The pair of eyes that had once represented a zombie were now gone.
Le Xu had practically sped all the way here, terrified that the base might discover something. But now, seeing that Le Xiaowei had turned back into a human, though his heart was filled with shock, this wasn’t the time to ask about it.
"Here, put this on. Let’s head back first."
Le Xu handed over a down jacket, and even Yuan Qiaoqiao seemed to perk up a little, taking it and slipping it on.
"Thank you, brother."
Le Xiaowei’s eyelid twitched.
Le Xu found the address a bit odd—Yuan Qiaoqiao had never called him that before—but he didn’t comment on it.
"By the way, did the test results come back clear?" Le Xu asked the two staff members, his heart pounding nervously.
"They passed." The moment the words left their mouths, Le Xu handed over a dozen energy cores.
"Thanks." The two staff members didn’t refuse.
These things were practically the universal currency in the base. For an ordinary person, managing to gather two in a day was already an achievement.
Le Xu pulled open the car door and glanced at Yuan Qiaoqiao, whose face was flushed red.
"Running a fever? We’ll stop by the base hospital later for an IV." It honestly hadn’t occurred to Le Xu that the mastermind behind his sister’s disappearance would be this soft, delicate-looking girl.
Even now, he still found it hard to believe.
"Thank you, brother." Yuan Qiaoqiao’s voice was sweet.
Le Xiaowei’s eyelid twitched even harder. Yuan Qiaoqiao might as well have written "I’ve got my eyes on your sister" across her forehead.
But Le Xu, having lived two lifetimes, had never encountered anything like this, so he still hadn’t picked up on anything unusual.
"Don’t you dare pull any stunts," Le Xiaowei muttered under her breath, a hint of threat in her tone.
Yuan Qiaoqiao blinked her large, innocent eyes—her face was deceptively pure. If not for the eerie stillness in those pupils, Le Xiaowei might have thought she’d reverted to her old self.
"I’m not." Yuan Qiaoqiao lightly traced her fingertip against Le Xiaowei’s palm.
A ticklish sensation ran through her, and the moment Le Xiaowei loosened her fist, Yuan Qiaoqiao seized her hand, grip stubborn and warm.
Before Le Xiaowei’s expression could darken, Yuan Qiaoqiao leaned in closer, tilting her head just enough to glimpse the faint pink of Le Xiaowei’s earlobe. The warm breath that escaped her lips brushed against Le Xiaowei’s neck, sending a shiver down her spine.
She heard Yuan Qiaoqiao’s voice.
And it was crystal clear.
"Wife."
That cold yet sweet voice made Le Xiaowei’s bones melt, her posture slumping slightly.
It wasn’t even "husband"—why was she reacting like this? The sheer frustration made her want to smash herself into pieces.
"What are you two whispering about? Trying to keep secrets from me?" Le Xu teased, raising an eyebrow at their hushed exchange.
Le Xiaowei: "..."
"You don’t want to know." She patted her burning cheeks and replied coolly.
"By the way, Xiaowei, how did you turn back?" Le Xu couldn’t hide his astonishment.
Had his sister leveled up so fast that she became indistinguishable from a human?
If that were the case, wouldn’t that mean more zombies could enter the base in the future?
"You’ll have to ask Qiaoqiao. She found me a purification source."
Purification source?
Le Xu’s pupils constricted. In his past life, such a thing hadn’t even existed by the time he died.
"Where is it?" He couldn’t hide the excitement in his voice.
Le Xiaowei glanced at Yuan Qiaoqiao, who blinked once before answering.
"Under the glaciers in the Antarctic Ocean."
Le Xu: "..."
Le Xiaowei: "..."
For a moment, Le Xu wondered if Yuan Qiaoqiao was joking. But given how untouched the Antarctic had been before the apocalypse—unlike the rest of the world, which had suffered varying degrees of pollution—it wasn’t entirely implausible.
Xie Gantang’s earlier description of Yuan Qiaoqiao now made Le Xu believe about 70-80% of it.
Meanwhile, Le Xiaowei stared at Yuan Qiaoqiao in shock.
So she’d been right—this girl really had gone swimming in the ocean. The Antarctic Ocean, no less.
No wonder Yuan Qiaoqiao had been so strong yet came back with a cold and fever.
Wait—
If that was the case, then Side Mission Two was even harder than the main quest.
She didn’t have the ability to sense purification sources.
"Touched?" Yuan Qiaoqiao suddenly asked.
"I am." Le Xiaowei genuinely was.
"Then give yourself to me." Her demand was blunt and simple, effectively shutting Le Xiaowei up.
That fleeting sense of gratitude instantly evaporated.
For all she knew, the Antarctic story was just another one of Yuan Qiaoqiao’s tall tales.
While Le Xiaowei’s thoughts were still a mess, Le Xu had already brought them to the base hospital.
The hospital wasn’t far from the main gate—a precaution for emergencies.
It wasn't crowded. Medical equipment was expensive, and even ability users in the apocalypse avoided getting sick, let alone ordinary people.
But Le Xu wasn’t worried. He even had the doctor administer an IV for Yuan Qiaoqiao.
"Good thing you came early. At this stage, a cold can drag on forever," the nurse told Le Xu.
The hospital relied on iron stoves for warmth. Electricity was too scarce—even with the base’s power supply, they couldn’t afford to waste it like in the pre-apocalypse days.
"Hope she gets better soon. My sister’s usually tougher than this. Must be the cold outside," Le Xu said lightly.
In this weather, he rarely left the base himself. Might as well stay and keep them company while they got their IVs.
"Oh, there’s a snack street nearby. Qiaoqiao’s probably still hungry. What do you two want? I’ll go buy it."
Snack street?
For a second, Le Xiaowei thought she’d misheard.
"Maybe I should go instead." Though she’d eaten before leaving, the mention of snacks made her stomach growl.
The Northwest Base seemed to have more stockpiled food than the Southeast Base.
Had they developed soil suitable for farming yet?
Yuan Qiaoqiao glanced at Le Xiaowei, reluctant to let her go. But she knew her sister loved food more than anything—she’d suffered enough as a zombie.
No matter how possessive she was, if she stopped Le Xiaowei from getting snacks, her sister would probably turn on her.
Fine. She’d indulge her.
Le Xiaowei hurried outside. The snack street looked a bit deserted, but the shops were clean. The Northwest Base seemed well-prepared—the buildings were all new, each district clearly planned, not hastily thrown together.
If the original owner ended up here, she’d probably live comfortably.
Being from the north, Le Xiaowei loved northern snacks. The sight of stir-fried shredded pancakes made her stomach growl. She bought three portions—pricey at three energy cores each—then grabbed some grilled flatbreads and mixed vegetables before heading back to the hospital.
By the time she returned, the aroma had Yuan Qiaoqiao’s stomach growling too.
She clutched her belly, cheeks flushing.
"Bro, this one’s yours."
The site is about to undergo a major upgrade, adding more books and timely chapter updates.
pression Bureau] Transported to a fantasy world overrun by demons and monsters, Gu Qingfeng becomes a jailer in the Demon Suppression Prison of the Great Yan Dynasty's Demon Suppression Bureau. From this point on, bizarre cases frequently occur in the Demon Suppression Prison, once known as hell on earth and infamous for its gloomy, terrifying atmosphere! Why do the demons and monsters in the prison wail miserably every night? Why has the corpse demon, capable of transforming into various beauties, donned black stockings and switched careers to become a foot massage therapist? Why has the eye demon, expert in soul-snatching and illusions, turned into a VR headset? Why is the fox spirit performing otaku dances? Are all these occurrences a twisted expression of demonic nature, or a descent into moral depravity? After peeling away layer upon layer of mystery, all clues ultimately point to a jailer named Gu Qingfeng. Gu Qingfeng: "Hehehe... My dear demons and monsters, whose card shall we flip today?"
world slacker. But a genius female disciple just had to get clingy, insisting that he take her as a disciple. Not only that, she was always making advances on him, thoroughly disrupting his peaceful slacker life...
transmigrates into the world as the sect master of the Heavenly Yan Sect, which is on the verge of being wiped out. He binds a system that grants him cultivation power based on the number of disciples he has: for each disciple, he automatically gains a year's worth of cultivation every single day! Take one disciple: every day he gains 1 year of cultivation power. While others struggle through a year of bitter training, he gets the same just by sleeping through a single night. Take ten disciples: every day he gains 10 years of cultivation power. Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul—he breezes through all bottlenecks without lifting a finger. Take one hundred disciples: every day he gains 100 years of cultivation power. Even a Soul Transformation Venerable before him can’t survive a single blow. Take ten thousand disciples: every day he gains 10,000 years of cultivation power! With a wave of his hand, he topples empires. With a single step, he crushes the sacred grounds of the universe. ... While others fight tooth and nail for secret techniques, Lin Yan casually hands out Nascent Soul-level cultivation manuals as beginner textbooks. While others strain to find talented recruits, Lin Yan opens his doors to anyone—so long as they’re human. In just three short years, the Heavenly Yan Sect went from a backwater sect made up of three crumbling huts to a sacred land that every cultivator under heaven would kill to enter. ... One day, otherworldly demon gods invade, with a million demon soldiers pressing down upon the realm. Lin Yan, yawning, rises from his lounge chair and glances at the system panel: [Current Disciples: 1.28 million] [Daily Cultivation Increase: 1.28 million years] He waves his hand casually, and the countless demon soldiers are reduced to ashes in an instant. “So noisy… interrupting my fishing.”
ive and Ruthless] Before his transmigration, Ye Xuan was playing a game called "Severing Emotions to Attain the Dao." The game's core wasn't about leveling up by fighting monsters, but about conquering various "bad women" with wicked personalities and cold, fickle natures. There was only one method to conquer them: stay unwaveringly by their side, then die at a critical moment, driving them to madness after losing the protagonist. The higher their level of regret, the higher the player's score. To dominate the server, Ye Xuan conquered all the bad women. In the early stages, he showered them with boundless tenderness, only to choose to sacrifice himself for them later, making them weep bitterly and drown in regret. Among them were: Xia Lengyue, the unfaithful immortal wife who chased after powerful men and discarded her husband like trash. Ye Qingcheng, the Demonic Venerable of the Joyous Union Sect, who appeared pure and innocent but was, in reality, promiscuous. Wu Lingxiao, the Empress of the Great Xia Dynasty, who lusted after men and loved maintaining a harem. Bai Qiangu of the Endless Demonic Sect: a bloodthirsty mass murderer. However, when the protagonist transmigrated into the game world, he made a horrifying discovery. Eight hundred years had already passed. The bad women he had conquered had now each become deities and revered ancestors. Faced with the endless stream of toxic women coming for him, Ye Xuan could only rely on his god-tier acting skills to carve a path of survival through this world of treacherous women.
