Zombie Siege: The Road to Survival Begins at School - Chapter 42

Who would’ve thought that spending the night in the girls’ dorm would be the best sleep they’d had in a long time?

Even Zhang Wei slept like a rock and didn’t wake up until the sun was high in the sky.

He shook Zhou An, who was snoring like a dead pig. “Get up. Class time.”

Zhou An woke with a start. “Huh? Why are you in my dorm?”

“Wait, Zhao Zhenxiong is in my dorm too? Hold on… Who’s Zhao Zhenxiong?”

“Wait a sec—this isn’t my dorm! Boss, why am I in your room? And your mosquito net is so extra, pink and frilly… Wait, why did I call you boss… I had this dream last night, it was all over the place.”

Is it possible that… it wasn’t a dream?

“No way…” Zhou An started putting on his pants. He got them halfway up before suddenly freezing.

“So it was real…” he muttered to himself.

“Steamed? What do you mean steamed? Would it be boiled otherwise?” Zhao Zhenxiong leaned in, puzzled.

“I woke up in the middle of the night, saw it was still dark out, and thought I had a nightmare. A really long one… but turns out it was all real,” Zhou An said weakly.

“Still being alive isn’t bad. Chin up!” Zhang Wei patted his shoulder.

Then he opened the dorm room door and stretched. The sunlight was already warm and heavy—it was that time of year.

Zhang Wei glanced over. Lu Renjia’s door was open.

Hu Die seemed to be busy with something, but Lu Renjia wasn’t in sight.

“He went to fetch water with Pei Wu. She’s been stashing drinking water in thermos flasks in the bathroom,” Hu Die explained.

“Ohhh, I see.”

Soon enough, Lu Renjia and Pei Wu came back, chatting and laughing along the way.

“This water… it’s barely enough for washing faces and brushing teeth. We’ll have to settle for damp towels,” Lu Renjia said a bit awkwardly. He’d assumed Pei Wu had stored up tons of water like they had on the rooftop.

But it turned out there were only two buckets, and Pei Wu had already used up more than one last night for her own bath.

“My dorm only has my bucket and Lin’s bucket. We didn’t store much,” she explained, a bit embarrassed.

She’d only ever planned for herself, never thinking that guys would end up taking refuge in the girls’ dorm.

Even when she first met them yesterday, she’d stayed cautious and never mentioned having water.

“I still have some bread in my room…”

“Forget it. Save your bread. We’ve still got some beef jerky left,” Zhao Zhenxiong said with righteous flair.

“But didn’t Lu Renjia just tell me you guys have been surviving on dog food?”

“…”

“But you didn’t eat my cat, even though you were that desperate. That tells me you’re good people.”

“We’re just waiting to fatten it up before cooking it~” Lu Renjia shot back defiantly.

Pei Wu knew he was joking, so she ignored him.

They didn’t take any of Pei Wu’s bread. Instead, they used some disposable paper cups they found in the girls’ dorm to mix a small cup of oatmeal with cold water each.

“Are we heading to the security room next?” Zhao Zhenxiong rubbed his hands together.

“Pei, can you give us a proper rundown of that security room?”

“Sure. The security room is shaped like a ‘T’. The long part leads to Uncle Long’s private room that he renovated for himself. The two short ends connect to the campus and the outside world. The junction of those three directions is the main room. All three doors are heavy stainless-steel security gates—solid, heavy, rust-proof, and soundproof. There’s also a massive steel gate at the entrance of the girls’ dorm, which we’ve never opened. It’s over three meters tall. Only the garbage trucks can open it with a key from the inside, and that’s only on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at dawn. That gate is super secure. Zombies can’t climb over it or push it open—the lock bolt is as thick as a human arm.”

“What’s the layout of the long end that leads to the private room?”

“First there’s a hallway, then a main room, and three other rooms at the back—one public restroom, one storage room, and one stairwell leading to the second-floor pump room. Since there’s enough space, each room has its own private bathroom. Under the stairs is a makeshift kitchen.”

“Three bedrooms, one living room, one kitchen, and four bathrooms? Damn, Uncle Long really went all out,” Zhang Wei said in awe.

“That old guy probably had connections with someone on the school board. Otherwise, how could he have renovated it like that? He basically turned it into his house,” Hu Die guessed.

“Let’s go check it out.”

Zhang Wei pulled out a thick iron chain from his bag and wrapped it around his arm. It wasn’t a great weapon against people, but it was good for tanking zombie hits.

Pei Wu made a quick stop at her dorm, glanced at her white cat, and carefully locked the door behind her.

The group set off. Zhang Wei felt confident—if things went south, he could still get everyone out safely.

When they reached the security room, Pei Wu instinctively reached for the door. It was the “out” door, which normally just needed a light pull to open.

Only people coming in from the outside had to swipe a keycard.

But this time, Pei Wu couldn’t open the door.

“Hello? Anyone there?” she knocked, but there was no response.

Just as she was about to knock again, a scruffy man with greasy hair opened the door.

“Mr. Cai, hi. Do you remember me? I’m Pei Wu—I ate at your place before.”

“I remember,” the man said, eyeing the strangers behind her with suspicion, clearly not eager to open the door.

“How did you get in? This security room door has never been opened. Are you all students here?”

He stared coldly at Zhang Wei, who had the iron chain wrapped around his arm.

“We climbed in through a window in the girls’ dorm.”

“Oh? You pried open that aluminum window?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Zhang Wei had no idea what aluminum window she meant but went with it.

No way he was going to say they zip-lined from the boys’ dorm rooftop across the field using fiber-optic cable.

Even he wouldn’t believe that. The guy might think they were lying or crazy.

No need to stir up unnecessary trouble. Better to keep things vague.

“Mr. Cai, do you mind if we come in and sit for a bit?”

“Sit? Sure, but I don’t have any food.”

“We know. We’re not here for food.”

“Oh? You don’t have food either?”

“Not really. Just some snacks we found, enough to get by.”

“Snacks? That won’t cut it. You need real meat to survive,” Cai said, eyes wide, whispering dramatically. “A person’s made of iron, and food is the steel that keeps you going. Go too long without meat, and you’ll collapse.”

What’s wrong with this guy? His brain seems a bit off… Hu Die whispered to Lu Renjia, tugging his sleeve.

Cai kept glancing at her neck, and it was creeping her out.

“No need to get nervous. Just messing with you,” Cai said with a goofy grin.

But the look in his eyes earlier definitely didn’t seem like he was joking.

“I’m Cai Zhenhua, a butcher. The kind who slaughters pigs. Oh, right—you might’ve seen me in the cafeteria. I usually worked in the back, but sometimes I helped serve when we were short-handed. If a student got me serving their food, they were lucky—I’d usually give them an extra piece of braised pork. That’s why they always lined up at my window.”

“Oh, I think I’ve heard of you. Weren’t you called ‘The Thousand-Handed Butcher’ or something?” Zhou An said, suddenly remembering.

“Thousand-handed? But he only has two hands…” Pei Wu looked confused.

“No, no—‘Thousand Hands’ here refers to ‘a thousand heads.’ Specifically, pig heads,” Zhou An explained.

“Ohhh, so Mr. Cai, you’ve slaughtered a thousand pigs?”

“A thousand? Way more than that. I’ve been doing this for twenty years—probably over ten thousand by now…” Cai recalled fondly.

“No way you’ve killed that many. Sounds like a load of bull,” Pei Wu said, clearly skeptical.

But as soon as the topic turned to butchering, Cai seemed to perk up and lowered his guard.

“Totally possible. Think about it. Our school wanted fresh pork for the students, so we always slaughtered live pigs on-site. With two or three thousand students, we needed two to three pigs a day. Take out the summer and winter breaks, and I’d still kill seven to eight hundred pigs a year just at school. Plus, I’d take side gigs outside—especially around holidays. Twenty pigs in a single day wasn’t unusual…”

“So if you count a thousand pigs a year, twenty years would make it about twenty thousand,” Zhou An said, doing the math on his fingers.

“Not quite that much. Back in the day, there weren’t that many. Sometimes I’d go days without killing even one.”

“So yeah, ‘Thousand-Head Butcher’ definitely fits.”

“Practice makes perfect, right? If I had any water, I’d pour you all some tea.”

“Oh no, that’s fine. We’re just here to sit for a bit,” Zhang Wei quickly waved it off.

No way he was drinking tea from this guy. Who knew what was really in it?

“By the way, Mr. Cai, is that dog meat all gone?” Pei Wu asked suddenly.

“Dog? Ate it ages ago. Why, you wanted some too? I invited you before, and you turned it down. It’s all been digested now. If you’re still looking for it, maybe check the septic tank.”

“Haha, Mr. Cai, you’re so funny. Just one more thing—you’re not thinking about eating my cat, are you?”

“Your cat? Why would I bother? There’s barely any meat on it.”

Cai looked genuinely surprised, like he had no interest in her cat at all.

But that was completely different from what Pei Wu remembered—this was the same guy who once wanted to boil her cat for soup.