Chapter 32

Trusting his family, Qin Su opened the picture without hesitation.

His eyes were faster than his brain, and by the time his brain caught up, the contents of the message had already been burned into his mind without the slightest warning.

It was another high-definition picture from Dad, and once again, it showed people.

Except...

They were dead.

To be precise, there were so many dead people that they could be described as a sea of humanity.

Beneath a towering defensive wall, a densely packed mass of zombies tilted their heads in unison, staring in the direction of the camera.

They moved strangely, their skin bluish-purple and shriveled, covered in blood and filth. Their eyeballs bulged from their sockets, their flesh was scraped away to varying degrees, and their limbs were mangled.

As they raised their heads, brain matter even poured from their shattered skulls. Entrails dangled from torn-open bellies, dragging streaks of filth across the ground...

Even through the screen, Qin Su could almost smell the pervasive stench of decay in the air.

It was creepy and disgusting.

Qin Su: "..."

What kind of decent person...

No, what kind of father sent his own kid a high-definition photo of a bunch of zombies before bed?

Fortunately, after his "baptism" by the Zerg, he could handle it reasonably well. Otherwise, he would dream of his blanket being full of zombies that night.

The corners of Qin Su's mouth twitched. He took a deep breath and closed the picture, but before he could use the hand on his screen to send Dad a "cordial" greeting, another message popped up.

[Dad: See that? This is the empire your mom and dad conquered for you two!]

[Dad: Don't be shy. Which ones do you want?]

Qin Su's hand froze. "?"

[Dad: Or do you want them all? No, that won't do. There are too many. Each of my babies gets 33 at most, for a total of 66. It's a lucky number!]

Question marks slowly formed in Qin Su's mind. "??"

With the help of "technology and tricks," Qin Dai stood atop a treetop, striking a pose right in the center with the full moon in the night sky behind her.

Since she was far enough from the ground and the players in this instance couldn't use any electronic devices or see exactly what she was doing beneath the moonlight, Qin Dai took out her phone to ask Assistant Jiang whether anything had happened at the company lately. Instead, she saw Dad's messages in the group chat.

She opened the picture, and her eyes lit up at the sight of the densely packed zombies.

[Qin Dai: There's a deal this good?]

After sending the message, Qin Dai saved the picture, opened the image editor, and used a red pen to number the zombies she wanted.

A mere thirty zombies took Qin Dai no time to mark. With a grand flourish, she sent the edited picture to the group.

[Big Sis: Thanks, @Mom @Dad! (picture.jpg)]

[Dad: Good girl (smiling). Big Baby has chosen already. Where's Little Baby?]

Qin Su: "???"

He opened the picture and saw that his sister had picked the thirty-three zombies with the most vicious faces.

He recognized every single word, so why couldn't he understand them when they were put together?

[Dad: Not there? Pick quickly when you see this. Packing takes time too.]

Qin Su moved his stiff fingers and sorted out his jumbled thoughts before typing:

[Qin Su: Where's Mom?]

Did Mom know Dad was sending this stuff in the group chat?

[Dad: ?]

[Dad: How old are you, still looking for your mom? Can't you be a little more mature? Your mom is at #￥%&*%&#￥%]

[Dad: ...Tsk, it really won't go through.]

Looking at the text that had turned into gibberish as soon as he sent it, Si Fei cursed eighteen generations of the system's ancestors in his heart.

They knew each other so well by now, yet the system still couldn't be flexible.

"..."

Qin Su stared at the string of gibberish. As if something had occurred to him, he typed:

[Qin Su: I'm at @$#^&(*)*]

[Big Sis: I'm at $**&#$%*]

Qin Dai discovered that she couldn't send information about what she was doing or the world she was in either.

[Mom: ...Tsk, this world. I give up.]

[Dad: ...]

Qin Su: "..."

What he had typed before it became gibberish was, "I'm in the Interstellar Legend Comic World."

The gibberish in Dad's message was probably also a statement about the truth of the world he and Mom were in. They were probably restricted by the "system" and couldn't tell one another.

[Big Sis: Tsk, it just won't go through.]

[Qin Su: Me neither...]

[Big Sis: Mom!]

[Qin Su: Mom!]

[Dad: ...Hey, hey, I'm still here.]

[Mom: Your dad and I are coming home, aren't we? We thought we'd bring you two some local specialties.]

As Qin Ji stepped into the elevator, she scrolled through the chat history and realized that Si Fei had deliberately been teasing the two kids without explaining things clearly.

Big Baby had spent three years scattering glutinous rice to ward off evil, so they could roughly guess that there were "ghosts" in the world she had gone to. Ghosts and zombies... had a few things in common when it came to being "scary," and judging by how readily Big Baby had made her selection, she was now quite comfortable with the bizarre appearance of zombies. As for Little Baby's messages, she could sense his bewilderment even through the screen. Just what kind of world had he gone to?

For now, Qin Ji was certain that even when she and Si Fei returned to the real world, they couldn't tell the two kids about the world they were in. Every time they opened their mouths, the truth about the world they had transmigrated to was automatically blocked.

The same was true for Big Baby.

The three of them had previously assumed that Little Baby was still in a normal world. By unspoken agreement, they had concealed the matter of "other worlds" and never mentioned it in front of him, afraid he would think he had been "excluded" from the family.

She just didn't know whether Little Baby could speak about the truth of the world he had transmigrated to when he was in the real world.

In any case, ever since Si Fei had sent that photo by mistake and accidentally revealed that everyone in their family... had a "constitution for transmigration," her feelings had been hard to describe. Although they had said they would return in three days, she really couldn't stop worrying.

The weapon schematics Little Baby had sent were clearly more technologically advanced than the apocalyptic world she was in. After thinking it over, once their transmigration had been exposed, the only things they could bring back for the two kids were the undisputed specialty of the apocalyptic world.

Zombies.

Once the two kids had chosen their "specialties" and they had packed them up, they could go back.

Zombies? Local specialties?

"..."

Qin Su had never imagined the day would come when those two terms would be used together.

Had this world finally become so absurd that he could no longer imagine what it looked like?

Thinking of himself hiding in the changing room not long ago and "volunteering to be struck by lightning," Qin Su dried out his silence.

Remembering what his sister had said in the group chat, Qin Su followed her taste in zombies and marked thirty-three zombies on the picture, all ugly and terrifying in a variety of ways.

[Qin Su: I've picked them. @Big Sis, do you want any more? (picture.jpg)]

[Big Sis: !]

[Big Sis: So relieved.jpg]

[Big Sis: Want any ghosts? @Everyone]

Qin Su: "..."

Ghosts?

For a moment, Qin Su couldn't even tell which member of his family was more absurd.

But from the scattered things his family had said, he could infer that they were all able to freely bring "specialties" from their worlds back to the real world.

As for him...

Qin Su looked at his Life Points countdown screen.

After the afternoon's simulated combat training, the native residents' favorability and the bullet comments had added an unprecedented number of minutes to his Life Points.

At that moment, his Life Points countdown stood at minutes and 39 seconds.

A little over 250 days.

It had shot up by approximately 54 days from the original 196. The facts proved that being infamous really was a kind of fame; once netizens started cursing, there was no shortage of bullet comments.

That was enough time for him to choose where he landed when he returned to the real world, but not enough for him to bring things from this world... Wait, this world's specialties...

Qin Su recalled those vicious, terrifying bugs, most of which were enormous or traveled in swarms, as well as the countless weapons and mecha created to fight them.

He had never encountered a real bug, though he had encountered weapons and mecha in class. But they weren't trash, so he couldn't pick them up.

"..."

It was confirmed. They were things he couldn't afford to bring.

In the Comic World, he was so "poor" that even gaining experience of the pain of being attacked by a weapon required him to use the Mechanical Outerwear equipment in a Weapons and Mecha class.

[Qin Su: No (nope.jpg).]

His life in the Comic World was already like walking on thin ice. He didn't want ghosts popping out from unpredictable places as soon as he opened his eyes every morning.

Zombies and ghosts were more than he could afford, and he had no use for them for now.

[Big Sis: All right.] Beneath the moonlight, Qin Dai looked regretful as the people below watched her fearfully.

[Mom: Will it affect your survival?]

She and Si Fei lived on a points system. They had earned a lot of points over their many years of struggling in the apocalypse, but because they needed to stage "grand spectacles" to keep the other bases wary of them, they spent a lot too.

Still, they had years of savings behind them and were comfortable enough to maintain their looks and physical fitness at their peak.

After deducting the cost of bringing back vaccines and weapons, they could still frequently bring zombies back for research.

[Big Sis: I can bring three, no problem.]

As an instance boss, she could obtain survival time as long as she kept the instance clear rate below ten percent each time. In other words, she allowed only one out of every ten instance challenges to succeed.

[Dad: One for your mom and me is enough. It's time to mix a little magic damage into our physical attacks.]

[Big Sis: It's also time to mix a little physical damage into my magic attacks!]

Qin Su: "..."

He didn't dare imagine the expressions on the faces of people in his sister's world when they saw zombies.

Nor did he dare imagine the scene when people from the other bases in the zombie-infested apocalyptic world saw "ghosts" mixed in among the zombies.

They really were an absurd family.

Then again, when would he have a "bright and beautiful" future like his family?

With the list of "local specialties" settled, the four of them seemed to be chatting cheerfully, but each had things to do. They wasted no more time, said goodbye, and logged off.

Having said "goodbye" to his family for the time being, Qin Su stared at his 250 days of Life Points. "..."

Do not bully...

Forget it. Numb in both mind and body, Qin Su silently placed his phone facedown on the table, folded his hands neatly over his abdomen, closed his eyes, and lay flat in peace.

Everyone was stronger than him, yet he himself didn't feel like striving for now.

Asking about the "physical enhancement drug" over the internet would only make his parents worry prematurely and think he had run into some thorny problem. He would ask when he saw them.

Before returning to the real world, Qin Su slept for a few hours and was awakened by his alarm five minutes early, as usual.

Not long after Qin Su scanned the data he had previously allocated into his space, the familiar white light flashed.

When Qin Su could see again, the furnishings before him were familiar.

It was the apartment.

He had no classes that afternoon. Qin Su opened the safe and found that the papers originally stored inside were gone. It seemed his sister had come back once and taken them.

No sooner had Qin Su closed the safe than a new message popped up on his phone.

Dad sent him an entirely unfamiliar address, then immediately called him. Qin Su picked up in a second.

His father's familiar voice came from the phone. "There's been a small problem. Head over there first."

"Okay."

Hearing the tremendous roar of a motorcycle speeding along through the phone, Qin Su quickly answered, afraid the call would distract his dad.

Si Fei hung up, cursed the system, and sped up. All he had done was exploit a system bug. It was bad enough that it had dumped him deep in the mountains, but it had also fucking dropped him in a forest in a foreign country.

He had really had enough.

Fortunately, to maintain his impressive, high-class image before the world at all times, he had made arrangements almost everywhere.

"Honey, wait a bit. I'll be there soon!" Si Fei looked at the distance between the two points and accelerated.

Although it was a mountain road, Si Fei rode it as if it were level ground, drawing on his extensive experience of "charging around" in the apocalyptic zombie world, where there were no traffic rules.

"Mm, the matter has been perfectly resolved. Come over."

Having delivered her cold-voiced hint under everyone's watchful eyes, Qin Ji hung up and looked expressionlessly at the people below the small private yacht, who were all holding their heads.

The matter? Resolved?

After years of understanding each other, Si Fei immediately understood. His expression grew grave, and he sped up.

Fortunately, they were bound together, so no matter what bug appeared each time, they would never be too far apart.

Fortunately, too, they had had the system implant mutual trackers in their bodies. Unless one of them died, they could pinpoint each other's location under any circumstances.

Ten minutes earlier, Qin Ji had landed in the yacht's cabin along with 66 zombies packed in black cases.

Inside the cabin, besides the "zombie cases" brought back from another world, were the "truths" that had already been there, waiting to be traded.

Outside the yacht, the two sides seemed to have had a disagreement during the deal. Tensions were high, and a group of men in black were pointing guns at one another.

Watching the standoff between the two sides from concealment, Qin Ji felt her head ache twice over.

It was bad enough that she had been dumped on the high seas, but she had also stumbled into a "shura field."

To avoid becoming "cannon fodder," Qin Ji decisively spent points to exchange for the cheapest anesthetic from the system. She knocked out the mercenaries standing guard, stripped off their intimidating-looking clothes, took them back to the cabin, and controlled the zombies to put them on.

Once they were dressed in the mercenaries' full gear, nothing was exposed from head to toe except their eyes. From a distance, no one could tell that the clothes concealed zombies.

She led the zombies and used the other side's weapons to temporarily "suppress" both parties in the standoff below.

A gunfight had indeed taken place. She received Si Fei's call just as it ended.

But the zombies couldn't be killed, not at all. She only needed to make sure she wasn't injured and deal with the leaders of both sides.

For her, someone who had escaped death many times and had ample combat experience, that was no problem at all.

Besides, the weapons they were going to trade were all in the hands of the zombies she controlled.

"What's going on?"

"How the XX would I know?"

"Did you hire people to rob us?"

"I'll rob your XXX."

The people who had been facing off not long ago now held their heads in their hands, staring at one another in bewilderment. Each saw suspicion in the others' eyes.

They suspected each other of deliberately hiring people to rob them.

Just in case, Qin Ji didn't want them communicating with one another. To intimidate them, she fired a burst into the space between the people talking.

Bang, bang, bang!

The deck exploded in an instant. The people talking turned deathly pale and trembled, burying their heads even lower.

"Shut up."

Once the show of force had made them wary, Qin Ji said coldly, "Raise your heads."

Everyone: "?"

Though they didn't understand, their lives were now in the hands of people who had appeared from nowhere and looked like trouble. They all raised their heads uneasily.

In full view of the group below, with the 66 "mercenaries" disguised by "zombies" behind her lending her presence, Qin Ji kicked open a crate with one foot and took out an AK. She aimed it at them as though preparing to spray them with bullets.

"!"

The crowd below turned pale.

Everything from the way she held the gun to her bearing and the unmistakable aura of slaughter about her showed them she was no ordinary person.

They had no doubt she really would gun them down.

The mercenaries behind her had been hit by bullets and were completely fine. That proved they had put on bulletproof vests beforehand and had definitely come prepared. Their own guns had already been thrown into the sea under threat, leaving them no room to resist.

This deal had already drawn a third party's attention. Would they even make it home alive today?

Qin Ji remained expressionless, but she was watching every move the people below made. From their expressions and body language, she judged that they were terrified with the AK pointed at them, and spoke at just the right moment, her voice icy. "Three seconds."

Three seconds?

What did that mean?

Qin Ji had no intention of explaining to people who spent their lives in dangerous situations. She began counting down. "Three..."

Their survival instincts would lead them to make the right choice.

In the real world, even on the high seas, she was a law-abiding person and couldn't kill anyone. But she couldn't tell them to leave either, so she could only frighten them into leaving on their own.

Since she was already here, how could she leave without taking anything? The goods awaiting trade on the ship all looked quite good to her; taking them back would replenish the base's supplies.

Sure enough, as soon as Qin Ji began counting down, the group below rushed toward the edge of the yacht.

"Two."

Qin Ji coldly counted the second number, and splash after splash rang out as they jumped into the sea.

"One."

At the final second, Qin Ji fired a burst at the edge of the yacht. Frightened screams rang out one after another.

The yacht was finally hers. Qin Ji breathed a sigh of relief and walked to the edge, using her advantageous position to look down at the people in the sea.

They had only just fallen into the sea when they instinctively looked up and met those icy eyes. They were instantly frightened out of any further thoughts and fled in all directions.

Boom!

The distance was too great, and Si Fei was afraid he wouldn't make it in time. Standing at the bow, he used binoculars to pinpoint the location, then shouldered a rocket launcher and fired.

"!!!"

There was backup watching from a distance? They really had come prepared!

At that, they fled even faster.

Qin Ji turned and left. Once she was sure she was out of everyone's sight, she strode quickly toward the yacht's control room.

Before long, the two yachts met up.

After making sure the other was all right, they both breathed a sigh of relief. Si Fei removed the control chips from the zombies and scanned the weapons into storage, while Qin Ji video-called Qin Su.

"...Mom, what happened to you?" When the call connected, Qin Su first saw his mother remove the mask mercenaries commonly wore from her face, then saw his father behind her pulling chips out of the zombies.

It looked as though something had happened.

"There was just a tiny little accident, but everything's fine now." Having put her child's worries to rest, Qin Ji immediately continued, "Sorry, we're abroad right now, and it'll take about seventeen hours to get back. If you need anything, just ask the person in charge of the lab where you are to get it."

After confirming that they couldn't get back anytime soon, Si Fei sent Qin Su an address and told him to go there himself and take whatever he wanted.

"...Okay." Plans couldn't keep up with change. Having confirmed that his parents were really fine and that they couldn't meet anytime soon, Qin Su could only ask over the phone, "Mom, is there a drug that can give someone's physical condition a qualitative leap in a short time?"

Si Fei, who had rolled up his sleeves and was stuffing zombies into black crates, froze when he heard that. The next second, he moved in front of the camera, frowning. "What do you want that stuff for?"

Qin Ji said nothing. She seemed to recall something, and her expression didn't look too good either.

Qin Su: "..."

He understood. There was one.

But judging by his father's reaction, the drug was probably harmful to the body, and not just a little. Otherwise, his parents wouldn't have reacted like that.

Qin Su told them the truth anyway. "To fight the Zerg."

"What?"

Si Fei had only seen his child's mouth move, but hadn't heard a sound.

Qin Ji understood. Just as she had guessed earlier, they couldn't tell each other certain truths about the worlds they were in.

"There is, but..." Qin Ji's tone shifted, and her expression grew serious. "The price is nearly your 'life.'"

The last time Si Fei had used it, he had only possessed heaven-defying abilities akin to a "three-minute zombie king."

Qin Su was puzzled. "Life?"