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

Chapter 292: Fatal Attraction

After the main headquarters staff evacuated, Franlun and the remaining refugees stayed behind in the mostly submerged base for over half a month.

When the surrounding seawater finally breached the critical limit and spiraled completely out of control, it was time for everyone to evacuate.

Although it was only a short two weeks, the refugees had transformed. They went from initially keeping their distance and holding deep prejudices against Franlun to gradually gaining the courage to learn from the operatives. They might not have been the most talented, nor did they possess the special abilities of awakened users, but what mattered was their sheer persistence and tireless dedication to training.

Over that half-month, their efforts had yielded real results. At the very least, compared to how helpless they were two weeks prior, they now possessed a basic level of self-defense. Whether facing zombies or mutated aquatic parasites, they would no longer just cower in a corner, shivering and waiting for death.

On the day of the evacuation, everyone woke up incredibly early.

Pei Xiqing hadn’t slept much either. The storm outside crackled and lashed violently against the glass. She had been pressed against the French windows of her bedroom, denied even a moment’s rest.

It was past four in the morning and pitch black outside… it didn’t look like it was going to get light anytime soon. Over the storm, the low hum of aircraft engines could be heard firing up outside.

Having not slept a wink, she yawned as the man finally carried her away from the windowsill. She was draped only in a loose blanket, and he bundled her up tightly like a little dumpling.

Today was bound to be exhausting. She had wanted to go to bed early last night, but the man simply refused to let her go.

In her relationship with Duan Xiaolin, she would occasionally take the initiative when she was in a good mood and had the energy. When it came to intimacy, she was driven by curiosity and a sense of playfulness. He always indulged her, deliberately guiding her along. In front of him, her little tricks were completely transparent, and she only dared to act so recklessly because she assumed he wouldn’t truly cross the line.

But Duan Xiaolin was absolutely not as gentle and restrained as he appeared on the surface. They both knew the darker, more possessive side of him that he usually kept hidden.

And last night, he had finally had enough.

When she had been pressed hard against seemingly every corner of the room, she caught glimpses of uncontrollable emotional fluctuations in his dark eyes. Years of repression and endurance were unraveling around him. At a loss for what to do, she had subconsciously reached out, gently stroking his cheek.

What had she even said to him? Her mind had been a hazy, confused mess at the time; she had no idea what she was doing. But the moment the words left her lips, she regretted it.

Almost instantly, the man had caught her wrist and captured her lips in a mind-numbing kiss.

…The result was a completely sleepless night.

She had nearly passed out several times, only to be jolted awake by the booming thunder outside and the man’s heavy, ragged breathing in her ear. Pei Xiqing felt as if the totem on her back was ablaze, searing her skin all night long. She felt like she was melting inside a furnace.

Duan Xiaolin finally carried her back to the bed. Sinking into the soft mattress and silk quilt, only a few messy strands of her black hair remained exposed.

He ran his fingertips through the ends of her hair before gently brushing the back of his hand against her forehead. “You don’t have a fever. I’ll be more restrained next time.”

“…” She bit her lower lip, completely unable to utter a single word of retort.

But she had to admit, Duan Xiaolin was a fatal attraction to her. It took two to tango. This exhaustion was entirely the result of her own indulgence.

Pei Xiqing struggled to sit up. “There’s an aircraft waiting outside. We need to pack up and get ready to leave.”

“I’ll handle the packing,” he said softly.

“Make sure to pack all the clothes. There are also two sets of your suits that I ironed yesterday hanging in the cloakroom. Don’t forget them.”

He agreed to all her instructions, turning around and leaving the bedroom to gather their things.

The last time San She had come to see her, she had already packed up the majority of their belongings and sent the essentials ahead. But there were still so many things left in the house; she could never take it all. From her massive shopping spree at the commercial district alone, she was being forced to leave four-fifths of her clothes behind.

Pei Xiqing lay in bed for a while longer. If it weren’t for the continuous roar of the aircraft engines outside, she would have drifted right back to sleep. Her mind was entirely focused on packing and leaving the base. Being able to drag herself out of bed at all was a pure triumph of willpower.

She hurriedly washed her face and changed into fresh clothes.

Duan Xiaolin walked back in, having mostly finished packing up the last of their things. She stood beside the suitcases, doing a quick visual check.

“Mhm… good, these are the right clothes.” She had been worried he wouldn’t have enough well-fitting clothes for the journey, so she had made sure to lay out a few specific sets. He had packed them all.

They moved efficiently. The evacuation operations outside had begun at four o’clock, and by five, they were ready to walk out the door. Their personal aircraft had been idling outside, waiting for them.

Pulling her windbreaker tight against the chill, Pei Xiqing allowed the man to guide her forward, but she couldn’t help looking back at the villa one last time.

She gently tugged at his sleeve.

“What’s wrong?” Duan Xiaolin asked.

“It’s just been such a bumpy ride for us. We’ve never been able to stay in one place for very long, not even at the Third Base.”

“The same goes for the headquarters itself,” he replied. “It never stays in one location for too long. In the past five years alone, it has relocated three times.”

“Really? Why didn’t I notice that?”

“Because the technology has obviously regressed.”

Pei Xiqing’s eyes widened. “I trust you implicitly, so please don’t lie to me.”

Duan Xiaolin lightly pinched the bridge of her nose. “You are the one who lies to me.”

“Then I’ll just have to pinch you back and force you to tell the truth!” Pei Xiqing reached out, pretending to pinch him.

He chuckled, catching her easily and wrapping his arms securely around her waist as they boarded.

The two of them leaned against the sturdy bulkhead inside the aircraft’s cabin. Suddenly, a strange, unusual rustling noise came from the seats right next to them.

Chapter 293: Only Cares About the Person in Front of You

Before Pei Xiqing could even react to the rustling noise, Shadow’s hands darted under the seats, swiftly dragging out two small figures.

It was Xiao Xiao, tightly holding Xiao Yu’s hand. The two children had somehow managed to sneak aboard the aircraft, slipping inside entirely unnoticed like a pair of stray cats.

Caught red-handed, both children hung their heads, each trying to look more ashamed than the other.

“They snuck in ten minutes ago,” Shadow reported flatly.

Xiao Xiao fidgeted with his fingers. “I’m sorry… my sister was playing hide-and-seek with me, and she accidentally hid in here. It’s all my fault.”

Xiao Yu immediately ran over and hugged Pei Xiqing’s legs. Raising her thin, pale face, she cried, “I was the one who ran in first! It has nothing to do with Brother Xiao. If you’re going to blame someone, blame me!”

Pei Xiqing put on a stern expression. “You two should definitely be punished. We’re about to evacuate from a disaster zone, and you still dare to play hide-and-seek in here?”

Xiao Yu’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry…”

Unable to maintain the act, Pei Xiqing burst out laughing and gently pinched the little girl’s cheek. “Don’t be so naughty in the future. Especially once we leave here and arrive at the new place, you absolutely cannot run around wherever you want. Otherwise, I won’t come to visit you in the hospital anymore.”

This was the same little girl who had collapsed from a high fever at the restaurant entrance. Her health had been incredibly frail after she was discharged, but over the past few days of relative safety, she had finally become much more active and energetic.

“No… I want my sister to come see me,” Xiao Yu whimpered, her red eyes looking like she was about to cry for real.

Pei Xiqing scooped the girl into her arms, setting her securely in a passenger seat and carefully buckling the safety harness. “If you want to go somewhere in the future, just tell Brother Xiao Xiao and ask him to protect you. Or, you can come find me. Do we have a deal?”

Xiao Yu nodded rapidly.

Duan Xiaolin took the seat beside Pei Xiqing.

A moment later, the aircraft engines roared to life, and they began their ascent.

Nestled comfortably in her seat, Xiao Yu looked over at them curiously. “What were you and the Uncle talking about just now? Sister looked so happy!”

Pei Xiqing coughed softly. “We were just talking about what we’re going to eat for breakfast. Speaking of which, what do you want to eat?”

The child’s attention was successfully diverted. She immediately started counting on her fingers, listing off all the delicious things she wanted to try.

The flight would take at least ten hours before they truly cleared the highly dangerous, storm-ravaged sea zone.

At first, the two kids were full of boundless energy, chattering away so loudly that some of the operatives seated behind them struggled to nap. But as expected, after eating a hearty breakfast, they burned through their energy in about two hours and promptly fell asleep in their seats.

Xiao Xiao, being a few years older and accustomed to the harsh reality of survival, knew how to grab a spare quilt and curl up efficiently in the corner of his chair. But Xiao Yu’s health was poor to begin with, and the stress of the apocalypse constantly wore on her frail body. Honestly, if Pei Xiqing hadn’t frequently visited and spoken with her over the past few days, the traumatized child probably would have withdrawn so completely she might have forgotten how to speak entirely.

Feeling her heart ache for the little girl, Pei Xiqing wrapped Xiao Yu warmly in a thick blanket and held the sleeping child in her arms.

After quietly watching the children for a while, Duan Xiaolin finally raised his head from the densely packed topographical maps and operational data scrolling across his screen. He was still speaking to someone over his earpiece, but he gestured for her to come closer.

Pei Xiqing slid over and leaned her head against his shoulder. After a little while, her eyelids began to droop heavily.

She was completely exhausted. If these two children hadn’t sneaked aboard, she probably would have fallen asleep the second she sat down.

The flight was smooth and steady, but enduring a ten-hour journey in a cramped cabin was never easy. At first, she slept leaning against the man’s broad shoulder. But as time wore on, she unconsciously shifted, eventually sliding down to use his thigh as a pillow, sleeping deeply and comfortably.

Halfway through the flight, Qiu Chao entered the main cabin and paused at the sight. Duan Xiaolin was in the middle of managing an urgent crisis, with various commanders waiting anxiously for his orders over the comms, yet he sat perfectly still, allowing the woman on his lap to sleep undisturbed.

Qiu Chao sighed dramatically. “Why don’t any girls ever want to sleep next to me?”

Duan Xiaolin lazily raised his eyelids. “Hasn’t Xia Jingyu taught you a lesson yet?”

“How is that the same? I don’t even like her!” Qiu Chao slumped into an empty seat across the aisle, carelessly pulling off his mask and tossing it aside. He scratched his messy hair irritably. “It’s a total mess down there on the comms. These people are so incredibly annoying—especially Xia Jingyu’s father. Why does that old man always spout so much useless nonsense?”

He had never liked Xia Jingyu in the first place. He could have tolerated her presence for the sake of her father, Fu Yan, but she had crossed Brother Duan’s absolute bottom line by uncovering Pei Xiqing’s true identity. There was no way they could allow her to stay at headquarters after that.

Whenever he had to deal with the father-daughter duo of Xia Jingyu and Fu Yan, Qiu Chao felt an intense headache coming on.

Xia Jingyu seemed like a capable, decent person on the surface, but in reality, she was exceedingly difficult to manage. Driven by an obsessive need to prove herself, she had even taken the initiative to change her surname, a move that had almost caused Fu Yan to die of a heart attack from sheer rage. Qiu Chao had originally thought she possessed genuine talent, but to his utter dismay, she had proven to be nothing but a constant source of trouble from start to finish.

She had actually dared to peek at Franlun’s highly classified laboratory data, smuggled it out, and made an absolute killing selling the biological secrets on the black market.

Not wanting to dwell on the massive mess Xia Jingyu had caused him, Qiu Chao quickly changed the subject. “So, how are things looking? Brother Duan, you should have received the encrypted email from the forward base by now. What do you think?”

“I don’t think much of it,” Duan Xiaolin said coolly.

“Is the situation that unpleasant?”

“I have no desire to alter our current course.”

“You can’t just say that,” Qiu Chao groaned. He had just piloted his own aircraft to dock mid-air with theirs, and his brief exposure to the freezing, high-altitude storm outside had practically frozen his arm solid. He rubbed his shoulders vigorously to generate heat. “If you don’t mind, I actually have a plan to make those bastards go back completely empty-handed. They’ll gain absolutely nothing and lose a fortune in resources.”

He shivered again, unable to stop complaining. “This entire region is an absolute hellhole. It’s freezing me to pieces.”

His loud griping startled the woman sleeping on the man’s lap.

Pei Xiqing’s brow furrowed, and she groggily began to open her eyes.

Before she could fully wake, a large, warm hand smoothly covered her eyes, completely blocking out the harsh cabin lights. Soothed by the darkness and his familiar scent, she quickly drifted back into a deep sleep.

Duan Xiaolin cast a cold, warning glance across the aisle.

Qiu Chao immediately lowered his voice to a whisper. “Sorry.”

He leaned in closer, adopting a more serious tone. “Brother Duan, just give the order.”

Duan Xiaolin casually flipped his datapad shut. He closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair, his free hand gently stroking Pei Xiqing’s soft hair. “Half a month ago, they were desperate to flee early to secure their own power. Now that things have gone wrong, they suddenly want Franlun to return, seize control of the chaos, and solve their problems for them? It’s not that easy.”

“So, should we still proceed to our original destination?” Qiu Chao asked. “Right now, the only viable place for us to temporarily settle is the inland base we occupied previously. The reconstruction takes time, and the defenses there are only about seventy percent complete… If we go there, we’ll at least have some peace and quiet for a while. But those elites have already meticulously mapped out every single inch of available land down to the last detail; they’ll try to claim it all.”

“I never said we were going there,” the man interrupted softly.

Qiu Chao looked up in surprise. “We aren’t going?”

Then where the hell are they going?

Duan Xiaolin’s expression was completely unreadable. Even as he rested with his eyes closed, he radiated an aura of extreme, chilling indifference.

The apocalyptic natural disasters had struck. The supposedly impenetrable central headquarters was currently drowning under a category-ten tsunami. Millions were struggling to survive in the extreme, hostile environment. Yet, Duan Xiaolin had never once positioned himself as a savior of humanity. He truly only cared about the person resting in his arms.

Suddenly, Qiu Chao understood exactly what his boss meant. At first, he was mildly shocked, but a few seconds later, a slow, wicked smile spread across his face.

He couldn’t contain his amusement, covering his mouth to muffle his laughter as his shoulders shook silently.

After regaining his composure, he whispered, “I should have known. You were never going to waste your precious time babysitting that group of arrogant leeches.”

What did it matter to Franlun whether those elites lived or died? Giving them further opportunities was a complete waste of resources.

The true power of Franlun was currently dispersed among this fleet of hundreds of heavily armed aircraft. And luckily for them, this fleet also happened to include the ragged refugees who had blindly placed their faith in Pei Xiqing. They had simply been lucky enough to realize that their only chance of survival was to follow Franlun into the dark.

Qiu Chao crossed his legs, his youthful face brimming with absolute contempt for the abandoned elites. “Then let’s just go. Let those cowards slowly slaughter each other fighting over scraps of territory in that frozen wasteland.”

“I’ve just forwarded Xia Jingyu’s exact coordinates to your console,” Duan Xiaolin said smoothly. “Go pick her up.”

…

A heavy silence hung in the cabin for two seconds.

Qiu Chao sat up dead straight. “No way… why?!”

“She isn’t allowed to die yet,” Duan Xiaolin stated. “She’s suffered quite a bit out there, so she should have learned her lesson about restraint by now. Bring her to me. I want to look her in the eye when I discuss the final terms with Fu Yan.”

“I understand.” Qiu Chao snapped his fingers in acknowledgment, though he grimaced. “But you want me to dive into a massive zombie horde just to rescue her? Are you absolutely sure about this?”

“Ling Lang is currently operating in that same sector,” Duan Xiaolin added. “Link up with him and bring him back with you.”

“Now that makes more sense,” Qiu Chao sighed in relief. “That crazy brat has been killing like an absolute maniac out there. If you look down at the surface right now, you might actually see a literal sea of blood. And it’s all from the horde he’s slaughtered. I have no idea where he finds the sheer willpower to keep fighting without resting or coming back to base after all this time.”

If it weren’t for the fact that the zombies and aquatic parasites reproduced at such an astronomically terrifying rate, Qiu Chao genuinely believed that if they just waited another three or four months, Ling Lang might actually manage to eradicate every single undead creature in the wasteland by himself.

It was truly a pity that some parasitic infections simply couldn’t be completely eliminated without utilizing weapons of absolute, total mass destruction.

Qiu Chao sat in silence for a moment longer before reluctantly standing up. “Alright, I’m heading out.”

“Don’t you want to stay and eat something first?”

“No thanks. Just looking at the two of you is enough to make me choke on dog food.”

Qiu Chao turned and opened the connecting airlock. His personal aircraft was perfectly docked alongside the main transport. He zipped up his heavy tactical jacket against the freezing wind, waited for the final seal to engage, and stepped through the airlock without looking back.

Duan Xiaolin watched the heavy hatch slowly seal shut. Without a flicker of emotion, he tapped his screen, permanently deleting the frantic barrage of distress signals pouring in from the elites’ doomed base.

Chapter 294: Seeking Help

Pei Xiqing slept comfortably. The warm, cozy temperature inside the aircraft made it easy for her mind to drift into a hazy lethargy. She only vaguely remembered waking up once in a daze and seeing Qiu Chao… After that, her memory was blank.

She was finally jolted awake by a violent tremor.

The aircraft vibrated relentlessly, bucking against the turbulent air currents thousands of feet in the sky. For a terrifying second, it felt as though the massive vessel might plummet straight to the ground. Every ounce of her sleepiness vanished in an instant. She scrambled out of bed to see what was happening.

Duan Xiaolin emerged from the adjacent cockpit and steadied her by the waist. “We’re hitting some strong air currents ahead, so it’s going to be a bit bumpy for a while.”

“How long have we been flying?”

“It’s only been ten hours.”

That means we still have over ten hours to go.

“Is the situation serious?” Pei Xiqing asked, swaying slightly on her feet. Fortunately, Duan Xiaolin’s firm grip kept her balanced.

“Not really.”

“That’s good.” Using the wall for support, she made her way over to the window.

Staring out at the vast expanse of blinding white, she shuddered subconsciously. How could it be so cold? Even through the thick reinforced glass, she could almost feel the biting chill of the ice and snow raging outside.

“What is that?” she asked, pointing at a dark, rapidly swirling vortex in the distance that looked like a massive tornado. “It looks incredibly dangerous.”

Duan Xiaolin followed her gaze. “A magnetic field disturbance.”

“What?”

She pressed her face against the glass, her eyes locked on the chaotic sky.

“The constant landslides and earthquakes have disrupted the earth’s magnetic fields,” Duan Xiaolin explained. “They gradually form these concentrated lightning zones, generating continuous, violent thunderstorms. Any aircraft that gets too close will be instantly ripped apart by the sheer force of the currents.”

The apocalyptic natural disasters were truly relentless. While the coastal areas suffered endless torrential rains and tsunamis, the inland regions were battered by extreme fluctuations between scorching heat and freezing cold, along with catastrophic thunderstorms that obliterated everything in their path.

Coming back to her senses, Pei Xiqing said, “Then we definitely can’t get close to that. We have to fly around it.”

He nodded. “The entire fleet will bypass it.”

“Tell everyone to be careful,” she warned. If an aircraft got sucked into that vortex, there wouldn’t even be bones left.

Yet, as she watched the raging thunderstorm, she couldn’t suppress a faint tingling sensation in her fingertips. She remembered a similar lightning zone back at the Ghost Market. In the original novel, that anomaly had been meant as a fortuitous encounter for Xiao Yue and Pei Yanting… but she had deliberately destroyed it back then, and the incident had slowly faded from her memory.

Looking at the chaotic electromagnetic storm outside, it felt eerily similar to that past event. The last time she had stepped into a magnetic field like that, she had been heavily electrocuted. She could only imagine how lethally high the voltage must be in this one.

As Pei Xiqing lost herself in memories of the original plot, Xiao Yu woke up. The little girl sat up in her seat, staring blankly around the cabin.

Pei Xiqing walked over and crouched down gently. “Are you awake? Are you hungry?”

“…Yes.”

“Go wash your face and rinse your mouth, then we’ll go get something delicious to eat.”

“Sister, how much longer until we get there?” Xiao Yu rubbed her eyes. “I feel dizzy. Why is everything shaking so much?”

“It’ll stop shaking soon. Let’s go grab Brother Xiao Xiao and get some food. You can go back to sleep after you eat, and before you know it, we’ll be there.”

Xiao Yu nodded obediently. She got up, neatly folded her blanket, and took Pei Xiqing’s hand to go look for Xiao Xiao.

Xiao Xiao wasn’t in his seat. Pei Xiqing glanced around and quickly discovered that the boy had sneaked into the cockpit.

Standing just outside the doorway, she watched him trailing after Duan Xiaolin like a shadow. Xiao Xiao was chattering away, asking an endless stream of questions and marveling at all the glowing controls. Pei Xiqing had to suppress a laugh. Boys really couldn’t resist things like high-tech mechas and flying machines. It was good that he was interested; that kind of passion was exactly what kept people going.

Catching Duan Xiaolin’s eye, she gave him a playful wink. Duan Xiaolin chuckled softly and nodded in response.

Leaving them be, she took Xiao Yu to the dining area. But just as she managed to take a few bites of her meal, the aircraft lurched violently. The plate slipped from her grasp and clattered to the floor. The tremor was stronger than any they had felt so far.

“What’s wrong? What happened?” she asked, quickly steadying Xiao Yu.

Shadow hurried over. “We’ve encountered parasites.”

“Parasites?” Pei Xiqing’s eyes widened in disbelief. “We’re flying at least ten thousand feet in the air! How could aquatic parasites possibly get all the way up here?”

“They are mutated variants,” Shadow said grimly. “They’ve evolved the ability to fly.”

“…”

It seemed these new apocalyptic parasites were truly capable of anything.

Pei Xiqing rushed to the window and peered out. Sure enough, the sky was swarming with winged parasites. They were constantly hurling themselves against the hull of the aircraft.

Most were immediately obliterated by the fleet’s automated defense cannons the second they came into range. However, the sheer number of them was seemingly endless. In the blink of an eye, the flying monsters completely surrounded the aircraft from all sides.

Thud! Thud!

Several parasites slammed directly into the reinforced glass window, bringing Pei Xiqing face-to-face with their grotesque, ferocious maws.

They didn’t look like standard zombies, and they barely resembled the aquatic parasites from the ocean. The mutations had twisted them into an entirely new, unspeakably ugly species. Unable to break through the thick glass, they screeched and frantically clawed at the fuselage.

Disgusted, Pei Xiqing yanked the window shade shut.

She turned and hurried to the cockpit. Duan Xiaolin was at the main console, coordinating with the rest of the fleet, with Xiao Xiao watching nervously beside him.

“How bad is it?” Pei Xiqing asked.

“There are too many of them,” Duan Xiaolin replied calmly, “but it’s manageable for now.”

“If we’re experiencing this much turbulence, the other transports must be having an even harder time,” she noted.

What’s worse, their command ship wasn’t even the primary target of the swarm. The number of parasites directly attacking them was relatively small. Glancing at the tactical monitors, she could see that several of the other aircraft in the formation were completely engulfed by a frighteningly massive cloud of monsters. They were packed so densely around the hulls that there wasn’t a single gap visible. The situation for the rest of the fleet was undoubtedly dire.

Sure enough, frantic distress calls began crackling over the comms.

“Navigation and targeting systems are malfunctioning! The upper hull has been completely overrun by parasites! A massive swarm is approaching from the southeast—estimated count is thirty thousand!”

“Transport F12011 requesting immediate assistance!”

“Unit B12 requesting authorization to deploy heavy ordnance!”

The Franlun fleet was massive, and already, several of their ships were crying out for help. Things were spiraling out of control.

A dozen or so parasites crashing into the hull was nothing to worry about. But hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands pressing down on a single aircraft all at once was a different story. Even with the apocalypse’s most advanced aerospace technology, the ships simply couldn’t maintain stability under that kind of crushing weight and relentless assault.

Just as another distress signal came through, one of the transports flying ahead suddenly began trailing thick black smoke. It went into a violent, uncontrolled tailspin, nearly nosediving straight toward the frozen wasteland below. The crew managed to activate the emergency thrusters just in time, desperately fighting to regain altitude and balance, but the ship was clearly on the verge of breaking apart.

Duan Xiaolin immediately began coordinating support from the adjacent escorts. The Shadow operatives were already mobilizing to intercept the swarm.

He stood up, grabbing his heavy tactical coat, preparing to head out.

Pei Xiqing caught his hand. “Be careful.”

“I will.”

She knew Duan Xiaolin had to personally intervene. These weren’t the cowardly elites from headquarters; these were Franlun operatives—his people. She would never try to stop him from protecting his own.

But the moment she let go, the man caught her hand again.

Pei Xiqing looked up, slightly surprised. “Huh?”

“Do you know how to operate the aircraft?” he asked.

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