Chapter 18: Conserving Energy
With the help of the stun gun, the three of them smoothly took care of several zombies and headed straight down to the first floor.
Chi Xiaoxian was thoroughly shaken by the scene before his eyes.
A massive pool of deep red blood stretched all the way from the janitor’s closet to the stairwell landing, with dragged and splattered bloodstains covering every surface. The white marble floor had been turned into a garish, harrowing painting.
They didn’t have time to investigate why Liu Xi had escaped from the basement, rushing immediately to the charging room outside the building. The courtyard area around the dormitory building was equally pitch-black; who knew what kind of monsters were lurking in the dark corners?
The moment they stepped into the charging room, Fang Yue closed the door at lightning speed. Chi Xiaoxian turned on his phone’s flashlight to provide light for him, but fearing it might attract the zombies outside, he covered half the beam with his hand.
Examining the hoverboard docked on the charging station, Fang Yue said to Chi Xiaoxian, “There should be a toolbox in the charging room. See if you can find it.”
Yuan Chengmin hovered over curious, leaning in beside Fang Yue. “Aren’t you from the School of Life Sciences? You even know how to do this stuff?”
“I took mechanical engineering and circuits during my freshman year.”
“What did you take that for?”
“It was interesting.”
Just as he finished speaking, his brows knit together—he realized the charging station couldn’t scan a QR code to unlock the hoverboard because the power was out.
Retrieving the hammer brought over from the print shop earlier, he padded the floor with his own clothing to muffle the sound of the hammer striking the ground, then brought it down heavily.
Once, twice… the lock finally snapped open.
Meanwhile, Chi Xiaoxian managed to unearth a toolbox from a pile of junk in the corner. The box was heavy and covered in dust; clutching his nose, Chi Xiaoxian dusted it off with his hand and flipped it open to find quite a collection of tools inside.
“The smallest size screwdriver.”
“Here.”
By this time, Chi Xiaoxian could smoothly identify quite a few tools.
Fang Yue unscrewed the footboard of the hoverboard, exposing a heap of metallic hardware and a circuit board inside. Aside from the circuit board, Chi Xiaoxian didn’t recognize a single component, watching Fang Yue tinker with quiet curiosity.
The hoverboards uniformly deployed across their school operated via foot pressure sensors—leaning the ball of the foot forward moved it ahead, leaning back engaged the brake, while steering was controlled by swaying the body left or right.
To use the hoverboard to drag aluminum cans while controlling its direction, Fang Yue had initially considered using weighted objects to mimic human weight and steer it, but he deemed that approach inefficient.
In truth, all they needed was for the hoverboard to move continuously in a specific direction. The fastest way, therefore, was to remove the pressure sensor entirely—forcing the hoverboard to only drive straight forward, eliminating the ability to brake or turn.
Fang Yue cleanly pried the component off, wired the remaining circuits together, and screwed the cover plate back on. Turning the switch on, he manually set the speed; the hoverboard drove straight forward, completely free of any need for a human standing atop it to steer.
“It worked!” Chi Xiaoxian exclaimed in delight.
Fang Yue then punched two holes through the aluminum cans, tied a string to them, and hooked them to the back of the hoverboard. The hoverboard smoothly dragged the cans forward, the metal scraping against the marble floor with a sharp *sizzle*.
Out on the concrete road, that noise would be amplified several times over.
Just as the three were feeling a slight sense of relief, a massive *BANG* gripped their hearts in an instant.
“There are zombies outside!” Yuan Chengmin cried out in sheer terror.
*BANG—!*
*BANG—!*
*BANG—!*
The sounds were heavy, blunt, and muffled, delivering a sense of immense force.
The charging room had no glass windows, possessing only a narrow, unsealed ventilation slit up near the ceiling. That slit was what saved their lives, preventing the zombies from smashing through a window to get inside, but it also blocked their line of sight, leaving them unable to determine what was happening outside.
Fang Yue patted his own shoulder, signaling Chi Xiaoxian.
“I’ll go up and check?”
“Mm.”
Fang Yue dropped into a half-squat. Chi Xiaoxian had somehow developed a tacit understanding with him on this matter, stepping decisively onto Fang Yue’s shoulders. As Fang Yue slowly stood up, Chi Xiaoxian reached out to grip the bars of the ventilation slit, hauling himself up with all his strength until his eyes were level with the grate.
“…There are three of them.”
“Another three!” Yuan Chengmin let out a muffled gasp. “This whole journey really is thrilling.”
When Chi Xiaoxian climbed down from Fang Yue’s shoulders, his arm accidentally brushed against Fang Yue’s hair.
Realizing he had messed up the top student’s hair, Chi Xiaoxian instinctively reached out to smooth it back down.
Fang Yue cast an inquiring glance toward him, and only then did Chi Xiaoxian realize he had done something rather bold—the equivalent of stroking a tiger’s tail.
Looking away casually, he pretended as if nothing had happened.
“What do we do now? How about we lay low here and wait a bit? Maybe if the zombies outside can’t smash their way in, they’ll just give up,” Yuan Chengmin suggested.
Fang Yue reached out to touch the door panel. “If they keep pounding like this, the door might not hold out.”
The door panel of the charging room was even more dilapidated than the old doors in their dormitory, made of a thin layer of stainless steel plate, with aluminum materials used at the door hinges that deformed with extreme ease.
Chi Xiaoxian had sharp eyes and noticed that the surface of the door was indeed already showing signs of caving inward.
“What if I don’t know how to fight?” Yuan Chengmin said in fear. “I’ve just been hiding the whole time inside the dorm building until now.”
No sooner had he uttered those words than the pounding sound intensified abruptly—*CLANG, CLANG, CLANG!*—accompanied by a series of raspy, low growls.
“The door conducts electricity!” A thought flashed through Chi Xiaoxian’s brain. “We can shock them all unconscious while they’re slamming against the door!”
Fang Yue had thought of this method almost simultaneously—their best weapon at the moment was the stun gun!
“Can it really work through a door panel, though?” Yuan Chengmin asked, somewhat skeptical.
“Let’s test it out first.”
Fang Yue instructed Yuan Chengmin to hold the stun gun at the doorway and shock them right as the impact landed, while Chi Xiaoxian remained perched at the window to observe.
Following the first shock, the entire door vibrated with a loud hum. Chi Xiaoxian said in delight, “One went down!”
Yuan Chengmin rubbed his hands together, mentally counting down the rhythm of the impacts. *BANG!* He activated the stun gun almost at the exact same moment.
However, the stun gun offered no reaction whatsoever, save for the indicator button near the bottom turning into a pulsing red light.
Yuan Chengmin pressed it twice more, but the stun gun still didn’t respond, its red light merely flashing.
“What’s going on?”
Fang Yue took it over to take a look. “Dead battery.”
“What do we do then? Power is out everywhere here now—where are we supposed to charge it?”
“We can connect it to the hoverboard’s battery pack. The hoverboard’s battery is twelve amp-hours, far larger than the original battery it came with.”
Fang Yue suited action to word, resolving it in just two or three quick moves. However, the hoverboard battery was quite bulky, making the stun gun no longer portable. Fearing his hands wouldn’t hold it steady and cause a disconnect, Yuan Chengmin had no choice but to set the battery pack on the floor and squat down to operate it.
Currents surged through the metal door again and again. Zombies threw themselves forward repeatedly only to be zapped unconscious, eventually piling up at the doorway like a game of Jenga.
Shoving open the door blocked by the zombies, they took advantage of the group being out cold to sprint through the main gates of the dormitory courtyard at top speed.
The academic building housing the unmanned convenience store was located directly east of the dormitories. Fang Yue turned a hoverboard around, setting it up to drag the aluminum cans toward the north.
As for why he didn’t send it in the opposite direction, Fang Yue feared that zombies drawn by the sound would run head-on into them, which would achieve the exact opposite of their goal.
Considering that running produced a massive commotion, whereas a hoverboard traveling at high speed merely made minor friction sounds against the pavement, each of them retrieved a hoverboard of their own to minimize the noise of their movement as much as possible. If they encountered zombies midway, however, unless they turned nimbly, there would be a risk of wiping out.
Fang Yue pressed the switch, and the hoverboard set off toward the designated direction dragging two aluminum cans right on schedule. Metal dragged across the concrete pavement, producing an ear-splitting screech that pierced through the heavy, dead night like a sharp needle.
Chi Xiaoxian began sensing restless noises in the surrounding darkness, resembling the eerie gleam flashing in the eyes of wild beasts within a dark jungle.
“Hurry up,” Fang Yue reminded them.
The three activated their respective hoverboards, adjusting them to maximum speed as they hurtled eastward.
There were a few scattered, wandering zombies on the campus roads at night. Chi Xiaoxian and Fang Yue bypassed them rapidly without paying them any mind. Only Yuan Chengmin was unpracticed; taking a turn too aggressively without slowing down in advance, he was flung straight off, taking a heavy stumble.
Carried by inertia, his hoverboard slid straight forward without looking back, plunging into the river with a loud *splash*.
Scrambling to his feet in a flurry, Yuan Chengmin didn’t dare delay for a fraction of a second, continuing to sprint forward on foot.
Hearing the commotion behind them, Chi Xiaoxian and Fang Yue turned around to double back for him.
Although the hoverboard was designed for only one person to stand on, its round platform wasn’t particularly narrow. If two people each stood on one half, it was manageable in a pinch.
“Hop up and ride with me,” Chi Xiaoxian said.
Yuan Chengmin nodded in gratitude. “My balance isn’t very good.”
“Chi Xiaoxian, ride with me,” Fang Yue said suddenly. “If he’s not practiced, it’ll be easier for both of you to fall.”
Without hesitation, Chi Xiaoxian obediently stepped onto Fang Yue’s hoverboard.
Fang Yue asked, “I’ll handle the steering?”
Chi Xiaoxian nodded.
To avoid interfering with the steering, Chi Xiaoxian tried his best to maintain his balance, wrapping his arms around Fang Yue’s waist in the process. Fang Yue liked wearing loose shirts tucked slightly into his trousers, which made his waist look quite narrow, yet when Chi Xiaoxian’s hands touched it, it felt surprisingly solid.
*Working out really is great—*
The tactile feeling was quite novel. Just as Chi Xiaoxian wanted to feel it a bit more, he suddenly sensed an implicit gaze of warning above his head.
“Behave yourself.”
“Oh.”
Chi Xiaoxian lowered his eyelids instantly, pretending to watch the road. His eyelashes fluttered lightly, as docile as a young deer.
Before long, he found their current posture somewhat awkward.
Fang Yue was taller than him. His faintly warm breath happened to brush lightly against Chi Xiaoxian’s forehead where his fringe rested, giving his skin a slightly itchy sensation. Moreover, they were standing face-to-face, his eyes happening to line up right with Fang Yue’s lips, making it look as though he were staring straight at them.
To avoid seeming so offensive, Chi Xiaoxian was forced to tilt his head aside, his neck extending slightly forward like a turtle.
This pose was thoroughly exhausting, and his neck went stiff in no time.
Being naturally adept at observation, however, he quickly discovered a supreme posture—one that perfectly accommodated their height difference, avoided social awkwardness, and prevented him from breathing in the carbon dioxide produced by his upstream partner, Fang Yue.
And so, he rested his head directly into the hollow of Fang Yue’s neck.
It was practically a natural valley!
*Talk about conserving energy,* Chi Xiaoxian thought with deep satisfaction.
As for Fang Yue’s expression…
Anyway, with his face buried in the guy’s neck, as long as he couldn’t see it, he could just pretend nothing was happening!
