What?! I Became the Zombie Beauty in the Villain’s Arms – CH94

Chapter 94: You Are Not Normal

Pei Xiqing finished her meal slowly. Just as she looked up, Duan Xiaolin walked back into the living room, carrying the bedding that had been hanging out to dry in the courtyard.

The linens were spotless. They smelled warmly of sunshine.

She noticed this was the second time he had collected laundry today. She quickly looked away, feeling a distinct flush of embarrassment.

I really went through a lot of bedsheets over the past forty-eight hours…

After setting her empty plate aside, Pei Xiqing spent some time playing with Xiaobai before a familiar wave of drowsiness washed over her again. Her body desperately needed more sleep to recover.

The man, currently folding the fresh quilt on the sofa, noticed her heavy eyelids. “Heading back to sleep?”

“Yeah… wait, didn’t you mention you wanted to take me out into the wild to test my superpowers? I’m worried that my sleep schedule is going to delay your operational timeline.” She suddenly remembered Long Yan mentioning a few days ago that their vanguard team would be departing Base Three soon, though the exact departure date remained unconfirmed.

If she wanted to test her abilities beyond the walls, she needed to coordinate the excursion with Duan Xiaolin before the main column moved out, which meant she could be holding up everyone’s schedule. In theory, she could just wait and run the tests once the main caravan was already on the road… but she had zero intelligence regarding Duan Xiaolin’s specific deployment plans.

“There’s plenty of time for that after you’ve fully rested,” the man replied calmly. “I still need to hold a tactical briefing with Ling Lang and the other captains to finalize our departure window. I’ll relay the schedule to you once the parameters are set.”

“Alright.” Pei Xiqing stood up and retreated back to the bedroom to sleep.

The mattress cover and quilt had been swapped out multiple times over the course of her two-day marathon; she had burned through two entire clean sets. But after pushing herself to the absolute limit recently, slipping into the fresh, warm blankets felt heavenly. She let out a long sigh of relief.

There was nothing more satisfying than sinking into uninterrupted, deeply protected rest.

She dozed fitfully for several hours, finally waking up around noon.

For the rest of the day, she sat lazily out in the sun-drenched courtyard, casually flipping through some archival files. There was nothing particularly urgent on her agenda.

Two quiet days passed in this manner. Eventually, the inactivity started to bore her, and Xiaobai was practically vibrating with pent-up energy, desperate for a run. Slipping a wide-brimmed hat on, she leashed the Husky and took him for a quick jog around the residential perimeter.

The moment she returned to the villa, she spotted a familiar armored vehicle parked right outside the gates.

Long Yan was leaning casually against the driver’s side door.

Pei Xiqing trotted over, smiling. “Sister Long Yan, you’re here.”

“Yep. Brother Duan dispatched my line to act as your transport,” she said. “He mentioned Qiu Chao wants to run a physical diagnostic on your system to map the exact profile of the zombie virus anchoring your cells.”

“Qiu Chao…”

“You crossed paths with him recently,” Long Yan clarified. “The guy wearing the faceless white mask. Just scan the room for the creepy blank mask, and that’ll be him.”

“Right, I remember.”

“He’s the supreme medical director inside Franlun. Much like Brother Duan, he commands an immense tier of authority at global headquarters. If Brother Duan specializes in obliterating the psychological defenses of high-tier targets during an interrogation, then Qiu Chao specializes in obliterating their physical defenses. His standard operating procedure usually involves torturing an ability user until they’re hovering exactly on the brink of death. To him, it’s just another Tuesday.”

“That sounds… terrifying.”

“The personnel anchoring Franlun aren’t soft targets,” Long Yan noted, slipping back behind the steering wheel and turning the ignition. “The operatives in that division are absolute apex predators. They’ve weathered the most brutal winters of the apocalypse and understand human biological weaknesses down to a cellular level. They’ve engineered thousands of different punishment algorithms. Back at the capital, the political landscape isn’t nearly as relaxed as it is out here. Every single faction knows to give Franlun a wide, respectful berth.”

It was a known fact: whenever a Franlun operative stepped onto the floor at global headquarters, zero executives dared to deny them compliance. Even the Supreme Marshal Commander wasn’t immune to their reach; if Franlun initiated an audit, the highest brass had to submit without concealment.

The civilian and military personnel managing Base Three simply operated too far from the capital to truly comprehend the absolute, crushing cruelty Franlun represented.

“How many active operatives does Franlun actually command?” Pei Xiqing asked.

“Roughly six top-tier directors,” Long Yan replied smoothly. “Their base of operations is at headquarters, though they frequently execute cross-sector missions across various strongholds. The ecosystem is highly volatile these days, and the crime index is spiking.”

She smacked her lips thoughtfully. “A single black-market auction here can send shockwaves across the entire base. Nine times out of ten, it’s Franlun sweeping in to liquidate the syndicates and cover up the fallout. If their division didn’t step up to play the executioner, this fortress would have cannibalized itself long ago.”

“Get in,” Long Yan said, unlocking the passenger door. “I’ll run your transport. Last time, it was merely Qiu Chao’s apprentice running your diagnostics, and I suspect their equipment failed to isolate the anomaly. That’s why he’s personally routing your file today. You’ll get to experience the exact capability of Franlun’s gold-medal forensic director.”

Pei Xiqing smiled and climbed into the passenger seat.

Since Duan Xiaolin had explicitly promised that he would never let her timeline devolve into a laboratory test subject, she felt secure enough to face the examination. If it had been anyone else setting up the appointment, she would have sprinted in the opposite direction the moment Long Yan mentioned his name.

Long Yan drove with aggressive efficiency, clearing the central command tower’s security perimeter in under ten minutes. Bypassing the ground-level drop-off, the armored vehicle descended straight into the subterranean secure parking grid.

The two women badged into the private elevator shaft.

As the doors slid shut, Long Yan let out a sharp laugh. “You’re probably more familiar with this specific lift’s architecture than I am.”

Pei Xiqing offered a dry, embarrassed chuckle. “Not exactly.”

“The security logs indicate you managed to trip every single emergency alarm protocol wired into this shaft a few weeks ago. It seems you ran a highly thorough, manual audit of the control interface.”

“My system was just… running a curiosity parameter at the time.”

“Hahaha.”

While they were joking, the high-speed lift rapidly ascended, smoothly decelerating as it hit the target floor.

Level Ten.

The supreme experimental and medical containment tier.

It was the exact same corridor she had navigated during her initial diagnostic run. The rows of transparent, reinforced glass containment wards were packed with violently mutated, grotesquely twisted infected subjects.

As they walked past, Pei Xiqing subconsciously locked eyes with a mutant anchored in the ward to her right.

The infected subject instantly snapped, violently thrashing against its restraints before lunging against the thick glass, its decaying hands slamming a frantic, heavy rhythm against the pane.

A lab technician in full hazmat gear quickly scrambled up behind the mutant, forcefully wrenching it backward to lock it down onto the primary examination table.

Because her own cellular matrix housed an active strain of zombie blood, Pei Xiqing could practically feel the creature’s agonizing biological panic echoing in her own chest. She couldn’t suppress a violent shudder.

Suddenly, a smooth, highly amused chuckle vibrated near her ear. The man’s tone dripped with casual arrogance. “What specific data is catching the little beauty’s eye?”

Pei Xiqing turned her head, immediately coming face-to-face with a stark, pale, faceless mask.

…

She was already used to his aesthetic. She had mentally pre-compiled her defenses for this encounter.

“Just auditing the infected subjects.”

“Care to run a physical trial? The technicians in that specific ward are currently executing a consciousness-severing protocol. In raw terms, they are systematically disconnecting the neural pathways from the mutant’s brain stem, preparing to surgically implant the cortex into a freshly deceased, uninfected human corpse.”

Pei Xiqing’s expression tightened slightly, but she refused to project an ounce of fear. “What is the tactical objective of that procedure?”

“There is zero tactical objective. The baseline is pure, unfiltered torture.” Despite the featureless mask, the sheer malice and freezing cruelty radiating from the man’s vocal track were unmistakable.

A second later, his tone shifted back into a breezy, conversational register. “Do your analytics accept that file as truth?”

“Negative.”

“Ah. The privileges commanded by the elite caste in this wasteland are terrifying. Those mutants are the infected family members of high-clearance executives. Desperate to artificially extend the timelines of their loved ones, the elite have dumped massive financial assets into funding these idiotic, impossible surgical trials.”

“That parameter aligns perfectly with human logic.”

Qiu Chao took two deliberate steps back, running a slow, visual scan across her frame. “Your biology is highly anomalous.”

Pei Xiqing held her ground. “I’m aware.”

“My division possesses an intense urge to permanently lock your registry inside my laboratory vaults.”

“…”

Long Yan stepped forward, crossing her arms. “Does your station possess the actual leverage to execute that threat?”

Qiu Chao let out a dramatic sigh. “Follow my boots. My temporary examination suite is located further down the grid.”

Long Yan caught Pei Xiqing’s elbow, leaning close to murmur, “Deactivate your anxiety loop. His vocal track simply enjoys deploying psychological friction. His compliance bars would never actually authorize a strike against your timeline.”

“Understood.”

“My desk has secondary logistics to manage, so I’m clearing the floor. I’ll route my transport back to this coordinate in exactly two hours to run your extraction.”

“Thank you, Sister Long Yan.”

The moment the vanguard captain stepped back into the lift, Pei Xiqing took a deep breath, steeling her nerves before turning to follow Qiu Chao’s retreating shadow.

His temporary lab was anchored in a highly secure, blind corner at the far right edge of the tier.

Qiu Chao unlocked the heavy steel door. “Step inside.”

Pei Xiqing crossed the threshold. The room housed a central surgical operating table, flanked by a secondary recovery cot draped in stark white linen. Unlike the transparent observation wards lining the main corridor, this suite was completely sealed by monotonous, reinforced white walls. The air was thick with the harsh, stinging chemical burn of high-grade sterilants.

Qiu Chao casually hooked a metal chair with his boot, sat down, and poured a sterile cup of water. His tone flattened into absolute professionalism. “This specific suite recently processed the horrific, terminal failures of several high-tier mutants and ability users. They were all voluntary test subjects. The resulting biological fluid volume was so massive my team had to deploy heavy chemical agents to neutralize the decay signature. Furthermore, the experiments executed here skirted the edge of administrative legality, hence the structural blackout—zero observation glass. It provides the perfect, secure environment to run an unvarnished audit on your current baseline.”

Pei Xiqing sat in the chair directly across from his desk. She accepted the water cup but didn’t take a sip, her eyes locked on his mask. “What specific metric of my biology does your office intend to scan?”

“The unique architecture of the viral load anchoring your cells. My medical logs have never recorded a human subject maintaining a stable, constant thermal temperature following a direct zombie infection.” Out in the public corridor, his demeanor had been entirely frivolous; but the moment the steel door sealed them inside, his operational protocol turned flawlessly clinical. Wearing pristine latex gloves, he reached out to physically check her skin temperature.

He gripped a medical-grade thermal scanner between his fingers, pressing the sensor flat against her wrist before quickly analyzing the digital readout.

“Your thermal baseline registers as perfectly human… yet the viral matrix locked inside your body is fundamentally defying the laws of nature.”

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