He suddenly lowered himself, leaning close to her. His fingers slowly brushed across her eyelids.
“The person who killed the zombie back then was right beside you. My little bedmate must have been terrified, huh?”
Fuck.
“Hehe… What a coincidence, what a coincidence. I just wanted to see if I could actually pull it off. I didn’t expect it to work. Huh? Looks like Lady Luck was on my side—I got it right on the first try.”
He had already spelled it out this clearly. If she continued pretending to be clueless, she would basically be treating him like an idiot. So Lin Buyu simply admitted it.
Judging from his reaction, he didn’t seem to care who she had attacked. So while admitting the truth, Lin Buyu continued to make up excuses.
As long as he didn’t suspect that she was a zombie, everything would be fine.
Sure enough, he didn’t care.
“Next time, make sure you clean up properly. Don’t leave any clues behind. I don’t want to get involved in those stupid affairs at the Lan Base.”
Lin Buyu nodded vigorously.
Of course she wanted to clean everything up properly. The problem was that those people had shown up almost immediately, leaving her no chance to deal with the evidence.
“Gao Changsheng wasn’t killed by you, was he?” he suddenly asked.
“Of course not!”
This time, Lin Buyu was being completely honest.
After all, he had been bitten to death by a zombie. It was just that the zombie had been under her control.
He looked into her eyes.
This time, she wasn’t lying.
Jiang Ran suddenly found the conversation boring. He turned over and lay down on the other side of the bed, warning her, “Don’t touch me while you’re asleep.”
Lin Buyu obediently nodded, while internally complaining like crazy.
Who would even want to touch you?
What a weirdo. He’s practically a pervert!
She certainly didn’t have any kind of fetish for monsters.
The next morning, when she opened her eyes, she deliberately checked where she had slept.
Good.
The boundary between them had remained perfectly clear.
Jiang Ran hadn’t touched her.
Among the thirteen elite groups at Lan Base, abilities were ranked starting from Group A.
The members of Group A possessed the strongest abilities, with the rankings descending from there.
The leader of Group B was also an extremely talented ability user, and his strength was in no way inferior to those in Group A.
However, he had always been stuck beneath Group A, which made him resent everyone in that group.
One of his newly recruited subordinates had died, and Jiang Ran’s bedmate happened to be right there at the scene.
Jiang Ran was famously cold-hearted and indifferent at the base. He was the kind of person who could watch one of his own team members die right in front of him without even batting an eye.
This was the first time he had brought someone back to the base.
And the first time he had ever had a bedmate.
The Group B leader’s imagination ran wild.
He assumed that Lin Buyu must be Jiang Ran’s lover.
So even if Lin Buyu had nothing to do with the incident, the Group B leader still wanted to pin the blame on her.
Early that morning, he sent someone to the villa to bring her in.
Coincidentally, none of Group A’s members had gone out on a mission that day. They were all sitting in the first-floor hall eating.
Although food and clothing were difficult to come by for many people in the apocalypse, members of Group A—the strongest combat force in the entire base—didn’t have to worry about going hungry.
In fact, their living conditions could even be considered comfortable.
The four of them were eating freshly cooked beef noodles when one of the members of Group B arrived.
“Team Leader Jiang, may I ask if Miss Lin Buyu is here?”
Nie Fei, Suya, and Xiao Jingcheng were completely dumbfounded.
The three exchanged glances.
What the hell is going on?
Then they looked at Jiang Ran.
He continued eating slowly and calmly, as though he hadn’t heard anything at all.
Lin Buyu happened to be coming downstairs.
The man looked up at her. A flash of amazement crossed his eyes before he quickly suppressed it.
“Last night, our Group B ability user, Gao Changsheng, died unexpectedly. Miss Lin Buyu was the only person present at the time, so we suspect that his death may have something to do with you. We would appreciate it if you could come with us for an investigation.”
His tone sounded extremely polite.
But what exactly was he implying?
They want to frame me?
Well… technically, she had actually done it.
Lin Buyu pursed her lips and walked down the stairs.
“Didn’t I already tell the patrol officers yesterday? I wasn’t the only person there. There were two others—the man was called Xu Laosan, and the woman was his younger sister. They can testify that the ability user was bitten to death by a zombie that he himself brought in.”
“We investigated. There is no one named Xu Laosan in the base,” the man replied.
Of course, Lin Buyu knew his name wasn’t Xu Laosan.
His actual name was Xu San.
But Gao Changsheng had called him Xu Laosan at the time. Since Lin Buyu was supposed to be a stranger who didn’t know these people, she couldn’t simply say that his name was Xu San.
She could only use the information Gao Changsheng had provided.
Hearing how rigidly the man insisted on this, she said, “Maybe Xu Laosan was just an alias. Perhaps his name is Xu San or something else. Did you actually check whether there was anyone whose name matched that description?”
The Group B member fell silent.
Of course they had found someone named Xu San.
They had already investigated him.
And sure enough, Gao Changsheng had been the one who brought the zombie into the base. Xu San and his sister had already confirmed it.
But their group leader wanted to hold Group A responsible and cause trouble for them. Naturally, they weren’t going to reveal that information.
Lin Buyu was the captain of a special forces unit in her previous life. Reading people’s expressions was one of her strengths.
From the slightest change in the man’s expression, she immediately knew he was lying.
They had already found Xu San and his sister.
So now they were deliberately making trouble for her.
Was their real goal to cover up Gao Changsheng’s responsibility for bringing a zombie into the base?
After all, bringing zombies into the base was strictly prohibited.
If the investigation uncovered the truth, the leader of Group B would also have to take responsibility.
“The death of an ability user is a serious matter for the base. Please come with us,” the Group B member said, deliberately avoiding her question.
At this point, there was nothing Lin Buyu didn’t understand.
She was utterly disgusted.
Since they had already found Xu San and his sister, they obviously knew what Gao Changsheng had done.
Yet they still wanted to turn around and blame her.
How utterly disgusting.
So she smiled without warmth and said, “I’ll go with you, but first, I need to find Xu Laosan and his sister. Since you weren’t capable of finding them, then take me to them. I know what they look like. You may not be capable of finding them, but my eyes work just fine.”
With one sentence, she insulted everyone in Group B.
Nie Fei and Suya nearly burst out laughing.
The Group B member’s face flushed with embarrassment.
Xiao Jingcheng glanced at Jiang Ran, silently asking whether he wanted to intervene.
Jiang Ran continued drinking his water indifferently.
His attitude couldn’t have been clearer.
He wasn’t interested in getting involved.
That made sense. Brother Ran hated troublesome matters more than anything.
The Group B member was also very good at reading people’s expressions.
Seeing that Jiang Ran wasn’t going to interfere, he assumed that this woman was nothing more than a dispensable tool for Jiang Ran to satisfy his physical desires.
His courage grew.
He smiled mockingly at Lin Buyu.
“Even if we take you to them, what makes you think they’ll be able to prove anything for you?”
Lin Buyu answered matter-of-factly, “Of course they can prove it. Not only can they prove that the zombie was brought in by that ability user, they can also prove that he was bitten to death by the zombie and had nothing to do with me. More importantly, they can testify to all the disgusting things he did to innocent civilians before he was killed. If we find them, I can not only clear my name, but also prove that Group B failed to discipline its members and allowed one of its subordinates to bully innocent people. He deserved to be bitten to death.”
The moment Lin Buyu finished speaking, not only did the Group B member’s expression change, but even the members of Group A found her ridiculous.
Those were ideas from the world before the apocalypse.
In the current world, strength was the only law.
Gao Changsheng was an ability user, while those two were ordinary people with no abilities.
Even if he had killed them, no one would have sought justice for them.
So the Group B member laughed.
“Someone without an ability? You think they’re entitled to demand justice from an ability user? If an ability user wants them dead, then they die. If an ability user wants their bodies, they should obediently offer themselves up. Resisting is the greatest disrespect they could show. Just like you, Miss Lin. No matter how beautiful you are, you’re nothing more than a man’s plaything.”
Lin Buyu admitted that he had angered her.
Her usually soft and gentle eyes suddenly flashed with icy light.
She had always been someone who acted according to her own whims.
She was willing to tolerate Jiang Ran because he was overwhelmingly powerful and, for the time being, had never humiliated her.
But when faced with someone like this, she had no intention of holding back.
Her right hand swept toward the side and casually snapped off a tree branch.
In the blink of an eye, she shot forward at terrifying speed, passing straight by the man.
He only felt a powerful gust of wind rush toward him.
The next second, blood sprayed from his neck.
Lin Buyu had already appeared behind him.
With one hand clamped tightly over his bleeding neck, she leaned close to his ear and said coldly,
“In my eyes, you’re nothing more than a toy that I can play with whenever I want. It’s just that you’re too filthy for me to bother.”
Lin Buyu’s current body belonged to a Zombie King.
Although she had lost her crystal core and could no longer use her supernatural abilities, her physical capabilities remained the strongest among all mutated zombies.
When she unleashed her speed, no one could match her.
She had merely been trying not to attract attention before.
But now that Jiang Ran already suspected that she had killed Gao Changsheng and hadn’t exposed her, that meant he simply didn’t care about such things.
As long as Jiang Ran didn’t care, why should she keep hiding?
So what if they were ability users?
Unless they were someone as monstrous as Jiang Ran, she had nothing to fear.
Her body’s energy couldn’t support too many explosive bursts of speed.
But one was enough.
The sudden turn of events left Suya and Nie Fei staring in shock.
That was fast!
So she really wasn’t some delicate little flower.
Xiao Jingcheng, meanwhile, had a trace of amusement in his eyes.
Well, this is getting interesting.
“Hel—help!”
The man tried to activate his ability and attack Lin Buyu.
But just as he was about to use it, lightning suddenly wrapped around him.
It was Jiang Ran.
His eyes widened in terror.
Lin Buyu also glanced at Jiang Ran.
Jiang Ran had his back turned toward them, but his lightning had already forcibly extracted the crystal core from the Group B member’s head.
Humans were different from zombies.
A zombie would die the moment its crystal core was removed and could never move again.
A human who lost their crystal core would merely lose their supernatural ability.
Lin Buyu was a little surprised when she saw this.
And, to some extent, relieved.
Thank goodness the big villain isn’t completely heartless yet.
She kept one hand over the man’s neck and shoved him to the ground.
Meeting his terrified gaze, she said coldly, “So you do know what fear feels like.”
“I didn’t cut your throat completely. Go find your base’s healer. You might still be saved.”
She knew that Lan Base had a wood-type healer capable of healing almost any wound.
The only condition was that the person couldn’t already be dead.
Hearing this, the man didn’t hesitate.
Clutching his bleeding neck, he scrambled away on his hands and knees, fleeing as if a ghost were chasing him.
Lin Buyu disgustedly went to wash her hands.
When she returned, she found another bowl of noodles waiting on the dining table.
She sat down and asked Jiang Ran, “Is this mine?”
“You shouldn’t meddle in other people’s business.”
His words were ambiguous.
Lin Buyu slurped up her noodles and defended herself, “How did I meddle in other people’s business? I was only taking care of my own business.”
He lifted the teacup in front of him and gently blew on the hot steam.
“If you hadn’t meddled, Gao Changsheng wouldn’t have died. Although what that bastard said just now was unpleasant, he was telling the truth. In the apocalypse, people without abilities are worthless. Their lives aren’t worth anything. They’re simply meant to be abused. At the boundary between life and death, they’re the ones who should be sacrificed to hold back disaster.”
As he spoke, Jiang Ran’s dark eyes remained fixed on the teacup before him.
Yet there was no focus in them.
It was as though, through the cup, he was looking at a scene buried deep within his memories.
He sounded as though he were talking about someone else.
But somehow…
it also sounded as though he were talking about himself.