Chapter 109: Doomsday 24
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Li Ziqing glanced at him without giving it much thought and folded her arms across her chest. “You’ve only been at the base for a few days. You found out so much so quickly?”
“After all, Miss Xia Meimei is practically a celebrity here at the base.” Yang Zhengqi’s expression remained unchanged.
With her ability to stop people from turning into zombies, along with the rumor that she was carrying Ke Yuandao’s child, Xia Meimei had become the subject of countless versions of the story among the base’s residents.
Li Ziqing remembered that one of the stories circulating throughout the base had been a misunderstanding on her part. Feeling somewhat embarrassed, she coughed and asked, “Why are you asking?”
“Because I wanted to make sure,” Yang Zhengqi replied. “That ability of hers is incredibly powerful. I’m wondering whether I should curry favor with her in advance. If I’m ever bitten by a zombie by accident, she might still be able to save me.”
“Meimei is a very kind person. She’ll save most people.”
A kind person?
Yang Zhengqi lowered his head, a mocking smile touching the corners of his mouth. It seemed that woman was very good at pretending. She had actually deceived everyone.
“I heard that Miss Meimei and Captain Ke are planning to get married,” Yang Zhengqi asked again.
Li Ziqing spread her hands. “Probably.”
Seeing her attitude, Yang Zhengqi hesitated before asking cautiously, “Could it be that the two of them aren’t planning to marry? I heard Miss Meimei was pregnant.”
The moment the child was mentioned, Li Ziqing grew awkward. The rumor was false—and she was the one who had spread it.
“Ahem, there was a bit of a misunderstanding. Meimei isn’t pregnant.” She coughed once more.
“I see.” Yang Zhengqi smiled.
Li Ziqing thought his smile was somewhat strange, but she did not dwell on it.
…
That day, Ke Yuandao was watering the sunflower seeds he had planted, which had finally sprouted. A few days earlier, he had still been wondering why they had not germinated. Now they had suddenly broken through the soil, and they were growing exceptionally fast.
When Yang Zhengqi arrived, he happened to see Ke Yuandao humming a tune as he watered the sunflowers.
“Captain Ke, I have something I’d like to discuss with you. Is now a convenient time?” Yang Zhengqi asked.
For some inexplicable reason, Ke Yuandao felt a vague hostility toward the man before him. Still, his mood was good after finishing the watering, so he nodded.
The two entered the villa’s reception room. As Ke Yuandao thought about going out later to hunt a rabbit and make spicy rabbit meat for his Meimei, he asked, “Mr. Yang, what brings you here so suddenly?”
“Yes, there’s something very important I’d like to discuss with you, Captain Ke.” Seeing Ke Yuandao’s casual, absentminded expression, Yang Zhengqi continued, “It concerns Xia Meimei and General Xia.”
The casual look vanished from Ke Yuandao’s face. His jaw tightened. “What exactly do you mean?”
“I heard that Captain Ke accepted Old Xia’s mission and personally rescued Xia Meimei from the research institute. Didn’t you discover anything strange there?”
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Several images flashed rapidly through Ke Yuandao’s mind. The atmosphere around him darkened, and his voice turned cold. “What are you trying to say?”
“So Captain Ke already knew.” Yang Zhengqi wore an expression that said everything had gone exactly as he expected. “I simply can’t understand how a woman like Xia Meimei—someone capable of carrying out such inhumane acts—could still make you fall in love with her. Or perhaps you’re only interested in her appearance…”
Rumble!
Before Yang Zhengqi could finish speaking, a bolt of lightning shot toward him.
He remained seated on the sofa, unmoving. A wall of crimson-black flames rose before him. Lightning collided with the wall of fire, and the tremendous impact sent everything nearby flying. The villa’s doors and windows shattered with a violent crash.
“Are you angry?” Crimson-black fire dragons coiled around Yang Zhengqi as he shouted furiously, “What’s so good about a woman like that? Do you have any idea how many people suffered for nothing because of her back then?”
“She isn’t that kind of person.” Ke Yuandao pressed his lips together, his jaw taut as lightning flickered around his body.
“You saw it with your own eyes! People like her deserve to die!” Yang Zhengqi thought that if Ke Yuandao truly knew nothing, he could tell him the truth. But the man had clearly witnessed the inhuman experiments at the research institute and had still fallen in love with a woman like that.
Ke Yuandao said nothing. Lightning surged toward Yang Zhengqi.
At the Xia family’s residence, Le Yixian once again used her healing ability on the blackened back of her hand.
Afterward, she touched the bitten area. Following more than ten days of treatment, the wound had nearly recovered.
The ominous blackness had faded considerably as well, but…
Le Yixian stroked her bluish fingernails. Her body temperature had also been feeling strange lately, growing cold and icy.
As if she were about to die.
Only a corpse had bluish fingernails and a body cold enough to feel like ice.
She went to the trading market and found several bottles of nail polish at a small stall in a corner. She bought them with a single first-grade crystal core.
“Miss, I have plenty of other jewelry here too. You can take a look.” The stall owner regarded Le Yixian as if she were a particularly fat sheep. He had put out the bottles of nail polish casually, and no one had wanted them for a long time. He had never expected someone to buy them with a first-grade crystal core.
“No need,” Le Yixian declined.
She took the nail polish and left.
Boom!
Le Yixian raised her head and saw smoke rising from a corner of the base.
A moment later, an enormous fire dragon and bolts of lightning shot into the sky and collided in midair. The force of the clash was so terrifying that even the ordinary people in the trading market were trembling in fear.
“That direction?”
Recognizing the lightning, Le Yixian turned and hurried toward the site of the battle.
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The closer she got to the area where Ke Yuandao’s team was stationed, the more rumors she heard.
“Ke Yuandao is fighting someone.”
“Who is it? Who’s that powerful?”
“I don’t know, but anyone capable of matching Ke Yuandao blow for blow can’t be an ordinary person.”
“Could it be Lin Jingyu? I heard he was pursuing Xia Meimei too.”
“Lin Jingyu has a wind-based ability. This person’s ability is fire-based.”
“Are they planning to tear the whole neighborhood apart?”
By the time Le Yixian jogged to the villa, the fight was already over. The once-neat villa had been reduced to complete chaos, and she spotted Ke Yuandao standing in the courtyard at once.
“Are you all right?” she asked, hurrying over.
Tiny bolts of lightning still flickered around Ke Yuandao’s body. When he looked up and saw Le Yixian, his fists clenched tightly.
“I’m fine.”
“What happened?” Le Yixian sensed that his emotions were unusual.
Ke Yuandao turned his back to her, his voice muffled. “Nothing. I want to be alone for a while.”
Le Yixian: “…”
With his back turned to her, the man’s silhouette carried a trace of loneliness and sorrow.
“All right. Take some time to yourself.”
The footsteps behind him gradually faded, and the surrounding din seemed to recede with them.
Ke Yuandao half crouched down and looked at the sunflower seedlings in the soil—scorched by fire and struck by lightning. His heart was full of sorrow and grievance.
He was sorrowful because he had worked so hard to grow the seedlings and yet had failed to protect them.
He felt wronged because he had fought a battle for that woman and even destroyed the seedlings he had wanted to give her as flowers, but she had not comforted him at all.
At that moment, Ke Yuandao felt like a little cabbage growing in the fields, unloved and uncared for.
Footsteps sounded behind him again. A familiar, delicate fragrance drew near, and a pair of soft hands slipped around his shoulders from behind.
In a gentle voice, she asked, “A whole minute has passed. Have you finished being alone with your thoughts?”