Where on earth did they go?
The viral rain fell harder and harder, its steady patter gradually drowning out Lin Buyu’s vision and hearing.
Her bright white tracksuit was soaked through, clinging to her as she wove through the hordes of wandering zombies completely alone.
Nearly half the base had already fallen.
Where could Jiang Ran and the others possibly be hiding?
Lin Buyu was growing anxious. With the plot continuously shifting in real time, she genuinely feared that before she could reform Jiang Ran, he would turn into a zombie and obliterate the world himself.
At this point, she had no choice but to rely on the system.
“Do you know where Jiang Ran is?”
The system had bound itself to Lin Buyu precisely to alter Jiang Ran’s fate and save this world from total collapse. Naturally, it tracked his location with absolute accuracy.
“He’s in the basement of the base’s central administration building.”
The central administration building?
Unless she was mistaken, that was the exact place where Jiang Ran had attended his meeting earlier.
Not daring to waste a single second, Lin Buyu sprinted straight toward the location.
Meanwhile, inside the central building’s basement.
“Fuck! Is this godforsaken world ever going to give us a damn break?!”
Nie Fei, usually so lighthearted and quick with a joke, couldn’t stop himself from spitting out a harsh curse.
Just moments ago, while they were locked in combat with the base’s power-users, a sudden wave of rolling thunder had cracked across the sky.
Jiang Ran was the first to sense something wrong, urging them to break off and retreat immediately.
Given the unpredictable nature of the apocalypse, the group refrained from lingering. After putting down a few power-users who tried to press the advantage, they fell back alongside Jiang Ran without delay.
The moment they reached the building to take shelter from the downpour, terrifying shrieks and guttural snarls echoed from the distance.
Everyone caught in the rain had transformed into zombies instantly.
What was even more horrifying was that the very second the rain began to fall, every single one of them lost their special abilities.
It was as if they had been cast back to the earliest days of the outbreak—utterly helpless and powerless.
Nie Fei paced with restless fury, Su Ya trembled involuntarily, and even Xiao Jingcheng had lost his usual composure, sitting slumped in a dark corner in total defeat.
Stripped of their abilities, they had been relegated to the weakest link in this brutal, dog-eat-dog world.
Having survived a full year of the apocalypse, every single one of them knew all too well what a living nightmare life was for those without powers.
Jiang Ran leaned his head back against the cold stone wall, his dark eyes shadowed with an ominous, terrifying intensity, filled with sheer violent impulse.
Lin Buyu must have turned into a zombie by now too, right?
She had chased after those fleeing zombies in a direction with zero overhead cover.
Su Ya suddenly burst into quiet tears, her muffled sobs catching Jiang Ran’s attention.
He turned his head toward her. She was huddled on the floor, her arms wrapped tightly around her knees, shivering uncontrollably.
He remembered Su Ya mentioning once that before her powers awakened, she had nearly become a plaything for a gang of marauders.
She had only barely escaped that fate because her abilities manifested just in time.
Now, completely unable to feel a shred of her special powers, she was undoubtedly consumed by sheer terror.
And what about Lin Buyu?
He had known all along that her physical capabilities were extraordinary—her claim of having no special powers had been a lie from the start.
She had been so fearless before simply because she had her abilities to rely on.
Now that her powers were suddenly gone, was she cowering somewhere in fear—or had she been turned into a zombie by the viral rain before she even had the chance to feel afraid?
His fist slammed hard into the wall. Standing up abruptly, he strode toward the basement exit.
The second he moved, Xiao Jingcheng stepped up to block his path.
“Brother Ran, you can’t go out there looking for Lin Buyu!”
Jiang Ran raised his gaze, his eyes entirely devoid of warmth. “Move. Don’t force my hand.”
“Even if you beat me to death, I’m not stepping aside!” Xiao Jingcheng nudged his black-framed glasses up his nose, forcing his voice to stay as calm as possible. “Lin Buyu isn’t the type of person who relies solely on special powers to survive in this world. If she managed to stay out of the rain, someone with her skills could easily clear out those zombies. But if she did get caught in the rain…”
He left the rest of the sentence unspoken, but everyone understood his meaning perfectly. Nie Fei and Su Ya both turned their faces away, unable to bear the thought.
Of course, Jiang Ran understood everything Xiao Jingcheng was implying better than anyone else.
He stared fixedly at Xiao Jingcheng, his throat working swallow after swallow. A long moment passed before he finally uttered a single sentence:
“I’ll take care of her myself—if she’s turned into a zombie.”
That girl who constantly spewed cheesy pickup lines and spoke far sweeter than she acted was not only vain about her appearance, but meticulous about staying clean.
If she really had transformed into one of those monsters, she would undoubtedly prefer to be put out of her misery by someone she knew.
If she hadn’t turned, so much the better. With her beside him, they would have that much more strength on their side.
Besides, back at the hospital, she had essentially saved his life.
There was no reason to leave a debt unpaid.
He looked at Xiao Jingcheng with dead calm. “Move.”
Xiao Jingcheng hesitated, but meeting the unyielding resolve in Jiang Ran’s eyes, he ultimately yielded.
He stepped back behind Jiang Ran, allowing him to pass.
Just then, a sudden, sharp pounding echoed through the quiet basement.
BANG! BANG!
Su Ya and Nie Fei scrambled to their feet from the floor. Xiao Jingcheng shielded Su Ya behind his back, picking up an iron pipe lying nearby.
Nie Fei rushed forward, stepping up side-by-side with Jiang Ran. “Brother Ran, there are zombies out there!”
Jiang Ran unzipped his jacket with one hand and drew a short blade from inside his coat.
With Xiao Jingcheng and Nie Fei poised for combat, Su Ya stayed hidden behind them, reaching out to pull open the door handle.
The moment the latch clicked open, the blade in Jiang Ran’s hand thrust forward with lightning speed.
Before coming down to the basement, Lin Buyu had imagined plenty of reunion scenarios, but being ambushed the fraction of a second the door opened wasn’t one of them.
She almost thought she had stumbled into the wrong room.
Her right arm whipped up instantly to deflect the strike, her fingers twisting around his hand in a flash. She delivered a sharp palm-strike directly to his wrist, forcing his grip on the dagger to give way.
Just as Lin Buyu was about to pin her attacker, the owner of that hand grabbed her by the arm and yanked her forcefully inside.
CLICK.
The basement light flickered on. Lin Buyu squeezed her eyes shut on instinct before opening them again, meeting Jiang Ran’s dark, smoldering eyes.
“It’s you guys?” She gasped in surprise. “I thought your disgusting father was hiding in here!”
After all, who else goes straight for the kill the second the door opens?
Su Ya had already slammed the basement door shut, leaving the group staring at Lin Buyu in absolute shock.
“You’re fine?!” After her initial shock, Su Ya let out a joyous sigh. “Oh, thank goodness!”
Nie Fei and Xiao Jingcheng both let out a collective breath of relief as well.
Still, she had chased those zombies so far into the open—had she somehow managed to avoid the rain entirely?
Jiang Ran’s eyes swept over her inch by inch.
Her white tracksuit was completely spotless, without a single water stain; even the strands of her hair were entirely dry.
She was unharmed.
Before entering the central building, Lin Buyu’s clothes had actually been soaked through.
Yet her body had rapidly absorbed the viral rainwater like a massive, insatiable vessel, drinking in every drop of the contaminated water until nothing remained.
“What happened to those zombies?” Jiang Ran asked, his voice softening several degrees, losing the tense edge it had held before going out to look for her.
Lin Buyu replied nonchalantly, “Oh, I killed them.”
“You killed all of them?!” Nie Fei and Su Ya gasped in disbelief once again. Those were three ultra-high-tier zombies!
Lin Buyu nodded. “Even though they were classified as ultra-high-tier, their actual combat abilities were clearly nowhere near that level.”
“They were artificially modified high-tier zombies,” Jiang Ran added, finishing her thought.
Seeing that everyone was safe and back together lifted a heavy weight off their chests.
Xiao Jingcheng smiled faintly. “It’s a good thing you’re alright. Otherwise, Brother Ran here would have worried himself to death.”