What?! I Became the Zombie Beauty in the Villain’s Arms – CH45

Chapter 45: Means

Long Yan burst into a clear, mocking laugh. “Come on, that elite Lieutenant General is clearly running a high-risk strategy, aggressively deploying her assets to infiltrate his perimeter. Hasn’t she initiated that sequence multiple times now? And what was the outcome? Did any of you witness Representative Duan validating her access?”

Her tone remained entirely unbothered, treating the political tension like redundant data.

But the veteran operatives in the room understood the underlying physics: back when Duan Xiaolin commanded his prime elemental reserves, an uncalibrated security breach of that caliber would have triggered a penalty infinitely more severe than a simple administrative rejection.

Ling Lang joined the laughter, leaning his broad shoulders against the console. “Director Qiu Chao, if your system harbors a thesis on how to optimize his domestic alignment, execute the dialogue yourself. My own persuasion algorithms have hit a wall; I am entirely incapable of breaking my brother’s calculations.”

“What tactical variable prevented him from projecting his visual matrix tonight?” Qiu Chao demanded, his tone shifting as he idly waved away the female companion lounging against his lap. “What crisis is he anchoring?”

“The log is blank,” Ling Lang shrugged, his expression a mix of lazy indifference and tightly controlled caution. “My sensors intercepted zero data.”

Long Yan smoothly cut into the transmission loop, a brilliant, calculating smile playing on her lips. “Director Qiu Chao, our division recently harvested an exceptionally fascinating asset during the frontier migration. Once the command parameters stabilize, I shall authorize a formal introduction. I run a high-probability calculation that your system will find her baseline highly compatible.”

The supreme director in the holographic viewport paused, his sharp eyes narrowing with immediate interest. “Oh? Are you explicitly commanding that my system should harbor an attraction toward this stray?”

“The terminology lacks precision,” Long Yan laughed smoothly. “I am simply stating that her presence commands a profound index of personal preference. I harbor an immense amount of affection for her line myself.”

She paused, her gaze shifting meaningfully across the encrypted terminal. “Furthermore, her biological status is classified under a highly restricted protocol. When the administrative audit initializes, my division will require your considerable leverage to clear her parameters through the high council.”

“Deploy my leverage to bypass a high-council audit?” Qiu Chao let out a low, amused scoff. “What precise directive has Representative Duan issued regarding her asset sheet? If his sovereign signature refuses to clear the override, my office cannot manipulate the board.”

“Bury the anxiety, Director. His signature is already locked into the affirmative,” Long Yan assured him.

“Fascinating… Then the moment a tactical window opens, I must personally inspect this anomaly,” Qiu Chao murmured, a dangerous, half-joking smirk tracing his features. “Meticulously analyze the data for me, Captain: exactly how many operatives within your vanguard cell have integrated this girl into their emotional networks?”

Long Yan’s smile didn’t falter. “The exact census remains unverified. Perhaps a significant fraction of the unit has aligned their timelines with hers. I have certainly logged my own preference.”

Qiu Chao let out a low, knowing chuckle. “My database isn’t referencing your specific demographic of preference, Long Yan.”

He shifted his eyes across the camera array, locking his gaze straight onto Ling Lang’s profile as a fond, mocking grin crossed his face. “You arrogant little brat.”

Ling Lang threw his head back against the leather of his chair, his aura subtly flaring. “What? Outside of my biological brother’s command file, who authorized your vocal receptors to deploy that terminology against my station?”

Inside the suffocating shadows of the villa, Pei Xiqing felt her entire cognitive baseline completely implode. Intercepting the high-level vanguard directors casually debating her identity over an open military channel while her bare skin was violently pinned against Duan Xiaolin’s chest left her drowning in an absolute quagmire of unadulterated shame.

She frantically planted her sweating palms against the dense muscles of his shoulders, summoning every single ounce of her remaining leverage to push against his weight, but his frame remained an immovable mountain of solid iron. Desperate to break the lockdown before her voice bled into the open mic, she leaned her head closer to his jaw, forcing a raw, breathless whisper through her teeth.

Her long lashes were heavily drenched in tears of panic and acute embarrassment. “Duan Xiaolin… terminate the protocol. Stop.”

Resembling a cornered, fragile kitten whose boundaries had been completely overrun by an alpha predator, she tightly bit her own bruised lips to suppress her respiration, only a few fractured, muffled gasps escaping her throat.

The council members’ voices continued to crackle through the room, continuously referencing his name.

If he maintained this level of physical aggression, her survival instincts would inevitably hijack her motor functions, driving her to aggressively sink her newly awakened fangs straight into his flesh.

The man’s prominent Adam’s apple executed a slow, deep contraction. Reaching out with fluid, absolute finality, his slender fingers slammed the master switch on the console, permanently severing the encrypted global communication loop.

The holographic blue screens dissolved into blackness. Leaning his heavy torso down until his lips brushed the wet, burning contour of her ear, he pressed a hard, bruising kiss against her tear-stained cheek. Without a single word of warning, his massive arms scooped her pliant frame off the carpet, violently throwing her weight back onto the deep leather sofa as he pursued the unyielding, dark hunger raging within his cells.

Her shattered, trembling state under his shadow merely acted as a critical stimulant, accelerating his possessive instincts.

The hot tears spilling over her lashes didn’t trigger a microsecond of clinical revulsion within his system.

He had spent decades operating under the thesis that his brilliant mind could meticulously calculate and predict every single variable in this dying world—yet his database had catastrophically miscalculated the sheer, intoxicating chaos of her biology.

Regrettably, her internal courage metrics lacked the structural density to sustain his pace to the absolute zenith of the calculation.

True to his projections, he had merely deployed a fraction of his physical dominance, and before the primary protocol could even initialize, a sharp shriek of unadulterated panic ripped from her throat, her entire anatomy trembling violently as raw panic hijacked her nervous system.

“Your system possessed the brazen confidence to execute a deliberate provocation against my board back on the trail,” he murmured, a dangerous, dark smile playing on his thin lips as he locked her wrists down, “yet your current capacity fails to sustain the alignment the second the real calculation runs?”

Pei Xiqing desperately tried to fortify her internal defenses, but the calculated facade of pristine calm she had weaponized in her past life as an actress was completely non-functional now. Every single raw emotion, every spike of psychological terror, and every flush of desire was written with terrifying legibility across her features. “Hold… hold the line for a minute… execute a temporary hold,” she gasped, her watery eyes darting wildly around the room. “Your administrative schedule is packed with high-priority tasks. Look… your secure terminal is actively vibrating again.”

The administrator slowly tilted his head, his green eyes narrowing.

True to her tracking, the holographic projection crystal resting on the edge of the mahogany coffee table was pulsing with a fresh high-frequency alert.

Let out a low, menacing sneer, he reached up, calmly removing his gold-rimmed glasses. Pulling a clean linen cloth from his pocket, he methodically wiped away the micro-beads of moisture coating the lenses before locking a heavy, deeply meaningful gaze onto her flushed face. “The director who was just dominating the audio feed is Qiu Chao, the Sovereign Deputy Judge of Franlun’s high tribunal. A sequence of highly anomalous biological events has been systematically breaching the security grids of multiple bases over the past forty-eight hours. I advise your system to maintain extreme tactical caution within these walls.”

“What specific anomalies?” Pei Xiqing whispered, her face burning hot enough to ignite as she desperately tried to bury her head into the plush leather pillows of the sofa, though her analytical mind refused to stop tracking the data. “The static was too dense; my processors failed to decode the exact transcripts of your briefing earlier.”

“For example… the systematic manifestation of headless human corpses tracking along the frontier perimeter,” he stated with chilling, clinical detachment. “Or the reality that an elite mutated variant breached the inner ring of Base Two a few shifts ago undetected. Or the discovery of a high-ranking asset submerged within a localized vat of rotting waste, their limbs surgically severed until their biology matched the structural definition of a human pig. Furthermore… a massive, highly classified subterranean black-market auction is scheduled to initialize its sequence within the next forty-eight hours, directly inside the secure lower levels of this exact base.”

He paused, leaning his weight down until his chest brushed her bare shoulder. “Does your curiosity demand a complete list of the exotic, forbidden assets slated for liquidation at that auction?”

Pei Xiqing’s breathing stalled entirely as the visceral horror of his words hit her brain.

Jesus Christ. Were the remaining human survivors navigating this post-apocalyptic wasteland completely, systematically unhinged perverts?

Had the psychological trauma of fighting a million shrieking monsters for five years completely incinerated their basic moral wiring, rendering their species entirely non-functional?

“My… my cognitive framework can easily deduce the nature of the merchandise,” she murmured, a shudder running down her spine. “I analyzed the state of the chained zombies lining the commercial boulevard outside the gate today.”

“Mhm. Those specific biological masses have been subjected to our taming matrices for over three decades,” he noted smoothly.

“Then why the hell is the high command still unsatisfied?” she burst out, her defensive instincts flaring. Within this brutal wasteland, provided your timeline had bypassed the virus, secured a high-yield combat tier, and established a fortified empire to guarantee your physical survival, what sick psychological deficit drove you to manufacture horrors of that caliber?

“Because human biology is governed by an infinite trajectory of greed and unvarnished desire,” he stated flatly.

The moment a civilian population achieves localized stability and their baseline survival metrics are guaranteed by military infrastructure, a massive demographic grows profoundly hostile toward the quiet status quo. Their consciousness begins to frantically engineer perverted new avenues of novelty and dark amusement to stimulate their dying receptors.

He reached out, his cool fingers gently tracing the contour of her burning cheek. “My office is locked in a high-intensity operational window for the coming shifts. My initial calculation allowed for a significant allocation of time to personally monitor your integration into the base corridor, but reality dictates that the volume of treason files pending at Franlun requires my physical presence at the central command hub.”

“I understand… the data is clear… it’s fine,” she whispered, an immense, unbidden wave of relief washing through her chest.

Yet, beneath the massive layer of psychological relief, an erratic, contradictory trace of disappointment subtly flared within her emotional receptors. Her vocal transmissions were systematically falsifying her internal data—the absolute hallmark of her defensive psychology.

Shifting her analytical focus away from his proximity, she stared down at the glowing green pattern tracking over her heart. If the human stronghold was truly saturated with this level of systemic corruption and hidden darkness, her most efficient strategy was to immediately plan a silent evacuation and bolt into the wild. Furthermore… there was the unverified variable of the Serpentine Teng mark scoring her skin. If she authorized a full physical integration with Duan Xiaolin, would the contact yield nothing but a temporary surge of neurological pleasure while permanently degrading her biological health? Was her mutated viral strain contagious to an uninfected human core?

Every single metric demanded a rigorous, multi-layered calculation.

The man seemed to effortlessly read the rapid shift in her cognitive tracking. “Why exactly are your internal metrics radiating a profound level of spatial isolation?”

“They aren’t!” she snapped instantly.

“Your physical baseline is an unparalleled biological anomaly,” he reminded her, his voice dropping to a low, possessive murmur against her lips. “If your mind executes a premature, frantic movement, your cells might permanently lose this pristine, rare quality.”

Pei Xiqing arched an eyebrow, her gaze sharpening. “Is your board simply running a calculation to preserve my utility as a rare weapon?”

“Who can verify the ultimate trajectory of the mutation?” he countered with an enigmatic smile. “Perhaps the dense concentration of my biological essence entering your system will trigger a total cellular reset, transforming your cells back into a baseline human. Or perhaps… the viral load in your fangs will permanently corrupt my core, dragging my timeline down into the demographic of the active undead.”

Pei Xiqing’s eyes widened in genuine horror. She forcefully planted her hands against his chest, shoving him away. “Stop… terminate that specific simulation. Do not broadcast those words again.”

He let out a low, melodious chuckle, smoothly sliding his gold-rimmed glasses back over his green eyes. “The clock is ticking, little zombie. The restriction won’t endure for many more shifts.”

“What?”

“My board holds zero objections to running the ultimate integration. But I run a high-probability calculation that a certain fragile asset will spend the entire sequence crying metrics of mercy into my shoulder.”

“…”

Pei Xiqing shot him a flat, venomous glare.

He merely cast a brief, intensely amused look across her flushed face before leaning his massive weight forward to close the grid once more. “We still retain a narrow operational window before my shift logs initialize.”

By the time the encounter concluded, Pei Xiqing had completely collapsed from profound physical and neural exhaustion. She possessed absolutely zero cognitive memory of how his massive arms had effortlessly carried her limp frame back into the master bedroom or how his fingers had meticulously tucked the heavy wool quilts around her shoulders. A singular, burning doctrine was now permanently seared into her consciousness: High-tier military men must never be subjected to casual flirtation or psychological teasing—especially an elite entity like Duan Xiaolin.

If your internal capacity lacked the leverage to dominate the board, a tyrant of his tier possessed a thousand sophisticated avenues to keep your timeline trapped dead center within his matrix.

She drifted in an absolute, unburdened sleep cycle until the early hours of the morning, violently awakened by the high-frequency screech of a military siren echoing from the street outside the villa gates. Sitting upright against the linens, her eyes automatically tracked her forearms. Faint, elegant pale marks still ringed her delicate skin—the lingering trace of his silk necktie.

She couldn’t even calculate the exact timestamp his fingers had smoothly untied the restraint during the night.

Recalling the raw, visceral parameters of the previous night’s encounter, an intense, suffocating wave of heat instantly scorched her face.

The logs indicated his shift parameters had forced him to vacate the villa quarters slightly past three in the morning, leaving her line entirely unmonitored.

Pei Xiqing swung her legs over the bed frame, navigating through the clean, minimalist executive suite as her stomach let out a loud, hollow rumble. Regrettably, since the high-rise structure had been vacant of human occupancy for consecutive months, the logistics pantry was completely desolate of field rations.

The severe viral fever had completely suppressed her appetite the previous evening, but now her metabolic demands were hitting critical failure; she was starving to death.

Before her tracking system could isolate a single hidden ration pack, a sharp, rhythmic knock echoed from the front blast door.

Long Yan stepped through the foyer, balancing a massive, insulated triple-tier military lunchbox in her right hand. “Ah, your vitals have reset! I executed a tracking sweep to your quarters at first light this morning, pounding against the blast door for ten minutes with zero response, so my database concluded your system was still locked in a heavy rest cycle. My sub-unit was occupied with logging intelligence at the core stronghold for the past few hours, and Ling Lang happened to break rank to access the mess hall. Representative Duan was also entrenched at the adjacent command desk, so I authorized him to configure a high-yield ration portion for your station.”

“Thank you, Sister Long Yan. My system holds an immense index of gratitude for your presence. Ensure your comms broadcast my thanks to Ling Lang as well.”

“Bury the formality. Our division is running a high-intensity operational load today, so take possession of the asset,” Long Yan smiled, smoothly sliding a sleek, high-density titanium biometric transit card onto the mahogany counter. “This is my personal division card. The commercial boulevard running parallel to the primary checkpoint is packed with high-end apparel hubs and hygiene repositories. If your timeline requires a shift in scenery, authorize a transit pass to that grid. The financial allocation on this card is completely unlocked; execute whatever resource expenditure your system demands. Do not implement a polite boundary against my account.”

“Negative, Sister Long Yan! My current inventory is completely sufficient; I lack nothing.”

“Execute a deployment to secure two clean sets of tactical combat gear and specialized toiletries,” Long Yan commanded, her tone turning firm and protective. “The vanguard unit is scheduled to anchor its coordinates at Base Three for an extended duration. Once our mechanical division completes the engineering overhaul on the replacement G-Class SUVs, you will deploy these credits to harvest a massive load of high-grade survival supplies for our column. Having the inventory locked down will exponentially optimize our efficiency when we re-enter the frontier transit corridors.”

“Is that the trajectory of the deployment? Very well.” She accepted the titanium card, her fingers tracing the slick alloy. “Thank you for the clearance, Sister Long Yan.”

“My shift log is initializing. Breaking rank now.”

“Copy that.” Pei Xiqing offered a brief wave as the older woman vanished past the sliding steel door.

Turning her head toward the living room, she spotted Xiaobai stretched out flat across the polished floorboards, his skeletal chest heaving as his reanimated cells whined from extreme hunger.

The exact millisecond she unlatched the heavy seals of the insulated lunchbox, a profound awe regarding Ling Lang’s culinary efficiency seized her mind.

The entire metallic compartment was stuffed to the absolute physical limits of its volume, leaving literally zero cubic centimeters of dead space. The inventory was staggering: five whole roasted wild-avian drumsticks, a colossal slab of prime pan-seared synthetic steak, five massive cuts of cured mountain mutton, and a dense, hyper-nutritious pile of uncultivated field greens and forest mushrooms.

“Xiaobai, form up on my coordinates.”

She and the reanimated Husky engaged in a rapid, highly efficient consumption protocol, systematically clearing the tray.

Once her metabolic bars recovered, Pei Xiqing analyzed Long Yan’s structural advice and ran a quick diagnostic check on her own clothing.

Her current inventory was in a critical state. If she failed to secure a fresh set of tactical apparel immediately, the heavy custom-tailored windbreaker, her solitary replacement top, and the oversized men’s linen shirt Long Yan had scavenged for her would inevitably succumb to toxic mold—the climate-control grids in the wasteland lacked the efficiency to wash and dry fabrics within a standard shift window.

She executed a rapid cleaning pass through the suite, washed the grime from her face, and patted the armored skull of the hound. Seeing the creature’s red, bulging eyes tracking her every step toward the foyer, she let out a soft sigh. “Negative, Xiaobai. Your current profile is restricted from clearing the threshold.”

Though she had meticulously cleansed his coat and his skeletal frame was fully concealed beneath the high-density K9 ballistic vest, his biological markers deviated too drastically from a standard canine. Unleashing an unverified reanimated hound into a hyper-paranoid military residential quadrant without a direct handler was a high-risk variable… To guarantee the security of their board, her most efficient play was to execute a solo reconnaissance pass to observe the local civilian density first.

At the end of the day, she was wrapped in thick, protective tactical layers. Aside from the grey-green viral tracks scoring her back, every single visible biometric parameter across her anatomy read as perfectly human.

The base scanners had cleared her name; no soldier had the authority to forcefully tear her windbreaker off her shoulders.

Ensuring the Husky’s compliance parameters were locked, she pressed the biometric override and slid the heavy metal door open—only to instantly collide with a towering, black-masked face standing dead center in the hallway.

Pei Xiqing’s hand reflexively twitched toward her utility line.

The masked operative didn’t flinch.

Pei Xiqing’s eyes narrowed as her recognition software finalized a match. “You are… the asset from the concrete room last night…”

It was the elite black division operative who had anchored Duan Xiaolin’s perimeter during the crisis, delivering the high-concentration serum to the settlement. His aura was terrifyingly dense, his physical frame radiating a savage, unyielding violence that confirmed he was an exceptionally dangerous asset to cross.

“Affirmative. The designation is Ying. Ensure your memory preserves the log,” the operative stated, his hoarse voice sounding entirely relaxed as he leaned his massive shoulder against the concrete door frame, lazily spinning a heavy-caliber sidearm around his index finger. “The Sovereign Chief Judge issued a direct administrative mandate requiring my unit to anchor your shadow. You are cleared to navigate to whatever coordinate sector your system desires to explore.”

Pei Xiqing let out a sharp, genuine smile.

Perfect.

Her board was currently entirely devoid of high-tier defensive meat shields.

With a lethally trained black division executioner tracking her rear flank, she could run a visual check-in across the fortress’s sectors with absolute, unadulterated safety.

Ying adjusted the seal of his matte-black mask. “Advance your coordinates. My unit will maintain a secure, covert tracking distance. I merely cleared the cloaking field to verify my presence to your station.”

“Understood. Thank you for the synchronization, Ying.”

The massive shadow executed a fluid pivot, completely dissolving into the dark architecture of the corridor before her eyes could track his vector.

She marched a quarter-mile down the immaculate titanium lane, navigating toward the primary elevator shafts, when her path intersected with the exact same group of neighborhood aunts who had corrupted her data logs the previous shift.

The women failed to register her presence entirely; she had chosen a highly neutral, loose-fitting tactical windbreaker that completely swallowed her feminine curves, while the rim of her reinforced field hat was pulled down to her jaw, rendering her facial features entirely invisible to their scanning angle.

The small group was dressed in remarkably intricate, high-yield luxury fabrics.

Logically, since their clearance allowed them to anchor their families within the elite North Courtyard quadrant, their spouses had to command substantial leverage within the high command’s hierarchy.

Pei Xiqing held zero intention of initiating a dialogue with their cell, but as her boots brushed past their perimeter, their high-frequency vocal receptors began broadcasting a frantic stream of gossip straight into her audio range.

“Jesus Christ, the data is verified! It was an absolute slaughter! My optical sensors intercepted the entire sequence down in the South Courtyard grid with my own eyes—the supreme administrative authority from Franlun personally executed the protocol!”

“My spouse’s registry wasn’t even cleared to stand within his visual parameter during the briefing.”

“He executed a total, public termination of the corrupt high directors right on the open execution deck. What sovereign clearance parameters does an entity need to command to ruthlessly liquidate high-ranking military officers without a trial? Tsk, tsk… he showed absolutely zero deference to their division achievements. Multiple faction heads were permanently neutralized on the spot. The concrete was completely drenched in crimson.”

“The sheer terror of his aura is suffocating! How can a biological entity evolve into such a cold-blooded, hellish monster? What female asset would ever possess the insanity required to align her timeline with his bed?”

“Tch. Does the administrative overwatch of Franlun even operate under our military charter? Are they truly that invincible? A specialized ability squad is only efficient when managing internal assets. The second a millions-strong mutated swarm breaches the primary frontier walls, those bureaucrats will turn tail and scream in pure panic like the rest of us.”

…

Pei Xiqing’s steps stalled entirely, her mind freezing.

She vividly recalled the high-level news broadcast echoing from the dreadnought’s audio arrays the previous evening.

The Sovereign Chief Judge.

The absolute, pre-written apex villain of this entire literary universe.

Regrettably, her consciousness had been so profoundly compromised and shattered by Duan Xiaolin’s physical dominance last night that her brain had failed to store a single clear metric from the global briefing, missing the critical coordinates entirely.

She executed a sharp pivot, shifting her navigation vector toward an adjacent transit lane.

A public military execution deck?

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