Chapter 26: Leaving the Province (I)

Qingxuan secretly cracked open one tightly closed eye. Only after seeing Mo Yu’s blank, dazed expression did the stone in his heart begin to ease.

Crying, he crawled off the bed and ran to Mo Yu, clutching the hem of her garment.

“Master, it was my fault, please don’t abandon me.”

Guilt welled up even more in Mo Yu’s heart. She wondered if she had truly done something last night to frighten the now child-minded, child-bodied Qingxuan.

Clearly, she had yet to realize she’d already been duped by the seemingly innocent Qingxuan.

After soothing the sniffling little one, Mo Yu scooped up the “pitiful” child and stepped out of the space.

Fortunately, although Qingxuan had grown taller, he remained as light as when he was a little snake; otherwise, Mo Yu wouldn’t have dared to carry him.

They emerged in the same narrow alleyway from which they had entered. Only now, the alley was pitch-black and eerily quiet.

With a crouch and a forceful side kick, Mo Yu heard a dull clang, as if something had crashed into a metal barrel.

A roar echoed from the site of the collision, growing nearer.

Mo Yu wasn’t yet accustomed to the sudden darkness, so she had to rely on sound to determine the direction of the zombies.

Closer and closer...

She was just about to strike when the shuffling suddenly ceased. What happened? As her eyes adjusted, she glanced over at Qingxuan and saw something impaled on the long stick he was holding—vaguely, it looked like a human head.

Though it was a bit gruesome, Mo Yu was delighted—her Qingxuan was certainly formidable.

“Mua~” Unable to help herself, she planted a kiss on Qingxuan’s milky, flushed cheek and watched as he bashfully buried his face in her shoulder.

“Toss it and let’s go,” Mo Yu said, turning to head for the exit at the provincial border. But she didn’t hear anything hit the ground. She looked back to find Qingxuan poking around in the zombie’s skull with a small wooden stick.

“How odd, I saw it just now—what is it?” Qingxuan murmured to himself.

Mo Yu stared at him, his movements and mutterings stirring a sudden thought in her mind...

Could it be a brain core?

Setting Qingxuan down, Mo Yu took the zombie-laden stick and the small twig, then began to search through the mangled brain.

The brain matter was a mess, but persistence paid off. At last, Mo Yu hooked a tiny, green crystal nucleus from the deepest part of the zombie’s skull.

The crystal was unsullied by gore, sparkling like an emerald carefully protected from the world.

Noticing the greedy gleam in Qingxuan’s eyes, Mo Yu handed the brain core to him without thinking.

He took it, inhaled its scent deeply, then tucked it carefully into his pocket.

Mo Yu didn’t notice this, preoccupied by a strange feeling, as if she had forgotten something—though for the life of her, she couldn’t recall what.

She shrugged off the oddity, picked up Qingxuan, and strode on.

No matter what, stumbling upon a crystal nucleus by chance was truly exciting!

“Move it! Get out of the damned way!”

“Can’t you just walk forward, for fuck’s sake!”

“Open the gate! Open the gate!”

“Open the gate! Open the gate!”

Mo Yu stared grimly at the dense sea of people before her, her ears ringing with all manner of curses. Yet, no matter how loud or filthy the words, they couldn’t obscure the panic and terror in everyone’s voices.

A headache throbbed behind Mo Yu’s brow. Looking closer, she swore under her breath.

“Damn it! There are still infected here turning into zombies!”

A guttural howl—witnessing the transformation of an infected sent a sharper pain through her head. This wouldn’t do. Before long, the exit out of the province would be sealed, and then escape would be impossible—especially while the zombie virus had yet to spread widely. After that, it would be a death sentence.

What terrible luck. Who knew if Li Jun and Lingzi had made it out safely?

Staring at the surging, cursing crowd—thousands of people—Mo Yu, for the first time, wished she was a water or fire ability user. With another power, she might have already cut a bloody path through.

But unfortunately, she had only her family’s inherited space ability and her psychic power from her previous life.

Besides, as far as she knew, after her psychic power had reached level three, there hadn’t been any new developments. Truly... sigh.

Frustrated, Mo Yu closed her eyes and shook her head, trying to focus her mind on a way to escape.

Nothing came to her! She opened her eyes to assess the situation, only to find her vision swimming in a blur. Her heart gave a heavy thud.

Wasn’t she supposed to be immune to zombie bites because of her powers? Since her rebirth, she’d never even been scratched by a zombie. So why was she suddenly dizzy, her vision blurred, limbs weak, blood pounding in her veins—a full set of zombie infection symptoms?

Mo Yu shook her head hard, struggling to clear her mind. Could someone please tell her what on earth was happening?

It had to come now, of all times—right before she tried to leave the province. Fury churned inside her as she clenched her eyes shut.

Thump, thump, thump.

Suddenly, Mo Yu felt her nerves pulsing madly.

Her nerves were throbbing—damn it.

Clenching her jaw so tightly that veins stood out on her forehead, Mo Yu felt beads of sweat drip down.

Qingxuan’s large, watery eyes opened wide, watching his master anxiously. He didn’t understand what was wrong—she had suddenly become so pained, and his own heart ached with hers. But there was nothing he could do except cling desperately to her neck, silently praying that her suffering might be transferred to him, that she might recover.

For the first time, Qingxuan felt utterly helpless—he wished he could hold his master as those men ahead cradled their wives and children, shielding her, loving her, bearing all her pain.

A muffled groan escaped Mo Yu as if someone was forcibly stuffing energy cores into her mind; powerful energy rampaged inside her head. She felt terribly unwell. Sensing Qingxuan’s arms tightening around her, she returned the embrace fiercely. When Qingxuan gently pressed his forehead to hers, it was the final straw...

A surge of immense energy burst from the depths of her mind, sweeping away the pain and ushering in a new rebirth—

Along with a mysterious new power.