Starting Today, Study Hard [Apocalypse]

Lin Yuzhi is a twenty-five-year-old street vendor in Lin'an City who dropped out of school and works selling fried skewers near a primary school. He possesses distinctive bright pink hair and maintains a cheerful, smooth-talking demeanor despite his low academic background and working-class status. On a scorching July afternoon in 2027, while purchasing heatstroke medicine, he witnesses the onset of a violent outbreak. People in the vicinity begin attacking others with savage, bite-based aggression, tearing flesh and spreading a contagion that turns victims into mindless, fast-moving monsters. The chaos erupts at the school gate during dismissal, forcing Lin Yuzhi to flee on his electric tricycle as the city descends into panic and bloodshed. Lin Yuzhi takes refuge in a stationery shop with three other survivors: a teenage girl, her father, and another young man. The group barricades themselves in a restroom, where they face repeated assaults from the infected. Lin Yuzhi displays quick reflexes and combat instinct, using a broken door handle to decapitate an attacker that breaches their hiding spot. During this ordeal, his phone activates a mysterious application called the Scholar Leaderboard. The system binds to him, identifying him as a former student of Lin'an City No. 5 High School. It issues a face recognition challenge and grants him a Starter Pack containing food items, which he shares with the traumatized survivors to buy time and goodwill. The system then forces Lin Yuzhi to take a placement exam covering Chinese, Mathematics, English, Physics, Biology, and Chemistry. Despite having been a poor student who dropped out years ago, he completes the test, scoring extremely low but earning enough points to access a virtual mall stocked with food, water, and supplies. Realizing that his survival and ability to acquire resources depend on improving his academic scores, he identifies a potential ally: Xu An, a former classmate who was the undisputed top student of their grade and recently returned to Lin'an City for recovery after a car accident. Lin Yuzhi deduces that Xu An’s high academic ranking could generate the points necessary to secure long-term survival resources. The following morning, the group escapes the stationery shop using a makeshift mirror on a mop to scout for zombies. They locate the girl’s car across the street and part ways, with Lin Yuzhi heading toward Lin'an City People’s Hospital on his tricycle. The journey is perilous, involving high-speed evasion of infected crowds and physical combat with zombies that cling to his vehicle. Upon arriving at the hospital, he navigates the zombie-infested grounds, using noise distractions to lure enemies away from the inpatient building entrance. He enters the lobby, kills a half-eaten nurse zombie with scissors, and accesses the computer system to locate Xu An’s room. Lin Yuzhi discovers Xu An is in Room 505 of Building 1. While moving through the hospital corridors, he is forced to use an elevator, which attracts a horde of infected. He escapes into a stairwell, narrowly avoiding capture as zombies breach the door behind him. He ascends to the fifth floor, armed only with his door handle and scissors, determined to find Xu An. The narrative establishes a core conflict where Lin Yuzhi must survive the zombie apocalypse while simultaneously improving his academic performance through the Scholar System to unlock better supplies and advantages. His journey shifts from mere physical survival to a dual struggle of combat and education, as he seeks out the genius Xu An to help him navigate the system’s demands.