Chapter 39: Zombie Queen has the Biggest Thigh of All (15)
"What's your name?" Qin Shuang asked, but the kid remained silent, looking around in awe around him. "Hey! Your name!" Qin Shuang shouted, snapping the kid to attention.
"Y-Yu Yan..." The boy said in an extremely quiet and rough voice, as if he had not spoken in a very long time. And he hadn't. Even he couldn't seem to remember when he last spoke. Maybe it was when his parents had died?
"Speak louder!" Qin Shuang said, as he briskly continued to walk past the lobby to the elevators.
"Y-Yu Yan!" Yu Yan said, louder this time, his voice trembling.
"Whatever, I'll take it. Yu Yan? You're the twelfth kid to come here now. The others are probably all doing their own thing, so you won't be able to meet them until dinner though." Qin Shuang said, as they waited for the elevator. He then recalled, "Oh right, breakfast, lunch, and dinner are all down here in the lobby area. There's a little restaurant next to it where we eat." He said.
When the elevator arrived, they entered and he pressed the button for the 20th floor gym. "The top floor is where Big Sis lives, so you can't go up there. Aside from that, everywhere else in the hotel is fair game. It's better for you not to go outside the hotel though. We won't stop you, but... well, whatever. Anyways, you can decide for yourself, I just wouldn't recommend it. The 20th floor has a swimming pool, spa, and training room for everyone to exercise or practice their abilities." Qin Shuang, though he was clearly unwilling, still obeyed Yin Mei's orders and faithfully guided Yu Yan around the place.
Everything looked clean and luxurious, as if allowing one to forget that outside was the apocalypse.
"I-I don't have an ability..." Yu Yan quietly said with a nervous expression, fearing that he would be kicked out if he didn't.
"Everyone has an ability." Qin Shuang replied, as the elevator reached its destination.
Opening up, they first visited the training area. It was the former gym, though it had been completely remodeled. The room was completely white, and the ceiling had been knocked down to include another floor, with an observation room overlooking the area.
There were three kids inside the room, and one strange looking adult. One was a long haired androgynous kid who seemed maybe 13 years old, wearing a traditional styled emerald green chang pao with white pants. He was kicking a shuttlecock from one foot to another, seeming to just be playing around.
The second kid was a small girl with wavy blonde hair and pretty blue eyes. She was playing with building bricks that were floating around her, talking to a strange looking adult dressed like a butler, a pair of red horns sprouting from his head and the whites of eyes pitch black, while his irises were a strange gold, and a thick lizard tail came out from his back. Yu Yan wondered if it was a result of an ability, though he wondered what sort of ability could give someone such a demon-like appearance.
The last kid was a boy with fluffy brownish red hair that was lying on the ground hugging a large body pillow as he snored loudly, fast asleep.
Qin Shuang immediately went up to the sleeping kid, kicking him awake."Wake up! If you want to sleep, don't do it in the training room." He said, as the boy yelped, getting up and rubbing the spot where Qin Shuang had hit him.
"I'm training, training. Can't you see that?" He complained, grabbing around for the pair of large glasses next to him and putting them on. He had a face of freckles and bright green eyes, looking like a foreigner like the blonde haired girl.
"I bet William was just sleeping," the blonde girl, Maria, said in a childish voice as she giggled.
"I was not! I was practicing my ability, really." William said, feeling wronged. This is what he got for having an ability that only activated when he slept, no one ever believed him when he said he was practicing his ability, they all just thought he was slacking off!
"You can practice just as well in your bed," Qin Shuang said in a cold voice.
"But I like the training room," William complained, but taking a peek at the other boy's unamused expression, he could only grumble as he grabbed his pillow to leave for his room. "Oh, wait, are you a new kid?" He said, looking at a young boy. Yu Yan was eight, but because of malnourishment, he looked more like he was five. But, many of the kids here were the same way when they arrived. For orphans, it was hard to survive day to day, let alone get enough food to grow. William was also on the smaller side, but was at ten years old, only a couple months younger than Qin Shuang.
"Yeah, his name's Yu Yan." Qin Shuang said.
William nodded, before leaning in to whisper into Yu Yan's ear, "don't worry, Qin Shuang hates all of us because we take away his time with his beloved big sister," he said, before leaning back like nothing had happened, pushing up his glasses with an indifferent look.
"I can hear you," Qin Shuang said stiffly, and William made an innocent expression.
"William is just sour that he can't beat Qin Shuang!" Maria called from over where she was. Everyone here all had enhanced physiques from training their abilities, and so they were able to easily hear what William had said.
"Well, William's ability is the only one that can't be used in combat after all," Lee, the boy wearing the chang pao, said as he kicked his shuttlecock one more time before letting it fall to the ground as he walked over.
William frowned, but didn't say anything. Dammit, if only his ability didn't require him to sleep to activate it! He huffed, but wasn't brave enough to go up against Qin Shuang, who was the strongest out of all of them. He left the training room, stomping loudly as he went.
"Ahhh, wait, Amon, you messed up my castle!" Maria suddenly said, as the demon-like man's tail had accidentally hit the building blocks when he had turned around to glance at Yu Yan. Amon fretted as Maria started to tear up, trying to comfort her.
"Ignore those two," Qin Shuang said, bringing Yu Yan to leave. Lee also wasn't going to stay to listen to the young girl cry, and so also left.
"I'm going to go to the lobby to grab a snack," he said, waving goodbye as he went to go take the stairs.
Seeing that Yu Yan was staring with bulging eyes as Lee went through the door to the stairs, he explained, "We almost never take the elevator to save energy, but because for newbies, we'll let them take the elevator at first before they start their training."
Yu Yan blinked. Although he walked and battled for hours everyday, walking up and down 20 flights of stairs at once would still be exhausting for him. He wondered what sort of training he would have to go through that let them so casually be able to do such a thing.
Qin Shuang introduced Yu Yan to some other facilities and his room, while in the meantime, Yin Mei returned to her own room on the top floor.
The zombie emperor was lounging on the sofa, barely acknowledging her when she entered. Yin Mei also didn't pay attention to him much, going into the bedroom and flopping down onto the bed. She groaned, flipping around and activating the system's surveillance ability.
She first checked on Andrei, who had already walked a mile or two away from H City. It might take him a couple of weeks to get back to B City, but Yin Mei wasn't very worried. They had cleared the road from the two cities of zombies precisely to allow for safe delivery of the kids and information. The only zombies that would wander there were zombies that had wandered in from beyond their territory, which was rare as many zombies had already settled down in their own territories. Only if they were driven out by a strong zombie that didn't like other zombies in his territory would they start wandering to find another place to hunt in.
And not only that, but that card she had handed him was made from Qin Shuang's blood, so that he would be able to tell if anything would happen to the messenger immediately, it could act as a shield. In addition, it was unable to be harmed by wind, water, or the other elements, while keeping the information secret to anyone except the intended receiver. Plus, he could make it disappear after it had been read. It was all around very useful, especially in training his ability. It took awhile before he was able to control it from so far away to disappear, but he had still been able to accomplish it. Yin Mei was very proud, feeling that Qin Shuang was really like her own little brother.
The other kids as well, were all doing very well with their training.
Because many of them were orphans, they ended up developing attachments to each other, herself, and the zombie babysitters (like Amon) that she had assigned some of the younger kids. Of the kids, all of them except Yu Yan had figured out that this was a "zombie city". The one who came before Yu Yan had already been here for several months, and in the end, none of the older ones could help themselves and would end up going outside at one point in time.
Most immediately freaked out and would use their abilities, but would be quickly subdued by a rank 5 zombie that would go out after them and brought back to the hotel to calm down. After a while, the city would then be explained to them.
Such as the existence of intelligent zombies, and how the mysterious man that would follow Yin Mei around was actually a zombie himself, and the ruler of all the zombies here.
Zombies and humans couldn't coexist. They knew this. Zombies needed raw flesh to advance, and humans needed zombie cores. It wasn't possible. They would at first reject this knowledge, and some would hole up in their rooms.
But, no matter what, they would be unable to give up the family, warmth, and delicious food they had obtained. Their hearts would be worn down. They had already lived with the human-like zombies, and had become attached to them.
In the end, despite their doubts, they would still reluctantly accept the situation. And then, slowly, they would grow used to it and no longer think of it as something weird.
As for obtaining zombie cores, they would always hunt outside their city's territory. The city zombies as well, could not eat any of the humans inside the city or who were a member of the city.
Yin Mei switched the screen to look at Ming Yu. As time progressed, and Ming Wei got more and more impatient, the experiments performed on her became more and more ruthless. To top it off, to save on anesthetics, Ming Wei would no longer give her any as he dissected her. He didn't even need to worry that she would die, as she could heal herself back up until she was brand new. Not only that, but it even let her constantly improve her healing capabilities. Although she couldn't regenerate lost limbs or organs, she could already heal most fatal wounds.
Although Lei Han was frustrated, Ming Wei did not give him a single inch. He also wasn't able to obtain anything from Ming Yu in the times he was able to meet with her - who knows what Ming Wei had told her, but she didn't reveal anything, and assured Lei Han that her brother was treating her well, that she was doing this for the sake of humanity, that they would be able to create the cure soon, and etc.
Lei Han didn't really believe her, but he also couldn't say to her that he didn't.
"Currently our city has fifty rank 5 zombies... it's the majority of the rank 5 zombies in the country." Yin Mei muttered. But it still wasn't enough. Right now, Lei Han could go up against a rank 4 zombie with a little bit of trouble, and could probably defeat a rank 5 zombie if he went all out. Depending on the match up, he may also end up with having to especially exert himself, but Yin Mei was unable to tell.
"This mission still isn't completed either... it says it's at ninety-two percent completion, but it hasn't increased at all in the last month," Yin Mei murmured, as she looked at the progress bar for her quest, something new that had been implemented when she had asked for it.
Will she have to risk her life for him or something to fill in that last eight percent? They had finally obtained the Dark Saint, so Yin Mei was a little tempted to give this a try. After all, they now had a healer on their party. It was just that the way the Dark Saint cured injuries was a little disgusting, so Yin Mei had her reservations.
"The Dark Saint is also researching into substitute ingredients for the cure... I wonder who will finish their research first," Yin Mei muttered, thinking of that guy, Ming Wei. She still felt guilty toward him, for half-trashing his lab, stealing his research materials, and now she would be unable to allow him to obtain one of his key ingredients, as they also needed the Dark Saint for themselves. After all, that guy would become one of the most powerful zombies under the zombie emperor later, and was their residential head doctor of surgery.
Yin Mei rolled around back and forth on the bed, groaning in agony. She really hated having to use her brain like this, but it always seemed to be a requirement for these missions. "F*ck, I just wanna go kill someone right now." She muttered, grabbing the pillow and smushing it onto her face.
She then thought it was such a good stress relieving idea! She decided that the next time, she would sneak out to go kill off the male lead. He was useless anyways, unlike Ming Yu. There wasn't any point in keeping him around, right? Hum, though he was powerful and had such an attack oriented special ability, she could take the advantage of...
Yin Mei continued to mutter to herself as she swiped through the system information, formulating a detailed plan to kill of the male lead.
Sigh, after all, old habits die hard! In the end, the course of action that she always seemed to come back to was to kill the male lead.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
littlemist
littlemist Got so distracted by writer's discord... not reading, or anime, or anything else, just discord. Discord is poisonnnnnn. Last chapter of the day, I gotta sleep.
Yin Mei can't go a single moment without wanting to kill off a male lead. She got addicted to it.
Song of the Day: You're Pitiful by FIESTAR (I really like this style of Kpop song. Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShGVCembq70)
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