Chapter 99 "The sooner you come to me, the sooner you can save..."

Fu Qing's video of killing zombies sparked heated discussions within the department.

Nearly an hour has passed since the unexplained violent attacks began across the country. People from all levels of government are in a state of panic. Ordinary citizens are anxious and fearful about their own safety and that of their loved ones, but these officials bear the responsibility of protecting the entire nation. And no one knows better than these officials what is happening across the country at this very moment.

In just half an hour between 2:30 and 3:00, the number of deaths reported from various places quickly exceeded 10,000. This is only the part that has been reported and preliminarily verified—that is, the number of deaths that has been confirmed as abnormal deaths by grassroots units such as hospitals, police stations and communities, and then reported and finally summarized at each level.

Many more people die in the streets unclaimed, or become similar attackers, running around aimlessly, without waiting for professionals to arrive and conduct a death determination.

This figure is severely outdated and contains a large margin of error.

What is the true death toll? Two times, three times that number?

Or ten times...?

They dared not even think about it.

After 3 PM, the reported death toll continued to decrease, but that only indicated the situation was becoming increasingly chaotic. Police resources were stretched thin, hospitals were overflowing, and even many frontline workers were attacked and turned into monsters.

They were completely unprepared for this sudden event, and the number and scale of the incidents that broke out in various places were unprecedented.

At first, they thought it was a terrorist act by some extremist group. It was impossible for such a chaotic organization to grow and thrive secretly on Chinese soil without anyone knowing. Later, after arresting a living "attacker," they determined from his abnormal physical condition that it was likely an infectious disease.

What kind of infectious disease could appear simultaneously and without warning in multiple parts of the world like this? This completely overturns our understanding of epidemiology.

Even if someone were to poison the area, no organization in the world could accomplish such a feat of simultaneously poisoning multiple locations.

Everyone felt despair.

When science struggles to explain something, people find it hard to resist turning their hopes in other directions, yearning for, or even pleading for, someone to step forward and give them an answer.

What kind of virus is this? What are its transmission patterns? What is its mortality rate? Is it possible for those who have mutated or been infected to recover...?

Since the mutants are all ordinary citizens, they cannot be killed directly, so it takes more time to subdue and detain them. And during this time, more mutants will continuously appear.

There are too many unknown mysteries, which seriously affect the formulation of countermeasures. Human lives are at stake, and they cannot draw conclusions easily, but time waits for no one.

Every minute and every second, someone is dying.

The longer they find the answer, the more people will die.

How can anyone not be anxious and go crazy?

The higher authorities temporarily issued a notice for everyone to stay at home and avoid going to crowded places. At the same time, the public security special police and armed police began to take action to control the infected people on the streets. In order to avoid causing public panic, the main approach was suppression, and no one should be killed unless absolutely necessary.

But everyone could see that this was not a long-term solution. Medical experts held an emergency meeting to discuss the issue, and other departments were also mobilized. It was at this time that Fu Qing's video appeared in the public opinion monitoring system's field of vision.

She is the first person they have discovered who has clearly identified the weaknesses of mutants.

Of course, nearly an hour later, the military and many netizens across the country discovered that attacking the head of a zombie could quickly kill it during the survival process, but few people were as clear and certain as she was.

After all, in everyone's common sense, it is perfectly normal to die from a destroyed head, and it cannot be associated with the characteristics of mutants.

This raises the question of whether the young woman in the video knew more.

The video, which was only a little over a minute long, was watched repeatedly by everyone in the meeting room. Some, like netizens, worried that they might be overthinking things, believing that Fu Qing was simply teaching an effective self-protection method and that in critical moments, one shouldn't waste time on an ordinary citizen. However, others insisted that there was something more to Fu Qing's words and that this person must be found immediately.

After a heated debate, the person at the head of the table finally waved his hand and made a decision: "Report the video content, find the original video uploader's IP address immediately, and contact the local police to conduct an on-site investigation."

Even if it turns out to be a waste of time, they must try to grasp that one in ten thousand chance.

*

The people in the meeting room quickly got up and started to move around, but the network information of Fu Qing and Fang Zhou's students was well protected by the system. Just like when the police tried to investigate the mysterious group that had contacted Liu Yong but got nowhere, it was difficult to find their traces on the Internet.

Compared to the System and the Zombie King, two higher-dimensional creations, humanity's power is far too weak and insignificant.

When they searched the entire internet but couldn't find Fu Qing, Fu Qing herself took the initiative to come to them.

At 3:30 p.m., Fu Qing appeared at the police station entrance with Zhao Yunxiao and Xue Ran.

She had called Officer Chen beforehand, saying she had something important to discuss with him, and then, without further ado, set the meeting place as his police station. Before the car even arrived, the three of them could see Officer Chen standing at the entrance.

He was wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying a gun. He frowned and kept looking outside. After confirming that it was Fu Qing in the car, he quickly waved to the gatekeeper to open the electric gate.

Fu Qing drove the car directly into the parking space. After parking, the three of them jumped out of the car. Officer Chen was already waiting in front of the car and immediately started asking questions: "Didn't you see the news online? It's so dangerous outside right now. Why can't you say it over the phone!"

Upon catching sight of Xue Ran behind her, she was startled again: "You brought students with you?!"

Officer Chen was terrified just looking at it; thankfully, nothing bad happened along the way.

He guessed that Fu Qing didn't know what had happened yet, and was about to pull her inside to talk things over, but Fu Qing went towards the entrance first.

She had been here once before to give a statement, so she knew the place well. Zhao Yunxiao and Xue Ran followed closely behind the principal, leaving Officer Chen behind.

Officer Chen: "..."

Fu Qing stepped onto the stairs, turned around, and politely tilted her head to signal him to follow: "What I'm about to say is very important, and you probably don't want to waste time lecturing me."

With the outside world in such chaos, what could be more important than the dead bodies everywhere?

Officer Chen was puzzled. To be honest, if it hadn't been Fu Qing who called, he wouldn't have come to meet her in person.

With 80% of the police force currently out on duty, and knowing that many people are still waiting for help, every minute and second that Officer Chen stays behind is agonizing.

He shook his head and quickly followed.

He wanted to hear what Fu Qing had to say.

*

The police station was less than half the usual number of people, and all the officers coming and going were armed and looked tense. When chaos broke out outside, many people who were there for business and suspects who had been summoned were trapped inside the police station. Some officers stayed behind to protect and guard them, while the rest were all sent out.

Fu Qing glanced at Officer Chen's attire. Although he was wearing a bulletproof vest, it wasn't very protective in the summer, and he was even wearing a short-sleeved shirt underneath.

It offers absolutely no protection against zombies.

“Can you contact the police officers who are out on the front lines? Have them cover up all the exposed skin,” Fu Qing suddenly said, gesturing to his forearm. Officer Chen’s forearm was exposed. “Wear fingerless gloves, and try to cover your head, face, and neck as much as possible. As long as the zombies can create wounds, the contact between their saliva and blood will cause infection. Protecting only vital areas is useless.”

Officer Chen, who was leading the way, paused and turned back in surprise: "What?"

He hadn't reacted yet.

Fu Qing glanced around and saw an empty conference room in front of them; this must be their destination. She went in first, took out a tablet, and pulled up a video: "Take a look at this first."

The video content was none other than a replay of the live stream from earlier.

Fu Qing was too lazy to go back and find it herself, so she simply saved the clip that the netizen had captured.

Fortunately, she was quick; the post disappeared shortly after downloading, and the trending topic was also removed.

Fu Qing had actually anticipated that the trending topic would be removed, because so far, all the official reactions were exactly the same as in the previous life.

Finding Officer Chen was a pre-arranged plan; Fu Qing had no intention of leading Fangzhou's two thousand-plus people against the apocalypse single-handedly. The system stipulated that no information related to the apocalypse should be leaked to others before its arrival, and this restriction expired at 2:30 PM today.

They will definitely come; the sooner they come, the more people they can save.

However, the reason why Fu Qing did not come to find Officer Chen as soon as the apocalypse arrived at 2:30 was because she still had some concerns.

First, once she obtains information about zombies from Officer Chen, she will inevitably face rigorous scrutiny and even restrictions on her movements, and may not be able to return to school for some time. Before that, she must resolve matters at school.

Secondly, Fu Qing must give himself some time to observe.

Strictly speaking, this world is merely a parallel world to the previous one. This world lacks Fu Qing, the deceased teachers, and, because the Zombie King has been reborn and organized the believers ahead of time, even the evolutionary process of zombies has been drastically altered.

The information she had was not entirely accurate.

Such inaccuracies are fatal when she tries to use intelligence to gain official trust.

For example, the news anchor who died during the initial news broadcast at the beginning of the apocalypse has changed from a female anchor to a male anchor. This has already alerted Fu Qing. Obviously, this "second cycle world" is different from the previous one in many details.

She needed to confirm that there were no major changes, so she forced herself to observe for a while longer until she saw the trending topic removed and a stay-at-home order issued.

She couldn't wait any longer.

If we wait any longer, our superiors will perpetuate previous decision-making errors—or rather, be cautious, not so much errors.

Unfortunately, the worst mindset to have when racing against zombies is to be cautious. The virus spreads so quickly that if you're slow, you'll be slowed down in every step.

Until everything is beyond repair.

Fu Qing sat quietly opposite Officer Chen, watching the latter's facial expressions change constantly as he watched the video, as if he could hear the sound of his brain working non-stop and finally crashing.

After the video finished playing, Officer Chen remained silent for a few seconds. His lips moved as if he were trying to find the right words, but when he finally spoke, his voice was weak with shock: "Why...why did you show me this video?"

His first question was this, which surprised Zhao Yunxiao, who was sitting next to him.

Fu Qing was very satisfied, and although Officer Chen was surprised, he followed her train of thought.

Fu Qing herself is sitting right here; she could easily recount everything mentioned in the video verbally. Showing him the video only means two things: First, she needs the video content to help him confirm certain things. Second, the video has another purpose.

The former was naturally to show him the zombies' reactions in the video.

Fu Qing pulled up another video from her album: "This is a video I downloaded online. This netizen filmed a passerby taking out a kitchen knife to fight back when attacked. In the video, the person slashed the zombie more than a dozen times, with two slashes to the neck, one of which was very deep."

She scrolled through the playback frame by frame, stopping at a particular scene and zooming in.

The video is not very clear, but through the blurry pixels, it can still be discerned that more than half of the cleaver in the man's hand is embedded in the attacker's neck.

A normal person would have collapsed long ago after being slashed so deeply, but Fu Qing continued playing the video. In the video, the assailant himself was startled and raised the cleaver again, sending up a jet of blood that splattered all over the ground. However, the person who was slashed did not even make a move to cover his neck, but instead walked towards the assailant.

In the video, you can hear the passerby who was stabbing people crying and calling for help in a state of mental breakdown. He was holding the kitchen knife tightly and slashing at it haphazardly. Several of the slashes hit the face, but not deep enough to affect the zombie's movement.

As the zombie was hacked to pieces, it finally bit the attacker.

The latter twitched a few times and then remained still.

After an unknown amount of time, he slowly got up from the ground again.

That's the end of the video.

"Did you find anything?"

Fu Qing looked up at Officer Chen, whose eyes were somewhat blank: "Even with their necks almost severed, they can still move around normally... Are these creatures even human?"

His first thought was of his colleagues who had been sent out.

The orders received were to suppress and arrest the attackers on the road. If this incident was a terrorist attack, these people will naturally face legal judgment afterward. If it was an infectious disease, they will receive the necessary treatment after being subdued and a cure is found.

But if these things aren't even human, is there any point in taking these actions?

Officer Chen suddenly realized what Fu Qing really meant: "In the video, you said that the attackers... no, you mean the zombies' weakness is in their brains, so only attacking their brains can kill them?"

He emphasized the word "only".

Even with its neck almost severed, it didn't die. Officer Chen realized how tenacious this creature was, and at the same time, he realized how explosive the intelligence Fu Qing had brought was.

He blurted out, "How did you know that?!"

“I’ll explain it to you.” Fu Qing glanced at his watch. “But before that, to avoid wasting time, could you please help me report this?”

"This video has been deleted. If we're lucky, it might trigger the public opinion monitoring system and be reported as sensitive information. But too many people are posting zombie videos at the same time, and I'm not sure if it will get enough attention. So I can only ask you for your help."

Fu Qing stared at Officer Chen's pupils, which were gradually constricting: "You can tell them that my friend and I know more than 95% of the information about the creatures that have appeared so far. This video is the evidence—proving that within half an hour of the outbreak, I had accurately known the zombies' weaknesses and how to kill them."

“Every minute and every second in the future, tens of thousands of people will die. The sooner you come to me, the more people you can save.”