Chapter 108: Capture, The Strange Little Cat

Early in the morning, something like this appearing in the gloomy, eerie, and dilapidated hotel was truly enough to send chills down anyone’s spine.

Goosebumps prickled up along Bian Changxi’s arm. She couldn’t help but turn to glance at Chen Guanqing.

She saw that his eyes were brimming with tenderness and grief, so much so that it seemed about to overflow. His whole body was tense, almost trembling, showing just how agitated he was.

She bared her teeth in a silent smile—truly, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. No matter what the person you love becomes, they’ll always be the most beautiful and important one in your world. At this moment, she felt that Xiao Ai was very lucky, and her resolve to carry out her plan later only grew stronger.

She had to succeed.

She turned her gaze back to the zombie, her eyes suddenly sharp and bright.

The little white cat was incredibly fast, its claws scrabbling across the ground as it leapt two or three times, about to catch Chu Hao. Bian Changxi raised her gun and, with a soft “pfft,” fired a silent bullet. At the last second, the cat pushed off with its front paws, and the shot that should have blown its head off merely grazed its scalp. The cat let out a sharp screech, flipped backward, and skidded three or four meters across the floor.

Chu Hao’s eardrums ached from the shriek. He turned back in alarm and confusion, just in time to see the cat twitch twice, then shakily get back on its feet. Blood trickled down from its head, staining its white fur, making it look as terrifying as its now blood-red eyes.

Bian Changxi frowned. “This cat… is really strange.”

The red-eyed cat glanced over, as if it had discovered Bian Changxi and Chen Guanqing hiding there. It immediately turned and fled deeper into the hotel, finally arriving stiffly at the feet of zombie Xiao Ai in the lobby. It bounced and squeaked, as if complaining. Then, the zombie swung its long claws and let out a piercing shriek.

Just like that day, mutated beasts surged in from all directions. This time, they came even faster and in greater numbers, clearly having been lying in wait. Bian Changxi realized the enemy was now on guard against them—after all, she had come to provoke and observe again just yesterday.

Milk’s ears perked up. The lazy creature lying at Bian Changxi’s feet suddenly stood alert, but she pressed a hand on its little head. “Don’t move.”

Milk looked up in confusion—wasn’t it supposed to deal with those little things?

Bian Changxi shook her head and pointed her gaze elsewhere. “Wait.”

There was something off about that cat. If Milk intervened, it might disrupt things. She had a strong feeling she needed to see what that cat really was.

As she spoke, she leapt up, swung her gun, and fired a burst of bullets. The glass wall at the front of the hotel shattered instantly. She charged at the zombie. The zombie let out a long, shrill howl, and two birds swooped down from the hotel rooftop.

These two birds were mutated pigeons, originally kept for food at the hotel. Their gray-white feathers were mottled with black spots. Each was the size of a grown chicken, but sleeker and more muscular. Their long tail feathers were like finely crafted blades. As they spread their wings and flickered them twice, countless wind blades sliced through the air.

These were two mutated pigeons capable of launching wind blades.

Bian Changxi had been surprised when she fought them yesterday—she’d carelessly lost some skin to their attacks. But now, prepared, she wasn’t about to let that happen again. Her gun vanished from her hand, replaced by a long, slightly curved, gleaming Tang sword. With a flick of her wrist, she deflected the barrage of wind blades.

The wind blades made noise and gave off energy fluctuations as they flew, and since the pigeons were only first-tier, Bian Changxi had the advantage in level. Stopping them wasn’t difficult.

In a flash, the mutated pigeons were upon her, their sharp beaks aiming for her face. She raised her sword to block, leaning back as one beak struck the blade with a piercing screech. She twisted her sword, redirecting the attack, and the tip swept in an arc, slashing the other pigeon.

Both pigeons were knocked off course, their flight momentarily awkward. Two vines shot out, wrapping around their tail feathers and yanking them from the air, slamming them heavily to the ground.

“Gaaah—” The mutated pigeons screamed miserably. In that brief moment, the surrounding mutated beasts had already formed a circle, trapping Chu Hao. He seemed unable to escape and ran back to Bian Changxi, panting, “Look at this—so many of them! They’re really trying to take us down in one go.”

Bian Changxi saw it too—layer upon layer of beasts, an impressive number. At the front were huge, fierce mutated dogs, their limbs as thick as apes’, snorting heavily through their noses—creatures she’d never seen before.

All eyes—human and beast—were focused on this spot, including zombie Xiao Ai and the white cat at her feet.

Meanwhile, Chen Guanqing, seemingly forgotten, had silently and swiftly crept to the side of the hotel. With the glass wall gone, it was easy for him to toss over a fireball—its outer flame orange-red, but its inner flame a ghostly blue-black.

The fireball moved slowly, its force weak, as if he was afraid of hurting his beloved. It drifted down like a feather onto her head. Then, something astonishing happened.

At the moment of contact, the orange-red flames did little, but the blue-black inner flame seemed to melt into the zombie’s body. All her movements froze, even the harsh sounds in her throat fading away. She stood there, stiff, her tangled hair barely revealing a flash of bewilderment on her face.

From a distance, Bian Changxi saw this and clenched her fist tightly—she’d guessed right!

She’d always found Chen Guanqing’s mutated fire ability odd. As far as she knew, there were plenty of derivative powers like wind and ice, but fire abilities that manifested in such an unusual way were rare. Otherwise, in her previous life, Gu Xu’s evolution into a lightning type wouldn’t have been so shocking.

Later, when she learned this man was Chen Guanqing, she vaguely remembered that he’d once been compared to Gu Xu: both had mutated fire abilities, but while one successfully evolved into lightning, the other was a half-baked case—people had talked about it for a while.

Because of this, she’d secretly studied Chen Guanqing’s ability. Though he’d rarely used it in front of her, she was sensitive to powers. After repeated observation and speculation, she realized the aura of that blue-black inner flame was very similar to the cold aura of zombie Xiao Ai. Later, Chu Hao told her that Chen Guanqing’s ability had actually been drawn out by Xiao Ai after she’d turned into a zombie.

From then on, she’d harbored a bold and risky idea. After Granny Gu’s death, after Chu Hao and Chen Guanqing finally spoke their true feelings, she realized nothing could be worse for Chen Guanqing than his current half-dead state. That’s when she decided to put her idea into action.

She wanted to keep zombie Xiao Ai.

By the seventh year of the apocalypse, zombie humanization was no longer unheard of. Some elite zombies could recover most of their intelligence and bodily functions, and the top bosses could even regain their memories, appearing completely human—speaking, acting, thinking, reacting, just like a living person.

It was said that the Tengyang Base had once harbored such a zombie, who even infiltrated the human ranks and held a significant position. If Gu Xu hadn’t exposed its flaws, the whole base would have been thrown into chaos.

When this story reached Yunhua Base, most of the higher-ups didn’t believe it. Zhu Yunhua privately scoffed, saying Tengyang was just trying to glorify Gu Xu.

But Bian Changxi knew better—there’s no smoke without fire. The emergence of high-intelligence zombies only supported the story.

If nature could turn people into zombies and make zombies look just like people, what about artificial intervention?

Even if she couldn’t achieve something so miraculous, what about simply controlling a zombie?

Hadn’t there been people in her previous life who could command zombies for their own use?

If a zombie like Xiao Ai, with powerful summoning abilities, could truly be tamed, how much benefit could that bring?

This was a rare experimental opportunity, and she genuinely wanted to help Chen Guanqing take a chance.

Easier said than done, though. Manipulating zombies was a field completely unfamiliar to her. Despite having lived a whole lifetime, there were still too many things she’d never encountered. Most of what she knew above the average person was thanks to the tech maniac Qu Yi at her side.

All she knew was that, like with mutant beasts, the first step was always taming. So, she let Chen Guanqing take the lead. Since he and Xiao Ai shared “the same source of energy,” she believed they’d “get along” better. Sure enough, the change in the flames and Xiao Ai’s reaction confirmed her theory.

Zombie Xiao Ai’s aura instantly became docile. Chen Guanqing was overjoyed, his eyes growing moist—she could still feel him, she was still his Xiao Ai!

But the cat couldn’t stand such a touching scene. It bit down hard on the zombie’s calf.

“Hrgh! Hrgh!” Zombie Xiao Ai seemed to snap out of it, her docility vanishing as she snarled ferociously. Several mutant dogs broke from the circle and lunged at Chen Guanqing.

Chen Guanqing was furious. He hurled a fireball at the white cat. “Get lost!”

The cat dodged nimbly, and a swarm of mutant beasts nearly overwhelmed Chen Guanqing. Bian Changxi shot a look at Chu Hao, who vanished from sight and reappeared at Chen Guanqing’s side. The next moment, the mutant beasts realized they’d pounced on empty air.

Suddenly, two more people appeared behind zombie Xiao Ai. Before she could turn around, a giant sack was thrown over her head, and Chen Guanqing quickly tied her up with a rope. The zombie struggled, but her hands were bound. She tried to use her legs, but at some point, both had been wrapped up to the knees by red, green, and white vines, rendering her immobile.

She toppled backward, but Chen Guanqing caught her in time, stuffed her horizontally into a large freezer Chu Hao produced, slammed the lid shut, and Chu Hao hurriedly stored the freezer away in his space.

The capture went smoothly. Just as Bian Changxi had said, aside from summoning mutant beasts, Xiao Ai’s zombie form was weak in every other aspect.

They should have been able to breathe a sigh of relief, but both of them suddenly felt a chill and an unprecedented sense of danger. Turning around, they saw the white cat glaring, its eyes wide, panting furiously at the spot where zombie Xiao Ai had disappeared, as if it were a person about to have a heart attack from sheer rage.

PS:

Thank you to amber17 for a pink ticket!"