Qian Li. He was the biggest villain in the novel, and also the one and only Zombie Emperor. He looked no different from a normal human; if he didn’t tell you he was a zombie, you wouldn’t believe he was one.
He had led zombies to attack the human bases. Other than the base Qi Mingxue was in, the rest of the bases had all been razed.
In the end, all the humans banded together under the leadership of Qi Mingxue and managed to capture Qian Li alive. To research what made the Zombie Emperor different from other zombies, they locked him up in a laboratory and conducted experiments on him.
As to how exactly they experimented on him, Shi Sheng didn’t know but she could guess it wasn’t very pleasant. In the end he self-detonated, taking the laboratory with him.
Shi Sheng’s gaze swept over the zombie who was staring earnestly at her. ‘This dummy is the future Zombie Emperor? I’m(bbb) actually feeding a Zombie Emperor! And I(bbb) have to bring him to create a new world order and protect world peace and whatnot… This is a bunch of bull! I(bbb) refuse to do it!’
Shi Sheng’s eyes rolled in their sockets as she made her decision.
“Put this on. You’re not allowed to attack White Tiger, or else I’ll beat you up!” Shi Sheng tossed a clean set of clothing to Qian Li.
“Huh huh!” Qian Li looked at White Tiger before looking back at Shi Sheng. “Huh huh!”
When Shi Sheng had finished changing, she came out to find Qian Li stripping his shirt. His body was still rather immature so there was nothing much to look at, but the crisscrossed scars on his back caused Shi Sheng to be startled. Those vicious scars looked old and occupied most of his back.
There was a strange tattoo on his shoulder blade. Shi Sheng wanted to take a closer look, but Qian Li had already put on his shirt and started taking off his pants. Shi Sheng didn’t manage to move her gaze in time. “…”
‘My eyes!’
Calmly shifting her gaze, Shi Sheng waited till Qian Li was done before walking over. “Tonight, you’re keeping watch. If anyone comes around, call me. Don’t attack them.”
She couldn’t be certain if he would remain sane after he had gotten a taste of human blood. Qian Li looked at Shi Sheng in confusion before nodding his head after a long pause.
Shi Sheng was startled awake in the middle of the night. She naturally wouldn’t sleep too deeply in such a dangerous world. Qian Li was standing beside her and staring at her. Shi Sheng lifted her blankets and spoke grumpily, “What are you just standing there for? You wanna scare me to death?!”
“Huh huh… hug…” Qian Li opened his arms. Shi Sheng was rather speechless. She silently got up and reached out to hug Qian Li. The cold and hard feeling of his long fingernails could be felt against her neck. Shi Sheng nearly went at him with her sword.
But Qian Li seemed to know that Shi Sheng didn’t like him using his fingernails to touch her for he immediately moved them away, not letting them come in contact with her body.
He quietly hugged her for a while before releasing her once he was satisfied and going back to curl up next to the window. Shi Sheng facepalmed. ‘Just what am I raising here?! Dunno how he got this habit… Back then it was just short hugs but the duration seems to have extended…’
Vroom~ The sounds of an engine could be heard coming from outside the house. Shi Sheng walked to the window and looked around . She had picked one of the taller buildings near the entrance of the village, so she was able to see it from her vantage point. A few military vehicles had entered the village. They parked at the entrance before the people on them dismounted and walked in.
The light coming from the cars allowed Shi Sheng to make out their military uniforms. Shi Sheng lowered her head to look at Qian Li. “In a bit, you’re not allowed to talk. Understand?”
As long as Qian Li didn’t speak, he was no different from a normal human. This was partially due to her ability, though there was some natural factors too—after all, when she first met him, he didn’t look that different from a normal human.
The group quickly cleared a path to Shi Sheng’s house. She took out a flashlight and shone it down to indicate that the building was occupied. The people stood for a while without saying anything. They didn’t enter, instead turning to head for the other houses.
They used less than half an hour to completely clear out the village. After they were done, several people ran over to knock on Shi Sheng’s door. Shi Sheng got Qian Li to stay on the third floor while she went down alone.
“What is it?” Shi Sheng didn’t open the door, but instead shouted from the other side.
“So it’s a lady…” Someone outside muttered. “May we know how many people are inside your house? If there aren’t too many, we’d like to request you let some of the elderly, women and children stay here. The other houses aren’t as well insulated. Don’t worry, we’ll give you food in exchange.”
Shi Sheng opened the door and shone her flashlight at the people outside. It was two military men. “Where did you come from?”
They probably hadn’t expected her to be so young for they blanked out for a bit before speaking, “We were sent out by B City to pick up survivors. As you can see, we’ve already done so and are preparing to head back.”
‘B City…’
“The first and second floors can be used. Don’t come up to the third floor.” Shi Sheng opened the door fully. “Use Nuclei as payment.”
Their gazes turned odd. Right now, only the military knew about the use of the Nuclei. Ordinary people were completely in the dark, yet this lady…
“Uh… we’ll have to report it to our Captain first.”
“Alright.” Shi Sheng slammed the door shut, causing the two outside to twitch their lips. One of them remained at the door while the other went to call their captain.
Their captain wasn’t as surprised to learn that she knew about the use of the Nuclei. Outside of the military, quite a lot of ability users also knew that the Nuclei could increase their powers.
In the end, they exchanged 10 first-grade Nuclei for the right to let people stay in the first and second floors. After that heavy downpour, Crystal Nuclei had begun to form in the heads of the zombies. As they had only just started appearing, most of the Nuclei were still in their formation stage, meaning that first-grade Nuclei were still rather uncommon.
If first-grade Nuclei were already uncommon, then don’t even think about the second-grade ones. Shi Sheng had met quite a few zombies along the way, yet she wasn’t able to find a single Nucleus. It was evident from that as to how low the drop rate was. So 10 of them at one go was rather significant.
Shi Sheng brought the Nuclei with her upstairs. There was a door on the third floor that could be shut, so she wasn’t afraid people would come upstairs without her knowing about it. She learned from those people that it was already day 49 of the apocalypse.
Shi Sheng absorbed a Nucleus. There was no effect so she didn’t bother absorbing more. Her ability was strange anyway, so it wasn’t abnormal that she couldn’t raise it using Nuclei.
‘I’ll give ‘em to White Tiger when it wakes up. Wonder when it’ll wake up though… this fellow has already slept for ages!’
The plot she was given didn’t contain any details about the awakening process for animals, so Shi Sheng wasn’t certain if they took longer to awaken than humans or not.