Luo Mushi had just returned to her bed when a loud crash suddenly came from the previously quiet Room 619 next door.
Startled, Luo Mushi sprang up from her bed.
“What happened?” Ying Ran carefully pulled open her bed curtain and looked outside, asking her roommates.
Everyone was so shocked that they did not dare make a sound, simply standing there, waiting to see if anything else would happen.
Wu Zhenyi and Ye Wan from Room 620 began tagging Liu Huan from Room 619 again in the Lanzhou Garden Building 2 group chat.
[620 Ye Wan: @619 Liu Huan Are you raising a zombie in your dorm?]
[620 Wu Zhenyi: Yeah, yeah, we just fell asleep and got woken up again]
[519 Yan Ruyu: That scared me to death, I thought there was a group fight happening upstairs]
[520 Xu Xuan: My roommates and I were all terrified]
This time, Liu Huan did not appear. Instead, the group chat filled with chatter as everyone discussed the situation.
No one was entirely sure what was going on, but everyone speculated with heightened emotions.
In the end, Dorm Manager Auntie Lian came forward and told everyone to go to bed early tonight, maintain good health, and improve their physical resistance.
The students felt overwhelmed.
Duan Minmin quietly asked in the “Wall Street Presidents Exchange Group,” “If we improve our physical resistance, does that mean we will not turn into zombies after being bitten?”
Chen Jianwei did not think that would work, but it would still be useful. “At least when a zombie chases you, you can run faster.”
Duan Minmin sent a crying emoji.
After Auntie Lian spoke, the Lanzhou Garden Building 2 group chat temporarily quieted down.
Just when they thought the disturbance for the night had ended, the sound of a door opening came from Room 619 next door, followed by chaotic footsteps in the corridor.
Chen Jianwei was completely stunned.
She had never expected that someone would dare to run outside at a time like this, was this person trying to get themselves killed?
Hearing the commotion outside, they froze for a moment before coming back to their senses.
Duan Minmin hurriedly reopened the surveillance feed on the iPad, while Ying Ran leaned over onto her bed to see what was happening.
The motion sensor lights in the corridor lit up. From the camera feed, they could see a girl running toward the staircase while crying. Another girl, likely her roommate, chased out of the dorm but only took a couple of steps before stopping, too afraid to go further.
The Lanzhou Garden Building 2 group chat exploded again.
[617 Chen Xiaoqi: What are you all doing? Why is it so noisy outside? Did zombies come to the door?]
[503 Lu Ningxia: Did someone run downstairs? What are you all doing upstairs?]
…
[619 Liu Huan: What should I do? My roommate ran out? @Dorm Manager Chen Lian]
…
No one knew exactly what was happening in Room 619. Hearing faint and shifting noises from outside, they trembled uneasily inside their dorm.
Why would someone lose their mind at a time like this? Even if they wanted to die, they should not drag the entire building down with them.
“I told you, once the apocalypse comes, all kinds of monsters and lunatics will appear,” Duan Minmin muttered in dissatisfaction while staring at the monitor, even though no one was visible anymore.
She had read many apocalypse novels. In such times, danger did not only come from disasters, but also from human actions. Once the apocalypse began, all sorts of strange and dangerous people would emerge.
Zombies had only appeared this morning, and for now, it could still barely be considered a society governed by law.
But after some time, that might not remain the case.
For ordinary people, surviving in the apocalypse would not be easy.
Soon, Dong Wenyu from Room 103 reported what had just happened in the group chat.
[103 Dong Wenyu: @619 Liu Huan What is going on with your roommate? She was making a scene at the entrance just now, shouting about opening the door to go out, then a car came and took her away]
It was already past curfew. Without a dorm manager’s access card, it would be impossible to leave the building.
But if she caused a disturbance at the entrance and attracted wandering zombies, it would likely bring disaster to everyone.
No one knew who had taken her away, but at least it was good that she was gone.
Although everyone’s mood had been worsened by this incident, it had finally come to an end.
And Liu Huan, the roommate of the girl who ran out, did not say anything further.
Ying Ran opened the check in mini program that the dorm manager had posted earlier and scrolled down to see the check in status of Room 619.
Room 619 was supposed to house four people, but their other two roommates were not on campus, leaving only Liu Huan and the girl from last night.
Now that the girl had been taken away, Liu Huan should be the only one left in Room 619.
After the disturbance ended, everyone gradually went to sleep.
Chen Jianwei had another nightmare of being chased and hunted by zombies, but after that, she slept soundly until morning.
When she woke up the next day, it was already fully bright. There was no alarm ringing, and the dorm was quiet.
Chen Jianwei reached into the basket for her phone and saw that it was already 9:30 a.m.
After lying in bed for another ten minutes, she slowly got up, got dressed, and climbed out of bed.
By the time she got down, her three roommates also gradually got up.
Ying Ran had meticulously set her computer screensaver to display a time record.
As soon as she turned on the computer, just as Chen Jianwei came out of the bathroom, a mechanical voice notification sounded.
“Today is the second day since the zombie outbreak.”
Duan Minmin had just taken a sip of warm water and almost spat it out when she heard the reminder.
What kind of person would even set something like that on their computer?
Ying Ran sat on her chair, resting her chin on her hand, looking melancholic. “I am afraid that one day, we will completely get used to the apocalypse and forget that we once lived normal lives for twenty years.”
Hearing this, they all felt a sense of sadness.
Especially when they thought about how they might have to live a life where survival was uncertain and they could become zombie food at any moment, it made them feel even more distressed.
Only Duan Minmin could still find a bit of humor in it. “If we actually survive that long, it means at least we are not among the first batch of cannon fodder.”
Luo Mushi remained in deep sorrow. “But I am only twenty years old. I spent the first eighteen years studying hard for the college entrance exam, finally got in, and now zombies appear.”
After this wave of sadness, they still had to move into a phase of adapting to normal life.
Since they did not yet know the situation outside, Ying Ran continued writing her “Apocalypse Notes.”
“Day 2 after the zombie outbreak, the weather is clear…”
For breakfast, they picked at some food.
Each of them ate a lactic acid bacteria bread, and it was enough to stop the hunger.
Yesterday, Dorm Manager Auntie Lian had mentioned in the pinned announcement that starting today, the school would gradually provide supplies to students still on campus. They had also recruited students familiar with drone operation, likely to transport supplies through the air to avoid zombies.
However, there had been no further updates yet, and everyone could only speculate anxiously about how things would be arranged.
After all, zombies were deadly. Even if supplies could be provided for now, in the long run, everyone would have to fend for themselves.
While browsing for new information about zombies online, Chen Jianwei saw that locations outside Haishi were also beginning to report sightings of zombies.
As zombies began appearing everywhere like blooming flowers, the overall atmosphere online became increasingly heavy and pessimistic.
However, she did come across a serious analytical post about zombies on an apocalypse forum.
The poster believed that what had appeared were not actually zombies, but an unknown virus that resembled zombies in appearance and behavior.
The virus most likely originated from an extraterrestrial meteor, meaning everything began with the meteor three days ago.
After infection, the human body would lose rationality, behavior would be controlled, and it would develop aggressive tendencies toward humans. The condition could be compared to rabies.
The poster then proposed two possibilities:
Viral infection. After infection, the brain undergoes pathological changes and consciousness is altered. The virus could spread through bodily fluids such as blood and saliva.
Fungal infection. A meteor carrying alien fungi crashed to Earth. The fungi entered the human body and reproduced continuously, turning the human body into a cultivation vessel. In other words, the “zombies” seen now were merely human shells, while the inside had already completely become fungal organisms.
After reading these theories, Chen Jianwei felt a chill run through her body.
Just imagining fungi growing inside the body or the brain turning into an alien viral entity made her shudder.
She did not dare think further, it was too horrifying.
Luo Mushi, who had passed behind Chen Jianwei to get water, stood there reading the post for a while and suddenly felt that the cup of water in her hand might also be contaminated.
If the zombie virus came from an extraterrestrial meteor, then the water they had been drinking these past few days might also carry the virus, which meant they could eventually turn into zombies as well.
The discussion below the post had already reached hundreds of comments, with people arguing endlessly about the origin of the zombies.
Most people were unwilling to believe that something as extreme as zombies, which violated the conservation of energy, could actually exist in reality. So they tried to find a more reasonable explanation.
In the end, no one could convince anyone else, and only passing readers ended up frightened.
Luo Mushi carried the water she had just taken from the purifier back to her seat, the more she thought about it, the more dangerous it felt.
She poured the water into a kettle and boiled it again before letting it cool, only then daring to drink it.
As for the incident of the girl from Room 619 running out last night, it also became a hot topic of discussion in the Lanzhou Garden Building 2 group chat.
Since everyone was stuck inside their dorms and surrounded by zombies, they could only rely on gossip to distract themselves.
Liu Huan and that girl were both from the School of New Media, majoring in directing. By morning, classmates who knew them said that the girl seemed to have a mental health condition, and combined with the sudden shock of the zombie outbreak, she had snapped.
Because of this, the other students, who had originally been quite resentful about the disturbance, began to understand.
After all, she had lost her sanity. Anything she did was understandable. It was fortunate enough that she had not injured anyone inside the dorm building.
In any case, she had already been taken away, and under these circumstances, it was unlikely she would return.
As for where that car had taken her, no one knew.
Close to eleven o’clock, someone suddenly said in the group chat that they had heard that students in Zhuyuan and Lanzhou Garden Building 8 had already started receiving boxed lunches, asking whether they would also get some at noon.
Dorm Manager Auntie Lian did not reply, but some people had already spotted drones carrying several plastic meal boxes slowly flying past outside the balconies.
Due to the limited carrying capacity of drones and the difficulty of operating them, the food delivery process was very slow.
It was not until 12:30 p.m. that Luo Mushi saw a drone slowly hovering outside their balcony. She quickly bent down and slipped outside to receive it.
The drone delivered eight bowls of plain white rice to their dorm.
The cafeteria’s supplies were probably very limited. Rice was a staple, but daily prepared dishes like meat and vegetables could not be supplied.
And the eight bowls of rice were meant to cover both their lunch and dinner.
Some people in the group chat complained that plain white rice was impossible to eat on its own, while others tried to stay optimistic, sharing pictures of rice mixed with chili.
But everyone treasured this hard won food, though no one knew how many more chances they would have to eat rice in the future.
In a disaster apocalypse, situations like yesterday, where there was no food at all, would likely become the norm.
After taking the rice out of the plastic bags, they began to think about how to eat it.
Plain rice alone was too difficult to swallow, even mixing it with soy sauce and chili would help.
“How about egg fried rice?” Chen Jianwei suggested.
They still had more than forty eggs, and eggs did not last long. Egg fried rice would also taste good.
So they poured four bowls of rice into a large bowl, cracked four eggs into it, and mixed them until the rice was coated in a golden layer.
They heated oil in a pan, added the rice coated with egg, and stir fried it evenly, then added a spoonful of soy sauce and some salt.
Once the rice was dry and fragrant, they scooped out the steaming egg fried rice.
The aroma of eggs mixed into the rice was so rich that just taking a breath felt overwhelmingly satisfying.
They divided the egg fried rice into four portions, sat down on the carpet, placed the bowls on a low table formed by pushing two bed desks together, and began eating happily.
As Duan Minmin ate, she started sobbing. “Thinking that we might not get to eat such delicious egg fried rice in the future makes me so sad.”
Chen Jianwei comforted her. “Then eat more now. Because in the future, we might not even have rice.”
Duan Minmin felt even sadder.
Ying Ran chewed her rice seriously, and halfway through, she suddenly raised her head as if remembering something.
“What is it?” Luo Mushi asked in surprise from across her.
“Did we forget something important?” Ying Ran scratched her head. “That farm…”
They all stared at each other blankly.
This morning, they had been so absorbed in gossip in the dorm group chat, and later anxiously waiting for drone deliveries, that they had almost forgotten about tending their farm.
However, the alarm had not gone off yet, and it was not time to harvest today’s crops, so it did not affect anything.
They quickly opened the “Farm Game” app on their phones, and the interface appeared.
Entering the [Farm] page, all three crops were still in an unripe state.
At the top of the [Farm] page, a white bar continuously displayed rotating red text.
[Player “Makabaka”’s crops have matured]
[Player “Eight Hundred Soldiers Rush North Slope”’s crops have matured]
[Player “Red Fruit Fruit and Green Carp”’s crops have matured]
[Player “bananaer”’s crops have matured]
…
All of them were notifications about crops maturing.
Duan Minmin casually tapped one of the scrolling messages, which automatically redirected them to that player’s farm.
This time, it was the farm of player “Winter Is Coming.”
However, the crops on “Winter Is Coming”’s farm had already been harvested. It was unclear whether the player had logged in on time or if the crops had been stolen.
Based on their experience from yesterday to today, as long as they stayed in the farm at harvest time, they could ensure their crops would not be stolen.
After all, the broadcast system did not allow selective visibility like friends lists. Notifications were only sent when crops matured, and it still took a few seconds for other players to enter the farm. That time was enough for the owner to harvest.
Even so, there were still players whose crops got stolen.
With only a little more than ten minutes left before their cherries were ready, they did not dare leave. They continued eating while occasionally checking the farm.
At 1:35 p.m., Duan Minmin had already selected the [Harvest] tool in advance.
The moment the cherries matured, she reacted quickly and tapped to harvest.
Every harvest felt like a battle, their nerves taut until the crops were successfully collected, only then could they relax.
“So what should we plant this time?” Luo Mushi eagerly discussed.
Duan Minmin skillfully opened [Market] → [Seed Storage] and browsed through the Level 2 seeds.
[Apple Seeds]
[Tomato Seeds]
[Dragon Fruit Seeds]
[Guava Seeds]
…
Ying Ran began calculating which crops would yield higher point returns, while Chen Jianwei felt it could be left to chance.
After several rounds of planting, they were no longer as excited about maximizing profits. Now, they mostly considered which crops had more convenient harvest times.
After weighing their options, they chose [Guava Seeds].
[Guava Seeds]
Price: 6 points
Yield: 9 points
Growth Time: 10 hours
The harvest time would be 10:30 p.m., which was very suitable.
After harvesting, they could plant another round without wasting much time.
Then they began wondering, aside from the [Beginner Gift Pack] and the [Bountiful Harvest Gift Pack], what other rewards the game might offer.
After converting the harvested cherries into points, they only had 8 points.
However, in three more hours, the peas and sunflowers would mature, allowing them to gain another 20 points.
Ying Ran continued to diligently record their accounts.