How could Lin Buyu possibly fail to notice the lethal intent rolling off him?
Making a deliberate effort to project absolute harmlessness, she lowered her voice into a soft, delicate plea. “I really am human… please don’t kill—”
Slash.
Without a word of warning, the dagger in Jiang Ran’s hand sliced across her arm. Crimson blood gushed immediately from the shallow cut.
Lin Buyu’s eyes went wide. Holy crap, no wonder this guy is the main villain—he’s utterly ruthless.
Clutching her bleeding arm with one hand, she stared at him with almond eyes wide open.
If she didn’t know how dangerous he was to her mission, she could have ensured he wouldn’t live to see tomorrow’s sun.
Jiang Ran flicked his eyes up to scan her face. The girl who had been weeping tears of helpless terror just a second ago was now glaring straight at him, her eyes round and ablaze with life.
In a world broken by a year of apocalyptic terror, most survivors had their spirit and vitality thoroughly crushed out of them.
This was the first time he had seen a pair of living eyes burning with such raw, unyielding energy—as if she had never experienced the starvation or constant death threats of the wasteland.
“Didn’t you say you were human? I was merely testing the theory. Since you are indeed human, my apologies.”
The amusement returned to his eyes, though the warmth never reached them.
A devil’s smile, Lin Buyu thought to herself.
Her primary task was to get close to Jiang Ran, which meant getting on his bad side was out of the question.
Swallowing her disgust, she kept her tone gentle and sweet: “I understand. Having a strange woman suddenly pop up out of nowhere would make anyone suspicious. But please believe me—my presence here was purely a coincidence.”
Her soft voice drifted past like a gentle breeze against Jiang Ran’s ear.
Watching her performance with a faint, unreadable expression, he replied, “I believe it was a coincidence. Goodbye, Miss Coincidence.”
Translation: Not my problem.
He turned on his heel, his long legs taking swift strides back toward the waiting helicopter.
Lin Buyu caught his meaning instantly. Desperate to keep him from leaving, she sprinted forward. “Hey, wait!”
The man didn’t even slow down.
Lin Buyu clicked her tongue in annoyance. That stubborn bastard really has a heart of stone.
But giving up was not in her vocabulary.
She darted ahead and threw her arms out wide, blocking his path.
Jiang Ran raised his gaze to look at her. In that single glance, Lin Buyu glimpsed a cold, total indifference in his eyes.
“Miss Coincidence, is there something else you’d like to say?”
Though his tone was laced with light amusement, he radiated a chill that sent a shudder straight to the bone.
Lin Buyu felt the urge to rub the goosebumps off her arms.
Fortunately, the system had supplied her with plenty of background information on him.
“Are you guys from the Yulan Base? I heard that the people at Yulan Base take in anyone who is homeless and without a group—all the poor, helpless survivors.”
With every word she uttered, the amusement glinting in his eyes deepened by another fraction.
When she finished speaking, he unhurriedly echoed her words: “Poor, helpless survivors?”
His tone was entirely dismissive, making it clear he didn’t take a single word she said seriously.
Lin Buyu knew her unannounced appearance here looked extraordinarily shady.
After all, just a minute ago, this square had been teeming with hundreds of flesh-eating undead.
Escaping without a single scratch was, in itself, the biggest red flag of all.
“You’ve already tested me—I’m not a high-tier zombie, I’m a normal human. As for why I’m here, it really was just a stroke of bad luck.”
She took a breath and continued her improvised story: “I used to belong to a group of like-minded survivors. One of our companions possessed an exceptionally powerful ability, and thanks to his protection, we always had food and safety on the road.”
“We came to this shopping mall today to scavenge for supplies, but we accidentally triggered a zombie surge. One of my teammates activated a spatial transfer ability to pull everyone out. But because I sprained my ankle, I couldn’t keep up, and so…”
“And so you were nearly cornered by the zombie horde—until our helicopter arrived, made a massive racket, drew the horde’s attention, and gave you the chance to slip away unharmed… is that right?”
Jiang Ran smoothly finished her narrative for her.
Anyone else in her shoes would have been rendered utterly speechless, unable to spin the lie any further.
But Lin Buyu was not anyone else. She was thick-skinned and entirely unfazed by a little sarcastic mockery.
“Benefactor, you guessed it!” She took an excited step forward and grabbed his arm, her voice brimming with theatrical enthusiasm. “So… can you take me with you to Yulan Base?”
Jiang Ran glanced down. Two small, snow-white hands rested lightly on his black sleeve.
The girl before him had an ethereal, flawless face that seemed untouched by mortal hardship, looking up at him with a gentle, beaming smile.
In this ruined post-apocalyptic world, many attractive men and women lacking survival skills had no choice but to offer their bodies as trade for protection.
Her familiar gesture seemed to send an all-too-familiar signal.
He had encountered this exact scenario countless times before.
Jiang Ran averted his gaze from her face and casually brushed her hands off his arm before striding forward with long, decisive steps.
“Keep up.”
Wait, that actually worked?
Lin Buyu’s lips stretched into a wide grin. She almost lost her composure, quickly jogging after him with a happy skip in her step.
Sitting at the controls, Nie Fei watched Jiang Ran head out solo, only to return with a stunning young girl in tow. He couldn’t help but let out a surprised, “Holy shit!”
He shot Jiang Ran a loaded look, silently asking what on earth he was playing at.
Jiang Ran caught his glance and casually offered a nonchalant explanation: “A poor, helpless girl in distress. She wants to join our base.”
Distress? Poor and helpless? Join our base?
Nie Fei thought to himself: Do you honestly expect me to buy that?
The girl took her seat in the back row. When she had walked over with Jiang Ran, Nie Fei had sized her up thoroughly.
A defenseless young girl suddenly materializing right where a minor zombie surge broke out—and emerging without a single scratch or speck of dirt?
Regardless of the excuse, a person like that had nothing to do with being “poor” or “in distress.”
Besides, they were already a whole year into the apocalypse.
What kind of “poor, helpless survivor” managed to keep their skin so soft and fair, wearing spotless clothes like they just walked out of a department store?
Tensions between the various surviving bases were constantly running high.
Hearing her claim that she wanted to join their base, Nie Fei strongly suspected she was a honeypot spy sent by a rival faction.
Jiang Ran absorbed all of Nie Fei’s blatant skepticism, the corner of his lips pulling back into a faint smirk as he reminded him, “If we don’t take off now, we’ll draw in more undead and waste more energy fighting them off.”
Jolted by the reminder, Nie Fei quickly fired up the helicopter engine.
Sitting in the back, Lin Buyu maintained a picture of absolute innocence, keeping her eyes fixed downward and pretending to be completely clueless.
Clutching her wounded arm, she turned her gaze toward the window.
Down on the streets below, swarms of zombies were stumbling and surging toward the direction of the shopping mall.
If she wasn’t mistaken, those creatures had been drawn by the scent of her blood.
Even though the system helped mask her identity from Jiang Ran, her core nature remained that of a Zombie King—a supreme entity whose presence influenced all lower undead.
Her blood possessed the power to trigger zombie evolution; the moment it was exposed to the air, it acted as an irresistible scent of temptation for the horde.
Good thing we left when we did.
The helicopter rapidly sped away from the city center.
Neither Jiang Ran nor Nie Fei bothered to look down, so neither caught sight of the eerie migration taking place on the ground.
No surviving base would ever set up camp in a major urban zone, as those were the places where zombies clustered in the greatest numbers.
Yulan Base was nestled deep within a location surrounded by rolling mountains.
The helicopter touched down on the flat roof of the tallest building in the complex. Nie Fei and Jiang Ran stepped out first.
Lin Buyu followed closely behind.
There was no visible staircase or doorway on the rooftop leading downward.
Without a second thought, Nie Fei vaulted over the edge. Flashes of bright flame burst out around his body, cushioning his momentum as he floated smoothly down toward the ground below.
Lin Buyu had never seen anyone jump off a high-rise building with such casual nonchalance.
Her eyelids twitched violently. She quickly realized this was their elemental ability at work.
Jiang Ran turned his head to look at her, his eyes cool and unreadable. “Miss Coincidence… I take it you have a superpower, too?”