Chapter 136 The Only Advantage

Fu Qing composed himself and prepared to visit Tian Xuejun and his newly acquired "captives." Passing by the dormitory building, he bumped into the triumphant elite team and casually pulled them along.

The group of people were completely bewildered as the principal shoved them into the car and drove them to the nearby factory.

Fu Qing got out of the car at the park entrance and asked the soldiers guarding the gate to contact Tian Xuejun. Then he waited where he was and signaled Xue Ran in the passenger seat to drive the car in, "You go in first, someone will meet you inside."

Some of them were confused, but they still obediently did as instructed.

The car stopped, and sure enough, two armed soldiers who were waiting by the roadside stepped forward and politely said, "Please come with me."

They followed the two into the familiar building, but this time, they went deeper into the building than before.

After winding through countless rooms, the passage seemed endless, and we even passed an underground warehouse along the way.

Qin Yufei finally couldn't hold back any longer and spoke first: "Where are we going?"

"You'll find out soon enough," a soldier said without turning his head, his tone quite polite.

Another person kindly explained, "We were just following orders to lead the way; we don't know the details."

"Oh..." Qin Yufei sighed in disappointment.

Song Rushuang and Xue Ran also looked around at their surroundings with curiosity and vigilance. Su Huaijin's expression changed subtly, as if he had guessed something.

Liang Yi suddenly said, "We're going in circles."

He pointed to a trash can hidden in the shadows: "These trash cans are numbered. We've passed this one before."

"and……"

He fell silent.

The park is very large and the internal environment is complicated. Because it has been abandoned for a long time, it is full of debris. Tian Xuejun only managed to clean out a part that was urgently needed. However, many rooms or buildings are still closed, and the paint and decoration on the interior walls and floors are all pretty much the same.

This makes it easy for people unfamiliar with the terrain to get lost.

Out of habit, Liang Yi had been secretly looking at the compass on his bracelet since the beginning, thus roughly reconstructing their route and discovering that although they had been walking for half a day, they hadn't moved much in a straight line.

Xue Ran was confused: "Why are we going in circles?"

Song Rushuang was optimistic: "Who cares? Our motherland can't possibly sell us out, can she?"

The two soldiers in front heard the group's chattering discussion but did not join in, continuing to stride ahead and lead the way.

...

In a room somewhere in the park, the windows were boarded up, the rusty nails haphazardly laid out, and thick wooden planks were stacked one on top of another, covering all the gaps tightly.

A dim, old test light above flickered, illuminating a small area below and shrouding everything in a deep, dark shadow.

In the center of the room stood a specially made chair, on which a man was handcuffed. To prevent him from committing suicide, a wad of cloth was stuffed in his mouth, and he was breathing heavily through his nose.

The terrible environment put him on the edge of his seat, and the fear of mission failure made it impossible for him to stay calm.

The steel handcuffs clanged loudly as he struggled; had the chair not been made entirely of alloy, it probably would have shattered long ago.

Tian Xuejun stood with her arms crossed to the side, observing coldly for a long time before straightening up and taking two steps forward.

The figure slowly emerged from the shadows, and the man's eyes widened in horror.

A military knife appeared in Tian Xuejun's hand without her noticing. She spoke gently, "If you calm down, I'll untie the ropes on your arms, okay?"

The man wouldn't listen to her at all; instead, he struggled even more violently as she approached him.

With a flick of the blade, she sliced ​​through the skin, and blood gushed out instantly. Tian Xuejun smoothly and swiftly withdrew the knife.

She stood behind the man, who could only hear a regretful sigh: "...slip of the hand."

"I already told you to be quiet."

Blood pooled on the ground, and Tian Xuejun made a gesture. The camera hidden in the shadows behind her silently locked onto the blood on the ground.

...

After wandering around for a long time, the group finally left those enclosed corridors and experienced a kind of joy similar to that of a dungeon hero who has finally escaped from a maze.

"How long have we been walking?" Xue Ran asked incredulously. "Is this place really this big?"

They came to see a familiar office building. Following two soldiers upstairs, they reached the door of a room and saw Fu Qing coming from the opposite direction.

Compared to the group who were completely bewildered, she appeared relaxed and even nodded slightly in greeting.

Song Rushuang asked cautiously, "Principal, you... have been gone for quite some time too...?"

"How could that be?" Fu Qing was about to reach for the door when she heard this and glanced at her in surprise. "I just got here."

Everyone: "..."

Normally, there are no fans in the sentry post, but since Fu Qing was waiting for a while, Tian Xuejun specially asked someone to bring her a chair and a fan, and even poured her a cup of tea to drink while she waited.

Unable to refuse such a kind offer, Fu Qing had no choice but to accept it with a smile.

While Song Rushuang and the others were still confused, she was sitting with her legs crossed at the door, admiring the distant mountains and occasionally blowing on a tea leaf.

The group seemed to smell the lingering aroma of tea emanating from the principal, and immediately wore expressions that were hard to describe.

Fu Qing smiled, knocked on the door and went in. Inside was Tian Xuejun's office.

Fu Qing asked, "How is it?"

Tian Xuejun was watching a video intently.

It was a video recording, a compilation of surveillance footage from different angles, with a small 3D map in the upper right corner. A point of light was moving around on the map, and another small area was marked in red.

Speeding up the video, you can see that, in sync with the movement of the light spot, the man in the surveillance footage is sometimes agitated, sometimes staring blankly at the wall, while the pool of blood on the ground is also bubbling up at an irregular frequency, spreading outwards at varying speeds.

Tian Xuejun's expression unconsciously turned serious as she watched.

What Fu Qing said in the phone call was indeed true; the blood of the devout believer really did react to her.

However, if you don't keep a close eye on it, you won't notice the changes in the blood. But how many people would normally pay attention to a pool of blood on the ground?

“You guessed right, they also reacted to the students from Fangzhou.” After observing for a while, Tian Xuejun slowly concluded, “It’s just that their reaction was much weaker than when they saw you in person.”

"As expected." Fu Qing wasn't surprised and simply uttered two words.

When she arrived at the door, she briefly explained the situation to Tian Xuejun via walkie-talkie. The latter, shocked, quickly made arrangements and carried out this experiment.

The experimental results—the changes in the blood and the believer's instinctive reaction without his knowledge—confirmed Fu Qing's conjecture.

Fangzhou's students are a group of people who have been affected by the system.

As Fu Qing's steadfast and unwavering ally, she wouldn't be surprised if the Zombie King could detect the presence of Fu Qing and the system in them.

"What was the reaction?"

The two were talking like they were speaking in riddles, leaving the students completely puzzled.

“I just asked you to come from both directions at the same time, and it clearly reacted more strongly to the left side where you came from.” Tian Xuejun glanced at the students, then looked at Fu Qing.

The students finally realized: the principal had brought them here to conduct an experiment?

So that's how it is! No wonder it took such a long detour.

They quickly accepted the explanation, their expressions showing sudden realization.

Tian Xuejun: "..." Did you just coax yourself into submission like that?

On the other hand, they didn't even know what they were going to do; they were just dragged out by the principal without any idea what was going on, and before that, they hadn't even thought anything was wrong...

I always felt that even if Fu Qing were to sell them off one day, these students would still naively help count the money.

Tian Xuejun felt a mix of amusement and exasperation, as well as a sense of感慨 (gǎnkǎi, a complex emotion encompassing both sadness and reflection).

Such deep trust can only be formed because this trust has never been betrayed.

Fu Qing stared at the video for a few seconds. "This area marked in red, doesn't it look like your room?"

"You could even tell that?" Tian Xuejun was surprised for a moment, then said frankly, "That's right, see that side door? I closed it in the lounge."

The room Tian Xuejun used was the original leader's office, with a small rest room, which she directly converted into a "prison cell" for detention.

“The windows are nailed shut, and the only entrance and exit is through my room. I work and sleep in the office now, so I can detect any movement it makes immediately,” Tian Xuejun said calmly. “Even if it wants to escape, it would have to kill me before it can get out.”

The students felt a chill run down their spines upon hearing this.

Fu Qingduo added a word of caution: "The hearing of a devout believer is far superior to that of an ordinary person; be careful that it doesn't hear any outside noises."

Tian Xuejun smiled and said, "Don't worry, the inner chamber is covered with soundproofing material, and we even plugged its ears, so it can't hear anything. There are cameras watching it 24 hours a day, so there won't be any accidents."

The other believers were also detained in a similar manner.

After saying that, Tian Xuejun finally couldn't help but ask, "Can you explain to us now what happened with the blood?"

It was unclear in the communication. Fu Qing only said that she had made a discovery and asked Tian Xuejun to cooperate in the research. Tian Xuejun agreed without hesitation, but in fact she didn't know much more than the students.

The students were equally curious, and several pairs of eyes were fixed on Fu Qing.

But Fu Qing thought for a moment, looked away, and said casually, "...Didn't I say that there's a mad scientist in our school? It was his accidental discovery."

“I guess this ability comes from the Zombie King, so probably only the devout believers who have been infected by it can sense me and my students, and there aren’t many of them.”

Tian Xuejun waited a moment, and when she realized that she really had nothing else to say, she couldn't quite believe it: "That's it??"

"Yes," Fu Qing replied frankly.

Tian Xuejun stared at her suspiciously for a few seconds before finally accepting, pressing her temples: "Okay... but this news isn't too good. Only they can sense us, which means the initiative is in their hands."

Song Rushuang and the others understood at this point. Song Rushuang said, "In the game, wouldn't this be equivalent to us being marked along with the principal?"

So now, in the eyes of believers, she is a bright and extremely tempting prey?

Xue Ran exclaimed excitedly, "We can use this to create a trap for the devout believers. It's like the mantis stalking the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind. I can be the cicada."

Su Huaijin spoke up: "No, they don't know about our perception being exposed yet, so they can't guess that we'll set a trap for them. This trap is a trump card; it will only be effective once used, and it would be a waste to use it on ordinary believers. But the Zombie King will definitely not be lured out so easily..."

She glanced at Fu Qing, then quickly looked away, muttering, "...even if the bait is tempting enough."

Hearing her words of dissuasion, Fu Qing smiled.

Su Huaijin scratched his head and quickly said, "So I think the best way now is to pretend we don't know anything, send out a small team to ambush and hunt the believers in places like hospitals and shelters as planned, and try to avoid alerting them."

"It's a bit of a pity," Qin Yufei said regretfully. "It's rare to obtain such valuable intelligence."

“No need to feel sorry.” Fu Qing, who had been watching their discussion, finally spoke up. “S City is the stronghold of the devout believers, with a huge number of infected people. The slightest disturbance can easily alert them. But that doesn’t mean that the devout believers are only distributed in S City.”

Tian Xuejun's eyes suddenly lit up: "You mean..."

A smile appeared in Fu Qing's eyes. "The Zombie King's true power comes from the ever-increasing number of infected. They need devout followers as leaders to guide the zombies and expand the infection range as much as possible. Therefore, they will inevitably attack shelters in other cities."

"Nowadays, there should be devout believers in all major cities in the country."

"Although the Zombie King can sense the location of the zombies it has infected, the two cannot communicate directly. Their communication mostly relies on less than an hour of network communication per day."

At most, with the help of the Zombie King, communication will be smoother than with others.

But that's all.

Due to objective limitations, the base station is often without power.

As for radio, it is too easily interfered with and monitored, and Fu Qing does not believe they would choose this method of communication.

Tian Xuejun quickly added: "In other words, their communication is delayed."

"It is entirely possible for us to hunt down these devout believers and save the rest of the country without alerting the zombie king as much as possible."

Once the situation in those cities stabilizes, the nation's resources can be channeled into City S... At that point, what is there to fear?

The more Tian Xuejun thought about it, the brighter her eyes became.

"Hmm." Fu Qing smiled and glanced casually in one direction. The others couldn't help but follow her gaze and found that she was looking at the bracelet on Song Rushuang's wrist.

"Although we are different from the believers, our bodies do not mutate, our sense of smell does not become more sensitive, we do not run faster, and we cannot sense the presence of the other party... but we still have one advantage."

Fu Qing paused, then said in a relaxed tone, "Unity."

The system's abilities in this life were designed for this very purpose from the very beginning.

"At least, we can contact our partners at the ends of the earth much faster and without hindrance than they can, for example—"

Fu Qing paused for two seconds, and just as everyone was wondering what was going on, a call suddenly popped up on the bracelets on their wrists.

Before Fu Qing's eyes, the light screen that had been lit since the beginning of the conversation flickered slightly, and Shen Qingqing's voice came from the light screen and all the bracelets in the room at the same time.

"For example...now?"

She mischievously feigned uncertainty as she continued Fu Qing's words, as if she could imagine the surprised looks on the students' faces, and couldn't help but laugh.

He quickly became serious and said, "I understand, Headmaster. I will set off within two days, stopping for three days in each major city I pass through, to search for the whereabouts of the devout believers."

Tian Xuejun never expected that there was another person listening, and couldn't help but glance at Fu Qing.

Although the experiences of the past few days had proven Fu Qing's trustworthiness, and she knew that she would not use such methods to do bad things, the system's high technology was truly...always able to surprise her.

Tian Xuejun snapped out of her daze and quickly said, "I will contact the local authorities to coordinate your operation."

"Thank you very much." Shen Qingqing had already heard Song Rushuang introduce this officer, and her tone was very respectful.

Song Rushuang finally snapped out of her daze and exclaimed in surprise, "Qingqing, have you finished dealing with your family's affairs?!"

Hearing the familiar voice, Shen Qingqing chuckled.

She said cheerfully, "Hmm... I guess it'll be done soon."