What?! I Became the Zombie Beauty in the Villain’s Arms – CH85

Chapter 85: No Ifs

Pei Xiqing spent the entire night researching superpowers, combing through a massive archive of base records and physical documentation in the hope of unearthing a breakthrough. To her frustration, she discovered that almost every available data string had already been mapped and logged by the base’s research teams.

It simply yielded nothing new for her database.

Still, her primary directive wasn’t to run structural experiments or decode the overarching laws of gene mutation. Her mind was entirely focused on tracking the specific classification of the zombie virus.

She needed to comprehend exactly what strain of infection was anchoring itself to her own cells—why her skin would break out in dark corpse spots like a common mutant, only for the physical markers to completely vanish later, and why the mutation had somehow cleared a path to unlock a supreme superpower.

Now that she commanded the core, daily domestic logistics had turned remarkably convenient.

She frequently deployed threads of the green energy to automate daily tasks, using it to serve tea, fetch water, and even simmer a few basic dishes over the kitchen burners.

She completely ignored the intense irritability and violent resistance radiating from the Qiong Snake every single time she forced its current online, thoroughly unbothered by the way the translucent element would angrily hiss and flash its venomous tongue like a miniature viper. In fact, Pei Xiqing found the routine thoroughly enjoyable.

The trapped little entity had desperately tried to signal Duan Xiaolin for intervention multiple times throughout the night and into the morning shift. But now that the elemental foundation had securely integrated into her own biology, regardless of what high-frequency tantrums the Qiong Snake threw, Duan Xiaolin’s terminals lacked the system clearance to override her inputs.

Her eyes crinkled into a soft, highly amused smile. Flipping open another archival text, she leaned back against the cushions of a recliner, lazily reading out in the middle of the courtyard.

Xiaobai lay flat on the grass by her side, monitoring the perimeter.

Duan Xiaolin had cleared the villa exceptionally early that morning to manage base affairs.

Even Sister Long Yan had routed her column to the central command tower before dawn.

The security briefs indicated several supreme high-clearance dignitaries from global headquarters were scheduled to cross the sector checkpoints today. Every major division head had been extracted from their routine to prepare for the reception.

She held absolutely zero data regarding who the incoming assets actually were.

As her eyes traced the text, the heavy, humid atmosphere made her eyelids droop, and before her mind could log the transition, she drifted off into a deep sleep.

When her consciousness finally snapped back online, her eyes collided directly with a pair of intense, unblinking pupils staring down at her from behind a stark white mask. Her initial reflex calculated the shadow as Ling Lang or Ying, and she reached out to carelessly shove the figure away from her personal perimeter.

But within a split second, as her body sat upright on the recliner, a sudden jolt of terror compromised her systems. A strange man wrapped in a featureless, faceless white mask had materialized directly inside her private courtyard. “Hel—”

Before the vocal distress signal could clear her lips, a heavy hand violently clamped down over her mouth, ruthlessly killing the audio stream.

Pei Xiqing initialized an immediate, high-velocity physical struggle.

But her civilian fists commanded absolutely zero kinetic volume, and her blows caused a flat zero impact when they collided with the intruder’s reinforced torso.

The display was completely pathetic.

A sharp, mocking chuckle escaped from behind the white molding, though the sound lacked an ounce of human warmth, sending a violent wave of fear rippling straight down her spine.

The man was exceptionally tall, completely wrapped in pristine, clinical white garments, his faceless mask giving him the precise aesthetic geometry of a specter. This specific uniform configuration didn’t align with any standard military or administrative division inside Base Three.

Pei Xiqing’s memory cells rapidly flagged her newly unlocked weapon. Swinging her right arm forward, she cleared her elemental core, discharging a vicious current of bright bamboo-green energy straight toward his chest.

Initially, the intruder’s exposed eyes radiated pure, cold condescension. But the exact microsecond the green energy arc fractured the air to breach his defensive perimeter, his pupils dilated in sheer shock, a sharp exclamation escaping his mask. “The Qiong Snake?!”

He executed a rapid, unnatural twist of his torso to dodge the killing velocity of the arc, instantly raising his gloved palms in a defensive compliance gesture as he locked his eyes onto her face. “Hold your fire, little sister! Your tracking arrays have just executed a massive calculation error. My column routed its boots to this coordinate explicitly to cross paths with Duan Xiaolin. Doesn’t the Chief Judge preserve his primary residence inside this structure?”

Pei Xiqing maintained a tight lock on her elemental core, her voice sharp. “Your line marched here to locate his desk? Then explain the ground truth of why your face was hovering inches from my coordinates while my system was offline.”

“Monitoring a civilian sleeping in an open yard without a single active firewall or sentry grid… my office was simply delivering a manual wake-up protocol.”

“Your office was executing a predatory home invasion.”

“Hey, the data is entirely clean, miss. I harbor zero illicit intent; my compliance bars would never risk the penalty,” the man chuckled, smoothly stepping back three paces to open up the perimeter. “Furthermore, my own core holds zero desire to trade kinetic strikes with your station. Your current manipulation technique lacks an advanced ceiling, but that element… it structurally belongs to an entirely different database.”

Pei Xiqing’s eyes narrowed. “Is your division genuinely here to interface with Duan Xiaolin?”

“The directive is absolute,” he noted, drawing a thick, heavily encrypted dossier from his leather coat. “Though, my personal analytics never projected running head-on into such a flawlessly executed, miraculous case study out here in the open.”

“Clarify that data string.”

“Haha, ignore the transmission. A minor internal calculation.”

Suddenly, his torso executed a rapid, reflexive tilt to the left.

A heavy, wind-tearing punch sliced through the exact coordinates his head had occupied a microsecond prior.

Ling Lang had cleared the gate.

The white-haired captain countered with a vicious follow-up strike, his voice dropping into a freezing, lethal growl. “What precise agenda brought your boots inside this yard?”

“A simple logistical transit,” the masked man laughed, effortlessly deflecting the kinetic momentum of the assault.

“Trash,” Ling Lang hissed, his white brows knitting as he threw his full physical weight into a secondary punch. “You think your station can casually deploy unauthorized tracking loops inside my brother’s perimeter?”

The masked intruder threw up a dense physical guard to absorb the strike, the impact forcing his boots back several inches across the grass. “Alright, alright, call off the hounds. I hadn’t calculated that my uniform would encounter this level of aggressive resistance across every single floor today. Tell that eccentric scientist Director Qiu Chao to clear his lab schedule later; my division requires an audit of his latest bio-cellular mutation results. My column is clearing the sector.”

The final syllable had barely left his lips when his physical form blurred, completely vaporizing from the courtyard within a single frame.

Pei Xiqing took three rapid steps toward Ling Lang’s position. Before her lips could structure a query, the captain reached into his utility pocket, smoothly drawing out an object and tossing it straight into her hands.

“That asset anchors to the supreme director tier at global headquarters,” Ling Lang grunted, his expression thoroughly irritated. “The exact same high-tier analyst who ran those invasive diagnostic sweeps on your biology back on the trail. Wipe his file from your thoughts; his access is blocked.”

“What specific directive brought his column to this base?”

“He was hunting for my brother’s desk. Since Duan Xiaolin’s coordinates returned an offline status, his tracking arrays locked straight onto your silhouette.”

“Targeting my silhouette? For what purpose?”

“The baseline is obvious,” Ling Lang muttered, his hands sliding deep into his trouser pockets. “His scanners calculate that your biology represents a pristine piece of laboratory research.”

Pei Xiqing let out a thoroughly dry, hollow laugh.

She looked down at the object he had just routed to her palm, peeling back the protective linen wrap. Inside lay a neatly folded, pristine black umbrella. It was the exact same piece of gear she had left behind during the storm yesterday.

“Returning the hardware to your inventory,” Ling Lang noted flatly.

“Oh… thank you. My memory units hadn’t flagged that your uniform would preserve a log of the item.”

The captain shifted his boots, preparing to clear the courtyard to return to his patrol lane. But right as his torso aligned with the outer gate, his momentum abruptly zeroed out. He paused, executing a slow, heavy turn to lock his sharp eyes back onto her face.

Pei Xiqing met his gaze directly, her posture perfectly straight. “Is there a secondary file requiring synchronization?”

Ling Lang lowered his eyelashes, his jaw tightening into a severe line as if his internal processors were fiercely battling to clear a high-priority restriction block. After a prolonged interval of heavy quiet, he finally vocalized the query. “The historical narrative Major General Gu released inside the briefing room… did those events register as absolute ground truth?”

Pei Xiqing didn’t flinch. “The data is accurate. But every single metric in that file has permanently finalized. It belongs to the past.”

His white brows knit, a tense vibration running through his level voice. “If your past system harbored that magnitude of devotion for his file back then… what specific parameter drove your boots to execute an unauthorized escape from his compound?”

“Because my personal philosophy dictates that a woman’s timeline should never be permanently locked down inside a singular man’s perimeter for the duration of her existence,” Pei Xiqing explained calmly, her clear eyes unyielding. “No human asset remains fixed to the exact same behavioral template forever. The moment your internal diagnostics verify that the partner asset no longer aligns with the baseline your life requires, there is absolutely zero utility in tolerating a compromised connection—one that continuously floods your system with anxiety, danger, and severe emotional instability. When the data line turns toxic, your obligation is to execute an immediate, clean termination of the loop.”

Ling Lang stepped closer, his bloodshot eyes tracking her features with intense, volatile gravity as he threw back a counter-query. “But what if… what if your calculations explicitly verify that the alignment returns a mathematical impossibility…”

He paused, his voice dropping into a rough whisper. “…yet your internal core still demands that your uniform march forward and fight to claim the asset anyway?”

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