What?! I Became the Zombie Beauty in the Villain’s Arms – CH25

Chapter 25: It’s That Witch

But in the eyes of the protagonists, she—the cannon-fodder villainess and absolute troublemaker—was already dead.

There was no reason to stress over it.

She had already turned into a zombie anyway. What could possibly be worse than that?

If she actually bumped into the protagonists, she would just deal with the fallout when it happened.

Pei Xiqing didn’t waste much time daydreaming. She snapped back to reality, resting her cheek against the car window and eagerly staring at the man sitting in the passenger seat.

She had to admit, even though Duan Xiaolin was entirely aloof and dangerously difficult to figure out, his face was absolutely flawless. If he were an actor in the pre-apocalypse entertainment industry, he possessed the exact kind of striking, aristocratic features that would instantly win him “Best Actor” at the box office.

Duan Xiaolin was in the middle of relaying tactical coordinates to Ling Lang via the comms system. Noticing her intense gaze out of the corner of his eye, he looked up. “Yes?”

Pei Xiqing blinked innocently. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re incredibly handsome, Brother Duan?”

The comms channel instantly crackled to life. Ling Lang’s furious voice blasted through the speaker. “Pei Xiqing! What the hell are you talking about?!”

Pei Xiqing: …

She immediately coughed, her face burning red. “I’m sorry… that slipped out.”

Duan Xiaolin seemed slightly helpless, a faint, almost imperceptible smile tugging at the corners of his lips. He pressed the comms button. “Stand down. She didn’t mean it.”

Ling Lang scoffed through the static. “I think you’ve genuinely lost your mind, Pei Xiqing!”

Duan Xiaolin smoothly ignored the outburst, returning to the tactical discussion with the squad leader.

Pei Xiqing buried her flushed face in her coat. After a minute, she tentatively asked, “Are we going to run away from this horde?”

Duan Xiaolin closed his encrypted folder, raising an eyebrow at her. “Didn’t you say you wanted to see more of this world? We’ve gone through the trouble of crossing into City B. Aren’t you going to stay and take a look around?”

Pei Xiqing was genuinely surprised. She hadn’t expected him to remember her offhand comment about ‘sightseeing’.

While she had mostly used it as a flimsy excuse at the time, she was legitimately curious about the lore and geography of this apocalyptic world.

She turned her head away, trying to play it cool. “I mean, if this localized horde is going to cause a massive problem for your mission, we can just retreat. I’ve seen plenty of ruins along the way. This place probably isn’t that special.”

During her time traveling with the elite squad, she had witnessed countless horrific sights. However, most of the devastation had simply looked like ordinary urban decay mixed with copious amounts of blood. But the deeper they drove into the wasteland, the more she began to comprehend the true, mind-bending horror of the apocalypse.

In a genuine doomsday scenario, there was zero room for philosophical thought or sightseeing. Every single waking second was consumed by the brutal, exhausting obsession with securing food and defending against the infected to survive another day.

“Before the outbreak, City B was the primary transportation and economic hub of this hemisphere,” Duan Xiaolin explained smoothly. “It was easily ten times more prosperous and advanced than any of the ruined sectors we’ve passed through so far.”

Pei Xiqing’s interest was instantly piqued. “Really?”

“Yes. In the pre-apocalypse era, City B anchored the southern trade routes, while Port A dominated the north. Both were global economic epicenters. If you manage to survive long enough, you should visit Port A. Although it suffered catastrophic pollution and structural damage during the initial outbreak, a major military base was established there. They are actively repairing the infrastructure, attempting to restore Port A to its former glory.”

Pei Xiqing’s eyes lit up.

There were still so many massive, unknown regions in this novel’s world. She genuinely wished she could have seen what those megacities looked like before the virus tore them apart.

Duan Xiaolin pressed his comms button again. “Ling Lang. You are the Squad Captain. You have tactical command. Issue the orders for our countermeasures and squad deployment.”

“Brother…” Ling Lang hesitated over the radio.

“I am merely an accompanying representative on this op,” Duan Xiaolin stated firmly. “I will not interfere with your squad’s combat decisions or tactical choices.”

“I know we’re not far from the central base, and you always tell me not to overcomplicate things,” Ling Lang began, his voice tense. “But I still want to push the assault and engage the swarm… I’m sorry, Brother. You’re carrying the classified intel and the trade assets. Once this engagement is over, I will personally escort you back to the base immediately.”

“Then execute your plan,” Duan Xiaolin said calmly. “Since you’ve already made your choice, there’s no need to waste time asking for my permission. You are the core of this squad. Lead them.”

“Yes, sir!”

The comms channel clicked off.

Pei Xiqing leaned forward, her curiosity bubbling over. “Brother Duan… is Ling Lang actually your biological brother?”

One’s surname is Duan, the other’s is Ling. How does that make sense?

“No,” Duan Xiaolin replied casually. “I pulled him out of a ruin five years ago, shortly after I awakened my ability. He’s been following me ever since.”

“No wonder,” Pei Xiqing nodded slowly, her gaze lingering on the man.

He had awakened his ability five years ago—which was exactly when the apocalypse had first begun. That meant Duan Xiaolin was one of the absolute first humans to ever mutate and gain superpowers. Yet, despite his legendary status, no one seemed to know exactly what his ability was.

She had never seen him use it, let alone witnessed him engage in actual combat.

“Are you curious about me?” Duan Xiaolin asked, catching her stare.

“A little bit…” Pei Xiqing admitted, meeting his eyes boldly. “Aren’t you curious about me, Brother Duan?”

The man’s thin lips parted slightly. “I am certainly intrigued by the anomaly of your viral mutation. But I am infinitely more curious about you as a person.”

Pei Xiqing blinked in surprise. “Wait… my superpower awakened?”

“You’ll have to feel it out and discover the mechanics yourself,” he noted, his dark eyes analyzing her. “However… considering you are biologically classified as a zombie, the way your latent energy manifests might be entirely different from a standard human.”

Pei Xiqing smiled brightly, her lips curving upward. She deliberately leaned closer to him. “Well, Brother Duan, as long as you don’t execute me, we’re good. I’m a zombie that still has her brain intact. If I really did awaken a superpower, I might even be able to protect you.”

Duan Xiaolin narrowed his eyes, his gaze dropping briefly to her lips. “Focus on protecting yourself first.”

In the past, no matter what variant or mutation a zombie possessed, he had slaughtered them without a microsecond of hesitation. Now, looking at the girl sitting beside him, he genuinely didn’t know how to handle her.

Allowing himself to feel compassion in the wasteland had always been a fatal flaw for survival.

…

Duan Xiaolin pushed open the passenger door and stepped out, walking around the hood to slide into the driver’s seat. “Get in. We’ve officially breached the inner city limits. The horde is going to completely encircle us sooner rather than later. We need to find a defensible, quiet position to hold out.”

Pei Xiqing nodded quickly, hopping into the passenger seat and pulling the heavy door shut.

However, City B was absolutely crawling with the undead. There was no such thing as a “quiet place.” They violently rammed through dozens of mutants on the ruined streets, dark blood and gore splattering thickly across the reinforced windshield. Pei Xiqing had to squeeze her eyes shut, unable to bear the gruesome sight.

When she finally forced herself to look out the side window, she saw several rotting zombies actively throwing themselves against the armored glass. A few even began aggressively gnawing on the reinforced steel frame of the door, their teeth scraping against the metal with a skin-crawling, squeaking sound.

She grabbed her seatbelt, her knuckles turning white as she gripped the nylon strap in terror.

Suddenly, the deafening roar of high-powered engines echoed down the block. Several heavily modified, spiked off-road vehicles tore down the adjacent street, their gunners wildly firing heavy machine guns into the hordes lining the sidewalks. As the convoy sped past an intersection, Pei Xiqing’s eyes widened in sheer shock. She caught a fleeting glimpse of a familiar, muscular man standing on the roof of the lead vehicle, firing a mounted Gatling gun.

By the time her brain processed what she was seeing, the G-Class had already blown past the intersection, leaving the other convoy behind.

She stared into the side mirror. The man on the roof of the other vehicle had stopped firing. He was violently pointing in the direction of their G-Class, screaming frantically at the people inside his car.

She was so hyper-focused on the mirror that it took her a moment to realize Duan Xiaolin was speaking to her. “What… I’m sorry, Brother Duan… what did you just say?”

Duan Xiaolin cast a cold glance at the rearview mirror, watching the other convoy disappear into the dust. “Those vehicles belong to Team S1. I assume you recognized them.”

Pei Xiqing lowered her head, her heart hammering. “Yeah… I recognized the team colors. But I don’t actually know that many people in the squad, just a few.”

She looked nervously at Duan Xiaolin. “But since I’ve already turned into a zombie, it doesn’t really matter if I recognize them or not, right?”

Duan Xiaolin let out a low chuckle. “True.”

Meanwhile, a mile away in the other convoy, Qiu Gang—the man on the roof—dropped back into the cabin, screaming hysterically. His eyes were bulging with absolute disbelief. “No way! Are you guys blind?! Did you not see who was in that black SUV?!”

“What are you screaming about?” the driver snapped. “I was busy running over corpses! Who was it?”

“It was that bitch! That manipulative witch who nearly destroyed our squad!” Qiu Gang roared. “Have you forgotten how she played us all for fools?!”

“Are you serious?!” a sniper in the backseat gasped. “I thought she got bitten by a mutant! She’s either dead or turned into a rotting corpse by now!”

“I’m dead serious! I just saw her with my own two eyes! She was sitting in the passenger seat of that SUV! Damn it! That bitch is actually still alive! I’m radioing the Captain right now!”

…

Duan Xiaolin expertly drifted the G-Class behind the skeletal remains of a collapsed skyscraper. The building was a total ruin, but the massive concrete slabs formed a natural, highly defensible barricade.

Because the area was choked with debris, there were relatively few mutants here. Duan Xiaolin casually stepped out, effortlessly dispatching two approaching zombies with his sidearm before popping the trunk to retrieve the classified intel.

The documents he was processing were clearly of the highest priority. Ling Lang had briefly mentioned the massive, reinforced “tonnage box” secured in the back of the SUV. It was the exact same classified lockbox they had traded for when Pei Xiqing first met Duan Xiaolin and Ling Lang.

She had no idea what was inside, but the casing was constructed from cold, heavy-duty military steel, radiating an aura of immense value. It likely contained experimental super-weapons, or perhaps the central base’s most critical scientific assets.

Duan Xiaolin was entirely absorbed in his work. Just beyond the concrete barricade, a massive, apocalyptic battle was raging. The deafening roar of artillery and elemental explosions turned the night sky into a blinding day, yet he remained absolutely, terrifyingly calm.

Pei Xiqing crouched beside him, carefully holding a tactical flashlight to illuminate the classified files in his hands.

Noticing her deliberate posture, Duan Xiaolin glanced down. Pei Xiqing immediately raised her free hand defensively. “I promise I’m not reading anything! I swear I’m not looking at your classified intel. I just wanted to make sure you had enough light to see clearly.”

Duan Xiaolin’s expression remained perfectly neutral. He didn’t say a word, simply returning his focus to rapidly processing the encrypted documents.

Pei Xiqing held the heavy flashlight steady for what felt like an eternity. The seconds dragged on. The explosive sounds of the battle were drawing closer by the minute, shaking the concrete walls around them as if the warzone was separated only by a thin sheet of paper. Her arms began to ache fiercely from the strain, but seeing how close the man was to finishing his task, she gritted her teeth and held her position.

She was so focused on keeping her arm steady that she became slightly distracted. By the time she snapped back to reality, a feral, rotting zombie had managed to crawl silently through the rubble and was mere inches from her boots. The mutant was raising its blood-slicked claws, preparing to sink its teeth into her calf.

Pei Xiqing gasped, rearing her leg back to kick it in the face.

But before her boot could connect, the zombie at her feet violently imploded. In a fraction of a millisecond, it turned entirely to fine, grey dust, vanishing into thin air.

Pei Xiqing froze, completely caught off guard.

Duan Xiaolin calmly finished sorting the classified documents, sealing them inside a reinforced folder before locking them back into the tonnage box. With her sharp eyes, Pei Xiqing caught a brief, terrifying glimpse inside the heavy crate. Secured within high-density foam was a perfectly aligned row of experimental pharmaceutical vials, and nestled right beside them was a heavy glass canister tightly wrapped in black bio-hazard cloth.

Duan Xiaolin slammed the lid shut, locking the tonnage box. He turned around and firmly grasped her wrist.

“Tired?” he asked softly.

Pei Xiqing shook her head, still staring at the spot where the zombie had just been vaporized. “Not really.”

Duan Xiaolin gently massaged the stiff muscles in her wrist. “Thank you for the light. Let’s go regroup with the squad.”

“Okay.”

Pei Xiqing nodded numbly, following him out of the ruins.

The image of the contents inside the tonnage box flashed vividly in her mind.

She suddenly remembered a specific, horrific plot point from the novel. The book had described a highly concentrated, weaponized viral strain—always wrapped in black cloth, designed to never see the light of day. That specific bio-weapon was utilized by the ultimate villain to nearly assassinate the male protagonist. If even a microscopic drop of that pathogen was released into the air, the surrounding sector would be instantly annihilated. Not even the undead could survive it, let alone normal humans. Even apex ability users would melt into puddles of gore.

She wasn’t entirely certain if the canister in the box was the exact same weapon.

However, given Duan Xiaolin’s affiliation, she reasoned that if he possessed it, he would inevitably hand it over to the villain boss.

Pei Xiqing followed Duan Xiaolin out of the collapsed skyscraper. A few minutes later, they intercepted Ling Lang’s advancing elite squad.

A glowing, holographic tactical map was projected from Ling Lang’s wrist gauntlet. “The mutants in this sector have been dormant in the city ruins for years,” Ling Lang briefed the squad. “City B had an incredibly dense pre-outbreak population, so the sheer volume of the horde is astronomical. The noise of our engagement has drawn them all to the city center simultaneously. Scanners show several other survivor factions pushing toward the epicenter as well. We’ll rendezvous with them and establish a joint-defense perimeter.”

The elite operatives nodded in unison.

Seeing Pei Xiqing and Duan Xiaolin approaching from the shadows, Ling Lang holstered his sidearm and jogged over. “I tracked the G-Class’s GPS. Are you two alright?”

Pei Xiqing shook her head, confirming she was fine.

“How many active squads are currently operating in the city center?” Duan Xiaolin asked sharply.

“The radar intercepted three distinct encrypted beacons,” Ling Lang reported.

Three military-grade squads.

Including their own, that meant four elite factions were currently trapped in the sector.

In the wasteland, rival squads rarely ever cooperated; the risk of betrayal and supply theft was too high. But given the apocalyptic scale of this horde, forming a temporary, desperate alliance was their only chance of survival.

Long Yan suddenly spun around, raising her rifle toward the ruined street. “Contact front! Here they come!”

Simultaneously, three heavily armed, distinct squads emerged from the smoke and rubble in the south, east, and west, rapidly converging on their position.

The first squad to breach the perimeter bore the tactical insignia “A121243″—an elite strike force dispatched directly from Base Four. The designations of the other two squads were long and complicated, and Pei Xiqing couldn’t memorize them in the chaos. She only caught that they were Vanguard units sent from Base Ten.

Ling Lang frowned, checking his radar. “The scanner showed a fourth beacon. Where is the last squad?”

“They’re probably still bogged down in heavy combat with the vanguard of the horde,” Long Yan analyzed. She lowered her weapon, turning and waving at Pei Xiqing. “Hey! Come over here!”

Pei Xiqing quickly jogged over to her. “What’s wrong, Sister Long Yan?”

“One of the operatives in the Base Ten squad took a heavy slash from a mutant, but they immediately injected him with a military-grade serum. Come here, I want you to see exactly what happens to a mutating host when the serum interacts with their latent elemental energy to actively purge the virus.”

She wasn’t doing it to intimidate or threaten her. She genuinely wanted Pei Xiqing to understand the biology of a cure.

Pei Xiqing glanced nervously at Duan Xiaolin, who was leaning casually against a concrete pillar. She crouched down next to Long Yan, carefully observing the injured operative. The man was gritting his teeth in agony, but the ghastly, grey-green necrosis and blistering ulcers spreading across his skin were visibly halting, then slowly receding.

The heavily scarred, infected flesh was literally dissolving and reforming, the regenerative process rapidly accelerated by the potent mixture of the pure serum and the operative’s own surging superpower.

“Incredible, isn’t it?” Long Yan whispered. “This is the absolute highest-grade rapid-response serum the military has. It’s incredibly effective, but the catch is the golden hour. The longer the host waits to inject it, the lower the survival rate.”

Pei Xiqing thought about the deep, original bite mark on her own arm and the bizarre, fluctuating symptoms of her mutation.

She subtly touched her forearm through the thick fabric of her heavy coat.

She couldn’t feel any raised veins or necrotic tissue.

But something still feels entirely wrong.

She didn’t have time to dwell on the anomaly. The tactical situation was escalating rapidly, and she quickly moved to help the uninjured operatives establish a heavily fortified, temporary joint-camp.

In the center of the camp, Ling Lang was actively discussing overlapping fields of fire and defensive countermeasures with the Captains of the other three squads. Duan Xiaolin stood silently at the edge of the circle, listening to the tactical exchange. Ling Lang did ninety percent of the talking, while Duan Xiaolin rarely interjected.

However, Pei Xiqing noticed that before Ling Lang finalized any major strategic deployment, he would subtly glance toward Duan Xiaolin. Only after receiving a microscopic, confirming nod from the man would Ling Lang issue the command to the other Captains.

Pei Xiqing leaned close to Long Yan, whispering, “Has Ling Lang never commanded a joint-operation like this before?”

She specifically remembered reading that Ling Lang had been the Captain of the Vanguard squad for years. It was no exaggeration to call him a seasoned, blood-soaked veteran. Why was he acting so hesitant?

Long Yan chuckled softly. “He only acts like this when Brother Duan is present. Ling Lang is terrified of disappointing him, so he becomes incredibly cautious and second-guesses himself. If Brother Duan wasn’t here, Ling Lang would be a completely different animal—arrogant, aggressive, and entirely dominant. How do I put this? Brother Duan is his mentor, his savior, and the person he respects most in the universe. When you’re standing next to a god, it’s inevitable that you overthink your every move.”

“I actually think Ling Lang is doing an amazing job. He doesn’t seem to care about how the other Captains are judging him.”

“You really think so?”

Pei Xiqing dusted off her hands, nodding firmly. “Yeah. I do.”

“Great! I’ll go tell him right now. I’ll tell him you specifically praised his leadership! He’s going to be so touched~”

“Hey! Wait! Sister Long Yan! We are in the middle of a massive zombie siege right now! This is not the time to joke around!” Pei Xiqing grabbed Long Yan’s arm, her face burning. “Please stop messing with me and let it go!”

Long Yan leaned in close, a mischievous smirk on her lips. “Why are you getting so shy all of a sudden? You two have already kissed; what’s there to be embarrassed about?”

?

Just as Pei Xiqing was about to frantically deny the accusation, a medic shouted for Long Yan’s assistance. Before Pei Xiqing could utter a single word of defense, Long Yan had already sprinted off to help.

Why do I feel like Sister Long Yan has severely misunderstood exactly who I kissed?!

The joint-camp was strategically repositioned further to the right flank, anchoring closer to the ruined city gates to ensure a viable retreat path if the perimeter collapsed.

Pei Xiqing was bending over, helping to stack heavy concrete chunks for a barricade, when a massive, heavily armored off-road vehicle suddenly drifted aggressively past her. The tires kicked up a violent cloud of toxic dust and sand, completely covering her.

“What the hell?!”

She coughed violently, waving her hands to clear the suffocating dust from her face. Annoyed, she turned to glare at the vehicle that had just nearly run her over.

She took a closer look at the squad dismounting from the armored car.

A burly, heavily scarred man jumped out of the driver’s seat. He locked eyes with her, his expression instantly morphing from shock into a twisted, obsessive excitement. He sprinted forward, violently grabbing her arm. “Xiqing?! It is you! I knew it! You’re not dead! I knew you survived!”

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