No way in hell. She wanted to remain a pure and blameless flirt, thank you very much.
Jiang Ran had originally just intended to kick her out so he could handle the surge of heat with a cold shower. But seeing the panicked look flitting through her eyes, a wicked impulse suddenly took hold of him.
Leaning low, his lips brushed against her ear as he rasped in a low, husky voice: “Didn’t you say you were hopelessly in love with me? That you’d give me whatever I wanted? Right now… I want you.”
He deliberately cut himself off right there, leaving the rest entirely to her imagination.
Lin Buyu was genuinely panicking. Though she was certain the main villain lacked genuine feelings and wouldn’t actually do anything to her under normal circumstances, that applied to the sane main villain. This was a drugged main villain.
What was she supposed to do now?
She had already spewed so much trash talk; backtracking now would be completely embarrassing, wouldn’t it?
Better call the System for help.
Right, exactly that. The second he tried to get physical, she’d have the System knock him out and grant him a wonderful, erotic dream instead.
“Sure… sounds great…” Her smile was stiffer than a board as she reached out with soapy, foam-covered arms to loop around his slender neck. Even at a time like this, her sharp tongue couldn’t resist dropping another cheesy line: “Then please be gentle with me, Group Leader~”
Her reaction completely caught Jiang Ran off guard.
Every single thing she did somehow managed to defy his expectations.
Jiang Ran froze for a beat before ultimately being the first to yield. Reaching out, he grabbed her slippery, smooth arms, pressed her back down into the wooden tub, and turned his back on her: “Get your clothes on and get out. I need a shower.”
This trace of drug was something he could still endure.
It hadn’t reached a point where he’d actually cross that line with her.
When surprise salvation suddenly landed in her lap, Lin Buyu let out a tiny cheer: “Oh-ho!”
Eagerly scrambling out of the tub, she snatched a bath towel and wrapped herself up as fast as humanly possible.
If not now, when else was she supposed to run?
As she fled past his side, she didn’t even bother looking back once.
The bathroom door slammed shut behind her with a resounding crash.
It was abundantly clear how desperate she was to escape.
For a rare moment, Jiang Ran felt a wave of dark amusement. At least she had enough wits about her to stop making trouble.
Before even rinsing the remaining foam off her skin, Lin Buyu dived straight onto the bed, wrapping herself up in the blanket so tightly she could barely breathe.
“Phew.” She violently flipped the cover off her face.
Inside the bathroom, Jiang Ran kept the cold water running. She had no idea how long he stayed under it, but even with her eyes shut, the rushing sound of water roared continuously in her ears.
Before she knew it, heavy fatigue weighed down her eyelids, forcing them closed.
Since when do I still get sleepy enough to dream of sleeping?
That was the very last thought in her mind before her consciousness slipped away.
It felt as though a vast stretch of time had passed.
So long that the System finally popped up to call out to her.
“Host, it’s time to wake up. If you don’t wake up now, you’re going to raise serious suspicion.”
“Huh?” Lin Buyu looked around her mindscape. “What did I do?”
“You’re currently in a dream state. You consumed too many zombie cores earlier, and a core is now condensing inside your brain. But you’ve been asleep for a day and a night. If you don’t wake up and suppress it, the moment your zombie core fully forms, it will trigger a terrifying zombie wave.”
A zombie wave?!
Lin Buyu snapped awake in a single second. The moment her eyes fluttered open, they collided directly with a magnified, handsome face.
Instinctively, her hand lashed out to strike, but realizing it was Jiang Ran, she hastily altered her movement. Her arm took a wide arc, reaching out to loop around his neck instead.
Sweet talk poured effortlessly from her lips while her eyes shimmered like silk: “It’s so wonderful to see you the second I wake up, Group Leader. Want to do it? Group Leader?”
Jiang Ran pressed his lips together in a thin line. “Looks like you’re fine.”
Pulling her arms down, Jiang Ran turned around to address the group of healing-type esper users standing behind him: “You can all head back now.”
Huh?
Who were they telling to head back?
Lin Buyu slowly turned her head, only to spot a neat line of women in crisp white lab coats standing across the room.
To make matters worse, she also caught sight of Su Ya looking deeply concerned, Xiao Jingcheng wearing a knowing, scheming smirk, and Nie Fei struggling valantly to smother his own face with both hands, bursting with gossip.
Lin Buyu: “…”
This loose tongue of hers!
Constantly spewing shameless lines without even bothering to check who was around first.
The healing-type esper users filed out of Jiang Ran’s room in an orderly line.
Su Ya giggled: “Hee-hee, I’ll be taking my leave too!”
Xiao Jingcheng narrowed his eyes with a sly look on his face: “I won’t disturb the Group Leader any longer, either.”
Nie Fei scrambled to catch up: “Wait for me!”
Fortunately, Lin Buyu was thick-skinned enough that once everyone cleared out, the awkwardness vanished into thin air.
Just as she was about to sit up and get dressed, Nie Fei—who had already stepped outside—suddenly pivoted back. He slammed the door open and yelled at Jiang Ran: “Ran-ge, bad news! There’s a massive swarm of zombies gathering right outside the base!”
Zombies?
Jiang Ran knitted his brows, striding out rapidly right behind Nie Fei.
Lin Buyu tossed her clothes on as fast as humanly possible, asking the System what on earth was going on while pulling up her pants.
“The zombies in this world originally came from a viral infection brought by a meteorite strike,” the System explained. “When the meteorite landed, your current body was struck directly by it. Yet, for reasons unknown, you were left entirely unharmed—your body wasn’t crushed, and you ended up absorbing the vast majority of the virus contained within that stone.”
Which meant she possessed absolute authority and irresistible appeal over the zombie hordes.
However, because her original core had been stolen, her mental energy was depleted, rendering her unable to command such vast numbers.
Now, though, a new core was beginning to condense inside her.
Tiny as it was, its sheer presence was drawing zombies like moths to a flame.
Virtually every single zombie within the immediate vicinity was frantically swarming toward her location.
Lin Buyu pressed a hand against her throbbing temple: “Can I control all of them right now?”
“You can,” the System replied. “The ones drawn here by your natural aura are all low-level creatures whose ranks fall below yours—just the most ordinary, mindless zombies. But there are vast numbers of them, and zombies never tire. While the esper users here can handle them in battle, a large portion of the population will likely end up injured or infected.”
Damn it. That meant she was the sole reason this zombie wave was happening.
If a single innocent person got hurt because of this, her conscience would never let it slide.
Lin Buyu dared not delay. Throwing on her clothes, she leaped nimbly right out of the window.
Whoops—forgot this was the third floor.
Clatter!
A hard crash onto the pavement.
Both of Lin Buyu’s legs snapped at the ankles—her bones were far too brittle. Oddly enough, it didn’t hurt in the slightest.
Just as she was about to ask the System to pop her bones back into place, she felt the shattered bone fragments magically knitting themselves back together on their own.
Miraculous.
So this was the power of a zombie core?
Lin Buyu scrambled to her feet and sprinted forward, shedding tears of joy as she ran. How deeply moving!
If she possessed this level of rapid healing back in the real world, she wouldn’t have to worry about dying on a mission and leaving her younger brother with no one to care for him.
Jiang Ran’s quarters sat a considerable distance from the base’s outer perimeter.
It took Lin Buyu a full seven or eight minutes of flat-out sprinting to finally reach the vicinity of the high perimeter walls.
Countless esper users hovered or leaped into the air above, unleashing a barrage of attacks on the zombies desperately trying to scale the walls.
Yet the creatures were relentless—for every wave that fell, another surged forward to climb over their corpses.
They were frenzied, twisted, and desperate, as though hungering for something beyond reach.
Inside the fortress, ordinary citizens cowered in terror, panic spreading like wildfire through the crowd.
Even many guards stationed along the wall were fleeing backward in absolute fright, terrified of being wounded and turned into monsters themselves.
Up in the midair, Nie Fei hurled a blazing fireball at a zombie that had nearly breached the defensive wall, then wiped a streak of sweat from his forehead before it could sting his eyes.
“Ran-ge, what do we do?! These zombies might be low-level, but there are way too many of them, and more are rushing in from outside! If this drags on, our energy is going to be completely tapped out!”
Jiang Ran’s eyes were cold and indifferent as he casually unleashed several arcs of lightning. “If your powers run dry, use blades to hack them down.”
Before he had ever awakened his abilities, that was precisely how he had survived—carving a bloody path straight through the throngs of the undead.
Xiao Jingcheng drifted closer to Jiang Ran in midair, his eyes burning with intense fatigue from overusing his petrifying gaze.
“We’re so far from any cities or major towns—how could so many zombies suddenly converge here?”
Jiang Ran swept an icy gaze across the carnage sprawling beyond the outer walls. “When something strays from the norm, there’s always a reason. Either they’re being manipulated by a spiritual-type zombie to launch an attack, or there’s something here pulling them in.”
He leaned strongly toward the second possibility.
Yet what kind of thing could possibly possess such irresistible allure?
Judging by their frantic state, these creatures had clearly traveled from vast distances.
By now, virtually every esper user in the base had been deployed to the frontlines.
Lin Buyu stood directly below where Jiang Ran, Nie Fei, and the others hovered.
Whether it was just her imagination or not, she could feel a heavy, overwhelming surge of murderous intent radiating from Jiang Ran.
His energy felt almost on the brink of going wild.
Wherever his lightning struck, the zombies were blasted into such fine dust that not a trace of their bodies remained.
Only after confirming with the System that controlling the horde wouldn’t expose her identity did Lin Buyu attempt to issue a silent command in her mind:
Go back. Leave this place, and stay far away.
It was her very first time attempting to command such a massive horde.
She had expected it to be excruciatingly difficult, but it proved to be anything but.
The moment her order went out, she felt the tide of zombies frantically surging toward the fortress falter for a fraction of a second.
Then, a bizarre phenomenon unfolded.
The zombies that had been violently trying to scale the ramparts suddenly froze mid-motion. The ferocious expressions vanished from their faces, replaced by hollow confusion as they turned around and began shuffling aimlessly in the opposite direction.
If a single zombie had done this, no one would have given it a second thought.
To see the entire horde retreat in unison left the espers of Yulan Base completely stunned.
Yet once the initial shock passed, an uncontrollable wave of dread washed over them.
It seemed this horde hadn’t gathered by chance—it had been deliberately commanded.
And what did that imply?
It meant these mindless monsters were gradually mutating, evolving to the point where they could actually think.
This was like a preliminary test by the zombies against humanity.
Perhaps they had already crowned a leader of their own.
Just like the human bases had leaders.
Mindless zombies—no matter how terrifying—would never drive humanity to absolute despair. But if they possessed intelligence, mankind’s plight would become infinitely more perilous.
Zombies only lost their combat capacity when their heads were completely destroyed, whereas a human needed only a light scratch to join their ranks.
If the undead planned a concerted war of extermination against humanity, every battle would bleed human numbers while bolstering the zombie horde.
For the time being, though, as the horde finally receded and the crisis vanished as abruptly as it had begun, relief overwhelmed everyone on the wall.
The other espers stood down one by one.
Only Jiang Ran continued his relentless slaughter, his lightning raining down in a furious barrage on the retreating horde as if his energy reserves were endless.
His chiseled face remained entirely devoid of emotion, mask-like save for the invisible, lethal intent radiating from him.
Lin Buyu clicked her tongue at the sight.
Tsk. Looks like the novel didn’t lie—Jiang Ran, the ultimate villain, harbored a deep, bone-deep hatred for zombies.
She had to make absolutely sure he never discovered her true identity as a zombie.
Quickly, she lowered her head.
Only then did Nie Fei spot Lin Buyu down below. Reining in his power, he dropped down from the sky to land beside her.
“Buyu, why did you come over here?”
“Heh… I, well, I came to check on things. I was worried Jiang Ran might get hurt.”
Her soft, airy words were carried by the breeze right into Jiang Ran’s ears.
In the man’s eyes—cold as glacial ice—a faint ripple stirred, softened by the wind.
He looked down at Lin Buyu standing below.