Friday afternoon. The math self-study period at Jiangcheng No. 3 High School always made people drowsy.
Chen Mo propped his draft paper upright to shield his face, phone hidden in the desk compartment, thumb mechanically sliding across the screen. This was the survival rule of Class 3, Grade 2—Old Class Liu was "sitting in" at the podium, his gaze behind the glasses like a scanner. But as long as you had test papers spread out on your desk and didn't let your head droop, he usually couldn't be bothered to check what was on your phone—whether it was MOBA games or short videos.
Messages were exploding in the WeChat group "Jiangcheng No. 3 High School Student Mutual Aid".
[No. 3 High School Confession Wall]: WTF is happening at the school gate? The ambulance blocked me at the south entrance!
[No. 2 High School Branch Campus]: I saw it too… looks like someone was biting a person…
[No. 1 High School Big Brother]: People upstairs stop spreading rumors. Rabies isn't contagious like that.
Chen Mo frowned. He had originally been watching a Bilibili zombie game live stream and had zero interest in these school gossip posts. But the two words "biting a person" made his finger pause. As a sprinter on the school track team, he had an instinctive alertness to anything "abnormal"—muscle memory told him that any disturbance breaking the normal rhythm could be the warning shot before the starting gun.
He tapped open the newly posted video in the group.
The footage was extremely shaky, clearly secretly filmed from across the street. In the frame was the security booth at Jiangcheng No. 3 High School's south gate, now tilted with shattered glass everywhere. A man in a JD Logistics uniform was pinning the security guard to the ground, his head bobbing up and down—like… like a dog gnawing on a bone.
The comment section exploded instantly.
[No. 3 High School Confession Wall]: Holy shit, he's really biting? The old security uncle is still moving!
[No. 2 High School Branch Campus]: Has anyone called the police? Is this intentional injury?
[No. 1 High School Big Brother]: Staged. 100% staged. These days influencers will do anything for clout.
Chen Mo turned the volume down to the minimum and held the phone close to his ear. In the video came a piercing, guttural roar—not a human sound, more like broken glass scraping inside a throat. The bitten security guard twitched a few times, then suddenly arched his back at an angle no human spine should ever achieve, twisting his head 180 degrees to stare directly at the camera.
Those eyes… the whites were completely gone, only enormous dilated black pupils remained.
The video ended there. Three seconds later, it was recalled.
[No. 3 High School Confession Wall]: Fuck, I got kicked out of the group!
Chen Mo's heart sank. He exited WeChat and opened the community grid group "Xingfu Li Neighborhood 6th Building – Harmonious Neighbors". This group usually only received notifications from Auntie Zhang of the residents' committee about "electric bikes strictly prohibited indoors". Now it was flooded with 99+ messages.
Auntie Zhang: Attention all residents! Received notice from the sub-district office: some areas of our city are currently experiencing incidents of unexplained violent attacks. Please close doors and windows securely and do NOT go outside! Await further instructions!
302 – Uncle Li: What's going on? My wife just went out to buy groceries!
Auntie Zhang: @302-Uncle Li Call her back quickly! Someone has already been bitten—reportedly it resembles rabies!
Chen Mo noticed that Auntie Zhang actually used the word "bitten". The official wording hadn't tried to avoid it.
He glanced up at the podium. Teacher Liu was holding his thermos, gently tapping the lid on the desk: "No talking. Finish the conic sections special exercise I gave you last week. Class representatives collect them before the end of the period."
The classroom filled with the rustling sound of writing. His desk mate Li Xiang took off his basketball wristband and spun it on his finger—it was last year's souvenir from the city high school league championship, silicone material with the words "Jiangcheng No. 3 High School Strive for First Place" printed on it. Noticing Chen Mo looking, Li Xiang grinned: "Mo-ge, after school wanna go shoot hoops at Optics Valley Square? I heard a new viral hotpot place opened there. If we win, I'll treat the whole team."
"Not going." Chen Mo stuffed his phone back in his pocket. "My mom wants me home early today."
"Extra classes again?" Li Xiang curled his lip. "You're a sports specialty student—why bother with cultural subjects? Tsinghua and Peking University aren't going to let you into their sprint team just because you score 140 in math."
Chen Mo didn't reply. He really wasn't going to extra classes, but he also didn't want to explain—since last month he'd had the constant feeling someone was watching him. That sensation of being stared at, like ants crawling on his skin, yet whenever he turned around there was nothing. He'd thought it was just stress. Now it seemed like the whole city of Jiangcheng felt wrong.
Outside the window came the sound of ambulance sirens—distant, then close, then fading again. No. 3 High School was in the old city district, surrounded by residential buildings from the 1980s with terrible sound insulation. Normally at this time there would be square-dance music downstairs and vendors shouting about stinky tofu. Today it was quiet as 3 a.m.
"Mo-ge, look." Li Xiang poked the window with his ballpoint pen.
Down below, beside the green belt next to the teaching building, someone was lying on the ground. Too far to see clearly, but a security guard was prodding the person with an anti-riot fork. The figure jerked up like it had been electrocuted and slammed the guard flying. The movement was inhumanly fast.
Some classmates noticed too.
"What the hell is happening downstairs?" Zhang Tao from the back stood up.
"Zhang Tao! Sit down!" Teacher Liu slammed his thermos.
But it was too late. Students by the windows were craning their necks to look. The person who had been prodded—calling it a person for now—was now scrambling on all fours through the green belt. The guard chased after him; the figure spun around and pounced. Both rolled into the bushes.
Then came a scream. The guard's.
"Stop looking!" Teacher Liu hurried to the window and yanked the curtains shut with a whoosh. "Probably a mental patient having an episode. The police will handle it. Focus on your work!"
Chen Mo lowered his head and stared at the test paper, but couldn't read a single word. His fingers unconsciously tapped the edge of the desk—a muscle memory warm-up for sprinting. Start, push off, arm swing, explode forward. Seven steps. He mentally rehearsed the sequence seven times.
Li Xiang's wristband suddenly fell to the floor and rolled to Chen Mo's feet.
Chen Mo bent down to pick it up. On the inside he saw a small line engraved: 2019.10.17, Li Xiang, Best Sixth Man.
"Here." He handed it back.
"Thanks, Mo-ge." Li Xiang slipped it back on, still glancing at the drawn curtains. "You think… if it really is a crazy person, will the school lock down? Last time with the flu they sealed us in for a whole month."
"No way," Chen Mo said. "Flu is contagious. Mental illness isn't."
"But what if…" Li Xiang paused, lowering his voice, "what if it really is… zombies?"
Chen Mo's pen tore a long streak across the draft paper.
He remembered the video—the JD delivery guy bit someone, and 47 seconds later the bitten security guard also "came back" as one of those four-limbed monsters.
He looked toward the classroom door.
The English class representative he had just killed with the compass—her fingers suddenly twitched once.