What?! I Became the Zombie Beauty in the Villain’s Arms – CH109-111

Chapter 109 | Chapter 110 | Chapter 111

Chapter 109: Blood Kiss

Ling Lang absolutely refused to let his brother’s final sacrifice of supernatural power go to waste.

He charged blindly out of the zombie tide. Once he broke past the perimeter, he looked back. The zombies had already shaken off the sluggish effect of the dark green web and had resumed their normal, terrifying movement and attack speed. Ling Lang turned his head, locking his bloodshot eyes onto Xiao Yue. He clenched his fists so tightly his knuckles cracked under the pressure.

Xiao Yue was still standing safely atop the ruined structure, gripping his tactical weapon. “Captain Ling Lang, I offered you a chance. This is Duan Xiaolin’s punishment—his retribution for the atrocities he committed.”

Ling Lang’s mind snapped. Blinded by absolute, maddening fury, he scrambled up the concrete rubble in a few massive strides, grabbed Xiao Yue by the collar, and delivered a devastating punch to his face.

Xiao Yue didn’t even attempt to fight back.

He merely sighed inwardly.

Did the great Duan Xiaolin really just die like that?

Ling Lang rained down a brutal flurry of punches.

Xiao Yue’s face was quickly beaten into a bloody, unrecognizable pulp. Finally, he raised his arms to block the onslaught. “Don’t push this any further!”

“You’re begging for death!” Ling Lang roared, trying to drag Xiao Yue toward the edge to throw them both back into the horde. He was fully prepared to die just to take this bastard with him.

“Ling Lang, if you keep this up, don’t blame me for being ruthless! Open your eyes! I did this for the good of the base and all the surviving humans! If you insist on being this blindly stubborn, I won’t hold back anymore!”

“Who exactly are you going to be ruthless to, you arrogant little shit?” A freezing voice cut through the rain.

Qiu Chao, wearing his stark, faceless white mask, materialized right beside them. Long Yan was standing right behind him.

Qiu Chao let out a dark sneer. “You’re a boastful brat whose hair hasn’t even fully grown in yet.”

Before Xiao Yue could even process the threat, Qiu Chao struck like a viper, plunging a specialized syringe straight into Xiao Yue’s neck.

Xiao Yue’s face turned deathly pale in an instant. He began foaming at the mouth, his entire body convulsing violently before collapsing onto the rubble.

Qiu Chao scoffed, looking down at the twitching protagonist. “I hear there’s a highly capable operative in your unit named Pei Yanting? I’d very much like to meet her and exchange some… professional advice.”

Long Yan stepped forward, forcefully pulling the maddened Ling Lang back from the edge. “Calm down! We’re here. Don’t let a piece of trash like this piss you off so much you lose your damn mind.”

“My brother is still trapped inside the zombie tide!” Ling Lang yelled, struggling against her grip.

Long Yan grabbed his face and physically forced his head toward the horde. “Look.”

“The horde is everywhere over there! It’s an endless ocean of teeth. None of us have the elemental reserves left to breach it. So she went in instead.”

Ling Lang stared down at the battlefield.

Deep within the massive, churning ocean of zombies at the base of the fortress walls, a frail figure was slowly, steadily forcing her way forward.

Pei Xiqing was struggling violently to push her way through the infected tide.

The stench inside the horde was suffocating. The air was thick with the revolting smell of rotting corpses and congealing blood. She didn’t know exactly how long these bodies had been decaying, but the putrid scent was enough to make her stomach heave.

Every single step was agonizingly difficult. It felt as though thousand-pound lead weights were chained to her ankles, forcing her to drag herself forward inch by inch.

Her clean, fresh clothes were already slick and stained with the dark, putrid blood rubbing off the surrounding zombies.

Just twelve hours ago, she had retreated to the safety of the base.

Now, she was back out here, looking exactly like a desperate survivor.

She had seen Xiao Yue attempting to wash his hands of the consequences just a few moments ago.

She almost thought she had transmigrated into a male-centric power fantasy.

Xiao Yue clearly felt zero obligation to save anyone outside his immediate circle. He and Duan Xiaolin were naturally standing on opposite sides of the board, and Xiao Yue was the primary catalyst who had unleashed this entire massacre.

She couldn’t believe she was actively bearing witness to the sickeningly thick plot armor of the world’s ‘chosen darling’.

A god-tier tactical suit, unlimited high-level crystal cores, and dual elemental superpowers were merely stepping stones handed to him by the plot. He could arbitrarily suppress true combat geniuses like Ling Lang, and he could effortlessly shift the blame for his massacres onto the “villains.”

He was the center of this universe. The laws of this world revolved entirely around him, completely inviolable.

But she refused to be bound by those idiotic rules.

Pei Xiqing was panting heavily, her face ashen.

Initially, the zombies didn’t attack her. But the deeper she waded into the horde, the more chaotic the environment became. The infected in the center of the swarm had caught the scent of an incredibly powerful ability user’s flesh and blood. Driven completely feral by hunger, they had abandoned all rationality. In their desperate frenzy to claim the flesh of the Chief Judge, they had begun tearing into each other, ignoring basic herd instincts. In that absolute chaos, even Pei Xiqing couldn’t avoid the crossfire.

She gritted her teeth and forced another step forward.

A maddened zombie lunged sideways, sinking its teeth viciously into her shoulder.

Pei Xiqing’s face lost all its remaining color. Her lips trembled violently.

She slowly turned her head.

Seeing that the creature was still frantically gnawing at her shoulder, completely unbothered by her unique biology, she drew her tactical dagger and stabbed it brutally through the skull.

The sheer desperation of the attack proved just how overwhelmingly attractive the flesh of the high-tier ability user ahead of her was to the horde.

Pei Xiqing pressed a hand hard against her bleeding wound.

Fortunately, before she had waded into the tide, corpse spots had already begun surfacing across her skin. Even the blood seeping from her shoulder had rapidly assimilated into a dark, infected hue. Only her human consciousness remained intact. Even with an open, bleeding wound, she wasn’t registering as human prey, sparing her from a coordinated attack by the surrounding zombies.

Finally, pale-faced and dripping with cold sweat, she reached the absolute epicenter of the horde. There, she saw the man, mechanically snapping the neck of a lunging zombie.

He was completely covered in horrific wounds.

His immaculate suit was shredded, and he was bleeding profusely from dozens of deep lacerations.

Only his cold, dark green eyes remained piercingly clear.

Pei Xiqing violently shoved the blocking zombies aside and threw herself forward, wrapping her arms tightly around the man’s waist.

Duan Xiaolin hadn’t anticipated her appearing here.

For a split second, her presence felt entirely unreal.

His bloody hand instinctively reached up, lightly touching the fresh bite wound on her shoulder.

Pei Xiqing could feel the sudden, rigid tension seizing his body, followed by a faint, uncontrollable tremor.

This had never happened before.

It turned out that even the great Duan Xiaolin experienced moments of genuine fear.

She tilted her head up and quickly jammed a syringe directly into his neck, forcefully injecting the serum. “Brother Qiu Chao told me to administer this! He said it’s a hyper-enhanced dose. It will neutralize any active viral strains you’ve contracted over the past hour. And…”

She pulled a second syringe and plunged it in.

“He gave me this to stop your bleeding.”

The coagulant was designed to rapidly clot the blood leaking from severe lacerations.

The effect was practically instantaneous. In less than five seconds, the heavy bleeding across all his wounds ceased.

Unable to track the scent of fresh human blood anymore, the surrounding zombies immediately grew confused. They began running wild, aimlessly circling the area in frustration.

Pei Xiqing’s head spun dizzily.

The physical toll was already making her incredibly uncomfortable.

But she held tightly onto his neck, standing on her tiptoes. “They won’t attack me… but right now, they are completely obsessed with your flesh and blood. They won’t disperse easily. Ling Lang is severely injured. Sister Long Yan and Brother Qiu Chao burned through a massive amount of their elemental reserves just to safely escort me back to this perimeter. There is no way we can break through this horde if they re-engage. You have to leave. Now.”

As she spoke, she pressed her lips lightly against his. Their lips and tongues tangled, mixing the blood lingering in both their mouths. Then, she bit down hard on his lower lip.

Fresh blood began to well up.

Before it could spill, he blocked it with a deep, forceful kiss.

Pei Xiqing ruthlessly smeared his blood across her own lips.

He tried to stop her, but his movements were sluggish.

The piercing clarity in Duan Xiaolin’s eyes was rapidly fading.

His thumb pressed forcefully against her lips, desperately trying to wipe it away. But the smeared bloodstains only looked more vivid against her pale skin.

Her strain of the zombie virus was overwhelmingly powerful.

Level Four.

A normal human simply couldn’t withstand the infection for long.

Duan Xiaolin stared at her intensely, desperately trying to force out a command. A layer of dark lividity was already spreading rapidly across his face, and it looked as though dark blood was beginning to pool behind his green eyes. The sheer physical and mental agony of the viral onslaught completely paralyzed his vocal cords.

The phantom image of a serpent materialized in the depths of her pupils.

It looked incredibly lifelike—a coiled snake, constantly flicking its tongue at him.

Pei Xiqing firmly pulled his hand away from her face. She knew Duan Xiaolin too well. No matter what, his instinct would be to forcefully drag her out of this hell alongside him. But she wasn’t afraid of these infected.

Furthermore, the horde needed a distraction, something to stabilize their frenzied state, or they would inevitably turn back and overwhelm Long Yan’s extraction team.

She couldn’t allow Sister Long Yan and the others—who had risked absolutely everything to bring her here—to die alongside them.

Pei Xiqing pushed him away. Seeing that he was already trapped in the agonizing transition of the zombie virus and the overwhelming effects of the serums, his handsome face twisting in pain, she tried to offer a comforting smile. “I’ll shake them off and regroup with you guys immediately. I already coordinated an extraction point with Sister Long Yan. Wait for me.”

After delivering the promise, she turned and dove straight back into the densest cluster of the zombie horde without looking back.

The churning sea of infected swallowed her figure completely in less than a second.

Unable to detect the scent of blood on Duan Xiaolin anymore, the zombies only recognized him as one of their own kind. But the moment they caught the intoxicating scent of fresh blood smeared across Pei Xiqing’s lips, the entire horde pivoted, chasing after her with terrifying ferocity.

The man who had been shoved away collapsed to one knee, clutching his chest in absolute agony. A dark, sickly green light began to continuously overflow from his heart, pulsing as though he were enduring a cruel, agonizing eternity of torture.

He watched the horde swallow Pei Xiqing, completely unable to move a single muscle.

Chapter 110: What Is Love

Qiu Chao carried the unconscious Xiao Yue by the collar. He looked out over the open ground; the surging tide of zombies was gradually receding, leaving countless mangled corpses scattered across the ruins.

With a careless swing of his leg, he kicked Xiao Yue aside.

Xiao Yue, who had lost consciousness long ago, rolled down the slope of debris and tumbled directly into a rotting pile of zombie corpses.

Staring down at Xiao Yue’s unconscious, battered face, Qiu Chao let out a dark sneer.

He wasn’t going to let this bastard die that easily. He had heard the rumors that the kid possessed absurdly good luck and thick plot armor. He genuinely wanted to see if Xiao Yue could somehow crawl out of this hellscape alive again, completely at the mercy of the poison now racing through his veins.

Qiu Chao wiped a smear of blood from his white mask and signaled to Long Yan, who was dragging the severely injured Ling Lang. “Get to the extraction vehicle. Move fast. You never know when the horde might double back.”

After giving the order, Qiu Chao quickly strode over to Duan Xiaolin.

Duan Xiaolin had just received a massive injection of a hyper-enhanced serum capable of neutralizing any active viral strain within an hour. However, that didn’t guarantee his own dormant zombie biology wouldn’t violently mutate under the stress. Qiu Chao remained highly alert. He prepared to strike the Chief Judge from behind to knock him unconscious for transport, but the exact second he moved, his wrist was caught in a vice-like grip.

Even Qiu Chao was momentarily stunned by the terrifying kinetic force and crushing pressure radiating from the man.

A chaotic, horrifyingly destructive energy was currently tearing through Duan Xiaolin’s body.

Wisps of inky black, supernatural power began to seep from his skin, slowly enveloping his frame.

“Your ability…” Qiu Chao muttered, staring at the dark energy.

He could feel it.

But the Qiong Snake was completely out of control.

As Qiu Chao stepped closer, the dark energy flared, aggressively lashing out as if preparing to strike him down.

Frowning deeply, Qiu Chao refused to hesitate. Enduring the chilling, aggressive pressure of the ability, he waited for a microscopic opening. When it presented itself, he violently plunged a high-grade stabilization stimulant directly into Duan Xiaolin’s neck.

The moment the fluid emptied, the glass syringe was instantly crushed into fine powder by the radiating pressure.

Qiu Chao snatched his hand back.

Half of his body had gone completely numb from the brief exposure.

He had witnessed the sheer, devastating power of the Qiong Snake in the past, but those memories were years old. He hadn’t felt the physical presence of the serpent in a very long time. Feeling that damp, suffocating, bone-chilling cold again—like being trapped inside a dark, airless snake den—left him momentarily stunned. Then, he burst into a low laugh.

He had fought alongside Duan Xiaolin during his absolute prime. The man was a terrifying, god-like existence.

I really hope Xiao Yue survives, Qiu Chao thought maliciously. He desperately wanted to see whether the protagonist’s god-tier armor would rot away first, or if his skin would simply be peeled from his bones.

A moment later, Ying materialized from the shadows. Enduring the violent, erratic lashes of the Qiong Snake’s power, he and Qiu Chao managed to secure the semi-conscious man, physically hauling him away from the epicenter of the massacre.

Meanwhile, Long Yan had knocked Ling Lang unconscious early on.

The moment the kid had seen Pei Xiqing dive into the zombie tide to lead the horde away, he had completely lost his mind, thrashing and screaming. If Long Yan hadn’t physically subdued him, he would have charged right back into the swarm to die alongside her.

After finally dragging Ling Lang’s heavy frame into the back seat of the armored vehicle, Long Yan pulled a medical kit from the trunk and began administering emergency first aid.

Fortunately, all of Ling Lang’s lacerations and burns were the result of elemental explosions during his fight with Xiao Yue, not zombie bites. Just as she finished wrapping his chest, Qiu Chao and Ying arrived carrying Duan Xiaolin.

“Get in the car,” Qiu Chao barked. “We’re moving.”

The heavy armored vehicle roared to life and lurched forward.

The ground was entirely blanketed in zombie corpses, making the terrain incredibly treacherous and severely hindering their driving speed.

Qiu Chao was the one who had rushed Pei Xiqing back to this location earlier, driving like an absolute maniac. If he hadn’t, they would have never reached the perimeter in time.

Now, he was navigating the exact same route in reverse.

In the back seat, Long Yan was desperately trying to bandage Duan Xiaolin.

Looking at the horrific state of his body, her brow furrowed into a tight knot that refused to relax.

Those few minutes he had been buried under the zombie pile had been devastating. There were countless puncture wounds across his body—all from the infected frantically tearing at his flesh. A significant chunk of muscle had actually been ripped completely from his arm.

The bloody, mangled craters in his flesh made even a hardened veteran like Long Yan feel physically sick.

If it weren’t for the emergency serum Pei Xiqing had injected into him, the horrifying news that the Supreme Chief Judge had mutated into a feral zombie would have rapidly spread across the wasteland. Who knew how many rival factions would secretly celebrate, or even launch coordinated hunting parties to claim his head?

“Qiu Chao, where are the medical supplies?” Long Yan demanded.

“Here.” While steering with one hand, Qiu Chao pulled a specialized vial from his tactical vest and tossed it into the back. “That’s the absolute last one. We burned through the entire stockpile back at the base.”

“I know.”

With practiced, professional precision, Long Yan injected the final antidote into Duan Xiaolin.

Suddenly, Qiu Chao looked up, his eyes scanning the pitch-black road ahead. “Two kilometers out. There’s an extraction marker.”

“I see it.”

They reached the designated road sign very quickly.

Qiu Chao slammed on the brakes.

And so began an agonizing two-hour wait.

As the minutes dragged on, more and more wandering zombies began converging on their position. Qiu Chao rolled down his window, casually dispatching a few infected that wandered too close to the chassis. “The perimeter is getting swarmed,” he warned. “We can’t hold this position much longer.”

In the back seat, Long Yan was still desperately trying to stem the bleeding on the two unconscious men. Brother Duan’s wounds were incredibly severe, and her hands were completely slick with his dark blood. Ling Lang’s condition wasn’t much better. If they continued to idle here, both men were in critical danger of bleeding out.

But Long Yan refused to give the order to leave.

She knew that if she chose to drive away now, even if it successfully saved their lives, Brother Duan and Ling Lang would never forgive her. More importantly, she would never forgive herself.

She pressed her blood-soaked hands firmly against the horrific wound on Duan Xiaolin’s chest, trying to stop the continuous oozing.

“Wait,” she ordered softly. “We must wait until Xiqing arrives. No matter the cost.”

Without a word, Ying stepped out of the vehicle and immediately engaged the horde, violently blocking the zombies rushing toward their flanks.

Qiu Chao thought of something and chuckled softly.

The moment he slammed his door shut, he pulled off his faceless mask and checked the magazine in his pistol. “It’s rare to encounter something this genuinely interesting. I’ve been bored out of my mind these past few years. Let’s have some fun with these rotting bastards.”

Inside the cabin, Long Yan was frantically rummaging through the empty medical kit, her expression growing darker by the second.

Every single bandage, coagulant, and painkiller was gone.

She let out a heavy sigh.

They all knew the grim reality: if Xiqing didn’t return before the two men succumbed to blood loss, they were entirely out of options.

The long night slowly bled into day.

In the blink of an eye, the first gray light of dawn began to creep over the horizon.

The two operatives outside finally climbed back into the front seats, exhausted.

Qiu Chao casually wiped the blood from his empty pistol and drew a razor-sharp tactical saber from his thigh sheath. The cold steel reflected the grim faces of the people inside the cabin. He smiled lazily. “Minor problem. We’re completely out of ammo. Looks like we’ll have to rely on the steel.”

Ying wiped a smear of black blood from his cheek. “Any spare blades? Toss me one.”

“I only brought this one.”

“…”

Ying silently pulled a bayonet from his rig and locked it onto the barrel of his empty submachine gun. “This will suffice.”

Qiu Chao laughed. “Good brother. If we actually survive this, I’ll make sure to record it as a major merit on your file.”

Ying remained entirely unmoved. “Acknowledged.”

“Shall we continue the slaughter?”

Ying glanced up at the rearview mirror.

“Brother Duan is crashing. We can’t just sit here and wait for death.”

Qiu Chao turned around, looking at the back seat. “How are they doing?”

Long Yan shook her head, her face pale. “There are absolutely no medical supplies left. Nothing.”

She forced herself to vocalize the cruelest calculation of all. “If we keep waiting, Brother Duan will bleed out. But if we leave now, Xiqing will be completely abandoned.”

Ying remained silent.

The cabin fell into a heavy, suffocating silence.

Qiu Chao smirked, breaking the deadlock. “Ha, minor problem. I’ll hold the perimeter. Ying, take the wheel…”

But before he could finish his sentence, a hoarse voice interrupted him.

Ling Lang had woken up.

His striking white hair was a tangled mess, and a glaring streak of dried blood marred the right side of his face. He forced himself to sit up, grabbing a handful of his own hair as he tried to focus his blurry vision. “How much ammunition is left? Pass me the knife.”

He extended a trembling hand toward Qiu Chao. “I’ll stay behind. You guys push forward. I’ll hold this position and wait for her until nightfall. If she doesn’t show up by dark, I’ll fall back and link up with you.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Long Yan snapped. “You’re critically injured.”

“It’s nothing,” he rasped, coughing weakly. “At least my body still processes elemental energy; my natural recovery rate is high. Brother Duan doesn’t have an active core right now. He’s operating entirely on a civilian baseline. He won’t survive much longer without proper medical intervention.”

“I’ll stay with you,” Qiu Chao offered smoothly.

“No need,” Ling Lang rejected. “The base is completely destabilized. My brother is in no condition to manage the fallout. You need to return to headquarters and maintain the overall command structure. Don’t let those capital rats take advantage of the chaos to seize his territory.”

With that, he snatched the tactical saber straight out of Qiu Chao’s hand.

He scooped up the very last handful of spare ammunition scattered in the vehicle and pushed the heavy door open.

Long Yan watched his blood-soaked, determined back as he stepped out into the gray dawn.

For some reason, despite the grim reality of their situation, she found herself smiling faintly.

“You stupid brat,” she murmured. “So you finally figured out what love is.”

Chapter 111: A Thirty-Percent Resemblance

Young love is often passionate, courageous, and unrestrained, refusing to be hindered by anything. It burns with an energetic, fearless positivity.

But Ling Lang was different. He couldn’t express his feelings openly and honestly, so he buried them deep within his heart, choosing to deceive everyone around him. This was the path he had chosen. He would never admit to what people called “liking” or “loving” someone.

So, he waited beneath the desolate road sign from the break of day until the dead of night.

The tactical saber in his hand was caked with dried zombie blood. His own blood, mixed with sweat, slid down his muscular arms and dripped steadily onto the muddy ground.

He watched from afar as night fell over the wasteland.

Gritting his teeth, Ling Lang violently kicked a lunging, snarling zombie away, forcing himself to hold the line.

As the sky faded into a pitch-black expanse, Ling Lang leaned heavily against the trunk of a gnarled tree.

The ground below him was swarming with a pack of ravenous zombies, drooling and snapping their jaws like starved jackals and leopards. His blood dripped down the branches, drop by drop. Every single drop that splattered onto the earth below drove the infected into a wild frenzy, their continuous, guttural roars echoing through the dark.

He couldn’t even remember what day it was anymore.

An overwhelming wave of exhaustion crashed over him, threatening to pull him under. But his bloodshot eyes remained fixed on the distant horizon, refusing to blink, even though no one had appeared.

When a faint figure finally materialized in the distance, his vision had already blurred to the point of blindness. Unable to hold on a second longer, his body went limp, and he plummeted from the tree.

Pei Xiqing ached all over, a sharp, throbbing pain radiating particularly from her ankles.

Her last coherent memory was the exact moment she had shoved Duan Xiaolin away and sprinted out of the zombie pile. At that time, she only had one thought: run madly, as far as possible, to draw the entire horde away and give the extraction team enough room to evacuate safely.

She hadn’t paid any attention to her route, running blindly through the chaos without a destination in mind. By the time her rational mind caught up, she had wandered into completely unfamiliar territory.

She remembered quickly wiping Duan Xiaolin’s blood from her lips, replacing it with the putrid, foul blood of a nearby corpse. She had smeared the gore all over herself and rolled repeatedly through a pile of dead mutants until the overwhelming stench completely masked her own scent, successfully breaking the horde’s tracking.

Only after ensuring she had lost them did she drag her dust-covered body out of the mud. Her clothes were utterly ruined. Just as she was reorienting herself to meet up with Long Yan and the others, a sudden, sharp blow struck the back of her neck.

Her consciousness instantly shattered. The last thing she saw before blacking out was a pair of legs slowly stepping into her field of vision.

Sitting up stiffly, Pei Xiqing assessed her condition. Her ankle was badly bruised—likely from tripping over debris during her frantic sprint—though the bleeding had already clotted.

The bite wound on her shoulder had actually been treated and bandaged. The thick white gauze wrapped tightly around her upper torso. However, a blaring alarm bell went off in her head when she looked down.

Her clothes had been completely stripped off! She was wearing absolutely nothing above the waist except for the layer of blood-stained bandages covering her chest and vital areas.

She snapped her head up, her gaze immediately colliding with a pair of chillingly cold eyes.

The woman looking down at her shared a distinct, thirty-percent facial resemblance to herself. But this woman had pale, bloodless lips, sharp, high cheekbones, and was as emaciated as a bamboo pole. She wore heavy black-framed glasses that magnified her dull, severely myopic eyes, framed by dark, exhausted circles.

Pei Xiqing blinked, a flash of recognition cutting through her confusion.

Isn’t this the original host’s older sister, Pei Yanting?

Pei Yanting scrutinized her, not missing a single detail. Slowly, she asked, “Are you a zombie or a human?”

She raised a gleaming dagger, pressing the cold steel directly against Pei Xiqing’s throat. “If I thought you were a zombie, I would slit your throat right now.”

Pei Xiqing didn’t flinch. She boldly grasped the blade of the dagger with her bare hand. “You had plenty of opportunities to kill me while I was unconscious. Isn’t it a little too late to be asking this now? Or do you simply refuse to believe that I could retain my human consciousness after you saw that massive zombie bite on my shoulder?”

Pei Yanting’s lips pressed into a tight line. She yanked the dagger back.

“When I saw that bite and the corpse spots forming on your skin, I really did want to kill you,” she admitted. She hadn’t expected to end up bandaging the wound instead of finishing the job.

A sneer twisted Pei Yanting’s gaunt face. “Did you become an experimental subject? Your biology is a complete anomaly. How many illegal drugs did they force-feed you at Base Three? If you hadn’t insisted on acting like a shameless slut, who would have kicked you out of the vanguard team in the first place?”

Pei Xiqing finally took in her surroundings. They were hiding behind the ruins of a collapsed building. A crumbling, half-destroyed brick wall sheltered them in a tight corner, and a small campfire crackled weakly in front of them.

She was freezing. Unable to help herself, she rubbed her bare arms and huddled tightly together. “I am not an experimental subject, and I haven’t been drugged,” she stated flatly.

“Then what did you do to end up like this?” Pei Yanting demanded. “Was it the karma from seducing your own teammates, or from trying to climb into Xiao Yue’s bed?”

Pei Xiqing decided to openly address the original host’s baggage. “I’ve already said that wasn’t my intention, though you probably never believed me. But whatever, I don’t care anymore. Let’s say I did do it.” She raised her chin defensively. “Men who can be seduced so easily aren’t exactly saints either. They wanted to take advantage of my body, and I wanted the resources they could provide. It was a mutual transaction. Why are you only scolding me, instead of interrogating them for being so easily manipulated?”

Pei Yanting scoffed in pure disgust. “You climbed into your own brother-in-law’s bed, and you still expect me to take your side?”

“I can’t defend myself against that, and I have no desire to,” Pei Xiqing replied calmly. “But do you know the way Xiao Yue looked at me when it happened?”

“Bullshit.”

“It’s the truth.”

“Don’t try to sow discord between us with your lies,” Pei Yanting snapped. “Xiao Yue hasn’t returned yet. When he gets back, why don’t we confront him face-to-face and ask him?”

She claimed she trusted Xiao Yue, but deep down, even she didn’t know how much longer that fragile trust would last.

“Fine,” Pei Xiqing sighed. “I also want to ask him what the hell he’s trying to accomplish. Speaking of which… what exactly is your goal in kidnapping me?”

Pei Yanting paused for a moment. “I was on my way to back up Xiao Yue when I happened to spot you wandering among the zombies. I knocked you out and dragged you here to use as a hostage. I need leverage to ensure Xiao Yue doesn’t get captured or killed by Franlun. Do you have a problem with that?”

“No problem,” Pei Xiqing muttered. So that explained the sudden blackout.

Realizing she had absolutely nothing left to say to this bitter woman, and having no idea how to navigate their twisted sibling dynamic, Pei Xiqing simply crossed her arms, huddled into the corner, and fell silent. She had asked about her missing clothes earlier, but Pei Yanting had completely ignored the question.

After a few minutes, Pei Xiqing asked, “How long have I been asleep?”

“A full day.”

“I need to go back!” Pei Xiqing exclaimed, abruptly standing up.

Oh no. The designated rendezvous window with Sister Long Yan had long passed.

At that exact moment, the heavy crunch of boots echoed from the front of the ruins. A large, rowdy group of armed scavengers marched into the clearing.

When their eyes landed on the stunning, long-haired beauty standing by the fire—her snow-white shoulders and jade-like arms completely bare above the bandages—every single man froze in his tracks.

Stunned by the sight, one of them blurted out, “Who the hell is this?”

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