Shi Sheng didn’t take too long to open the door. Just as the Qing Yu trio were beginning to express their worship for their boss, the door started closing. The speed at which it was closing was twice as fast as when it opened.
“Get in quick!” Shi Sheng pushed Qing Yu and Lin Feng in before following them and dragging Little Fatty in behind her.
Song Shi’s gang sprinted for the door but were too late. The door had already shut. Everyone else stuck in the lab were even worse off.
“This Gu Nan is too selfish! She only brought her own people and ran off! Humph, think you can survive just by going out? Watch as she turns into a zombie.”
“She really had a way to get out?”
“Chet, don’t know where that place even leads to, so don’t be happy yet. Maybe there are zombies there.”
These people naturally criticised Gu Nan for running off on her own. And after criticising, they started to viciously curse her.
“She left the painting behind.” Someone picked up the rolled-up painting on the ground.
These few days Gu Nan had been staring at that painting. At first, some people had gone over to take a look out of curiosity but they couldn’t make heads or tails out of that graffitied mess.
“Can you let me see it for a while?” Qi Mingxue asked in a gentle tone. The person with the painting seemed flattered as he nodded his head and handed it over.
Qi Mingxue then lifted the painting up for Song Shi to see. “Ah Shi, can you find anything?”
……
“Heavens, Boss, there’s more of those things here than outside!” Little Fatty spoke in a trembling voice, his expression showing terror as he looked at the glass tanks everywhere.
There were a lot of tanks densely packed together. Some contained those half-man half-zombie things from outside but some were empty. There was clearly more information about the lab and its workings here rather than outside.
In 1959, after a heavy downpour, someone discovered a corpse. That corpse showed no signs of decomposition. The corpse was sent here and a research team was founded especially to investigate it.
The corpse in the lab had a miraculous genome. These genes had allowed his body to resist degradation. And so began a series of experiments to investigate the nature of these genes. The purpose was to find out whether or not humans could utilise them.
The people inside the tanks were the result of these experiments.
It was started again some years later. The timing of the restart was around the time Cheng Su had joined the project she mentioned in her diary. The data gathered from the experiments indicated that not only would the corpse not decompose, it was no different from a normal human—aside from the fact that it had no breath or heartbeat.
And so, someone made a bold suggestion. They wanted to revive the body.
“There’s nothing else… Reviving a dead person… isn’t that unbelievable?” Qing Yu tossed the folder in his hand aside.
Little Fatty asked, “Then did they manage to find a way to revive it?”
“Don’t know. All the information ends here. The rest was probably taken away by someone… where’s Boss?” Qing Yu scanned his surroundings before finally finding Gu Nan behind some glass tubes.
The three looked at each other and made their way over to her quickly. In front of Shi Sheng was a crystal coffin. The things etched on it were very strange, looking as if they were some kind of totems.
“Boss, this is… a coffin? Why is there a coffin here?”
Shi Sheng squatted down to examine the totems in more detail. Her frown deepened as a cold light flashed in her eyes. ‘I appear to have met some trouble. Qian Li’s origin… appears to be quite big.’
The tattoo she had seen on Qian Li’s shoulder matched the patterns on the coffin. Back then she had thought that those tattoos had been inked on his body before he had turned into a zombie; that pattern had been too abnormal for her to forget.
“System, shouldn’t you be saying something? Haven’t I hit the jackpot here?” Shi Sheng attempted to contact System.
‘Son of a bitch! Cheng Su’s diary already gave me a bad feeling but now look! Here’s the origin of the apocalypse right here! Just what the fuck is Qian Li’s origin?! A resurrected corpse?!
Just what kind of backgrounds in the blazing hells did this world auto-fill?!
Fuck your mom! I didn’t want to deal with such a complicated questline! Now I have to use my brain again! Couldn’t you have allowed me show off in peace?! Couldn’t you have let me be my flower vase[1] idiot?! What’s wrong with that?!’
[……] ‘This System shall not comment on the Host’s preferences.’
“The side quest has just been lifted to a whole new level, ah! System, you think you can pretend like you’re not here just by keeping quiet?” Shi Sheng’s mental voice had taken on hints of a tone spoken through clenched teeth.
System had to speak. [The Side Quests are part of the storyline so they are often connected with the Hidden Quests… Of course, the rewards are also more plentiful than other Quests. And completing them can unlock special items.]
“Okay then, gimme a cheat first!”
[…Don’t you already have a cheat of your own?] ‘You know, that space you brought with you? The one with who knows how much stuff in it? The one I still haven’t fully understood?’
“You want to confiscate my property?! Why don’t you just claim the universe while you’re at it?! Have some face!!!”
System felt like its Host was flaring up.
[I don’t have any cheats for you… Your Morality Points are too low.] System paused. [Though if you’re willing to hand over that space, I can give you a cheat.]
“Do you take me for an idiot?!” Shi Sheng continued cursing System for a while before giving up. ‘You want me to swap my space for a measly cheat? This System is even more prone to indulge in wild fantasies than me(bbb)! Must send it back for servicing!’
Of course, System knew that was impossible but if it hadn’t said that, who knows how long this eccentric Host of its would hold on to this topic?!
‘Have to investigate that space quickly otherwise at this rate, the Host is going to wreck the world.’
……
Shi Sheng was holding in a bellyful of fire and needed to find a way to vent. She restrained her anger and got White Tiger to keep the crystal coffin in its space. She didn’t know if it had any other uses, so she brought it along just in case. Though, even if it was useless, it still looked pretty.
The Qing Yu trio wanted to ask about it, but seeing Shi Sheng in that mood, they didn’t dare to. ‘Boss looks very scary right now…’
They found a tunnel in the lab that led outdoors. It was probably an emergency evacuation route. When Shi Sheng finally got out, the zombies outside met with a catastrophe. Shi Sheng began to hack wildly with her sword.
Qing Yu’s team, which had no opportunity to do anything, “…”
‘Why do we feel like Boss is a bit off? Did she activate grim reaper mode?! But…
Why didn’t we notice before that Boss looks so cool when killing people?! Her every move is so beautiful, like she’s dancing!
Ah aah aaah!!! {imagine fangirl shrieking}
Boss is so cool! What do we do? Think we fell for Boss!’
And so, they watched as their boss hacked half the zombies in D County. It really was half. As long as they were on the streets, she would hack at them. With this display, they knew their Boss’ true strength… ‘She’s a mobile human-shaped killing weapon!’
After she had finished with her killing spree, Shi Sheng’s anger was finally vented a bit. The zombies she had killed were only at the first and second stages so they were relatively easy to kill. The third and fourth staged ones though weren’t anywhere to be seen.
Shi Sheng shook her sword. ‘Qian Li still hasn’t found his way back to me yet…’
[1] Flower vases are people with looks but no brains. *Ahem*, to put it more crassly, all boobs and no brains.