Cleaning Teaching Building No. 1

The group descended the platform one by one through the passageway reserved at the back. With a wave of his hand, Lin Chen retrieved the container fortress, along with the tents, excess ammunition boxes, and other supplies, into his spatial storage.

Everyone took off their raincoats, traveling light. Lin Chen took the lead, carrying a Tang sword and a pistol, and stepped into the lobby of the nearest teaching building.

The building was dimly lit, with dust floating in the dark red sunlight filtering through the broken windows, mixed with a faint smell of blood.

The footsteps of the group were steady, occasionally punctuated by short bursts of gunfire—precise shots aimed at zombies that suddenly pounced from around corners or behind half-open doors. The gunfire echoed in the empty corridor, becoming a beacon of hope for those hiding.

Deep inside the storage room, beneath the podium, behind the toilet partitions... one after another, faces filled with despair cautiously peeked out.

Their faces were etched with extreme fear, yet they were also illuminated by unbelievable joy and the desire to be rescued, like moths drawn to a flame in the darkness.

They timidly and spontaneously trailed behind the armed group, like a flock of fledglings who had been imprisoned for too long in the cold underground and had finally glimpsed a ray of light, both longing to get close to that warm and safe light source and trembling at any sudden sound.

As the search progressed floor by floor, the line of survivors grew like a snowball, including students and teachers.

When they saw Lin Chen, the leader, and the fully armed and efficient female team members around him, the flame of hope in their eyes burned even brighter.

Half an hour later, the team arrived at the top floor.

As soon as I stepped into the corridor, several zombies, perhaps attracted by the commotion below or perhaps already roaming around here, roared and pounced out from the shadows.

The combatants at the front reacted swiftly and coordinated perfectly. The flashing of knives and the sound of gunfire quickly brought the corridor back to deathly silence—a safe kind of silence.

"Same as always, split up and check both sides." Lin Chen spoke concisely. "Li Ya, you lead a team to check the right side. I'll lead a team to check the left side. Keep in touch."

"Understood!" Li Ya nodded crisply, quickly pointed out Jiang Yingxue, Zhou Xiaomin, and eight others, and then turned and headed towards the right corridor.

But at this moment, in the classroom at the end of the right corridor, with its doors and windows tightly closed, a completely different world unfolds.

The smoke was thick and swirling, mixed with the smell of sweat and an indescribable fishy odor.

Wang Qiang and his three accomplices slumped to the ground, greedily smoking pre-apocalyptic cigarettes they'd pulled from some drawer, trying to numb their nerves with nicotine and enjoy the false relaxation that followed their violence.

In the corner, five girls, dressed in tattered clothes, had empty eyes like hollowed-out dolls, as if their souls had been completely torn apart and extracted in the violence just now, leaving only their bodies that could still rise and fall slightly.

"Brother Qiang, listen..." Yang Wei, the lackey, suddenly listened intently, his face drained of color, a mixture of hope and deep unease. "Outside... are there gunshots? And the sound of many footsteps... is it... the rescue... really here?"

Wang Qiang's expression changed drastically in an instant!

The ruthlessness and emptiness that followed were quickly replaced by a chilling, bone-deep panic.

His father, Wang Gang, was a notorious figure in the eastern part of Guangzhou. He made his fortune in the early years by lending money and operating a gray industry. He had a group of ruthless thugs under his command, and his relationships were deeply intertwined.

Wang Qiang had been immersed in this environment since childhood, and his violent and lawless nature was already ingrained in his bones.

His eyes, sinister as a venomous snake, swept sharply over the five girls in the corner, their eyes lifeless, then glanced at his three accomplices who were also beginning to tremble. He gritted his teeth and forced out a low, desperate growl: "Damn it! Go all the way! No survivors! 'Die' them all, throw them out the window! We'll say they were driven to suicide by zombies! No one can prove it!"

Upon hearing this, Yang Wei and the other two were struck dumb, their backs instantly soaked with cold sweat.

It was only the second day of the apocalypse, and deep down they were still students who had never experienced real bloodshed. Their remaining conscience was fiercely battling with their instinctive fear of killing, and their faces were filled with struggle and horror.

"Useless!" Wang Qiang cursed under his breath, then suddenly rushed to the window and shakily lifted a corner of the curtain.

In the corridor, shadowy figures moved about. Several well-equipped individuals, armed with guns, were steadily advancing in this direction, their intention to search each classroom was all too clear—there was no time to lose!

He turned around like a wild beast, his eyes bloodshot: "Hurry! There's no time to dawdle! Just throw him down! That'll be the end of it! You loser, you hold the door shut! Buy every second you can!" He roared at the skinny boy nicknamed "loser".

"No--!!!"

In the corner, the five girls' already numb nerves were completely torn apart by this final death sentence! The instinct for survival overwhelmed everything, and they burst into a shrill, distorted cry and struggle.

Almost simultaneously!

"Sister Ya! The classroom at the very back! Someone is crying and calling for help!" Jiang Yingyue, who was searching, had extremely sharp ears and immediately pointed to the end of the corridor.

Li Ya's eyes flashed coldly, and without the slightest hesitation, she shouted, "Everyone, follow me! Quickly!"

The group shot towards the target classroom like arrows released from a bow.

"The door is locked from the inside! We can't break it open!" the girl who arrived at the door first exclaimed anxiously.

"Get out of the way!"

Li Ya took a half step back, her eyes suddenly turning cold. In an instant, a highly compressed, dazzlingly bright pure white ball of light condensed in her palm, which she then blasted towards the joint between the door lock and the hinge!

"boom--!!"

A deafening explosion! The wooden classroom door, along with part of its frame, shattered, sending splinters of wood flying everywhere!

The "loser" who had been desperately trying to block the door with his body was blasted away by the violent impact, crashing onto the podium with a scream. The sound of his bones breaking was clearly audible, and he immediately collapsed and couldn't get up.

Inside the classroom, Wang Qiang and his group had just experienced the beastly act and were already exhausted. They were then subjected to the girls' desperate resistance and entanglement. In addition, Li Ya and her group broke down the door faster than they could have imagined, and they couldn't even push a single girl off the windowsill.

The other two boys were so terrified by the thunderous crash that they instinctively released their grip on the girl.

Only Wang Qiang, his eyes bloodshot like a mad dog, still gripped Jiang Ting's hair and arm tightly, half of his body already leaning Jiang Ting out of the window, his face twisted and ferocious, determined to throw this "troublemaker" down to be buried with him.

"Bang!"

A crisp, chilling gunshot ripped through the murky air.

Wang Qiang's body suddenly stiffened, and without warning, a dazzling flower of blood burst open on his back near his heart.

The excruciating pain and the icy chill that rapidly drained his life force made him loosen his grip.

Taking advantage of that moment, Jiang Ting used her last bit of strength to break free, falling back onto the classroom floor in a disheveled state, her whole body trembling like a leaf in a storm.

Li Ya, gun in hand, stepped in first. Her grip on the gun was as steady as a rock as she coldly swept it over the four boys inside: "Don't move! Hands to your head! Crouch down!"

Behind her, fully armed female team members filed in and quickly took control of all corners.

The five girls who had survived the ordeal saw this group of "warriors" who seemed to have fallen from the sky, uniformly equipped, and with cold yet concerned expressions. Their taut nerves snapped, and they collapsed to the ground, wailing and crying.

Tears streamed down her face, washing away the filth and wounds, a mixture of endless humiliation, the fear of impending death, and the overwhelming gratitude of being saved from the brink of despair.

Upon hearing the gunshots and the commotion, Lin Chen led his men to the scene from the left.

He stood by the broken door frame, his gaze sweeping across the classroom like a hawk's—the overturned desks and chairs, the signs of a fierce struggle, the disheveled girls sobbing, the boys either collapsed or ashen-faced, the lingering smell of smoke and some kind of murky atmosphere in the air…

His five years of struggle in the apocalypse in his previous life allowed him to piece together almost instantly the most sordid and despicable scene of humanity that had just unfolded here.

"Help...help me...I don't want to die..." Wang Qiang, bleeding profusely from his back and barely breathing, collapsed to the ground. His will to live overwhelmed everything. He struggled to look at the figure in the doorway, pleading intermittently, trying to grasp at the last straw, "My dad...is Wang Gang...I'll give you money...lots of money...help me..."

"Don't save him!!!"

With bruises on her face and blood trickling from the corner of her mouth, Jiang Ting suddenly raised her tear-blurred face and, with all her might, let out a heart-wrenching scream, every word filled with deep-seated hatred:

"He's a beast! A demon!!!"