“Yaoyao, Yaoyao! Put the knife down! I’m begging you, please give up on this mission! It’s just trying to turn us against each other, it’s trying to destroy our love!”
A man’s agonizing, tear-soaked cries echoed through the air, desperate and raw.
Nan Yao frowned and fluttered her eyes open, only to be greeted by a tear-streaked face sobbing uncontrollably.
Confused, she lifted her gaze to survey her surroundings. It was a luxurious villa courtyard, but the ground was littered with corpses and pools of blood. Men and women of all descriptions wore horrifying, terrified expressions, their wide eyes frozen in death.
“Don’t kill me, Yaoyao! Please, just throw the knife away, if only for the sake of how I protected you the whole way here!”
Jiang Jingyu wailed in sheer terror, dropping heavily to his knees right at her feet. He clamped his arms tightly around her thighs and burst into loud, wretched sobs.
Nan Yao impatiently shook her leg, but Jiang Jingyu only clung tighter.
“Let go.”
“Yaoyao, you can’t be ungrateful! If you kill me, it won’t spare a woman who’s unfaithful to love either!”
“Are you out of your mind?” Nan Yao snapped. Lowering her gaze to the sharp little dagger in her hand, she didn’t hesitate to drive it straight into his neck.
“Yaoyao?!” Jiang Jingyu stared in absolute horror.
“Are you ever going to let go? This is seriously disgusting.”
Nan Yao glared down at the snot and tears the man had smeared all over her trousers, disgust washing over her.
“You’re really going to kill me? Yaoyao, you can’t—”
“Get lost!” Losing her last shred of patience, Nan Yao delivered a vicious kick and looked down at him with an icy glare. “Spare me your revolting act.”
With a fierce, murderous look in her eyes, Nan Yao stepped past the trembling Jiang Jingyu and headed into the villa.
The interior remained immaculate, warm, and cozy a stark, surreal contrast to the purgatory outside.
After carefully bolting the front door behind her, she thoroughly scouted the inside of the villa. Convinced it was secure, she finally summoned the system that had bound itself to her at the moment of her death.
(Host, please choose to activate the space base! Once activated, every time you level up, the space base will expand its perimeter and spiritual energy levels, helping you survive the apocalypse much better. The higher the level, the safer the base will be, and it can protect your life in critical moments.)
“Activate,” Nan Yao answered decisively.
Bang!
A violent crash of shattering glass made Nan Yao whip her head around. Outside, Jiang Jingyu’s eyes were bloodshot and filled with pure hatred. Armed with a heavy axe he must have scavenged from somewhere, he was relentlessly smashing the floor-to-ceiling glass windows.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Strike after strike rained down, his face twisted with raging fury as he glared at her as if he wanted to tear her apart alive. He kept hammering away with wild determination, making the entire villa shake.
(Host, he’s complete trash. Do whatever you want with him, don’t hold back.)
The original host shared her exact name. She had been selected to participate in an immersive, large-scale dating reality show, where she and Jiang Jingyu grew close during successive one-on-one dates and successfully formed the “Yuyao Couple.” Shortly after, all the other couples in the show found their respective partners as well.
On the night before the show was set to conclude, everyone gathered for a talent celebration. Right in the middle of the festivities, a virtual screen suddenly appeared in the sky, bearing four large characters: “Testing True Love.” Beneath it was a detailed game description: in each round, weapons would be randomly distributed to only one partner in a couple, while the other partner would be rendered completely immobile and unable to fight back. Their only option was to rely on their designated partner and fight their way out of the villa together…
At first, nobody took it seriously, laughing it off as a sick prank. Then, a beam of crimson light descended from the sky, piercing straight through someone’s skull and that was when the madness truly began.
Throughout their journey, Jiang Jingyu had indeed protected Nan Yao. Armed with weapons every round, he had acted as an opportunistic scavenger who killed without blinking, proving himself to be a cunning and ruthless player.
Yet right at the very end, when Nan Yao was the one holding the sole remaining weapon, he completely dropped his ruthless facade and begged her to spare him. Naturally kind-hearted, Nan Yao had no intention of killing him and willingly gave up her weapon qualification. In return, the moment she let her guard down, Jiang Jingyu backstabbed her, slitting her throat while she was still conscious and feeding her corpse to the zombies swarming the perimeter of the villa.
In the end, Jiang Jingyu was crowned the winner of the game.
Coldly meeting the gaze of Jiang Jingyu, who was still smashing away with all his might, Nan Yao offered a mocking smile and walked over to the iron-barred back door leading to the garden.
Sure enough, a horde of zombies was gathered outside. Their eyeballs dangled precariously in their sockets, thick drool dripped from torn, bloodied mouths, and they writhed with decaying skin as they violently lunged at one another, devouring a headless, fleshless corpse.
She crossed her arms, watching the terrifying scene with a completely impassive expression.
The harsh, screeching scrape of a blunt object dragging across the ground drew closer.
“You heartless bitch! Today is your funeral!” Jiang Jingyu roared with venomous hatred. “I’m going to torture you! I’m going to throw you alive right into the middle of the zombies! Let’s see how you like being slowly chewed apart. No matter how much you scream, it won’t save you—you’ll just have to feel every agonizing second of those monsters chewing on you! Hahaha!”
“Hh,” Nan Yao turned slightly, toying with the dagger in her hand as she gave him a breezy, indifferent look. “Thanks for the suggestion. I love it.”
“Go to hell, you bitch!” Jiang Jingyu bellowed, mustering all his strength as he hoisted the axe and charged forward.
Nan Yao lifted her gaze, her dark, piercing eyes sharp as ice. “You’re asking for it.”
The moment the man closed in, she tightened her grip on the dagger, her small, agile frame moving with lightning speed to close the distance. She drove the blade straight into his chest, and without missing a beat, twisted away, raised her leg, and kicked him hard to the ground with all her might. Then, with ruthless precision, she stepped squarely onto his groin.
After all, her former self was none other than the legendary, high-ranking Colonel Nan Yao of the Qixing era in Guangji.
“Aghhh!!”
A blood-curdling shriek pierced the air, causing Nan Yao to frown and turn her head away while bearing down even harder with her foot.
“I’m going to kill you!”
“Too bad. Your guests of honor are here.”
With a cool flick of her lips, Nan Yao smoothly withdrew her foot, stepped back inside, slammed the garden door shut, and locked it tight.
Smelling fresh blood, the zombies instantly went berserk, throwing themselves directly against the iron-barred gate.
More and more zombies were drawn to the commotion, crushing together as they slammed into the iron gate that Nan Yao had just secured, letting out raspy, guttural growls.
“Open the door, let me in you bitch!”
Struggling back to his feet through the blinding pain, Jiang Jingyu hammered frantically on the door, his eyes wide with panic.
As he watched the swarm of zombies breach the gate and lunge forward with gaping, bloodthirsty jaws, his knees buckled. A split second later, a distinct trickling sound echoed through the air.
Nan Yao arched an eyebrow, tilting her head to watch the warm liquid dripping down the front of the man’s soaked trousers, and burst into a mocking laugh.
“Nan Yao, Yaoyao, please, I’m begging you, let me in! I love you, I really do! I was wrong, I was so wrong—Aghhh!!!”
“Too bad… it was all fake.”
With complete indifference, she watched as Jiang Jingyu was swarmed by the surging tide of zombies. Countless bloody jaws tore into him, fighting over pieces of flesh so aggressively that some of the zombies even squeezed their own eyeballs out in the scuffle.
Ding! Let us congratulate the winner, Miss Nan Yao.
Her eyes flashing, Nan Yao gripped her dagger tighter and spun around.
A transparent virtual screen materialized before her eyes, bursting with colorful, popping digital fireworks.
(Congratulations to Miss Nan Yao for becoming the 474th winner of this round. Miss Nan Yao, we salute your perseverance! Through your relentless efforts, you have advanced to the next tier of the dating reality show channel. As a reward, five gold bars have been issued to your account.)