☆, Imprisonment, miserable fellow inmates
The man had disappeared, but Ye Xi remained standing there, stunned, staring at the bunch of keys in front of her. Alex? Who was that? Why did that name sound so familiar? And it definitely wasn't because the name was common; Ye Xi felt like she had seen him somewhere before, but now she couldn't remember how she knew an Easterner named Alex.
Moreover, that person was far too dangerous. Not to boast, but with half her strength restored, Ye Xi could easily handle an ordinary person similar in build to Alex. How could she possibly be unilaterally overwhelmed like before? Judging from his height and muscle distribution, he theoretically shouldn't possess such rapid reaction speed, yet his agility was so high—completely inconsistent with his physique. Unless—Alex's cold red eyes flashed through Ye Xi's mind, those eyes as dangerous as a wolf lurking in the darkness, unforgettable—he too had been infected with and perfectly adapted to the T-virus?!
No, no way, when did Adaptors become as cheap as cabbages? And why didn't I see any signs that Alex was captured and used as a test subject? But if he's not an Adaptor, how do you explain his incredible skills, which far surpass those of ordinary people and mercenaries? Ye Xi looked at the key blankly, recalling what he had said. It seemed he already knew her identity, which was why he let go... But what did he mean by "Number 013 has quite the appetite"?
These questions made Ye Xi feel as if she were being gradually pulled into an unknown conspiracy, sending chills down her spine and raising goosebumps all over her body. She hated this unknown danger and decided to leave. But could she trust Alex? Ye Xi slowly picked up the bunch of keys, shook them, and listened to the crisp sound of the metal clashing together, her eyes filled with hesitation. What if this was a trap? Wesker hadn't sent anyone after her yet; there must be something fishy going on. What if this man was sent by Wesker to lure her?
However, if he wanted to capture her, he had countless opportunities just now. Against Alex, Ye Xi felt she would have to use her full strength, even her abilities. His overwhelming skill just now could have easily tied her up and sent her back; why wait until the last minute? Oh well, staying here and speculating is useless. Only by going there will she know how dangerous it is. Besides, this place is not safe to stay for long; encountering more zombies would be bad, and she has no weapons.
Thinking this, Ye Xi clutched the keys in her hand and ran in the direction the road led. The park was quite large; it took Ye Xi twenty minutes to run out. Along the way, she encountered one or two zombies wandering around, but Ye Xi had no time to pay them any attention. Ye Xi stopped, panting, and looked up to see a tall building standing across the desolate road. It was probably a department store, with huge photos of celebrities hanging on the walls. Three years ago, this would have been a bustling area, but now, all the prosperity had vanished, leaving only ruins standing there alone, as if mocking the former glory.
"This is convenient," Ye Xi smiled. She could finally change out of her tattered clothes; she'd been barefoot all along. She glanced at the zombies gathering around her, scanned the red markings throughout the building, and then mustered her strength to run towards the open door.
When Ye Xi, wielding a bloodstained stick and wearing brand-new long black Doc Martens, kicked open the rooftop door and saw the helicopter behind it, a feeling of utter helplessness and frustration suddenly overwhelmed her. While she was whipping zombies' heads with broom after broom, she hadn't even considered this question—she seemed to have never learned how to fly a helicopter. But that was secondary; more importantly, she felt a chill run down her spine even driving a small car on the ground. If she were to actually try and fly one, would she instantly crash and die?
Ye Xi shuddered, but apart from this helicopter, she had no other way to leave this island nation. This world was long dead; all means of transportation no longer existed. Unless she swam across the sea, Ye Xi's only options were to take this helicopter, or return to Wesker's place and stay there obediently until Alice appeared… It seemed she had no choice…
If only A-Quan were here, at least… Wait! A-Quan is a nobody! Forget about that guy! Ye Xi, you idiot, don't forget that A-Quan and that other guy are the same person! Ye Xi pounded her head and shook her head violently. This kind of thought that just popped into her head so naturally was terrifying. Ye Xi, you can't be like this. Are you really going to become dependent on his help and care? You have to remember that you're acting for each other. In this kind of thing, whoever falls in first loses, and that loss is your life.
"Alright, alright, stop thinking so much. It's just a beat-up plane, why would I, Ye Xi, be afraid? What did it go like in the movies? You just have to turn on a bunch of switches and then pull up a certain handle, right...? Damn it, maybe it's just like the video games I've played!" Ye Xi stomped her foot and jumped into the cockpit without hesitation. "Dust, please help me succeed..." Ye Xi muttered to herself. To her, even the Picasso-esque zombie brothers were cuter than this metal wreck.
Perhaps it was a sudden pang of conscience on Dust's part; Ye Xi, with absolutely no real experience piloting helicopters, actually managed to get this bulky behemoth airborne, if one could ignore the shaky, precarious flight path. Meanwhile, Ye Xi, sitting in the cockpit, was already sweating profusely, gripping the controls tightly, too afraid to even bend over. Huh? You're asking where she's going? Didn't she just say she's going to some remote mountain forest in my great Celestial Empire to live like a wild woman? As for direction, she couldn't understand the instrument panel; anyway, the earth is round, she'd eventually circle back to China. Having already safely taken off, Ye Xi didn't care about such trivial matters anymore. (picking nose)
As for the fatal problem of running out of gas... well, I already told you not to worry about such trivial matters!
So, five days later, when Ye Xi emerged disheveled from a horde of rotting zombies, she deeply regretted jumping into the helicopter without hesitation three days earlier. If only she had just left it there, she wouldn't have crashed due to running out of fuel! Furthermore, Ye Xi discovered she had a strange connection to the United States; she had randomly chosen a direction and somehow ended up back there… She should have turned back after four hours of flying without seeing land. What was the point of crossing the Pacific Ocean like this?!
"Damn it, why are there so many zombies here?" Ye Xi, who had luckily found a Miao sword after searching the weapon shop again, swung the sword with extreme annoyance, then leaned against the wall, panting. So many of them gathered here... could it be...? Ye Xi immediately kicked away a zombie lunging at her and surveyed her surroundings. She hadn't paid much attention earlier while busy shooting heads, but now she realized that these zombies seemed possessed, clustered around the wall and converging on a single point, roughly towards the iron gate. Inside the wall was a quiet, ruin-like house, but judging from the zombies' lecherous, lustful look, there was definitely someone hiding inside.
"Holy crap, I ran into humans again! This is too lucky!" Ye Xi's lips twitched, and without hesitation, she chose to rush out. Only a lunatic would want to go in and get trapped by a bunch of zombies. Unfortunately, just as she was about to raise her foot and knife to fight her way out, her foot slipped, and Ye Xi, caught off guard, fell straight into a pit.
Damn it! When was this sewer cover moved?! Ye Xi, who had fallen straight to the ground, rubbed her flattened buttocks. Before she could stand up, darkness fell over her head. Sensing a threat, Ye Xi immediately gripped her knife, but the hard object pressed against her head made her pause. "Don't move," she heard a threatening voice, "I'll take your life right now."
Hmph, the people inside the fortress actually discovered her. Ye Xi glanced out of the corner of her eye. Even in complete darkness, she could still see everything, including the man threatening her with a gun—he was all alone. He was probably a well-trained mercenary, at least quick and agile; otherwise, he wouldn't have been sent here to find her. Yes, "sent." There was definitely more than one person in this house; otherwise, he would have succumbed to the loneliness and fear and fought his way out alone. So there were other people in the house, most likely elderly, weak, disabled, or defenseless women, which was why they decided to stay here.
All the thoughts flashed through Ye Xi's mind. She had at least 0.3 seconds to dodge before he fired, with a greater than 50% chance of hitting another part of his body. But if she didn't dodge and chose to attack, she could take down his legs, strike his chin, and then break his arm... A series of actions completed in Ye Xi's mind, but just as she was about to put them into practice, she miscalculated. The pain in the back of her neck made her curse herself as an idiot, and she fainted.
Instinctively, a sense of alertness jolted Ye Xi awake from her unconsciousness. She had been feeling a gaze lurking in the darkness—warning, dangerous, and aggressive. Ye Xi immediately jumped up and followed the gaze, spotting a person, or more precisely, a muscular man in special forces uniform with a buzz cut. While he wasn't as handsome as Carlos, nor did he possess the roguish charm of Nikolai, his upright demeanor clearly indicated he was a good soldier. Most importantly, the guy staring intently at her looked strangely familiar.
"Who are you?" Ye Xi asked uncertainly. After thinking for a moment, she felt that this was not the reaction of someone who had just woken up from a coma, so she added, "Where am I?"
The man looked closely at Ye Xi's arm and said, "My name is Chris, and I'm your cellmate for now. Now you should understand where you are."
Ye Xi froze. What? He said he was Chris?! That siscon?! Ye Xi looked around stiffly, and after a long silence, the scene seemed increasingly familiar. Then, as if remembering something, a curse burst out: "Holy crap, wasn't he supposed to be able to break out of prison?!?"
At this point, the sister-obsessed man's expression froze: "Hey, who told you I could break out of prison? No, should I say, did I know you before?"
Ye Xi scanned Chris up and down again, then finally sighed and said weakly, "So I was knocked unconscious and dumped here? Why? I don't remember offending them. And how did you get here?"
Chris glanced at the strange girl, then said coldly in a mocking tone, "No, you didn't offend them, it's just that you got bitten." He pointed to Ye Xi's left hand, which was bound with clothing. "They saw it, but they couldn't let you, who was still human, be eaten alive, so they threw you in. As for me, they think I'm a dangerous person, so they probably want you, now a zombie, to get rid of me to avoid dirtying their hands."
Ye Xi blinked, looking at her left palm. Yes, she'd been bitten there, but the wound had healed in minutes. The fabric wrapped around it was simply for slip resistance; after all, those things still had some sticky blood on them. However, Ye Xi didn't intend to reveal the truth. She didn't want to be seen as a monster and attacked, especially since Chris was a crack shot. "Tsk, human nature," Ye Xi shook her head. "On one hand, you want to survive and protect yourself by eliminating any threats; on the other hand, you worry about your conscience. It's so complicated and conflicted."
Ye Xi spoke softly and calmly, as if she were an outsider, as if she wasn't the one being bitten, and that the so-called "humans" had nothing to do with her.
Chris emerged from the shadows, having to duck to see Ye Xi clearly due to the height difference and dim lighting. Although Ye Xi's voice and silhouette had given him a general idea of who she was, seeing her in person still surprised him slightly. Ye Xi was younger and thinner than he had imagined; it was hard to imagine how this girl, who looked even younger than his sister Claire, had managed to get here. "How long have you been bitten? That way I can roughly estimate how much time you have left... Please don't mind..."
Ye Xi thought for a moment, but she didn't remember such a small thing, so she just gave a random time: "About an hour ago."
“Oh, I see…” Chris seemed a little uncomfortable talking to a “near-zombie” and thought for a long time before deciding to be direct: “Then you should… um… not mind if I…” He made a throat-slitting gesture.
“I don’t mind, but I don’t want to be here.” Ye Xi glanced at the cell, which was about the size of a living room. There was a bench in front of the cell door, and the guard was probably not there, which gave Ye Xi an opportunity. “So, I want to know if you can pick locks?”
"Unlock it?" Chris looked at the keyhole of the cell door and said helplessly, "Of course I can, but I don't have the tools—they confiscated all my equipment—otherwise, why would I still be here? The keyhole is quite large, and it's not easy to find such a thick wire." He gestured for Ye Xi to see.
Ye Xi pondered for a moment, then suddenly exclaimed, "I've got it!" She then did something petrifyingly obscene—she reached her right hand into her collar, fiddled with it for a bit, then pulled it out, holding two semi-circular wires, and stuffed them into Chris's arms, whose hand was frozen in mid-air. With a stern face, she said, "These two should be enough, right?"
This...this...this thing...it should be a bra... Feeling the still-warm "wire" in his hand, Chris felt a sharp pain in his groin, and then his petrified body shattered completely...
"Holy crap, girl, don't think I don't know you're messing with me just because you're all serious!!" The miserable guy internally flipped the table.
Author's Note: Club recruitment is so tiring! There's never lunch or dinner QAQ *sobs* Please pat me on the back QAQ ———————————————————————— Actually, Ye Xi has long since lost all sense of decency (picking her nose) I curse you to have no underwire bra!!!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
