Chapter 15: Malice
Returning to the scene, Wang Xu and Tian Sheng furiously pounded on their dorm door, the thunderous rumbles echoing throughout the stairwell.
Even Yuan Chengmin from downstairs messaged them worriedly to ask about the situation.
This time, however, no matter what they said, Fang Yue and Chi Xiaoxian would not open the door again.
Wang Xu growled in a low voice, “You two idiots actually gave food to someone else!”
“You don’t know, do you? It’s all going to end up in our hands anyway,” Tian Sheng sneered.
“This is your last chance. Hurry up and open the door, get on your knees to apologize to us, and hand over the food quietly, or you’ll eat a good fruit!”
“…Fruit juice?!”
Chi Xiaoxian pretended to be excited, shouting through the door, “What fruit juice? Where’s the good fruit juice to drink?”
“Are you fucking playing dumb with me?!”
Wang Xu jingled the ring of keys in his hand, saying darkly, “It doesn’t matter if you don’t open the door. We found a spare key at the front desk. Locking your door won’t do you any good.”
Chi Xiaoxian turned his gaze to Fang Yue, asking softly, “What do we do?”
Fang Yue raised an eyebrow, looking at him with a complex expression. “You don’t know what to do and you’re still fanning the flames?”
“I just felt like you were pretty confident,” Chi Xiaoxian chuckled. “So I’m not nervous either.”
Fang Yue turned around and said, “Let’s go, back to the room. Ignore them. I stuffed the keyhole with chewing gum.”
Chi Xiaoxian asked in surprise, “You guessed they had a spare key?”
“Li Tong was the dorm head before; he definitely had keys to all our rooms,” Fang Yue said nonchalantly. “This door isn’t double-locked—locking it from the inside still lets someone open it with a key from the outside, so this was the only option.”
Chi Xiaoxian realized that made sense. He and Fang Yue generally didn’t go out. Even if they did, as long as they didn’t leave at the same time and kept one person in the room, they could open the door normally.
If they were to leave at the same time—it would basically mean they were at the end of their rope and had no choice but to leave this place.
Outside the door, seeing no response from the people inside, Wang Xu and Tian Sheng flew into a rage. Wang Xu snatched the key from Tian Sheng’s hand, inserted it into the lock, and turned it a few times, only to find it completely jammed. Tian Sheng tried as well, failing all the same.
Pulling the key back out, he saw sticky white gunk on the tip.
Wang Xu realized instantly that they had been outsmarted by the other side once again.
“You two really do things to the absolute extreme!” Wang Xu went mad with rage. “If we don’t have enough food, we’ll open the main door to the dorm building, and no one will have a good time!”
It was a desperate, scorched-earth threat, but neither Chi Xiaoxian nor Fang Yue paid it any mind.
The commotion at the doorway continued for a little while longer before the sound of fading footsteps finally echoed out, until all noise vanished completely.
Chi Xiaoxian listened intently for a moment, letting out a sigh of relief. Ever since moving back to the dorm, one incident had followed another. He felt deeply that internal conflicts were sometimes far more terrifying than external threats.
“If we have to flee the dorms, where can we even go?” Chi Xiaoxian murmured to himself.
“By the time we need to flee the dorms, we can probably just leave the school entirely,” Fang Yue had thought about this question. “By then, the situation inside and outside the school will likely be about the same.”
“Then I want to go back to find my grandmother,” Chi Xiaoxian sighed, saying with a trace of worry, “I called her yesterday, and she said infections had appeared in the Tenth District as well. Fortunately, she stocked up on food in advance, so she doesn’t need to go out anymore.”
“There will be some difficulty,” Fang Yue pondered for a moment. “You’ll have to find a car yourself, or hitch a ride with someone else. The public transit system outside has likely collapsed.”
Chi Xiaoxian also felt it was a bit difficult, considering he didn’t know how to drive.
“Where do you plan to go, then? Going home?”
“I’m going to District Six.”
“Your family lives in District Six?” Chi Xiaoxian asked curiously. “Then your family must be pretty wealthy—the environment in District Six is amazing.”
In the Southern United Highlands, Districts One through Three belonged to the Core Region. Few residents bought homes here; most were public dormitories built by government departments for civil servants to live in. Due to scarce land, the per capita living space was less than ten square meters.
It was only from District Four through District Six that large-scale residential housing began, though practically only the wealthy could afford it. These three districts surrounded the Core Region, housing many subordinate units of core departments, functioning as a secondary political center. They also featured large shopping malls, top-tier hospitals, and premier schools, with exquisite public greenery and parks, making them very livable.
Although the United Highlands boasting thirteen districts sounded massive in scale, the total area of the entire Highlands was only 150,000 square kilometers—roughly the size of a single large city in pre-cataclysm Asia.
After the first six districts were built, the Southern United Highlands officially declared its establishment. The remaining seven districts only gained relatively complete infrastructure five years later.
In the Highlands, a resident’s ID card clearly specified which district they belonged to. Chi Xiaoxian’s ID stated District Ten, while Fang Yue’s was District Six.
“If you’re heading back to District Six, you can take me along,” Chi Xiaoxian rubbed his hands together excitedly. “I’m going to District Ten, so it’s quite on the way.”
“You’re actually glomming onto me?”
“How could I? I want to take you as my big brother,” Chi Xiaoxian blinked. “Do you see a chance for me?”
“Only the weak rely on others.”
“I *am* the weak.”
“…You need to become stronger, not lean on your weakness to sell your weakness.”
Chi Xiaoxian shook his head: “I’ve been like this since I was little. My daily energy is extremely limited. A tiny bit of studying or exercise leaves me so exhausted I just want to lie down. If I force myself to strive, something will definitely go wrong with my body after a while—either gastroenteritis, acute hives, or an inexplicable fever…”
“Then all the more reason I can’t take on a deadweight like you,” Fang Yue looked at him indifferently. “I’d even have to take care of you.”
“No, you don’t understand the karmic bonds of this world,” Chi Xiaoxian put on a profoundly mysterious expression. “Have you heard a story? A woman got into a car accident and was near death, but survived in the end. The doctor discovered that her silicone breast implants protected her internal organs and vital organs from damage.”
Hearing this story made Fang Yue’s brows knit tightly into a scowl.
Chi Xiaoxian also felt this analogy was a bit strange—wouldn’t that be equivalent to saying he was Fang Yue’s silicone breast implant…
He wanted to think of another one, but Fang Yue interrupted him: “You do have one prominent strength.”
“What?”
“Extremely good at talking absolute nonsense.”
—
Having taken two losses from Fang Yue and Chi Xiaoxian, Wang Xu and Tian Sheng weren’t overly disheartened, as they had already scavenged enough food to last another five days.
As for the people who had been scavenged, they couldn’t care less about them.
Dividing the spoils, Wang Xu babbled away: “Between the two of us, it’s sixty-forty for me, since I put in more effort.” He raised his hand and clapped Tian Sheng heavily on the back: “With that small frame of yours, if you were on your own, you’d be lucky not to get robbed—where would you get the nerve to rob others?”
Tian Sheng’s eyes flickered slightly, but he said nothing, quietly accepting it.
After finishing dividing the spoils on the first floor, they turned around and bumped into Zhao Yiru, who was coming downstairs to deliver food to her boyfriend, holding two cartons of milk in her hand.
After Liu Xi got infected, he ate almost nothing, so she had no choice but to connect two straws together every day to feed him some milk and water from a distance.
“Yo!” Wang Xu gave a warm greeting. “Looks like I forgot about you. Which room do you live in again?”
Zhao Yiru looked at them guardedly: “What are you doing?”
“Your boyfriend has turned into a zombie—what’s the point of feeding him? It’s a waste to eat it anyway. Better give it to me.” Wang Xu reached out his hand.
Zhao Yiru’s eyes widened. “Are you out of your minds? This is my own stuff. I can give it to whoever I want—is it any of your business?”
Wang Xu slowly stood up from his chair.
Seeing that things looked wrong, Zhao Yiru quickly opened the door to the janitor’s closet to hide inside, but she was still a step too slow.
Wang Xu snatched the milk straight out of her hand.
Zhao Yiru scrambled back to fight for it. Unable to overpower him, she grabbed Wang Xu’s arm and bit straight down. Wang Xu hadn’t expected her to be so relentless, raising his hand and slapping her across the face.
Zhao Yiru’s foot slipped, and with a dull *THUD*, she fell into the basement.
The basement was less than two square meters, yet very deep, impossible to climb down without placing a ladder. Wang Xu went blank for two seconds, walking cautiously to the basement opening to look down.
Inside was a pitch-black void. Switching on a flashlight, he saw Zhao Yiru landing right on top of the bound Liu Xi, her eyes half-open and motionless—a thoroughly gruesome sight.
Wang Xu felt a pang of panic, shouting her name: “Hey, stop playing dead.”
“Blood! Blood!” Tian Sheng, who had leaned over as well, said in sheer terror.
The flashlight beam swept across the wall, where a metal plate jutted out. On the silver plate was a streak of bright red blood and a sunken dent from an impact.
“Screw it.”
Wang Xu steeled his heart, deciding to pretend as if nothing had happened.
Even if Zhao Yiru were found dead in the basement, everyone would only assume she had slipped and fallen in while feeding her boyfriend—no one would suspect him.
He straightened his back, preparing to leave, when a violent push slammed into him from behind.
Before he could react, he pitched straight down into the pitch-black basement as well.
Tian Sheng swiftly shut the cover plate over the basement entrance, then piled everything he could move inside the janitor’s closet right on top of it.
Having done all this, he collapsed onto the floor in exhaustion, yet let out a long sigh of relief.
“Hahaha… Hahaha…” He let out a low, raspy laugh. “Dog, finally got rid of you. It was bad enough that a bitch like Li Tong bossed me around—what the hell are you?”
Standing up and dusting the grime off his rear, he turned and closed the door to the janitor’s closet.
Zhao Yiru had fallen into the basement; this door would never be opened by anyone again.
*I can get a good night’s sleep tonight,* Tian Sheng thought happily. Stuffing a bag to the brim with all the scavenged food, he hummed a little tune, swaying as he headed back to his own dorm.
After taking a shower, he opened a packet of instant noodles to reward himself, adding two sausages to boot.
Sated and full, he lay back in bed. The exhaustion from running around all day finally washed away his earlier excitement, and he quickly sank into a deep slumber.
In his dream, he heard someone pounding on the door.
*Wang Xu returned late again?*
*Gotta open the door for him—getting slow means taking a scolding.* His subconscious registered the thought.
He walked over to the door groggily. The instant he opened it, he suddenly snapped somewhat awake.
*Didn’t Wang Xu already… today?*
He forced his heavy eyelids open. Seeing the person outside the door, he was just about to scream when his neck was clamped firmly in a grip.
That scream failed to make it out in the end—a hole was bitten straight out of his throat in the next second.
Blood gushed out, and he instinctively pressed his hand against his neck, his vision beginning to blur.
The very last thought remaining in his consciousness was—he still had so much food he hadn’t had time to enjoy, hadn’t yet happily watched the others wait for death… it couldn’t end just like this…
