No one would be happy about being thrown out as bait.
Yet Lin Buyu’s reaction made it seem as though she didn’t mind being used as bait at all.
She looked like a delicate little princess, but her mentality was surprisingly good.
Seeing her tilt her head up with an expression that seemed to be asking for praise, even Su Ya, who was also a woman, couldn’t help thinking that she looked like a hopeless romantic.
Other than being love-struck, she couldn’t think of any other explanation.
Jiang Ran lowered his head and looked at her, his dark eyes falling on her smiling face.
When she smiled, the corners of her eyes curved upward, revealing half of her pearly teeth. She looked beautiful, innocent, and utterly harmless.
“You’re actually happy about being used as bait. Should I say you have a heart, or that you don’t have one at all?” he murmured, his gaze meeting hers.
“Of course I have a heart!” Lin Buyu said, forming a heart shape with both hands toward Jiang Ran. She could spout cheesy romantic lines as naturally as breathing. “This is a heart that loves you. I told you, whatever you want, I’ll give it to you—including my life.”
Be moved, young man!
She was the God of Universal Love!
The whole “I’ll give you my life” romance trope—she nailed it!
“Your life?” Jiang Ran placed a hand over Lin Buyu’s face and pushed her away. “You keep offering me useless things. What would I want your life for?”
“Hey, don’t speak too soon. This is the apocalypse, after all. Human lives are still useful. I can act as bait and help you test for danger. What if there are lots and lots of mutated zombies here? With me around, you can just throw me out like you did earlier to see whether there are any zombies. Wouldn’t that make it much easier to determine whether this place is dangerous?”
She spoke such sweet words that she sounded like she was hopelessly in love with Jiang Ran.
Nie Fei couldn’t help rubbing his arms. He admitted that he found it unbearably cheesy.
Xiao Jingcheng pushed his glasses up with one hand. He really couldn’t understand what was going through the mind of this delicate little flower.
Perhaps her purpose for entering Yulan Base wasn’t the leader’s life or some secret at all.
Perhaps she simply wanted to win over the strongest ability user in Yulan Base—Jiang Ran.
Unfortunately, Brother Ran was a killing machine without emotions.
If there was one thing he had strong feelings toward, it was zombies.
He hated zombies to the bone.
The hospital pharmacy was just ahead. They needed to go inside and retrieve the medicine and supplies.
Lin Buyu stayed beside Jiang Ran, while Xiao Jingcheng took the lead, with Su Ya and Nie Fei bringing up the rear.
In the empty hospital, every footstep echoed through the corridors.
Lin Buyu curiously looked left and right, completely lacking the tension everyone else was displaying.
Although they were very powerful, after a year into the apocalypse, it wasn’t only humans who had mutated.
The zombies had evolved as well.
If they encountered an ability-type zombie, they would still be in great danger.
After all, the zombies only needed to scratch their skin for them to become zombies themselves. To win, they had to kill the zombies with absolute precision.
That was why everyone—from Xiao Jingcheng at the front to Nie Fei and Su Ya at the rear—was extremely cautious, constantly scanning their surroundings.
Jiang Ran glanced at Lin Buyu beside him.
Although she was also looking around, she looked more like she was sightseeing.
He couldn’t tell whether she was hiding some incredible ability and therefore had nothing to fear, or whether she simply knew nothing and was too slow-witted to understand the danger.
He was more inclined to believe the former.
After passing through the corridor, they arrived at an entire row of pharmacies.
Through the windows, they could see rows upon rows of shelves inside.
Lin Buyu was holding onto Jiang Ran’s arm when she suddenly felt that powerful sense of being drawn toward something that she had experienced in the vehicle earlier.
It became even stronger now.
There were zombies.
Lots and lots of mutated zombies.
“Watch out!”
Lin Buyu suddenly shouted.
As people who constantly walked along the edge of danger, Xiao Jingcheng and the others had extremely sharp instincts.
Almost the instant Lin Buyu’s warning rang out, Xiao Jingcheng immediately shot backward.
At the same time, the pharmacy door exploded open in a burst of flames, and a group of incredibly fast zombies, their entire bodies covered in green, rushed out one after another.
They moved like leopards crouching in wait for their prey, charging forward with terrifying ferocity.
The others reacted immediately.
Nie Fei’s fire ability surged past Jiang Ran and slammed toward the pharmacy entrance, exploding into a blazing inferno.
As Xiao Jingcheng retreated, Su Ya’s arm transformed into metal. She punched the floor of the corridor, forcing it to collapse. Shattered chunks of stone flew apart and shot toward the zombies like projectiles.
Meanwhile, Jiang Ran wrapped one arm around Lin Buyu’s waist and carried her backward through the air, while his other hand gathered crackling purple lightning.
With a casual wave of his hand, dozens of bolts of purple lightning came crashing down from above.
The moment the crackling lightning struck the zombies, it erupted with sharp, sizzling sounds.
The smell of charred flesh mingled with dust and debris, along with the nauseating stench of rotten blood.
All of those odors blended together, turning the scene into something bloody and horrifying.
The reason these creatures were called mutated zombies was because they possessed special abilities.
Even under the combined attacks of Jiang Ran and the others, these zombies moved at an unbelievably terrifying speed—so fast that they almost left afterimages.
They were all speed-type zombies.
And there were far too many of them.
These zombies had devoured the crystal cores of countless ordinary zombies before evolving to this level.
While dealing with the endless stream of zombies rushing toward them, Su Ya and Nie Fei said, “This is bad. There are too many mutated zombies. Brother Ran, we have to retreat!”
Xiao Jingcheng’s ability proved particularly useful at this moment.
His Medusa’s Eyes could only petrify the mutated zombies for a few seconds, but those few seconds gave his teammates precious time.
Su Ya was a strength-type ability user, and strength-type abilities were at a severe disadvantage against speed-type abilities.
Fortunately, she had Xiao Jingcheng’s support.
And when it came to offensive power, Jiang Ran was undoubtedly the strongest.
These zombies were high-level zombies. Although Nie Fei and Su Ya were both powerful, they were struggling to deal with them.
Jiang Ran seemed to exist on an entirely different level.
Whenever he casually waved his hand, not a single bolt of lightning missed. Almost every strike landed precisely on a zombie.
No matter how fast the zombies were, none could escape his attacks.
The problem was that there were simply too many mutated zombies here.
They were packed together so densely that it looked as though every mutated zombie in the entire city had gathered here.
But their abilities weren’t limitless.
The group fought while retreating, only to discover even more mutated zombies appearing behind them.
They were almost completely surrounded.
If Jiang Ran weren’t here, Lin Buyu could guarantee that every single one of them would die.
There were simply too many mutated zombies.
“What do we do? We can’t get out!” After taking down a mutated zombie that Xiao Jingcheng had immobilized, Su Ya anxiously turned toward Jiang Ran.
Nie Fei also fought while retreating, gradually moving closer to Jiang Ran.
Jiang Ran was the backbone of their group.
Lin Buyu also looked up at him.
Facing so many mutated zombies, would he be afraid?
Oh, she was overthinking it.
He was so calm that it was as though he had never taken these zombies seriously in the first place. With every casual wave of his hand, several mutated zombies fell to the ground.
Looking at the corpses scattered across the floor, Lin Buyu’s eyes practically glowed green.
Crystal cores!
So many crystal cores!
The crystal cores inside these zombies’ heads had to be incredibly nourishing.
Just when she thought she could comfortably lean against Jiang Ran and watch him carry his teammates to safety, she suddenly felt a vibration in his chest.
Confused, she turned her head toward him.
Jiang Ran’s right hand was open, his fingers flexing slightly.
Then, all five fingers suddenly clenched into a fist.
What was going on?
“Retreat!”
He shouted loudly.
All the lightning in his body gathered into his hand before he unleashed it toward the zombies behind them.
The massive burst of lightning sent the zombies flying and forcibly blasted open a path through the horde.