Chapter 164: Entering

Is anyone inside?

He Ying turned their head with a surprised look toward Chen Mu.

Unlike their own home, the door gap here is completely blocked, airtight, and it still looks like it's made of a wooden block.

Because the wooden block couldn't possibly exactly fit into the door gap, the remaining gap was also stuffed with things like paper.

Really

Chen Mu was also a bit surprised; logically, this is the fourth floor, with hardly any food or water sources; even if the office might have left some snacks and drinks, it's already been two months, so they should have spoiled.

"Maybe there are some individually packaged snacks or something like that?" He Ying asked after hearing Chen Mu's analysis.

"Maybe, but they'll eventually run out; the fourth floor's location means they can't go out to forage, so normal people would think of first finding a foothold on the ground."

"You can't assume everyone is completely rational; if they can't go downstairs and happen to have food, temporarily hiding here is also a reasonable choice." He Ying laughed.

That's true

Chen Mu realized they were overthinking it.

"Then should we still go in?" He Ying turned their head and asked.

"We've come all this way; we can't just go back empty-handed." Chen Mu said.

"But there's definitely someone inside." He Ying worried.

"Let's see if we can sneakily take something back; in such a big room, as long as there aren't too many people, I estimate they might not notice; even if they do, we can try to negotiate—we don't have to assume everyone is hostile; maybe they'd even want to go back with us..."

Chen Mu said while walking to the leftmost side of the door, pushed with their hand, but found it wouldn't budge.

It seems the other side packed it tightly.

After exerting a bit more force, Chen Mu noticed something was off.

Feels like it's fixed with something.

Fixed?

Hmm, not nails, then something like glue.

Chen Mu placed a single hand on the wooden block used as the obstruction.

Soon

A vortex-shaped opening appeared.

For safety, he immediately darted to the side, afraid something might rush out.

Inside was very quiet.

"I wish we had let Sun Yuan come along." He Ying whispered to Chen Mu.

Chen Mu paid no attention, and after a moment, just as he was about to move closer to look, He Ying stopped him.

I'll go

Huh?

I'm fast; if zombies really rush out, I can definitely dodge faster than you.

Chen Mu was speechless but also agreed.

He Ying tiptoed to the opening just big enough for one person to crawl through, sneakingly slowly probing their head inside.

The wooden block used for blocking isn't thick, perhaps because the other side couldn't move a large object.

Soon, He Ying's half body had already probed inside, and Chen Mu prepared to pull her back at any moment.

After a moment, He Ying retracted her body.

Very quiet, doesn't seem like anyone's there.

Then let's go in.

Chen Mu crawled in after He Ying.

This office is much larger than the storage room they're in, about a quarter of a classroom's area, but because it's piled with all kinds of junk, it feels cramped.

The floor is littered with all kinds of items and materials, almost like being in a huge junkyard.

Chen Mu and He Ying have been here before.

Teacher Wan of the Labor Technology class is a kind old man with no pretensions, knowledgeable, humorous, able to get along with students; in his class, everyone feels most relaxed.

Because of the subject, even after class many students like to go to him with questions or just chat, covering topics from homemade popsicles to satellite launches.

"I wonder how Teacher Wan is doing." He Ying said somewhat wistfully: "He used to help me fix my shoes."

"Fix shoes?" Chen Mu was startled; he doesn't have much free time after class, so he doesn't have much personal connection with Teacher Wan.

But is there still a need to fix shoes these days?

"Hmm." He Ying nodded, then smiled: "I remember once I lost a 100-meter race; after coming back, Teacher Wan found me and said it was because the angle of the rubber surface on my shoes was off, preventing me from fully exerting my speed."

Then he helped you cut the shoe upper?

Hmm

"Was it useful?" Chen Mu wondered.

"I don't know." He Ying said this, then chuckled: "He ended up tearing my shoe."

Ah?

He said his idea failed, and the next day he bought me a new pair of shoes.

Chen Mu could picture that thin old man's embarrassed look in front of the students, and also slightly curled the corner of his mouth.

"Come to think of it, we haven't seen any school teachers so far." He Ying suddenly thought of this, not even having seen the cafeteria staff.

Chen Mu said: "The cafeteria is occupied by Yi Zhong, so the staff are probably either dead or fled, and the teachers..."

How?

"I recall Tang Jing telling me that the state mandates a teacher-to-staff ratio of 1:12.5 for high schools; with our Ziwei High School's 2000 students, the faculty and staff number around 160, but the issue is, aside from the cafeteria staff, all teacher offices are on the second floor or higher, where survival rates are naturally low; I remember that day's exchange event on the field, the principal and the Academic Affairs teachers were there, and I don't know how they're doing either."

"Could it be that the boss of Qingbei is actually the principal?" He Ying suddenly became interested.

"Then in the end they discovered he was the evil mastermind big boss?"

"Yeah, you also think that?" He Ying said excitedly.

"No, classmate, you've watched too many cartoons." Chen Mu said helplessly.

"But, we can't rule out this possibility." He Ying was very dissatisfied with this unimaginative man.

"Oh, okay." Chen Mu obviously didn't want to discuss such a boring topic.

The two whispered while weaving through the gaps among various material parts; frankly, this instead gave a sense of security.

Of course, this also brought a problem: it was hard to find what they wanted.

Before coming, Tang Jing had given them a detailed explanation of the needed lubricant.

If you don't ask, you won't know; lubricants also come in several types, each with different uses—for example, D5 oil for the power system, 9010 oil for gears, and 8300 lubricant for the spring system.

Fortunately, Tang Jing also told them what the oil bottle looked like and its color, but they didn't know exactly where it was placed, so they needed to search for it.

Near the window was a set of desks, but on top lay various assorted model materials and such.

Along the wall was a row of glass display cases, needless to say, also stuffed full of things.

Looking at that, Chen Mu was worried that the things above might fall down.