Why Is It Always Me?!

Ninghang City, Gongshu District, near Lanshan Hospital.

Several police officers were on duty there.

"Ahh..." Liu Qian yawned and asked a middle-aged officer beside her, "Wang, I'm going to grab some late-night food. What do you want?"

"A bowl of beef offal."

"Beef offal? After what we've seen these past few days, you can still stomach that?"

"See, that's where you're wrong. The best way to conquer fear is to face it."

"Sure. What about the rest of you?"

"A bowl of ramen for me."

"..."

Liu Qian headed to the food street on the next block. After buying everyone's food, she started back the way she'd come.

As she passed a warehouse, she heard someone pounding on its door.

"Huh?"

She froze and instinctively looked toward the warehouse.

Bang, bang, bang!

The heavy blows kept coming. In the quiet night, they sounded especially harsh, making Liu Qian's legs go weak.

She snatched up her radio. "Wang, I think something's happening over here! Get here, quick!"

She tried to put some distance between herself and the warehouse as soon as she finished speaking.

But she hadn't taken two steps when...

Boom!

With a deafening crash, the warehouse doors burst open. Several hideous zombies lunged straight at her, claws outstretched!

"Ah! Why is it me again?!"

Liu Qian screamed and ran.

But the zombies were far faster than she'd imagined, moving beyond any human limit. They closed in on her at terrifying speed.

"No... Stay away!"

Tears streamed down her face as she ran for her life.

She'd joined the Ninghang City Public Security Bureau less than a month ago. How had she already run into one anomaly after another?

The world was definitely out to get me!

Just as a zombie was about to grab her, a figure glowing gold suddenly appeared ahead.

"That's..."

Before Liu Qian could even look relieved, the figure shot toward the pursuing zombies like lightning.

In the blink of an eye, the zombies were torn apart, their remains scattered across the ground.

"She's... she's incredible!"

Liu Qian stared at the Female Knight nearby, unable to stop herself from gasping in amazement.

Her aunt was an official with the Investigation Bureau, so Liu Qian had met a few Espers before. She wasn't entirely unfamiliar with them.

But the Female Knight's strength far surpassed that of an ordinary Investigator!

Even an Intermediate Investigator would have struggled to end the fight so quickly and cleanly!

While Liu Qian's attention was fixed on Xilin, an urgent shout suddenly came over her radio:

"Liu Qian! Something's happened! Notify the bureau, now!"

"Wang? What happened?!"

"Damn it... Those bodies... They came back to life!"

"The bodies came back to life?"

Liu Qian's heart clenched. She immediately realized it was connected to the zombies that had chased her.

She hurriedly took out her phone and contacted the Public Security Bureau.

But help from the bureau couldn't possibly arrive in time, and her colleagues could die at any moment. She gathered her courage and called to the Female Knight:

"Excuse me! Could you... help us? Several police officers are trapped by those zombies inside Lanshan Hospital! Please..."

"Yes," Xilin replied softly.

Then she leaped lightly from the street straight up to the hospital's second floor.

Meanwhile, the other police officers were trapped by zombies inside an operating room.

"Damn it! Wang, think of something!"

"I can't! They're too fast to land a clean headshot!"

"Zombie movies are a lie! These things are faster than champion sprinters, and they don't even get tired!"

"We can't let them get out of Lanshan Hospital!"

"Don't worry. I had Xiao Chen lock the main doors. They can't get out!"

"We just have to hold on until the bureau sends someone, and we'll..."

Roar! Roar! Roar!

As the officers struggled to hold the operating-room doors shut, the zombies outside suddenly began to roar!

But a few seconds later, every sound stopped. Dead silence fell.

"What happened?"

The officers exchanged bewildered looks.

"Should we... take a look?"

"Maybe not?"

"It's too dark out there. I'm kind of scared..."

Bang!!

Before they could decide, the operating-room doors were suddenly pushed open.

They all raised their guns toward the entrance, only to discover that it wasn't a zombie. It was an armored knight!

Behind her, the zombies outside the operating room lay decapitated in pools of blood.

"The zombies are dead?"

"Thank goodness! We're saved!"

"Thank you so much!"

"You really saved us!"

"Wait, aren't you the one from last night..."

One officer recognized her as the mysterious Female Knight who had killed Xu Yan the night before.

"Are there any more zombies in the hospital?" Xilin asked.

"No. All the bodies we found were here."

Once Xilin was sure there were no more zombies in the hospital, she left without another word.

The officers looked at one another, then let out a collective breath. Relieved smiles spread across their faces.

They'd survived!

"Only nineteen zombies..."

Bai Xuan stood atop a tall building across from the private hospital. He glanced at the mission list. Xilin had killed only nineteen zombies, so the mission remained incomplete.

But one thing was certain: since Xilin had cleared the hospital, he could no longer sense a single undead presence inside.

Then...

Bai Xuan scanned the surrounding area.

If the mission required twenty zombie kills, there had to be at least one more nearby.

And whoever had created those zombies still hadn't appeared.

"Hm?"

Bai Xuan suddenly spotted two figures atop another tall building nearby. Like him, they were watching the private hospital.

"There you are."

"Damn it! My experiments are ruined!"

On the roof of the high-rise, a male doctor in a white coat covered his right eye and stamped his foot in fury.

To move his experiment forward, he'd been secretly watching the hospital. He'd even leaked information on purpose to lead the police officers to the bodies.

He'd planned to use the officers to test his zombies' combat abilities.

But he hadn't expected a Female Knight to ruin his plans!

"It's all that bitch Xu Yan's fault!"

Grinding his teeth, the doctor kicked the hulking zombie behind him.

"I told her to lie low! Not to cause trouble! And look what happened!" The angrier he got, the harder he stamped on the ground. "Useless Ghoul!"

"Pah!"

"Let's go, Bruce."

The doctor was about to leave when an invisible sword strike swept past!

Crack! The arm he'd been using to cover his right eye was severed on the spot, exposing an eye already infected by the virus and glowing an eerie blood-red.

"Damn it!"

The doctor gripped his bleeding stump against the pain and looked up in panic. Two figures had appeared at the entrance to the stairwell below.

"Damn it! Bruce!" he shouted to the enhanced Zombie beside him. "Kill them..."

Before he could finish, another sword strike flashed past.

The hulking Zombie's head hit the ground...