30. Country C situation

The once-proud campus of GX University now stood in eerie silence.

Gone were the sounds of student chatter, bustling lectures, and the rhythmic thud of basketballs on polished gym floors. The university, sprawling across over a hundred acres of state-of-the-art buildings, libraries, and dormitories, had become a graveyard.

In just three weeks, hell had unfolded.

What began as whispers of a strange illness spreading in the city became an outbreak that shattered the protective glass bubble of campus life. Panic took hold. Students ran. Screamed. Bitten. Infected. Torn apart.

Of the nearly 3,500 students, only around 400 now remained. And from over a hundred professors, only sixteen had managed to survive.

The rest were either dead…

…or something worse.

Fu Xingshi stood at the edge of the dormitory rooftop, gripping the rusted railing so hard his knuckles turned white. His short, messy hair clung to his forehead with sweat. His eyes, once sharp and full of youthful arrogance, were now hollowed by sleepless nights.

He exhaled slowly, but it came out as a shudder.

The blood rain was falling.

Thick red droplets painted the concrete in sickly streaks, like the sky itself was bleeding.

Behind him, the faint groans of zombies echoed through the empty buildings, a constant reminder that their sanctuary was only temporary.

"It's like the world itself is crying for the dead," Fu murmured.

Beside him, a taller figure stepped forward. Gu Zeyi, his best friend and roommate of two years, had always been calm and collected—the student council's golden boy, loved by professors and respected by students.

Now, Gu Zeyi's glasses were gone, his cheek was bandaged from a narrow escape, and his blazer was torn from too many scuffles.

He stared up at the rain, watching as the droplets splashed on the abandoned cars below.

"No," Gu said quietly. "It's not crying. It's warning us."

Fu turned toward him. "You still think we can escape?"

Gu's eyes didn't move from the horizon. "We have to."

In the first week of the outbreak, chaos had erupted.

Students packed together in dormitories had fallen like dominoes. One infected roommate. One midnight scream. Then another door broken. Another student bitten. More blood. More screams.

By day three, the university's outer gates had been sealed from the outside.

They were cut off.

No messages came from the government. The campus lost power. The emergency helpline became static.

The professors tried to maintain order—but order had no place in a world gone mad.

Only survival.

The sports faculty and athletic students had been instrumental in the desperate retaliation. Former track stars, boxers, martial arts students, and even a few of the school guards had armed themselves with baseball bats, spears fashioned from curtain rods, and fire extinguishers.

Together, they fought back.

They cleared the gymnasium and created a temporary shelter zone. Barricaded three dormitories. Formed a watch team.

But it wasn't enough.

They were stranded.

And the blood rain… was new.

Fu Xingshi leaned against the railing, barely able to suppress the tremble in his limbs.

"I lost six classmates in two days. I don't even remember their faces anymore," he whispered.

Gu Zeyi nodded once. "I watched my homeroom professor get torn apart outside the library. She was calling her daughter's name when they pulled her down."

The rain splashed against their shoulders.

No one flinched anymore.

Blood meant nothing now.

Pain… was routine.

"Zeyi," Fu whispered, "what if this is it? What if this campus is our coffin?"

Gu finally turned to him, eyes hard. "Then I refuse to die here."

His voice was low, but it carried the weight of steel.

Fu met his gaze.

"We have a few hundred people still breathing. Fighters. Medical interns. Engineering majors. There's even that one girl who used to be a chemistry genius—what's her name—Lin Xiyan. If we stay, we rot. If we move, we have a chance."

Fu looked hesitant. "But where do we go? The city's overrun."

Gu's mouth pressed into a line. "Then we go rural. We move in teams. We strip the university labs for supplies, make use of our resources. There's got to be a place where survivors have already formed safe zones."

Fu blinked. "You think there's still people out there?"

"There has to be. The virus spread, but it didn't kill everyone. Somewhere, there are people like us—planning, surviving."

He glanced again at the horizon, blood rain falling like a silent warning from the sky.

"If we stay, we die. If we move, we fight."

The main lobby of Dormitory C was quiet. A few survivors sat huddled with makeshift blankets and leftover MREs.

One girl with dirt-streaked cheeks sobbed softly into her arms.

Another student stared out the broken glass window, flinching every time a droplet hit the floor.

Whispers passed between those still awake.

"What's the red rain?""Is it toxic?""I heard someone stepped into it and their skin blistered…""It's the virus mutating."

Panic lingered in the air, thick as the blood dripping from the heavens.

Back on the rooftop, Fu Xingshi straightened his shoulders.

"…Let's do it," he said.

Gu Zeyi turned.

"I'm with you," Fu said, stronger now. "If we don't leave soon, there'll be no one left to save."

Gu gave a rare, grim smile. "Then let's start making a plan."