Chapter 75 This cannot be considered her leaving willingly...
Smoke and dust billowed up, and the approaching zombies were buried under the collapsed walls.
A barrage of pebbles of varying sizes rained down on Fu Qing. Despite the man's protection, Fu Qing was still hit twice, leaving her dizzy and disoriented.
But the zombie king's condition is only worse than hers.
Its reaction to the knee strike just now confirms that it is clearly not used to controlling the human body, and it also seems quite unfamiliar with the pain and physiological reactions that humans would experience when attacked.
The severe dizziness caused by the impact to the back of its head caused its movements to stop significantly, and it briefly lost its vision, only able to perceive Fu Qing's movements through intuition.
"Do you really think you can win?" it asked vaguely.
"I don't know," Fu Qing's indifferent voice reached its ears, "but I know you will die."
It seemed to sigh: "This meeting was too short. Next time, next time, okay? We must have a proper talk..."
Fu Qing didn't let it finish speaking.
Crack! The man's cervical spine broke, and his body lost its support. His head tilted limply, a helpless smile still lingering on his lips, as he leaned against Fu Qing's shoulder. She used the last of her strength to push him away with disgust.
Each breath was accompanied by a strong smell of blood. Before she completely lost consciousness, she heard several voices coming from afar.
"headmaster!"
"...Over there!"
"Found it!"
The footsteps were hurried; someone was running towards her with all their might.
"Someone help me support the principal. People on the southwest side, be careful. I just heard a giant zombie roar from over there. The explosion didn't kill it—Xue Ran, go help Shen Qingqing..."
One person calmly took command; that was Su Huaijin.
"The corridor at the three o'clock position hasn't completely collapsed. The water pipes have formed a triangular support space, and there should still be two zombies hiding inside. Be careful—how is the principal?"
One of them, while providing intelligence, tried his best to hide the tremor in his voice; it was Liang Yi.
Many others didn't respond, but simply drew their knives and began clearing away the approaching zombies.
They helped Fu Qing up from the ruins. One hand carefully brushed the dust off her hair, while the other tore his clothes into strips and quickly stopped the bleeding.
Without the principal standing behind them, and with no one to back them up, the trainees were forced to grow, and even, in turn, strive to become someone Fuqing could rely on.
They wanted to help her, whether the principal needed it or not.
Just like she did to them.
“Go to sleep if you want to. We will get you out of here safely,” Song Rushuang said firmly.
Fu Qing was surprised to feel a sense of peace that she hadn't felt in a long time, as if there were suddenly a few more companions on the long road she had walked alone.
A suppressed weariness surged from her limbs and bones, and she no longer forced herself to stay upright, being dragged by a force into deeper depths.
*
Fragments of images flashed rapidly before my eyes.
Fu Qing couldn't figure out whether the simulation pod was so advanced that it could create a revolving lantern for people on the verge of death in the instance, or whether the zombie king had forcibly imported her memories of her previous life before her death.
She saw many memories she thought she had forgotten.
During my brief university life, I recalled the scenes of laughing and joking with my roommates, walking to class together; the chaos and turmoil when the apocalypse first broke out, being trapped in the dormitory and standing on the balcony with my neighbor to encourage each other; the help provided by kind people in the shelter; the trusting gazes of my teammates when we fought side by side; and chatting by the campfire at night, imagining the hope written on everyone's faces when the apocalypse ended.
But more often, there are various kinds of death scenes.
What's more vivid in her memory than their lives together is how they died before her eyes. No matter how they looked before, how vibrant and beautiful they were, they were mostly ugly in death.
The bizarre and fantastical scenes intertwine and flicker, like a long film made up of hundreds and thousands of death shots.
The smiling faces, the gentle demeanor, the fearless bravery—all faded gradually during the broadcast, smeared and covered by death and blood.
In the final scene, Fu Qing realized she was lying flat on her back. Due to excessive blood loss, her vision was blurred. Someone lifted her clothes, and she felt a cold touch on her abdomen. The pungent smell of alcohol permeated the air.
I don't know how much time passed, but my senses went numb, and the people around me calmly began to move.
Fu Qing opened her eyes and found herself in an unfamiliar room. The room was covered in dust, but the area beneath her was clean, as if it had been simply cleaned up.
Lu Yan lowered his head and focused on stitching her up.
He inserted the needles very quickly, as if he were in a hurry, but his movements were very skilled, without a single tremor or hesitation.
Upon discovering that Fu Qing had woken up, Lu Yan reached out and covered her eyes with his warm palm.
"Don't be afraid, it will be over soon," he said softly.
Fu Qing noticed his pale face, the slight redness under his eyes, and his dry, chapped lips.
She opened her mouth as if to say something, but ultimately lost consciousness again under the influence of the anesthetic.
The scene shifted, and after an unknown amount of time, the darkness finally dissipated, and Lu Yan had vanished without a trace.
There was someone beside her, but she couldn't see their face. From Fu Qing's perspective, she could only see the other person's mouth opening and closing, but she couldn't hear what they were saying.
Click.
The sound of a gun being cocked and the safety engaged could be heard in the silence.
The man was still talking when, at the end, he raised the gun in his hand.
“…Goodbye,” the other person said softly, their voice muffled and difficult to discern.
A gunshot pierced the sky, jolting Fu Qing awake.
When she got up from the simulator and saw the bright and clean classroom, she was momentarily dazed.
My mind was filled with images of collapsed houses and blood flowing everywhere in the apocalypse, and the final appearance of a black gun.
...Is this her own memory? Or did the simulation pod malfunction, causing other scenes to be grafted onto it?
Otherwise, why would she have no recollection of it?
She was still in a daze when several heads suddenly appeared in her field of vision, calling out "Principal, Principal" incessantly.
Are you alright?
"That's great! We were worried something had happened because your simulator hadn't been opened..."
Song Rushuang and the others were very nervous, but after finding that Fu Qing was alright, they visibly breathed a sigh of relief and started offering explanations all at once.
"I'm sorry, Principal. I didn't know what happened at the time. All the zombies suddenly ran in your direction. Even if we jumped in front of them, we couldn't stop them. It was like they all went crazy."
"We had no other choice, but Xiao Su had a brilliant idea and said we could use the remaining explosives."
"But it seems like it was buried too close... We didn't expect that even the ceiling would collapse in the end."
Liang Yi spoke with lingering fear.
They had only intended to blow up the outer corridor and walls to hinder the zombies from getting closer. When they saw a huge hole suddenly appear in the ceiling and the falling debris instantly burying the entire room, Liang Yi was almost scared out of his wits.
What if the principal was still breathing, but was crushed to death by this?
What if something happens to the principal... wouldn't he become the eternal sinner of Fangzhou!
If it weren't for the others desperately stopping him after discovering that the principal was alright, Liang Yi, who hadn't seen the situation clearly, would have almost cried and offered his life as an apology.
He hadn't recovered yet, while the others started chattering and arguing.
"Who came up with the terrible idea of burying all the remaining explosives inside? People don't even put that much in the outdoors, and ours is a sealed indoor space!"
"—Didn't you say that all of this was okay back then?!"
"I was in a hurry, wasn't I? Teacher Xu only taught me how to make traps with gunpowder, but not how to detonate them!"
"..." Fu Qing had a headache from the noise.
After spending a few months together, these guys became increasingly unrestrained in front of her, frequently revealing their true nature. They were no longer the men who dared not even breathe loudly in the past.
She touched her forehead, determined to ask Xu Mingyue to revise the course schedule when she got back.
"Training this afternoon is canceled. You can all go back and rest," Fu Qing said, and the crowd that had been making a ruckus just moments before fell silent instantly.
Sensing the disdain in her tone, they felt relieved.
The accident left them all shaken, but the principal seemed unaffected and remained as usual.
On the contrary, after seeing that memory, they felt somewhat sorry for her.
"Are you really alright?" After much hesitation, Song Rushuang still asked cautiously.
Fu Qing hummed in agreement. Seeing that she didn't want to say more, the others exchanged glances and obediently left the room.
As the last trainee left the room, Fu Qing nimbly flipped over, jumped out of the simulation pod, and moved her limbs to confirm that the injuries in the garbled dungeon had not affected her real body.
This time, however, it was indeed quite dangerous.
From the moment she regained consciousness, the system in her mind had been frantically calling out to its host until Fu Qing, annoyed by the noise, shouted "Shut up!" in her mind, and it finally quieted down. But the silence exuded a pitiful aura, like that of an abandoned stray dog.
Having confirmed her physical condition, Fu Qing finally had the time to deal with it.
She wasn't in a good mood, and frowned as she asked, "What exactly happened just now?"
The system was on the verge of tears: [With the apocalypse approaching, I've been distracted by monitoring the movements of devout believers around the world, and I momentarily neglected...]
Fu Qing added, "Due to a moment of carelessness, the enemy almost breached our base."
system:【……】
It stammered, "[I'm sorry, host, my abilities haven't fully recovered; there's a vulnerability. The Zombie King's true form can't enter the school, but I didn't expect it to use the simulator's internal network to infiltrate with its consciousness.]"
The system's explanation was similar to Fu Qing's guess.
Because the elite class students use the simulator so frequently, in order to avoid other students coming and going and interfering with the training, Fuqing specially purchased several simulators and placed them in a separate room. They are only opened to other people on campus when the elite class is not using them.
At this moment, Song Rushuang and the others had all left, and there was no one else in the room. Fu Qing leaned against the outer wall of the simulation cabin, preparing to have a "good chat" with the system.
"Can you see what's happening inside the dungeon now?"
Every instance of a dungeon run in the simulation pod is recorded, and since the simulation pod itself is a system item, it can naturally monitor everything that happens inside.
Although the zombie king blocked the system connection when it invaded, its consciousness has now left, the simulation pod has returned to normal, and the system can naturally go back and review the records.
As for how I finally cleared the garbled text dungeon—
The missions in regular dungeons are basically divided into three types: rescuing the target, killing the boss, and escaping from the designated location.
In this process, some additional side quests are added, but they generally fall into these three categories.
For example, while escaping from a certain place, you can kill zombies along the way.
For example, rescuing the target and then leading them to escape from a certain location.
For example, in the Xiao Juan instance, you can search for the kidnapped target while retrieving the supplies that were taken away with the target.
After analyzing the situation, Su Huaijin and others unanimously agreed that the mission in the garbled copy should also follow this pattern: rescue Fu Qing, kill the traitor, and then escape the park.
As it turns out, their judgment based on experience was correct.
After Fu Qing was taken away from the factory area, the instance began to automatically disintegrate. Soon, a completion sign appeared in front of everyone, and they all safely escaped from the simulation pod.
Of course, the more important reason is that the zombie king, who was the instigator, had his consciousness forced to leave after the death of his parasitic host, which allowed the garbled dungeon to return to the normal dungeon mode.
The system had already seen Fu Qing's footage inside the instance and was sweating bullets listening to her conversation with the Zombie King.
When exactly did the host guess so much?
As a high-dimensional creation with great intelligence and ability, the system always harbors an unconscious arrogance when facing the bound humans.
Just like the Zombie King always viewed humans as exploitable ants, the system, unlike the former, stands on the side of justice.
Fu Qing was the first person to change its mind.
Put away your contempt and treat others with the same care you would show to your fellow human beings.
The system was still choosing its words.
“I’ve already guessed some of it, but I need your confirmation. I can’t let my students be completely unaware when we face believers again,” Fu Qing said. “Cooperation is based on honesty and openness. If things aren’t clear, I can’t continue to work with you.”
Fu Qing guessed that the system was probably constrained by some rules and restrictions, preventing it from proactively revealing information related to the world framework.
So while it may occasionally give hints and reward Fuqing when he discovers new content on his own, most of the time, when Fuqing realizes something is wrong and asks for help, the system will respond with silence or very little information.
This is a higher-dimensional concept—probably something that a tiny human like her, caught up in the grip of fate, could not possibly know.
But she insisted on knowing.
Fu Qing's last words made the system somewhat anxious. It subconsciously replied: "[If you abandon the mission, you will be automatically sent back to the moment before your death—]"
However, the words that once threatened Fu Qing no longer have any effect on her.
After nearly a year of getting to know each other, she realized that the system's urgency to correct the world's ending was no less than that of the humans living in this world.
Perhaps it's because, as a system, that's the whole point of its existence.
Its entanglement with the Zombie King has lasted for two lifetimes. It seems that unless it is a life-or-death struggle that leads the timeline to a fixed end, this battle will continue.
Finding weaknesses—exploiting weaknesses—openly threatening—Fu Qing couldn't be more skilled at this process: "A year is almost over, and the good days are coming to an end. Rather than staying in this world to fight the zombie king and his large number of troublesome minions, it would be better to go back and get a bite taken out of me."
"If I leave..." she paused suddenly, then said softly, "it probably won't be easy to find someone more suitable than me, will it?"
She had a kind of shameless, "I'm not afraid of boiling water" attitude, and her tone was utterly nasty.
The system was shocked by the host's confident and shameless attitude.
After much hesitation, it finally relented, saying dejectedly, "That's right, you can think of the Zombie King as an existence similar to me. We are creations of a higher dimension, arising due to the needs of the current world's development."
For example, when the life of a small world comes to an end, the world's consciousness needs to find a reasonable way to end it—you don't need to show that expression; world consciousness is an ethereal existence, without emotions, without physical form, and certainly cannot be resisted.
For it, ending is also rebirth; only when the decaying and scattered become mud can new life find soil to take root and sprout. Countless microcosms thus endlessly cycle through life and death, endlessly regenerating and repeating—this is the way the world works, without right or wrong.
Whether it is right or wrong should be judged by the life that has been deprived of its future.
Fu Qing remained noncommittal about the system's words, as her perspective differed from itss.
The system stated, "The 'zombie virus' was created by the world's consciousness to provide a plausible 'method' for ending this small world." It continued, "Therefore, I say its appearance is fixed and cannot be prevented or brought forward. Neither I nor the Zombie King have the right to change it."
[In other smaller worlds, this phenomenon might occur due to a meteorite impact, the release of an ancient virus caused by melting glaciers, an invasion of alien species, or even a massive flood… In fact, some of these disasters have already occurred in your current world; the death of previous species created the space for the emergence of humanity. In a sense, you are also a beneficiary.]
System explanation.
This cannot be a reason for Fu Qing to willingly walk towards death.
So she just listened quietly.
The Zombie King is the executioner of this disaster, responsible for overseeing and ensuring its smooth execution. The system paused. "As for me, I am its opposite."
Fu Qing finally spoke: "Were you born to fight against the world's consciousness?"
She was a little skeptical, always feeling that the system was cowardly and didn't have that much courage.
"No, I am also a creation of the world's consciousness," the system said. "He is fair and willing to give struggling lives a chance to resist, which is why I came into being."
When everything becomes irreversible, if someone still refuses to submit, refuses to obediently accept death, and still seeks every sliver of possibility to resist—then I will be born into this world.
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