A Corpse from the Start, and All My Teammates Are SSRs

A week after Gu Yu died, the apocalypse began.

The good news: He's alive again, and has bound himself to the [Traditional Culture Protection System], an expert at getting through little challenges.

The bad news: He's transmigrated into a high schooler's corpse that has already begun to rot. The original owner died after accidentally taking the wrong medication.

Now he, a Chinese mecha engineer from the Steam Era, faces a problem trickier than zombies:

How can he explain to his new teammates that his corpse spots aren't the latest goth makeup trend?

How can he elegantly browse Tiangong Kaiwu and build a steam-powered defense tower while bits of his arm are falling off?

How can he suppress his primal urge to grab the sandwich in the hands of Lin Che, that cold-faced top student?

His post-apocalyptic team is an odd bunch:

Sister Su, the school nurse, is always trying to stick him with needles and investigate whether "corpses have acupuncture points too."

Lei, a craft enthusiast, eagerly offers to make him a custom "portable exoskeleton that keeps you from falling apart," even thoughtfully asking, "Buddy, do you prefer the fragrance of sandalwood or rosewood? It keeps bugs away."

Zhou Yu, the team's resident nice guy, smiles at him, but his eyes make him look like he's assessing a precision instrument.

And Lin Che, who always leaves his back exposed to Gu Yu, simply hands him a box of superglue after Gu Yu nearly loses control one time. "Glue yourself back together first. Don't fall apart. Leave the rest to me."

As Gu Yu uses mortise-and-tenon joinery to secure his loose joints, he complains wildly to himself:

"Everyone else is surviving the apocalypse. I'm cultivating through 'repair', literally repairing my real, actual corpse."

"System, I'll accept using Mozi's chapter on defending cities to fight off a zombie horde, but does the Compendium of Materia Medica really not have a section on 'corpse preservation'?!"

As the wave of destruction bears down on the world, Gu Yu stands atop a bulwark powered by gears, runes, and steam, guarding the small patch of land beneath him with ancient wisdom.

Lin Che's voice carries through the smoke, as steadfast as ever: "You repair civilization. I'll stay by your side, no matter what you become."

This is a heartwarming (?) story about how a "corpse" uses the most dilapidated body and the most enduring wisdom to patch himself up in the apocalypse, and casually save the world (and his teammates) along the way.

"System, I'll accept using Mozi's chapter on defending cities to fight off a zombie horde, but does the Compendium of Materia Medica really not have a section on 'corpse preservation'?!"

As the wave of destruction bears down on the world, Gu Yu stands atop a bulwark powered by gears, runes, and steam, guarding the small patch of land beneath him with ancient wisdom.

Lin Che's voice carries through the smoke, as steadfast as ever: "You repair civilization. I'll stay by your side, no matter what you become."

This is a heartwarming (?) story about how a "corpse" uses the most dilapidated body and the most enduring wisdom to patch himself up in the apocalypse, and casually save the world (and his teammates) along the way.

Theme: Synopsis title: Becoming Proof of One's Own Existence. Gu Yu is a zombie in the apocalypse trying his best to keep himself "fresh," bound to the most absurd KPI in history: the [Civilization Protection System]. While his teammates question their lives in the wasteland, he's busy crafting a water purifier from Tiangong Kaiwu, using Mozi to teach zombies what it means to "keep your distance," and even extracting clean water from mutated plants with acupuncture. Sister Su the school nurse wonders where he gets his motivation. Gu Yu lowers his head and uses tweezers to press a piece of rotting flesh back into place. His inner monologue: "Probably because I'm a 'walking nihilist,' and if I don't do something decent, I'll become performance art for real." Lin Che comes over and slips a piece of candy, preserved with his ice powers, into Gu Yu's stiff hand. His voice is gentle, but steady as a promise: "You're restoring cultural relics. I'm restoring you." In short, this is a story about a zombie leading an intangible cultural heritage revival and rebuilding human dignity in the apocalypse.