What?! I Became the Zombie Beauty in the Villain’s Arms – CH4

Chapter 4: His Sight

The passage of time felt like a ticking death warrant. In the blink of an eye, forty minutes had vanished.

There wasn’t much time left—just as they had said.

Pei Xiqing pushed open the heavy car door and stumbled out. Her head was buzzing with a dull roar, and her face had drained of all color, turning a sickly, translucent pale.

I can’t die here.

She wanted to walk further away, to isolate herself, but her legs gave out before she had taken more than a few steps.

Suddenly, a sheathed dagger clattered onto the cracked asphalt at her feet.

She didn’t know who had thrown it.

Duan Xiaolin was the only one standing nearby. His towering, imposing figure exuded an aura of absolute stillness and authority. He had been speaking quietly with the newly arrived operative, but as Pei Xiqing stumbled toward him, he paused and casually crushed his cigarette under the heel of his boot.

Pei Xiqing looked up at him, her voice trembling. “Captain.”

Duan Xiaolin looked down at her.

She looked impossibly fragile, teetering on the edge of collapse, yet her eyes retained that stubborn, innate magnetism.

“You must be the captain of this squad, right? Thank you for bringing me this far and not abandoning me halfway. I can feel the infection taking over. I’ll leave on my own now so I don’t cause you any trouble.” She picked up the dagger and offered it back to him. “Here. I’m returning this to you.”

“It’s not mine,” Duan Xiaolin replied flatly.

“Then whose is it?”

“Mine,” Ling Lang chimed in, jogging over. “Use the dagger to carve out the dead, infected flesh around the bite wound. It might stall the virus.”

Pei Xiqing stared at the blade in horror. “You should have told me that earlier. It’s definitely too late now.”

“As long as you haven’t fully turned into a flesh-eating monster, there’s always a chance,” Ling Lang said, though his tone was half-joking.

The female operative—who had introduced herself as Long Yan—crossed her arms and scoffed. “In theory, it makes sense. But in practice? Every single person who tried carving out the infection died from shock and blood loss.”

“They died from the excruciating pain,” she clarified grimly. “But honestly, kid, the fact that you’ve held on this long is genuinely impressive. A typical ability user would have developed a raging fever, suffered agonizing pain, and started biting people within two hours. They’d be completely unrecognizable within twelve. You’ve been infected for almost a full day, and you’re still completely lucid. That’s definitely something special.”

Pei Xiqing parted her lips, processing the information. After a moment, she blurted out, “I’m not going to mutate into a Zombie King, am I?”

Long Yan laughed. “We haven’t encountered a ‘Zombie King’ yet, but the going theory is that a mutant would need to cannibalize thousands of other zombies to reach that level. Why? Do you want to start snacking now?”

Pei Xiqing grimaced, her lips pressing into a thin line. “No, thank you. That won’t be necessary.”

Resigned to her grim reality, she unsheathed the dagger. The cold steel gleamed menacingly under the moonlight; the edge was razor-sharp.

But before she could even bring the blade near her arm, Duan Xiaolin effortlessly snatched the dagger from her grasp and tossed it back to Ling Lang without a second glance.

His face was entirely devoid of emotion, his voice dropping to a glacial chill. “Enough joking around.”

Ling Lang suddenly looked mildly uncomfortable and quickly holstered the blade. “Sorry for messing with you. Carving out the flesh will only speed up your death from the pain. In your current condition, the only thing that might save you is a specialized serum.”

“I’d rather be a zombie,” Pei Xiqing deadpanned immediately.

?

Ling Lang stared at her as if she had grown a second head. What a weirdo.

“Even if you wanted the serum, we don’t have any on hand,” Long Yan explained gently. “The nearest stockpile is at the Fifth Base, hundreds of kilometers away. If we floored it right now, we still wouldn’t make it in time.”

“Then I really… don’t have much time left.”

“Make your peace with it.”

“Yeah.” Pei Xiqing genuinely didn’t care anymore. If she couldn’t hold on, she’d just die. And honestly, whatever terrifying side effects the serum might have sounded worse than just letting the virus run its course. Running from fate was exhausting.

She made up her mind: even if she was destined to die, she was going to hold out until she finished her apocalypse sightseeing tour. She wasn’t going to let this transmigration be a total waste. Who knows? Maybe she’d miraculously wake up back in the real world and use this experience as inspiration for an award-winning post-apocalyptic film.

Assuming I survive the wire-stunt fall, she thought grimly. Which is unlikely.

Fifteen minutes later, the squad had gathered around the hood of the off-road vehicle, pouring over a topographical map to calculate their next route. Pei Xiqing squatted near the rear tire of the G-Class, gratefully sipping from a water canteen Long Yan had tossed her. “Thank you.”

Long Yan glanced down at her. “If you can endure the virus a bit longer, we could theoretically drag you to a base for experimental treatment. But you’d definitely become a lab rat.”

“Then I’m definitely better off dead.”

Long Yan chuckled. “You really have zero ambition, do you?”

“The fact that I’m still breathing right now is my greatest ambition.” Pei Xiqing flashed a weak, self-deprecating smile.

As a completely insignificant, cannon-fodder villainess who was canonically doomed to die, surviving the zombie virus for nearly twenty-four hours was basically a miracle.

“Fair enough. Especially since you haven’t even awakened a superpower yet. Hang in there.”

“Thanks.”

The moment she swallowed the last drop of water, a violent sandstorm slammed into the city.

The gale-force winds hit like a physical blow, kicking up thick clouds of abrasive sand that made it impossible to open her eyes. Pei Xiqing’s thin, scavenged clothes whipped violently in the storm. Standing alone against the onslaught, her slender figure looked like a fragile kite about to be blown away into the desolate Gobi.

The wind was so overpowering that she was forced backward, her boots skidding across the dirt.

Suddenly, an iron grip clamped around her waist.

Duan Xiaolin had stepped up behind her, hooking an arm around her midsection, rooting her entirely in place. Reacting purely on survival instinct, she immediately spun around and clung to his waist, hugging him as if he were a life-saving pillar of concrete.

The woman felt entirely soft and boneless against him. Duan Xiaolin paused for a fraction of a second before unceremoniously lifting her and shoving her into the sheltered interior of the G-Class.

“Cough, cough, cough!” Pei Xiqing hacked violently, her throat coated in dust and grit.

A metal canteen was suddenly thrust into her hands. Without thinking, she unscrewed the cap and downed the water.

After coughing up the last of the dust, the burning in her throat finally eased.

She looked up, wiping her eyes, only to find Long Yan and Ling Lang staring at her with wide, unblinking eyes.

Pei Xiqing blinked back. “What? What’s wrong?”

“You just drank out of Brother Duan’s personal canteen,” Long Yan said slowly.

“…”

Pei Xiqing’s face instantly burned as red as a tomato. She frantically shoved the canteen back toward the man sitting beside her. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t realize!”

Duan Xiaolin didn’t seem to care in the slightest. He ignored the canteen entirely, calmly pointing to a location on the map and directing the team on their new route.

Pei Xiqing felt a crushing wave of guilt. Not only had she drank from it, but she was pretty sure she had basically drained the entire thing to clear the grit from her mouth. She shrank back into her seat.

A few minutes later, she noticed Duan Xiaolin intensely reviewing a stack of classified documents. She leaned in slightly and whispered, “Um… when the car stops next, I’ll go find some water to refill it for you.”

Duan Xiaolin cast a sidelong glance at her, saying nothing. However, as she leaned closer, his gaze briefly dropped, pausing on the edge of her jacket that had brushed against his arm.

Assuming he was annoyed and simply didn’t want to talk to her, Pei Xiqing quickly bit her lip, apologizing internally, and retreated back to her corner in silence.

After driving for more than ten brutal miles, they finally outran the sandstorm. However, the pre-planned route to their destination was hopelessly blocked by debris. The two vehicles rolled to a stop.

Ling Lang jumped out of the driver’s seat and kicked a tire, cursing up a storm. “Damn it! We’re delayed again! These sandstorms are getting worse. If we don’t get back soon, who knows what kind of mess those arrogant bastards in Franlun are going to stir up!”

“Let it go,” Long Yan said, hopping out of the second car. “It’s an act of God. Whether we get back early or late, it’s going to be pitch-black anyway. The Chief Justice of Franlun is still on our side. The opposition can’t pull anything too extreme.”

“I’m just pissed! Who knows how many mutated hordes we’ll run into on the detour. I swear, I’m turning back into a savage out here.”

“Relax. Complaining won’t clear the road.”

Determined to make up for the stolen water, Pei Xiqing scrambled out of the car the moment it stopped. She searched the immediate perimeter for a water source, but the wasteland was bone-dry. After wandering around the rocky outcrop with zero success, she trudged back and obediently sat on a boulder, waiting for the team to recalculate the route.

As she sat there, she listened to Ling Lang relentlessly complain about “Franlun.”

Wait… isn’t Franlun the ultimate, supreme organization? The one controlled by the story’s biggest, most terrifying villain?

These people don’t seem connected to the male or female leads at all. Are they… are they agents of Franlun?

Dusk was rapidly approaching. The weather in the post-apocalyptic era was wildly erratic, and due to the heavy atmospheric pollution, the transition from day to night was instantaneous and brutal. Her scavenged clothes, which were already thin, offered zero protection compared to the squad’s insulated tactical gear.

Sitting by the boulder, she couldn’t suppress a violent shiver, followed by two loud sneezes.

She rubbed her reddened nose and hugged her knees tightly to her chest, her eyes watering from the biting cold.

Suddenly, her vision went dark as something heavy and warm was thrown over her head.

She pulled the fabric down, realizing it was a heavy tactical trench coat. Duan Xiaolin was standing right beside her, a heavy assault rifle resting casually in his grip. He wiped a streak of dust from his brow, his expression as cold and indifferent as ever. The way he looked at her was the exact same way he looked at the gun in his hand—purely utilitarian.

Through the thin lenses of his gold-rimmed glasses, it was impossible to detect a single trace of warmth.

“The temperature drops rapidly in the Gobi at night,” he stated, before turning on his heel to scout the terrain ahead.

Pei Xiqing couldn’t help but stare at his retreating back. A man who can remain so terrifyingly calm in the middle of the apocalypse must possess unfathomable power.

She pulled the oversized coat tight around her shoulders. The residual warmth from his body and the faint, sharp scent of his cologne instantly enveloped her, banishing the biting cold. Feeling drowsy, she huddled behind the open car door, listening to the wind.

Hearing Ling Lang still aggressively cursing out the higher-ups of Franlun, her curiosity got the better of her. She poked her head out from behind the door.

Ling Lang was standing on a pile of rubble, wildly gesturing and complaining to the heavens, his white hair blowing messily in the wind. He looked almost comical.

Noticing her staring, he glared at her. “What are you looking at? Keep staring and I’ll throw you directly into the High Council of Franlun for their next meeting.”

Franlun was canonically the absolute pinnacle of power—a totalitarian force that answered to no one.

“Shouldn’t all faction leaders attend the Franlun summits?” she asked innocently. “If you have so many grievances, why don’t you go and try airing them out?”

“I’m not going,” Ling Lang scoffed. “Whoever wants to sit in that snake pit can go.”

Pei Xiqing blinked. “Wait, aren’t you the captain?”

“Obviously. Who else?”

“Then… he’s the vice-captain?” Pei Xiqing pointed toward the imposing figure of Duan Xiaolin, who was securing the perimeter.

Ling Lang let out a harsh, barking laugh. “Him? He’s my boss. And he’s also… the Supreme Commander of Franlun. Didn’t you know?”