Chapter 54 - 50: Goodbye, My Love!

Chapter 54: Chapter 50: Goodbye, My Love!

Ian looked at Yin Zhen. She tilted her chin up to meet his gaze, her finger resting firmly on the trigger of Night Song without yielding an inch. If he didn’t do as she said, they would all go down together!

Zoe nodded first. "I promise I won’t tell anyone. I swear on my soul!"

Ian fell silent for a long time—so long that Yin Zhen thought he was going to refuse—before he finally let out a sigh. "Alright. We’ll talk again once everything here is settled."

Yin Zhen’s finger on the trigger relaxed slightly. Three people, three secrets, three bombs ready to explode at any moment. But in this darkness, none of them could kill each other. Smart people knew how to make the right choices.

With a temporary alliance formed, Zoe crossed the remaining distance to stand in front of Yin Zhen.

"I can’t release too much spiritual power to investigate in here, but I know the core of the aggregate is nearby," Zoe said. "Whenever I get close to it, I hear a woman’s voice."

Yin Zhen’s eyebrows twitched. She had actually heard a woman’s voice as well. She figured that, according to the logic of writing a novel, side plots were always connected to the main storyline. The common ground between her and Zoe was that they both carried the genes of the "Source" and possessed the Special Extraordinary Ability known as "Blood Source Resonance." In that case, the core of this aggregate definitely hid the secret of the "Source"!

"The space here isn’t large. Let’s split up and search!" Yin Zhen said.

Zoe nodded. She took two steps before pausing to look back. "Do you have your own name yet? I don’t like calling you by that code name."

After a brief moment of thought, Yin Zhen replied with a straight face, "My name is Han Meimei."

Ian looked over in astonishment. The same ancient meme in a different world—what did this mean?

Yin Zhen took in Ian’s reaction. She hadn’t used this name just to make a joke, but to verify whether she could disclose other details about her own world outside of the game’s core invasion content. It turned out she could! In that case, Victor had probably already pieced together most of the information about the other world. This was going to be troublesome!

Zoe didn’t understand the joke. "Then I’ll call you May from now on," she said with a smile. "May, I like that name."

As Zoe went to investigate the other side, Ian glanced left and right before choosing to follow her.

Yin Zhen composed herself and walked down the corridor ahead. In reality, she had never expected to find the core herself. With the protagonists here, a minor supporting character like her wouldn’t get a turn to do something like that. She just wanted to give the male and female leads a chance to whisper sweet nothings in private; she had no desire to be a third wheel. All she had to do was take a casual stroll and then head back to find them, and they would surely have found the mission objective by then.

Unlike the other areas covered in fleshy slime, this floor was very clean. There were only traces of steel corroded by seawater and a small amount of blood-red spores. It seemed to be a space in the middle level of the drilling platform.

Being unable to use spiritual power severely hindered Yin Zhen’s investigation efficiency. Whether it was Super Sensing, blood silk, or Shadow Manipulation, they all required spiritual power to activate, whereas Lighthouse’s Iron Bone and White Phosphorus’s blood ignition did not. Yin Zhen silently tested it out. If the intensity was low, she could draw upon a little bit of power, though it felt as if her head was being squeezed. However, it definitely wouldn’t suffice for high-intensity combat.

Just as she passed the entrance to the passage, Yin Zhen paused her steps and abruptly stepped back to crouch down. In a dark corner, there were some faint traces of blood. There was someone else here!

She immediately reached down, dabbed a little blood, and placed it on her tongue. Her pupils slightly contracted. Standing up, she scanned the surroundings and quickly found more bloodstains that had been hastily stepped on and smeared away.

The blood-red spores in the air sensed the scent of blood and began to gather. They formed a thin ribbon of light that extended deep into the darkness, drifting toward an extremely hidden corner. Collapsed steel beams and broken pipes were piled up there, naturally forming a narrow entrance that would go completely unnoticed without careful inspection.

Gripping Night Song tightly, Yin Zhen slowly approached. "Come out!"

The passage behind the barricade remained quiet for a few seconds. Then, a person stepped out from around the corner. It was Tuner!

His Diving Suit had been slashed open by a piece of rebar, the tear stretching diagonally from his shoulder to his chest. The edges were curled back, revealing the skin underneath. He had been injected with the blood source element, so the wound had already healed, leaving only a faint pink fresh scar. Blood-red spores floated around him, and some extremely fine blood silk covered the surface of the scar, acting like a transparent bandage that kept the spores out.

Yin Zhen looked at the blood silk. "You heard us?"

Tuner clenched his fists by his sides until his knuckles turned white. He nodded.

"And so?" Yin Zhen prompted.

Tuner’s pupils trembled. Yin Zhen’s questioning tone and arrogant expression were identical to Lucia’s. He opened his mouth, his voice hoarse.

"You want to infiltrate them..." Pausing for a moment, Tuner suddenly grew agitated. "But that’s too dangerous, Lucia. I don’t want anything else to happen to you."

Yin Zhen offered a joyless smile, stepping over the obstacle and walking toward Tuner. His body was tense, but he didn’t retreat or dodge; he just stood there and watched Yin Zhen walk right up to him.

Raising her hand, Yin Zhen gently touched the freshly healed scar on his chest with her Diving Suit-clad fingers. Her voice was much softer than before. "Don’t tell anyone else, including White Phosphorus and Lighthouse. Okay?"

Tuner’s Adam’s apple bobbed. He managed to force out a single word with great difficulty. "Okay."

Just as Tuner tried to grab the hand she had placed on his chest, Yin Zhen decisively took a step back, her voice returning to a cold, authoritative hardness. "Go find Lighthouse. I need the explosives he’s carrying."

Tuner stood unmoving.

Yin Zhen raised her eyebrows slightly. "Those two are still waiting for me. I’m leaving first." She turned around with crisp efficiency.

Her footsteps gradually faded into the distance until they disappeared completely.

Tuner suddenly relaxed. As if all the bones had been drained from his body, he leaned back against the wall and allowed himself to tremble violently. Then, his pupils suddenly dilated. Pitch-black shadows violently clamped over his mouth from behind, while other shadows tightly entangled his arms. The force was like iron bands, locking all his struggles within his body.

The muzzle of a gun was pressed against the back of his head. Yin Zhen’s breath brushed against the shell of his ear, warm and moist like a lover’s whisper, even carrying a hint of a smile.

"Goodbye, my love."

BANG!

The farewell and the gunshot rang out simultaneously. Blood burst from between Tuner’s eyebrows, splattering against the wall mixed with brain matter. His body stiffened for a moment before going limp.

Yin Zhen stepped out of the shadows. The Shadow Servant released Tuner and obediently returned to her feet. The Shadow Servant was ’alive’; she could mobilize it without expending any spiritual power. With Strength and speed comparable to her own, it was her greatest trump card.

She wondered why she had just uttered such a villainous line.

Tilting her head, Yin Zhen silently ridiculed herself. She had to admit that Tuner was very smart; knowing he couldn’t escape, he had proactively found an excuse for her. He figured that Lucia was disguising herself as S717 and using the Defection of S704 to infiltrate the Rebel Army. It was a very good excuse, and Lucia indeed possessed such boldness and shrewdness.

But he still had to die. Whenever she had the capability to solve a problem, Yin Zhen would never leave any hidden dangers for herself. Having to guard against Ian and Zoe, and facing Victor’s suspicion once she returned, was already tiring enough. Furthermore, she had absolutely no desire to play any romance games with this lovesick fool!

The environment here shielded communicator Signals and made it difficult to smoothly use Spiritual System Extraordinary Abilities. It was the perfect place to silence someone. Once she left here, she might not find such a suitable opportunity again.

Yin Zhen looked down at the corpse. The blood-red spores were gathering toward the wound like a swarm of ants smelling blood. Tuner’s body suddenly convulsed. The spores that burrowed into his wound multiplied frantically within him, causing lumps to bulge under his skin one after another as if something was writhing inside. His fingers thickened, his nails fell off to make way for grayish-black hard shells, and fine scales began to grow on his face. In merely ten or so seconds, the corpse was already mangled beyond recognition.

"Captain—" White Phosphorus’s voice echoed from behind.

Yin Zhen turned her head and saw White Phosphorus and Lighthouse running toward her.