What?! I Became the Zombie Beauty in the Villain’s Arms – CH72

Chapter 72: I Didn’t Let You Down

Pei Xiqing had no idea why he was suddenly spouting such nonsense.

What did he mean by saying it was risky for her to stay here? And what was this talk about powerful, wealthy men again?

Before she could process it, Xiao Yue violently yanked her forward. She stumbled over her own feet, nearly crashing face-first onto the stone floor.

Xiao Yue’s mind was entirely consumed by his frantic urge to find Pei Yanting. He wanted to locate her as fast as possible. As he marched forward in a desperate rush, his sudden movements pulled painfully at the fresh medical bandages wrapped around his torso.

Driven by panic, he lost all control over his own strength. He only halted his rapid strides when he felt something resist his grip. Looking down, he realized he had completely forgotten that Pei Xiqing was an ordinary human without any superpowers.

The pressure he was applying to her wrist was far too much for her baseline biology, to the point that even a grown man without an advanced physical tier would be crying out in pain.

Because he was dragging her so fast without looking where they were going, Pei Xiqing stepped squarely onto a loose stone and violently twisted her ankle.

The man was marching ahead with absolutely no regard for anyone else’s physical safety.

Pei Xiqing lowered her head, her face turning pale as the sharp throbbing in her ankle left her momentarily breathless.

Xiao Yue paused, his grip loosening slightly. “Are you… are you okay? Look, I’m just deeply worried about your sister. Aren’t you worried about her too? Yanting is still out there somewhere in the wilderness…”

“Let go,” Pei Xiqing cut him off, her voice dropping into a freezing, level command. “If you don’t release my hand right now, I will scream loud enough to have the guards charge your station with kidnapping and harassment.”

Xiao Yue reluctantly let go of her wrist, but his expression remained dead serious. “Time is incredibly precious right now. If our column arrives a single second earlier, they will be facing a much lower danger parameter. You have to understand the logic, Xiqing. Even if there are massive personal conflicts between you and your sister, how can your mind remain at ease while her life or death hangs in the balance?”

Pei Xiqing honestly wanted to laugh in his face. “You are truly a fascinating creature.”

Xiao Yue pursed his lips, stepping closer. “Seriously, why do you insist on anchoring your timeline to this specific base? Do you have any conception of what’s coming? If you stay inside these walls any longer, my division won’t be able to protect your line.”

“Protect me?” she retorted, a cold mock in her eyes. “Your station certainly didn’t execute that protocol back when I was attached to the S1 convoy. Why should my board trust an asset who ruthlessly threw my frame out of the team to rot?”

“The unit lacked a viable alternative at that exact shift,” he argued, his voice rising. “Who could have predicted your system would be bitten by a zombie? I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving your body behind. But look at the data now—the infection cleared, and your biology is entirely alive and functional. The vanguard members will absolutely accept your registry back into the ranks, and your sister will too. All your line needs to do is execute a formal apology.”

Terrified that her processors would reject his logic, he continued to ramble on, desperate to convince her. “My own database doesn’t calculate that your actions were malicious. Let’s just archive the past incident as a massive misunderstanding. Once we clear the gates, I will speak up for your line to the rest of the convoy. I’ll tell them that when your frame appeared in my private bed that night, you were simply… heavily intoxicated, or too terrified by the frontier, and your mind completely lost its rational controls.”

The corners of Pei Xiqing’s mouth twitched into a dry, hollow line.

The novel’s main protagonist was genuinely operating at a subpar intellectual baseline. The golden hero of this literary universe was supposed to be the literal embodiment of absolute justice and unyielding pride, yet the text had never warned her that his actual personality was so stubbornly dense.

To think that such compromising, pathetic excuses could actually escape the lips of the chosen male protagonist. Was his mind truly unconcerned that the main heroine would be driven to absolute madness if her ears ever intercepted this transcript?

Pei Xiqing harbored zero desire to remain entangled in this conversation, refusing to waste another second of her life bartering with him. The moment she spotted a clear gap in his stance, she twisted her torso to bolt down the corridor.

But Xiao Yue’s physical reflexes were far too advanced. He bridged the distance in a few rapid strides, easily cutting off her path. “Even though my current vitals are severely depleted by my injuries, subduing a civilian baseline like yours still requires zero effort from my station. I am sincerely counseling your line to evacuate this fortress immediately. If you stay, the structural consequences will be entirely disastrous for you.”

Pei Xiqing’s patience completely shattered. The exact second his hand shot forward to clamp back down on her wrist, she swung her boot and kicked him with all the force she could muster.

Xiao Yue clearly hadn’t calculated a physical counter-attack from a regular human girl. After the blow landed, his grip didn’t loosen at all; instead, his fingers tightened over her skin like a vice. “Pei Xiqing! How dare your line launch a physical strike against my frame?!”

His historical logs contained absolutely zero data of a woman ever executing a violent kick against his body. Worse, her boot had nearly collided with his absolute vital zone.

This toxic woman!

“Why won’t you just let go of me?!” Pei Xiqing gritted her teeth, her knuckles turning white as she struggled against his hold.

Without her mind consciously logging the variable, the deep green snake tattoo scoring the skin of her chest suddenly began to radiate a strange, intense heat. A faint ring of translucent, light green bio-energy quietly spiraled upward to wrap around her fingertips.

Immediately following the flare, the pupils of her clear eyes shifted into a piercing, unnatural green hue for a split second.

Xiao Yue’s dual-element tracking arrays and hyper-sensitive survival instincts instantly intercepted the anomalous frequency radiating from her skin. His radar smelled an extreme, unfamiliar threat signature.

But before his processors could decode the biological data, a sudden, blinding beam of elemental power violently slammed straight into his forearm.

“If he wants a kick, then let him have mine.”

Xia Jingyu walked out from the shadow of the cloistered pillars, her sharp eyes completely devoid of warmth. “Who the hell allowed your station to deploy physical coercion against a female citizen inside this base tower?”

The exact millisecond the burning light-element energy breached his perimeter, Xiao Yue rapidly snapped his hand back to break the connection.

Given his high-tier combat foundation, dodging a sudden projectable blast was an elementary maneuver. He hoisted his chin, his bloodshot eyes narrowing as he analyzed the uniform of the officer who had just interrupted his grid. “Identify your command registry.”

Xia Jingyu narrowed her eyes into dangerous slits. “My registry simply finds your existence entirely repulsive.”

Xiao Yue’s jaw clenched. “This tracking file belongs to the internal records of the S1 convoy. The data has zero correlation with your base division. I expect this lady to refrain from meddling in external affairs.”

Xia Jingyu let out a sharp, mocking laugh. “If my division insists on forcing an intervention, what precise protocol does your broken frame plan to execute to stop me?”

A faint, shimmering aura of pure light energy began to pulse across her uniform, her presence and authority matching the weight of a top-tier dual-ability user without yielding a single inch. “Does your system desire to test the kinetic output of an active light-element field tonight?”

Xiao Yue was not the type of asset who enjoyed provoking unnecessary conflict inside a foreign stronghold. His standard operational doctrine was to disguise his true capabilities within the crowd, keeping his lethal edge thoroughly hidden from enemy scanners.

Furthermore, operating under the heavy suppression of Xia Jingyu’s localized elemental field was a tactical pressure he had navigated many times before.

He pressed his lips into a tight line, his voice flat. “This remains a private, domestic dispute between integrated S1 personnel. I am repeating my directive to stay clear of the perimeter. Every single syllable my vocal receptors just released to her station was engineered explicitly to preserve her own survival.”

He had logged the data long ago: this female general was clearly acquainted with Pei Xiqing. Otherwise, her column wouldn’t have initialized a high-velocity intervention the exact second he initiated a physical lock.

Xia Jingyu wasn’t buying a single line of his narrative. “If your intentions were engineered to preserve her welfare, your system would have respected her explicit choice from the first milestone. My board harbors a profound disgust for hypocrites like you—creatures who utilize the banner of ‘kindness’ to execute a thoroughly chaotic, invasive mess against another person’s boundaries. Your psychological profile carries absolutely zero concept of basic human respect. Does your station feel zero shame broadcasting such an absurd excuse? A grown, military-aged man acting this incredibly fussy over a girl’s movements… my mind genuinely questions if her database classifies your profile as her biological father.”

“You…!” Xiao Yue’s pale face flushed a violent, angry crimson, his vocal apparatus completely paralyzed by the sting of her words.

Xia Jingyu smoothly caught Pei Xiqing’s shoulder, pulling her pliant frame straight to her side. “We are clearing this vector. Move.”

Xiao Yue’s chest violently heaved, and he broke into a sudden, hacking sequence of wet coughs. He stared fixedly at the trailing shadows of their boots as they marched down the long corridor. For a split second, the rage caused his internal circulation to boil over, a thick, bitter copper taste flooding his throat until he spat a dark glob of blood onto the stone tiles.

Pei Xiqing was smoothly guided out of the cathedral quadrant by Xia Jingyu, falling into an easy pace just half a step behind her uniform jacket, silently monitoring her straight posture.

Once Xia Jingyu had successfully escorted her coordinates back into a heavily populated commercial lane, she halted her strides, turning her head. “Cease the reference photos for this shift, miss. The solar glare is dissolving. The base boundaries turn remarkably unsafe once the night cycle initializes. Your most optimal play is to retreat to your private quarters immediately.”

She paused, her eyes scanning her windbreaker. “Does your line require my vehicle to manage the transit?”

Pei Xiqing shook her head quickly. “Thank you for the logistics, General, but my line will decline the escort.”

Xia Jingyu released her shoulder, waving a gloved hand carelessly. “Fine, manage the march on your own baseline then. Maintain strict visual caution along the avenues.”

Pei Xiqing looked into her eyes, her tone turning entirely genuine. “I owe your station an immense debt of gratitude for the physical intervention just now.”

“Bury the formality,” she shrugged, her red lips curving into a brilliant smile. “My personal programming simply loves to deploy assistance to assets in distress.”

Pei Xiqing hesitated for a brief second. Looking around to ensure the passing laborers were out of acoustic range, she stepped closer, her voice dropping into a serious, internal whisper. “Sister… my board requires authorization to run a direct query against your profile.”

“Execute the input,” the woman countered smoothly, her sharp eyes bright with amusement. “Sister promises to deliver a flawless data stream for whatever file your system opens.”

“Are you operating as a deep-cover spy?”

Xia Jingyu let out a sudden, delighted chuckle. “A spy? Negative. My actual command status locks me in as a Sovereign Inspector General, explicitly dispatched by global headquarters to audit this region.”

“Then explain the ground truth of why my own eyes tracked your frame sneaking around the outer parameters of Representative Duan’s office a few shifts ago…?”

Xia Jingyu reached up, idly touching her chin as she recollected the data. “A high-ranking entity requested my office to assist in extracting a specific piece of hardware from that sector. Refrain from asking my vocal receptors to decode the exact nomenclature of the asset; that file represents the limit of my disclosure threshold. But your mind can deactivate its security alarms—I was dispatched straight from the capital. My line holds zero economic need to operate as a common spy; our baseline salary bars aren’t that low.”

Suddenly, a realization seemed to flash across her analytical units, and she looked down at Pei Xiqing with a deeply amused grin. “Ah… so that is the underlying reason your psychology deployed such a massive defensive firewall against my profile inside the church archives earlier.”

Pei Xiqing let out a slightly sheepish smile. “Because my database lacked the verification keys to decode who you were, sister, or what specific agenda brought your column to our sector.”

“Your linguistic style is remarkably straightforward! Your system didn’t even harbor the patience to hold the query until a secondary meeting before demanding the truth,” Xia Jingyu noted, her eyes crinkling. “Did the output from my vocal receptors fail to satisfy your parameters?”

“The data is entirely compliant,” she said sincerely.

Pei Xiqing’s internal logic validated the statement. Since the woman was confirmed as the biological daughter of the Supreme Marshal commanding global headquarters, running common espionage loops for pocket money was a completely illogical variable. Spy files and plundered logistics were typically resold to the desperate black-market syndicates lower down the ladder. With her supreme status and institutional leverage, she had absolutely zero reason to engage in those low-tier transactions.

“Excellent. Then ensure your boots refrain from executing a cloaking maneuver the next time your radar tracks my uniform on the boulevard,” Xia Jingyu said, reaching out to playfully tap her chin. “But my dear… my audio receptors intercepted a highly fascinating data string while your line was bartering with that bandage-wrapped idiot just now. My own curiosity demands an input: how massive is the actual demographic of high-tier men your system has successfully hooked across the strongholds?”

“…”

Pei Xiqing’s lips parted, and she could only let out two completely dry, intensely awkward laughs.

Like this novel? Read Advance Chapters (PDF & EPUB Format)