They were lucky.
Originally, quite a few zombies had gathered outside the window. But after two of them climbed in, the rest went off chasing the other fleeing people.
At that moment, everything outside the window was quiet.
Ning Ziqiu pushed the completely dead corpse in his hands up against the window, doing his best to use its body to block the broken opening.
When zombies smelled one of their own kind, there was a certain chance they would stop trying to crawl inside.
That was what he thought.
Then Ning Ziqiu moved quickly and dragged the cabinet that had been blocking the main door over to the window.
After finishing all this, he tried to calm his violently pounding heart while looking towards Sang Luo, who had already sat down by the bed.
Considering that she had just saved them, Ning Ziqiu felt somewhat guilty for not taking her earlier suggestion. He explained quietly, lacking confidence, “It’s better to block it with the cabinet first.”
Mainly, her suggestion had been far too hardcore.
The difficulty of actually doing it was also extremely high. He did not have any tool on hand that could be used to “chop.”
Of course, the key point was: how could that possibly work?
Taking ten thousand steps back, even if things really were as she said, what if the one lunging over was a female zombie?
Although Sang Luo’s high fever had subsided because of her ability awakening, every aspect of this body’s data was so low that it was unbearable to look at. It was a textbook case of lacking exercise.
Besides, the ability she had awakened was an elemental water ability. It did not have any body-strengthening traits.
Add to that the fact that her injured foot made her half-disabled.
As a result, even after only moving around a little, she was already breathless from exhaustion.
With such a weak and delicate physique, she could practically compete with Lin Daiyu.
“I was just saying it casually. Don’t take it seriously.” She lazily yawned, the corners of her eyes half-lowered with drowsiness.
“…”
Ning Ziqiu, who had seriously considered its feasibility, awkwardly adjusted his glasses.
He and Sang Luo were not close. They had barely spoken to each other before.
However, the series of actions Sang Luo had taken after waking from her fever were clearly different from her usual self.
Especially the scalpel she had thrown at the zombie at the critical moment to save Hu Lingling.
Hu Lingling had had her eyes closed at the time, so she had not seen it.
But Ning Ziqiu had seen everything clearly.
That scene was something he had only ever seen in movies.
His instincts told him that some strange change must have occurred in Sang Luo.
“I still haven’t thanked you for saving me and the class president. If it weren’t for you, we would already be…”
He sighed.
His gaze swept over the bathroom door, which remained tightly shut even now. There was no anger in his eyes, only indifference.
Hu Lingling also reacted at this point and hurriedly thanked Sang Luo with red eyes.
Who would have thought that in a life-or-death moment, the one who ignored the danger and saved them would actually be Sang Luo, the person they had the worst relationship with?
After walking around the gates of hell, Hu Lingling’s emotions were exceptionally complicated.
The door she was gripping tightly with her fingers was being struck from inside by the zombie, making loud banging sounds.
Yet, for the first time, she did not feel afraid.
Compared to zombies, some living people seemed even more like monsters.
“I didn’t save you for free. There are conditions,” Sang Luo said, readily accepting their thanks. “For the time being, you two will listen to my orders. Any problems with that?”
Before either of them could answer, Sang Luo continued, “Even if there are, keep them to yourselves.”
The system was silent.
“…”
So her host was not only like this towards it.
Some kind of balance seemed to settle in its heart.
Hu Lingling was not angry at all over Sang Luo’s domineering demand. In fact, she even felt it was perfectly normal.
What confused her was this.
How had Sang Luo suddenly become so powerful?
Every time Sang Luo had heard a zombie roar before, her body would tremble with fear.
Now, not only was she unafraid, but she had also killed one zombie and trapped another with ease.
Also, Sang Luo had clearly been tied to a chair…
All these questions vanished into thin air when Sang Luo announced what came next.
She gave them a mission: capture the zombie locked inside the medicine storeroom alive.
Taking advantage of its convenient “geographical” position, the system was the first to issue a vigilant warning.
“Why are you capturing a zombie alive?!”
Sang Luo answered, “For fun.”
The system: “???”
Was that something one could play with?!
Hu Lingling swallowed blankly and stammered, “C-capture it alive?”
If her memory was correct, that zombie had looked especially tall.
The door handle was still shaking from its impacts, and the vibrations had almost numbed her palm.
“How do we capture it alive?” Ning Ziqiu asked calmly.
He believed that since Sang Luo had proposed such a dangerous mission, she should have a detailed plan.
Although he had no idea why she wanted to capture a zombie alive.
Zombies were strong. Their teeth had mutated until they resembled shark teeth, and they were fast too.
As a result, terrified students had no options when facing them besides running away.
There were very few people who could overcome their fear and fight.
Even killing zombies was difficult, let alone capturing one alive.
During the process, they would inevitably have to keep struggling with the zombie. If they were bitten or scratched by accident, they would not even have the chance to regret it.
“It’s very simple.” Sang Luo gestured for Ning Ziqiu to take a quilt. Her battle plan was clear and straightforward. “When the class president opens the door later, throw the quilt over the zombie and cover it. Then use your body weight to pin it down. That shouldn’t be hard, right?”
Ning Ziqiu: “…”
It was indeed simple enough.
The problem was that he would probably die very quickly.
After a few seconds of silence, he said, “I’m 181 centimetres tall and weigh 68 kilograms.”
Sang Luo looked at him.
Ning Ziqiu continued, “The one inside is a senior from the sports department. Our dorm rooms are on the same floor, so I’ve seen him a few times. He’s 192 centimetres tall and weighs about 88 kilograms. I don’t think I’ll be able to pin him down.”
He would be thrown off.
Sang Luo glanced at his build and had no choice but to settle for the next best thing.
“Then just throw the quilt over his head. Can you do that?”
Ning Ziqiu calculated it in his mind and nodded.
“Yes.”
Hu Lingling still felt that it was too dangerous. She asked carefully, “Sang Luo, why do you want to capture it alive?”
“It’s useful,” Sang Luo answered concisely.
In the end, Hu Lingling did not dare ask what it was useful for. She nodded helplessly.
“Then… what do I do?”
Sang Luo replied, “Open the door.”
Hu Lingling felt faintly disappointed.
Just opening a door did not count as helping at all.
She glanced at the completely silent bathroom.
If the others could come out and help too… Forget it. Just thinking about it was impossible.
Everything was ready.
Actually, there was not much to prepare.
Their tasks were simple. One of them would open the door, and the other would throw the quilt over the zombie’s head, then run away and adapt to the situation.
As for the most dangerous part—subduing the zombie—that would be handled by Sang Luo.
The two of them had no idea what she intended to do.
They only saw her take a rope about as thick as a thumb and tie a sharp piece of broken window glass tightly to one end. Its edges were keen and jagged, gleaming with a cold light.
“…”
The two exchanged a glance and saw unease in each other’s eyes.
Somehow, this did not feel like they were going to capture a zombie alive.
It felt like they were voluntarily delivering themselves to its door.
…They could not believe they were actually following Sang Luo into doing something this insane.
A while later, Sang Luo rose from the bed and stretched.
“Open the door.”
Hu Lingling took a deep breath. As her heartbeat sped up, her fingers slowly loosened around the door handle.
Creak—
The broken-locked door automatically swung backwards.
The zombie, which had been hammering away at the door in frustration, suddenly discovered that it had opened a crack. It immediately tried to squeeze out in delight.
But what greeted it was a large cotton quilt thrown right over its head.
Ning Ziqiu, who had trapped the zombie beneath the quilt, tried to pin it down.
The moment he got close, the disoriented zombie slammed into him heavily.
Unable to withstand the force, Ning Ziqiu fell to the ground, knocking over a chair.
Hu Lingling could not find any opportunity to help at all.
The zombie spun frantically inside the quilt. As it spun and struggled, it seemed about to break free!
Just then, from the corner of Hu Lingling’s eye, she saw something flash past.
It was the rope Sang Luo had thrown.
Like a snake, it coiled around the zombie’s legs. The rope wrapped around its legs as though wound by a spring, and the glass shard at its end stabbed into the zombie’s calf with a wet sound.
The rope tightened.
The zombie’s mountain-like body fell forward with a heavy thud.
Of course, the zombie would not submit so easily.
A burst of immense force came from its body, and Sang Luo, who was holding the rope, was forced to stagger forward.
With one foot unable to bear weight, she had no intention of playing tug-of-war with a zombie.
Without even half a second of hesitation, she simply released the rope and ordered Hu Lingling and Ning Ziqiu, “Use the chair legs to pin him down!”
Hu Lingling and Ning Ziqiu were not stupid. They understood instantly.
Each of them grabbed a chair and found the right position to trap the zombie’s legs and waist respectively.
Then they sat on the seats, using their body weight to hold it down.
“Roar—!”
The zombie struggled violently, pushing so hard that the two people on the chairs could barely remain seated.
They had to make this zombie “calm down” immediately.
Sang Luo’s method was simple and brutal.
She used the rope to tie several extremely complicated special knots around the zombie. Hu Lingling and Ning Ziqiu, who only knew how to tie bows, were dazzled by the sight.
The more the zombie struggled, the more tightly the knots would pull, firmly restraining its limbs and torso.
In the end, the zombie lay like a fish on a chopping board, twitching and spasming from time to time, perfectly displaying its identity as a captive in every possible way.
Phew…
Hu Lingling and Ning Ziqiu could finally let out a breath and relax.
It was Hu Lingling’s first time facing such an “obedient” zombie, and she could not help admiring Sang Luo from the bottom of her heart.
Meanwhile, Ning Ziqiu had realised that with cooperation between companions, zombies were not necessarily impossible, terrifying beings to deal with.
Both of them were affected in different ways. Mentally, they still felt the lingering excitement of successfully capturing a zombie alive.
Sang Luo glanced at the two teenagers and ordered Ning Ziqiu to drag the “tightly bound” zombie into the medicine storeroom.
Only the zombie’s head could move now. It bared its mutated mouth and hissed loudly.
It was probably one of the first zombies to be directly infected on the day the virus broke out. There were no external injuries on its body.
Its face still barely retained its original complete appearance from before the mutation, without any signs of decay.
It could be considered a rather “handsome” zombie.
The awful sound it made hurt Sang Luo’s ears, so she tossed out a sentence.
“Stop screaming. Even if you scream yourself hoarse, no one will come save you.”
The zombie: “…”
Hu Lingling and Ning Ziqiu: “…”
Why did that line sound so familiar?
…They remembered.
In TV dramas and movies, when tyrannical villains kidnapped innocent maidens, they usually said something like that.
The zombie hissed even more enthusiastically.
To be honest, if they ignored certain details, it really did look like an “innocent maiden” that had been kidnapped.
The two of them looked towards Sang Luo with subtle expressions, wanting to speak but stopping themselves.
“Villain Sang” was not about to mistreat her injured leg. Without the slightest courtesy, she used Hu Lingling as a human crutch and circled the zombie once.
Finally, she sat down on a chair in satisfaction and asked Hu Lingling, “Do you know how to sew?”
“I do.” Hu Lingling indicated that sewing was one of her strengths.
She just did not know why Sang Luo was asking.
Sang Luo rested one hand on the chair back, tapping her fingertips against it casually.
The moment she spoke, she dropped a bombshell.
“Go sew its mouth shut.”
Hu Lingling froze.
“…Huh?”
She had sewn clothes, trousers, shoes and bags before. She even had a sewing machine at home.
But she had never sewn a mouth shut!
Sang Luo paused, then seemed to remember something and added, “Before you sew it, confiscate its tools of crime first. That’ll make things safer.”
This task naturally fell to Ning Ziqiu.
Her gaze landed on him.
“You go pull out its teeth.”
Ning Ziqiu: “…”
So the “tools of crime” referred to that.
…He was not sure if it was his imagination, but the zombie’s hissing had clearly become much quieter.
Sang Luo’s voice was gentle and sweet.
“While you’re at it, stuff some bricks, glass shards or whatever else into its mouth. You two can decide. As long as you can make sure it stops screaming…”
The zombie: ?! Are you fucking Satan?!
Before Sang Luo had even finished speaking, the zombie suddenly became quieter than ever before.
It stopped baring its teeth. It stopped howling from its throat.
It was as silent as a chicken.
The system’s domineering Long Aotian voice suddenly became tense.
“Not good! This zombie is about to evolve!”
Sang Luo was surprised.
“It’s evolving all of a sudden?”
The system awkwardly stated the truth.
“Most likely… because you provoked it.”
At this point in time, zombies were absolutely not supposed to evolve.
Other than that reason, the system could not find any other explanation.
Sang Luo: “?”
She sighed.
“As a zombie, its mental resilience isn’t very good.”
The system: “…”
Was that really the important point?!
It tried to make Sang Luo understand the danger of the situation.
“Once this zombie evolves to Level Two, you won’t be able to handle it.”
“Stop playing around. Hurry up and kill it immediately before it finishes evolving.”
Sang Luo glanced at the zombie and gave no comment.
“Do you know why I wanted to capture it alive?”
The system replied, “Wasn’t it for fun?”
Sang Luo said, “You believe everything I say. You really are adorably innocent.”
The system: “…”
Don’t think I didn’t hear the sarcasm in your tone.
But it really wanted to know the answer.
“Then why?”
Sang Luo deliberately refused to answer it.
“Sang Luo, it… it seems wrong.”
Hu Lingling had been staring at the zombie on the floor the entire time. Suddenly, she noticed that blue veins had crawled all over its face, pulsing as though alive.
Once.
Then again.
Sang Luo looked calm.
“No need to panic. It’s evolving.”
Evolving?
The meaning of this word was simple and easy to understand.
Hu Lingling and Ning Ziqiu were dazed for a moment at first. Then, once they processed what it meant, their pupils trembled and their faces changed drastically.
If they had understood correctly, “evolving” meant that the zombie was about to become stronger!
They were already struggling to deal with the current zombie.
Let alone an evolved one!
…Wait.
What had Sang Luo just said?
No need to panic?
“Don’t just stand there,” Sang Luo said, completely unaware that her words were no different from dropping a bomb on them. “It can evolve all it wants. It won’t finish for a while. Take this chance and do what I told you earlier.”
The two froze.
Then they reacted.
Do what she had told them earlier.
The three-piece set of sewing its mouth shut, pulling its teeth and stuffing bricks and glass shards inside?
No, wait. Shouldn’t the best solution be to take this opportunity to kill it directly and eliminate the danger forever?
Facing their sincere confusion, Sang Luo curved her eyes and shook her half-disabled right leg.
A cool smile misted through her amber eyes.
“If we kill it, where am I supposed to find such a suitable mount?”
Hu Lingling and Ning Ziqiu: “???”
The system: “…”
Having finally received the answer, it was shocked by its host’s wild imagination.
“So you went through all this trouble just to get yourself a means of transport?!”
Sang Luo clicked her tongue.
“If you could heal my leg, or even at least block basic pain, would I have had to work so hard to catch it?”
Had she worked hard?
The system wanted to complain, but knowing it could not win an argument against her, it decisively changed the question.
“Zombies don’t listen to you. How could it possibly become your mount?”
Wake up!
Sang Luo smiled modestly.
“This humble hermit naturally has a clever plan.”
The system: “……!”
Stop being clever! It has already evolved successfully!
…
Perhaps it was anger, terror or something else entirely.
In short, the zombie on the ground completed its evolution at an insane speed.
The next second, the knots it had been completely unable to break free from earlier snapped apart one by one.
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