What?! I Became the Zombie Beauty in the Villain’s Arms – CH166-168

Chapter 166| Chapter 167| Chapter 168

Chapter 166: Did He Send You Here?

This was the only ruined city within a radius of several hundred miles.

The protagonist group had ultimately emerged here as well. The true Ghost Market could only be located in this place—not on the surface, but hidden deep within its subterranean depths. And the closer they got to the epicenter, the lower the temperature plummeted, and the more aggressive the parasitic swarms became.

Pei Xiqing stood atop the roof of a dilapidated building, quickly scanning the city’s overall layout.

So far, she hadn’t spotted any glaring anomalies. It was completely a dead city.

Outside the city limits, the survivors were rapidly losing ground. Xiao Yue was violently coughing up blood, looking like an absolute mess. He hadn’t even found the time to harvest the massive parasitic wolves before being forced to retreat into the ruins.

It seemed the masked man from earlier was ultimately no match for the male lead, but he had successfully achieved his goal of stalling him.

“Close the gates!” Pei Yanting shrieked.

The other ability users were in terrible shape, constantly in danger of the relentless parasites breaching their defensive lines. The soldiers in Tan Yuanxin’s squad fell one after another, pushed to the absolute brink of collapse.

Pei Xiqing finally zeroed in on a specific location within the dead city. “Shadow, go take a look.”

Shadow darted toward the location in an instant.

“It’s a barrier forged from interlinked supernatural energy,” Shadow reported over the comms. “My physical abilities can’t break through it.”

Pei Yanting and Xiao Yue arrived moments later.

“This energy signature is incredibly dense,” Pei Yanting noted, her brow furrowed. “Is something sealed inside?”

Xiao Yue struck the barrier with his newly awakened power, but the violent recoil left his entire hand numb. It was terrifyingly strong, radiating an oppressive aura that felt deeply, unsettlingly familiar.

The survivors huddled nearby panicked. “What good is finding the entrance if we can’t even get inside?! Are we really going to die out here?!”

“What should we do?! I don’t want to die yet! I wish I never came to that damn auction!”

This was Pei Xiqing’s first time encountering a physical supernatural restriction, but her intimate, instinctual connection to her own powers gave her a profound understanding of its structure.

“Get out of the way,” she ordered calmly, stepping forward.

Pei Yanting scowled. “Please don’t make things worse, alright? There are thousands of parasites swarming outside right now—”

Before she could finish her complaint, the phantom silhouette of the Qiong Snake materialized and coiled tightly around the barrier. The heavy restriction shattered instantly.

A profound, rushing sensation flooded Pei Xiqing’s mind, feeling exactly like the scattered, fragmented branches of the snake finally reuniting with its ancient main body.

A massive, bottomless sinkhole opened up beneath them.

Without a moment of hesitation, Pei Xiqing jumped down.

The air in the abyss was thick with frost, and the temperature dropped so sharply that she couldn’t clearly see the bottom. The world spun around her. Something heavy plummeted through the darkness alongside her, violently smashing into the ground right beside her boots.

When she stood up and dusted the frost off her coat, she realized they were the massive corpses of the parasitic wolves.

The rest of the survivors began dropping down into the cavern one after another. Xiao Yue and Pei Yanting were the last to descend.

Seeing the dead parasitic beasts lying broken in the frost, Xiao Yue sighed heavily. “What a pity.”

Pei Xiqing crouched down, carefully examining her surroundings in the dim light. Just as she was about to stand up, an unknown creature suddenly nipped at the hem of her skirt.

Thinking one of the parasites had survived the fall, she whipped her handgun around—only to freeze when she looked down and saw a thick coat of grayish-white fur and a pair of strikingly familiar blue eyes.

“Xiaobai?!”

The mutant wolf-dog wagged its tail enthusiastically. It playfully tugged at her skirt, trying to coax her closer.

Still reeling from the utter surprise of seeing him, Pei Xiqing dropped to her knees, hugging his large head and vigorously rubbing his ears. “It really is you! My sweet baby!”

During their desperate retreat from Base Three, the situation had been critical. Duan Xiaolin and Ling Lang had been forced to fight their way through a massive zombie horde entirely because of Xiao Yue’s reckless provocation. She hadn’t seen Xiaobai since that chaotic day, and she certainly never expected to reunite with him deep inside the Ghost Market.

She buried her hands in Xiaobai’s thick fur. “Why does it feel like you’ve gained weight recently? You’re so much fluffier, too.”

Only then did she finally take the time to truly take in their surroundings.

Xiao Yue and Pei Yanting stood a short distance behind her. Shadow stood silently to her left. The rest of the surviving teams huddled together, looking as small and insignificant as ants in this sprawling subterranean world.

Towering, steep mountains enclosed the massive cavern, radiating a chilling, murderous aura. Above them, an unnatural snow drifted down from the darkness.

And within a ten-mile radius centered around them, an entire city’s population was flash-frozen in ice and snow.

Some were reaching their hands forward, desperately trying to escape; some were crawling on the frozen ground; others were mothers fiercely clutching their children to their chests. Every single one of them was trapped within the glacier.

Frozen perfectly in place.

It was as if time itself had stopped. The eerie, suffocating silence made it feel as though they had stepped exactly five years into the past.

“What is this place?” Pei Yanting whispered, her breath misting in the freezing air.

“The true Ghost Market,” Xiao Yue replied grimly.

“Why are there so many people here? Are they still alive?”

“They’re all dead. Just frozen here,” Xiao Yue explained. “This must have happened when the apocalyptic virus first broke out five years ago. Someone in this city realized the threat and forcefully froze the entire metropolis to prevent the infection from spreading to the rest of the world.”

“Who could do such a thing?”

“It could only be someone who had already awakened to a supreme supernatural ability five years ago.”

Pei Xiqing took a few steps closer, her eyes falling on a frozen couple caught mid-stride. Their faces were twisted in sheer, ferocious terror as they tightly gripped their child’s hands between them. The tragic scene was perfectly preserved.

She raised her hand, gently pressing her palm against the thick ice covering the child’s face.

All she could physically touch was the biting cold of the surface. But beneath the frost, she could almost feel the overwhelming despair that had consumed this city five years ago. She could feel the crushing helplessness, the agony, and the sea of bloodshed that had ultimately forced someone to make the horrific decision to freeze it all.

The person who did this five years ago could only be Duan Xiaolin.

He was the one who had controlled this desolate wasteland with his power.

“Why are all these corpses down here? Damn it, isn’t it bad luck to be surrounded by these unlucky bastards?” one of the wealthy survivors complained loudly. “They could have just died normally, but they had to freeze down here and disgust me!”

Unable to tolerate the eerie silence, the frustrated man kicked the nearest frozen corpse.

Pei Xiqing spun around. “Stop!”

“What are you yelling about?!” the man snapped.

“Don’t touch them if you want to live,” she warned coldly.

But it was too late.

The frozen body toppled over, hitting the hard cavern floor. The ice shattered instantly, and the corpse inside crumbled into fine, powdery ash, disappearing entirely into the freezing wind.

The man crossed his arms, looking incredibly smug. “Hmph, what’s the big deal? They’re just a bunch of corpses that have been frozen for five years. See? I kicked it, and nothing happened.”

Pei Xiqing took a deep, steadying breath.

She completely gave up trying to care whether these idiots lived or died.

She crouched back down, looking into Xiaobai’s bright blue eyes. “Why are you here? Did he send you?”

Xiaobai seemed to understand her perfectly. He circled around her excitedly, then trotted over to the massive, broken corpses of the parasitic wolves, barking and nudging them with his wet nose, motioning for her to follow.

“Those are highly infectious parasites,” Pei Xiqing warned instinctively. “The virus inside them is incredibly potent, don’t mess around with—”

She cut herself off halfway through the sentence, suddenly remembering that Xiaobai was a mutant zombie dog. The apocalyptic virus had absolutely no negative effect on him.

She walked over to him. “What is it?”

Xiaobai excitedly rubbed his snout against the dead parasite’s massive torso.

“You want to eat them?” she asked in surprise.

Xiaobai wagged his tail furiously, letting out a few sharp, eager barks.

Pei Xiqing threw her head back and laughed. “I really wanted to steal these from Xiao Yue, but I couldn’t find a good opening to do it directly. Now that you’re here, you can do it for me! These mutated parasites are the perfect meal for you.”

She grinned, her heart light. It was definitely no coincidence that Xiaobai had shown up precisely at this moment, right next to the male lead’s coveted ‘golden finger.’

Is this just another one of Brother Duan’s brilliant little tricks?

Chapter 167: Xiaobai and the Parasite

An hour later, the rest of the group trickled back in. Xiao Yue and Pei Yanting had already scouted the immediate perimeter and were holding a brief meeting with their team to assign guard shifts and plan their next moves.

Pei Xiqing stroked Xiaobai’s thick fur, noticing a faint blue-black glow emanating from his body. She glanced over at the tattered remains of the parasites on the ground.

Xiaobai had actually eaten them all. In the blink of an eye, nothing but clean bones were left.

These parasites had been massive—three or four times larger than typical tigers or lions. There had been three of them piled in the crater, and Xiaobai had devoured every single one. Now, the mutant dog was gradually emitting an aura strikingly similar to that of the monstrous beasts.

Pei Xiqing squatted down, staring intently into his eyes for a long moment.

There was no sign of the parasites’ frantic madness in his gaze. There was only a clear, simple… innocence.

She let out a soft sigh of relief.

“Do you feel sick at all? Eating those things could be highly toxic,” she murmured.

Xiaobai barked cheerfully, trotting over to nuzzle his dirty snout affectionately against her palm.

Pei Xiqing knew that these parasites were essentially pure, concentrated virus. She had no idea just how many zombies and mutated creatures Xiaobai had swallowed over the years. Was it really safe for him to eat them like this?

Shadow spoke up from behind her. “Parasitic organisms constantly feed on one another, compounding the strength of their toxins. Since Xiaobai seems perfectly fine right now, and he actively sought them out as prey, he shouldn’t be in any danger.”

“You’re right. Xiaobai is a mutant zombie, after all. The parasites and the zombie virus operate on similar biological principles.” She carefully wiped the blood from his fur and asked Shadow to find a sturdy rope to leash him. “Don’t go running off,” she scolded gently. “It’s too dangerous around here. And don’t hurt anyone.”

Xiaobai didn’t mind the makeshift leash at all. Realizing Pei Xiqing was the one holding it, he excitedly leaned against the rope, eager to stick close to her.

Looking at his goofy, airheaded expression, Pei Xiqing smiled helplessly. Fortunately, Xiaobai was simple-minded; if he possessed complex thoughts, the parasitic toxins might have actually corrupted his mind.

A few meters away, Xiao Yue gathered the group to share his findings.

“This area is completely dead. There isn’t a single living person within our immediate radius, but we strongly suspect there are unknown creatures lurking underground.”

“How do you know that?” one of the survivors questioned nervously.

“I calculated it, of course,” Pei Yanting said, holding up a highly sophisticated detector. “There is definitely something massive living beneath us. I can only pinpoint its approximate location, but I can’t identify exactly what it is yet.”

“Exactly,” Xiao Yue continued. “So, until we figure out what’s beneath us, no one acts rashly. We’ll keep moving and see if we can find any other clues.”

“Understood.”

When Pei Xiqing led Xiaobai out from the crater, she immediately drew a lot of stares. But the moment the survivors registered the massive beast trailing behind her, they froze, subconsciously stepping back in fear.

Was it a wolf or a dog? It was even larger than the terrifying parasites they had just fought. Just standing there, it radiated an incredibly intimidating aura.

Pei Xiqing gave the rope a light tug. “Let’s go take a look around.”

The Ghost Market was filled with bizarre, haunting sights. Surrounded by towering underground peaks and frozen glaciers, the group pushed forward. After walking a bit further, the hazy outline of a scattered settlement came into view. Faint wisps of smoke curled into the cold air, as if someone was cooking a meal.

Pei Xiqing noticed the anomaly immediately, and Xiao Yue’s team spotted it just as quickly, rushing ahead to scout.

After a short wait, Xiao Yue and his men appeared at the settlement’s entrance, looking surprised as they waved the rest of the group over. “There are people here! Come quickly!”

The survivors cautiously filed into the area. As soon as she crossed the threshold, Pei Xiqing’s eyes landed on an old, weathered wooden plaque standing by the entrance.

Yong’an Village.

She stared at the carved characters, slipping into a brief daze. It wasn’t until Shadow softly called her name a few times that she snapped out of it.

“What’s wrong?” he asked quietly. “Did you notice something unusual?”

Pei Xiqing shook her head. “No, it’s nothing.”

There really were people in this village. It was completely unexpected; who could possibly survive in a subterranean hellscape like this?

The population consisted of only a dozen or so individuals. Every single one of them was severely emaciated and heavily hunched, looking as though their upper bodies were being crushed by thousand-pound boulders, permanently preventing them from standing straight. Strangely, despite their shriveled torsos, their limbs were thick and their muscles grotesquely overdeveloped. The physical disproportion was deeply unsettling.

From a distance, their twisted postures defied normal human anatomy. And yet, they could speak.

The elderly man leading the group had the most severe deformity; his hunch was so pronounced that his face practically hovered parallel to the dirt.

“Strangers,” he rasped, his voice scraping like sandpaper. “How did you find this place?”

“We fell down here by accident during a cave-in,” Xiao Yue replied, stepping forward cautiously. “Excuse me, elder, but is this place the Ghost Market?”

The old man let out a low, eerie chuckle. “Yes. And there really are ghosts here.”

“This…”

“Elder, you’re not joking with us, are you? We’re trying to find a way out of here.”

“Out?” The old man wheezed, his eyes glinting in the dim light. “You cannot leave once you come in.”

As he spoke, the deformed villagers standing behind him all curled their lips into identical, uncanny smiles.

The eerie sight was too much for some of the survivors. “Ahhhh! I want to leave! I want to go back to the base! I don’t want to stay in this nightmare! It’s too scary!” they screamed in panic.

Xiao Yue remained relatively calm. “Elder, why has this place become like this? Could you explain it to us?”

“Do not fret,” the old man said smoothly, his smile widening. “You must all be exhausted after traveling such a long way. Why don’t you eat something first? We can sit down and talk slowly.”

This was an obvious trap.

Pei Xiqing immediately stopped in her tracks, intending to back away, when the old man slowly raised his eyes. Locking his gaze directly on her, he said, “This young lady is not from here, but she is a guest. We must treat our guests with politeness.”

From that single sentence, she gathered a crucial piece of information: this creepy old man likely wouldn’t attack her. The others, however, were absolutely fair game.

The bizarre anomalies along their journey, the mass graves littering the cavern, the grotesquely mutated humans residing here… everything screamed that something was fundamentally wrong. Logically, she should have fled immediately, but since the old man had specifically singled her out, she decided to play along and see how things unfolded.

As they ventured deeper into the settlement, Pei Xiqing noticed how incredibly bizarre it was. Despite the villagers’ presence, there were absolutely no signs of daily life or habitation in the run-down houses.

Tang Yitong was too terrified to walk on her own. She clung tightly to the back of Pei Xiqing’s coat, trembling so hard it seemed like she would burst into tears if she took another step.

Pei Xiqing gently patted Tang Yitong’s head. “It’s okay. Stay close.”

Meanwhile, one of the curious survivors wandered toward a nearby house and pushed the front door open.

Without warning, an avalanche of rotting corpses poured out from inside the room, instantly burying the man alive.

“Help… save me!” the man muffled desperately from beneath the pile.

Xiao Yue immediately sprinted forward, dragging the terrified survivor out of the avalanche of flesh. He stared at the horrifying stockpile of bodies spilling out of the doorway, then snapped his head around to glare at the villagers. “What is the meaning of this?!”

The elite soldiers of Team S1 instantly raised their rifles, aiming directly at the hunched villagers.

The old man let out a long, raspy sigh. Leaning heavily on his wooden cane, he slammed the tip against the dirt.

“Nosy outsiders,” he muttered. He slowly turned his back to them, his voice dropping into a cold, hollow command. “Capture them all. Drag them to the mass graves.”

Chapter 168: The Culprit

The situation in the village changed in an instant.

Team S1 immediately launched a fierce counterattack. However, to everyone’s shock, the hunched villagers began releasing waves of mutated parasites and terrifying zombies.

Pei Xiqing quickly pulled Tang Yitong back, dragging her out of harm’s way.

Seeing the parasites rushing toward them, Xiaobai lunged forward with a vicious snarl, tearing into the creatures with wild ferocity. In that moment, the mutant wolf-dog displayed a madness and bloodthirst that rivaled the parasites themselves.

In just a few moments, the dozen or so parasites and zombies that had tried to swarm them were all ripped to pieces by Xiaobai.

After the slaughter, he stood over the mangled corpses, drooling heavily. It was only after Pei Xiqing gave him a nod of permission that he finally began to devour his kills.

The scene was undeniably bloody. However, since the things being eaten were horrific, mutated monsters, Pei Xiqing didn’t mind.

She turned her head to look at the other side of the battlefield. With the protagonist’s aura protecting them, she figured Xiao Yue and his team wouldn’t be in any real mortal danger. But she was incredibly curious as to why the villagers here were trying to send them all to a mass grave.

The old man approached her with a staggering, heavily hunched gait.

He gestured respectfully for her to sit down. “Miss, please take a seat.”

Behind him, a chaotic melee raged between the protagonist’s group, the parasites, and the zombies. Yet, standing here with the old man, Pei Xiqing felt entirely isolated from the violence, as if they were in a world of their own.

“The Chief Judge has already informed me of your arrival,” the old man said softly. Despite his severely hunched posture, his movements were surprisingly fluid.

Pei Xiqing sat down on a nearby stone. “Elder, what exactly is going on here? What is your connection to the mass grave? And all those corpses outside…”

The old man sighed, his voice raspy. “Five years ago, when the zombie crisis first broke out, this city was ground zero. The most virulent, primal strain of the virus originated here. Half of it spread outward, crazily infecting humanity and plunging the surface into the apocalypse. The other half remained right here, soaking into the very land beneath our feet.”

“Whether it’s the black market above us or the so-called official bases on the surface, they were all built much later. This place is the true origin. They set up the black market above to divert everyone’s attention and conceal what is truly hidden underneath.”

“There are hundreds of underground operations in the black market, many controlled by malicious factions within the bases—illicit ability enhancement, human organ trafficking, and more. Several of those smuggling routes lead directly down here to the Ghost Market.”

“The bodies you saw outside all belonged to people who came to the black market harboring dark, greedy intentions. They either died accidentally in the chaos or were drained of their resources by black market agents, hollowed out, and dumped down here like trash.”

Pei Xiqing frowned. “It’s only been five years. How can there already be so many corpses?”

“Young lady, you still underestimate the dark nature of humanity in the apocalypse.” The old man chuckled darkly. “For the first three years, everyone was focused on survival and infrastructure construction. The mountain of corpses you see here was accumulated entirely over the past two years. And believe me, there were far more than what you saw. The bodies out there represent only a third of the total; the other two-thirds have already been eaten.”

Two years.

To amass that much death in just two years… the people in this apocalypse were truly insane. Their hearts were as black as charcoal.

“What exactly is your purpose here?” she asked.

“Our purpose?” the old man whispered. “We are all original survivors of this city. We carry the virus in our blood, but we cannot die. We can only remain here, bound to our eternal duty as corpse carriers.”

“Corpse carriers?”

“Our backs are permanently deformed like this because we’ve spent years carrying countless heavy corpses, day after day.” He pointed a gnarled finger at the ground. “The reason we do this is for the host parasite slumbering beneath us. It has an insatiable appetite and needs constant feeding. If it weren’t for those corpses, it would have broken out and turned the surface world upside down long ago.”

“What would happen if the host parasite broke out?”

“Every zombie in the world would be converted into a parasite, constantly feeding and growing stronger. Eventually, even an ordinary, low-level zombie on the side of the road would mutate into a towering giant. You can imagine the sheer destructive power that would unleash.”

It would mean absolute, immediate extinction for humanity.

“Is there any way to destroy the host?” Pei Xiqing asked.

The old man shook his head. “We can only trap it here and prevent it from leaving. We use the black market as bait, continuously luring greedy people down to provide nutrients for the host.”

He let out another dry, raspy chuckle. “The Chief Judge has never truly tried to eradicate the black market. The crackdowns you see on the surface are merely a facade to manage his reputation. Only by allowing the black market to thrive can we attract enough victims to feed the host and prevent an outbreak. As for those who end up as parasite food? They brought it upon themselves. Who forced them to come down here and deal in sin? If they hadn’t given into their own greed, nothing would have happened to them. Yet, they keep rushing here with fanatical eyes.”

“Since they voluntarily deliver themselves to our doorstep, and the host requires their flesh, it is a perfect arrangement. If it weren’t for human greed, this host never would have been kept sedated for this long.”

Pei Xiqing fell silent, digesting the heavy truth.

The old man’s expression darkened. “But the host has grown very restless these past few days. Years ago, the Chief Judge sacrificed all his original supernatural abilities to buy humanity a brief period of peace. Yet, no one knows how to cherish that peace. Especially since that kid showed up here, the host has become agitated. It feels as though it’s on the verge of breaking out.”

He raised a trembling finger, pointing directly at Xiao Yue.

In the distance, Xiao Yue kicked a zombie away and flawlessly shot it in the head. A surge of his combined supernatural power blasted outward with a crackling boom, shattering a large cluster of zombies and parasites in an instant.

Pei Xiqing immediately zeroed in on the most crucial detail. “What exactly is the relationship between the host parasite and Duan Xiaolin?”

“They coexist. They check and balance each other, inextricably linked,” the old man said, looking up at the gray cavern sky. “That host parasite was a byproduct of the Chief Judge’s overwhelming ability years ago. It was a terrible mistake, but it was also the only viable solution at the time. Without it, the current world wouldn’t exist. But with it alive, the world’s future remains in peril.”

“Simply put, if the host dies, the Chief Judge will suffer a catastrophic backlash. He will lose something vital. I don’t know exactly what that will be, but I have a strong premonition that the kid over there will be the culprit who causes it.”

The old man stared at Xiao Yue, his eyes burning with intense malice. He looked as though he wished he could kill the boy himself.

But Xiao Yue, protected by his protagonist aura, would not die so easily.

Pei Xiqing exchanged a quick, heavy glance with Shadow. Shadow gave a subtle nod, silently confirming the old man’s lore.

Pei Xiqing sat in silence for a long time.

The apocalypse, the host parasite, the ‘villain’, the plot, the protagonist…

Suddenly, the scattered puzzle pieces fell into place, and she finally understood everything.

This was why the villain of the original novel experienced a drastic, inexplicable drop in intelligence and power in the later stages of the story! It was directly tied to the death of this host parasite. Once the host was killed by Xiao Yue, Duan Xiaolin suffered a devastating backlash, leaving him severely traumatized and entirely unable to maintain his peak strength.

The ones destined to kill the host parasite were Xiao Yue and his protagonist group.

If it weren’t for Duan Xiaolin’s massive sacrifice five years ago, humanity wouldn’t even exist today. Yet, to secure the future of the apocalypse, the protagonist was mandated by the plot to erase everything Duan Xiaolin had built and suffered for.

It was utterly ridiculous. Xiao Yue hadn’t been there to stand up and save the world five years ago, yet now he wanted to swagger in and enforce his so-called ‘justice.’

Pei Xiqing took a deep, steadying breath.

Across the battlefield, Xiao Yue finally dispatched the last of the parasites. He was severely injured, barely able to walk upright.

As he leaned against a ruined wall, he accidentally met Pei Xiqing’s gaze.

For the first time since he had known her, he saw genuine, undisguised hatred burning in her beautiful eyes.

His body stiffened. He couldn’t comprehend where this sudden, intense disgust and animosity was coming from.

Wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth, Xiao Yue raised his handgun and aimed it directly at the old man. “What are you plotting? If you don’t tell me the truth right now, I will kill you.”

The hunched old man merely glanced at him with absolute calm. “Young man, luck is certainly a part of strength, but your luck is simply too good. It’s truly enviable how you can always turn bad luck into good fortune. I really, truly hope you get to experience what it feels like to lose all your supernatural powers one day.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Xiao Yue demanded.

The old man didn’t answer him.

Instead, he turned his head and looked deeply at Pei Xiqing.

His voice carried a heavy, solemn earnestness. “Between this kid and the Chief Judge, only one can survive. Are you ready?”

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