran’s mind.
Compared to other parts of the sixth floor, their section, separated by four empty dorms, was like an isolated “island.”
If these few dorms united, they might survive better.
After all, if someone in a neighboring dorm died and decomposed inside, they would not be able to ignore it and continue living normally.
From Liu Huan’s proposal of forming an alliance, Ying Ran began imagining various possibilities.
But Liu Huan still had not accepted her friend request, which made Ying Ran uneasy.
She truly feared that someone next door might die unnoticed and decay inside the room.
That would be more horrifying than being surrounded by zombies.
With her three sick roommates lying down, Ying Ran sat on the carpet, holding a freshly charged hot water bag while scrolling through her phone.
After sitting in the same position for too long, she adjusted her posture and continued browsing.
Today was the third day since the zombie outbreak.
She carefully kept track of this and searched online for more information.
The Haishi University Plaza was still filled with chaotic and overwhelming posts. The most disturbing part was that someone had even posted a “death record.”
Under normal circumstances, such a post would have been removed, but now no one was maintaining order online. The post had been repeatedly pushed to the top and remained highlighted on the homepage.
After zombies spread beyond Haishi, nearby cities also began reporting outbreaks.
No one knew whether the zombies had spread from Haishi or whether new cases had emerged due to the meteor virus.
Since people did not dare go outside, they vented online, arguing and stirring trouble.
In just a few days, online platforms had turned chaotic, as if swept by storms.
Chen Jianwei had fallen asleep leaning on her plush rabbit. When she woke up, she was not even sure what time it was.
The cold and fever medicine seemed to have taken effect. She felt slightly sweaty, and although still weak, she was much more awake than in the morning.
She had essentially slept the entire day. Reaching for her phone, she checked the time and felt a bit hungry.
She had only eaten oatmeal around 1 p.m. and then slept until now.
She put on her thick padded coat and a knitted hat.
Only after bundling up properly did she put on socks and get out of bed.