Chapter 72: Keeping Your Tail Between Your Legs
A faint light finally cracked open the edge of the sky.
The scattered zombies drifting along Bell Street suddenly went rigid, their heads tilting upward in unison to stare at the horizon.
Down in the alley, none of the God’s Supermarket staff noticed the subtle shift. They had grown so accustomed to the perpetual gloom that they had long since stopped anticipating daybreak.
Under Liu Xiaona’s strict supervision, Song Yuqing reluctantly finished every last drop of her rice and beef soup. She immediately turned to shuffle back toward her bedroom, only to be firmly intercepted by Gaha and Little Meat Bun.
“Gaha! Gah-gah!” Gaha chirped, dancing around her with absolute joy.
Song Yuqing, what you need right now isn’t sleep—it’s exercise!
“Huh?” Song Yuqing blinked, her sleep-deprived brain completely unable to process what was happening.
Little Meat Bun flashed a smug grin. Working together, he and Gaha each grabbed one of Song Yuqing’s arms and forcefully marched her out of the God’s Supermarket.
“Hey, what are you doing?” Song Yuqing grumbled, standing dazed and helpless in the open air outside the storefront.
A few meters away, the water-type mutants rescued from Base 27 were furiously cleaning the building next door. Some were wiping down windows, others were whitewashing the walls, a few swept the concrete, and a group vigorously scrubbed down the salvaged furniture. They were working like a colony of hyperactive ants, entirely determined to pull their weight so they could stay a few more days and buy enough attribute coffee to skyrocket their abilities.
Song Yuqing raised an eyebrow. If this group of customers stays put and integrates into the property, they’ll bring a massive, steady stream of revenue to the supermarket. Not bad.
Wrenching her arms free from Gaha’s grip, she gave the industrious mutants an encouraging thumbs-up.
Seeing this, Little Meat Bun stepped in, manually adjusting Song Yuqing’s posture by locking her hands and head into a rigid running stance.
“Gaha!” Are you ready? Let’s go!
Song Yuqing looked at them blankly. “Go where?”
Liu Xiaona, who was currently clearing the dinner table inside, banged on the glass window and shouted out to her, “Manager! Go run a few laps with Gaha and Little Meat Bun first!”
Song Yuqing: “…”
She hadn’t participated in any form of physical education since her university days.
Before she could voice a single objection, Gaha and Little Meat Bun hoisted her up and lunged out of the alley. Trapped securely between the two agile creatures, Song Yuqing’s limbs flapped awkwardly as she struggled to match their pace, her arms and legs moving in perfect, unnatural synchronization. She was acutely aware that she must look absolutely ridiculous.
A wave of muffled chuckles drifted over from the adjacent building. She whipped her head around, catching the water mutants openly snickering at her.
How humiliating!
“Stop laughing, or I’ll kick every single one of you out!” Song Yuqing roared over her shoulder. The threat worked like a charm, instantly silencing the courtyard.
Gaha and Little Meat Bun continued to propel her forward, dragging her in frantic circles around Bell Street. After barely a few yards of actual running, Song Yuqing was already gasping for breath.
“Gaha!” Gaha cheered, throwing out words of encouragement.
Exhausted, irritable, and completely out of options against the stubborn duo, Song Yuqing resigned herself to her fate and let them pull her along passively.
One lap, two laps… They veered down a connecting street. One lap, two laps…
“Wait, stop!” Song Yuqing suddenly screamed, utilizing every ounce of her remaining breath as she stared at the side of the road.
Gaha and Little Meat Bun exchanged a quick glance and slammed on the brakes, their heels skidding across the asphalt.
“Gaha?” What’s wrong, boss?
“Look over there. Something’s off,” Song Yuqing wheezed, pointing toward the curb.
A zombie stood near the gutter, its jaw hanging slightly slack as its milky eyes remained glued to the sky. It paid absolutely no attention to the sudden intrusion of a human, a high-level zombie, and a mutant panda.
“Are you doing that?” Song Yuqing turned her head to ask Gaha.
Gaha vigorously shook her head, waving her hands in denial.
Following the lone zombie’s static gaze up toward the horizon, Song Yuqing gasped. A faint, pale silver hue was actively tearing a visible hole through the oppressive shroud of the polar night.
“It’s getting light… It’s finally getting light!” she shouted, her voice laced with pure excitement.
Declaring that she wouldn’t run another single inch, Song Yuqing plopped herself right down onto the curb. She wanted to sit right there and watch the sky brighten, eager to witness exactly how the world would transform once the sun returned.
Equally desperate to witness the long-awaited dawn, Little Meat Bun and Gaha happily popped down to squat right alongside her.
The three of them sat shoulder-to-shoulder, staring expectantly at the sky.
As the light slowly bled into the clouds, a sudden wave of realization washed over Song Yuqing. For the first time, she felt a genuine sense of shared resonance with the wild undead population. No wonder those brainless creatures had been standing around like statues—they were all waiting for the dawn!
According to the system’s old doomsday forecasts, a proper sunrise during the polar night cycle would only take about ten minutes to manifest. Song Yuqing pulled her phone from her jacket, aiming the lens toward the horizon to record the historic event.
As the screen lit up, she noticed she was still looking at Nanjiao’s unread text messages. Driven by a sudden burst of curiosity, her thumb drifted down and tapped the link attached to the bottom of the log.
The browser instantly re-routed, and a live video feed filled her screen.
In the frame, Lin Han and Wan Youzhi were thoroughly bound in thick, thorny vines, the opposite end of the foliage securely hitched to the rear bumper of a sleek luxury car.
“You two better run as fast as you can!” a crisp, authoritative female voice barked from off-camera.
Lin Han and Wan Youzhi looked like a pair of drowned rats—haggard, bloodied, and entirely broken. They clearly wanted to explode in a fit of rage, but they lacked the courage to even raise their voices. After months of terrorizing the territory, they were finally tasting the sheer humiliation of having to live with their tails between their legs.
Lin Han raised a trembling, soot-stained finger toward the column of vehicles trailing behind them. “W-What about them?! Why do they get to stay inside the cars?!” He was referring to the elite psychics he had marched out from Base No. 27.
“Oh, them? They didn’t push my buttons, so I have no reason to push theirs.”
On screen, a striking red-haired woman stepped into the frame, casually batting away a desperate cloud of black mist that was beginning to rise from Lin Han’s palm. Immediately following her strike, a burly, dark-skinned man stepped forward and unleashed a pressurized torrent of black water, drenching both Lin Han and Wan Youzhi until their internal energy pathways locked up entirely.
The red-haired woman and the dark mutant hopped into the lead vehicle and hit the gas. Through the camera’s rear-view perspective, Lin Han and Wan Youzhi could be seen sprinting for their lives to keep up with the accelerating bumper. Lin Han lost his footing, stumbling and crashing face-first onto the rocky dirt, but the car didn’t slow down for a second. He was violently dragged along the gravel, screaming bloody murder for someone to save him.
Staring at Lin Han’s utterly pathetic state, Song Yuqing, Little Meat Bun, and Gaha collectively winced, their heads tilting back in a shared expression of grim satisfaction. It was incredibly therapeutic to watch, but man, the secondhand embarrassment was brutal.
At the very end of the clip, the convoy finally pulled over. The dark mutant stepped out of the cabin one last time, ruthlessly splashing another bucket of black water over the two gasping leaders to ensure their internal energy pathways remained completely paralyzed. There was no telling how long it would take for their abilities to recover after a dosage that severe.
“Gaha!” Gaha cheered, gesturing wildly to declare that karma was a beautiful thing.
But mid-sentence, the little zombie’s expression went completely rigid. Beside her, Little Meat Bun bolted upright onto his hind legs, letting out a low, menacing growl.
“What’s wrong?” Song Yuqing asked, looking between them in confusion, only to be met with a pair of synchronized eye-rolls from her pets.
Manager? Seriously? The signs are glaringly obvious, can’t you feel it?
Little Meat Bun and Gaha aggressively scrambled over each other to shield Song Yuqing behind their bodies, their gazes locking onto the far end of the avenue.
Song Yuqing scanned the area, but her human senses couldn’t detect anything unusual beyond the sky turning a fraction brighter. Then, the distinct, rhythmic rumble of a heavy engine block vibrated through the pavement, making the soles of her shoes shake.
Whipping her head toward the sound, she watched a long, pristine column of armor-plated vehicles turn the corner, driving directly onto Bell Street.
As the convoy rolled to a halt, Song Yuqing’s eyes widened. Hitched to the rear bumper of one of the mid-tier transports were the tattered, dragging figures of Lin Han and Wan Youzhi, bound tightly in glowing green vines.
The vanguard vehicle stopped inches away from where Song Yuqing was squatting. The red-haired woman threw the door open and stepped out. Without uttering a single word of greeting, she marched straight up to the idle zombie standing near the gutter.
Her hands instantly erupted into brilliant, roaring flames, reducing the monster to a charred chunk of charcoal before it could even twitch. The woman casually dug the crystal core out of its skull, tossing the scorched corpse over her shoulder into the bed of a nearby convertible. The truck bed was already stacked high with a gruesome pile of dead undead.
“Holy crap! It’s the lady from the video!” Song Yuqing whispered, her sleepiness vanishing instantly.
She quickly raised her phone, snapping clear, successive photos of the red-haired woman, Lin Han, and Wan Youzhi.
“What do you think you’re doing?” the red-haired woman asked, turning a cold, dissatisfied glare toward Song Yuqing, Gaha, and Little Meat Bun.
Song Yuqing flashed her flawless, standard eight-tooth corporate smile, waving cheerfully. “Hi! Hello there, my name is Song Yuqing.”
Without missing a beat, her thumbs flew across her screen as she drafted a text message, attaching the fresh photos to send straight to Nanjiao.
The red-haired woman pursed her lips, completely indifferent to whatever a ‘Song Yuqing’ was. However, her eyes drifted over, locking onto the zombie with the purple dreadlocks standing right behind the girl. Now that one is interesting. Slaying an elite variant like that should yield a mountain of high-grade loot, right?
Sensing the predatory shift in the air, Gaha shrank her neck, hiding her head behind Little Meat Bun’s chubby shoulder.
Song Yuqing finally clued into the hostile vibe, her smile faltering as she raised her head to meet the woman’s gaze.
The red-haired woman raised a hand, pointing a commanding finger straight at Gaha’s chest.
“Step aside,” she ordered arrogantly. “I’ll help you put that zombie down.”
