Unless they had absolutely no other choice, they couldn't abandon the building. Taking ten thousand steps back, Jing Shu definitely didn't want to go through another grueling mudslide migration on foot. The prospect of walking all the way back to Wu City through ruins and sludge was exhausting just to think about.
No matter how heavy a snail's shell was, it was still home. For her, this building was that shell, shielding her from the worst of the wasteland.
Her thoughts drifted far away as the discussion continued. After that initial realization, she barely understood anything else the group discussed. Under such limited conditions, they probably couldn't come up with any real solution anyway; they were just rearranging deck chairs on a sinking ship. It wasn't until Old Principal Wang lightly patted her shoulder that she finally snapped back to reality. He started talking about the final graduation ceremony four or five years ago, even mentioning a specific photo he had taken with her back then.
"This time, I came here for the auction too. Who would have thought it would end up like this?" Old Principal Wang sighed, his shoulders slumped as he lamented his terrible luck.
Jing Shu came back to herself and asked, "What were you auctioning?"
Old Principal Wang didn't exactly look wealthy or influential in his tattered coat, his face lined with the weariness of a man who had spent his life in classrooms.
"Uh... the higher ups approved letting me bring the last batch of wooden desks, chairs, and door panels here to auction off," he admitted, looking embarrassed. "At least this way we can exchange them for food. It's the only way to pay the salary for teachers still giving online classes."
He looked down at his shoes. Strictly speaking, those items still belonged to the education department. They were technically official employees, yet now they had fallen so low they had to sell off school supplies just to keep from starving.
But there was no helping it. Students didn't pay tuition anymore, so the supplies allocated from above kept shrinking until there was almost nothing left. More importantly, the times had forced every educator into a desperate survival dance. Physics teachers had learned how to develop apps; language teachers had to learn how to grow vegetables in cramped apartments and grade homework inside digital interfaces. Even he, a math teacher, had to keep up with the times. It was exhausting.
Jing Shu nodded. Aside from being a bit long-winded and loving the sound of his own lectures, the old principal really was a responsible man who cared for his staff.
"Did you manage to sell anything yet?" she asked.
Old Principal Wang shook his head, a weary gesture. "It still hasn't been my turn."
"Send everything to me later," she said. "I will trade you worm patties for it."
The expanded worm patty factory just happened to need more tables and chairs for the sorting lines. The employee dorms also needed door panels to give the workers a modicum of privacy.
Old Principal Wang immediately agreed, his eyes lighting up with genuine excitement.
The atmosphere inside the building had grown increasingly heavy lately. The food served these days was just plain worm patties boiled into a thick, bland paste with water. Even the green algae dishes that had provided a bit of variety were gone now. It was obvious to anyone with eyes that they were truly living off their remaining reserves. Once the worm patties ran out, there would really be nothing left but the cold.
Li Yuetian increased the daily workload to keep people occupied. After she dealt with several people who refused to work, things became even quieter.
Jing Shu could practically see the numbness in the survivors. Their lives had become repetitive and lifeless, their movements mechanical like walking corpses. None of them realized they were already trapped in massive, spiraling danger. Even her once-constantly chattering university classmates had quieted down considerably. The endless labor forced them to keep moving nonstop in the freezing weather. Hunger and exhaustion occupied most of their lives now, leaving no room for gossip or complaints.
Because of that, they didn't have the energy to think about anything else.
Except for that annoying thing called Jin Baba.
Every day he hugged the two increasingly energetic Jinhua pigs in the private room on the first floor. He would mutter to them nonstop while gently stroking their coarse hair with a glazed look in his eyes. He even brought the sow everywhere he went now, completely abandoning the teddy bear he had always carried before.
At first, Jing Shu thought Jin Baba had developed some weird fetish involving the animals. It wasn't until one day she saw drool constantly dripping from the corner of his mouth, only for him to hurriedly wipe it away after spotting her, that she understood.
The kid was craving meat. He was craving it so badly he was practically going insane with the desire. His eyes were almost glowing green whenever he looked at the pigs' plump flanks.
Poor thing.
That very night, Jing Shu roasted a suckling pig inside her space and thoroughly satisfied her own cravings. It was a new method she had invented, directly grilling the food inside the space itself. The downside was that the smoke and smell couldn't dissipate while she was cooking. It wasted two cubic meters of precious space with a lingering, fatty scent of charred pork. She would have to release the smoke somewhere open later to clear it out.
"Hm?"
After eating and drinking her fill, Jing Shu had already gone to sleep contentedly. Tomorrow might bring a brutal battle for her, and she needed the rest. But right at that moment, the snakes she had released outside sent her a sharp warning.
"Da Ji again? Why isn't he sleeping properly?" she wondered. "What is he trying to pull this time?"
Jing Shu yawned while getting dressed, reluctantly leaving her warm down blanket behind. She shivered immediately as the frigid air of the room hit her skin. It was seriously cold.
Ever since suspecting something was off about Da Ji, she had planted spies around him. These past few days he had been relatively well-behaved. Aside from occasionally sneaking into that underground passage to steal some of the food he had hidden there, which Jing Shu couldn't care less about, he had done nothing unusual.
The little snake followed him as he left his private room and headed up to the seventh floor, Boss Lü's territory.
Ever since the sludge sirens invaded, the building had maintained nonstop twenty-four-hour patrols. But for some reason, Da Ji's luck seemed ridiculously good. He actually made it all the way to the seventh floor without encountering a single patrol.
Jing Shu quietly followed behind him, staying in the shadows. She wanted to see what exactly he was up to.
Aside from the distant sound of snoring, the entire building was almost silent. Everyone worked so much during the day and couldn't eat enough to sustain their energy. They all slept like the dead.
Da Ji sneaked into the first room, the meeting room converted from the hotpot restaurant. He entered the former kitchen area and started searching along the wall, patting one spot and knocking on another as if listening for a hollow sound.
Jing Shu followed him inside. Along the way, she casually grabbed a relatively clean yin yang hotpot pot from the corner. Later she planned to make spicy hotpot on one side and mushroom broth hotpot on the other.
Even though the building had run out of resources and darkness covered everything, the night couldn't obstruct Jing Shu's vision. She could clearly see that Da Ji had a specific target.
"He is looking for Boss Lü's sealed room," she realized. "The one without any seams. That room is behind that wall!"
Jing Shu's expression turned strange. Originally, she had planned to simply go back to sleep. That room had never been opened, and even after her bugs searched everywhere, they still couldn't find any way inside. Perhaps they could dig through it? Judging by the material, it was probably some kind of stainless steel reinforced structure that even bullets couldn't penetrate.
But just as she thought that, a strange movement suddenly spread through the structural beams of the building. Then Jing Shu heard a faint, wet rustling noise.
Next, under her stunned gaze, a sludge siren dropped down from the ventilation duct.
One. Two. Three...
These sludge sirens were slightly smaller than the previous ones, but not by much. Their goal was obvious. One after another, they crawled toward that supposedly indestructible room that was immune to blades, guns, fire, and water.
Jing Shu was completely shocked.
"Holy shit... can this guy actually control these things?"
Just as that thought crossed her mind, a terrified scream suddenly rang out, shattering the silence of the hall.
"Don't come over here! Ahhh! Help!"
Da Ji's scream echoed throughout the entire building. Terrified, he curled up in the opposite corner, his arms wrapped around his head. The noise immediately attracted the patrol teams and Boss Lü's people.
Jing Shu could clearly see the sheer terror on Da Ji's face and the way his legs trembled uncontrollably.
"What the hell is going on?" she muttered, completely dumbfounded.
So Da Ji couldn't control these sludge sirens after all?
Crunch!
The sludge siren's massive jaws bit directly into the wall, tearing away a huge chunk of concrete and exposing part of the steel room hidden inside.