Zombie Siege: The Road to Survival Begins at School - Chapter 36

“Boss, I think this cat sees you as its owner!”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Pet cats are like this, they just don’t have much caution.”

“So are we just gonna sit here? Do we have any plans next?”

“Eat the cat as a snack?”

“Come on, boss, don’t joke like that. You can’t eat a cat! I heard the meat’s sour.”

“Have you actually tried it?”

“Well… no.”

“Do you know what human meat tastes like?”

“Wait, boss—don’t tell me you’ve actually eaten it?”

“Of course. Human meat’s sour too.”

Zhang Wei had just told an outrageous lie.
In his previous life, he had eaten rat meat, frog meat, grasshoppers, mantises, caterpillars, all sorts of strange stuff.

But he had never eaten human meat.

That was his bottom line. No matter how hungry he got, he’d rather starve to death than cross that line.

“Damn, boss, don’t tell me you secretly ate Lin Feng? I saw him—he’s nothing but bones now…”

“What do you think?”

“No wonder you had us tie you up. You were afraid you’d turn into a zombie, huh?”

“……”

Zhang Wei rolled himself up in an air-conditioner blanket on the bed and placed the sleeping cat carefully inside it.

The white cat stirred but didn’t move away, so he decided it was time to head to the rooftop to meet up with Zhou An and the others.

He rummaged through the girls’ dorm desks, looking for something to pick a lock, but couldn’t find anything.

Eventually, he found two paperclips on a stack of scratch paper on one of the desks.

“This’ll have to do!”
Zhang Wei had no idea what kind of lock Zhou An was talking about.

But in his past life, he’d successfully picked locks using ear scoops and bits of wire.

A paperclip would do in a pinch.

He opened the front door of the girls’ dorm from inside, then carefully poked his head out to make sure there were no zombies nearby before stepping out.

Before leaving, he turned the lock bolt back into the door and hung a towel on the handle. That way, the door would close without locking completely.

If things went wrong, the three of them could retreat here—or even climb back to the boys’ dorm using the fiber cable connected to this room.

“Let’s go!”

The three of them crept down the hallway toward the stairs, Zhang Wei bringing up the rear.

“Don’t move!!”
A voice rang out from behind.

Zhang Wei turned to see a short-haired girl with blonde hair, wearing a bathrobe and carrying a plastic washbasin. She looked furious—and incredibly pretty, with a face like a K-pop star.

“What did she say? Was that English?” Zhao Zhenxiong blinked.

“Sounds like it. Do you know what it means? I feel like I’ve heard it somewhere,” Lu Renjia replied.

“I think it means ‘run!’ Maybe we should run?” Zhao Zhenxiong said after thinking it over.

“Zhao, you sure about that? How much did you score on your last English exam?”

“You won’t believe this—but I got a 28! Just one point away from perfect!”

“Out of 150? You better add a 1 in front of that, then it’s still not even close… Why would she tell us to run anyway? …Wait, I remember now! I think it means ‘stand up.’ She’s telling us not to crouch down.”

“You sure?” Zhang Wei frowned. That didn’t sound like how their class rep used to call roll.

“I think it actually means ‘sit down.’ ‘Stand up’ doesn’t sound like that. ‘Stand up’ is ‘si dan da bu,’ right?”
Zhang Wei smacked his forehead as the memory came back.

“Yeah, yeah, boss, you’re probably right. Sit down it is. Boss, your English must be pretty good. What’d you get on the last test?”

“Twenty-six…”

“You’re joking, right?”

“Why would I lie? I was dead last in the class.”

“……”

“Enough about that. Let’s just listen to the girl and sit down. She’s probably looking out for us. She’s short, so the zombies can’t see her, but if we keep crouching, they might still spot us.”

“Yeah, makes sense.”

All three of them sat down on the floor in sync.

The short-haired girl stared at them for a second, then suddenly squeezed her legs together, her face turning bright red. She threw the basin to the floor and bolted without looking back.

“What’s with her?” Zhao Zhenxiong asked, baffled.

“No idea. Maybe she forgot her soap or something?” Lu Renjia was equally confused.

“She… might’ve been wearing nothing under that bathrobe,” Zhang Wei muttered.

“What the hell?! Boss, why didn’t you say something sooner? You just kept it all to yourself?”

“I was just guessing. Just guessing, okay? It’s because the girls’ public bathroom is down that way, and she was carrying a washbasin,” Zhang Wei said awkwardly.

“Should we bring her some clothes?” Zhao Zhenxiong started to turn back toward the dorm room.

Zhang Wei grabbed his arm. “Let’s not make it more complicated. We need to save Zhou An and Hu Die first.”

“Right, right,” Zhao Zhenxiong nodded, remembering the people waiting on the roof.

The three of them got up again and continued creeping toward the stairs. Soon, they disappeared from the fourth floor.

As they moved, Zhang Wei took out the paperclips and bent one into the shape of a sewing needle.

When they reached the sixth floor, they saw Zhou An and Hu Die waiting on the other side of an iron gate.

Zhou An was fiddling with a key from his pocket, trying to unlock the chain.

Zhang Wei knew that the key to Room 512 definitely wouldn’t work here.

He pulled a stick of gum from his backpack, bit off a third, and started chewing.

He’d picked it up while scavenging earlier and had been saving it for a moment like this.

Two minutes later, he spit out the gum and pressed it into the lock with a paperclip, then carefully prodded with it.

Nothing happened.

He inserted the second paperclip.

After a few moments, there was a soft click, and the iron lock popped open.

Zhang Wei removed the chain and found it was nearly two meters long—almost as tall as his nose.

In high school, he’d been malnourished and barely over 170 cm tall—not like someone solid and tall like Xu Long.

He stuffed the whole chain into his backpack.

It would make a great weapon.

Wrapped around the arm, a single swing would be enough to knock a zombie’s teeth out.

Lu Renjia finally remembered something and pulled out the candy box Zhang Wei had given him from his bag. He handed it to Hu Die and said, “Sorry… Happy Birthday.”

“Thank you!”
Hu Die threw her arms around him and burst into tears. “When I fell from the fiber cable earlier… I thought I’d never see you again…”

“It’s okay. It’s all okay now. I’m fine, see?”

As the five of them reunited and chatted briefly, the girl from the fourth-floor bathroom cautiously poked her head out.

After making sure no one was around, she quickly slipped down a different staircase.

When she reached the third floor and opened the door to her dorm room, her face went pale in an instant.

“Where’s my cat?!”