Chapter 12: Humble-Bragging: It’s Fine, Take It Slow.

The next day, Ji Li and Gao Lan repeated yesterday’s routine, working until a mountain of corpses rose from the floor—and finally stood there, leaning helplessly on their golf clubs.

“How does this company have SO many people?!” Ji Li didn’t understand. Ji Li was deeply shaken.

Gao Lan shook out her wrist and took out her phone.

[They named it New Media Group—a few hundred employees is normal. Look on the bright side: at this rate we’ll soon have enough points for a Safe House Repair Card.]

“True…” Ji Li muttered—then a lightbulb went off in his head, and he turned to Gao Lan. “Sister Lan, there’s something I’ve been wanting to ask. Your Safe House glass was shattered like that—how much Defense Value did you have left?”

As soon as he asked, he felt it was rude and hurriedly backpedaled.

“I’m not trying to pry into your Safe House stats. It’s just—when my own Safe House’s glass broke, my Defense Value hit rock bottom and nearly scared me to death. But the Safe House still existed. It didn’t vanish like the System described.”

“Logically, once the windows broke, the Safe House should have lost functionality. But the System didn’t rule the Defense Value as zero—it left a sliver of health. I don’t get what the standard is.”

Gao Lan typed: [I’ve wondered about that too. As far as I can tell, a Safe House’s Defense Value has nothing to do with the person—only with the structure’s own strength. Windows, walls, doors are all components, and the door is the most critical bottom line.]

[As long as the door isn’t destroyed, the Safe House persists. To be honest with you, my Safe House’s Defense Value is down to a single point.]

“One point?!”

Ji Li was stunned—but quickly realized why his own Safe House had exactly four points left.

Because the car had four doors.

He’d chosen a car as his Safe House purely out of necessity—who knew it came with this perk?

He was still mulling it over when a phone screen appeared before his eyes.

[Let’s go check the first floor.]

Ji Li agreed, and the two headed downstairs, peering through the sliding door’s glass into the corridor.

“Feels like… not many left?” Ji Li murmured uncertainly.

Gao Lan didn’t type. She raised her golf club and knocked on the glass.

At the crisp knocking, zombies swarmed over, quickly packing the corridor solid.

But compared to the airtight crush before, this time Ji Li could see the tail of the crowd.

“Maybe thirty-odd left. I’ll check the other side—keep knocking over here.”

Gao Lan nodded, still knocking, while Ji Li ran to the sliding door on the other side, knocked on the glass for a while, then ran back.

“Nothing over there. These should be the last of them.”

Gao Lan set down her golf club and typed: [Since there aren’t many left, no need to risk breaking the door. We’ll finish them off while digging cores. Just no telling when we’ll finish digging all the cores.]

Thinking of the two corpse mountains in the second-floor corridor, Ji Li couldn’t decide whether to worry or rejoice, and could only tease, “Sister, that is one humblebrag of a complaint.”

Gao Lan laughed: [Come on, cores to dig.]

The two headed upstairs full of motivation. Meanwhile, at the Higher Vocational School, Boss Chen and company were resting in a classroom.

Outside the classroom, dozens of zombies prowled, occasionally slamming against the door at sounds from within—only to be blocked by the desks and chairs piled at the entrance, unable to break through.

“Hsss—ow ow ow ow ow! Luyao, Sister Yao, I’m begging you, can you go any lighter?”

Glasses Guy howled, twisting to escape, but Skinny Monkey and Xiaoxiao held him down together, leaving him to endure Zhang Luyao’s brutal massage.

“Endure it. The bruised blood has to be kneaded out, or you won’t be able to lift that arm for half a month. And honestly, how do you manage to injure yourself hitting a zombie with a steel pipe?” Zhang Luyao said with disdain.

Glasses Guy’s voice dropped an octave. “I… I’m just out of shape… If I’d known I’d get abducted to fight zombies, I’d have signed up for Brother Li’s classes ages ago!”

Li Rui, arm propped up while Lu Zihan bandaged a wound on his forearm, laughed at that. “It’s not too late to sign up now. Once we clear the zombies from this building, we start training—build up fitness first.”

Glasses Guy pushed up his glasses and said nothing more.

The sickly middle-aged man leaned against the furniture barricading the door and asked Boss Chen worriedly, “Does it really have to be cleared today? Isn’t that rushing it? It’s almost dark, Little Li and Little Shen are both injured—if their wounds worsen…”

“Time waits for no one, Old Gu.” Boss Chen sat in his chair, hands resting atop his towering belly, face full of worry.

“These past two days we’ve only advanced this smoothly thanks to that big shot outside. No one knows when he’ll finish clearing that building, or whether he’ll leave afterward or come to the school. We have to stockpile as many Zombie Cores as possible before then, to keep our options open.”

The middle-aged man sighed, but had to admit Boss Chen was right.

A school was inherently the most densely populated kind of area; the number of zombies trapped in classrooms was staggering, and the more intact a classroom, the more zombies inside.

And of Boss Chen’s group, only Li Rui’s and Zhang Luyao’s skills had no cooldown; everyone else’s either had limited uses or short durations. Lacking AoE skills, most of the time they had to fight zombies hand-to-hand.

Fortunately, zombie behavior was rigid—their brains couldn’t improvise. As long as they exploited terrain advantages, things were generally manageable. The dangerous part was only the initial entry into a teaching building.

Stairwells in teaching buildings were usually wide, built for student traffic, running straight through every floor with no fire doors, and the handrails only came up to the waist—a couple of quick steps and you could flip over one by momentum.

Stairwells like that couldn’t be sealed, and once zombies wandered a corridor, they’d easily be drawn by noise into roaming between floors.

The first and second floors were less dangerous since all the windows were shattered and the exits were close. But on higher floors, zombies would linger in the corridors—up to a hundred or more across several floors.

Thankfully, there was the mysterious big shot. Every time he used his skill, the zombies would converge toward him, ignoring sounds right next to them, letting Boss Chen’s group seize the window to set traps in the corridors.

At first they hadn’t figured out this trick; to clear corridor zombies, they’d had to lure them downstairs and fight from empty classrooms.

That was dangerous for anyone else—only Boss Chen could come out unscathed.

The problem was, Boss Chen’s skill had a time limit and could only pull one floor at a time. Once his skill time ran out, everyone was forced to rest.

That’s how it went when they cleared the White Teaching Building—half a day for just two floors.

But now, seizing the windows when the big shot acted, they divided the work, and with good luck could set traps for three or four floors in one go. Then, clearing at their leisure, they could empty five floors a day. In just two days, every one of them had a Space Bracelet.

In a corner of the classroom, a man took a small handful of Zombie Cores out of his bracelet, put them back one by one, and sighed in contentment, then whispered to Liu Jin beside him:

“Brother Jin, maybe we should just let it go. Every one of them has skills—they kill zombies fast and safe, and there’s a mysterious big shot outside. If we really make a move, how could we ever kill this many in a day…”

“Shut up!” Liu Jin hissed, and the man shrank his neck, not daring to say more.

Liu Jin gripped his Space Bracelet, his gaze sliding over the petite, adorable Lu Zihan, the sweet, darling Xiaoxiao, the tall, dashing Zhang Luyao. Itching with desire yet forced to hold back, a wicked fire burned up his throat.

“Damn it, we’re in the apocalypse already, and they’ve got skills—why does my life just keep getting more suffocating!”

Liu Jin ground his molars, seething with resentment.

Back when he lived in a lawful society blanketed in surveillance cameras, he’d had no choice but to suppress his nature and play the good man, venting only online. When the pressure got unbearable, he’d torture a few small animals to take the edge off.

But before he’d killed more than a few, the country passed some animal protection law, sealing off his only outlet.

Just as Liu Jin felt he was about to drown in a bland, lifeless routine, he’d been chosen by the Apocalypse Survival Game—made a Player!

At first he’d panicked, been afraid. But he quickly realized this place was heaven for someone like him.

So when the System popped up the Bind Safe House quest, he hadn’t thought twice—he’d used his skill to kill the kind person who’d welcomed him into their Safe House.

It was his first kill. It felt like rebirth.

So when he saw his underling, desperate not to be thrown out of a Safe House, smash the windows in a fit of despair, he hadn’t found it strange at all.

It was the apocalypse, after all. Moral collapse, hearts gone rotten—perfectly normal.

Liu Jin had cheerfully killed the rest, gained a lackey, and collected a pile of supplies—including that shopping cart full of food.

The only pity: no women.

When he spotted Boss Chen’s group, his first thought was that the three girls were captured playthings. On learning otherwise, he’d been a little disappointed—but decided it was just as well. Training them himself would be more fun.

Liu Jin’s original plan was to infiltrate the group, kill one or two during zombie clearing, and once panic set in, kill the remaining men and take the women into his harem.

Who knew half this group had drawn attack skills! And the other half all had defense or detection types!

Sure, most of their skills had all sorts of limitations and couldn’t be used freely—but so did his!

Couldn’t beat them, couldn’t kill them, yet couldn’t bear to walk away from such fat profits—Liu Jin felt more stifled than before he’d transmigrated.

Before, he wasn’t allowed to act—doing so meant death. Now, he clearly could act but was forced to play the good boy. Who could stand that?!

Crack!

A sharp sound cut through Liu Jin’s thoughts. He looked down—his Space Bracelet’s clasp had snapped shut from his unconscious clench, the gap on the button vanished.

Liu Jin stared at the bracelet, his near-eruption emotions slowly settling as three decades of self-restraint came flooding back.

It’s fine. Slow and steady.

The greatest thing about good people was that they were fair and just like fools. Maintain the status quo, pocket the benefits first. As for the rest… no rush.

Liu Jin pocketed his bracelet, stood, and walked over to Boss Chen, saying deferentially, “Um, Boss Chen… I’ve rested enough. Can I go kill zombies at the back door?”

Boss Chen gave a hearty “aiya,” pushing himself up by his belly. “Sure, sure, let’s go together—I’ve rested enough too. You all keep resting, no rush.”

The group walked to the back door, shifted the barricading desks and chairs to leave a gap for zombies to enter.

Soon a zombie slammed through the opening, poked its body through, scrambled eagerly onto a desk—and took a steel pipe to the head from Liu Jin.

The sound of a cracking skull rang out, and a flicker of regret crossed Liu Jin’s eyes.

Zombies were perfect in every way—except they couldn’t scream.

On the fifth day in the Zombie Apocalypse, Ji Li and Gao Lan finally killed every last zombie in the office building. Only one obstacle remained before they could go upstairs and search for supplies—

digging out every Zombie Core and clearing a path upstairs.