Zombie Siege: The Road to Survival Begins at School - Chapter 17

Zhang Wei, Zhou An, and Lu Renjia crept quietly past the fifth floor and made their way to the stairwell between the fifth and sixth floors.

When they reached the sixth-floor corridor, Zhang Wei, who was leading the group, signaled for the others to stop. He pulled something from his chest pocket.

It was an empty plastic water bottle.

Zhang Wei tossed the empty bottle onto the corridor floor.

It made a moderate noise—loud enough to draw attention if anything was nearby.

They waited three to five seconds.

Fortunately, there were no terrifying growls or howls.

Zhang Wei then motioned for the other two to follow, and he quietly picked up the bottle.

He then took out a key ring. It was actually just a portion of the large bunch of keys they had found earlier on the third floor.

The dormitory building had six floors, each with twenty rooms. Zhang Wei had only sorted the keys for the sixth floor—carrying over a hundred keys made too much noise. The sixth-floor keys totaled twenty-six, probably because some dorms had spare backups.

Zhang Wei found the key labeled “601,” walked to the door at the end of the hallway and quietly inserted the key into the lock.

The lock clicked open just as expected.

The three of them entered one after another.

It was daytime, so the lighting inside the dorm wasn’t bad.

Zhang Wei immediately went to the sink, hoping against hope that some water might still be left in the pipes.

Not a single drop came out.

He had thought there might be some residual water left in the system, but reality proved more brutal than he’d imagined.

The three of them scoured the room for a while, but all they found was half a bag of dried sweet potatoes.

Nothing else.

These sweet potatoes were a specialty from a southern city—probably brought from home by one of the students.

They closed the door quietly but didn’t bother locking it.

Then they moved on to Room 602.

To their surprise, inside one of the desk drawers, they found several unopened packs of spicy gluten snacks, along with a box of Green Arrow brand mint gum.

Zhang Wei handed each of them a piece of gum and stashed the spicy snacks into his backpack.

Although spicy snacks weren’t ideal considering their current severe water shortage, the main ingredients were starch and flour—they could still fill their stomachs.

As long as they could collect enough rainwater in the future, they could soak the snacks, rinse off the spicy coating, and use them as emergency food.

Unopened, these snacks could last over six months at room temperature.

Under one of the beds in 602, Zhang Wei found several unopened delivery boxes.

Excited like he was opening blind boxes, he tore one open. It contained four pairs of men’s boxer briefs.

“Let’s split them!” Zhang Wei handed one pair to Zhou An and another to Lu Renjia.

Lu Renjia hesitated, looking a bit embarrassed. Zhang Wei said, “Think about it—how many days has it been since you last showered? You plan on never changing your underwear? This stuff is a rare commodity now.”

Sure, there were probably seventy or eighty pairs of underwear throughout the dorm, but they were all used. Finding unworn ones was a stroke of luck.

Lu Renjia and Zhou An gratefully accepted the gift.

The second delivery box held a bottle of men’s facial cleanser. Zhang Wei thought about it for a moment and tossed it into his backpack.

It was nearly summer. If there was a heavy rain, he could take a refreshing shower on the rooftop. The cleanser would come in handy then.

The third box caught Zhang Wei off guard—it was filled with exquisite candy.

When he opened the box, a rainbow-colored string of LED lights lit up, and a little electronic tune started playing: “Happy Birthday to You.”

Zhang Wei quickly shut the box, cutting off the sound. He figured the parcel must have been a birthday gift that never made it to the recipient before the outbreak hit.

All the boxes were addressed to the same person.

Clearly, it was a gift that had never been delivered.

Zhang Wei knew candy was a valuable resource in the apocalypse, so he put both the candies and the music box into his backpack.

The gift’s intended recipient—and the person who bought it—were likely no longer alive.

After they finished searching the room, they moved on to a third dorm.

There, they found only half a bottle of opened mineral water. The cap hadn’t been screwed back on. When Zhou An tried to grab it for a drink, Zhang Wei stopped him.

Instead, he pulled out a sealed bottle of water from his bag and handed it to Zhou An, motioning for him to drink this one instead.

Zhou An took the bottle and gulped down a third of it in one go.

“You were that thirsty?” Zhang Wei looked at him, shocked.

After checking three dorm rooms, Zhang Wei realized that everything they’d gathered didn’t even amount to half of what he had found in his own room earlier.

This wasn’t sustainable.

He walked into the room’s bathroom, opened the window, and looked out toward a nearby building. He said, “Maybe we’ll have to start looking in the girls’ dorm.”

Girls liked snacks. With any luck, searching just one of their rooms might fill his backpack.

Zhang Wei grinned at the thought.

He knew the place with the most supplies right now was the small convenience store where he used to buy snacks.

It was located not far from the dorm building—only a few dozen meters away—but it required crossing part of the sports field and some open, exposed roads. Going there now would be suicide.

But if they could reach the girls’ dorm first and then use its hallway or rooftop, the distance to the store could be cut in half.

Zhang Wei pulled out a notebook from his backpack and started mapping out floor plans and route diagrams in careful detail.

This was his path to survival.

They resumed scavenging the remaining dorms. In one student’s locker, Zhang Wei found a monocular telescope.

“What the heck is this?” At first, he thought it was a toy.

He took it to the bathroom window and looked through it. After adjusting the focus, he was surprised to see the girls’ dorm balconies across the way—lined with colorful bras and underwear.

“The guy who owned this wasn’t ordinary,” Zhang Wei muttered.

Then he happily stuffed the monocular into his backpack.

In the apocalypse, a telescope like this could be a game changer.

“Boss, why are you laughing? Did you see something?” Zhou An asked, noticing the silly grin on Zhang Wei’s face.

“Nothing much—just a dumb cat,” Zhang Wei replied.

He really had seen a foolish-looking cat darting across the wall. It moved so quietly that it didn’t even attract any zombies.

With a whoosh, it slipped through a window into the girls’ dorm and disappeared.

If it had been a dog, Zhang Wei might’ve considered keeping it. Dogs were useful—they could follow humans, search for supplies, and help find escape routes.

But a cat… not so much.

He’d heard that in some places, people ate cats. Maybe if he were ever truly starving, he’d have to catch that cat for food.

Zhang Wei shook his head. What a cruel thought.

But this is the apocalypse.

People eat people.

Just thinking about eating a cat made him feel guilty.

“But wasn’t there someone still alive in the girls’ dorm admin building…?” Zhang Wei murmured to himself. “Maybe I should go check it out.”