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

Chapter 346: Protagonist

The parasite’s onslaught was ferocious, spreading like a tidal wave across the wasteland in the blink of an eye. With several members of the team sustaining successive injuries, the battle situation quickly deteriorated.

After Long Yan fell, Leng Huayi could no longer hold his ground. Qiu Chao, though covered in his own wounds, managed to carry him back toward the aircraft for urgent treatment. Huihua, who was never skilled at frontline combat, took over the role of medic, scrambling to apply field dressings and administer what supplies they had left. Qiu Chao collapsed weakly nearby, pale and vomiting blood, yet he still managed to bark instructions on where to store the medicine and how to use it.

Most of the team was incapacitated; only Ling Lang and Ji Yao remained to defend the line. Yet, there was no denying that the coordination between Duan Xiaolin, Ling Lang, and Ji Yao—combined with Duan’s calm, tactical commands over the headset—provided a sliver of hope in their darkest hour.

Qiu Chao sat slumped on the ground, calling out through the headset, asking Pei Xiqing to bite him once more to boost his strength. She refused; his body wouldn’t survive another viral surge in such a short window. Qiu Chao let out a long, weary sigh.

Not far away, Ling Lang dragged a heavy machine gun through the mud. The ground was slick with parasite mucus and dark, congealing blood. He stepped through the gore, snatched a bandage from Qiu Chao’s hand, and expertly wrapped it around his own wrist.

“Brother, you didn’t even bandage my wound,” Qiu Chao muttered.

Ling Lang sat down beside him, letting out a sharp, ragged breath. “Shadow and his team have arrived.”

“Shadow?” Qiu Chao let out a dry, hollow laugh. “They’re here, but I doubt they’ll last long.”

Both men looked up simultaneously at the natural crack in the sky above them. It was still growing, its jagged edges expanding as if it were tearing the very heavens apart. Under this influence, the parasites were growing stronger by the second; eventually, even the most powerful mutants would be overwhelmed.

Ji Yao was currently surrounded by a dozen parasites. She retreated frantically, her eyes widening as a monster lunged from the opposite side, poised to pierce her chest. Just as she braced for the end, Pei Xiqing lunged into view. She fired her machine gun at the creature. The high-speed impact couldn’t kill it, but combined with Pei Xiqing’s special ability, it slammed the beast violently to the ground, where the Qiong Snake—coiling around its frame—shattered it into countless pieces.

Ji Yao, stunned, stood back-to-back with her. “Good timing. I really didn’t want to end up covered in blood like Ling Lang. I’m leaving my back to you.”

“Okay,” Pei Xiqing nodded. “Don’t worry.”

Ji Yao noticed Pei Xiqing’s arms trembling. “Your energy is nearly exhausted. If you can’t hold on, tell me. I can still fight.”

“Sister Ji Yao, how long have you been with Franlun?”

“A long time,” Ji Yao replied, her back still pressed to Pei Xiqing’s. “I was an original member, just like Brother Duan. Don’t underestimate me; I’m even better than that kid Ling Lang.”

Pei Xiqing chuckled. “Then I trust you.”

“Just trust me.”

Orange-red energy flared in Ji Yao’s hands, weaving a massive, silk-like web above them that ensnared the encroaching parasites. She illuminated the sky with a brilliant glow. “Don’t just stand there—follow me.”

She tossed a specially crafted saber toward Pei Xiqing. “This was Brother Duan’s old sword. Use it.”

“He used this?”

“Before his abilities vanished, he relied on this saber for a long time.”

“Understood.”

Pei Xiqing gripped the hilt tightly, imagining Duan Xiaolin wielding it through his darkest, powerless days. She followed Ji Yao, whose combat prowess was truly the backbone of their defense. Even when Ling Lang had to step back to bandage his wounds, Ji Yao held the line alone.

“If you can’t take it anymore, tell me. I can get you out of here,” Ji Yao said, glancing back.

“I can hold on, Sister Ji Yao…”

“What is it?” Ji Yao asked, cutting down two parasites.

“Can your powers help me with something?”

“Name it.”

“I need to find the final crystal core.” Pei Xiqing stepped onto the uneven, trembling earth. “I think it’s right beneath us.”

Ji Yao looked down at the spot. “You’re sure?”

“Eighty percent sure.”

“Then keep an eye on the parasites. Don’t let them cross the line.”

“Good.”

Pei Xiqing began to intercept the monsters. At first, they seemed to avoid her, but after she killed nearly a hundred, their hesitation turned to hostility. Still, they didn’t attack with lethal intent; for a moment, she and the swarm stood in a bizarre, wary stalemate.

Ji Yao knelt where Pei Xiqing had stood, slammed her palm into the ground, and surged her energy downward. The earth collapsed, revealing a hollow pit.

“It’s open,” Ji Yao called out.

Pei Xiqing sheathed her saber and scrambled toward the hole. “Thank you.”

“Are you certain there’s a core in there?”

“I think so.”

“Then you dig. I’ll keep the swarm off your back.”

Pei Xiqing began to claw at the earth. She had no shovel, so she used her bare hands, digging until her fingernails were torn and her fingers bled. She wouldn’t stop. Finally, her blood-stained fingertips brushed against something cold and massive. Even through the skin, she could sense the sheer, impossible size of the creature buried there.

She reached deep into the parasite’s chest. Her own internal crystal core pulsed, syncing with the one she sought. She had finally found it.

As she struggled to extract it, Ji Yao’s voice screamed over the headset: “Brother Duan! Stop! Who told you to lure them away? You’re feeding yourself to them! They’ll tear you to pieces!”

Ji Yao ignored the parasites swarming her, shouting into the radio, “Duan Xiaolin! Don’t you want your wife and child anymore?!”

Pei Xiqing looked up to see Duan Xiaolin on a nearby hillside, using the Qiong Snake to pull the entire horde of zombies and parasites toward himself, preparing for a final, suicidal stand.

“Stop him!” Ji Yao cursed. “He’s going to self-destruct!”

The team moved to intercept, but the sheer volume of parasites blocked their path. Pei Xiqing didn’t hesitate; she plunged her dagger into the sleeping host body beneath her, cutting through the tough flesh to rip out the crystal core—the very source of the natural disaster.

It glowed with a terrifying, red light. She stared at it, her determination hardening.

Ji Yao and the others felt the surge of the core’s magnetic field. “That core… is that…?”

Pei Xiqing crawled out of the hole, holding the core to her chest. She let it hover in the air, her own chest-core glowing in sympathy.

“No!” Qiu Chao shouted, his face ashen. “She’s stripping it out! She’s trying to remove all of them!”

If all the cores were removed, the natural disaster would lose its anchor. The system was rigged—it relied on cores being held by those who didn’t deserve them, while the innocent sacrificed their lives to maintain a balance.

Pei Xiqing stared at the man on the hill. “Silly girl, you’ll die,” Qiu Chao choked out. “That core is your life now. Without it, you’ll cease to exist.”

Pei Xiqing cast aside her headset and spoke toward the hill. “Brother Duan, the cores are in my body. The existence of these cores is an unfair system. Some rely on them to win effortlessly, while others sacrifice their entire lives for a city. Do you regret it? I know you don’t. You would defend that city again if you had to. The natural disaster has always been targeting me.”

She ripped the core from her heart. The pain was astronomical, ten, a hundred times worse than she had ever endured. She collapsed, clutching her chest, but refused to stop until the rare, pulsating light was fully extracted.

Just as the cores left her body, a hand grabbed her wrist, pushing her down with irresistible force. The core was shoved back toward the parasite.

Pei Xiqing’s eyes widened. She and the man locked eyes across the battlefield of flying sand and debris. They didn’t speak, but their gazes carried a thousand words. Duan Xiaolin squeezed her wrist until the skin turned red. He was a man who gave everything and asked for nothing. If God wanted to take him, he would not yield.

Pei Xiqing struggled to pull away, but Duan Xiaolin seized the red core and crushed it in his palm.

A high-pitched ringing filled her head. The sky tore open, the drawing paper of reality shredded into pieces. The real natural disaster had descended.

Duan Xiaolin caught her, his broad, powerful body shielding her from the world.

Everyone was rushing toward them, but they were cut off by an invisible barrier. The scope of the disaster had narrowed, centering on these two individuals. Ling Lang hammered against the invisible wall, his voice desperate: “Brother Duan! Xiqing! Can you hear me?!”

Pei Xiqing heard nothing. She saw no one but Duan Xiaolin.

“I don’t regret it,” he whispered, wiping her tears.

Pei Xiqing sobbed, her tears soaking his shirt.

“Life is a play,” he said, smiling. “I may not be the protagonist, but in my next life, I hope I’m just an ordinary man, and we are an ordinary couple.”

Pei Xiqing leaned up and kissed his lips. “I’ll find you. I’ll make sure we find each other in the next life, or you’ll be too lonely.”

Duan Xiaolin chuckled. Behind him, the apocalypse roared. As she closed her eyes to face the end, he shoved her away.

An incomparably huge surge of energy descended, razing the earth to ash.

Pei Xiqing reached out, but her fingers brushed only air. Her serpent and the remnants of her crystal cores gave her a single glimmer of hope in the heart of the destruction. She stared in a daze at the ashes, her mind blank, before instinct took over—she began to dig.

She dug until she found the crystal core buried beneath the ruin. It was still suspended in the air, pulsing with light.

Didn’t Brother Duan crush it? she wondered.

She realized then—he had known she would try to sacrifice herself, so he had crushed the core she’d extracted earlier, not the real one.

She pulled out the remaining shards. The Qiong Snake within her hummed in response.

She closed her eyes, whispering its name to the silence.

You don’t have to be the protagonist to live. As long as you have hope in your heart, you are the protagonist of your own life.

Chapter 347: Does It Look Familiar?

Ling Lang hammered against the exterior barrier with his supernatural powers, but the interior remained obscured. Just as he was about to call out, a blinding red light erupted from within.

Before he could process the threat, Ji Yao and Qiu Chao tackled him from behind.

“Everyone, get down!” Qiu Chao screamed.

They hit the ground just as the strange red light detonated in a massive, concussive blast.

A deafening ringing filled their ears, followed by endless, violent tremors. The shaking continued for over ten minutes, showing no sign of subsiding. When the dust finally settled, Qiu Chao struggled to his feet. Beside him, Ling Lang had already bolted toward the crater where the core had exploded.

Qiu Chao scrambled after him, skidding to a halt at the edge of the pit. “What happened?!”

“Xiqing’s in there!”

Zhang Tian and Long Yan, who had just managed to recover, sprinted up from behind. The entire team descended into a frantic, desperate search. They began digging into the sand, frantic and wild-eyed.

“Pei Xiqing!”

“Wake up!”

Finally, they unearthed her from the debris. Long Yan gathered her in her arms, her own hands slick with blood. “Xiqing! Wake up! Get me the potion!”

Qiu Chao pulled the last vial from the medical kit, and Long Yan injected it into Pei Xiqing without a second’s hesitation. All the while, more parasites began pouring into the area, putting them in immediate, mortal danger once again.

Long Yan clutched Pei Xiqing to her chest. “Where’s Brother Duan?”

The group looked at one another. Silence fell. Nobody had seen him.

Ling Lang opened his palm; all he held was a tattered, scorched shred of the man’s clothing. Qiu Chao couldn’t hold it back anymore, and he burst into tears, screaming toward the area that had been reduced to nothing but ash: “Brother Duan!”

A suffocating silence descended. Ling Lang was the first to rally. He stood up, fists clenched, and roared with every ounce of his strength: “Kill them! Kill them all!”

In Long Yan’s arms, Pei Xiqing’s fingers twitched.

Long Yan noticed the subtle movement instantly. “Xiqing! Open your eyes and look at us! Are you alright?”

Pei Xiqing opened her eyes with a struggle. The world was a blur, and it took a long, agonizing moment for her to find her voice.

“Sister Long Yan…”

“I’m so glad you’re okay!” Long Yan sobbed, tears streaming down her face. “I’m just so glad.”

Pei Xiqing looked at her own hands. With Long Yan’s help, she pulled herself into a sitting position.

“Are you in pain? Let me check you over!” Long Yan fussed, trying to examine her.

Pei Xiqing shook her head.

“Where is the Qiong Snake? Where is your power? You’re far too vulnerable right now, and there are viruses everywhere…”

“I don’t need it.”

Pei Xiqing forced herself to stand. She gritted her teeth, her gaze hardening. “I have things to finish.”

“What are you doing?”

“Brother Duan isn’t dead. I’m going to bring him back.”

“Brother Duan isn’t dead?!”

Pei Xiqing gave a serious nod. “The natural disaster sucked him into another dimension.”

Long Yan didn’t fully understand the physics of that, but if Pei Xiqing said it, she believed it. “What do you need us to do?”

“Hold this position.”

“No problem.”

“When I go to find him, I’ll clear out most of these tricky parasites for you.”

Pei Xiqing closed her eyes, reaching for her true power. She took a deep, steadying breath. She felt the military-grade pistol in her hand—the one Duan Xiaolin had once held—and tightened her grip until the metal creaked.

As she channeled her will, the Qiong Snake responded to her call.

In the blink of an eye, her gun was coated in a faint, light-green shimmer. Along with the roar of the horde, the heavy, ancient patterns of the serpent descended upon her. Pei Xiqing gripped the weapon in her right hand; the markings on it were intricate and complex, resembling an ancient curse. They radiated a bone-chilling cold, like a python waiting in the dark to strike at the host’s weakest points.

Ling Lang and Qiu Chao turned around simultaneously, sensing the familiar energy.

Qiu Chao clicked his tongue. “Isn’t this… Brother Duan’s old technique? Doesn’t it look familiar?”

It was identical. The only difference was that the person holding it wasn’t Duan Xiaolin—the man who had single-handedly stopped the tide of the zombie mutation—but the aura and the sheer presence of the Qiong Snake were exactly the same.

Qiu Chao grabbed Ling Lang’s arm, his eyes wide. “They’re here! I knew it wasn’t that simple! Brother Duan might not be dead after all!”

Ling Lang breathed a sigh of relief. “As long as she’s alive, there’s hope.”

Pei Xiqing walked toward them. “Are there any more?”

Ling Lang tossed her a handful of magazines. “They’re all yours.”

“How do I use these?”

“Any way you want,” Ling Lang replied. “Don’t worry about anything. We’ve got your back.”

Pei Xiqing caught the weapon. Heavy, glowing lines surged over the surface of the gun. She studied the patterns for a second, then tossed it back to Ling Lang. “Try the power of the Qiong Snake.”

She turned and struck with a single hand. Her movements weren’t perfectly standard, but she pierced the host’s vital point with devastating precision. An overwhelming, high-speed pressure radiated from her, cold and gloomy. The encroaching parasites were instantly swallowed by dark green flames, collapsing into ash.

“Nice!” Qiu Chao shouted.

Pei Xiqing closed her eyes once more. “I will bring Brother Duan back and clear the path for you.”

Qiu Chao shook his head, looking at her with genuine awe. “She really understands the true power of the Qiong Snake. It was an ancient curse that cost Brother Duan immense pain to unlock. Having it in her body now… it feels perfect.”

With Pei Xiqing’s newfound strength, the team gained a critical advantage. Ling Lang finally stopped her, noticing her hand trembling from the strain. “That’s enough. We don’t need you here anymore.”

“Go find Brother Duan,” he urged. “Just… make sure both of you come back alive.”

Pei Xiqing smiled. “Brother Duan isn’t afraid of natural disasters, and neither am I.”

Ten days later.

Pei Xiqing finally emerged from her endless, feverish nightmare. When she opened her eyes and sat up, Long Yan and Qiu Chao were standing over her, ready to administer an injection.

Watching her sit up on her own, Qiu Chao clapped his hands. “It’s a medical miracle. Someone dead ten days ago, back and walking.”

Long Yan swatted him. “That’s enough out of you.”

“Just kidding! Congrats on waking up. You survived a disaster; they say that means you’ll have good fortune in the future.”

Pei Xiqing rubbed her forehead. Long Yan took her hand. “Are you in pain? You took a massive impact; it’s a miracle you survived.”

“How long have I been asleep?”

“Ten days.” Long Yan explained, “We’re still in the red zone, but the parasites are cleared. Ling Lang and the others are doing final sweeps. We’ll be reunited soon.”

“Where is Brother Duan?”

Long Yan’s expression shifted, becoming mischievous. “Where did you drag him back from? Ten days ago, we saw you buried in the earth, and then you just… pulled Brother Duan out of a crack in the ground. We were all stunned!”

“I used the crystal core to pinpoint his location,” Pei Xiqing smiled weakly. “He wasn’t hard to find—he was in the underground fissures—but the natural disaster made him unreachable until the end.”

“How did you sense him? Is the core really that magical?”

Pei Xiqing just smiled, offering no answer. “Is he…?”

“He’s okay, but he still hasn’t woken up.”

His trauma had been far worse than hers. If not for the timely rescue, he wouldn’t have survived.

Long Yan couldn’t contain her curiosity anymore. “Just tell me! You’ve been teasing me for ten days. How was the deadlock broken?”

Everyone in the room was dying to know. Pei Xiqing finally relented, leaning over to whisper the truth into Long Yan’s ear.

Long Yan’s eyes widened to the size of saucers. “You… you’re so stupid!”

“It doesn’t matter. It won’t hurt me. I’ll just be an ordinary person now. Besides, you should have cleared out all the monsters out there.” Pei Xiqing lay back down, her voice soft. “Maybe there won’t be any zombies left in this world.”

“You… hey! No wonder you and Brother Duan are two sides of the same coin!”

Long Yan sighed and left the room. Pei Xiqing didn’t fall asleep immediately. A few moments later, she sensed someone standing outside her door.

It was Ling Lang.

He hadn’t cleaned off the gore of the battle; his clothes were still stained with the filth of the apocalypse. He didn’t enter, just stood outside the glass, watching her. Pei Xiqing, sensitive to his presence through the remnants of the snake in her blood, felt him immediately.

He caught her eye and instinctively looked down, embarrassed, but then met her gaze squarely.

“You… you’re awake?” he stammered. “When you came back ten days ago… you were covered in so much blood, especially your chest…”

He hadn’t known who to reach for first that day. Pei Xiqing had dragged Brother Duan back from hell. He hadn’t been able to make a choice.

“I’m okay,” Pei Xiqing smiled through the glass. “I’ve recovered.”

“Good.” He paused. “Qiu Chao said… the core that exploded at the end was actually…”

“Yes, it doesn’t matter. It would have been useless for me to keep it anyway.”

Ling Lang understood. He stood there for a long moment. “Actually, I don’t hate you. Never have.”

“I know.”

“I…”

“Hm?”

“Nothing.” He smiled, turning to leave. “Take care of yourself.”

“I will.”

“I’m leaving now. See you at the base.”

Pei Xiqing sat up as he left. “Ling Lang, thank you.”

He didn’t turn back.

Pei Xiqing clutched her chest, feeling the emptiness where her heart—or at least the zombie-core that had served as her heart—had been.

Qiu Chao’s voice crackled over the ward intercom. “Do you regret it?”

“Why would I? It’s done.”

“You surprised us all.” Qiu Chao’s tone was filled with sudden, profound clarity. “We killed so many parasites that we almost forgot you were a zombie, too. That’s a pretty important fact to lose track of.”

Pei Xiqing hugged her pillow. “I almost forgot it myself.”

“How did you figure it out?”

“Ever since Brother Duan started frantically searching for crystal cores for me, I realized that a human body doesn’t need nourishment from a crystal core. Only a zombie heart needs constant absorption to survive.”

“Exactly.”

Qiu Chao pushed the door open, staring at her with intensity. “So you used your own core to save him. Do you know how rare that core was? Ten days ago, you were the most powerful zombie in the universe! You could have been the Queen! Such a waste!”

“It never belonged to me,” Pei Xiqing replied. “It’s better destroyed. At least now there won’t be any more messy, tragic endings.”

“Fair point.” Qiu Chao nodded. “But the X substance is gone. You’re an ordinary human now. You took your own heart out—you won’t even need a cardiologist anymore.”

“Isn’t that good? Saves money.”

“Come on,” he sighed. “Brother Duan isn’t much better off than you are.”

Pei Xiqing lay back, resting, until she heard Qiu Chao suddenly roar: “Brother Duan is awake! Hurry, hurry, hurry!”

Pei Xiqing sat up, but hesitated. She had made so many decisions, done so many things he would have forbidden… what if he was angry?

She shrunk back, feeling the phantom chill of where she had been tied to the edge of the world. She hesitated for only a second before the door was thrown wide open.

She looked up and met his eyes.

She opened her lips to speak, but before she could utter a single word, he surged across the room and pulled her into a desperate, crushing embrace.

Chapter 348: Keep Your Word

All of Pei Xiqing’s lingering worries and fears vanished in that single moment. She returned his embrace with every ounce of her strength, murmuring softly to comfort him again and again. “Brother Duan, it’s okay. We’re okay. We’re all still alive.”

But the man refused to relax his grip, even for a second.

After a few minutes, she was starting to feel a little short of breath from how tightly he held her. He buried his face deep in the crook of her neck, and she could feel a rare, subtle tremor run through his body. It lasted for only a fleeting moment before it vanished completely. In response, she could only hold him tighter.

Duan Xiaolin sat beside the hospital bed. Bloody lacerations marred his forehead and neck, and the wounds across his chest and limbs were still sluggishly oozing blood. Yet, he was in no hurry to treat them. Instead, he quietly stroked the saber resting on her bedside table.

“This saber has been with me for a very long time,” his deep voice broke the silence. “But after I lost my supernatural abilities, I temporarily sealed it away.”

“No wonder I’ve never seen you use it before,” she noted. “Does it have a name?”

The man chuckled softly. “A blade is just a blade; it doesn’t need a name. It was handy in the past, so I kept it around. Do you want to give it one?”

Resting her chin in her hand, Pei Xiqing reached out and poked the hilt of the saber with her finger. The intricate lines that had once glowed on the blade were completely gone.

Everything that had happened ten days ago felt like a thrilling, terrifying dream. When she finally opened her eyes and woke up in the present, it was hard to believe the battle was truly over. Yet, the memory of that day remained vividly etched into her mind—impossible to forget.

If she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes, she never would have imagined that this seemingly ordinary weapon could manifest such complex, glowing patterns.

“You saw the patterns on the saber, didn’t you?” she asked. “I don’t think they looked like the Qiong Snake. They looked more like…”

“A curse,” the man finished for her. “It is the ancient, mysterious curse that lies behind the Qiong Snake.”

“It was incredibly powerful,” Pei Xiqing admitted. “But I only stumbled upon it by accident. I had no idea it would be that strong. I almost lost control of it.”

“That’s normal. You’ll get the hang of it after you use it a few more times.”

“A few more times?” Pei Xiqing’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Even if it really were the end of the world, I’m never using that thing again. This is yours. You’re better off wielding it yourself from now on. In your hands, it might unleash even greater power.”

Duan Xiaolin methodically wiped the blade clean with a handkerchief before finally sliding it back into its sheath. His movements were crisp, precise, and fluid—the undeniable hallmark of a master swordsman.

“When will I get to see you use it?” Pei Xiqing asked. “Once we go back home, and Ruirui grows up a little… will you teach him how to wield it?”

“It’s not too late to teach you,” he offered.

“No thanks. This saber is so ugly.”

Back then, when the power of the Qiong Snake had surged through her veins, she hadn’t felt the weapon’s weight at all. Every strike, parry, and swing had been instinctively guided and controlled by the serpent’s energy, which was the only reason she hadn’t made a fool of herself on the battlefield. But now that she was recovering and the Qiong Snake lay dormant within her, the sheer physical toll caught up to her. Her wrist was so agonizingly sore she could barely lift her hand.

Duan Xiaolin smiled faintly, reaching out to pat her head before gently taking her sore wrist and massaging the tense muscles.

Pei Xiqing stared at him for a moment before her eyes drifted back to his wounds. Seeing fresh blood steadily oozing from his chest, she shifted, wanting to call Qiu Chao over to help patch him up. However, Duan Xiaolin easily held her in place.

“You were too impulsive,” he said softly.

“I know…” she murmured guiltily. That was exactly why she hadn’t dared to confess her plan to him beforehand.

“You always keep a trick hidden up your sleeve, don’t you?” Duan Xiaolin brushed his knuckles against her cheek. “Take off your clothes.”

“Ah?” she blinked, startled.

“Do you need my help?”

“No, no…” Pei Xiqing quickly began unbuttoning her hospital gown bit by bit, not daring to meet his eyes.

Soon, the gown was pushed aside, leaving her in only her undergarments. Without hesitation, the man reached out, his long fingers deftly unhooking the clasp of her bra. The straps slipped down her shoulders, revealing the pale, smooth expanse of her skin.

Duan Xiaolin’s gaze locked onto the area right over her heart. A long, heavy silence settled over the room.

“It left a scar,” he finally whispered.

A jagged, ten-centimeter scar now marred her chest. It wasn’t incredibly deep, and it had been neatly stitched and treated, but the angry line was impossible to ignore. A single glance was enough to tell that she had suffered a severe, agonizing wound right over her heart.

“It’s okay,” she reassured him softly. “Sister Long Yan already checked it. She said once we get back to the base, they can apply some special medicine, and it’ll fade away in a few days. This little scar is nothing to worry about.”

Pei Xiqing wrapped her arms around his waist and snuggled deeply into his embrace. Smiling affectionately, she pressed a light kiss to his jawline. “Brother Duan, you really have been sleeping for ten days. You’ve even grown a beard.”

Duan Xiaolin looked down at the woman nestled in his arms, a helpless smile touching his lips. “Why is your head always full of so many crazy schemes?”

“It wasn’t a crazy scheme; it was a backup plan to save your life.”

If she hadn’t kept that contingency in place, the real crystal core would have been destroyed by his own hand long ago, and she never would have been able to pull him back from the void.

At the thought of how close she had come to losing him, Pei Xiqing hugged him even tighter.

“Do you remember the instructions I mentioned to you earlier?” he asked quietly.

“What instructions?”

“Regarding the headquarters.”

Pei Xiqing blinked, then nodded. “Oh, right. Of course I remember. Why?”

“Wait until we get back to the base. You’ll find out then.”

“You said it yourself,” she murmured, looking up at him intently. “We have to go back to the base together. We have to return safely, side-by-side, exactly the way we came here.”

Afraid that he might try to shoulder the burden alone again, Pei Xiqing immediately raised her hand and extended her pinky finger toward him. “Come on. Promise me.”

“I promise you.” Duan Xiaolin looked at her with boundless affection and gently hooked his pinky finger around hers. “I will definitely keep my word this time.”

Like this novel? Read Advance Chapters (PDF & EPUB Format)