The students living on the first floor were shouting excitedly in the Lanzhou Garden Building 2 group chat.
Even in the coldest winters before, snowfall disasters like this had almost never happened.
If the snow did not stop, the dorm building might end up completely buried.
[108 Lin Hewan: Have you thought of something even more terrifying?]
[108 Lin Hewan: Before, the dorm entrance and iron railings kept zombies out, as long as there were no traitors inside.]
[108 Lin Hewan: But now the first floor is almost buried in snow, doesn’t that mean zombies could just walk over the snow and get in through the second-floor corridor or balconies?]
As soon as Lin Hewan brought up this horrifying possibility, the group chat erupted in wails again.
Just last night’s snowfall had already reached this level.
If it kept snowing for three more days and nights, they did not dare imagine what kind of disaster it would bring.
[114 Hui Yi: Should we think of a way to speed up the snow melting?]
[402 Feng Wei: But in this kind of weather, the snow won’t melt at all, right?]
[606 Xu Qiang: I heard sprinkling salt on snow can help it melt.]
…
Others also suggested different methods for melting snow.
But with their limited supplies, there was no way they would waste salt on the snow.
Compared to chemical melting, they preferred physical methods.
Even shoveling snow would be better than using up precious resources.
Wu Zhenyi suggested that they could boil some water and pour it directly onto the snow.
“This kind of weather, I don’t think pouring hot water will work,” Chen Jianwei said after thinking it over when she saw Wu Zhenyi’s suggestion in the chat.
Pouring hot water would only lower the temperature temporarily. Once it cooled again, the water would freeze into ice, making things worse.
It would be like trapping themselves.
It would be better to heat up solid objects, throw them down to transfer heat, and then retrieve them afterward.
So they began asking in the group chat if anyone had objects with high heat capacity.
They could heat them up, lower them down with ropes, and pull them back up after use.
The few students with relevant academic backgrounds in the group felt embarrassed to even admit they were from the same university.
They had all taken the same exams and scored in the same range, so why was there such a gap in intelligence?
What they were proposing was like throwing a handful of sugar into the ocean and happily declaring that they would turn the sea sweet.
Just saying it out loud was already absurd.
Everyone began asking what they should do.
Dorm Manager Auntie Lian had no real solution either, only saying that the weather forecast showed the snow would stop by noon.
“But it’s going to snow again tonight,” they said as they looked outside from the balcony, worry filling their voices. “By then the snow will pile up even higher, and we’ll be done for.”
Students living on the first floor stepped onto their balconies cautiously.
Some even reached out to poke the accumulated snow, finding it soft, as if they would sink into it if they stepped on it.
A heavy sense of anxiety spread through the dorm group.
Even those who had only wanted to stay hidden and survive quietly began to worry about the future.
If one day the dorm really got buried in snow, what would they do?
At this rate, that day might not be far off.
Even if zombies did not come, they might freeze to death first.
Chen Jianwei leaned over the desk, idly picking at the gaps in its surface.
She heard Duan Minmin talking on the phone behind her bed curtain, likely with her family.
Duan Minmin’s voice was choked with tears, intermittently mentioning words like “zombies,” “blood moon,” and “natural disaster.”
Turning her head, Chen Jianwei saw Ying Ran and Luo Mushi, both looking dejected.
When Duan Minmin finally finished her call and climbed down from her bed, she pulled them together and started talking.
She said her cousin had originally worked at a biological research institute, but had now been transferred to the newly established zombie virus research laboratory.
When she had just spoken to her aunt, her family had been extremely worried. They had not been able to contact her cousin for several days, and they did not know whether something had already happened to her.
After the zombie outbreak, if someone suddenly lost contact, people generally assumed the worst.
If one day that person returned and knocked on the door, one would hesitate before deciding whether to open it.
However, Duan Minmin’s cousin was a special case, so they comforted her.
Duan Minmin also mentioned that her aunt lived in the south, where there was no snow and temperatures were still above freezing. It was nowhere near as cold as where they were, which seemed like the center of the disaster.
“If one day we have no choice but to abandon Lanzhou Garden Building 2, this sinking ship, we could try heading south,” she said. “At least the weather there isn’t this extreme.”
“But how would we escape? Ride our electric scooters?” Chen Jianwei found it hard to imagine.
All their supplies were in the dorm. Even if they fled, where could they go?
With their current conditions, they would likely die shortly after leaving the campus.
Either frozen to death or bitten by zombies.
Duan Minmin scrolled through the [Market] in Farm Game.
The market had everything, the only question was whether they could afford it.
Their dorm’s supplies were already among the best in Lanzhou Garden Building 2. If they could not afford something, other dorms probably could not either.
Duan Minmin tapped on the [Ledger] in the floating panel, scrolled to the bottom, and selected [Select All]. Four categories of total exchangeable points appeared.
[Food] → Exchangeable points: 885
[Medical] → Exchangeable points: 2970
[Weapons] → Exchangeable points: 2150
[Other] → Exchangeable points: 13840
Total exchangeable points: 19845
Adding the 28 points they had earned from harvesting crops, their total usable points were now 19,873.
If they stayed in the dorm and kept surviving carefully, they could theoretically last a long time.
That was assuming they did not encounter zombie hordes and had sufficient oxygen and other survival conditions.
But once the dorm building fell, these points would not be enough to exchange for anything that could truly save their lives.
“Should we just go fight zombies?” Duan Minmin said while scrolling through the ledger and market. The more she thought about it, the more hopeless things seemed. If it really came to that, they might as well take a risk for a slim chance of survival.
Killing zombies was a known hidden task, and they had already gained a gift pack from it.
Luo Mushi leaned back in her chair and nearly tipped over, but Ying Ran quickly reached out to steady her.
Grimacing from having her arm pinched, Luo Mushi said, “If we’re going to fight zombies, we should train first. Otherwise, aside from Duan Minmin, the three of us will all turn into zombies, then come back at night to have dinner with her.”
They were very clear about their current strength, one slightly less useless person leading three extremely weak ones.
At their current level, they could only rely on picking off easy targets.
But there would not always be opportunities like that.
“Do we have anything dense in the dorm?” Duan Minmin immediately sprang into action.
At the moment, the only things they could call weapons were kitchen knives, fruit knives, and perhaps scissors, though they were not very sharp.
But those were all close-combat weapons.
If they could not win in physical strength, they needed to avoid close combat.
They needed ranged weapons.
However, all the ranged weapons in the [Market] were far beyond what they could afford.
So they had to find alternatives.
Ying Ran felt that trying to craft their own weapons was not a good idea.
If they failed to kill a zombie and instead injured themselves, it would not be worth it.
After all, they had no combat experience.
At last year’s school sports meet, they had participated in shot put.
The result had nearly been a humiliating negative-distance throw.
That experience had fully demonstrated their true ability.
They were a group of complete amateurs.
Still, Duan Minmin refused to give up and insisted on trying to make usable weapons.
Meanwhile, Chen Jianwei searched online for guides on killing zombies.
After the outbreak, many people had shared guides on university forums and discussion boards. Whether true or false, they could only verify them through practice.
Most guides agreed on one thing, speed, accuracy, and decisiveness were key.
Striking other parts of the body only wasted energy. The quickest way was to destroy the brain.
Entering through the temple into the brain was considered the easiest method.
Once the weapon penetrated the skull, either prying it open or destroying the brain would kill the zombie.
Even just reading the description felt gruesome.
The author of that post seemed to be a medical student and had even attached reference images.
Cross-sections of the head and brain anatomy.
It looked straightforward.
The kind of thing where the eyes understood, but the brain and hands did not.
Another post listed the best weapons for dealing with zombies.
First were firearms, capable of killing with a single shot to the head.
Second were bows and crossbows, effective ranged weapons.
Finally were knives and forks, which were only suitable for close combat and posed significant risk to the user.
Of course, using explosives to blow up a group of zombies would be even more effective, but the downside was the possibility of mutual destruction, and the uncontrollable spread of infected flesh and blood.
Moreover, explosives were restricted items, and ordinary people had no access to them.
For ordinary individuals, dealing with a few isolated zombies was manageable.
But if they encountered a horde, they could only pray for luck.
After thinking it over, Chen Jianwei shared both posts in their group chat.