Qin Shi Lei looked at Zhang Xiaoli with some strangeness.
He couldn't understand why she insisted on following a stranger like him.
"I can use a drone to scout for you, or to lure monsters away," Zhang Xiaoli continued, stating her value.
Qin Shi Lei still refused, "It's more dangerous following me. I'll just give you more food."
Zhang Xiaoli shook her head, insisting, "Just let me follow you. I'll stay hidden when you fight zombies."
Seeing her determined gaze, Qin Shi Lei realized it would be difficult to find the treasure chest's location without her.
After a moment of thought, Qin Shi Lei said, "You can follow me, but if the situation becomes critical, I won't be able to look after you."
"Okay," Zhang Xiaoli replied crisply, though a trace of apprehension flickered in her eyes.
This was the first time in her life she had clung to someone for support, and it was her biggest gamble yet.
She didn't know if this decision would lead her to live longer and better, or if she would be kicked into an abyss by him.
"What about me then?"
Zhu Yurong suddenly felt like she was being abandoned.
"You should stay here and wait for rescue," Zhang Xiaoli consoled her.
"But I don't have any food," Zhu Yurong's eyes kept glancing at the backpack in Qin Shi Lei's hand.
"This..." Zhang Xiaoli turned to look at Qin Shi Lei.
Qin Shi Lei handed the backpack to her, saying indifferently, "This is the reward for telling me the treasure chest's location. You decide."
Before Zhang Xiaoli could take it steadily, Zhu Yurong snatched it away, pulled out the contents, and began to devour them.
While eating, she said, "My dear Xiaoli, you'll be following him and eating well from now on, so give all of this to me."
Zhang Xiaoli frowned, but in the end, she took back only about a quarter of the food.
"Now, tell me the location of the treasure chest," Qin Shi Lei asked impatiently after Zhang Xiaoli had eaten a little.
"Okay."
Zhang Xiaoli took out two boxes, one large and one small, from the wall cabinet.
From the large box, she took out the drone controller, turned it on, and brought up the photos.
Suddenly, a photo of a male dormitory popped up.
The photo showed a sunny, handsome guy wearing only shorts, looking out with a surprised expression.
"Not this one."
Blushing, Zhang Xiaoli flusteredly swiped away the photos.
But several subsequent photos showed different handsome guys.
"Xiaoli, you've been hiding such good photos from me," Zhu Yurong said contemptuously while eating.
Looking at the photos of handsome guys in shorts, Qin Shi Lei suddenly remembered a saying he had seen online.
In universities, there are far more binoculars in girls' dorms than in boys' dorms.
"It's here, on the cliff behind our school mountain," Zhang Xiaoli said softly, pointing to a photo on the screen.
In the photo, there was a small, recessed cave on the upper right of the cliff, and a treasure chest emitting a silver glow was stuck in a crevice at the cave's entrance.
"Zoom in," Qin Shi Lei said, pointing to the cave.
As the photo zoomed in,
a half-built nest was revealed.
"This might be the nest of that eagle," Zhang Xiaoli guessed.
Yesterday, she had been using the drone to scout when she flew haphazardly towards the cliff behind the school to avoid a huge eagle in the sky, and that's when she took this picture.
Then the eagle reappeared and nearly knocked her drone down.
Zhang Xiaoli then pointed behind the balcony and briefly described the path from there to the treasure chest.
"Alright, I know. Now, use your drone to fly to Dormitory Building Five and check the situation of that giant zombie," Qin Shi Lei said to Zhang Xiaoli after silently noting the location of the silver treasure chest.
"The large drone is noisy, the small one is quiet. Which one should I use?" Zhang Xiaoli asked, opening the smaller box and taking out a palm-sized drone.
"The large one. Let's also see how effective this drone is at luring monsters." Qin Shi Lei took the larger drone to the balcony, turned it on, and set it down.
Zhang Xiaoli skillfully piloted the drone towards Dormitory Building Five.
Through the screen, they could see zombies wandering all over the campus road.
The zombies looked up, hearing the wind from above, but the drone was flying too high and too fast, so they didn't follow.
"This is your cafeteria, isn't it? The zombies are too dense here," Qin Shi Lei asked, pointing southwest at the densely packed zombies.
"It was lunchtime when the game started, so there were the most people in the cafeteria," Zhang Xiaoli replied with a nod.
The drone continued eastward, and soon reached the male dormitory area.
On the eighth floor, the top floor of Dormitory Building Five, a giant zombie appeared on the screen.
Behind it were two sturdy-looking zombies.
The giant zombie's head almost touched the roof, and its robust body almost filled the entire corridor.
It held an arm-thick iron pipe, obtained from who knows where, in its left hand, and dragged a half-eaten corpse with its right, blood dripping from its mouth.
"Fly higher, quickly."
Qin Shi Lei said anxiously.
Zhang Xiaoli reacted quickly. As soon as Qin Shi Lei spoke his first word, she controlled the drone to fly higher.
"Roar!"
Even from hundreds of meters away, a huge roar could be heard.
On the screen, the giant zombie turned and roared, simultaneously smashing the iron pipe in its hand towards the drone.
The drone's image flickered.
Zhang Xiaoli's heart clenched.
"Was it damaged?"
A second later, the image stabilized.
On the screen, the giant zombie in the distance was still roaring furiously at the sky.
"Was it recorded? Let's play it back in slow motion." Qin Shi Lei was surprised by the giant zombie's strength, as he hadn't clearly seen the trajectory of the iron pipe through the screen.
"Mmm."
Zhang Xiaoli pulled the drone further away and then opened the recording playback.
After slowing it down three times, it was discovered that the iron pipe, after breaking the corridor glass, instantly appeared below the drone.
Then the drone's image began to shake.
"It must have been the airflow caused by the rapid movement of the pipe that affected the drone," Zhang Xiaoli explained.
"Fly down a bit, let's see its little minions," Qin Shi Lei said, pointing to the area below the fifth floor.
Zhang Xiaoli piloted the drone lower while being wary of the giant zombie on the eighth floor.
As the drone's camera looked down, there were thirty to forty zombies standing in front of Dormitory Building Five.
These zombies were almost all male and appeared quite sturdy.
The only fortunate thing was that these zombies looked dull-witted and didn't seem like evolved special zombies.
"Can't go any lower, the signal is almost gone."
"Then let's come back."
The drone flew back from a high altitude, with no zombies following it.
"Handsome, are you going to fight such a powerful zombie?" Zhu Yurong asked, patting her chest with lingering fear.
"Just getting some information," Qin Shi Lei replied casually, then said to Zhang Xiaoli, "Grab the drone, let's go."
Watching the two descend the stairs, Zhu Yurong muttered curses under her breath, "You dare to take my food with so little? You follow that blind fool, and you'll be smashed to death by a zombie's club within a day."