Zhou Ziqi had obviously scouted the area beforehand, and walked straight toward the city center without looking to the side. The mutated plants around him made way for him, and even obediently smoothed out the road surface.
The tall, slender man walked slowly with his hands in his pockets, while Ruan Qing'an followed obediently behind him with a long knife slung across his shoulder.
S City was like a ghost town, as if only their footsteps could be heard.
Zhou Ziqi explained in a gentle voice, his eyebrows and eyes soft and gentle, with a touch of androgynous beauty, and his gaze was full of affection.
"The initial outbreak of the virus was actually somewhat unusual."
"First of all, a global outbreak of the virus should have been preceded by warning signs. It is highly contagious and destructive, so there should have been at least some small-scale disturbances before it expanded to a wider area."
"But the apocalypse brought about by this zombie virus outbreak doesn't follow this principle. Instead, it swept across the globe instantly from a few major cities, and then became completely uncontrollable. Rather than being a natural spread, it was actually..."
Zhou Ziqi paused, then laughed with an ambiguous meaning.
Ruan Qingan then added, "Does the boss think it was human error?"
Upon hearing this, he simply chuckled and said, "I wouldn't know, but... it's just a vague possibility."
"Moreover, I personally don't think the zombie virus is naturally formed. I'm more inclined to believe it's a product of a failed experiment. The zombie virus is like an attempt to create a creature, modify humans, make them more aggressive, and turn them into a weapon of war."
"The simultaneous appearance of superhumans and zombies both originated from the same virus. You can understand it as superhumans being new creatures successfully modified by the virus, while zombies are failures. Obviously, the people who researched the virus back then didn't achieve good results; the failure rate was too high."
About viruses, about the apocalypse, about zombies...
On the quiet, empty street, faint echoes could be heard, and all that could be heard in Ruan Qing'an's ears was Zhou Ziqi's gentle narration.
The meticulous data, the experimental conclusions, all the conjectures—this was his most familiar field, the dream he had dedicated his life to, even to the point of being distorted by obsession.
She looked at Zhou Ziqi's profile in the sunlight and suddenly smiled.
The man beside her raised an eyebrow: "Xiao Ruan, are you secretly laughing?"
"No."
"The boss heard you. If you don't tell, your wages will be docked."
Ruan Qing'an pursed her lips: "It's nothing, I just think this kind of boss is actually quite handsome, or... quite nice?"
“…Xiao Ruan, flirting with the boss will also result in a deduction from your salary.”
Zhou Ziqi's eyes flickered slightly. He patted her head, suppressing his emotions. The bodyguard, upon hearing "wage deduction," could only shut his mouth, looking sullen.
As they approached the city center, they saw towering office buildings with marks from vines several meters wide strung across their tops, making the entire building appear crooked.
The entire building showed signs of damage; it was dilapidated and covered in splattered blood and grime.
But Zhou Ziqi didn't care and casually said, "As the city that was the first to experience the outbreak, it's impossible for it not to have some problems."
“I found out there was a secret laboratory under this office building, probably set up by the pharmaceutical group. However, it was misused and became the source of the outbreak. All the researchers died here—but although they are dead, the data should still be there.”
"A secret laboratory? Boss, do you know this is going to happen?"
Ruan Qing'an asked in return, while Zhou Ziqi looked at her in surprise: "I don't know, they all died here, it's already very difficult to find this place."
"...Then how do we get down?"
"A physical solution: just lift the ground up and go underground."
As Zhou Ziqi spoke, he raised his hand, and the vines that were wrapped around the building outside the office building seemed to follow his command and flow into it, as if they were about to turn the entire first floor upside down.
Ruan Qingan sighed: "Wait, boss."
"Hmm? What's wrong, Xiao Ruan? Don't worry, you won't die from the fall."
"...That's not the issue."
She stepped forward, knife in hand: "Let me do it, boss. If you do it this way, half of the lab downstairs will probably be destroyed too."
Zhou Ziqi smiled and said, "Is that so? Alright then."
As he spoke, he obediently made way for Ruan Qing'an, and even the vines around him obediently rubbed against Ruan Qing'an before retreating.
Seeing this, Ruan Qingan remained silent for a moment.
This heartless bastard should have been dealt with long ago, right?
Despite her inner grumbling, Ruan Qing'an's eyes hardened. She gripped the hilt of the Tang sword with both hands and slowly plunged it into the ground. Then—a sharp blade emerged!
Centered on her, within a two-meter diameter area, the entire ground was shattered into dust, which then coalesced under her mental power.
The broken ground then converged to form downward steps.
Zhou Ziqi clicked his tongue in amazement: "That's interesting, Xiao Ruan. Your ability is quite versatile; it seems you can control almost anything?"
"This is mental power. As long as it is strong enough, it can be used to probe into matter and forcibly control it. In a sense, it is a kind of suppressive effect of a high-level power."
Upon hearing this, Zhou Ziqi's eyes flickered slightly, as if he had thought of something.
But he didn't say anything. Instead, he walked down the steps on his own, saying, "Xiao Ruan, you stay outside and keep watch."
"Understood, boss."
Carrying her knife, Ruan Qing'an solidified the steps again with her mental power after Zhou Ziqi's figure disappeared, and quietly stood guard by the side.
But at that moment, her heart suddenly skipped a beat, and she frowned.
037: [What's wrong, ancestor?]
"No, at first I just thought that Zhou Ziqi was just here to get some information, and that it was just a very small plot point."
Ruan Qing'an paused, then subconsciously looked down at the ground: "But why do I sense Xie Huainan's presence? This small world is only at the intermediate level; it's impossible for it to attract his attention."
Ever since she revealed her relationship with the main god, she has been calling him by his name. 037 didn't say anything, but instead became curious.
She looked away, but the lingering feeling of being watched remained.
"Am I imagining things...?"
...
Meanwhile, in the underground laboratory.
The entire laboratory was covered in blood. The snow-white walls were splattered with blood and bloody handprints. The floor was littered with messy paper documents and black footprints.
Zhou Ziqi sat on the blood-stained chair, the data transmission device plugged into the laboratory's control center, and began importing data.
Some research data remained on the screen.
Zhou Ziqi hadn't even glanced at it a few times when he suddenly noticed a large amount of garbled text appearing on it, followed by a snowy screen, and after distortion—what reappeared on the screen was actually Ruan Qing'an's figure!
In the vast control center room, the walls were covered with screens, and on every screen was her image, from every angle and every direction.
They were all those girls guarding the ground.
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