Picking Up My Ex-Wife in the Apocalypse - Chapter 30

The air felt thick and stagnant, like molten lead dripping in a dark room, searing the skin and making the blood of those present boil. Si Qi forcibly suppressed a sudden surge of mania, her lips curling into a frigid smile.

“I rely on my own strength,” Si Qi said, staring at the scarred man and then at the video loading on the screen. She was genuinely curious about what kind of file was massive enough to take this long to load.

Si Ruxu started to step forward, but a hand caught her. She turned to see Si Luoheng shaking her head. The Commander wouldn’t have gathered everyone here and targeted Si Qi so directly unless he had an absolute trump card. Furthermore, he possessed energy identical to Si Qi’s; at a time like this, they couldn’t afford to be impulsive. They had to observe from the sidelines.

Si Ruxu lowered her gaze and took a step back, retreating from the group surrounding Si Qi.

Si Qi stood there calmly, meeting every gaze that’s hostile or otherwise, without flinching. She had done nothing wrong. The world was sick, and she would face its symptoms head-on.

“Recently, our base developed a new surveillance system. By connecting a parent device to children devices, we can monitor the children devices in real-time. It was meant for use in the Great Purge,” the Commander said, his eyes locking onto Si Qi’s face with a sharp, icy intensity.

“But months ago, Si Qi took advantage of the chaos to steal this weapon. Because of that, I have observed the entire process from the moment she entered the Purge to the moment she left.” As these words fell, Si Ruxu’s face turned deathly pale. She looked at Si Qi, only to see a faint, knowing smile on the girl’s lips.

As if she didn’t care. As if she had expected this.

“Steal? How disgusting. Framing others with a script you wrote yourself?” Si Qi said. She could sense a weak wisp of her own power vibrating within his body.

The Commander flinched under her gaze. He stepped back, only finding his courage once he felt the collective power of the elite Awakened surrounding him. “Right or wrong, we’ll know once the video plays. Don’t be in such a hurry.”

Si Qi nodded in agreement. Behind her, Luo Fenghe gently tugged at her sleeve, signaling her to prepare for a spatial escape. She didn’t respond. She even had the leisure to take a sip of the tea on the table.

“Eat and drink as much as you can. Don’t be polite to him,” Si Qi said with a light laugh.

The only sounds in the room were the clink of teacups and the shifting of fruit plates. The video continued to load, the sound of heavy breathing echoing in the silence. Si Qi bit into a fruit with a sharp crunch. A second later, the black screen flickered to life.

Loading Complete.

The silence deepened. The air grew dense like black ink, threatening to swallow anyone caught in the middle.

The footage began from Day One: Si Qi entering the convenience store and taking only a few bags of chips, then the meager rations she saved each day. Every step felt surreal. Si Qi could feel the energy of the Awakened around her coiling, ready to strike. She remained still, leaning back in her chair, watching the “show” of her own survival.

She admitted that her state during the Purge was strange. She had felt detached from the world, trapped on that small hillside, unwilling to descend or let anyone up. She had intended to be a mere observer, but she had intervened. On that noisy night filled with cries for help, where the Awakened acted like soul-stealing demons…

But looking at the video now, there was no sound. The footage showed her sitting silently on the hillside for a long time before the blood-red patterns crawled across her eyes and wrists. She stared in one direction, stood up, and walked to the edge. The red patterns flowed from her fingertips like silk in the moonlight, branching out and merging into every plant and animal.

Those organisms instantly mutated, growing massive—the first-stage forms of the monsters they knew today.

Luo Fenghe’s pupils contracted. He looked at Si Qi with utter disbelief. “When did you…”

“Shh. Don’t be afraid. Let’s hear what they have to say,” Si Qi said, not even glancing at the Commander. She looked almost appreciative of her own power on the screen.

The Commander scanned the room, his eyes pausing on Si Ruxu’s pale, pressed lips before he knit his brows. He didn’t know when Si Ruxu had allied with the Research Institute, and he wondered if it would disrupt his plans.

“Si Qi, do you have anything to say for yourself?” he asked, his scarred muscles tensing.

“Nothing. I did it,” Si Qi said, raising her hands with a light smile. “But they deserved it.”

“Nonsense! You think ten thousand Awakened deserved to die? Every one of them worked to protect ordinary people and survive the apocalypse!” the Commander shouted with theatrical passion. Through his skin, Si Qi could see the red energy surging greedily.

“Heh,” she scoffed. “I never said the Awakened deserved to die. I only said that every living thing should be allowed to compete. Humans evolved into two types: zombies with strong bodies but no minds, and Awakened who reign over everything. Why should animals and plants stay as they were, waiting to be slaughtered?”

Gasps filled the room. To the humans present, her words were utter gibberish. Even Si Qi, as a human, understood their perspective. Animals might have lives, but humans were used to being the masters.

“Evolution is inevitable. I simply gave them a push. It was bound to happen—survival of the fittest.”

The Commander clapped slowly, laughing with rage. “Survival of the fittest, indeed. So you’re admitting you aren’t on humanity’s side?”

“I am on the side of life. Any organism should use its strength to fight for resources and collaborate to end the apocalypse,” Si Qi said, her voice powerful and her eyes fixed on the Commander.

“Good, good, good!” The Commander waved his hand, and a spatial cage instantly dropped, trapping Si Qi inside. She frowned, sensing that the material of this cage was different from standard spatial barriers.

“Is this how you treat a guest?” Luo Fenghe stepped forward to shield the cage. “Si Qi is part of our base. Any judgment should be discussed with us.”

“What right do you have to discuss anything with me!” The Commander’s red energy writhed like worms under his skin. Si Qi recoiled in disgust; it was far uglier than when she used her own power.

“Enough,” Si Qi said from inside the cage. “Tell me. What do you want?”

The Commander laughed. To him, she was just a naive girl. He didn’t believe she could resist all the base leaders at once. “I don’t want your life. I want you to stay at the base for ‘evaluation.’ If we confirm you are on humanity’s side, I’ll release you.”

*****

As Si Qi stared at the rampaging energy in his veins, a vision flickered before her eyes. She saw a small zombie with clear, intelligent eyes. She felt as though she were witnessing its entire life.

It was the First Zombie. It was sentient. It didn’t bite or crave blood; it wandered the mountains until, by chance, it saw a human step out of a car. Humans walked upright just like it did, but they were different—their hunting skills were poor, and they lacked special powers. It became curious, watching from a distance until one day, the human discovered it. They stood in the sunlight, studying each other. The human spoke strange words—they weren’t unpleasant. It wanted the human to speak more…

The vision shattered. The Commander had walked up to the cage, his face twisted with impatience.

Almost, Si Qi thought. She almost knew where his power came from. But she felt a strange kinship with that small zombie. If the first of its kind was peaceful and sentient, why did those who followed become monsters? Was the first zombie a transformed human, or the Creator’s first experiment?

She found no answers, only a tangled mess of clues.

The Commander, seeing her dazed expression, grew wary. “Don’t try any tricks. There are too many of us here for you to escape.”

Si Qi looked at him with genuine confusion. “Who said I wanted to escape?”

She raised her hand. The man who was about to speak instantly exploded into a red mist. The red energy from his body flowed back into her veins. As the power returned to its source, something new appeared in her mind—an object wrapped in a grey, hazy cloth. She couldn’t see it, but she knew it was there.

The spatial cage constricted the moment she moved. She was forced into a half-kneeling position, unable to move. The crushing pressure threatened to turn her to dust. She used her Space ability to resist, but blood mixed with internal tissue began to spill from her mouth.

“The Commander is dead! She’s a dangerous variable—we don’t know if she’s friend or foe,” one leader shouted.

“Better to kill a thousand innocents than let one threat go free. This cage is strong, but it’s not killing her fast enough…”

Si Luoheng looked at the frantic crowd, then at the kneeling, bleeding Si Qi. She let out a soft laugh, cutting through the chatter.

“Kill her? How hard could that be?”

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