With a loud creak, the door was pushed open from the outside.
The other side revealed an empty, dimly lit corridor. No zombies jumped out from hiding to startle them.
Xie Fei, whose fire ability had recently advanced to the second tier thanks to a crystal core, volunteered to lead the way this time.
Cautiously stepping forward, he held a glowing ball of fire in his hand, illuminating the corridor. After completing a circuit and finding nothing amiss, he signalled to the others that it was safe to proceed.
The team soon reached a fork in the path: one direction led upstairs, while the other led to the warehouse for supplies and ingredients.
“Gu Yicheng, I’ll check out the warehouse,” Xie Fei offered, eager to prove himself after his upgrade and to test the increased power of his ability.
“Take Xu Chi with you,” Gu Yicheng instructed. He didn’t let Xie Fei go alone and assigned Xu Chi to accompany him.
Xu Chi, despite not awakening an ability after being scratched by a zombie, was skilled in hand-to-hand combat and had excellent physical endurance for a regular person. Over the past days, he had killed just as many zombies as the other team members.
Gu Yicheng sent Xue Chen and a few others to search the dining hall on the first floor, while the remaining members followed him upstairs.
Naturally, Ruan Ning stayed with Gu Yicheng.
As they passed through the corridor from the back door, Ruan Ning noticed that the bloodstains on the walls had turned a deep brown. The last time chaos erupted here must have been some time ago.
Just as they turned the corner and approached the staircase, they spotted someone standing on the landing between the first and second floors.
The figure was a young boy, no taller than 1.7 meters, with a baby face and large eyes that gave him an unusually youthful appearance.
“Stop! Don’t come up!” the boy shouted, gripping an iron rod tightly. His expression was tense as he glared at the unexpected intruders. “You’re not students from B University, are you?”
A living person? Here?
“Hey, don’t be nervous,” Lin Yang said with a smile. “We’re not here to cause trouble. We’re just looking for someone.”
The baby-faced boy didn’t relax at all. Instead, his grip on the rod tightened, and his expression grew more anxious. “There’s no one here for you to find!”
Lin Yang blinked, speechless. We didn’t even say who we’re looking for. How can he be so sure?
Gu Yicheng’s sharp eyes narrowed slightly at the boy’s reaction. His tone was calm but laced with an undertone of authority. “Are you expecting us to believe that you’re the only living person in this entire cafeteria?”
“Even if there are others, they wouldn’t know you!” the boy shot back, glancing nervously toward the upper floors. He’d already looked that way several times, as if afraid of something coming from there.
He added in a low voice, “I swear, I’m not lying. You should leave this place now. The second cafeteria isn’t safe, and staying here will put you in danger too.”
“And what if we insist on going up to take a look?” Gu Yicheng’s voice turned cold.
Ruan Ning remained silent, but it didn’t take much for her to notice something off about the boy.
He kept warning them about danger and urging them to leave, yet he’d clearly been staying here for a while. His wrinkled clothes and oil-stained hem suggested he’d been in the cafeteria for days, but he bore no injuries—meaning he hadn’t encountered zombies.
Unlike other students who might be trapped by hordes of zombies elsewhere on campus, this cafeteria wasn’t heavily infested. The walls were nearby, and though climbing them would take some effort, it was far from impossible.
Yet the boy chose to remain in this dangerous place instead of trying to leave, clearly hiding something.
Jiang Jingchao, eager to find his younger brother, was losing patience. He raised his gun and aimed it at the boy’s head. “Move.”
Known for being stoic and silent, Jiang Jingchao’s sudden action shocked Ruan Ning. It was the first time she’d seen him pull a gun on someone, showing how much the boy’s obstruction had angered him.
The boy froze momentarily at the sight of the gun before trembling and saying, “Even if you kill me, I won’t let you go up there.”
Jiang Jingchao, however, didn’t let his emotions cloud his judgment. His gun was meant to intimidate, not harm. Yet, despite the threat, the boy stubbornly refused to back down. Whatever was upstairs must be incredibly important to him.
Seeing the standoff, Ruan Ning stepped forward to mediate. Her voice was soft and soothing. “My teammate’s brother is a student at B University. We came here specifically to find him. It’s been so long since they’ve been separated, so he’s a bit emotional. But if you’re going to block us, you should at least give us a reason.”
Something in her gentle tone seemed to resonate with the boy. His tense expression softened slightly, though he repeated the same warning, “You can’t go up there.”
After a pause, he added, “There are zombies upstairs.”
Zombies? That’s hardly unusual. Where aren’t there zombies these days?
If he could survive here despite the zombies, it made no sense for him to block them for such a reason.
“We can handle zombies ourselves. You don’t need to worry about that,” Lin Yang said impatiently, his irritation evident. “Hey, kid, you’d better move. Don’t think we can’t deal with you just because we don’t want to shoot. If we can’t kill you, we can knock you out. You won’t stop us either way.”
“You can’t kill the zombies in the cafeteria!” the boy suddenly blurted, his face pale.
“What?” Lin Yang laughed incredulously. He started up the stairs, not even using his ability. What’s this kid thinking, standing in the way for such a flimsy reason?
“Wait, Lin Yang. Don’t go,” Gu Yicheng suddenly ordered, his voice sharp.
Lin Yang stopped, standing on the staircase, and seconds later, a dull, heavy sound echoed from above.
The sound wasn’t from a person descending the stairs—it was the distinct thud of a zombie’s footsteps.
Everyone tensed. Lin Yang pressed against the wall, gun in hand, his posture alert as he stared upward.
Hearing the sound, the team quickly spread out. From her position at the corner of the first floor, Ruan Ning had a partial view of the second floor.
In those few minutes of confrontation, Xue Chen and Xie Fei, searching elsewhere, had made no progress.
Ruan Ning had a sinking feeling. Whatever was causing that sound must be the reason for the boy’s strange behaviour.
The boy’s reaction to the footsteps was more anxious than anyone else’s. He descended the stairs in a rush, shouting, “It’s coming! You need to leave now!” From the beginning, his behaviour had been odd, but his tone and expression were so genuine that it was hard to believe he was lying.
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