What?! I Became the Zombie Beauty in the Villain’s Arms – CH70

Chapter 70: Too Many Men I’ve Hooked Up With

“Sister Long Yan’s friend?” Pei Xiqing thought about it for a moment. Seeing that even Long Yan rarely mentioned her past, let alone her inner circle, she shook her head honestly. “I don’t know her. But from what you’re saying, she sounds incredibly resourceful. She wasn’t intimidated by rumors or power, and she boldly did things that would shock most ordinary people.”

“Resourceful?” Long Yan laughed, steering the vehicle smoothly through the residential gates. “You really do understand her style. My friend went through absolute hell back then, but she managed to break rank and escape afterward. Right now, she’s probably living a perfectly happy life somewhere far outside these base walls.”

She continued, “At the time, several senior executives and powerful vanguard captains inside the stronghold hated her guts, but they were entirely powerless to stop her. By the time those men finally calculated what was actually happening, she had already slipped away into the wasteland.”

“But honestly, men are so cheap. Who told them to be so easily fooled? Humph, they’re all just driven by their lower bodies. Give them a few lingering glances and a soft smile, and their resolve starts to waver. One by one, they would trip over themselves trying to find her.”

Pei Xiqing let out a quiet chuckle.

As they drove, Long Yan’s tone turned a bit more serious. “She did pay a massive price, though. The high command wanted her dead, and she had absolutely nowhere to run. She almost didn’t survive it. At one point, those people even tried to burn her alive at the stake. The more dangerous the game you play, the heavier the invoice when it comes due.”

Pei Xiqing looked at her sideways. “Where is she now? Is she still safe? Isn’t she in constant danger?”

“She’s an advanced ability user. We were anchored to the same tactical team before, so she isn’t an easy target to liquidate,” Long Yan said. “But when it comes to playing with men’s hearts, no one runs a better algorithm than her. Who says women are only built to follow men around, manage children, and cook over a stove for the rest of their lives? She’s the perfect counter-example.”

There was no shame in leveraging a man’s position, but there was immense shame in relying on them blindly for survival. The true trick was to extract a net gain from them to achieve your own sovereign goals.

“What’s a little suffering in the grand scheme of things? In any era, the women who get labeled as heartless players are just viewed as morally corrupt by the masses. But in a world where the strong ruthlessly prey on the weak, what is the actual point of holding onto conventional morals? It is ten thousand times better to manipulate a few men for resources and security than to starve to death waiting for empty promises.”

After Long Yan finished her speech, she suddenly paused, glancing over at her passenger seat with a wide grin. “Wait a minute, you definitely know way more about this specific methodology than I do. If your schedule ever clears up, you need to teach me your tricks. Even if my system can’t fully apply them, I have to admit, I’m pretty envious.”

Pei Xiqing couldn’t help but laugh out loud. “What do you mean I understand it better? Sister Long Yan, stop broadcasting nonsense.”

“You’re definitely hiding a massive database of secrets, girl. Humph, don’t assume I can’t derive the pattern just because I didn’t know you prior to the convoy trail.”

Pei Xiqing let out a light cough to clear her throat. “Let’s focus on the road first.”

In truth, rather than saying her current identity was an expert player, it was simply that the original host of this body had possessed a very specific set of survival traits before the world flipped. It traced directly back to her career and personal experiences prior to the apocalypse.

An internet celebrity streamer, especially one without a wealthy background or academic credentials, had to navigate a brutal landscape. The host had faced all kinds of predatory behavior every single day. Every time she unlocked her phone or audited her direct messages, they were flooded with flirtatious, crude, and demanding notes from men who expected her to flatter them on a live broadcast just to earn a living.

Though that was the path she had chosen for herself back then, it had allowed her to see through men completely. She learned to cast her fishing lines everywhere, hooking one asset after another and cutting them loose the exact moment their utility drained.

She lowered her eyes, staring at her lap.

The original host’s cynical worldview was also deeply rooted in her dysfunctional family dynamic. After all, who wouldn’t develop a complex when their elder sister was celebrated as a sheltered, world-class mathematical genius, while the younger sister was reduced to a polarizing internet streamer scraping for clout online?

Long Yan added earnestly, “Xiqing, just promise me you’ll maintain strict caution on your board. My friend hooked up with entirely too many men, and she actually harbors a lot of regret because she let a few useless, toxic losers into her space. They eventually turned into massive, dangerous stumbling blocks along her path.”

“I just want to ensure your eyes are wide open,” she noted, playfully bumping her shoulder against Pei Xiqing’s. “Don’t let yourself be blinded or deceived by a bad man.”

“The most critical data point,” she summarized, her voice dropping into a solemn frequency, “is that everything that went down with the S1 caravan back on the trail needs to remain completely buried. Although my old friend acts completely carefree, she absorbed an immense wave of trauma before she escaped. If your past history with Xiao Yue gets broadcasted to the wrong factions inside this base, I’m afraid your line won’t be able to execute a clean escape vector either.”

Pei Xiqing lightly touched the tip of her nose, feeling a familiar twinge of guilt. “Yes… I understand.”

Long Yan swung the steering wheel, pulling the vehicle down a sharp decline. “I’ve already isolated the coordinates for the old lady’s quarters. We’re arriving immediately. Her biological son is currently processing through the water dungeon. Do your units require a visual audit of his cell?”

She added casually, “The crimes he logged… well, his invoice demands a severe physical penalty.”

When the enforcement division talked about peeling off a layer of skin, they meant it literally. If a guard dared to collude with black-market human traffickers, the flooded vaults would ensure he thoroughly comprehended the consequences of his betrayal.

Pei Xiqing leaned her head completely against the glass of the passenger window. “Then my line logs zero need to look.”

“Good. I didn’t want to escort you down there anyway; I’m terrified the sheer violence of the scene would make you vomit your breakfast.”

Pei Xiqing turned her head around. “Was he truly that malicious toward his own mother?”

“Malicious doesn’t even cover the baseline metrics,” Long Yan snorted coldly, her grip tightening on the steering wheel. “The piece of trash acted worse than a wild animal.”

The military vehicle cleared the secondary checkpoint, winding deep into a narrow, cracked alleyway near the edge of the inner ring.

Both sides of the concrete lane were heavily crowded with displaced refugees and homeless civilians, huddled together in dark, damp alcoves. The vast majority of them were emaciated, half-naked, their skin a dull, sickly yellow from severe, prolonged malnutrition.

Pei Xiqing tracked their shadows through the glass. Long Yan noticed her gaze and noted flatly, “The layout is unavoidable. Every single stronghold across the map operates with this exact demographic split. Even before the world collapsed, human society always maintained a forgotten lower tier that suffered in the dark.”

Pei Xiqing nodded softly, logging the harsh reality.

As their transport drove deeper into the slums, the citizens along the curb scrambled to clear a path. The moment their eyes locked onto the elite military insignia emblazoned on the car door, they panicked, backing far into the recesses to preserve a safe distance.

A few civilians, terrified that the vehicle had been dispatched to execute a forced labor draft or a sudden arrest, scrambled into the brick ruins, shivering behind the rubble.

Long Yan slammed her boot down on the brake, bringing the car to a sudden stop. Killing the ignition, she jumped down from the driver’s side and walked around the perimeter of an old, crumbling stone courtyard. Her eyes rapidly matched the structural data to the investigator’s brief, and she pointed toward a sagging doorway on the right flank. “The target coordinates lock onto that structure. Let’s move in and audit the situation.”

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