"An, I've done so much for you, don't you feel it at all?"

"Mutual benefit".

"Of all the labs in this base, yours is the largest and most complete. I give you whatever you want; I don't even treat myself this well. An, have you never even been moved by me for a moment?"

"Deserved."

Is your heart made of stone?

"There is blood."

"Can't you even consider it? When have I ever treated anyone else like this?"

"It's your business."

Xiang Wan was so angry she almost vomited blood. She heard how affectionate Peng Liuliu was and how she couldn't get what she wanted, and how heartless An was and how she could drive people half to death.

I really don't understand. Peng Liuliu is the world's recognized strongest person, and she has all sorts of handsome husbands under her command, yet she's still wasting her time here trying to get the villain. What is she after? Is the villain some kind of unparalleled beauty? Or is it that what you can't have is what you want even more?

Xiang Wan thought about it a lot, but why would someone like her let her hear these gossips for no reason?

"An, I will always wait for you. One day you will realize how good I am. I will never allow anyone else to stay by your side, especially women."

Peng Liuliu activated her domineering aura, and Xiang Wan thought to herself, "Oh no!" She had barely moved her body when she was frozen in place.

If there were any words to describe her current feelings, it would definitely be "Holy shit"—she was an innocent bystander caught in the crossfire! It seems Peng Liuliu isn't a good person either; besides using force (to bully her), all she knows is pretending to be affectionate (to An). Doesn't she know who she is? Demanding that someone remain single unless they belong to her—what kind of logic is that?

At this moment, Xiang Wan felt indignant on An Ming's behalf: if she had gotten involved with such a scoundrel and had to lose her virginity for the sake of some so-called experiment, she couldn't possibly condone such a villain.

"Shouldn't you worry about yourself first at a time like this?" These were the system's comments, scrolling across the screen, making them hard to ignore.

Xiang Wan didn't answer. Her internal supernatural power began to automatically resist, and she focused all her attention on the trajectory of its flow. When she found that the flow wasn't smooth in a few places, she slowly guided the energy within her body to take a different route. First, she separated a wisp to test it, and when the flow became smooth, she gradually drew all the energy away to the most suitable trajectory.

She didn't know how long she had been trying this, but when she felt her energy surge, her frozen exterior began to tingle, and the tingling, ant-like pain intensified from the outside in. She ignored it and focused entirely on guiding the energy to circulate at high speed. When she reached the critical point, her meridians had reached their limit, but the energy entering her body didn't decrease.

The pain and itching all over his body reached his heart, and his meridians were swollen and distended. He decided to go all out, even if it hurt a little, it still hurts. He might as well go through the pain completely at once and maybe he could even upgrade his superpower.

Having figured this out, Xiang Wan ignored the pain and numbness on her skin and focused all her attention on guiding the energy. A large surge of energy pushed her meridians outward, and Xiang Wan felt as if her whole body was on fire, swelling instantly. However, because of the outer layer of ice binding her, the overflowing blood and energy were forced back in.

Xiang Wan held on to her last breath, slowly collecting and gathering the energy within her body, then guiding it to flow along its previous trajectory.

After an unknown amount of time, Xiang Wan felt a wave of comfort wash over her. She slowly opened her eyes and was met with a pair of large, clear black and white eyes staring at her intently. Startled, she jerked her head back and hit the ground hard.

"Ha, stupid, good riddance."

An's voice was calm and even, but for some reason, Xiang Wan sensed something different in it.

"System, report what happened during this period."

"Waaaah, host, you're so mean, you don't even call me Xiao Qi anymore."

Xiang Wan sighed. This damn system, it can't even speak yet it still tries to act cute, thinking everyone can guess its expressions from its text. Who knows what kind of trap it's digging next? It's not its father, I won't indulge its behavior.

"Only Xiao Qi speaks human language. Confess now."

The system paused for a second, then gave a rough account of what happened in the next two months, which Xiang Wan filled in with her imagination.

After she was frozen, An, unusually angry, dropped a bombshell on Peng Liuliu: "She's mine, and even if she dies, she'll stay by my side. Get out!"

Upon hearing this, Peng Liuliu was enraged and further deepened the ice between herself and Xiang Wan, declaring that as long as Xiang Wan's body remained, she would continue to reinforce the ice layer, so that An could see her but not touch her, in order to vent her anger.

An did not stop Peng Liuliu's actions, acting as if he hadn't seen it, as if what he said before was just to keep Xiang Wan in a frozen state, but to prevent people from moving the frozen Xiang Wan away.

After Peng Liuliu had kept Xiang Wan frozen for a month, seeing that An didn't seem to care at all, she thought that An was just trying to annoy her and didn't really care about Xiang Wan, so she stopped.

The ice melted very slowly. One day, An noticed that the outer layer of ice seemed to be melting, so she came over once a day to observe and record it. When all the ice in the evening had melted, An happened to be taking notes and their eyes met, which was exactly the scene described above.

Xiang Wan strongly suspects that the villain used her as a shield to deliberately provoke Peng Liuliu so that she would freeze herself, just to see what would happen if a living person was frozen to death and then thawed.

Having guessed the villain's thoughts, Xiang Wan silently made a mental note of him, adding another entry to her notebook.

"Professor An, you..."

"name."

Xiang Wan was taken aback, then realized that he meant for her to call him by his name without adding any suffix. This villain, unwilling to utter a single extra word and leaving everyone to guess, left Xiang Wan feeling utterly exhausted.

"An, what happened?"

"Upgrade, good."

I had a feeling something bad was going to happen. Sure enough, Ann pulled an axe out from behind her back and stared at her arm, examining it as if trying to find the best spot to strike.

Xiang Wan shuddered, stretched out her hands, and immediately took the axe, saying solicitously, "An, which part of the zombie do you need? I'll chop it off for you. Hehe, you can leave these kinds of things to me from now on."

Ann looked at the axe, then at her, and nodded, saying, "Okay, you do it."

From then on, Xiang Wan lived a life of misery: she would occasionally chop down zombies, slice them into pieces, and sometimes even offer up her own flesh and blood. Because her superpower had jumped to level three, cutting herself became even more difficult, and she had no time to research her self-healing abilities. So, what use was such a power if she was still just a tool for others to harvest her flesh?

Xiang Wan, whose superpower level had fallen to an average level, was extremely depressed.