"Okay, I'll try my best to preserve her appearance."
Xu Qian went out, holding a knife. Seeing Madam Pei stuffing tiny mice into her mouth, she felt a wave of nausea. She detested mice.
With light steps, she approached her from behind, found the right spot, and thrust her dagger into the back of her head. Madam Pei collapsed to the ground, the mice she had been crushing squeaking.
Xu Qian's brow furrowed. Enduring her disgust, she donned gloves and made a thin incision in the back of Madam Pei's hair.
After extracting the crystal core, she quickly returned to the living room.
She handed the crystal core to Pei Yuan, saying, "This is her zombie crystal core."
A hint of tears welled up in Pei Yuan's eyes. He reached out and accepted the warm crystal core, placing it in his embrace.
"Please wait for me a moment. I'll clean Su Mei's body. She always loved cleanliness; she definitely wouldn't like looking like this."
"Alright, we'll wait for you."
Pei Yuan went out to the garden. Without any hesitation, he lifted his wife, cleaned the fresh blood and flesh from her mouth with a handkerchief, gently stroked her hair, and then carried her upstairs.
"Gu Qing, come here for a moment."
She took a large megaphone from her spatial storage and handed it to Gu Qing.
"Drive around the resort and announce that any survivors should gather here or at the main entrance within half an hour."
Gu Qing took the megaphone and left without a word.
She smiled. Gu Qing had grown up.
"A Bai."
Mei Yue Bai offered a faint smile and asked, "Lord Xixi, what is your command?"
"Follow me."
She walked towards the main entrance and took out another RV from her spatial storage.
"Drive this around the resort parking lot and see if you can find any suitable buses or minibuses to transport survivors. I'll stay here with Mr. Pei."
"As you command."
Xu Qian sat in the antiquated hall, lost in thought.
Men like him were rare.
His wife was dead, yet he was willing to stay by her side, refusing to leave.
She hadn't seen a single good outcome for couples in the post-apocalyptic world. When true danger struck, it was always every man for himself.
In this world where human nature was wicked, women became scarcer and men's desires grew. Women's status didn't improve; instead, they became tools for the superpowered to vent their frustrations.
She vividly remembered an announcement made seven years into the apocalypse: if a female ability user gave birth to an ability user child, she, along with her team, would enjoy esteemed status.
But how could a female ability user survive for seven years and still be able to have children?
Therefore, the base issued a mandatory rule: if a female ability user couldn't conceive within two years, the base would forcibly assign five men to cohabit with her until she became pregnant. Regardless of what happened, as long as it didn't endanger her life, the base would not intervene.
Xu Qian had laughed then. If ability users conceived so easily, given her frequency with Jiang Shuo and Jiang Huai, she should have been giving birth every year.
In the seven years of the apocalypse, she had never heard of a female ability user becoming pregnant.
How could the base not know this?
It was simply a way to allocate women to those beasts in human form.
Hope Base was supposed to be good, with food, drink, and clothing, and it never turned away outsiders. It was the most populous and largest base in Z Nation.
Hope Base alone had fifty million men and ten million women. She couldn't fathom what Official Wei Yun had been thinking to issue such a bizarre regulation.
"Little comrade, we're ready."
Xu Qian turned around. Pei Yuan, carrying his wife in a white dress, walked steadily. Her hair and face had been cleaned, making her look nothing like a dead person or a zombie. She simply appeared to be asleep.
"Good. Then I'll put her into my spatial storage."
Pei Yuan's voice choked, "Okay."
He gently stroked his wife's hair, reluctantly handing the person in his arms to her.
With a thought, Xu Qian absorbed her into her spatial storage.
She found a corner and settled Madam Pei there. She narrowed her eyes. She still needed to find a coffin. Seeing a corpse immediately upon entering her spatial storage was unsettling.
Pei Yuan sobbed quietly, clutching the crystal core at his chest as if it were his sole spiritual anchor.
"Mr. Pei, please accept my condolences. If you wish to see Madam Pei in the future, you are always welcome to find me."
"Thank you, truly. Thank you."