When Qi Huiling saw the woman in the driver’s seat of the off-road vehicle, she abruptly cursed, “Fuck!”
She whipped her head toward Lin Weiran. “Didn’t you say you had already taken care of her?!”
Lin Weiran was equally shocked. She had personally seen Su Su locked inside the laboratory, and that Tier 7 zombie had indeed been released… At this critical moment, she had no time to respond to the accusation, nor to think carefully. She could only grab Qi Huiling’s arm and frantically flee forward.
But where could they run?
Lin Weiran looked at the endless desert, and despair surged into her heart.
She was merely an ordinary Tier 6 ability user, and she was dragging along a complete burden who had no combat power at all. If she abandoned Qi Huiling… But Si Zhe was still in the hands of the Research Guild. If she left Qi Huiling behind, how would she go back and report?
For the sake of her beloved, Lin Weiran gritted her teeth. Even as the roaring sound behind them grew closer, she refused to let go of Qi Huiling.
“Stop—”
A familiar, commanding voice rang out, and an invisible pressure crashed down from above. The moment the words fell, Lin Weiran’s fleeing steps came to an abrupt halt. Yet, her body couldn’t resist inertia, and she tumbled forward into the sand and gravel in a disgraceful heap.
Qi Huiling, who had been dragged along, also lost control and fell beside her.
“Meow—”
A lean, brown-black figure leaped out from the car window, rapidly expanding in midair into the full size of a cheetah.
Its blood-soaked single eye locked onto Qi Huiling.
She was the one who had caused Jiang Hong’s death.
The cheetah had identified its enemy. It would pounce, sink its fangs deep into this human’s neck, and make her pay for Jiang Hong’s life!
The looming threat of death made Qi Huiling react almost instantly.
At the critical moment, she broke free from the invisible restraint and, without hesitation, yanked Lin Weiran over, using her as a human shield.
“Meow!!”
The lunging cheetah lost its target. Unable to change direction in time, its razor-sharp claws directly tore off a large chunk of flesh from Lin Weiran’s back!
“Ahhhhhh!!!”
The agonized screams pierced the sky, but her body remained out of her control. She could only watch helplessly as Qi Huiling, the person she had fought with all her might to protect, betrayed her. Then, the cheetah struck her hard, sending her flying. She tumbled across the sand more than ten meters away, her entire body covered in blood and dust. Her already-overloaded body finally succumbed, and she passed out.
The cheetah did not pursue Lin Weiran. Instead, it launched a second attack on Qi Huiling.
Su Su had just stepped out of the car when she witnessed this scene.
She saw this woman—who had only evolved in intelligence—unbelievably break free from her Tier 7 ability. In the cheetah’s second pounce, she actually managed to roll to the other side…
“GET LOST!!!”
A hoarse roar reverberated for a hundred meters.
Su Su’s advancing footsteps instantly froze.
At that moment, her brain entered a strange and indescribable state. The regret, fear, anxiety, rage, and sorrow that had been accumulating over the past two days exploded to their peak.
Why had she fallen into the trap? If she had been more cautious, Xiao Hei wouldn’t have been injured.
Why did Xiao Hei’s attitude toward her become so cold after taking human form?
Did he never actually like her?
Was it just an illusion created by his long inability to speak?
Why did Jiang Hong have to die?
If she had gone into the laboratory with him, could this tragedy have been avoided?
In just half a second, these extreme thoughts cycled through her mind.
No—
Her emotions weren’t supposed to be this extreme or pessimistic!!!
Su Su abruptly shook off these negative emotions and snapped back to reality. The moment her mind refocused, she saw Qi Huiling swiftly pulling out a small, intricately designed handgun from her shoe, its pitch-black muzzle aimed directly at her heart.
“If Lin Weiran couldn’t kill you, I will!”
Just before she pulled the trigger, Su Su locked eyes with her and commanded, “Drop the gun!”
A massive surge of white light flooded toward Qi Huiling. Her finger, which had already pressed against the trigger, suddenly went limp and released its grip uncontrollably.
“Turn the gun on yourself—fire!”
At this command, Qi Huiling’s eyes filled with resistance.
She was still fully conscious, fully aware, but her entire body no longer obeyed her will.
Regret filled her mind!
That Tier 7 zombie… had actually become a gift for Su Su!
She couldn’t die here. She still hadn’t gone back to claim her reward from the Sage. How could she die here?!
Her hands, gripping the gun, trembled violently. The muzzle was already pointed at herself, but her fingers desperately fought against pulling the trigger.
“You’re not an intelligence-type ability user at all.” The moment Su Su regained her clarity, she realized that Qi Huiling’s entire existence was built on lies. “You’re a psychic-type.”
She wielded a mind-affecting psychic ability that controlled emotions.
Not only that—she was at the peak of Tier 6 and could even retain partial control over her body under Su Su’s ability.
How many hidden Tier 6 ability users was the Research Guild concealing?!
Su Su had just advanced to Tier 7 and still lacked mastery over her ability. Moreover, her power had no offensive capability. The Xuan Mang and Cheetah beside her remained motionless, clearly caught in the same emotional attack.
She hesitated no longer and drew her curved broken blade from her side.
The razor-sharp blade flashed toward its target in an instant.
A flicker of terror flashed through Qi Huiling’s eyes.
Run!
Run now!
Her brain screamed warnings, but her body remained frozen.
In the last second of her consciousness, the blade pierced her heart.
“Urgh!”
Qi Huiling stared at Su Su, so close at hand. At the brink of death, she forced out a smile—one that looked uglier than crying.
“Tier 7… The Sage… won’t… let you go.”
“You… will die an even uglier death than mine…”
The moment the blade was pulled out, Qi Huiling’s eyes widened as she collapsed lifelessly to the ground.
Her emotion-based ability failed instantly.
The cheetah, which had been rolling on the ground in agony, finally stilled.
A single streak of blood tears trickled down its only remaining eye.
If only it had been a little faster… If only Jiang Hong hadn’t shielded it with his own body…
“Roar—”
A cheetah actually let out a deafening roar. It leaped from the ground and lunged at Qi Huiling’s corpse, ruthlessly snapping her neck.
Warm blood splattered onto the sand before slowly seeping beneath the surface.
At long last, the cheetah had avenged its fallen comrade. But after days of relentless pursuit and exhaustion, its body finally gave in.
As for Su Su, the moment Qi Huiling died, she had already turned and walked toward the unconscious Lin Weiran, who lay just a short distance away.
Unconscious, but not entirely. Lin Weiran still clung to a final thread of awareness—she just couldn’t move.
Her eyes were locked in a death stare straight ahead—toward Qi Huiling’s corpse.
She had never imagined that after all the blood and sweat she spent protecting Qi Huiling, the woman would use her as a human shield in the final moment.
“I lost.”
“Su Su, are you happy now?”
Her hoarse voice broke the silence as Su Su came to stand beside her.
Blood.
There was blood everywhere.
Even the sand beneath Su Su’s feet was soaked in it.
At this rate, without immediate treatment, Lin Weiran would soon bleed to death.
“Happy?” Su Su retorted. “Wasn’t all of this your own doing?”
“It was you who abandoned the escort mission south midway.”
“At the stadium, it was you all who tried to rob the crystals while I was vulnerable.”
“At the southern base, it was you and Si Zhe who led the attempt to kill me and Xiao Hei.”
“And at the northern base, it was you who leaked my whereabouts to the Research Guild and set up a trap.”
“You’ve played the righteous role for so long, Lin Weiran, that you’ve even deceived yourself, haven’t you?”
One stood tall, looking down.
The other lay in the dirt, humiliated and powerless.
Lin Weiran had a thousand hatreds boiling in her heart, but at this moment, she couldn’t even lift a finger.
She could only lie there, pressed into a pool of her own blood, watching it flow endlessly from the wound on her back.
“Heh… The victor writes history. Now, whatever you say goes.”
Su Su let out a cold, mocking laugh.
She had no interest in rehashing old grievances. Instead, she cut straight to the point:
“I’m guessing you made a deal with the Research Guild.”
Based on what she knew about Lin Weiran, if even in a critical moment she refused to abandon Qi Huiling, then there had to be a deeper fear at play.
“Si Zhe is with the Research Guild right now. They promised you they could restore him to normal, but you had to work for them, didn’t they?”
Lin Weiran stared at Su Su with bloodshot eyes. “What do you want?”
Su Su didn’t answer directly. Instead, she said, “The Research Guild’s missions aren’t easy, are they? Every time, it’s like licking blood off the tip of a knife, isn’t it?”
…Yes.
It was very difficult.
Too much blood had been shed, and Lin Weiran’s mental defenses were crumbling.
She couldn’t help but recall all the missions she had completed before—every single one was the hardest and most troublesome task the Research Guild had. The ones their own people couldn’t handle were all dumped on her.
More than once, she had returned to base dragging her severely injured body, avoiding Si Zhe just to seek out a healing-type ability user.
Every shift in her expression was caught in Su Su’s eyes.
“Not having an ability doesn’t make someone useless—it just makes them an ordinary person.”
“But Si Zhe would rather watch you risk your life over and over than become an ordinary person.”
All the words Su Su had spoken before hadn’t made Lin Weiran ashamed or angry, but these two sentences stabbed straight into her heart.
She suddenly roared, “He doesn’t know! I never told him!”
“He knows.” Su Su ignored her outburst and repeated calmly, “As long as he is conscious, he knows.”
“He doesn’t know!”
“He knows! He watched you run around for him, saw you endure ridicule from everyone, and still pretended he didn’t see or hear—just because he didn’t want to be an ordinary person!”
There was still something Su Su hadn’t said aloud.
She wanted to ask—was it worth it?
If Lin Weiran had taken Si Zhe and hidden away forever…
If she hadn’t sold information to the Research Guild, setting traps to harm her…
If—
Then maybe, things wouldn’t have ended like this.
Tears poured down Lin Weiran’s face.
She shook her head in small, weak movements, sobbing for a long time before finally whispering in a voice almost devoid of strength:
“He protected me. Now he just wants his ability back… he just wants his ability back… How could I not help him?”
“Su Su, this is all your fault… If only you had died at Wu Zhi’s hands…”
How wonderful that would have been.
Lin Weiran’s consciousness had already started to fade.
She had lost too much blood. The last half of her sentence was so light, so disjointed, that it barely made sense.
But Su Su understood.
She suddenly tilted her head back, her reddened eyes fixed on the clouds above. The tears that were about to spill were forcefully swallowed back.
“…I’ll send Si Zhe down to accompany you.”
Lin Weiran heard the last sentence.
But she was already too weak to react.
Her eyelids grew unbearably heavy.
Si Zhe.
How would he react upon learning of her death?
Would he avenge her, or…
Lin Weiran’s breathing came to a complete stop.
Blood continued to seep into the sand.
Su Su took a few steps back, then suddenly turned around and strode away with large, determined steps.