She’s Fiercer Than Zombies - Chapter 36

Qiao Gaogao crouched facing the wall, her entire body charred black. Her doll-like face was filled with confusion and a thoroughly defeated expression, while her shock of white hair stood completely on end.

“Grrr!”

Someone appeared beside her.

Qiao Gaogao turned her head to look, her eyes widening in shock. She was so agitated she nearly leaped to her feet!

“Senior, how did you end up like this too?!”

Qiao Gaogao’s voice rose sharply as she stared at her senior’s identical disheveled state, grinding her teeth in fury.

“Grrr~” Yinxi let out two aggrieved growls, wrapping her arms around her legs and curling into a ball of misery.

“That bastard! How dare she strike you with lightning!” Qiao Gaogao cursed angrily, taking a deep breath. “Let’s go! We’re going to settle the score with her!”

Both of them were charred black, looking as if they had been struck by lightning. If not for their familiarity with each other, it would have been nearly impossible to recognize one another at a glance!

As for how they ended up in this state, we must rewind to earlier events.

Having eaten too much instant food, Qiao Gaogao was craving something fresh and decided to venture out to find some seafood to make herself a pot of seafood congee. Thinking it would only take a moment, she didn’t bring Yinxi along, telling her to stay in the room and study.

Leaving the room, Qiao Gaogao descended from the seventh floor without even breaking a sweat, thanks to her physical stamina. But as she reached the fifth floor, she keenly detected faint noises coming from that level. Driven by curiosity, she stepped into the fifth-floor corridor, listening carefully to pinpoint which room the sounds were coming from.

“This is madness! With so many zombies outside, how do you plan to get out?!”

Qiao Gaogao paused mid-step, recognizing that the voice was coming from the door directly to her right. The woman’s voice was clear and cold, pleasant to the ear, yet it carried a weak, breathless quality, as if she might stop breathing at any moment.

“But you haven’t eaten in two days! How are you supposed to hold on like this?!”

Another woman’s voice, this one tinged with frustration.

The two didn’t argue for long perhaps they were too weakened by hunger to sustain a quarrel.

“I’ll go upstairs and check.”

“No! That’s suicide!”

“If I don’t go, you’ll die for sure!”

Qiao Gaogao froze for a moment. Did “upstairs” mean her and her senior?

Footsteps approached. Reacting quickly, Qiao Gaogao tried to hide, but the room was in the middle of the corridor where could she possibly go? Just as she considered testing whether the neighboring room was unlocked, the door swung open.

A woman in gray athletic wear stepped out, her face tense. Life after the zombie outbreak had clearly not been kind to her cheeks were slightly sunken, and her thin sportswear hung loosely on her frame.

The sight of her clothing made Qiao Gaogao feel cold.

The moment their eyes met, Qiao Gaogao knew things were about to go wrong. She tried to subdue the woman, her hand mere centimeters away, when a fierce, overwhelming force struck her head-on!

Instinctively, Qiao Gaogao erected an iron wall for defense.

The next second,

“Argh!”

Qiao Gaogao convulsed all over, spitting out a mouthful of black smoke. Her entire body was nearly charred into a lump of coal.

Dammit!

Qiao Gaogao snapped back to reality, knowing she couldn’t afford to linger. As she retreated, her peripheral vision caught a hunched woman following the first woman who had emerged.

Without another glance, Qiao Gaogao swiftly descended from the fifth floor to the first. In her current state, she had no idea how to face her senior.

Careless!

So careless!

Frustrated, she beat her chest and stamped her feet. How could she have run into such a nemesis!

A lightning-based ability! A lightning-based ability!

“Aww!” Qiao Gaogao wailed, hugging Yinxi. The two of them, now matching little charred figures, clung to each other in shared misery.

“Senior! That woman has a lightning ability, she’s my natural counter!”

As a metal-based ability user, her entire body conducted electricity! Wasn’t this just asking to be fried alive?

That was precisely why she had to retreat for now.

After all, avoiding being electrocuted was her top priority.

Yinxi ruffled her hair, smoothing down the little white strands standing on end or rather, the little gray strands now.

“Grrr!”

Yinxi was just as unlucky. Worried when Gaogao hadn’t returned for so long, she had gone downstairs to check, only to run into two women on the fifth-floor staircase.

And of all things, they were two women with sharp eyes.

So, as a zombie, she was naturally struck by lightning.

Luckily, she had consumed quite a bit of blood from ability users, which made her limbs more agile otherwise, she wouldn’t have been able to escape in time.

Though she wasn’t sure if using all her abilities would be enough to deal with that lightning-user, seeing her senior also charred black made Qiao Gaogao’s blood boil. She hoisted Yinxi onto her back, determined to settle the score with those two.

All she did was eavesdrop a little was that any reason to strike so harshly?

Just as the two reached the third floor, they heard desperate sobbing from upstairs.

“Wuwu, don’t die. I’ll listen to you from now on, I won’t throw tantrums anymore. Please don’t leave me, okay? You’re all I have now.”

“Song Qingxu! Can you hear me?!”

Hearing the heart-wrenching cries, the two paused in surprise.

Was that woman dying?

They hurried upstairs and saw the woman in gray athletic wear kneeling on the floor, staring at the pale, lifeless-looking woman lying before her. She paid no attention to their arrival, as if nothing else mattered except the woman on the ground.

The two approached and looked down at the woman whose face was deathly pale, breathing shallowly. Wasn’t she the one who had so fiercely electrocuted both Gaogao and her senior earlier? How had she ended up unconscious like this now?

Noticing the large bloodstain soaking through the woman’s clothes at her abdomen, they wondered, how severe was the injury to reduce an ability user to such a state?

“Hey, is she dying?” Qiao Gaogao asked, holding back the last shred of her conscience to refrain from finishing her off while she was down.

After all, she had been the one eavesdropping and trying to catch the woman so she wasn’t exactly in the right. But electrocuting her senior? That was crossing the line! Her senior hadn’t done anything wrong!

So, in this case, her senior was the one in the right!

“You’re the one who’s dying!” The woman in gray glared at her furiously, as if ready to fight to the death if Qiao Gaogao dared say another harsh word.

“Hey, what’s with the attitude? We haven’t even settled the score with you yet!” Qiao Gaogao retorted, but seeing how much the woman cared for the one lying on the ground, she ultimately held back from saying more.

The woman lying on the ground struggled to open her eyes. Instead of looking at the woman beside her, she turned her gaze toward Qiao Gaogao and the others. Her lips parted slightly as she spoke with great difficulty, “I’m sorry.”

In such a situation, someone who hadn’t attacked them probably wasn’t too bad a person.

Qiao Gaogao was taken aback by the apology. What kind of tactic was this? They had come to settle scores, and she was apologizing outright?

“I attacked earlier because I thought you meant harm to Ajiu. I’m sorry.” As soon as she finished speaking, the woman coughed lightly, her face growing even paler. A faint trace of blood appeared at the corner of her lips.

“Stop talking! Don’t say another word!”

The woman she called Ajiu seemed on the verge of breaking down. Suddenly, as if struck by an idea, she retracted all the sharp edges from her demeanor and knelt before Qiao Gaogao and the others, her eyes red-rimmed. “Please, I beg you, save her! Save her, please! As long as you’re willing to help her, I’ll do anything you ask!”

Qiao Gaogao froze for a moment, then, along with Yinxi, who had already climbed down from her back, leaped aside in unison. “No! Don’t kneel like that!”

Qiao Gaogao was horrified. Having someone kneel to her wasn’t that inviting misfortune?

The woman on the ground, seeing Ajiu’s actions, was momentarily stunned, then flushed bright red. Struggling to sit up, she tried to pull Ajiu to her feet. “You cough, get up!”

“Don’t kneel!”

Her emotions flared, and the sudden movement aggravated the wound in her abdomen, causing her to spit out a mouthful of blood.

“Song Qingxu!” Ajiu cried out anxiously, supporting her as tears streamed down her face. Her body trembled violently, a mix of heartache and frustration.

Ignoring her, Song Qingxu lifted her gaze to Qiao Gaogao and the others, her eyes lingering on Yinxi for a moment before settling on Qiao Gaogao. She spoke with difficulty, “Could I trouble you to take Ajiu with you? If you don’t want to keep her long, just bring her to the nearest safe base.”

“I know my request is unreasonable, but I have no other choice.”

“Cough!”

“No! I won’t go with anyone else, Song Qingxu! Don’t say such things! If we have to die, let’s die together!” Ajiu’s face was stubborn, her gaze fixed firmly on Song Qingxu.

“You!” Song Qingxu was so infuriated she nearly fainted. In her current state, how could she possibly protect Ajiu? If no one took her in, how would Ajiu, an ordinary person without any special abilities, survive in this world?

Watching their exchange, Qiao Gaogao couldn’t stand it any longer. She stepped forward, pried open Song Qingxu’s mouth, and stuffed several energy crystals inside, muttering, “If anyone’s going to take care of her, it should be you! That one’s temper doesn’t look easy to handle!”

Qiao Gaogao had an instinctive feeling that Ajiu’s temper was probably terrible not something she or her senior could easily manage.

As soon as the crystals entered her mouth, pure energy began to spread through Song Qingxu’s limbs and meridians. The overtaxed abilities she had been straining to maintain were replenished, and the pain from her wounds lessened considerably.

The energy from these crystals so pure.

With the infusion of energy, Song Qingxu’s complexion visibly improved. The shadow of death that had lingered around her brow faded, replaced by a hint of healthy color.

“Song Qingxu!” Overjoyed by the change, Ajiu turned to Qiao Gaogao and the others, bowing gratefully. “Thank you! Thank you so much! I’ll do anything you ask!”

She didn’t seem to mind at all when Qiao Gaogao said she had a bad temper. If someone had dared to say that to her before, her temper would have flared up instantly.

Qiao Gaogao pursed her lips, exchanged a glance with Yinxi, and let out a soft sigh, accepting her defeat.

These two didn’t seem like bad people. It would be better to wait until they were in a better state before discussing today’s incident.

Qiao Gaogao and the others helped the person named Tang Jiu carry Song Qingxu back to Room 517. As soon as they entered, Qiao Gaogao witnessed what could only be described as desolation.

Apart from the hotel’s standard furnishings, the two had pitifully few belongings. How had they managed to endure such cold weather?

“Thank you. Sorry for the trouble,” Song Qingxu said apologetically, her already striking features now carrying a delicate, sickly beauty.

“Hmph!” Yinxi pointed at her own current appearance, then at Qiao Gaogao, signaling that she must never strike them again in the future!

Song Qingxu also felt a bit embarrassed.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were together. I thought you were just ordinary zombies.” It was only when Yinxi started running that she vaguely sensed something unusual about this zombie.

Since when did zombies not want to pounce on people and bite them?

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