The long-term darkness and silence, combined with no living human flesh to stimulate them, had put the zombies piled up in the stairwell into a temporary dormant state.
But Zhang Haiyang’s door-opening noise woke them up again, and the group once more fell into the passive situation of ‘guerrilla warfare.’
The overturned tables and equipment on both sides of the corridor could only temporarily block the zombies’ footsteps. They might trip or get stuck, but soon more corpses surged up from behind, climbing over the bodies of their fallen brethren.
“Aaahhh!” Li Mei’s hoe was nearly yanked away from her hands.
Zhang Haiyang was shocked. “Holy crap! These zombies don’t look like long-term 996 workers at all!”
Each one had freakishly strong physiques.
Although most wore white lab coats as researchers, with a few security guards and administrative staff mixed in. Even a female zombie with half her leg missing and red high heels on could grab Zhang Haiyang’s large machete barehanded.
The office rookie had powerful tank skills. Even after he used 【Rookie Doesn’t Understand】 and 【Rookie Thick Skin】, holding off the assault with sheer grit, the sheer number of zombies was overwhelming. The group still retreated bit by bit until they reached the glass door.
Zhang Haiyang braced the broken door with his foot and yelled, “Sis, you ready yet— I can’t hold much longer!”
At the critical moment, Li Mei jumped onto a stool and shouted loudly, “Everyone quiet down! Listen to me!”
The blood-drenched zombies all snapped their heads up to look at her. Their rotten, gray-white faces were filled with longing and confusion, and they actually stopped moving.
【Player Li Mei used skill: Read-Back Chaos
(Active) Group hard control skill
Within the range of voice propagation, it produced a stun effect. During this time, monsters could not move or attack.
Stronger effect on incomprehensible speech.】
Li Mei shed her earlier shyness, her voice booming. “If you’ve got high-speed machinery entering the instance, remember the principle I gave when it was small. It’s the R&D person, the principle of this thing is underworld regime control. You know why? Zombies give him immortal rank operation, and there’s special breeding for this. Why does the instance produce this stuff…”
The old driver shifted his wheelchair while lowering his voice. “How long can she hold them?”
Zhang Haiyang grimaced, flexing his sore arms. “As long as she keeps talking, she holds them!”
The three slowly retreated. The zombie horde stood perfectly still like a CPU overheating without a fan, listening intently to Li Mei’s lecture.
If one ignored the dried bloodstains and missing organs or limbs on them, the scene was almost solemn.
They retreated all the way to the glass door they had entered through. Zhang Haiyang shoved the doors shut with both hands.
The old driver urged, “Hurry, swipe the card!”
“Beep beep.” The employee ID lock engaged, and the doors sealed tight.
The next second, Li Mei finished reciting her passage. The zombies broke free of the hard control and came surging forward with “Ooh ooh haa aah” howls.
A deafening wave of footsteps echoed through the corridor.
Then came a series of “bang bang bang” impacts.
Zhang Haiyang peeked through his fingers and saw, right on the other side of the door, zombies clawing wildly—like aunties mobbing discounted veggies at the supermarket—pressing “enthusiastically” against the glass.
The three let out sighs of relief.
At that moment, Mu Shan burst out of the HR office. “Found a clue. Let’s go!”
The small team regrouped and headed upstairs in the research institute.
Mu Shan was the last to run into the stairwell. She turned back and looked at the zombies isolated behind the glass door. White mist sprayed nonstop from the ceiling vents above their heads with a “hiss hiss.”
The mist gradually obscured their bloodstained faces.
During the climb upstairs, Zhang Haiyang asked, “Sis, what’d you find?”
Mu Shan replied, “Qian Bo killed Sun Lizhou. No matter if the zombies broke out or not, he couldn’t keep working at the research institute. I found his resignation letter from the 15th in the HR drawer, confirming the guess—he planned the murder premeditatedly.”
“But he was missing something, so he kept up appearances with attendance. Maybe evidence against Sun Lizhou, or his new research results. Doesn’t matter.” Mu Shan raised the peashooter. The four huddled behind the fire door at the third-floor entrance, exchanging glances.
She lowered her voice. “What’s important is that in most premeditated murders, the weapon is something the killer brought themselves. Since the system wants me to find it, the murder weapon must still be in the institute.”
“Even, it’s right at the crime scene.”
The old driver shushed them.
He cracked open the fire door a sliver and peered down the corridor behind. No zombies. Temporarily safe.
“Third floor is ground zero. The zombies probably went down the stairs from this level and got blocked by the fire doors in the second-floor safe passage. Careful—this floor definitely has big ones.”
Zhang Haiyang, the only tank, had to take point.
【Player Zhang Haiyang (Office Rookie) used skill: Rookie On-Time Off Duty
Immune to attacks within time limit. Rookies call it [Invincibility]
Usable once per day.
“Boss, I’m off duty!”】
After activation, a faint holy glow coated Zhang Haiyang, like a golden Buddha statue, giving him an air of solemn dignity.
Mu Shan was stunned. “You unlocked another skill in just a few days?”
The young man scratched his head sheepishly. “Heh heh, it unlocked when zombies swarmed me. Maybe the system doesn’t want me dying easy either?”
The old driver rolled his eyes enviously from the side. “Innate melee saint body. Can’t compare.”
As they spoke, the four-person team began exploring the peril-filled third floor of the research institute.
Mu Shan had seen the floor plan earlier and knew the third floor had the most important supply areas (cafeteria, medical room) and the most dangerous plot point (Grand Laboratory).
She silently pointed to the open cafeteria door not far away. The others nodded in understanding.
Zhang Haiyang and Li Mei stood guard at the cafeteria entrance as melee fighters. Mu Shan and the old driver rushed in to loot.
The research institute employed around a hundred people across floors, with the cafeteria supplying three meals daily. It stored massive amounts of grains: rice, millet, flour, beans, dried noodles, all in 20kg bags.
In the corner stood two huge freezers. Since power hadn’t cut out yet, the contents inside were still good!
Mu Shan eyed the chicken legs, ribs, pork belly, frozen shrimp, and small yellow croakers, her eyes turning red.
The cold-stored veggies had rotted completely from the time elapsed. She also saw heaps of eggs, but they reeked.
Across from her, the old driver used a compact spatial storage item to madly scrape supplies, unblinkingly stuffing in cases of packaged milk, small breads, salt, sugar, and condiments.
After about ten minutes, “tap tap tap” knocks came from the door. Mu Shan knew it was Zhang Haiyang signaling time.
With quick hands, she grabbed the last tube of toothpicks from the table and hauled bags out with Feng Wei.
Zhang Haiyang’s teeth chattered as he whispered, “…Sis, tons of zombies!”
They followed his pointing finger. At least dozens of figures shuffled in the elevator area and corridor. Their forms were mismatched—some missing arms, some legs—lab coats soaked blood-red.
The floor was littered with bite marks, drag trails, organ chunks, and bloody pulp. The scene was hellish.
The old driver’s face paled. He mouthed silently, “First. Out. Break. Here.”
Everyone nodded.
On the 29th, the zombie virus lost control somewhere on the third floor. It spread from one to ten to a hundred, exponentially infecting the whole institute.
Zombie researchers fled from the third floor to the second and first. Some staff might have escaped alive, but most died.
But medical supplies were even more vital than cafeteria food—they couldn’t skip them. The four shifted to head toward the medical room marked on the map.
They had to cross a corridor segment.
To avoid alerting them, everyone crouched low, hugging the walls to advance. Many lingering zombies in side rooms were half-dormant, occasionally drawn by the bulbs’ “sizzle.” Easy to wake.
Mu Shan peeked up slightly and saw a zombie in the opposite room turn, revealing half its face eaten away.
She held her breath, ducked her head, made no sound, and slowly scooted past.
Her hands brushed the filthy wall. At one moment, she touched cold pipes.
Two pipes of starkly different colors ran straight along the wall, converging at the ceiling before extending into the vent, leading throughout the research institute.
Mu Shan’s gaze instinctively followed.
She saw two construction tags hanging on the pipes.
[Type I Gas Pipeline, Type II Gas Pipeline]
Her mind flashed like a lightbulb, scenes flickering by.
[Type II Gas to be released in this room in 60 seconds. Personnel evacuate promptly.]
[Multiple ‘Hygiene Model Worker’ awards obtained]
Mu Shan suddenly figured it out. Before she could speak, in the group’s blind spot, a zombie turned its head and spotted the four sneaking along.
“Grr—”
It barely made a sound before Mu Shan raised her hand and fired.
The silent pea punched through the zombie’s skull, but the body’s thud still drew nearby ones. They instinctively gathered toward the noise. Soon, more noticed them.
“Ooh ooh ooh!!!”
Facing those mindless, mangled, bloody faces, goosebumps rose on all four.
Zhang Haiyang kicked open a nearby office door, trapping two zombies inside. “Run!!!”
They didn’t care what rooms lay ahead—just kept advancing, closing doors, advancing.
The old driver’s wheelchair skidded easily. He gradually fell to the rear.
When the fastest zombie was mere meters from his chair back, the old driver spun around sharply. Two sparking firecrackers poked from the wheelchair armrest.
“Eat Yours Truly’s monkey rocket—!”
【Vehicle Modification Boost
Safety -10%
Power +10%】
The lit firecrackers “whooshed” into the zombie horde. A second later, an earth-shaking boom erupted behind.
The smell of gunpowder mixed with exploding flesh rot instantly triggered the institute’s fire system.
But it wasn’t real explosives—the horde paused only a moment before the blast drew them, charging ahead frantically.
Zhang Haiyang slammed into a door at the corridor’s end. He twisted the handle hard, hacked at it with his machete. The iron door didn’t budge.
He despaired as the tidal wave of zombies closed in.
“Can’t open it!!!”
The old driver pulled two more firecrackers, gritting his teeth. “Yours Truly will blast it!”
“No, can’t close it if we blow it!”
The horde neared. Trapped in the narrow passage, they couldn’t even fight properly—easy pickings.
Zhang Haiyang, in invincibility, tanked at the rear, buying time like a drop of water in boiling oil.
The old driver sweated buckets, prying the lock with tools.
Li Mei’s hard control was on cooldown. Mu Shan nearly pulled out the ‘Blood Holy Mother’ summon scroll for mutual destruction.
She suddenly thought of something. “Wait, use this!”
She handed over the blank access card from under the flowerpot. The old driver pressed it to the smart lock.
“Beep beep.” Door opened.
“Holy shit!” Feng Wei was shocked. He hadn’t expected it himself.
The three dashed inside. Soon, blood-soaked Zhang Haiyang shook off the zombies and barreled in.
The access door sealed again. They heard pounding, scratching outside, and all sorts of eerie “grr aah” roars.
“Safe for now…” Zhang Haiyang collapsed to the floor, tilting his head and vomiting with a “urgh.”
Surrounded and in close contact with zombies—if not for invincibility, no one else survives.
Mu Shan stared complexly at the blank card. “If I hadn’t found it in the secret room, or hadn’t brought it… would we be done for?”
Feng Wei folded his wheelchair, lit a smoke to calm down. “Little sis, no ‘what ifs’ in instances.”
While catching her breath, Mu Shan carefully examined the room.
[Control Room 1] was written on the door, and inside there were no tables or chairs of any kind, only pipes of two colors twisted together.
There were many valves at the connection point of the foremost pipes, allowing operators to increase or decrease the airtight pressure inside the pipes as needed.
“There are two control rooms.” Li Mei spotted the map on the wall. “This is Room 1, and Room 2 is deeper in.”
Mu Shan gently ran her fingers over the explanations on the pipes.
【Type II Gas: Disinfectant gas. Effectively kills viruses and bacteria; long-term exposure is somewhat harmful to the human body.】
【Type I Gas: Deodorizing gas. Effectively adds fragrance and removes odors; harmless to the human body.】
So, when she had been locked in the secret room, the broadcast announcement about releasing Type II gas—even though it posed some harm—was just for disinfection, not a dead end…
The system was really cunning.
What the system had said from the beginning was 【Welcome to the mini-game】.
When introducing the game rules, it had only mentioned the task duration and hadn’t said 【Players die upon task failure】, so it stood to reason that failing the game carried no punishment.
Otherwise, the difficulty for a newbie level would have been a bit too high.
Mu Shan felt a speechless sense of having been tricked.