Chapter 17

Lin Tantan glanced out the window, this was the first floor. She pushed the drama queen away. "Cut the theatrics and get to work!"
"Okay, okay!" Jiang said excitedly, standing up. Realizing it was the ground floor, his face reddened. "The view down here isn't great, I'll take people upstairs to look around."
Lin Tantan asked, "All right. Is anyone among you running a fever or feeling unwell?"
The students exchanged glances.
"It's best if no one is, but if someone is, speak up. Li Qing, Feng Xuemei, move the person into another room."
"Why isolate them?" Feng Xuemei asked, a bad feeling rising. The girl beside her suddenly looked pale and flustered; the others all stared at that girl.
Lin understood, stepped forward and touched the girl's forehead, sure enough, it was burning.
"W-what's wrong with me?" the girl stammered, her voice trembling as if she might faint at any moment.
Although Lin Tantan in her previous life had only lived to twenty and had been in this body for just two days, making her younger than most here, her years as a convalescent nurse had put her in contact with respected elders, transformed high-ranking officials into cooperative patients, and calmed many sick children. In short, she'd dealt with all kinds of people and seen a lot. So while she lacked some ordinary worldly experience and could be naive in places, she also carried a maturity beyond her years.
Especially with patients she tended to be extra compassionate. Seeing this terrified girl on the verge of fainting made her think of little children who sobbed in hospitals because they were afraid of the doctors.
She said gently, "It's nothing. You saw the superpower I used just now, didn't you?"
The girl nodded.
"This power, during its awakening stage, usually causes a fever and discomfort." The girl's eyes lit up and she blushed with excitement. "You mean... me?" The others looked at her with envy.
Lin continued, "However, if the awakening fails, there's a good chance they'd turn into a zombie, so it's best to isolate them."
"T-turned into a zombie?!" Whether from shock or fever, the girl's eyes rolled and she fainted.
Now it was Lin Tantan's turn: "..."
That excited? She looked at the students who had backed away several meters when the girl fell. "What are you standing there for? Two of you, pick her up."
Hearing they might turn into zombies made the students skittish; they eyed the girl timidly, who dared go forward?
Lin Tantan looked at Jiang Zhongyi. He didn't want to reach out either, but having sworn loyalty half a minute ago, he dragged over his buddy. One man lifted her shoulders, the other her legs, and they carried her to the adjoining yoga room.
Lin Tantan still wanted someone to give the girl some water, but no one dared. Worried she might suddenly turn and bite whoever gave her water, Lin Tantan had someone mix glucose water and fed it to the girl herself.
They found glucose powder in the first-floor office, along with some unopened bottled water and high-energy biscuits, probably put there by the teachers for emergencies. The starving students could finally fill their stomachs.
Jiang Zhongyi and his five tall teammates, along with six other sturdy boys, formed a small patrol. They took positions on the fourth and third floors where the view was clear to observe the area around the gym. So far, no new zombies had appeared.
Lin Tantan used her metal-based ability to cut the entire basketball hoop into pieces, slicing it into roughly one-meter steel pipes to serve as their weapons.
Jiang Zhongyi said, a little embarrassed, “We have weapons now.”
Lin Tantan looked at the things in their hands, bench legs and the like, taken from the auditorium. What weapons could the auditorium furnish? Ye Xiao’s solemn instruction to get weapons had mostly been to stiffen their nerves.
“Swap these if you want. If the steel pipes don’t feel right, I just saw baseball bats and javelins in the storage, go pick whatever you like.”
Jiang Zhongyi sidled over with a cheeky grin, “Sis.”
Lin Tantan raised an eyebrow and looked at him, genuinely baffled: with a frame like his, how could he muster such a fawning expression?
“Um, that, superpowers, do they really only show up after you get a fever?”
Lin Tantan said, “Not necessarily.”
The students all pricked up their ears and froze mid-motion.
“Just now, Ye Xiao, our captain, did you see him?”
“I saw, I saw.”
“He didn’t have a fever. At the moment his team was about to crash, at the very last second, abilities suddenly appeared,” Lin Tantan said. “If you’re determined enough, you could try putting yourself on the brink of life and death and see if a superpower triggers.”
Jiang Zhongyi’s face grew progressively more grim as he listened. What if it doesn’t trigger at the brink of death? Then you’d actually die.
Lin Tantan looked him over. “Powers are partly down to luck, but there’s a powerful path laid out before you right now, waiting for you to take it.”
“What path?”
Lin Tantan smiled, “Fighting zombies!”
Then Lin Tantan led the group out to fight zombies.
The gym and the teaching district were separated by a bridge. For the moment no zombies seemed to be on the bridge, but outside the shut iron gate on the gym’s west side a few wandering zombies prowled.
Lin Tantan had them practice killing zombies through the iron gate.
Though only a handful of zombies had died at her hands so far, that didn’t stop her from acting as instructor. With an ability-user watching over them, Jiang Zhongyi and the others gained confidence, really, it was just hitting zombies. Treat them like monsters and beat them.
So when the zombies outside the west gate lunged, they raised their steel pipes and baseball bats and hammered with all their might, or skewered them one by one with long javelins.
Lin Tantan watched the road beyond the gate; from it you could get onto the main road and out into the urban district, and heading west from there led to the office towers. That was why they’d chosen the gym as the final rendezvous.
Still, the road was clear only because there had previously been no living people on the gym side; once more people gathered here, the zombies would naturally come.
Earlier, from the helicopter, she had seen many zombies along the roads and smaller paths branching off that route.
As she thought that, she spotted the red, conspicuous helicopter in the distant sky.
She squinted and smiled; the others were working hard, too.
She stayed here guarding the rendezvous. Ye Xiao’s team was responsible for gathering survivors from the four universities and surrounding areas and bringing them over, while others drew the zombie hordes away, scattered them, and drove vehicles in to pick people up.
Lin Tantan kept in constant contact with Ye Xiao, knew his location clearly, and warned him when there were survivors nearby.
In less than half an hour, before Ye Xiao had returned, a group of people arrived at the gym.
Lin Tantan had already been warned and went with Jiang Zhongyi and the others to meet them at the bridgehead.
They were a batch of people from the dormitory area, more than forty in all. Some had run here, some had ridden electric bikes, and a sparse line of zombies followed, roughly equal in number.
Jiang Zhongyi swallowed and said, “That’s too many, isn’t it?”
“Just the right amount for you to practice on.”
Jiang Zhongyi thought: Are we actually supposed to practice on so many zombies? So what was that through-the-gate fighting earlier, just a warm-up?
Lin Tantan grabbed a megaphone she’d found in the gym and called to the people running in the distance, “Hurry up! We’re closing the gate!”
At the bridgehead there was an automatic sliding gate.
When the distance looked about right, Lin Tantan pressed the close button and the gate slowly began to slide shut.
Whoosh, whoosh,
Two electric bikes led the way, followed by fast runners. As a last pair, a man and a woman, were nearly overtaken by zombies, Lin Tantan sent out two golden spikes and knocked down the zombies behind them.
At last, before the gate shut completely, the final person made it through and the zombies were left outside.
Lin Tantan gave the order, “Hit them!”
Jiang Zhongyi and the others screamed and sprang into action. The gate left a fairly wide front, so steel pipes and bats weren’t ideal, but javelins proved perfect for stabbing. Two-person teams were shoving mysterious bamboo poles they’d found in the gym’s storage at the zombies, and some dragged a basket of shot puts to throw.
Lin Tantan noticed one boy who was especially strong at throwing shot puts, he threw far and true, one throw, one zombie. Each shot dented a zombie’s face inward and sent brain matter flying.
Lin Tantan rubbed her chin. Everyone’s really enthusiastic!
The newly rescued group: “...”
These were their classmates, several were familiar faces. How had they become so fierce? What had they been through? Thinking back on their own panicked flight, crying for their parents, they suddenly felt ashamed.
Lin Tantan took in several more waves of people and had Li Qing and Feng Xumei lead the first batch of students in organizing them inside the gym, checking for zombie scratches and isolating anyone with a fever. Though some grumbled, with Lin Tantan, the ability-user, in command and Jiang Zhongyi with a dozen students holding the line, the newcomers didn’t dare voice any real objections.
By two in the afternoon, Ye Xiao finally returned. He came back in a grand procession, leading a large group of people and driving several big and small vehicles, and of course a number of zombies trailed behind them.
The arrival of this crowd turned the whole area of the stadium lively, no, downright noisy. Lin Tantan stopped sending people into the gym and instead formed groups on the spot, assigning the students to carry out checks. She climbed onto the roof of a vehicle with a megaphone and called, "Line up here, form five lines. Everyone must be checked for wounds, and anyone with a fever should step out voluntarily. Keep an eye on one another."
She explained the reason for isolating anyone with a fever, and whispers broke out below. For the sake of their own safety, people would at least keep an eye on whether those beside them had a fever.
One man in the crowd, upon hearing this, clutched the little girl in his arms even tighter. An old woman beside him hesitated and looked at him. "Ah Shan..."
"Auntie Chen, Auntie Chen, please help me. My little girl can't leave me," the man pleaded. They were from a small town, completely unfamiliar with this place and its students. How could he possibly be comfortable handing his daughter over for some kind of quarantine? The girl's mother was already gone; the daughter was his whole life.
Auntie Chen, the man's neighbor, had brought along her own five-year-old boy. Her old man had died yesterday as well; her son and daughter-in-law worked away from home. She sympathized with him, but said, "If I don't say anything, they'll find out anyway."
"Auntie Chen, I'm begging you," the man pleaded.
In the end Auntie Chen couldn't bring herself to say anything. She figured the line was long and the students would check everyone in turn; they'd get to him eventually.
Lin Tantan didn't notice that small corner. Seeing that most people were cooperating, she jumped down from the vehicle with two bottles of sports drink she'd found in the gym and walked over to Ye Xiao. He looked pale; though it was winter, his hair and clothes were soaked with sweat and he looked a little disheveled. Her heart ached and she handed him the drinks. "Thanks for your hard work. Do you want this? Otherwise I have bottled water here."
"This one's fine," Ye Xiao said, took the drink, twisted off the cap and tilted his head back to drink.
Lin Tantan... she couldn't look away for a moment. Ah, her idol even looked handsome drinking water. The gulping sound was more pleasant than anyone else's. And he had to do everything himself; it was simply too much.
She needed to find him some help soon. She thought of the four people with fevers quarantined in the gym and of Jiang Zhongyi, who seemed moldable... she let her thoughts wander. When she snapped back to reality and realized the gulping had stopped, she found her idol holding an empty bottle and looking at her.
The weak winter sun kissed the sharp, fresh tips of his hair with pale gold; light danced along his proud nose. His eyes were clear and dark, flashing a depth of light... handsome, very handsome. Lin Tantan nearly leapt up. At the first second their eyes met she decisively looked down, pretending to rummage in her bag, inwardly fretting and regretting how she'd gone starry-eyed again without meaning to.
Speaking of which, didn't he drink too quickly? That was a big bottle, over six hundred milliliters, wasn't he afraid of feeling bloated? Lin Tantan muttered to herself and stole a glance at the man's stomach close by.