Chapter 64 She eagerly awaited...
When Lu Yan laid out the severed limbs he and Hao Zhenye had brought back on the dissection table and proudly displayed his spoils to everyone, Bai Tang was the first to lose control and bend over to the side to "vomit."
"These aren't our students, are they?" Zhao Yunxiao's pupils dilated in shock.
"No, it's an infected person," Hao Zhenye replied honestly after a moment of doubt.
He didn't know why Zhao Yunxiao would have such a cruel association. It was just an assessment, so it didn't warrant killing a classmate.
Zhao Yunxiao patted his chest: "That's good, that's good..."
Grandma Liu was being cared for by everyone and didn't participate in the event; she's still sleeping. Xu Mingyue wasn't there either; after returning to school, she unloaded the body with the students and then hurriedly drove back to pick up the principal.
Lu Yan expressed his concern as a colleague to Bai Tang, telling her to vomit when she needed to, and then took out twenty tubes of blood from his waist bag and placed them on the test tube rack.
Zhao Yunxiao had already heard about the deaths of the infected tonight from Hao Zhenye. Looking at the twenty tubes of blood, all from Lou Han, he weakly said, "Teacher Lu, tell me the truth, that person didn't actually commit suicide, but was actually killed by you, right?"
Lu Yan looked at the ceiling: "I don't understand what you're saying."
Zhao Yunxiao: "?" What happened to the benevolent heart of a doctor?
Just then, Fu Qing and Xu Mingyue entered together. Seeing that everyone was there, Fu Qing nodded and said, "It's good that you're all here. Zhao Yunxiao."
Upon hearing her call his name, Zhao Yunxiao reflexively responded with a "Yes."
Fu Qing: "We brought back a total of four bodies this time. Three of them died on the spot during the fight and are now in the parking lot. One was found in the woods later during the cleanup. He must have died from his injuries while escaping. He is still in the trunk. Let's find a tow truck to bring him over."
"You and Lu Yan will have to work hard during the winter break to dissect these four corpses and see if you can find anything."
"The others continue preparing lessons during the winter break, and when they have free time, they help Xu Mingyue and the students staying on campus dig tunnels."
Zhao Yunxiao obeyed the principal's order without hesitation, but then felt something was amiss: "I don't know anatomy... I can probably only assist. Is Teacher Lu good at this?"
Xu Mingyue interjected, "What do you mean by being good at it or not? This guy originally studied forensic medicine."
Seeing that no one responded, she looked around, wondering to herself, "Didn't the principal say that before?"
Other teachers: "..."
So, their school doctor is a forensic doctor?
...Putting everything else aside, the principal is truly a genius at employing people.
*
With only a few months left before the outbreak, the teachers had no mood for the Lunar New Year and were indifferent to the tasks assigned by Fu Qing, but the students still had to go home for the New Year.
To avoid arousing suspicion from their family members, they even had to pretend that nothing was wrong.
Some students who were injured during the assessment could only rack their brains to find excuses, such as falling off a bicycle, bumping into something while playing ball, or fighting with their roommates, and they managed to cover it up.
Of course, some parents were also questioning their children, pulling their ears and asking how they could have broken three ribs while playfully fighting with their roommates.
...
This is the first time since the start of the semester that the four girls in dormitory 1111 have been separated for such a long time.
After agreeing to check in on their training tasks in the dormitory group every day, the four girls reluctantly embarked on their journeys home, each carrying their own luggage.
The first person to pop up in the group to say that she had arrived home was Song Rushuang. Song Jianguo and Xu Mingyu drove her home, which took 42 minutes.
The last one was Shen Qingqing, which took nearly 13 hours.
I flew to the nearest provincial capital, then took a high-speed train, then a bus, and after a bumpy and arduous journey, I finally met Shen Mingjiang at the station. He was leaning against a tricycle, almost asleep from waiting.
The father and daughter, who were not very close, were reunited after a long separation and didn't know what to say. Shen Mingjiang stepped forward to help her carry her luggage, but Shen Qingqing refused.
She lifted the huge suitcase onto the tricycle herself, and its heavy weight made the vehicle tilt.
Shen Mingjiang finally showed a hint of surprise and muttered, "Going to school in the city, how come you're stronger than before?"
I left the dormitory at around 7 a.m. and by the time I finally got home, it was already completely dark.
Seeing the light shining in the courtyard of her old home in the distance, Shen Qingqing felt as if she had returned to another world.
For the first eighteen years of her life, she lived in this old house with her parents, grandparents, and other family members.
The people in her hometown were very patriarchal, and the Shen family was no exception. It is said that when the first child was a girl, the grandparents immediately turned sour. From childhood to adulthood, Shen Qingqing's parents tried countless folk remedies and made every effort to give her a younger brother.
Unfortunately, the Shen family seemed to lack the good fortune of having many children. Shen Mingjiang was an only child in that era. Later, Shen Qingqing's mother, Zang Lijun, suffered two miscarriages and could not save her life. As she grew older, she gave up the idea of having a second child.
Shen Mingjiang and Zang Lijun went to the hospital every day, and the sharp shouts and curses of the grandparents could be heard from home every now and then. All of this was seen and heard by the villagers. Every day, Shen Qingqing carried her schoolbag through the village on her way to and from school, and she could only look straight ahead, because if she turned her head, she would see a mixture of pity and mockery in her eyes.
The rumors only subsided after her college entrance exam results were released, turning into whispers of jealousy that lingered in her dreams at midnight.
"What's the use of getting such a high score? You'll still be a girl."
"Just wait, we've worked so hard to support her education, and once she goes to university, she'll fly away and never come back."
Shen Qingqing didn't care what they said, but there was one thing they were right about.
If she hadn't stumbled into Fangzhou by chance and learned about the impending apocalypse, she really wouldn't have planned to come back.
In the same dormitory, Zhang Han and Song Rushuang are both pampered only children. Song Rushuang is more independent, and her parents are proud of her independence. Zhang Han, on the other hand, proudly labels herself a "mama's girl" and calls home every night without fail. Sun Wei's parents are busy with work, and she herself is busy with her side business in social media, so she doesn't contact her family often. However, she always receives large red envelopes from her parents and elders during holidays.
Of the four, only Shen Qingqing was different.
On the day of the opening ceremony, Song Rushuang asked them if they believed the end of the world was real, and Shen Qingqing said she was willing to believe it.
The woman standing on the stage, who called herself their principal, looked strong and independent. She reached out her hand to them, asking them to join her in fighting the apocalypse.
Shen Qingqing was never chosen by anyone.
She was willing to believe, and even at that moment, she eagerly hoped, that she was indeed the one chosen by the principal.
...
Zang Lijun was sitting on a bench in the courtyard, bending over to process fish scales. When she saw Shen Qingqing, she quickly wiped her hands on her apron and stood up: "You're back?"
Shen Qingqing hummed in agreement and carried her luggage into the house.
"Are you hungry? Dinner will be ready soon, and I'll also make a fish." Zang Lijun carefully observed her daughter. "You've lost weight."
Her mother's words, tinged with a hint of heartache, made Shen Qingqing's throat tighten: "I exercise with my roommates at school, and I'm healthy and thin."
The old woman, who was picking vegetables with her head down, sneered without looking up: "With that kind of energy, you might as well go and do some work in the fields."
Grandpa was smoking inside, and occasionally let out two coughs to make his presence known amidst the swirling smoke.
Shen Qingqing pretended not to hear, opened her suitcase, took out the local specialties she had brought back and handed them to her mother, then casually asked, "How was the harvest this year?"
Leaving the old house, walk along the path towards the mountainside; the Shen family owns a piece of land there.
Normally, Zang Lijun and her grandmother take care of the garden. Besides feeding the family, they can also sell the rest in the city to earn some money.
Shen Mingjiang's wages from working on the construction site, plus the money his mother and grandmother earned from selling vegetables, were barely enough to support the family and raise Shen Qingqing.
Shen Qingqing sometimes felt that the love she received from this family was just as much as the money the family earned—enough for a person to grow up.
That's all we can do.
“It’s alright, nothing much different from before.” Zang Lijun didn’t understand why her daughter said this, and lowered her voice, “Are you short of money? I was just saying I should send you some living expenses.”
Grandpa shouted from inside the house, "If you're short of money, go find a job yourself! We haven't even asked her to send money home yet, and she's already asking for more."
"No, I don't need anything." Shen Qingqing didn't mention that she hadn't worked at all in the past six months.
The principal forbade them from working and told them to focus all their energy on training.
Students facing financial difficulties can apply for a poverty subsidy and also eat for free in the school cafeteria. Fangzhou doesn't have a special "love window" for meals; instead, they receive a fixed allowance for each meal, within which they can take as much food as they want. As a result, apart from her roommates, no one knew she was a student from a poor family.
Even though she had just arrived home, Shen Qingqing already felt a little homesick for school.
After putting her luggage away, she walked around the courtyard twice more.
Before the holiday, the principal said that when the new semester started, some shelter spots would be released for students to exchange.
Shen Qingqing believed she had done well on her final exams, but since the exchange rate for spots and points had not yet been announced, she was unsure how many spots she could get.
If she can only exchange for one spot, she wants to take her mother with her. Would her mother be willing to leave this home?
If she could get four spots, would she be willing to take her whole family with her?
Throughout the semester, Shen Qingqing remained indecisive.
Sometimes, thinking about the cold treatment she received since childhood, she would think of never coming back. But sometimes, she would remember the image of her mother quietly pounding her stomach when she woke up in the middle of the night before her mother's last miscarriage.
She pounded her stomach twice, then clutched it and cried silently.
I don't know if she's crying for her daughter, her unborn son, or herself.
At times like these, Shen Qingqing would feel that she was indeed her parents' daughter, inheriting their stubbornness and dullness, unable to see clearly yet unable to let go.
She eventually came back.
If we can't take them away, we can't at least leave them here to die.
This is a way of repaying the debt of gratitude for raising me, no more and no less.
The wall around their old home was built by Shen Mingjiang using bricks before Shen Qingqing was born.
Over the years, the wind and rain have worn away the mud, making it no longer sturdy. Last year, a section of it was blown down by the wind during a heavy rain, and it still hasn't been repaired. The bricks are still neatly stacked at the base of the wall.
According to Shen Mingjiang, everyone in the village knows each other well, there are no thieves, and the Shen family also keeps a small local dog that is tied up in the yard. It will bark if a stranger comes, so there is no need to renovate the wall.
As for walls that were really easy to collapse, they would use a thick, long wooden stick they found on the mountain to prop them up, and the whole family would walk around them. They managed to fool people like this for several years.
Shen Qingqing originally agreed with this statement, and since she planned to leave after starting university, she couldn't be bothered to care.
But that's not possible now.
With this broken wall, let alone intermediate zombies, it wouldn't be able to stop even two more basic zombies. Once the wall is gone, the whole family will just have to wait to die.
A small courtyard and vegetable garden in the countryside are unique advantages for survival in the apocalypse, and we can't just abandon them.
If something unexpected happens and she is unable to return to school, she will probably have to stay at home for a while.
...Shen Qingqing didn't want to think about such an accident, but considering the recent spate of accidents, she had to make plans in advance.
She made up her mind: "Dad, this wall needs to be repaired."
She gently pushed the red brick wall, and before she could exert much force, some broken bricks, seemingly appearing out of nowhere, began to fall down in a flurry, which was quite frightening to watch.
"You brat, you start tearing the house apart as soon as you get back!" Grandma started yelling again. "Stay away from that wall!"
Zang Lijun rushed over and pulled Shen Qingqing away, afraid that the wall would collapse and hit her daughter: "Don't repair it. I heard that the government will soon have a new policy to move us to resettlement housing. The houses are under construction and they are very new. Don't bother repairing this old house."
"We can't raise chickens or grow vegetables in the new house, and we still have to pay for food. Why move? I don't agree."
Shen Qingqing usually ignored her grandmother's nagging, but this time she felt that she was right.
The village is sparsely populated and not likely to encounter zombies. Besides, the Shen family's old house has a cellar, which is convenient for storing goods and growing vegetables, so it definitely cannot be moved.
“I’ve heard about the village merger, but we’ll have to stay in the old house for at least another year or two before moving there. Spring is coming soon and the rainy season is coming soon. Last time, no one was hurt because everyone in the family was inside. What if this time…” Shen Qingqing advised, “Let’s fix it before the rainy season.”
Zang Lijun hesitated: "But your father's health hasn't been good these past two years..."
After doing a lot of physical labor, my back and knees ache when it rains. Renovating the wall is already considered a heavy job.
Knowing that this reason would be difficult to convince them, Shen Qingqing racked her brains for a while, and suddenly remembered her experience of going up the mountain for the assessment a few days ago, and a flash of inspiration came to her.
"Didn't a wild boar run into our village last year? There have been more and more news reports of wild boars coming down from the mountains and injuring people in the last two years. Mom, you and Grandpa and Grandma are the only three people at home. If something really happens, you have no way to defend yourself. Wild boars aren't thieves. If they really run into the village, Dahuang won't be able to help."
Dahuang is the name of their pet dog, a small mongrel, about the size of a palm, with a small appetite but a very loud bark.
Grandpa Shen Qingqing finally came out of the house, frowning and scolding, "You finally come back, and all you do is spout such bad luck! One minute the wall collapsed, the next a wild boar came down the mountain, what's with all this trouble all day long?!"
"I've lived in this village for almost fifty years, and the last time I saw a wild boar come down from the mountain and into our village was twenty years ago! If you don't want to stay here anymore, go back to school..."
Shen Qingqing turned her head helplessly, pretending not to hear.
She even considered in her mind that if it really didn't work out, she would just give up. She could exchange her points for as many spots as she could, first her mother, then her father and grandmother, and finally her grandfather... She would see how much she had left.
Now that she has the right to choose and the ability to survive on her own, Shen Qingqing was surprised to find that her grandparents' curses and her parents' cowardly indifference could no longer affect her mood.
Thinking of the school thousands of miles away, she felt inexplicably more confident.
Just as Shen Qingqing was about to calmly say that she would let it go and not fix it, several beams of flashlight light suddenly shone outside the courtyard.
Someone shouted in panic, "Oh no! A wild boar! There's a big wild boar in Old Zhang's vegetable garden!"
The four members of the Shen family paused, then suddenly all looked at Grandpa Shen, who was cursing furiously, spitting everywhere.
the latter:"……"
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