Surviving a Disaster

"Zhenzhen-Zhenzhen, wake up! Is it because I didn't slap her hard enough? Why isn't she awake yet? Wuuwuwu..."

"…If you use a little more force, she won't wake up!"

The noise and crying of men and women made her feel so familiar. She regained consciousness. Her heavy eyelids struggled for a few times before she finally opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was Chen Miao's stunning beauty, which was infinitely closer. Her eyes were filled with tears, and they burst out completely when she saw Tong Zhenzhen wake up:

"She's awake, she's awake!!!"

Everyone around her rushed forward when she heard what was said. Perhaps because she had just woken up, Tong Zhenzhen's mind was still not clear yet. It was as if covered by a thick fog. She stared blankly at a group of people dancing in front of her. She should have been lying on her back on Chen Miao's lap. She felt a hot and wet sensation on her cheeks. She subconsciously raised her hand to wipe it away, only to find that it was Chen Miao's tears.

A wave of emotion just rose in my heart, but before it could spread, it was interrupted by the burning pain on my cheek. I couldn't help but shout out:

"Hiss—what bit me? My face hurts!"

Chen Miao, who was originally crying with joy, froze for a moment after hearing this. She looked away with a guilty look, and laughed exaggeratedly with her hands covering her mouth:

"Oh, it's an illusion, it must be your illusion - oh, let's not talk about this, you really scared me! You have been unconscious for a whole day after that damn Shao Hui strangled you. Although you have slept like this in the dormitory before, at least you would get up to eat..."

Chen Miao hugged Tong Zhenzhen tightly in her arms and rubbed her sleepy head lovingly. Tong Zhenzhen was stunned by her crying and hugged her back subconsciously, ignoring the stinging sensation on her face, thinking that she was bitten by some insect. Of course, if she had a mirror, she would definitely see the two symmetrical slap marks on her left and right cheeks.

Ma Chengyun's eyes moved back and forth between Tong Zhenzhen's cheeks. He opened and closed his mouth, struggling over whether or not to tell her the truth - Chen Miao had slapped her for two hours in order to make her wake up earlier, but he always felt that if he said it out loud, he would be killed immediately by someone, so he simply pretended to be blind and saw nothing.

The four girls hugged each other, sharing the joy of surviving the disaster. Qu Fei was attentive and saw a layer of cold sweat on Tong Zhenzhen's temples, so she took out the handkerchief she carried with her and wiped it off for her:

"Did you have a nightmare just now? I saw you were still frowning even when you were unconscious. That serious look doesn't seem like you anymore."

Tong Zhenzhen, who was originally playing with Luo Xiaoli, was slightly stunned for a moment, but then she quickly responded with a smile:

"Oh, that's right! I dreamed about when I first arrived at Linyuan. I was running away from the martial arts performance and was chased by Xie Ci. It was so scary!"

Qu Fei imagined the scene and couldn't help but burst out laughing. Luo Xiaoli put his arm around Tong Zhenzhen's shoulder and said with emotion:

"I really hope that Xie Ci is chasing you here. I don't know how long we will stay in this damn place!"

Tong Zhenzhen then propped herself up with her arms and stood up from the ground, looking around. The walls covered with moss and unknown weeds were a grayish dark green. The only light source in the room came from the small window above her head. Perhaps because it was too remote, even the moonlight became dim and sticky. She could only vaguely make out the prison door in front of her that was made of thick iron bars and had a big lock on it. It was obvious that they were thrown directly into a prison somewhere in Gulou by Shao Hui.

"Tsk, he didn't even arrange a luxurious room for us. He will get his comeuppance!"

Tong Zhenzhen cursed in dissatisfaction and waved his fist at the air to vent his anger.

"Okay, just sit there and be quiet for a while. The bruises on your neck haven't gone away yet. I can't treat you now that the medical system is unavailable. You can only take care of yourself and try not to speak too loudly, because I can't tell if Shao Hui's blow hurt your vocal cords."

Xue Yide, who had a severe mysophobia, couldn't stand sitting on the dirty cell floor, so he walked to Tong Zhenzhen and pointed at her throat, hoping to give his ears some peace.

Sure enough, Tong Zhenzhen touched her neck with a look of horror, and instantly felt something was wrong, and she dared not make any loud noise anymore.

"Okay, don't scare her at this time!" Qu Fei stood on tiptoe and flicked Xue Yide's eyebrows, then turned around to comfort Tong Zhenzhen:

"Don't worry, he already checked you when you were unconscious. Judging from the depth of the bruises, there should be no internal injuries. Just rest well!"

Tong Zhenzhen felt as if she had been pardoned. She breathed a sigh of relief and glared at Xue Yide, who had lied about the doctor's order. Xue Yide ignored her and just pushed his glasses down silently, glancing hopefully at the door outside the cell:

"But it doesn't matter if you really make a lot of noise. After all, at the moment, they don't seem to want to get close to here, so they probably won't care about you."

Everyone followed his gaze and indeed discovered a clue. Normally, for "serious criminals" of their level, the jailers should be watching at the door every step of the way, but the door in front of them was empty. They had to look forward reluctantly to find a few people dressed as jailers huddled in the corner, occasionally timidly peeking out to look at them, then shrinking back in fear after being discovered, as if they were some kind of monster.

"Shao Hui is an out-and-out ambitious man. Nothing else matters in front of his ambition. He naturally won't be in awe of the priests, but they have all heard of the legendary stories of the priests, so they will be afraid. Perhaps we can do something about this..."

Chen Miao rested her chin on her hand, thinking about something, and everyone began to discuss how to escape. Although they couldn't have a group chat because the internet was down, the jailers were hiding far away, so as long as they spoke in a low voice, they shouldn't be able to hear their conversation.

"Oh, oh, what happened during the day I was unconscious?" Tong Zhenzhen was a little anxious, as if she was wondering what era she was in.

"Shao Hui seemed to want to use you as an example to warn the others, so he didn't have any scruples along the way. He just tied us up and brought us to the prison cell in this military camp," Xue Yide stated concisely, while keeping an eye on the jailer at the corner. "But I wrote down the route, and left clues along the way for Lin Yuan to find. If we escape in the future, we can just run away. It may take two or three days to walk."

Chen Miao raised her hand and tapped the iron pillar that was thicker than her forearm, and sighed:

"Well, let's not think about where to run away for now. The problem is, how can we escape from this damn place without a system?"

Everyone fell silent. There was no doubt that the longer it dragged on, the more unfavorable the situation would be. Shao Hui would use them to threaten Xie Ci and Lin Yuan. This was a situation that Tong Zhenzhen did not want to see at all. But now, how could they, a group of unarmed and fragile college students, escape from prison?

Luo Xiaoli spread his hands:

"What should we do? Let Sikong Zhen come and break the iron gate?"

Everyone: ...

Tong Zhenzhen shifted her gaze to Ma Chengyun who was curled up in the corner. He, who was always noisy, didn't say a word. He hugged his knees with his hands, looking up at the sky at a 45-degree angle like a young girl in love.

"Xiao Ma, what do you think?" She raised her chin towards Ma Chengyun.

Ma Chengyun frowned and gazed at the bleak moonlight affectionately:

"I was wondering if Sister Yuan's injury has been properly treated. If she were here, she would definitely be able to smash this piece of iron into pieces with one punch!"

Tong Zhenzhen tried hard to imagine the scene and felt that any normal human being would never be able to split the iron railings with bare hands. It was obvious that everything was caused by Ma Chengyun's filter being too strong and with a strong delusion of escaping reality. It was impossible to rely on him.

She shook her head irritably, and somehow the image of a sullen-looking young general with a high ponytail emerged in her mind.

If he knew how embarrassed I was now, I'm afraid he would laugh at me mercilessly as usual. Tong Zhenzhen could even imagine the smirk on his face. Even so, I have to admit that he looks pretty good when he smiles...

"What the hell is going on here..." Tong Zhenzhen muttered softly, shaking off those strange thoughts and continuing to speak seriously:

"Based on Sister Yuan's mobility, she should have reunited with Xie Ci by now. I believe he will not leave us alone and will definitely come to rescue us secretly."

Chen Miao nodded:

"I agree, but I still suggest that we find a way to get out of here as quickly as possible. If they follow the clues Xue Yide left on the road, we might be able to meet them halfway."

After much discussion, everyone felt that there was no better way out of the predicament than to try to restore system functions.

"No, still no one is replying to me." Tong Zhen didn't know how many times she had called out to Crunchy Shark in her mind, but it always ended in failure. She leaned back against the wall in frustration.

Qu Fei frowned and thought:

"Come to think of it, the two voices we heard at Chengping Bridge before we were captured said that Crispy Shark was going to give himself a vacation, so even they couldn't contact him, but they should still try to find him."

"Then we have to wait. If they have weekends off, we have to wait until the working day." Ma Chengyun thought of his previous experience of being tricked by Crispy Shark and spread his hands helplessly.

"I think this time it may not be Shark's fault." Tong Zhenzhen suddenly said this thoughtfully, and everyone's eyes fell on her, waiting for her next analysis.

Tong Zhenzhen cleared her throat and led everyone to recall:

"You know, Crispy Shark has been out of contact for a while, at least for a few months, but the system malfunction and even network disconnection started when those two voices appeared..."

Following her analysis, Xue Yide closed his eyes first and began to search his memory for the key conversation:

"'Don't forcefully terminate the binding yet, or you may end up with more bugs' - this was the last sentence they said. I wanted to write down their entire conversation, but the volume was sometimes loud and sometimes soft, so I couldn't hear some of it clearly. This was the only sentence I was sure of."

"It turns out that the system malfunction was a bug caused by these two guys! Can we complain to them?! It's all their fault that we are in such a mess!" Ma Chengyun slapped his thigh angrily, then cried out in pain and breathed into his swollen palm.

"Don't you think these systems are strange? Generally, the systems in time-travel novels are impartial machines that issue tasks and rewards to the protagonists, but the Crispy Shark obviously has a lot of its own little ideas. It even appears that only it can communicate while other systems cannot. However, the online fraud system we heard on Chengping Bridge was the voices of two people..." Chen Miao's brows furrowed deeper and deeper. The more he dug, almost every point was suspicious.

"Their voices were sometimes loud and sometimes soft, with electronic music in the background. I only heard one person scolding the other, saying that he seemed to have bound the wrong host, and called him..." Luo Xiaoli tried hard to recall the two voices, and finally turned to Qu Fei for help, "What did you call him?"

"Classmate!" Qu Fei raised his head suddenly, his face serious, "They are classmates. They were discussing thesis and said that binding the wrong host led to data errors. Crunchy Shark should be their monitor and be responsible for managing them!"

"classmate?!"

Everyone exclaimed in unison, looking at each other in confusion, and they all saw the same guess in each other's eyes.

"I don't know what their civilization is like, but if we assume that some aspects are the same as ours, then the term 'classmate' almost means that they - these systems are all students." Xue Yide still maintained the rigorous logical reasoning of a science student.

"And they are most likely college students like us!" Tong Zhenzhen added excitedly, "Although we haven't started writing our graduation thesis yet, isn't finalization a necessary step for graduation thesis? My goodness, it seems like they are using us as experimental data for the thesis!"

"How dare he abandon our precious paper data and quit his job!" Luo Xiaoli stood up angrily, but was pulled back to his original seat by Tong Zhenzhen:

"Please be patient, Sister Li. At least we have roughly figured out their identities and purpose."

She glanced at the jailers, making sure they were playing finger-guessing games at the table and paying no attention to her, before she whispered her thoughts:

"I think we can wait a few more days, firstly, to wait for Crunchy Shark to have a change of heart and come back to fix the bugs and save his poor classmate's graduation thesis, and secondly, to wait for more bugs to happen!"

"Aren't there enough bugs? There are more coming!" Ma Chengyun wailed in agony.

Chen Miao sensed the hidden meaning in her words and knocked on the iron bars thoughtfully:

"When Crispy Shark was here, there were bugs, but they were few and not a big deal. After he disappeared, the fraud system had a bug that caused the wrong host to bind. Then there was a major bug that caused the fraud system to malfunction and disconnect from the Internet due to improper operation. Based on this, the frequency of bugs will increase in the future. Maybe there will be a wonderful bug that will help us escape!"

"That's right! Sister Miao really understands me!" Tong Zhenzhen praised Chen Miao's explanation, and then looked solemnly at the classmates who had shared the same hardships:

"So, what do you think, do you want to take a gamble?"

Everyone looked at each other and nodded without hesitation:

"agree!"