He suddenly leaned down low, bringing his entire face close to hers, his fingers slowly tracing the edge of her eyelashes. “The person who killed that zombie was standing right beside you at the time… My little bedmate must have been scared out of her mind, right?”
Holy crap.
“Heh… total coincidence, purely a lucky shot!” Lin Buyu stammered. “I just threw it out to see if it would land, and would you look at that? Lady Luck smiled on me— hit it right on the first try!”
Since he had laid all his cards on the table, continuing to play dumb would be treating him like a complete fool. So Lin Buyu opted to come clean.
Judging by his reaction, he didn’t seem to care in the slightest whose hand had drawn blood. While admitting to it, Lin Buyu didn’t hesitate to pile on a few more lies.
As long as he didn’t suspect her of being a zombie, anything was manageable.
Sure enough, he couldn’t care less.
“Next time, remember to clean up your mess better. Don’t leave obvious clues for others to find. I have no interest in getting involved in Yulan Base’s petty drama.”
Lin Buyu nodded like a woodpecker. She had wanted to clean up the mess properly—if only he and the guard hadn’t shown up so quickly, leaving her no chance to sweep the scene!
“Gao Changsheng wasn’t killed by you, was he?” he asked out of the blue.
“Of course not!” This time, Lin Buyu was being entirely honest. After all, he was killed by a zombie; the zombie had merely been following her orders.
He stared deep into her eyes. This time, she wasn’t lying.
Suddenly losing interest, Jiang Ran rolled over to face the other side of the bed and tossed out a cold warning: “Once you’re asleep, don’t touch me.”
Lin Buyu nodded meekly, while screaming internally: Who on earth wants to touch you?!
Freekish weirdo—acting like a total creep!
I certainly don’t have a freak fetish.
When she opened her eyes the next morning, she immediately checked her sleeping position.
Excellent. The border between them was crystal clear; Jiang Ran hadn’t laid a finger on her.
Among the thirteen elite teams in Yulan Base, strength was ranked starting from Team A down.
Team A boasted the absolute strongest members, with each subsequent team following in power.
The leader of Team B was also an exceptionally talented user whose prowess was by no means inferior to Team A’s members.
Yet, forced to remain subordinate beneath Team A’s shadow for so long, he harbored immense resentment toward everyone in Team A.
Now that his newly recruited subordinate was dead—and Jiang Ran’s bedmate just happened to be on the scene—his wheels were turning.
In the base, Jiang Ran was infamous for his cold-hearted indifference. It was said that even if his own teammates died right in front of him, he wouldn’t blink an eye.
Yet this was the first time he had brought a woman back to base, and the first time he had ever taken a bedmate.
The leader of Team B filled in the blanks with a wild imaginative stretch.
He concluded that Lin Buyu had to be Jiang Ran’s treasured sweetheart.
Therefore, even if Lin Buyu had nothing to do with it, the leader of Team B was determined to pin the blame squarely on her head.
First thing in the morning, he dispatched a subordinate to the villa to summon her.
It just so happened that none of Team A’s members were out on missions today, and all of them were currently in the first-floor living room having breakfast.
Though many survivors in the apocalypse struggled to put food on the table, elite combatants like Team A—the top damage-dealers in the entire base—never had to worry about meals. Their lifestyle could even be described as luxurious.
As the four enjoyed freshly cooked bowls of beef noodles, a member from Team B stepped inside.
“Team Leader Jiang, is Miss Lin Buyu, your bedmate, present?”
Nie Fei, Su Ya, and Xiao Jingcheng were thoroughly bewildered. The three exchanged looks: What’s going on?
Then they glanced over at Jiang Ran, who continued leisurely eating his noodles, seemingly treating the entire intrusion as irrelevant noise.
Just then, Lin Buyu happened to walk down the stairs.
The messenger looked up at Lin Buyu, a flash of awe passing through his eyes before he quickly suppressed it.
“Last night, Gao Changsheng, an ability user from our Team B, met an untimely death. Miss Lin Buyu was the sole person present at the scene. We suspect his death is related to Miss Lin, and we ask that Miss Lin come with us for questioning.”
His tone sounded polite enough.
Yet what was the true intent behind his words?
Were they trying to frame her? Though, in all honesty, she was the one behind it.
Lin Buyu pressed her lips together and stepped down the remaining stairs. “Didn’t I tell the patrol officers last night? I wasn’t the only one present—two other people were there at the scene. A man named Xu Laosan and his younger sister. They can prove that the ability user was bitten to death by the very zombie he brought in himself.”
“We ran a check. There is no one named Xu Laosan in this base,” the man stated flatly.
Lin Buyu naturally knew his name wasn’t actually Xu Laosan.
His real name was Xu San, but that was how Gao Changsheng had addressed him back then. In her current cover identity, she wasn’t supposed to know those people, so she couldn’t just blurt out his actual name.
She could only convey relevant details through the moniker Gao Changsheng had used.
Seeing how rigid and unyielding the messenger was, she continued: “Perhaps ‘Xu Laosan’ was just an informal nickname—maybe his real name is Xu San or something similar. Have you thoroughly checked to ensure there are no names related to that form of address?”
The Team B member remained tight-lipped. Naturally, they had already tracked down a man named Xu San and conducted a thorough investigation.
Indeed, the zombie had been smuggled in by Gao Changsheng himself, as verified by Xu San and his sister.
However, their team leader intended to use this incident to hold Team A accountable and stir up trouble for them, so there was no way he would openly admit the truth.
Lin Buyu was once a top special forces captain; reading people through subtle cues was second nature to her.
A single glance at his micro-expressions told her everything she needed to know: he was lying.
They had already interrogated the Xu siblings.
So, was this deliberate attempt to hassle her meant to shift blame and absolve Team B of the responsibility for allowing a live zombie into the base?
After all, smuggling a live zombie inside the perimeter was a strict, zero-tolerance violation of base regulations.
If a formal investigation confirmed it, the leader of Team B would have to face severe disciplinary action as well.
“An ability user being killed is a major issue for the base. Please come with us,” the Team B member said, deliberately side-stepping her question.
Understanding the full picture now, Lin Buyu felt a wave of absolute disgust rise within her.
Since they had already questioned the Xu siblings, they certainly knew about the vile, abusive actions Gao Changsheng had committed.
To turn around now and attempt to hold her accountable was thoroughly repulsive.
A cold, mirthless smile touched her lips as she replied: “Going with you is fine, but I’ll need to locate the Xu siblings first. Since your team lacks the competence to track them down, why don’t you lead the way and let me search? I know who they are—it doesn’t matter if your team is useless; my vision is sharp, and I remember exactly what they look like.”
That single sentence served as a scathing slap in the face to all of Team B. Nie Fei and Su Ya practically had to bite their tongues to suppress a loud burst of laughter.
The Team B member felt a surge of awkward heat flush across his cheeks.
Xiao Jingcheng raised his eyes to glance at Jiang Ran, silently asking through his gaze whether they should step in.
Jiang Ran casually took another sip of water with utter indifference, his posture making his stance crystal clear.
He had zero intention of getting involved.
Typical. Ran-ge had always despised unnecessary trouble above all else.
The Team B member was an expert at reading the room. Seeing that Jiang Ran paid no mind to the matter, he knew immediately that this woman was nothing more than an easily replaceable outlet for physical desires in Jiang Ran’s eyes.
Emboldened by this realization, a sneer crossed his face as he mocked Lin Buyu: “Even if we help you find them, what on earth do you think they can prove for you?”
Lin Buyu replied with complete, unshakeable confidence: “They can prove plenty for me. They can prove not only that the zombie was smuggled in by your ability user, but also that he was bitten to death by his own captive creature—completely unrelated to me. Even better, they can testify to just how many disgusting, tyrannical acts he committed against innocent civilians right before he met his end. Finding them will not only clear my name, but also prove that Team B suffers from dismal management, condoning subordinates who abuse others until they get what they deserve—bitten to death.”
When Lin Buyu uttered those words, a strange expression passed over the Team B messenger’s face, while the members of Team A looked at her as if she were completely delusional.
These were arguments from before the apocalypse.
In this current world, strength was the only logic that mattered.
Gao Changsheng was an ability user; those two were merely powerless, ordinary humans. Even if he had slaughtered them, no one would ever step up to demand justice on their behalf.
The Team B member burst into a cold laugh. “People without abilities—do you honestly believe they are worthy of seeking justice against an elemental user? If an ability user demands their death, they die. If an ability user wants their bodies, they hand them over obediently. Resisting is their greatest offense—just like you, Miss Lin. No matter how gorgeous you are, you’re nothing more than a plaything beneath a man.”
Lin Buyu had to admit: she was thoroughly enraged.
Her usually soft, fragile eyes suddenly flashed with a terrifying, ice-cold light. “Is that so?”
She had always been someone who acted as she pleased; her deference to Jiang Ran was purely because his strength was too overwhelming and he hadn’t actively humiliated her yet.
Faced with a creature like this, she didn’t intend to endure another second.
Her right hand whipped sideways, snapping a thin wooden branch off a nearby decoration, before her body blurred across the floor at blinding speed, cutting straight past the man.
The man felt only a sudden gust of sharp wind hit his face; in the very next second, a spray of hot blood erupted from his neck.
Lin Buyu had already flashed behind him, her hand clamping down with a death grip over his bleeding throat as she hissed into his ear: “In my eyes, you’re just a plaything I can toy with whenever I want, too. Except you’re far too filthy for me to even bother.”
Lin Buyu’s current vessel was the physical body of a Zombie King; though stripped of her crystal core and unable to manifest elemental abilities, her physical baseline remained the absolute peak among mutated undead.
Under an explosive burst, her speed was unmatched by any ordinary human.
Before, she had simply avoided drawing attention to herself. But since Jiang Ran already suspected her of killing Gao Changsheng yet chose not to expose her, it proved he didn’t care about these minor scuffles in the slightest.
As long as Jiang Ran didn’t care, why on earth should she bother hiding?
So what if he was an ability user? As long as he wasn’t a freak on Jiang Ran’s level, she feared nothing.
While her current energy couldn’t sustain repeated high-burst movements, a single display was more than enough.
This sudden turn of events left Su Ya and Nie Fei staring with wide, astonished eyes.
What incredible speed!
She really isn’t a fragile dodder flower after all.
Meanwhile, a subtle trace of amusement glinted in Xiao Jingcheng’s eyes. This is getting fun.
“H—Help!” The man frantically attempted to unleash his powers against Lin Buyu, only to find that the moment his energy flickered, violent arcs of purple lightning enveloped his body.
It was Jiang Ran.
His eyes bulged in pure terror. Lin Buyu also cast a sideways glance toward Jiang Ran.
Jiang Ran kept his back turned to them, yet his lightning force had already forcibly ripped the crystal core straight out of the Team B member’s brain.
Humans differed from zombies.
A zombie without a crystal core died instantly, unable to move again. A human without a core merely lost their elemental powers.
Seeing this unfold, Lin Buyu felt a wave of surprise.
At least the main villain hasn’t completely lost his human touch just yet.
Keeping one hand clamped over the man’s bleeding neck, she shoved him to the floor, meeting his panic-stricken eyes with a cold, indifferent glare. “So you actually know how to feel fear after all. I didn’t slice your windpipe—hurry along and find your base’s healer. You might still survive.”
She knew Yulan Base possessed wood-type healers capable of mending any injury—provided the victim wasn’t already dead.
Hearing her words, the man hesitated no longer. Clamping his bleeding neck, he scrambled to his feet and fled out the door on all fours, running as if a demon were chasing right behind him.
Disgusted, Lin Buyu went over to wash the blood from her hands.
When she returned, she found a freshly served bowl of noodles resting on the dining table.
She pulled out a chair, sat down, and looked over at Jiang Ran. “Is this mine?”
“You shouldn’t meddle in other people’s business,” he remarked, his tone subtly ambiguous.
Slurping down a mouthful of noodles, Lin Buyu shot back defensively: “How am I meddling? I’m merely taking care of my own affairs.”
He lifted his teacup, gently blowing away the steam. “If you hadn’t meddled, Gao Changsheng wouldn’t have died. Although that piece of garbage said some unpleasant things just now, he wasn’t wrong. In this wasteland, the lives of the weak are utterly worthless—they deserve to be trampled. When pushing the line between life and death, they exist solely to be sacrificed to ward off disaster.”
As he spoke those words, Jiang Ran’s ink-black eyes stared into the teacup, yet his gaze seemed completely unfocused—as if looking straight through the liquid to a memory buried deep within his past.
It sounded as though he were speaking about others, yet it felt as if he were describing himself.