The inside of the research institute was full of plants, and it was difficult to walk. There was an anxiety-inducing sound of dripping water coming from somewhere. The strange thing was that after walking for so long, they hadn’t met with a single corpse.
After all, even if the zombies ate people, they wouldn’t eat the bones.
After they pushed open the door, a shadow suddenly jumped out. Before they could react, Yin Han sent an icicle straight through the shadow’s skull. When it fell to the ground, they could see that it had been a mutant zombie.
Shao Ci was still shaken, but the rest of them looked as though they were used to it and kept walking. To them, it was perfectly normal that Yin Han could kill such a powerful mutant zombie in seconds.
Yin Han noticed Shao Ci’s anxiousness. He silently took hold of his hand, and Shao Ci finally calmed down. He felt as though he hadn’t seen enough of the world… At least, he couldn’t manage to stay calm and composed when a mutant zombie came flying at him!
The farther they walked, the more vegetation there was. It was almost like they were walking through a jungle. There were plenty of weird plants growing in the passages. Shao Ci didn’t know how these plants could grow so luxuriant in the research institute without the slightest bit of sunlight, but when he thought about how these were all mutant plants, it seemed normal again.
The research institute originally had numerous installations to prevent outsiders from coming in, but after ever since the zombies broke through, the traps were basically useless. The only real danger was the mutant zombies hidden in the darkness.
Although Yin Han could kill the mutant zombies with a wave of his hand, he hadn’t disposed of any zombies so easily except for the first one. Instead, he let his subordinates fight a hard battle with the mutant zombies, waiting until they were at a complete disadvantage before he made a move. With such overwhelming power, it was no wonder these people believed in Yin Han as fervently as the most avid worshipers.
In these circumstances, it was no wonder his subordinates were much stronger than most ability users. It was all trained from close combat with zombies.
As they trained their combat fiercely, Yin Han brought out the snacks he was carrying and fed them to Shao Ci. He completely disregarded the situation during the public display of affection, and Shao Ci was fed without any moral integrity.
Shao Ci put himself in the others’ place, imagining if there was someone putting on a display of affection at the side as he was fighting zombies. He would be so angry that he could spit blood, why was Yin Han so pigheaded!
“If you’re tired, just say it,” Yin Han said, gently wiping off Shao Ci’s cold sweat with a handkerchief. “I can carry you over.”
Shao Ci: “I-I’m fine, I can walk by myself…”
According to the original novel, when the people close to Yin Han went out on missions, they would always have especially unlucky “go die”-type settings. Shao Ci hadn’t forgotten! He was terrified being so close to Yin Han.
Just then, a zombie came rushing over, mouth open and ready to bite Shao Ci. It was moving so fast that it left afterimages in its path. The speed mutant zombies in the research institute were much faster than the speed mutants outside, likely from the effect of the ability elixir.
Yin Han didn’t even turn his head, minding his own business and wiping away Shao Ci’s sweat. Before the zombie even touched Shao Ci’s shadow, it turned into a block of ice. The ice immediately exploded. It was in so many pieces that it was impossible to guess what the zombie’s corpse had looked like.
“!!” Shao Ci touched his heart, which seemed like it had been about to jump right out of his chest. Even if he knew nothing would happen, it was terrifying when something jumped out abruptly. He suddenly felt that his future path was long…
They walked like this for almost half a day. Although everyone was injured to some extent, there was nobody in critical condition. After Shao Ci’s healing, they were back to full energy.
Shao Ci remembered that in the original novel, Chu Jin and Yin Han had come together and lost a lot of people. It seemed that if it wasn’t his own subordinates, Yin Han would be indifferent to whether someone lived or died. This time, he moved because they were all his people.
Yin Han forced the plotline that should have been like a horror movie into becoming a safe, harmless training session. If the mutant zombies had any intelligence, they would definitely be shouting him down.
Everyone arrived swiftly at the central room where the data was stored, beginning to search through the boxes and cabinets covered in vegetation. With the help of their strong abilities, the boxes that could only be opened with a password were opened casually.
None of this had to do with Shao Ci. After all, the strongest villain boss in the original novel, the zombie king, was sleeping in this research institute at this very moment! How would he get in the mood to look for research data. He absentmindedly pulled open a drawer, and met face-to-face with an employee ID lying inside.
The person in the ID picture was a teenager around fifteen or sixteen years old. His expression was indifferent and his features incomparably exquisite. He was wearing a white researcher’s lab coat, and he seemed to be one of the staff members of the research institute.
He was too handsome to be a cannon fodder, and he was already part of the research institute when he was so young. He couldn’t have been an ordinary person before the apocalypse. In fact, he was probably a genius. But there was doubtlessly nobody still alive in this base, so this teenager must be dead already.
He had been one of the blooming saplings of their country. Shao Ci sighed sorrowfully, then when he thought about how this might be useful later, put the ID card away.
Before long, the room had been thoroughly plundered, but the door leading further into the depths of the research institute was shut tightly.
Even though it had been abandoned for so many years, the doors still had electricity running through them. They needed pupil and fingerprint authentication to enter… But because it had been set up not long after the apocalypse, the ability users were able to get in using their tricks.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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This place looked much safer than outside, which was filled with weeds, but everyone held their breaths, carefully sizing up the laboratory.
In the center of the laboratory, there was a huge glass receptacle. The inside bloomed with crystal-clear liquid. A corpse warped beyond recognition was soaking in the liquid in stark contrast to the rest of the clean laboratory.
“What is this?” someone said uncertainly. “Could it be this is the rumored ability elixir? Then why is the corpse soaking inside?”
“Don’t worry about so much, we’re not people from the research institute anyway. It’s fine as long as we collect the liquid as a sample and take it back.”
“But what if the corpse has a purpose? Do we need to bring the corpse back?”
The others didn’t know, but Shao Ci was clear about everything. The thing inside had to be the zombie king! He would have never thought that the all-powerful villainous zombie king who beat up the protagonist lived such a lazy life. He didn’t even have a face.
Well, even if he didn’t have a face, he could think about it after killing him! Shao Ci invented, “I heard someone who fled from here say that this was where they did experiments. They extracted the virus from zombies, then tried to create an ability strengthening elixir.”
Of course, Shao Ci had never met someone who escaped from the institute, but he had read the original novel before.
“I’ve heard that before too,” someone said. “If we used the elixir on ourselves, then those zombies would be nothing.”
“You guys know what happened after. If this elixir can still be used on ability users, then it’ll be letting the zombies around us off easily.” Shao Ci sighed. “I bet this corpse is also a zombie. Maybe it was injected with some kind of drug to make it fall asleep. If we let it wake up, it’ll be bad for us. We should just kill it.”
“But is the thing inside really a zombie?” The others couldn’t tell no matter how they looked at it. The corpse floating inside the liquid didn’t look much like the zombies outside. They all questioned Shao Ci’s hypothesis. “If it’s some kind of thing necessary to the ability elixir, if we kill it now, won’t all the plans be ruined?”
Shao Ci: “!” An ability elixir wasn’t something you got by fermenting a zombie in it!
“There’s no need to argue.” As soon as Yin Han spoke, everyone quieted down immediately, not daring to make a single peep. He said coolly, “I believe Xiao Ci. Do you have any objections?”
Nobody dared to refute Yin Han. Everyone nodded furiously like pecking chickens. Forget about whether or not the corpse actually had something wrong with it, if Yin Han pointed at someone living and called it a zombie, everyone would say that it really was a zombie. Nobody would question it.
Yin Han smiled slightly. He pointed his arm towards the receptacle, and the liquid inside solidified, stabbing fiercely through the corpse’s skull. The liquid suddenly burst apart, splashing against the glass. “It’s done.”
“!” Shao Ci could barely believe it. The zombie boss just died like this?! Was it really so easy? It was going too smoothly, wasn’t it?
But it looked like the corpse’s head shattered into small pieces. Even if it was the zombie boss, it didn’t have a chance of surviving.
Shao Ci finally let out a breath of relief, but for some reason he felt strange deep in his heart.
At that moment, everyone else went to collect the liquid in the glass receptacle as samples, though they didn’t know whether it was the rumored strengthening elixir.
Suddenly, the ground began to shake. Countless vines grew out of the floor, like something straight out of a fantasy movie.
The people collecting the liquid were caught off guard by the vines twisting around them, but the vines were still growing rapidly. At the same time, the people tangled up in the vines began to howl. No matter how hard they struggled, they were completely swallowed up by the vines.
Everyone’s faces turned white. They wanted to dash forward to save their companions, but they knew that if their companions couldn’t even tear themselves away, they would could lose their lives if they tried to help. Only the ability users who could use long-distance attacks fought unceasingly. But when the attacks hit the vines, they did barely any damage, only leaving some marks on the vine’s surface.
“How are these mutant plants so strong?”
“Is it also because of the ability elixir…”
Yin Han rapidly pushed Shao Ci behind his back before he created an ice knife, slicing at the vines.
The ice knife, which was much stronger than the other abilities, labored at the vines for a while before they fell apart, revealing the people who had been drawn inside. It was as though their power had been sucked out by the vines. Their bodies had turned dry, as though they only had a single layer of skin left on their skeletons.
“How horrible!”
“These damned vines!”
When they saw the teammates they had stayed with day and night had lost their lives in such a way, their faces turned ugly. But the vines they had cut apart quickly grew more branches, crawling rapidly towards them.
“This is bad, let’s get out quickly! These vines aren’t something we can deal with!”
At such a critical moment, they couldn’t be bothered to get the samples or collect their teammates’ corpses. They ran out as though there were wings on their feet. Shao Ci was running the slowest, and Yin Han simply scooped him up.
It wasn’t just the vines. Even the mutant vegetation that was originally outside seemed like they had suddenly gained awareness, and they began attacking their group madly. Even the weeds on the ground tried to tangle up their feet, and they were forced to rely on fire ability users to burn the weeds away before they could walk easily.
The path hadn’t been long, but it had become unusually difficult to move through. Often, there were surprise attacks from the mutant plants. Just a few minutes later, someone was swallowed by a man-eating flower. Luckily, they acted quickly enough to save him.
“What the heck is this.” Shao Ci felt uncomfortable all over. The original novel had never mentioned that there was such strong mutant plants in the old research institute. Was it because they had killed the zombie boss, so the world assigned the task of playing the villain to these mutant plants?
When they sped around the corner, the plants completely blocked off the way out. Everyone was forced to stay on guard against the mutant plants, simultaneously trying to attack and open up a way out.
“If the mutant vines catch up to us, it’ll be bad,” Xiao Zheng said. “It’s obvious those mutant vines are at a much higher stage than these mutant plants.”
Just as he finished speaking, the way ahead began to shake. Vines broke through the ground, erupting into the air.
Xiao Zheng immediately shut his mouth. Everyone’s expressions changed, glaring furiously at Xiao Zheng. Every time he set up a flag, something would happen.
Yin Han’s face turned much darker. He set down Shao Ci temporarily, instructing him to stay behind him. He stepped up to face the vines that had suddenly burrowed their way out of the earth.
Shao Ci stood back in relative safety. When he saw that someone was injured, he hurried up to heal them, feeling even more uneasy. He felt like something big had happened.
His feeling grew stronger and stronger. Shao Ci unconsciously turned to look at Yin Han and spotted a black vine dangling soundlessly from the ceiling. Nobody had noticed it, but Yin Han was in the middle of fighting four or five different vines. It was clear that he didn’t notice the danger behind him.
Shao Ci’s heart jerked. “!” Fuck, he could tell at a glance that it’d be terrible if they touched it!
He saw that the vine was almost touching Yin Han. Shao Ci was too late to even shout a reminder. He rushed over, pushing Yin Han aside, but the black vine wrapped around his wrist.
Everything happened too quickly. Before he could even breathe, the vine around his wrist wrapped around his entire body, abruptly jerking Shao Ci up.
Shao Ci: “!!!”
Yin Han turned around and saw what was happening. He grabbed onto Shao Ci’s hand, and simultaneously the air around them cooled rapidly. His ability, close to losing control, froze all of the surrounding objects, including the black vine.
“You’re okay?” Yin Han looked at Shao Ci anxiously, his face full of lingering fear. It was obvious he had never thought that Shao Ci would face danger because of him.
Shao Ci let out a slight breath of relief. “I’m fine. That black vine doesn’t seem to take away abilities…” It was all out of habit for raising the favorability. He forgot his own strength wasn’t even close to comparing with Yin Han’s. He nearly died.
“I’ll put you down slowly.” Because he didn’t know what kind of tricks the black vine was hiding, Yin Han didn’t dare to cut it away directly, afraid that Shao Ci would get hurt.
When the root of the vines were cut, Yin Han used his ability to slowly freeze the rest of the vine. Shao Ci cautiously pushed the freezing vine aside, jumping out. He discovered that there were tiny scratches oozing blood where the black vine had touched him.
When Shao Ci saw the scratches, he had a heart attack. If Yin Han hadn’t reacted quickly, he would have become cannon fodder.
When he stepped onto the ground, he suddenly felt that it was empty under his feet. The floors abruptly split open.
Shao Ci: “????” Hey, wait a second, what kind of luck was this!!
There was a person-sized flower under the floors. It was Shao Ci’s first time seeing something so terrifyingly huge. In the next moment, he fell into its petals, and as soon as he touched them, they closed up. It burrowed into the ground.
–
Shao Ci didn’t know how the people outside were doing. He only knew that he was still alive, and he could feel that he was being carried in an enclosed space. The petals around him were as sturdy as a wall, sticking so tightly to his body that he practically couldn’t breathe.
Being choked to death was just a matter of time.
The black vine must have been working with this huge flower. When one front didn’t succeed, the other side would act.
Shao Ci had never thought that the reason he died wasn’t because he was bitten to death after trying to suck up to the zombie king, but rather because he was choked to death by a flower after killing the zombie king. At that moment, he didn’t know which way to die was more miserable.
The wounds on his body twinged with pain. The blood dripping out of them was sucked up by the flower petals. Shao Ci hurriedly used his healing ability on himself, and under his cheat-level healing ability, the injuries healed at a rate visible to the naked eye.
He didn’t know if he was mistaking it, but when his injuries healed, the flower petals seemed to relax a bit from their original death grip.
After some time, Shao Ci felt his breathing getting uneven. His chest was so tight he was beginning to feel anxious, and he felt dizzy. It felt like he was about to faint. The petals surrounding him suddenly opened, and he fell out into an ice-cold pool of water.
“I’m not dead?” Shao Ci was stunned. He carefully crawled up, sizing up his surroundings.
The space was shaped like a drop of water. The bottom of the pool was lined with limestone, and the surrounding walls were all covered by mutant plants and thick tree roots. Some kind of light floated down from above, scattering a lustrous glow that reflected across the surface of water and giving the space a fantastical atmosphere.
“Where the heck is this?” If it wasn’t for the fact that the mutant vegetation looked about the same as the plants from outside, Shao Ci would have questioned whether or not he had transmigrated again. “Could it be a space under the research institute? This research institute made some kind of thing underground…”
Suddenly, Shao Ci felt something and tripped abruptly. He propped himself up on one arm, but felt his hand touch something. Shao Ci froze in shock, his legs going weak. He looked into the water, trembling with fear, using the slight bit of light to see what it was. There was a person inside the water, and his face happened to be angled towards Shao Ci.
The person lying in the water was a fifteen or sixteen year old teenager. His face was exceptionally beautiful, like a piece of artwork, so beautiful it could make people sigh in emotion. His eyes were closed gently as though he was sleeping quietly.
But Shao Ci was so shocked his body went stiff. Wasn’t—wasn’t this face the same as the person in the employee ID that he picked up! Why was he here? Was he dead or alive?
When he realized what was happening, Shao Ci unconsciously made to run away, but the teenager’s eyes snapped open. His eyes were ruby-like and inorganic, and they stared coldly at Shao Ci. In the next moment, he aimed to bite down on Shao Ci’s neck.
Shao Ci finally understood what was happening.
This guy was the fucking zombie kingggg!!!
The original novel only said that the zombie king slept in the strengthening elixir, it didn’t say where in the strengthening elixir. It made him think that the corpse lying in the glass receptacle in the laboratory was the zombie king, but in fact it was just a normal corpse. The real zombie king was hidden in this concealed area!
And the reason that flower had sent him over was simply to let him become the zombie king’s food!
As though in order to affect Shao Ci’s thinking, the system sounded.
[Beep beep beep… Detected a more powerful character… Beginning to change capture targets in accordance with the system’s regulations… Change complete. The current capture target is Yu Shao.]
The author has something to say:
ntr, everyone gets a share hehe
T/N: I know this is going to sound really stupid bc this is the entire thing for this novel but I was actually shocked when the system switched targets LOL… my 1v1 shipper heart ;w;
aiya, switching targets again
me every time I see the system appear ty for reading!
lmao ikr
Ahhh he has to suck up to the zombie king now!
How will Yin Han deal with this? He kills the zombie king based on the original story, but how will he take his Shao Ci needing to be near the zombie king? 🤔
Thanks for the chapter ❤
I wonder if the capture target would automatically be reassigned if the original one died 😕 Thank you for reading!
Sksksksk
thanks for reading!
Hi. YanYan! I just realized that the translator for this novel is Yan Yan, the same one as for The Star Light Shines When He Came. Thank you for the quality translations ; )
omg I thought you found me from TSLWHC! I recognized your username 😀 I’m glad you’re enjoying my projects <3 <3 <3
How can he befriend the zombie King when he’s about to be eaten? Let’s see If Shao Ci’s abilities are that strong.
Thanks for the chapter!
akjlhdsjhf you’re right but that’s so funny… Thanks for reading!
Haish, getting attached to any target in this novel makes me so unhealthy ah.
summed up my thoughts exactly :’) Thank you for reading!
thank you for the chapter! it’s all a pseudo-NTR, if you close your eyes and chant “they’re the same person” three times your resistance to NTR will get stronger
. I forgot to say that the love interests on novels always get kidnapped, and SC was talking about the clichés with a side character being a flag cannon but he was also ‘clichè-ed’ by author XD
HAHA That’s actually me when I’m reading!! The author’s summary said it’s 1v1 and that’s my last thread of insanity here
It seems like Shao Ci likes setting flags for himself huh? hehe. Thank you for reading!
Pseudo-NTR made me remember Game Loading -_-; though its actually most of QT novels 😀
I velieve author & flozen 1v1 tag:’)
I know who ML is, so my shipper heart will be fine~~~
…… Maybe
Thanks for the chapter! 😘
I went to the spoiler thread to heal my sorrows but I’m still sad :// Thank you for reading!
I actually assumed that Yin Han will get zombified and become the Zombie King lol. Why did I expect too much? 😶😓
That would have satisfied my 1v1 heart TvT Thank you for reading <3
Xiao Zheng, the flag raiser
This stupid system!!!!!
Thank you for the chapter!
This should be tagged as, temporary 1v1 😅😅
Haha I would but I translated the 1v1 directly from the novel summary on jjwxc lol. Thanks for reading!
HAHAHHAHAH AUTHOR!!! I HATE LOVE/YOU HAHHAHAHAH (*≧▽≦)ﾉｼ))
Thanks for the chappie ( ˘ ³˘)♡
I’m glad that I saw NO harem tag in this novel genre ಥ‿ಥ
ugh i really cant accept that system i so want him with Yin Han but what the hell didnt the system say when target got changed he would be unable to have anything to do with the previous… UGH im gonna cryy
Uwaaaaa, oh nooooooo ((((；ﾟДﾟ)))))))
This feels like me switching crushes lmao
wait so…. who’s the ML?my brain refuse to work
I can’t say too much without giving spoilers but it’s 1v1 and I think you’ll be able to guess if you keep reading (or just check for spoilers)! Thanks for reading!
Hahaha system has once again changed targets! I wonder, how would Yin Han react?
I didn’t know that this story has something that i’ve been searching for. A human or and with some ability X zombie. I can’t wait. Though i’m afraid for yin han.
Actually who is the exact real ML ?
Thank you author ^_^
Let’s laugh once again..
+1
shameless system ><
Pfft I knew killing the zombie king couldn’t have been so easy but my face just couldn’t help going 😮 when that kid from the ID card turned up again. Yun Han is gon’ be chugging a lot of vinegar when he sees Shao Ci has picked someone new lol (hope he doesn’t break Shao Ci’s legs too for leaving him)
SCREAMS wait wait is this still 1v1 omfg who is the actual ship waaaaaahhh
Pls don’t leave Yi Han!!!! I liked him!!!
I’m really f****** dead I can’t believe he actually had to switch over🤣😭🥴
D*ng, I wanted them to be together but since the ZK’s character also suits my palate then fayynn. (^～^) thanks for the chap!
This is bad…. when they get back…yin han will kill him
Ahhhhhhh, what the???? I thought shao ci And yin han were gonna be the otp. This is getting realllllllyyyyyy interesting.
i was shocked too damn i jumped out of bed
Noooo i like han😭😭😭