No one enjoys being thrown out as bait.
Yet Lin Buyu made it look as though being used as a live lure didn’t bother her in the slightest.
She might look like a fragile little princess on the outside, but her mindset was surprisingly resilient.
Watching her tilt her head up in an unmistakable “praise me!” posture, Su Ya couldn’t help but sigh. As a fellow woman, she was convinced Lin Buyu was hopelessly struck with love-brain.
Honestly, she couldn’t think of any other explanation.
Jiang Ran looked down at her, his dark eyes taking in the glowing smile on her face.
When she smiled, her eyes curved into soft crescents, flashing a glimpse of neat white teeth—she looked breathtakingly sweet and utterly innocent.
“So thrilled about being thrown out as bait… Should I say you’ve got heart, or no heart at all?” he murmured, his gaze meeting hers.
“I have a heart, of course!” Lin Buyu formed a heart shape with both hands, tossing out cheesy romance novel lines with effortless practice: “A heart full of love for you! Like I said, whatever you want, I’ll give it to you—including my life.”
Be moved, young man! Before you stand the deity of universal love herself!
Look at that self-sacrificing devotion—dramatic, right?
“Your life?” Jiang Ran reached out, placing his palm flat against her face, and shoved her away. “Stop offering useless garbage. What would I even do with your life?”
“Hey, don’t speak too soon! We’re in the middle of an apocalypse, you know—a human life can be very useful! I can act as your decoy to scout out danger. If this place turns out to be crawling with mutated zombies, you can just throw me out like you did before to see if any pop up. Wouldn’t that make it super easy to figure out if it’s safe?”
Her sweet, honeyed words sounded as though she had fallen head over heels for Jiang Ran to the point of no return.
Nie Fei rubbed his arms, unable to suppress a shudder. He had to admit, the sweetness was sickeningly over-the-top.
Xiao Jingcheng adjusted his glasses with one hand, quietly deciding he’d never truly understand the inner workings of a clingy vine like her.
Perhaps her true reason for joining Yulan Base wasn’t to assassinate their leader or steal top-secret intel after all—maybe she was just set on conquering Yulan’s strongest power-user: Jiang Ran.
A pity, really. Ran-ge was an unfeeling zombie-killing machine.
If there was anything in this world capable of evoking a real emotion from him, it was zombies—and he hated them with a passion.
Up ahead lay the hospital pharmacy, where they needed to gather medical supplies.
Lin Buyu hovered right by Jiang Ran’s side while Xiao Jingcheng took point, with Su Ya and Nie Fei bringing up the rear.
In the empty, cavernous hospital, every step they took echoed down the deserted halls.
Unlike the tense atmosphere surrounding the others, Lin Buyu casually glanced left and right, looking thoroughly relaxed.
Strong as her companions were, a year into the apocalypse meant mutations had affected more than just humans; the zombies had evolved too.
Encountering mutated, power-wielding zombies was a life-or-death situation for anyone.
A zombie only needed to scratch a person’s skin to infect them, whereas the humans had to land a precise, lethal blow to win.
Naturally, both Xiao Jingcheng at the front and Nie Fei and Su Ya at the back scanned their surroundings with utmost vigilance.
Jiang Ran stole a glance at Lin Buyu beside him. Though she was also looking around, her demeanor was more akin to a tourist on a stroll.
He couldn’t tell if she was hiding immense strength that gave her complete confidence, or if she was simply ignorant, foolish, and slow-witted.
He leaned toward the former.
Passing through the corridor, a long row of pharmacy rooms came into view. Through the glass windows, rows of metal medicine shelves were clearly visible.
Lin Buyu clung to Jiang Ran’s arm. But as Xiao Jingcheng approached the doorway, the intense pull she had sensed back in the car flared up once again—sharper and far more urgent.
There were zombies nearby. A lot of mutated zombies.
“Watch out!”
Lin Buyu suddenly shouted. Power-users like Xiao Jingcheng, who constantly teetered on the edge of life and death, possessed razor-sharp instincts for danger.
Almost the instant the words left her mouth, Xiao Jingcheng pushed off the ground, hurling his body backward through the air.
At that exact second, the pharmacy doors blew outward in a violent burst of flame as a horde of blindingly fast, green-skinned zombies surged through the opening.
Like a pack of hungry panthers lying in ambush for their prey, they charged forward with terrifying speed and ferocity.
The rest of the squad reacted in the blink of an eye.
Nie Fei hurled a crackling fireball right past Jiang Ran, sending it flying toward the pharmacy doorway where it erupted into a roaring wall of fire.
As Xiao Jingcheng tumbled back beside her, Su Ya transformed her forearm into solid metal and slammed a heavy fist into the corridor floor. The ground buckled and shattered, sending jagged chunks of stone flying like shrapnel directly into the oncoming horde.
Jiang Ran threw an arm around Lin Buyu’s waist, sweeping her backward in midair while his free hand crackled with vivid purple lightning.
With a light flick of his wrist, dozens of jagged purple lightning bolts rained down from above.
The sizzling arcs hit the zombies with a deafening crackle, filling the air with the sickening stench of scorched flesh, swirling concrete dust, and the foul, metallic reek of blood.
The brutal battlefield instantly turned into a bloody, high-stakes standoff.
Mutated zombies earned their name for a reason—their specialized abilities.
Even under the squad’s relentless barrage, these creatures moved at a terrifying pace, leaving afterimages as they sprinted.
Every single one was a speed-type mutant.
Worse still, they were vast in number.
Only by consuming the cores of countless ordinary zombies could they have evolved to such a horrific level.
Fending off the relentless waves of clawing monsters, Su Ya shouted through the chaos, “This is bad! There are way too many mutated zombies—Ran-ge, we need to fall back!”
Xiao Jingcheng’s ability proved crucial.
Though his Medusa’s Gaze could only petrify these high-level mutants for a few brief seconds, those precious moments bought his teammates vital breathing room.
Su Ya possessed a strength-type power, which placed her at a distinct disadvantage against swift, agile opponents.
Fortunately, Xiao Jingcheng kept her covered.
Yet no one matched Jiang Ran’s raw firepower.
Though these high-tier zombies pushed formidable fighters like Nie Fei and Su Ya to their absolute limits, Jiang Ran operated on an entirely different level.
With a casual sweep of his arm, not a single bolt of lightning missed its mark, striking the creatures with terrifying precision.
No matter how fast the zombies darted, none could outrun his lightning.
Still, the sheer volume of mutants was overwhelming.
They swarmed in dense, suffocating numbers, as though every mutated zombie in the entire city had converged on this single hallway.
And human energy reserves were far from infinite.
Fighting a desperate retreat, the team suddenly discovered another wave of mutated zombies blocking their exit behind them.
They were completely surrounded.
Lin Buyu knew for a fact that without Jiang Ran, every single one of them would be dead meat right now.
There were simply too many.
“What do we do?! We’re trapped!” Su Ya cried out anxiously, turning to look back at Jiang Ran after crushing a zombie that Xiao Jingcheng had frozen in place.
Nie Fei also retreated toward Jiang Ran while holding off the horde. Jiang Ran was the backbone of this team—their absolute pillar of support.
Lin Buyu tilted her head up to look at Jiang Ran. Facing this many mutated zombies… is he afraid?
Ah, never mind—she was overthinking it. He was as cool as a cucumber, as if these lethal monsters were nothing more than minor nuisances. With a simple wave of his hand, several mutated zombies collapsed into lifeless heaps.
Staring at the pile of fallen corpses, Lin Buyu’s eyes practically glowed green.
Cores! So many energy cores!
The cores inside those heads must be insanely nourishing.
Just as she was ready to relax against Jiang Ran’s chest and watch him carry the team to victory, she felt a sudden, sharp tremor inside his torso.
Confused, she turned her head to look at him.
Jiang Ran’s outstretched right hand twitched, his fingers suddenly clenching into a tight, strained fist.
What’s happening?
“Retreat!” he roared. Gathering every ounce of lightning left in his body, he unleashed a massive surge straight behind them, blasting a bloody path through the dense wave of zombies blocking their exit.