Chapter 33

To make the child give up on the idea completely, Si Fei explained from firsthand experience:

"It's called K-120. Your mom named it after I used it."

"As the name suggests, after injection, it can enhance the user's physique by at least a hundredfold within three minutes, depending on their original physical condition, granting them explosive damage at the 'King' level. But it's a special serum made from something extracted from the Zombie King. Once its three-minute effect wears off, there's a ninety-nine percent chance the user's body will die over the next three days and then transform into something no different from a Zombie. It's so serious that even calling 120 for emergency help might not save them."

"During those three days, the user's heartbeat and breathing will become so faint they're almost nonexistent, and the flow of blood throughout their body will slow dramatically. In other words, they'll be weak to the extreme. On the fourth day, unless they have tremendous willpower to sustain them and one hundred percent luck on their side, the user won't regain the life functions of a human. Instead, they'll go galloping down the road to becoming a Zombie, turning into a freshly made Zombie with no vital signs whatsoever. On the fifth day, they'll begin to rot and stink, their muscles and bones separating and falling apart."

"See?" Si Fei turned his phone to show the hideous Zombies rotting in all sorts of grotesque ways inside the special black case behind him. "You'll become a walking corpse just like them, and you won't lose the ability to move completely until every bone in your body has been shattered."

"That's why everyone who uses K-120 faces the possibility of paying with their life."

"Since K-120 was developed, there have been twenty-three users in total. Only one can stand alive in front of you, and that's me, your dad. I often wonder if I was the only one to survive because I was the sixth person to use it. I got lucky with an auspicious number and just barely made it."

"Do you understand now?"

When he finished, Si Fei and Qin Ji looked at Qin Su on the other end of the video call, waiting for his answer.

"I understand."

After listening to his father, Qin Su thought of what the system had said and his own successful experience exploiting a system bug. The words slipped out:

"That's fantastic!"

To others, it was arsenic that offered a slim chance of survival. But to him, who lived on comic popularity points—namely, the favorability of the Comic World's natives—and bullet comments, it was like honey.

As long as the Life Points countdown displayed in the upper right corner didn't reach zero, even if his body were blown to pieces, by the logic of exploiting the system bug, he wouldn't truly die.

As long as he didn't court death by doing anything that disgusted the Comic World's natives and the comic's readers, and kept his popularity points rising, he wouldn't die. He simply couldn't die.

How could that not count as playing to his strengths?

In fact, after learning the logic behind his own "existence," Qin Su suspected that even if he were blown to bits, he would still be a pile of shattered "living things" until the minutes on his life countdown reached zero. Only then would he truly die.

At the thought of that creepy scene, Qin Su silently drew a big X in his mind.

In that horrifying state, never mind scaring some random person to death—he himself would be frightened into losing SAN points like crazy.

He would take good care to keep his body from ending up in pieces.

As for his body's reaction after the three minutes were up...

His breathing would be almost nonexistent? No problem. As long as he couldn't die, he could pretend to breathe.

His body would have no warmth because its functions had declined?

Put another way, wouldn't he be "exuding an icy aura that kept people a thousand miles away"? That was a perfect match for his "ice-cold big shot" persona.

Qin Ji: "Hm?"

Si Fei: "Huh?"

They exchanged a glance, each seeing the same thought in the other's eyes: Damn transmigration. What has it done to our poor child?

If they'd been face-to-face, both their hands would have landed on Qin Su's head in unison by now, and they would have called both a psychologist and a medical doctor over to examine him from head to toe.

Si Fei wiped the Zombie blood off his hands and said seriously, "Sweetie, I told you all that to talk you out of trying it, not to make you sound like your mental state is something we should be very worried about. You haven't been through something traumatic in that world, have you?"

Traumatic?

Qin Su denied it. "No."

"Mom, Dad, you might not believe this, but in the world I'm in, a me grew on a 'life' bug."

Qin Su put it in easier terms for his dad: "In other words, I've truly achieved 'my fate is mine, not heaven's.' The way my life continues is different from ordinary people's because of the binding."

Si Fei blurted out, "Who do you think you are, Qin Aotian?"

Qin Ji had been about to say something, but that stopped her short. "Would it kill you to make it rhyme?"

"Want me to add one?"

Judging from their child's words, he had essentially turned on a "health lock cheat." Unlike them, he had put his skill points into "life" rather than "abilities." That meant Qin Su's death had been crossed out of the Book of Life and Death on both a physical and magical level. Si Fei's tense body relaxed.

Qin Ji: "..."

Qin Ji took a deep breath and looked intently at her child on the other end of the screen. Still worried, she asked again to make sure, "Are you sure it's true?"

"Truer than gold and silver." Qin Su answered just as seriously. "Mom, whenever I know my limits, I've always known my limits."

Si Fei: "..."

When their whole family indulged in stating the obvious, they really stated the obvious.

Their child really had no reason to deceive her, and his microexpressions showed no sign of a lie. Only then did Qin Ji nod. "I understand."

Not only did they often exploit system bugs, but their child had inherited that fine tradition too.

"How much do you need?"

She hadn't expected that something they didn't dare use a second time could "shine" in their child's hands. At least the enormous manpower and resources spent developing it hadn't gone to waste.

Not only could everyone find the retribution meant precisely for them; so could every world.

Qin Su thought for a moment. Instead of answering immediately, he first asked, "Mom, how long is its shelf life?"

"Forever," Qin Ji said.

Zombies were beings that defied life itself, and the serum made from something extracted from the Zombie King, the strongest of all Zombies, likewise defied the heavens. It wasn't subject to any time limit.

Hearing that, Qin Su didn't hesitate. "Then I want all of it."

Even his mom and dad had barely survived using it. Who knew whether fate would favor them again if they used it another time?

He was taking all the K-120. Every last bit.

The greater the quantity of serums and vaccines in this category, the fewer Life Points it cost per vial on average to pack them up and take them away together.

To avoid attracting notice or losing face when he appeared in the Comic World, once he knew the quantity, he would have Assistant Jiang send over a fancy-looking case sized to fit the volume occupied by all the K-120.

Qin Ji: "..."

"The effect is only temporary. It lasts just three minutes," Qin Ji cautioned. "Setting aside whether you can survive, the three days of weakness after the effect wears off won't be easy either. You'll be so fragile that a touch could break you. If you're attacked while you're weak and don't have someone you trust beside you, it'll be very dangerous. Unless it's necessary, using it isn't worth the cost."

"How about taking one vial and trying it first?"

It wasn't that she didn't trust him; she just couldn't help worrying.

"It'll be fine, Mom."

In the toughest voice, Qin Su said the most cowardly thing: "After the three-minute effect wears off, I won't fight anyone who can beat me."

He wouldn't use it carelessly. He would time it carefully and put on a spectacular show when necessary, striving to "resolve" the problem completely while he was at it.

That way, with the greatest threat dealt with, he would handle the other minor matters through the natives who had been won over by his strength.

"...All right. I'll have the person in charge take you to where the K-120 is sealed. The password to unlock and retrieve it is..."

Qin Ji gave him a number.

"Okay, Mom, I've got it." Qin Su nodded and committed it to memory. Remembering that his parents couldn't hear certain things he said and that his typed messages turned into gibberish, he quickly added, "Mom, what if we hide each character separately in different sentences, or send them separately? Or use another language?"

Remembering that they could send pictures, Qin Su added, "Or type them into a picture?"

"No use." Si Fei sighed. "Your mom and I have tried it all. Even if we split the text across several pages, that thing can still detect it. We can send pictures from our world, but if it detects writing on them, it blocks them. More importantly, there's no telling what bizarre ideas that thing has about what can and can't be sent."

Qin Ji nodded in agreement. "It's full of bugs. It can be incredibly stupid, but when it's smart, there's no telling what obscure corner it's put its intelligence into."

Qin Su thought of 777's behavior, as though it had been set to follow mechanical processes and execute rigid commands, and nodded in complete agreement.

That was both good and bad.

The bad part was that if its processes decided something wasn't allowed, that was that; it couldn't adapt. The good part was that as long as he exploited a text bug at the point where a process ran, it would let even the most heaven-defying actions through.

Otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to exploit the benefits K-120 offered him in terms of "life."

"Oh, right." Remembering when his parents had said they would be home, Qin Su said, "After I get the K-120, I'll keep training, and then %##%."

The stronger his own physique was, the greater the explosive enhancement from K-120 would be.

Many Zerg could even withstand damage from weapons, so their physiques were obviously several times stronger. If some unlucky accident rendered his weapon unusable or caused him to lose it on a battlefield someday, he would have only himself to rely on. He couldn't afford to slack off.

Watching his parents' expressions, Qin Su realized the rest had been blocked again. He could only change his words. "Mom, our timing doesn't match up for a meeting."

"It's all right." They couldn't stay here too long either, and didn't even know whether they could hand these Zombies over to their eldest in person.

They talked for a few more minutes. Knowing both sides had to get back to work, they reluctantly ended the brief video call.

After the call ended, Qin Ji and Si Fei exchanged a glance.

Qin Ji spoke first. "Good news: the training was right."

Both children had transmigrated, and with the foundations they'd been forced to lay since childhood, they weren't going into an unprepared battle.

Si Fei followed up. "Bad news: we bet on the wrong worlds."

After the two of them had transmigrated into the apocalypse, struggled there for years, and returned to the real world, they had worried that their children might "inherit" the tendency to transmigrate. So they had established a solid material foundation for both children in the apocalypse and the real world.

That way, the children could do as they pleased whether they were in the apocalypse or the real world.

After tireless effort, they had indeed ensured that their children wouldn't have to live miserable lives inheriting nothing but scrap metal in the apocalypse or the real world.

Who would have thought things would go off course? Both of them had transmigrated to the wrong places.

"..."

They exchanged a glance, their feelings beyond words.

Before collecting the K-120, Qin Su sent Assistant Jiang a message:

'Prepare wrapping paper 1 cm thick, high-end, grand, classy, understated yet luxurious, and tasteful, with dimensions within 80 x 80.'

Wrapping paper of those dimensions and thickness cost no Life Points to store in the space.

'Two ropes, each 60 cm long, with the same qualities listed above, but sturdy enough to lift a weight of 2.5 kg.'

Those likewise cost no Life Points.

'One case weighing 1 kg, able to perfectly accommodate a 2.5 kg load without looking out of place when carried, and possessing the qualities of the items above.'

It cost only twenty minutes of Life Points to exchange for.

Qin Su had carefully compared all these seemingly precise dimensions and selected the space-occupancy cost requiring the fewest Life Points.

'Have clothes matching the case sent to the apartment. Deliver the other items within an hour.'

After sending the text, Qin Su attached his address, stood up, and walked toward the person in charge waiting outside the transparent glass door.

He trusted that Assistant Jiang, with his special training, certainly wouldn't say there was something wrong with him.

Jiang Cheng: "..."

What was so appealing about the phrase "high-end, grand, classy, understated yet luxurious, and tasteful" that Qin Su was so obsessed with it?

Besides, did Qin Su have some misunderstanding about him?

All he had to do was stand anywhere with a cold expression, and who would even notice what he was carrying or wearing?

Jiang Cheng didn't understand, but he respected it. After a few seconds of silence, he immediately called to make arrangements.

Jiang Cheng arrived earlier than expected. He was puzzled when he saw a pile of things resembling vaccines, but he didn't ask anything.

Qin Su checked the things Assistant Jiang had brought and made sure everything was in order. Then he walked over to the K-120, which had already been taken out, stared at its name, and said to Jiang Cheng, "Assistant Jiang, sorry for the trouble, but could you give me a pen?"

The old name was rather unlucky. It had brought about a lot of misfortune and even caused the deaths of twenty-two people. It couldn't be used anymore.

Jiang Cheng: "...Okay."

Jiang Cheng took out the fountain pen he carried with him and handed it to Qin Su.

"Thank you." Qin Su took the pen and decisively altered the number "2" into a bold "1."

And so "K-110" was born.

Of course, the "110" didn't mean he would call the police.

It meant that after he injected K-110, his opponents would need to call the police for help.

Jiang Cheng: "...Okay."

That was it?

To "defy the heavens and change the fate" of every vial of K-120, Qin Su carefully altered each one. He returned the pen to Assistant Jiang. "Sorry for the trouble, Assistant Jiang, but please wrap them in the paper and tie them with the ropes according to the case's dimensions. Don't put them in the case yet."

"Okay."

Although he didn't really understand, Assistant Jiang did as instructed.

Before long, Assistant Jiang finished wrapping them, and Qin Su told him to leave.

Once the door closed, Qin Su scanned the K-110 into the space first, then scanned in the case. The transaction succeeded, and the vaccines and case vanished before his eyes.

Qin Su opened the door and appeared before Jiang Cheng again.

"Let's go." Knowing Assistant Jiang wouldn't look around, Qin Su closed the door naturally.

"Okay."

The things had been carefully wrapped, only to be left in the room?

Assistant Jiang was completely baffled, but he didn't ask any more questions or look any further. His gaze remained fixed on Qin Su.

Surely Qin Su hadn't injected himself with all those vaccines of unknown purpose, which was why he wasn't taking them along?

Unable to make sense of it, Jiang Cheng opened the car door for Qin Su and closed it again. Then he went to the driver's seat and drove away.

"Assistant Jiang." Sitting in the back seat, Qin Su caught Assistant Jiang's gaze flicking toward him in the rearview mirror again. "Do you think there's something wrong with me?"

Otherwise, on the way to the training location, he wouldn't have instinctively glanced at him in the rearview mirror three times since they got in the car.

"...Haha." Jiang Cheng tightened his grip on the steering wheel, nearly stepping on the brake. He gave an awkward but polite smile. "Of course not."

It was just... a little strange, that was all. It hardly qualified as something being "wrong." In his view, the ones with something wrong were the rich heirs who relied on their power and money to do all sorts of outrageous things in private, and every few days ended up either in legal news as celebrity offenders or in entertainment headlines.

This sister and brother never touched anything involving lawbreaking or crime.

Instead, they never missed a single bizarre thing.

Every time, they refreshed his values, reshaped his worldview, and challenged his outlook on life.

Take Young Master Qin's older sister, President Qin, for example. What others considered a dark and windy night for breaking the law, President Qin spent either having him drive her to the morgue to contemplate life in front of a pile of bodies in freezers, or having him find a haunted house where she could spend the night.

Comic World.

Qin Su opened his eyes, saw the familiar surroundings of his dorm room, and breathed a sigh of relief. He bent down to pick up the vaccines and case that had fallen to the floor.

He didn't rush to check the data as he had before.

Today was homeroom teacher Zhang Minglang's tactical analysis class.

He had read the data on countless bugs and learned about their respective habitats and characteristics. He had also read many interviews, diaries, and autobiographies of soldiers who had been on the battlefield.

Combining that knowledge with the characteristics of weapons and mecha, and his experience working as a team with his coaches in the real world, he could work out ways to deal with the bugs. Strategizing on paper wasn't too difficult for him. He didn't have to be thrown in at the deep end as before and could catch his breath.

What was difficult was the adaptability and strength needed to face utterly uncontrollable bugs on a real battlefield.

Strength...

Without ever having experienced an actual war against the Zerg, Qin Su didn't yet have a clear assessment of himself.

But now that he had K-110, he was no longer the ordinary human he had once been in the eyes of the Comic World's natives.

He could enhance his physique severalfold by injecting K-110. Although it lasted only three short minutes, that was better than nothing.

Handled well, even three minutes could produce a "permanent" deterrent.

In theory, no one but Qin Su could enter his dorm room, but he still chose to hide the K-110, leaving only one dose out.

So that he would have a clear idea of just how much his physical abilities would improve after being injected with the vaccine when fighting the Zerg, he needed to find a suitable opportunity as soon as possible and use one dose of K-110 before his first actual battle against them.

Since he didn't know when that opportunity would come, Qin Su decided to carry the K-110 with him whenever he went out.

With ten minutes left before his afternoon class, Qin Su changed clothes and picked up the K-110 he had left on the table.

A dose of K-110 was one centimeter wide and three centimeters long. Qin Su easily concealed it on the inside of his arm, securing it with invisible tape.

Although the video of Qin Su's simulated combat in yesterday's Weapons and Mecha Fundamentals class had not circulated, his public rankings and stats, which were all "1," had been posted on the Fourth Military Academy forum that same day, sparking widespread discussion.

Its "aftereffects" still lingered. During tactical analysis class, even Anthony, who envied and resented Qin Su because of He Wenyuan, obediently stayed well away from him.

Even an S-rank Alpha like He Muzhi had been toyed with in the palm of Qin Su's hand. As an A-minus Alpha, with the timing, circumstances and people all against him, Anthony had better keep his tail between his legs for the time being.

For several days in a row, Qin Su carried the K-110 with him to class every day, but found no chance to use it.

Qin Su: "..."

How lonely it was to be "invincible."

Unable to find an "opponent," Qin Su pinned his hopes on basic physical training, the class he had failed to complete last time because of He Wenyuan.

Although the physical training course had a list of activities, the content of each class varied, depending entirely on the instructor's arrangements.

Qin Su remembered that one of the activities was called "fighting."

After changing into his Training Uniform in the locker room as usual, Qin Su had no mind to see how the other students were looking at him, nor was he in the mood to read the bullet comments. He simply prayed silently to God that "fighting" would be included in this class.

Less than a minute after Qin Su's prayer, Kaixier ruthlessly shattered his "dream."

"Today's training activity is weightlifting." Kaixier had previously made a habit of running a few kilometers before class, but after the last incident, she had developed a temporary psychological aversion to "running."

Weightlifting?

"..." Qin Su had "lost all will to live."

He understood now. There was a cultural barrier, and God might not have understood him. His request had been reassigned. Next time, he would make a wish to Nüwa instead.

"Follow me." Kaixier led the way, and Qin Su walked along with the group, expressionless.

Even though the students of Class 6 had voluntarily put on the same Training Uniform as Qin Su, they didn't dare make any eye contact with him.

Forget speaking to him—even He Muzhi, who was bursting with things to say, unconsciously kept a little farther away from Qin Su, who was radiating a gloomy aura.

Everyone was curious about what had been going on with Qin Su lately and why his expression was growing colder, but no one dared ask.

[Everyone in Class 6 is wearing the school-issued Training Uniform today. Is this the big shot's power to "drive sales"?]

[Hmm... have you noticed how cold Baby One's expression has been lately?]

[I noticed ages ago. I seriously suspect Baby One has run into something upsetting.]

[It must be something really serious to make Big Shot One like this. Did something happen to a major business deal?]

Qin Su: "..."

The bullet comments were as imaginative as ever. Business? There was none. He was simply depressed because his "wish" had failed.

After following Kaixier to their training destination, Qin Su's pupils quivered as he took it in, and his "will to live" returned in an instant.

He had been startled into it.

What the hell had God reassigned him to?!

[Cat head]