Zombie Siege: The Road to Survival Begins at School - Chapter 8

“What?” Zhang Wei couldn’t help but laugh.

He decided to mess with this group a little.

“I can’t outrun you guys—you play basketball and run track. Why don’t I give you the knife instead? You guys go!”

He held out the knife, but everyone backed away.

As if it were a burning hot potato.

Xu Long was just about to take the knife when Zhang Wei quickly pulled it back.

“Trying to go to the classroom on the third floor to grab a phone right now is basically a death sentence,” Zhang Wei said.

Everyone looked at him. When they saw, he wasn’t planning to go, their gazes turned to Zhou An.

They were clearly trying to push Zhou An to go instead.

Zhang Wei understood what was happening. It wasn’t about who could run faster.

They just didn’t want to die themselves. Whether Zhang Wei or Zhou An lived or died didn’t matter to them.

They also knew whoever went to get the phone had almost no chance of coming back. It was basically sending someone to scout—and die.

Zhang Wei had already been at odds with them.

He was about to refuse outright, but Xu Long bent down and picked up a wooden stick from under the bed.

It was Zhang Wei’s old mop handle—he had completely forgotten about it.

If he had to fight Xu Long’s mop handle with a fruit knife, it’d be an even match at best. He didn’t feel confident.

“I’ll go get the phone and the painkillers,” Zhou An said firmly, seeing Zhang Wei hesitate.

His face was still swollen from the beating—he hadn’t fully recovered.

“Then hurry up!” Zhang Ya cried, drenched in cold sweat from the pain.

Qin Shaofeng sneered at Zhou An, walked over, and pulled out his wallet.

He casually threw the cash from Zhou An’s wallet on the dorm floor, then took out a photo.

It was an old, worn-out picture.

The only photo Zhou An had with his grandmother—the last thing she left him.

He had kept it sealed in a plastic bag inside his wallet for years, always carrying it with him.

He only looked at it occasionally when he missed her. Only his best friend, Zhang Wei, knew about it.

Zhang Wei’s grandmother had passed away too, so he understood Zhou An’s feelings.

He hadn’t expected Qin Shaofeng to suddenly snatch the photo. Furious, he pointed the knife at him.

“Qin Shaofeng, what the hell are you doing?”

“Zhou An is such a devoted grandson. Wait, no—he’s a super-grandson. I bet you guys haven’t read his diary, have you? We did. Most of it was absolute crap…” Xu Long laughed.

“Cut the crap, Zhang Wei. We need that phone to call for help. If you won’t go, then Zhou An will. If he comes back, he gets the photo. If he dies, it’s useless anyway,” Qin Shaofeng said, gripping the photo, his face cold and expressionless.

Zhang Wei was silent for a moment.

“Fine, I’ll go instead,” he said. He knew Zhou An would be walking into certain death.

Even if he got the phone, there was no way they’d give him the photo back.

If he went instead, he might be able to save Zhou An and make it out alive.

Zhang Wei had come up with a plan—he was after the dorm manager’s spare keys.

“Oh? Then it’s up to you,” Qin Shaofeng said with a smile.

Zhou An said nothing. The photo meant a lot to him, but not more than his life.

He understood the photo was just an excuse. Even without it, they would’ve found some other way to kick him out.

Zhang Wei couldn’t protect him forever—and he didn’t want to drag Zhang Wei down with him.

“Don’t try anything funny. We’ve got both of you under control,” Xu Long muttered, pulling out a pack of cigarettes from somewhere in the room.

He stuck one in his mouth and handed out the rest to the others.

Finally, Xu Long stared at Qin Shaofeng.

He was silently asking him to light it.

Qin Shaofeng hesitated. If he lit it, it meant he acknowledged Xu Long as the boss.

In his eyes, they were equals—neither above nor below.

But in the end, he gave in and lit Xu Long’s cigarette.

Xu Long gave a satisfied grin.

“You stay here. I’ll go figure something out,” Zhang Wei told Zhou An.

“I’m going with you,” Zhou An insisted.

“No, you stay. If I come back and they won’t open the door, you have to be the one to let me in.”

It was a kind lie.

Zhou An nodded.

Zhang Wei walked briskly to the door and listened for any sound outside.

He slid the bed aside.

Carefully, he opened the door just a crack, then wider, and finally stuck his head out.

Everyone inside was holding their breath.

Zhang Wei scanned the hallway. No zombies in sight.

Zombies only responded to living humans.

The fifth-floor hallway had no exposed survivors, so the zombies had moved on.

“All that pounding on doors earlier… it was probably other survivors.”

Zhang Wei gently opened the door and slipped out.

Qin Shaofeng quickly shut it behind him.

“Hurry back, Zhang Wei,” he said, then closed the window and draped a large sports jersey over it for cover.

Zhang Wei gripped the knife, alert and cautious, and headed toward the third-floor dorm manager’s office.

Outside the door lay a twitching corpse.

That was his destination—the dorm manager had a phone too.

They had all overlooked that fact.

Only an idiot would run to the exam hall for a phone—that would mean facing an entire campus full of zombies.

Even if Zhang Wei got the phone, the noise might attract zombies. Xu Long and his gang would never open the door for him after that.

The dorm manager was already long dead. Several corpses were inside her room, occasionally twitching.

From the looks of it, they’d turn within a few hours.

Just to be safe, Zhang Wei stabbed each corpse in the back of the head with his fruit knife.

The twitching stopped.

He left the one outside the door alone—it could act as a guard.

Zombies could sometimes be used like that.

Zhang Wei wasn’t scared.

In the early days of the apocalypse, unturned corpses were actually the safest thing.

They couldn’t move and killing them before they turned was easy.

What was truly terrifying was being surrounded by zombies and starving to death.

Even worse—facing human cruelty.

In the apocalypse, you had to relocate every three months at most.

Zombies would gather, and worse, you’d draw the attention of raiders.

Zhang Wei stepped into the dorm manager’s office and gently shut the door.

He opened a desk drawer and found a massive key ring.

It held keys to all the dorm rooms—and the gate to the rooftop on the seventh floor.

That was his real goal.

Then, in the manager’s pants pocket, he found a smartphone. Using her still-warm finger, he unlocked it via fingerprint and slipped it into his pocket.

With the keys secured, Zhang Wei made his way back to the fifth floor.

He encountered no other survivors—no zombies either.

He moved freely and arrived outside Room 511, where Xu Long and the others were.

Of course, he wasn’t going to knock.

He went next door—to Room 512.

Zhou An’s room.

“Zhou An stocked up on a bunch of instant noodles. Old Tan Pickled Cabbage Beef Noodles, if I remember right.”

Zhang Wei quietly unlocked the door and slipped inside.

Meanwhile, in Room 511, Xu Long and his gang were on the balcony, peeking through the curtain, eyes fixed on the building’s exit below.

They had no idea Zhang Wei had never left—and was already back.

“See anything? Has Zhang Wei shown up yet?”

“Nothing. Maybe he’s clearing the fourth and third floors?”

“Damn it. Knew we couldn’t trust him. Should’ve gone myself…” Xu Long muttered.

“Then go now,” Qin Shaofeng taunted.

“We’ll see,” Xu Long growled.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

“What was that?”

“Sounded like it came from outside…”

“No, not outside. Next door!” Zhang Cheng said after pressing his ear to the wall.

“Next door? Isn’t that your room, Zhou An?” Xu Long blinked.

“Sounds like it… and that knocking…” Zhou An stammered.

“…Yeah, Zhou An. You remember the signal we used to knock when sneaking out at night to hit the internet café?” Zhang Wei whispered.