The next two days passed peacefully.
The six of them spent half a day taking inventory of the warehouse's stock, and then gathered together to study the campus map. But they kept looking at the same places over and over again, and further study was just theoretical; after a while, they couldn't come up with anything new, so they stopped discussing it.
Breaking out is certainly thrilling, but it keeps one focused. Staying put may seem safe, but one's spirit can slowly dissipate in the calm and monotonous wait. It's hard to say which is better, but the six of them are indeed feeling rather bored right now.
The eighth day since the zombie outbreak, and the fourth day since entering the supermarket, the weather was cloudy turning overcast.
"We need to find something to do, or we'll all become listless." Song Fei couldn't take it anymore, so he got up and paced back and forth, racking his brains for ideas.
"Don't waste your energy," Zhou Yilu said, taking a Pocky stick from the box of Glico Pocky in Qiao Siqi's hand and putting it in his mouth. "No books, no internet, no poker, no mahjong, we're sick of playing murder mystery games. We're just six people without any support, we can't play truth or dare."
Qiao Siqi quickly covered the remaining cookies, refusing Zhou Yilu's second attempt to reach out: "Truth or dare is fine, but what about the real truth? Run out and fight zombies? Or eat a couple of mouthfuls of laundry detergent?"
Luo Geng was speechless: "You've already fallen to this state, isn't that risky enough? Don't court death."
Zhou Yilu stroked his chin and thought for a long time before suggesting, "How about we play a word chain game?"
Song Fei: "..."
Qiao Siqi: "..."
Luogeng: "..."
Lin Dilei: "You can give it a try."
Qi Yan: "I agree."
Three against three, although not more than half, it was still a rare achievement, so the game started quickly.
Qiao Siqi: "Me first! Me first! You're insane!"
Luogeng: "A violent storm!"
Zhou Yilu: "Like bamboo shoots after a spring rain!"
Song Fei: "..."
Qi Yan: "..."
Lin Dilei: "..."
—And it died soon after.
Song Fei almost wanted to present Zhou Lu with a banner embroidered with eight large characters: "Master of Clearance, Guardian of Quiet."
Yawning wearily, Song Fei picked up his phone to check the time: 12:10 PM. No wonder he was so sleepy… Wait, Song Fei's eyes widened as he looked at the date on his phone again, belatedly realizing: "Comrades, today is Christmas!"
One sentence was enough to rouse everyone's attention, and they all grabbed their phones to look.
"I'll go."
"That's true."
"I've gotten so confused about how I live my life, haha."
No one noticed that a pair of jealous eyes were staring at them with hatred.
Qiao Siqi took a big bite and chewed half a Pocky stick!
"Sigh, last Christmas, I set up a stall in the city square to draw portrait sketches. Lots of single girls who came out to celebrate the holiday with their girlfriends surrounded me. It was so beautiful." Zhou Yilu lay sprawled on his mat, reminiscing about the past with endless fond memories.
Lin Dilei exclaimed in surprise, "You can also draw sketches?"
Zhou Yilu sat up and said seriously, "It's a proper early training program. I was forced to go to art classes before I even started school."
Lin Dilei looked Zhou Yilu up and down incredulously: "You can play guitar, you can sketch, and you even bought a knife in Japan just so you could have Japanese food in your dorm. Why don't you have a girlfriend?"
Zhou Yilu thought about it very hard, and finally shrugged: "I don't know either."
Song Fei and Qiao Siqi knew: "Because we don't see eye to eye, even half a sentence is too much!"
After hesitating for a long time, Luo Geng quietly approached Lin Dilei and said weakly, "Although I can't sketch, I can do derivatives..."
Lin Dilei thought for a long time but couldn't think of a way to respond, so she turned to Song Fei and the others and asked, "How did you spend Christmas last year?"
Qiao Siqi rattled off a story, clearly having a vivid memory: "I translated a Santa Claus horror movie. Ugh, it completely subverted the formula, shattered the fairy tale, and had a really dark ending. Let me think... what was it called again..."
"You don't need to mention its glorious name, thank you." Song Fei quickly stopped her, while searching her memory for her Christmas last year.
This wasn't a memory that was too difficult to grasp; in fact, it was so luminous that Song Fei saw it as soon as he opened the memory box.
She looked up and met Qi Yan's gaze. Whether he was looking at her by chance or had been watching her the whole time, there was an emotion flickering in his eyes that was hard to define.
"Hmm?" Lin Dilei was still waiting for Song Fei's reply.
Song Fei looked away and shrugged: "I went to the pedestrian street in the city center and got squeezed like a dog by the crowds."
Lin Dilei imagined the scene for a while, and then, whether intentionally or unintentionally, she asked Qi Yan, "What about you? How did you spend Christmas last year?"
Qi Yan smiled wryly: "I lost my wallet, and the chase for the thief failed."
Lin Dilei nodded. Sure enough, this was a TV series.
Luo Geng waited for a long time but the goddess didn't come to favor him. He wasn't discouraged, so he simply went and brought over a lot of apple-flavored Fanta cans. There weren't enough on the shelves, so he went to the warehouse to make up for it. He slowly arranged them into a cone tower that was half a person high. Looking around, it was a magical green.
Lin Dilei boldly guessed: "A Christmas tree?"
Luo Geng nodded vigorously.
Lin Dilei chuckled.
Luo Geng was so happy he was almost breathless.
The atmosphere instantly brightened, the dullness and gloom vanished, and the festive joy gradually emerged. The friends opened two more bags of ChaCha sunflower seeds, cut the red packaging into strips, glued them together, and arranged them like ribbons on the "Christmas tree." With red and green accents, it was both lifelike and perfect.
The six people sat in a circle. Qiao Siqi had already piled up a bunch of snacks in the middle, and everyone had a can of cola in their hand. They raised their glasses and clinked them together.
"as!"
If no one gives us light in the darkness, we will light our own lamp.
Eight glasses filled with varying amounts of water were placed on the floor, arranged in order of increasing water level. Zhou Yilu used the metal chopsticks he had borrowed from Song Fei, and with a clink, began to play.
One note after another emerged from the rhythmic tapping of Zhou Yi, unhurried and clear, eventually flowing into a familiar melody, like snowflakes dancing in the wind, cheerful, light, and full of childlike fun.
Lin Dilei couldn't help but hum along: "Jingle bells, jingle bells~~jingle all the way~~ride~sleighhey~~~"
Song Fei couldn't resist singing along, but she only managed two lines of "jinglebells" before realizing she didn't know the rest of the English words, so it just became "bells ringing." Realizing it was quite unsightly, she quickly shut up and joined everyone else as a quiet listener.
"dw~~-sleigh~~o'erthefieldswego~~laughingalltheway~~bobtailring~~"
Lin Dilei's voice is as melodious as a nightingale's, lively and playful when bright, and gentle and warm when soft. If you close your eyes and listen, you can almost see a snow-covered town, houses with fireplaces burning, and windows that are lit up.
Just as everyone was immersed in the dreamlike holiday atmosphere, a heart-wrenching scream shattered the tranquility of the Christmas night—
"Help me!!!"
The six people were all jolted in unison, and in the sudden tremor, they returned to reality.
"Help! Help!"
"Help--"
"Ahhhh—"
The person calling for help wasn't alone!
At the same time, loud banging could be heard coming from the glass door at the supermarket entrance!
The six of them dared not delay any longer and darted up like lightning, heading straight for the main gate!
Qiao Siqi ran ahead, arriving first and moving the shelf blocking the door without hesitation. Qi Yan, who arrived shortly after, didn't wait for him to finish moving it all before reaching in through the gap and lifting the cotton curtain!
A group of tall, muscular male classmates suddenly came into view!
There were countless students, some of whom were so close that their faces were practically pressed against the door. Upon seeing them, they pounded on the door even more frantically—no, they practically smashed it!
The sound of banging on the door and cries for help was deafening!
Song Fei arrived shortly after, carrying the keys to seven or eight locks. However, there were many classmates outside, and even more zombies chasing after them. As Song Fei reached for the keys, he saw two more classmates being dragged away by zombies.
"Get on the roof—" Qi Yan suddenly shouted through the crack in the door, "They can't climb stairs, hurry up and get on the roof!"
If all seven locks were opened one by one, there would probably be no remains outside the door!
Some quick-thinking students were the first to react and immediately ran to both sides. The power of example is boundless; in less than two seconds, the students gathered in front of the door scattered in a flash. Whether they formed a human pyramid or climbed up by hand, they must have all gone off to use their own unique methods.
The six of them quickly ran back, and without hesitation, they all gathered under the ventilation window that Qi Yan had climbed over – the window in the toilet was too low, and if the zombies heard the noise and gathered there, the consequences would be unimaginable.
Qi Yan climbed to the top of the iron shelf, opened the ventilation window, and shouted towards the roof: "Here, come in through the window—"
Soon, the first student was brought in.
Later, Luo Geng also climbed up to help Qi Yan pick up the students. It took about ten minutes to bring in a total of seventeen students.
Once everyone had landed safely, the six of them realized that although their clothing varied, most were casual sportswear, and they were all boys, some tall, some short, some slender, some muscular, but without exception, they all exuded a powerful masculine aura. It was a completely different kind of charisma from ordinary classmates; it was obvious even on a single person, let alone seventeen or more.
"From the sports academy?" Qi Yan locked the window and jumped down from the shelf.
"Yeah. We were really going to die, so we had to give it our all. I thought I was going to die for sure, my legs were shaking with fear. Luckily, I'm fucking lucky to be alive." The speaker was a classmate about the same height as Qi Yan, but he looked more muscular and strong. He was wearing a gray tracksuit with a loose black long down jacket over it, the zipper was undone and just left open. "You guys know how to find a place, huh? The dorm is practically a den of thieves, damn it!"
While the boy was talking to Qi Yan, a dozen or so others scattered in a flash, all heading towards the food section.
Qi Yan wanted to ask a few more questions, but seeing that the others had disappeared, the man ignored him and turned to run off in the same direction, yelling, "Hey, I'll leave some for you guys—"
In less than half a minute, with no more than two sentences exchanged, the six of them looked at each other, all somewhat bewildered.
Qiao Siqi: "What's going on?"
Zhou Yilu: "They must be starving."
Luogeng: "Even if they're starving, they should still say thank you. We saved their lives!"
Lin Dilei: "Never mind, let's try to understand each other."
Qi Yan was also rather annoyed. She had originally wanted to ask the other person's name, but now she had lost the mood. She frowned, and her eyes naturally swept over Song Fei, only to find that his brows were tightly furrowed, his expression serious, and she wondered what he was thinking.
Qi Yan nudged him lightly with her elbow: "What's wrong?"
Song Fei slowly looked at him, his expression unusually serious, devoid of any of his usual playfulness or anger: "How many people were there when they were knocking on the door?"
Qi Yan shook his head. All he knew was, "It will definitely be more than it is now."
Song Fei: "Won't you be sad if a classmate you know dies?"
Qi Yan pondered for a moment and said, "Perhaps they haven't realized it yet?"
Song Fei couldn't think of anything else, so she had to give up: "Maybe."
Hunger and fear can both temporarily stunt people. The six friends understood each other's feelings, so when they returned to their sleeping quarters and found the Christmas tree knocked over and Zhou Yilu's "instrument" kicked all over the place, they didn't say anything.
The interrupted Christmas atmosphere may be a pity, but it saved seventeen lives. Who dares to say that this wasn't the most wonderful Christmas?