At nine o'clock, the school's league committee sent a message in the group chat.
School League Committee: To all teachers and students, the school has now closed the cafeterias, supermarkets, vending machines, and all other places that sell food items. Starting tomorrow, the school will distribute food uniformly to ensure everyone's daily needs are met. All class representatives, please gather at the auditorium now to discuss the specific details.
At a time like this, the committee's message was a huge relief for everyone.
Yun Duo (Journalism School): I really want to go home...
Xiaxia (Life Science Institute): You probably shouldn't. I still can't get in touch with my roommate. What the news said must be true.
Li Qian (Foreign Language College): It's true. I just called my roommate's mom. She said my roommate never made it home and she can't contact her either. Maybe something really did happen to her...
The door to Tang Mo's dorm room wasn't closed, and low sobs could be heard coming from several nearby rooms.
Girls were emotional, especially at a helpless and isolated time like this. The thought that their friends who left campus this morning might have met with an accident made it hard for everyone to hold it together.
Crying is contagious. At first, they cried for their friends. But then, thinking about how their own situation wasn't much better, they were overcome with an even deeper sorrow.
Before long, the entire hallway was filled with the sound of sobbing rising and falling.
Even Tang Mo's roommate Lanlan started to whimper softly.
Having experienced the same thing in her previous life, Tang Mo was long since immune to such emotions. 'This is nothing.'
'Everything is just beginning. Right now, it's just being trapped in the fog. Later, people will starve to death in droves. And in six months, when the mutant beasts emerge, people won't be dying individually, but in batches.'
But Tang Mo didn't laugh at anyone. She had been upset at this time in her past life too, but it didn't take long for her to get over it.
When you're about to starve to death, you don't have the time to be sad.
Human potential is limitless. If she hadn't lived through her past life, she wouldn't have known how strong humanity could be. One disaster after another didn't crush humankind; instead, it made them even more resilient.
After a while, they would naturally understand that emotions are the most useless thing, and that food and strength are the only two things that can keep you alive.
Tang Mo changed into clothes for going out, tucked her phone into her pocket, and left the dorm, heading straight for the empty lot behind the supermarket warehouse.
That area was very hidden. If not for chasing a stray cat once, Tang Mo, despite having studied at the school for three years, would never have known such a corner of the campus existed.
And now, a place like this was perfect for her to practice her combat skills.
During the day, Tang Mo could train her spiritual power while multitasking, but her other attribute values were a different story. Therefore, nighttime was the best time to work on them.
The darkness didn't matter. She could make her spiritual power flow to her eyes to enhance her vision.
This was one of the uses for spiritual power that experts researched and announced later on. From the day it was announced, spiritual power became the most coveted ability besides the Space System.
After arriving, Tang Mo opened a video on her phone, found a basic martial arts tutorial, and memorized the movements after watching it once.
The movements in the basic video were mostly horse stances, kicks, and other simple actions.
As Tang Mo performed them, she demanded that every movement strictly adhere to the standard. It didn't matter if she was slow, but her form had to be perfect.
Her physical fitness wasn't great; her original Life Value and Strength Value were below average for a girl. So, after only 30 minutes of exercise, her whole body was already aching.
Tang Mo rested her hands on her knees, half-squatting on the ground. 'This is pathetic.'
Her physical fitness in her previous life had been much better than it was now, though she hadn't undergone any special training back then.
Her agility attribute value was gained entirely from tense and thrilling escapes—or more accurately, from running for her life.
As for the increase in her Life Value and Strength Value, it was partly due to her frequent long-distance treks and partly due to fighting.
Essentially, every increase in her attribute values had been gained through a life-or-death struggle. This time, she was determined to prepare in advance and no longer be so reactive.
After a 5-minute break, Tang Mo started her next set of training.
Counting each 30-minute session as one set, Tang Mo did a full four sets that night. And she wasn't done after that; she did a set of stretches and then went for a run.
'There aren't many peaceful days left. I can't afford to waste time.'
By the time Tang Mo returned to her dorm, it was already 11 PM. Her roommates, exhausted from the day's emotional rollercoaster, were already fast asleep. After a quick wash-up, Tang Mo got into bed and did another half-hour of spiritual power training.
The spiritual power inside Tang Mo's body was like a natural part of her, like her own hands and feet, moving as she willed.
Soon, she manipulated her spiritual power to circulate through all the meridians in her body.
After one circulation, the exhausted Tang Mo felt her sore limbs become much lighter. This was the second application of spiritual power besides enhancement: recovery.
Recovery was also the first use of spiritual power that humanity discovered.
However, this recovery could only alleviate one's own fatigue. If one was hungry or injured, circulating spiritual power was useless.
Moreover, recovery could only be used on oneself and couldn't be projected onto others to act as a healer. This was why many people considered it a rather useless skill.
People couldn't even eat their fill, so where would they get the energy to work themselves to exhaustion? If you were really tired, you could just sleep it off. Why would you need to circulate spiritual power?
It was like taking off your pants to fart—a completely pointless effort.
But it didn't take long for everyone to eat their words. Six months later, when people were hiding everywhere from the harsh environment and brutal mutant beasts, they finally understood how shallow they had been. What skill could be more suitable than recovery when you were running for your life?
This was also one of the key reasons why Tang Mo, with her slightly higher spiritual power, was able to escape danger and survive multiple times.
The next morning, Tang Mo didn't open her eyes until 8 o'clock. With no breakfast to entice her and no need to be constantly on guard for danger, she naturally stopped waking up early.
What for others would be six months of impending starvation, for Tang Mo, was a rare chance to relax.
The school's league committee sent a message at exactly 9 o'clock, telling students to gather at the school's main sports field at 10 o'clock for the distribution of brunch. Latecomers would get nothing.
To conserve food, the school had decided to combine the three daily meals into two.
Anyway, the students were trapped in the school and couldn't go anywhere. With little physical activity, two meals a day would be enough.
"Gathering at the main field? Why do I have a bad feeling about this meal?" Li Lanlan complained while changing her clothes.
"Then don't eat," Tang Mo teased her with a smile.
"I'm eating! Why wouldn't I? Even if it's just steamed buns and pickles, I'll eat four or five of them!"
Her words proved prophetic.
The school really was handing out steamed buns and pickles to the teachers and students, but there definitely weren't four or five. Each person got just one steamed bun and a bit of pickle. Fortunately, the buns were large, so it was enough for the girls.
The boys with larger appetites would just have to figure something out for themselves.
All the students lined up by their respective colleges, led by their teachers.
The professors who were still on campus also stood in their college's line to receive food.
After greeting Professor Tian, Tang Mo and her two friends obediently got in line to wait for their share of food. There was no place to eat on the field, so everyone took their food back with them.
T University had a total of 17 colleges. Since it was vacation time, Tang Mo looked out and saw that although the field was a dense sea of people, she estimated there were only about six or seven hundred of them.
The colleges with more students remaining, like their Life Science Institute which had experiment requirements, had about seventy or eighty people. Others had around forty or fifty, and the smallest one had only eight.
The ones in charge of planning and guarding the food were naturally the school leaders who had stayed behind. The ones responsible for distributing food to each college were the various class representatives who remained, about twenty-odd of them. Tang Mo squinted and observed for a moment. The ones in the lead were two boys.
'The same two from my previous life.'
One boy was An Yang, the class president from the Social Science Academy who had comforted everyone in the group chat earlier.
The other was named Tang Lianwei, from the Art College. He was wearing tight pants and looked very greasy.
An Yang was an upright person with leadership qualities, but she had heard quite a few rumors about Tang Lianwei.
Things like embezzling the school's public food supply, pocketing supplies for himself during scavenging runs, and even frequently harassing girls.
During the six months they were trapped in the school, he practically had a new girlfriend every three days. As for what those girls were after, everyone knew.
According to rumors, Tang Lianwei's family had some influence, and he was also connected to one of the leaders who had stayed at the school. That's why everyone indulged him, turning a blind eye.
"We only get steamed buns and pickles?" When the student leaders brought the food to their line, an uproar of dissatisfaction erupted from the crowd.
"They already cut our three meals a day down to two, and now they're being so half-assed about it? What are they trying to pull?"
There are always some people with the memory of a goldfish. They'd already forgotten the shock and despair the news had brought them yesterday and were back to their entitled, childish mindset.
Seeing that the situation was getting out of control, the class presidents distributing the food didn't panic at all. Clearly, they had already anticipated this outcome during their discussion yesterday.
An Yang strode up the flagpole platform in a few steps, picked up a megaphone, and started shouting to the crowd below.
"Everyone, quiet down! Listen to me!"
The crowd below immediately quieted down. Everyone wanted to hear what this person in charge had to say and whether his answer would be satisfactory.