The Zombie I Flirted With After Losing My Memory, Who Was Pretending to be an Alpha, Is Actually My Ex - Chapter 31

Chapter 31: Anesthetic

Teng Xi nonchalantly raised her gun and blew on the muzzle, striking a pose she considered cool. “Stole? How are you going to prove it’s yours? Law-abiding citizens shouldn’t be privately hoarding firearms, right, my good apprentice?”

She looked at Feng Sisi with a half-smile, making the girl feel extremely uneasy. Feng Sisi rubbed her nose awkwardly and avoided eye contact, continuing her dedicated duty of holding up the clothes to block the surveillance camera.

The window was already shattered. A bullet fired by the sniper veered into the desk, smashing a ceramic figurine into a pile of shards.

After firing her shot, Teng Xi rolled toward Yao Zhi and Si Qinghan, giving Xie Jinbing—who was on the other side of the window—a reassuring look.

Despite hitting the sniper outside, she couldn’t stop the helicopters from landing on the roof one after another. Their current situation remained difficult.

To be precise, it was extremely difficult. Humans were much harder to fight than zombies with cerebral atrophy.

Inside the helicopter outside the window, the woman frowned with displeasure at the blood spreading to her feet. She moved slightly to avoid getting stained, her face clouded. The sniper hadn’t been hit in a vital spot, but his right shoulder was pierced; the hand used to pull the trigger had lost its strength. He glanced at the woman, and seeing no reaction, he silently shifted the rifle butt to his other shoulder.

The woman continued to stare at the sniper with annoyance, her displeasure written plainly on her face.

She pulled out a transport case from beside her, took out a different gun, and then retrieved an anesthetic from the cold storage layer. Seeming to feel the dosage was insufficient, she mixed in a new vial. After assembling the weapon, she handed it to the sniper.

The recoil on this gun was small, which would greatly increase the accuracy of the injured personnel.

The sniper looked at the firearm in surprise as he took it. He didn’t argue, but his eyes flickered over the label on the cold storage: Specially for veterinary use. Strong potency. Use with caution.

Inside the room, Teng Xi shouted to Si Qinghan, her voice barely rising above the roar of the helicopters: “Is there any other way to open the door?”

Si Qinghan pondered. “Break it down.”

Everyone ducked low and pulled the curtains shut to block the view from outside. Feng Sisi was still holding the clothes to cover the surveillance camera, preventing those outside from seeing the situation inside for the time being.

The task of violent door-breaking fell to Xie Jinbing and Si Qinghan, who took chairs and slammed them against the door handle.

Teng Xi looked at the dented door frame and the still-stubborn door handle, shaking her head. “Are there really this many of us and not one person knows how to pick a lock?”

She didn’t raise her voice intentionally, but Xie Jinbing’s sharp ears caught it. She glared at Teng Xi, signaling for her to stop talking and join the door-smashing ranks.

After a few minutes with no results, a low pressure began to spread through the room.

Xie Jinbing stopped Si Qinghan as she prepared to bring the chair down again. Frowning, she pressed her ear to the door. The others followed suit, but the noise of the helicopters was so loud they couldn’t hear a thing.

“What is it?” Teng Xi yelled.

“Someone.” Xie Jinbing made a hand signal and pointed to the door.

She hadn’t expected them to be so fast.

Teng Xi turned her gaze toward the window. The curtains were bulging from the wind generated by the helicopter rotors outside. Yao Zhi crouched under the window sill, using her hands to pull them tight so they wouldn’t fly up.

Section A was a new building. Every room was equipped with central air conditioning; there were no old ventilation ducts running through the floors. There was no telling how many people with guns were waiting outside for them to be caught. It seemed they were truly trapped in a dead end.

This feeling was unpleasant—at least it was for Teng Xi and Xie Jinbing, who had suddenly become turtles caught in a jar. However, they noticed the expression on Yao Zhi’s face.

There was no panic, no fear. Instead, it was more like a look of resignation—of someone prepared for death—and a hint of excitement that Teng Xi couldn’t quite understand.

Teng Xi pulled Xie Jinbing back into a corner just as the door was opened from the outside. The expected hail of bullets didn’t come. No one was even standing in the doorway; they were all standing cautiously against the walls.

The people inside the room exchanged looks, unsure of the enemy’s next move.

A small ball rolled in. Three seconds later it burst, releasing white smoke.

“Watch out, it might be knockout gas!” Teng Xi shouted. She used her blade to cut a piece of fabric and tied it over Xie Jinbing’s nose and mouth. The others, sensing the danger, followed suit with protective measures, though the possibility of a smoke bomb wasn’t ruled out.

The smoke spread rapidly. In an instant, everyone felt a wave of dizziness; they were glad they had followed Teng Xi’s advice.

Seconds later, Teng Xi was forced to appreciate the advantages of modern architecture. Before the smoke could fully diffuse, the smoke detector emitted a deafening alarm. Water sprayed down, quickly dispersing the mist.

Footsteps approached the door. As the smoke cleared, the group saw the Red House personnel: fully armed, wearing gas masks, and carrying firearms that certainly didn’t look like toys.

Teng Xi couldn’t help but glance at Yao Zhi. She finally felt a genuine interest in what kind of data could make the Red House deploy such a massive force to prevent its escape.

As the smoke vanished, Teng Xi felt a distinct lack of strength in her hands, but she still raised her blade to strike. Strangely, the opponents had no intention of firing; they drew daggers from their waists instead. They intended to capture them alive.

The long blade was notched, but it didn’t hinder her sharp offensive. When she was still three meters away, Teng Xi maintained her swinging posture but withdrew one hand and reached for her waist. A bullet fired mercilessly; thanks to the silencer, it made very little noise.

The opponent had heightened their alertness when she reached for her waist. Teng Xi’s shot only pierced one person’s shoulder blade. Without hesitation, she fired a second shot, successfully hitting someone in the head.

The sight of a red flower blooming in the air made the other three in the room flinch back half a step. Feng Sisi, who was also holding a blade, felt fear and horror gradually cloud her eyes.

Si Qinghan was right—she was a pampered young lady. Part of the reason she liked martial arts was rebellion. Because she had a heart condition, she had been protected by her family since childhood; if she so much as stubbed a finger, her parents would panic. She had never been exposed to anything bloody or violent.

This was also why her blood had boiled after watching just one video of Teng Xi’s sparring.

Originally, their mission shouldn’t have been this complicated. But they had run into the zombie outbreak. To survive, she had been forced to raise her blade against her former kind. Fortunately, zombies had no human consciousness, and she could constantly hypnotize herself into believing she was just killing dangerous beasts.

But now, standing before her were living people—her own kind—and she had never killed a human before.

That shot successfully enraged the Red House armed forces. they raised their guns to retaliate.

Si Qinghan grabbed the stunned Feng Sisi, pulled her behind a bookshelf, and covered the girl’s eyes with one hand. Her fox-like eyes narrowed, emitting a dangerous signal. She leaned close to Feng Sisi’s ear, her whisper surprisingly gentle: “It’s okay. It’s good enough that you didn’t drop your blade out of fear.”

Facing a hail of bullets, Yao Zhi was forced to abandon her post guarding the curtains. She hid behind the desk with Xie Jinbing.

Through a gap, Xie Jinbing watched Teng Xi, who had skillfully dodged the onslaught and charged into the crowd. Teng Xi forced the others to meet her with daggers. The power she unleashed was something Xie Jinbing had never seen—she was agile like a slippery loach. However, there were too many opponents. Her clothes were being shredded by blade marks, and cuts were opening on her body.

Xie Jinbing pursed her lips, searching for a moment to rush out and join Teng Xi.

The helicopter outside seemed to draw closer, blowing the curtains up and revealing the fight inside. Looking out the window, Yao Zhi had a sinking feeling.

As if to validate her fears, the curtain flapped again. A glinting needle flew through the air, heading straight for Xie Jinbing.

The place where they were hiding wasn’t absolutely safe. Yao Zhi had tried her best to avoid the firing range of the armed personnel at the door while staying out of sight of the helicopter, but she hadn’t anticipated that the helicopter would hover so close to the window without fear of retaliation.

“Dr. Xie!” Yao Zhi shouted. She lunged forward with her long legs, reaching out to pull Xie Jinbing, who was half-exposed from under the desk.

Xie Jinbing’s hearing was excellent. She turned the moment Yao Zhi called her name, only to see Yao Zhi lunging toward her, followed by the other woman’s body going limp.

“Yao Zhi?” Xie Jinbing was dazed for a second. She reached for the carotid artery in Yao Zhi’s neck, but before her hand could land, the second needle arrived, plunging accurately into her skin.

She finally saw the anesthetic needle that had fallen beside Yao Zhi. The one in her own arm clearly showed signs of being tampered with—it was the new mix formulated by the woman in the helicopter.

She struggled to stand, but the drug’s effect was violent, making her body wobble.

Before her consciousness faded, she felt a trace of self-loathing for being just a doctor. Growing up in an orphanage, she only knew how to use brute force and lacked alertness; she hadn’t realized anesthetic needles were being aimed at them.

She thought that if it were Teng Xi, she certainly wouldn’t have hidden in this spot and given the enemy outside the chance.

After Xie Jinbing plunged into total darkness, a crackling electronic voice rang out in the office, causing the fighters to stop.

“Teng Xi. Dr. Xie and the woman beside her have been hit by anesthetic. If you continue to resist, they will both die.” An indifferent tone emerged from a corner of the room, blunt and cruel, accompanied by the amplified roar of the rotors.

The two fighting parties separated quickly. Hearing those words, Teng Xi and Si Qinghan looked toward the spot where the other two were hidden.

The two bodies on the floor proved the statement.

The three rushed to Xie Jinbing’s side. They checked their breath; the respiratory rate had slowed significantly.

“What do you want?” Teng Xi frowned, her voice laced with fury as she held Xie Jinbing carefully.

Si Qinghan wanted to say something, but Teng Xi silenced her with a sharp glare.

“Stop resisting.”