Because there was a group trailing behind them, Xie Lingruo still felt a bit uneasy. However, the zombie crystal core she'd acquired earlier gave her confidence.
At that moment, Xie Lingruo thought to herself:
"Tonight, I must find some alone time to absorb this crystal core."
Based on the memories she'd inherited, she knew the method: clean the core, hold it in her palm, sit cross-legged, and empty her mind—then the absorption process would begin.
But there was one crucial detail:You must match the core type with your ability, or the body could explode. This was something discovered later by scientists.
According to research:
Red crystal cores correspond to fire abilities
Blue to water
Purple to lightning
Orange to wind
And transparent cores correspond to spiritual-type abilities
Spiritual-type abilities were the hardest to upgrade. But this time, Xie Lingruo was lucky—she had come across a Level-2 transparent crystal core. Just the thought of leveling up her ability made her heart burn with excitement.
They had spent the entire day traveling, encountering only scattered zombies along the way. Since they were mostly driving through the countryside, they avoided any large hordes. It wasn't until dusk that they finally looked for a place to rest.
Their destination was Ancheng Base. Now that Coach Yu was traveling with them, and Xu Ke's team was following behind, the Xie family could no longer roam freely and stockpile fuel like before.
They had to change their strategy:
First, for safety, because the zombies were now evolving
Second, to gather intel. Xie Lingruo suspected her inherited memories weren't complete, and she needed to learn more about the world
Because the area was remote, it took them half an hour to find a village.
At first, the villagers refused to let them in, no matter how the Xie family pleaded.
In the end, it was Xu Ke's men, with their menacing appearances, that forced the villagers to give in.
Seeing this, the Xie family realized that sometimes, you had to be firm.
Eventually, the village chief brought them to an abandoned courtyard home. It had belonged to an old man who'd passed away a few years ago, and had remained empty since.
Though the place was run-down, Xie Lingruo was grateful and thanked the village chief sincerely. As a form of repayment, she told them that zombies would be enhanced after experiencing red rain.
What the villagers did with this information wasn't her concern—it was her way of repaying the kindness of being allowed to stay.
After the village chief left, they scouted the property and checked for safety risks.
They found that the courtyard had three rooms, and the kitchen was completely bare. So Xie Lingruo had to take supplies from her space.
Coach Yu wasn't surprised. When they had revealed their abilities earlier, Xie Lingruo had also told him she had a space-type ability.
As usual, Xie's father and brother cooked dinner. Next time, it would be Coach Yu's turn.
Xie Lingruo then excused herself, saying she felt unwell, and went into one of the rooms.
Once inside, she locked the door, took out the long-coveted crystal core, and cleaned it thoroughly using water from her space.
The crystal core was crystal clear, so beautiful that no one would guess it had come from a zombie's brain.
At that moment, the system reappeared:
"Scan complete. This is a Level-2 spiritual-type crystal core, worth 10 points. Do you wish to recycle it?"
Xie Lingruo immediately replied:
"No, thank you."
The system sighed and went silent.
She had no intention of giving up the chance to improve her abilities for a mere 10 points. That would be like killing the chicken for the eggs.
Not wanting to delay, Xie Lingruo followed the memory instructions. Soon, she felt a warm current spread through her body, flowing through her limbs and eventually reaching her head.
Afterward, she experimented and found that:
Her mental probing range had doubled
She could now launch two mental spikes at a person's brain
This made her extremely satisfied, because she finally had an offensive ability. Now she could secretly attack Lin Yiyi and settle things once and for all.
Meanwhile, Zhou Yi's mission was running into trouble.
Their target, Professor Sun, insisted on retrieving documents even in a crisis, leading to a teammate being bitten by zombies.
Worse still, Professor Sun showed no remorse, continuing to bark orders at Zhou Yi's group, increasing the tension between them.
Back in the courtyard, after finishing her absorption, Xie Lingruo helped with chores, setting up food containers with her father.
After dinner, she couldn't sleep from excitement, so she used her mental probe to scan the surroundings.
What she found was… eye-searing.
Xu Ke and Lin Yiyi were engaging in nighttime activities—with another man waiting on the side.
Apparently, things had gotten very wild.
Lin Yiyi, caught in a pleasure-fueled trance, seemed to be enjoying herself with both men.
Disgusted, Xie Lingruo decided to attack Lin Yiyi's mind with a mental spike—just to be sure, she used two in a row.
Mental spikes drain ability power, so Xie Lingruo felt a bit dizzy, but she didn't relax—she had to see the results.
Using her probe again, she saw Lin Yiyi vomiting blood, completely unconscious.
The two men rushed to check her breathing—only to find she was dead.
Xu Ke was speechless. He hadn't expected Lin Yiyi to be so fragile—dying in the middle of things was just plain unlucky.
Quickly, the two men cleaned up, and ordered a lackey to throw her body to the zombies.
Luckily, their courtyard was close to the village gate, so dumping the body was easy.
After all, burning a corpse at night would attract zombies, and digging a grave was too exhausting.
As Xie Lingruo watched the zombies gnaw Lin Yiyi down to bare bones, she thought about the original host's fate in the previous life.
No, the original host had it even worse—after being assaulted, she had been devoured alive by a zombie horde.
With that thought, Xie Lingruo remembered the four rapists still left to deal with. Since she couldn't sleep, she decided to take over her brother's night watch.