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

Chapter 259: Just Follow Behind Me

Pei Xiqing tried to push against his chest, but the man was as immovable as a mountain. After struggling for a long moment without budging him an inch, she simply gave up and surrendered to his kiss.

Their lips met, the heat between them burning intensely. His actions were completely at odds with his usual gentle and elegant demeanor. The kiss was fueled by a deep, addictive possessiveness, revealing his absolute inability to suppress his physical and psychological desire for her.

The metallic stench of blood in the room remained strong, but all Pei Xiqing could focus on was his burning breath. There was nowhere to escape. Even in this chilling, hellish dungeon, his warmth poured into her without hesitation.

Her vision blurred from the intensity of the kiss. A flush of desire colored her cheeks, and a few stray strands of dark hair tumbled over her shoulders. With her thick, long eyelashes fluttering shut, her delicate features looked exceptionally exquisite.

Duan Xiaolin lifted her effortlessly onto the edge of the table. Bracing his arms on either side of her, he pulled her closer, deepening the kiss.

He thoroughly robbed her of her breath, forcing her to rely on him for every gasp of oxygen. Pei Xiqing’s fingers gripped his collar tightly, her neatly trimmed nails digging into his chest and inevitably leaving faint, crescent-shaped marks through his shirt.

She lost track of time before he finally pulled away. Panting heavily, she leaned her forehead against his chest. She tried to steady her breathing, but she couldn’t easily shake off the lingering haze of the kiss and the heavy, ambiguous atmosphere between them.

It took several long ticks of the interrogation room’s clock for her to finally regain her senses.

“I’m not trying to hold a grudge,” she said, her breath still unsteady but her tone incredibly firm. “But you did this to yourself. You didn’t take my words to heart at all.”

“I didn’t ignore them,” he murmured. “I remember every word you said.”

“You’re talking nonsense.” Finally recovering a bit of her strength, Pei Xiqing gently rested her fingers near the wound on his chest. She looked up at him. “It really breaks my heart. I’d rather you lie to me than do something like this to yourself.”

For a fleeting instant, she caught a trace of helplessness in his dark eyes. “Tell me the truth,” she demanded softly. “If you lie to me now, you’re really done for.”

He wrapped an arm around her waist, unable to hold back a low chuckle. “Alright, I’ll tell you.”

“What exactly happened out there?”

“It took some time and effort to extract those crystal cores from the black market,” he began.

“You were injured in the black market?”

“Yes.”

“Who could possibly hurt you? And to this extent?”

“The black market has been completely overrun by parasites. Everyone down there is either dead or fleeing for their lives.”

“What?” Pei Xiqing was stunned, though it made a twisted kind of sense. Currently, only the parasites possessed that level of lethal aggression.

He quickly outlined the recent catastrophic shift. The black market was situated directly beneath the Ghost Market, the two subterranean sectors seamlessly connected. The ancient parasites sealed within the Ghost Market’s glacial depths had all revived overnight. After breaking free from the ice, they swarmed straight into the black market below, infecting massive swathes of the population.

The sheer volume of corpses piled up between the two markets was staggering. If even a single parasite burrowed into those mass graves, it wouldn’t take long for the entire pile to become infected. Consequently, the black market had rapidly devolving into a massive, deadly petri dish for parasites, bacteria, and mutated viruses. Getting out of that hellscape unscathed was no easy feat for anyone.

Listening to his explanation, Pei Xiqing stared at him, her eyes brimming with a mix of grievance and deep guilt.

“But then… why haven’t your injuries healed yet? It’s been days…” Logically, given his extraordinary physical baseline and abilities, these minor lacerations shouldn’t have been an issue. Wounds that should have closed in the blink of an eye were still bleeding. Why?

“What about your superpower?” she asked, her voice rising with anxiety. “Has it been compromised again? Did something happen to your core…?”

Duan Xiaolin gently stroked her head. “My superpower is still intact.”

“Then why aren’t you healing?”

“I just can’t use it freely anymore.”

“Why is that?” Pei Xiqing was completely baffled. His power was intact, but he couldn’t use it?

“Because of certain unavoidable variables,” he replied vaguely.

“Like what?”

Instead of answering immediately, Duan Xiaolin picked up a bottle of medical disinfectant from the table and poured it directly over his torn palm.

The highly concentrated liquid relentlessly rinsed the open laceration. The metallic scent of blood bloomed in the air, quickly overpowered by the sharp, pungent chemical odor. Pei Xiqing winced, unable to imagine the blinding sting of pouring raw disinfectant directly into exposed flesh.

Her horrified expression amused him. He couldn’t help but chuckle. “Alright, that’s enough. This isn’t a place for you to linger. The air quality down here is toxic, and it isn’t good for your recovery. I’ll have Shadow escort you back up.”

He turned away, preparing to contact the operative over his comms.

Pei Xiqing quickly grabbed his hand to stop him. “No, I don’t want to leave yet. You’ve only told me half the story, and you completely danced around the most important part. Don’t even think about sending me away.”

He laughed softly. “What else do you want to know?”

“I want to know exactly why you can’t use your abilities. Are they sealed? What would actually happen if you forced it?”

“The Qiong Snake is no longer housed within my own body,” he explained. “Without it anchoring me, it is highly inconvenient to expose my raw abilities at will.”

“That’s it? That’s the only reason?”

“Yes.”

Pei Xiqing didn’t hesitate. “Then I’ll return the snake to you right now.”

“The Qiong Snake belongs entirely to you now,” he said firmly. “It will never be returned.”

“Why did you transfer it to me in the first place?”

“The horned snake was the biological catalyst for your false pregnancy. If it wasn’t actively circulating within your system, the viral suppression wouldn’t have been nearly as effective.”

“So you and Qiu Chao had this master plan figured out all along, but you deliberately kept me in the dark,” she said, a bitter edge creeping into her voice. “I was the patient, yet I was treated like an outsider to my own body.”

“That was my fault,” he admitted quietly. “The theoretical success rate wasn’t absolute at the time. I didn’t want to give you false hope or unnecessary terror by briefing you beforehand.”

Pei Xiqing sighed, taking his hand to carefully bandage the sterilized wound. “The Qiong Snake is going to miss you, you know.”

“It?” The man chuckled. “Highly unlikely. That thing has absolutely no conscience; it won’t miss me at all.”

“The Qiong Snake was your core supernatural ability, and you surrendered it to me. What kind of power do you even have left in your body?”

“The true essence of the serpent will remain permanently locked onto my frequency. As long as that tether exists, maintaining my abilities isn’t an issue.”

“That’s good, at least.” Still, she remained deeply puzzled by the contradiction—that he clearly possessed his powers yet was barred from wielding them. She continued to press him until the man finally lowered his gaze, looking at her with an intense, solemn seriousness.

“If I aggressively deploy my abilities right now, I cannot calculate the exact consequences it will trigger,” he confessed. “The backlash won’t just hit me—it could severely harm the people around me. It could harm you. Therefore, since returning from the black market, I have chosen to completely lock down my powers.”

“How do you know that?” she asked.

“Aren’t you the perfect empirical example?”

Pei Xiqing was silent for a long moment before whispering, “I understand.”

It all came back to the damned plot and the invisible, absolute rules governing this world. The laws of this reality were ethereal and intangible—who could possibly map how its karmic debt was calculated or enforced?

She sneered inwardly. Screw the world order’s rules. The original protagonist was already dead; why was the system still aggressively targeting them to correct the timeline?

She tightened her grip on the man’s hand, looking up into his dark eyes with fierce resolve. “Brother Duan,” she declared, “from now on, you just follow behind me.”

Chapter 260: Ironically, It’s Stimulating

The man took off his glasses, leaning back against the cold wall. He lowered his eyes, remaining silent for a few seconds before pulling out a lighter.

A sudden burst of flame illuminated his face as he bowed his head to light a cigarette. Thinking back to what Pei Xiqing had said just before she left, a faint smile curled his thin lips. He looked toward the empty chair where she had sat. The usual sharp, chilling depth of his gaze had softened considerably.

San She dragged a bloodied corpse over, leaving a gruesome trail in his wake. His heavy military boots sloshed through the puddles of gore without a second thought. Stopping before the man, he reported, “Brother Duan, the crystal cores from this batch don’t meet the requirements. They’re barely passable, but none of them are truly top-tier.”

This was a far cry from the high-grade crystal cores Duan Xiaolin had ordered them to find a few days ago. These were at least three or four tiers lower in quality.

Tossing the mangled body at the man’s feet, San She added, “Only the core inside this one is somewhat close to what we need.”

Duan Xiaolin held the cigarette between his fingers, exhaling a plume of smoke to dull the throbbing pain of his own wounds, and looked down at the figure on the ground.

The captive—who was barely clinging to life—finally caught a clear glimpse of Duan Xiaolin’s face in the dim light. Stunned at first, his eyes suddenly sparked with a desperate glimmer of hope, like a drowning man clutching at a lifeline. He struggled wildly, dragging his broken body forward inch by inch until he could grab the hem of Duan Xiaolin’s suit trousers.

“Aren’t you… aren’t you Mr. Duan from that village?! I’ve seen you before! Do you remember me?!”

Duan Xiaolin stared down at him impassively. “Who are you?”

This person clearly wasn’t a villager.

“I’m from Liu Dongshu’s team! You were staying in the village back then, and I saw you with Miss Pei. She’s an old friend of our vice-captain, Zhang Tian. They were catching up and having a great time!” the man babbled frantically. “We lost contact with Vice-Captain Zhang. We only fled to the black market to survive. Please, for the sake of her friendship with your Miss Pei, please save me! I swear I don’t know anything about what’s happening in the black market! It has absolutely nothing to do with me!”

He grew increasingly agitated, blood streaming down his face, completely ignoring his agonizing injuries as he stared up with wide, pleading eyes. “Please! Once I get out of here, I’ll find Zhang Tian and have her thank Miss Pei personally! They’re friends, right…?”

Taking a slow drag of his cigarette, Duan Xiaolin asked, “So, the black market has nothing to do with you?”

“Yes! I have absolutely no connection to a place like that! I only went there to hide!”

“Then explain the crystal core,” Duan Xiaolin said, leaning down.

His eerie, chilling gaze locked directly onto the man’s chest. His eyes narrowed slightly. In an instant, the faint, unnatural glow of a crystal core pulsed visibly through the captive’s flesh.

“This… I… I don’t know! I really don’t know anything about crystal cores! I only absorbed them to boost my abilities, I swear I don’t know anything else…”

As he babbled, he finally registered the demonic, predatory glint in Duan Xiaolin’s eyes—a look that promised absolute death. Panic seizing his heart, he covered his chest and scrambled backward. With his legs completely crippled, he could only drag himself away with his hands.

But before he could crawl more than a few feet, San She snatched his ankle and yanked him back effortlessly. The man’s desperate fingertips scraped against the hard stone, leaving ten bloody streaks across the floor.

A few sickening seconds later, San She presented a blood-soaked crystal core to his boss.

Duan Xiaolin took out a fresh handkerchief, meticulously wiped the gore away, and examined the gem in the dim light. “Give this one to Qiu Chao. He’s been working himself to the bone lately; he can use it to recover his energy.”

“Is it still not what you’re looking for, Brother Duan?” San She asked.

Duan Xiaolin offered a faint, unreadable smile. “Keep looking.”

“Understood.”

“Let the men divide up the remaining low-tier cores among themselves.”

“Yes, sir.”

San She dragged the fresh corpse away, his expression entirely unperturbed. His cold gaze swept across the grisly forest of hanging bodies suspended in the dark.

They had finally identified their targets. Over the past few days, they had been systematically extracting crystal cores from flesh and blood, one by one. They crushed the lowest-tier ones and set aside anything remotely presentable. Yet, despite their relentless butchery, they still hadn’t found the exact type of crystal core Brother Duan demanded. The only silver lining was discovering one core among the corpses that was structurally similar to the high-grade artifacts they sought.

This led them to a grim hypothesis: these specific crystal cores could be regenerated.

The legendary cores from before were exceedingly precious and had practically vanished from the world. The only way to manifest them now was through mass slaughter—using human bodies as raw incubators to cultivate the crystals, feeding them with the blood and murderous aura that saturated this apocalyptic wasteland.

The cores harvested from this current batch of corpses were still far from meeting the threshold.

San She stared at the bodies swaying gently amidst the terror and gore, his eyes gleaming with barely concealed excitement. A slow, twisted grin spread beneath his mask. He didn’t feel this violated human ethics or the laws of nature in the slightest. On the contrary, it was thrilling. It was an intoxicating, addictive process. He was certain Brother Duan felt the exact same way—that this was all simply a very entertaining game.

Pei Xiqing emerged from the water dungeon, a profound sense of relief washing over her. She greedily drew in several deep breaths of the crisp, untainted night air.

Shadow followed closely behind her, exhaling sharply. “I can’t believe you actually dared to go down there. My God, do you have any idea how much cold sweat I broke into?”

He hurried to justify the horrors they had just walked past. “What you saw down there were just extreme punitive measures. As long as you aren’t involved in those twisted black market syndicates, you’ll never face that kind of treatment. Brother Duan isn’t a tyrant who can’t distinguish right from wrong. Those prisoners absolutely deserved their fates. If you knew what they were doing down in the black market, you’d agree that they earned every second of that punishment.”

“I know,” she replied with a soft laugh. “Brother Shadow, why are you panicking? I haven’t even said a word yet, and you’re already rushing to defend him. Are you that worried I’ll misunderstand him and get angry?”

Shadow rubbed his nose awkwardly. “It’s not that I think you can’t handle it, or that you’d be terrified of him like you used to be. It’s just… I genuinely believe everything Brother Duan does is justified. At least from my perspective, I don’t think he’s done anything wrong.”

“Don’t worry,” she said, offering him a reassuring wink. “My psychological defenses are thicker than the reinforced walls of this headquarters. Besides, I’ve been to the black market myself.”

“Looks like I was overthinking it,” he muttered, finally letting out a long sigh of relief.

“Thank you, Brother Shadow,” Pei Xiqing said softly.

“You’re welcome. Just please don’t hold any of this against him,” Shadow replied. His tone turned serious. “There are still a lot of critical issues at headquarters that demand his attention. Those hypocritical bastards in the high command claim they need him back to stabilize the region, but secretly, they’re constantly plotting to kill him.”

“How much longer does he need to stay here?” she asked, her brow furrowing.

“It might be a very long time.”

“Do the people in charge here lack any basic self-awareness? Why must they constantly rely on him?” she muttered, irritated.

Were they completely brainless? Whenever a crisis erupted, the military brass never bothered to solve it themselves; they dumped everything onto Duan Xiaolin’s shoulders. Yet, at the exact same time, they bitterly resented him and refused to accept the absolute authority he wielded.

“It’s those stubborn old fogies and the commanders of the various military factions,” Shadow said, shaking his head in disgust. “The exact second this parasite storm passes, Brother Duan will become their primary target once again.”

Pei Xiqing stared quietly at the towering barbed-wire perimeter. Her face was entirely expressionless.

After a long, heavy silence, she finally spoke up, her voice chillingly calm. “What’s the point of even preserving a base like this?”

Chapter 261: Old Items

After those words left her mouth, Pei Xiqing found herself stunned into silence.

In the original plotline, that exact sentiment had been voiced by Pei Yanting.

At that specific point in the narrative, the protagonists had finally unearthed the horrific darkness lurking within the capital and exposed the sinister intentions of its rulers. The survivors had been completely outraged. They had rallied together in righteous indignation, condemning Duan Xiaolin’s regime and desperately plotting to expand their own power, completely overthrow the high command, and liberate everyone trapped within the base.

And in the original novel, they had actually succeeded.

Franlun was entirely eradicated from the apocalyptic wasteland, its remaining members scattered into the unknown. Duan Xiaolin was ultimately defeated in a climactic duel with Xiao Yue, dying at the protagonist’s hands.

Pei Xiqing stared into the distance, feeling somewhat dazed.

Without even realizing it, she had unconsciously aligned herself with the exact same moral frequency as Xiao Yue and Pei Yanting.

Perhaps it was a side effect of successfully absorbing the crystal cores. The artifacts had undeniably granted her a new lease on life, but they had also seemingly burdened her with fragments of the mission originally assigned to the protagonists.

Unfortunately for the narrative, no matter what variables shifted—no matter how many of the protagonist’s assets she absorbed, be it their opportunities, their abilities, or their deep-seated compassion—she would never truly become Xiao Yue or Pei Yanting.

She was simply herself. And absolutely nothing in this world could change her determination to stand firmly beside Duan Xiaolin.

Pei Xiqing pushed open the heavy front door to the secluded villa where Duan Xiaolin had previously resided.

The sprawling marine hot springs were located just outside the perimeter. Duan Xiaolin had brought her to those springs late last night. Back then, she had only admired the mysterious architecture of the villa from afar, never actually stepping foot inside. She certainly hadn’t anticipated returning to stay here.

Shadow followed quietly behind her, his usual taciturn demeanor fully restored beneath his mask. It was only when she reached out to push open one of the doors on the second-floor landing that he finally spoke, his voice low. “That specific door hasn’t been opened in three years. Only Brother Duan possesses the key.”

“What’s kept inside?” she asked.

“A collection of old documents and records from before the apocalypse. Brother Duan served in the military prior to the outbreak, and the majority of those files detail his service history. They’ve been stockpiled in there for a long time. Since bureaucratic records hold zero value in the current era, the room has gradually been abandoned.”

Pei Xiqing nodded softly. “I see.”

Shadow moved to open an intricately carved wooden door on the right side of the corridor. The craftsmanship was distinctly retro and incredibly elegant, perfectly matching the grand, refined furnishings of the master bedroom. Aside from a faint, lingering chill creeping through the night air, the room was immaculate.

She walked in slowly, her fingertips gently tracing the surface of the antique furnishings—the heavy oak desk, the high-backed chairs, the tall bookshelves…

It felt as though she could almost sense the lingering echoes of the solitary life the man had lived here. Everything was impeccably clean and meticulously organized, yet a thin layer of dust had inevitably settled across the window sills.

“Brother Duan originally had zero intention of ever returning to live here,” Shadow explained quietly.

“Why? It seems like an absolute waste to leave such a beautiful house completely abandoned.”

Shadow paused for a heavy moment before answering. “Because Brother Duan personally executed his entire family within these walls. Including his own mother.”

Pei Xiqing froze mid-step. She turned to stare at him in shock. “Why was he forced to do that here?”

“It was a secret execution,” Shadow replied grimly. “The political climate within the base was incredibly unstable at the time. Brother Duan’s family members had all been compromised by the virus and fully mutated into zombies. If they had been captured by the military factions, they would have been forcibly injected with experimental compounds, locked inside observation cages, and tortured relentlessly for data.

“The public hatred for the undead was absolute back then. Even though the experimental drugs might have preserved a fractured sliver of their original human consciousness, Brother Duan chose to execute them with his own hands. He refused to allow his family to be paraded around as grotesque exhibits for the high command.”

Pei Xiqing drew in a sharp, ragged breath. “No wonder he never wants to step foot in this place again.”

“That locked room down the hall… that was originally his mother’s bedroom. He eventually filled it wall-to-wall with military archives to completely erase any trace of its original purpose.”

“He rarely opens up to me about his past,” she murmured. “Thank you for telling me, Brother Shadow.”

“Brother Duan remains silent because he refuses to burden you with his trauma. Furthermore, he doesn’t want you to internalize the image of him as a cold-blooded, ruthless executioner who systematically slaughters every zombie he encounters. He may be utterly ruthless and decisive when dealing with the rest of the world, but his parameters are entirely different when it comes to you. Even if you had fully mutated into a mindless zombie, he likely would have extracted you from the capital, or exhausted every conceivable method to save you—exactly as he did this time.”

“I know,” she sighed softly. She was intimately aware of just how deeply Duan Xiaolin indulged her, and how vastly his leniency toward her contrasted with his usual brutality. Even she didn’t fully understand why he had been so remarkably forgiving of her existence back when they first met.

The grueling transit, the horrifying descent into the water dungeon, and the sheer volume of emotional revelations had finally taken their toll. Having only just recently stabilized her physical condition, her eyelids began to droop heavily the exact second she sat down on the plush sofa.

Shadow quickly heated up a meal, setting it on the coffee table and reminding her to eat and rest before he quietly took his leave.

Pei Xiqing struggled to stay awake on the sofa for a long time, nearly nodding off several times before finally forcing herself to sit up and force down a few bites of food. She then took two scalding showers in the adjoining bathroom, changed into a fresh set of clothes, and finally collapsed into the massive, soft bed.

The moment she closed her eyes, her mind helplessly drifted back to their conversation in the water dungeon.

A false pregnancy?

She honestly couldn’t believe he had engineered such a ridiculous, elaborate countermeasure.

She had genuinely convinced herself she was pregnant, and she had spent the entire transit mentally preparing for the reality. When she finally saw him in the dungeon, she had almost blurted out a question asking whether he preferred a boy or a girl… Thank God she had managed to swallow the words, otherwise, she would have absolutely died of embarrassment.

It made it seem like she was desperate to bear his child.

Pei Xiqing had been utterly exhausted, but dwelling on the embarrassment made her increasingly frustrated. She violently punched her pillow a few times until she finally managed to calm her racing thoughts.

This man was incredibly infuriating! He always meticulously plotted ten steps ahead, perfectly calculating exactly when to advance and when to retreat, while she was left stumbling in the dark like a clueless fool.

Next time, she absolutely refused to let him lead her around by the nose!

Pei Xiqing slept incredibly deeply, crashing from shortly after 10:00 PM all the way until 2:00 or 3:00 PM the following afternoon.

The heavy blackout curtains in the bedroom were drawn completely shut, entirely blocking out the afternoon sun. If she hadn’t managed to glimpse the analog clock on the nightstand, she would have never believed she had slept for so long.

The exact millisecond she shifted beneath the covers, a heavy arm wrapped securely around her waist. She was forcefully, yet gently, pulled backward until her back was flush against a broad, warm chest.

Still holding her tight with one arm, the man reached out with his free hand and smoothly popped open the drawer of the nightstand. He extracted an unopened box of condoms and casually tossed it onto the mattress right in front of her.

Having only just woken up, Pei Xiqing stared blankly at the box for a few seconds. When her brain finally processed what she was looking at, she shot up and grabbed his wrist in a panic. “You… it’s already three o’clock in the afternoon!”

“Are you hungry?” he asked mildly.

“I am starving,” she nodded enthusiastically, desperate to change the subject.

The man glanced down at her, a wicked, lazy smile playing in his dark eyes. “I am incredibly hungry myself.”

Pei Xiqing instantly realized they were absolutely not discussing the same appetite.

Her face flushed crimson. “Let’s get up and go eat! My head is actually starting to pound from oversleeping.”

“Would you like me to massage it for you?”

His large, calloused hand moved up, gently pressing against her temple.

The box of condoms was nudged closer to her hands. “Open it,” he murmured.

The text on the sleek packaging was printed in an array of incomprehensible foreign languages and symbols, but the graphic icons were… extremely straightforward and universally understood.

The box felt incredibly high-quality to the touch, and the foil was perfectly pristine. This absolutely did not look like a scavenged relic from five years ago.

“You… how do you even have a supply of these?” she stammered. “And they’re brand new.”

He merely smiled, refusing to answer as his fingers continued their slow, relaxing massage against her scalp.

Pei Xiqing held her breath, her mind racing. How could this insufferable man possibly lack a stockpile of reserves after surviving this long in the apocalypse?

Besides, contraceptives were practically obsolete in the current era, as they served almost zero practical purpose for the general population. The global population had been decimated, making reproduction a critical priority for the survival of the species.

However, given the catastrophic environmental collapse and rampant viral mutations, the statistical probability of a woman successfully conceiving and surviving to deliver a healthy infant in the wasteland was estimated to be a bleak ten percent.

Pei Xiqing sat up fully, apparently determined to conquer the stubborn packaging in her hands.

For some inexplicable reason, she simply couldn’t get the seal to pop. It felt as though the box had been engineered with a complex locking mechanism. She began to sweat with frustration as she fumbled with the tabs. Finally, her patience snapped, and she violently tore the cardboard apart.

One, two, three… eight?

The box ripped open completely, and the entire payload spilled out across the sheets, with several foil packets tumbling directly onto her lap.

Pei Xiqing swallowed hard.

“Why did you dump the entire supply?” the man asked smoothly, amusement lacing his tone. “Were you intending to utilize all of them in one session?”

Pei Xiqing felt her entire body ignite with embarrassment. She frantically gathered the scattered packets, haphazardly shoving them back into the mangled cardboard box. “Don’t talk nonsense!”

Duan Xiaolin sat up slowly, leaning lazily against the headboard. “After you scolded me so passionately in the dungeon yesterday, I gave the matter some serious consideration. I think it truly is time for us to have a child.”

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