What?! I Became the Zombie Beauty in the Villain’s Arms – CH16

Chapter 16: Foolish

“Captain! Brother Duan is asking for you!”

Ling Lang barked a few final orders at his men before walking over to the G-Class alongside Long Yan. He casually peered into the dark cabin and asked, “Where did that girl go? I can barely remember her name… Pei… something?”

“Pei Xiqing,” Long Yan corrected.

“Right, Pei Xiqing. Where is she? Did she get scared and hide?” Ling Lang chuckled, leaning against the door frame.

Duan Xiaolin’s voice was frigid. “Activate the searchlights. Disperse the squad and find her.”

“…” Ling Lang froze, his smile vanishing instantly. “Wait, what?”

“Brother, is she missing?”

“She left four hours ago,” Duan Xiaolin stated, staring into the darkness. “Heading southwest.”

“No way…” Ling Lang frowned in genuine confusion. “Does she really think that just because she’s a half-zombie, she’s invincible? If she runs into another scavenger team out there, they’ll gun her down without a second thought. It’s ridiculous.”

Long Yan coughed softly. “Why are you getting so worked up? Even Brother Duan is perfectly calm. If she left on her own, something must have happened. Otherwise…”

She trailed off, her sharp gaze shifting toward the terrified scavengers huddled in the center of the camp under armed guard. “Or maybe, it has something to do with them.”

Ling Lang followed her gaze, letting out a dark, mocking sneer. “Oh. So it’s them.”

He stalked over, his heavy boots crunching against the gravel. Without a word of warning, he viciously kicked one of the scavengers to the ground. Planting his boot firmly on the man’s chest, Ling Lang drew his sidearm, pressing the cold barrel directly between the man’s eyes. “Where is she? Which one of you forced her out?”

Trembling violently, the scavenger stammered out a disjointed account of the confrontation and how they had driven her into the wasteland.

Ling Lang listened, his expression twisting in sheer disbelief. “Idiots,” he spat.

It was unclear whether he was cursing the scavengers or the girl who had foolishly wandered off alone.

He removed his boot from the man’s chest and immediately tapped his earpiece, broadcasting to the entire elite squad. “Activate all thermal and biometric search grids! Fu Feng, Nie Bin, you two sweep the city ruins. Lu Xudong, you’re with my brother and me; we’re pushing outside the city limits. Sister Long Yan, hold the perimeter and keep these animals under guard.”

Long Yan nodded, casually shouldering her assault rifle. “Leave the camp to me. If you find her, bring her back immediately. They said she was still completely lucid when she left, which means she hasn’t fully mutated. Do not let her get executed by some trigger-happy rogues on the road.”

“Move out!” Ling Lang barked.

The squad scrambled with terrifying military efficiency.

As Nie Bin and Fu Feng calibrated their tracking equipment, Nie Bin frowned. “Sister Long Yan, who exactly is this Pei Xiqing? We’ve never even heard of her. Is she a civilian?”

Long Yan nodded. “Yeah. Just a stray kid we picked up on the side of the road.”

“Then why are the Captain and Brother Duan so frantic to find her? Does she have a high-tier ability?”

“No,” Long Yan replied softly. “She’s… just a very unlucky zombie. Fortunately for her, she isn’t dead yet. Keeping her alive holds immense biological research value. If we can get her back to the labs, we might never have to worry about the zombie virus again.”

Fu Feng’s eyes widened. “That’s incredible. We need to find her right now.”

The technology utilized by the central base was unparalleled in the wasteland. Between their tracking arrays, high-intensity illumination drones, and hyper-intelligent biometric scanners, they could effectively render an entire ruined city transparent within minutes.

Ling Lang climbed into the passenger seat of the armored G-Class. “Brother, let’s go.”

Duan Xiaolin threw the vehicle into gear, tearing out of the city limits and into the suffocating darkness of the Gobi.

Up ahead, the broken highway split into a fork. Ling Lang was still analyzing the topographical map when Duan Xiaolin smoothly yanked the steering wheel, drifting the massive vehicle down the right path without a second’s hesitation.

“Brother, how can you be so sure she went this way?” Ling Lang asked.

“Based on her psychological profile, this is the route she would choose.”

“You actually know how she thinks?”

Duan Xiaolin’s eyes remained fixed on the road. “Have you forgotten what I do?”

“Right. The legendary interrogator. Every prisoner you’ve ever broken confessed everything,” Ling Lang muttered, crossing his arms and leaning back against the seat. “But it’s already early morning. She can’t be stupid enough to just sprint into another faction’s territory. Besides, we cleared this sector on our way in. There are no other active teams operating in this grid right now. The only other squad anywhere near this quadrant is… Team S1?”

Team S1 was operating in the general vicinity, but they were still a considerable distance away. The chances of Pei Xiqing stumbling into them in such a short timeframe were astronomically low.

As long as she didn’t foolishly freeze to death in the open wasteland, she was relatively safe from human threats.

But the undead were another story. Who knew what kind of mutated horrors were lurking in the shadows?

Ling Lang was growing increasingly agitated, his eyes scanning the pitch-black wasteland flashing past the windows. After driving relentlessly for ten more minutes, the headlights illuminated a dense, dying forest. The tree line was too thick and twisted for the G-Class to penetrate.

Duan Xiaolin killed the engine. The two men stepped out into the freezing wind, slamming the heavy doors shut.

“Would she really be in there?” Ling Lang asked, eyeing the oppressive, grey-black canopy.

Duan Xiaolin remained silent for a few seconds. “Possibly.”

“How could a frail girl have the guts to walk into a terrifying forest like that alone?”

“We go in and find out.”

The two of them crossed the tree line, stepping into the dead woods.

The forest was vast and incredibly winding, situated at the base of a jagged mountain range. Ling Lang unholstered his weapon, assessing the terrain. “Could she have tried to hide up on the mountain? Let’s split up. I’ll take the high ground and sweep the ridge. Brother, you keep pushing straight through the woods.”

Duan Xiaolin gave a curt nod.

There was absolutely zero ambient light beneath the canopy, but as high-tier ability users, their night vision was exceptional. Ling Lang darted through the dense brush, practically flying up the mountain incline.

“Pei Xiqing?!” he yelled into the darkness, violently shoving aside dead branches. He even shouted up into the skeletal canopy above his head. “Why the hell are you hiding?! Are you scared I’m going to scold you?!”

Meanwhile, on the ground below, Duan Xiaolin had already navigated through the dead forest with terrifying speed, stepping out of the treeline and arriving at the desolate outskirts of a ruined county town.

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