The emotion stronger than fear is anger, and Qin Zhen was living proof.
Driven by rage, the zombie broke free from the shackles of superstition and picked up a peachwood sword of her own accord for the first time. Unfortunately, the car had just pulled over to the side of the road, leaving both of Fu Qi’s hands free.
He grabbed the peachwood sword and said, “You told Little Bro not to call zombies that, but now you’re calling the Captain that yourself? Aren’t you afraid he’ll find out?”
Qin Zhen ignored him and kept trying to hit him.
Fu Qi wrestled with her for the sword, pretending to be stern. “Qin Zhen, I’m angry now.”
After saying that, he frowned, looking a little strange.
This was the first time anyone had called Qin Zhen by her name, at least as far back as she could remember. It felt strange to her, too.
She was momentarily stunned, but quickly recovered. Her name wasn’t important. What mattered now was beating Fu Qi up properly. Otherwise, she might forget about it later.
She kept fighting him for the peachwood sword, but couldn’t take it back. So she simply opened her mouth and bit down on the hand holding it. Fu Qi let go, but Qin Zhen couldn’t stop herself in time. With an “Oof,” she slammed headfirst into him.
Fu Qi grabbed her by the shoulders and helped her up. Then he saw a perfectly clear foundation-covered imprint of a human face on his chest.
Qin Zhen had just sat back down and was about to continue her execution of this human-shaped demon when she noticed the face print on Fu Qi’s shirt. She also saw his speechless expression and found it amusing, so she temporarily lowered the sword and leaned closer to take a look.
Seeing the round head in front of him, Fu Qi tugged at his collar and said, “Are you going to wash this for me?”
“I’ll wash it when you turn into a skel—skeleton,” Qin Zhen said.
“Never mind, then.” Fu Qi politely declined. “I don’t want to end up with the same treatment as your husband—used as both a toy and a clothes rack.”
The face print had distracted Qin Zhen, and once her attention wandered, she could no longer sustain her anger. Her desire to beat Fu Qi had lessened, and the peachwood sword in her hand began to feel hot.
She wanted to throw it away.
But it was rare enough that she had managed to pick up a peachwood sword. Throwing it away without doing anything would be such a waste.
Hearing what Fu Qi had said, Qin Zhen seized the opportunity and jabbed him in the shoulder with the sword. “Don’t in—insult my husband.”
With that, she contentedly and carefully placed the peachwood sword back on the rear seat.
Watching her little movements, Fu Qi’s lips kept curling upward.
Cute. And he wanted to… Forget it. Being hit by a zombie actually hurt quite a lot. It wasn’t as if he really wanted to be beaten.
Fu Qi didn’t mention the nameless skeleton again. He made Qin Zhen sit properly, restarted the car, and said, “Qin Zhen is a nice name, but it sounds a little strange when I say it. Babe, do you have a nickname?”
Qin Zhen had probably grown used to being called “Babe,” because she also felt that being addressed by her full name was odd. But she had no idea whether she had a nickname.
“Want me to come up with a few for you?” Fu Qi asked.
Qin Zhen looked disdainful. “Your own name is Fu—Fu Qi.”
His own name was so carelessly chosen. What kind of decent name could he possibly come up with for someone else? Qin Zhen had absolutely no faith in his naming abilities.
Fu Qi said, “Don’t underestimate me. I named our whole team. Plenty of people are jealous of us.”
Qin Zhen had seen the names of other teams on the information exchange forum. The more over-the-top ones included Thunder and Explosive Squad, while the more literary ones were called Chasing the Wind and Begonia. But she honestly had no idea what Fu Qi’s team was called.
She had agreed to join twice. The first time, she had been tricked into it; the second time, it had been in exchange for Fu Qi scratching her feet. Neither decision had come from the heart. As a result, she still hadn’t taken the time to learn anything about Fu Qi’s team.
“What’s it called?” Qin Zhen asked curiously.
“Number One.”
“What?”
“I told you before.” Fu Qi turned the steering wheel as he spoke. “The Apocalypse’s Number One Squad.”
“Oh.” Qin Zhen remembered. Fu Qi had indeed mentioned it before, but he’d been spouting nonsense at the time, so she had assumed he was just messing with her and hadn’t taken him seriously.
Now that she thought back, she realized that when he had said “the number one squad in the current world,” he had deliberately phrased it that way to avoid revealing the existence of the zombie virus.
So it turned out he had been telling the truth.
Qin Zhen nodded to show that she remembered, then turned to look out the window.
The car continued down the road, already far from the base. It reached a desolate highway where, aside from a few scattered zombies drawn by the car and chasing after it, there wasn’t a living thing in sight.
Qin Zhen glanced at those few zombies, rolled down the window, and stretched out a hand.
“Help!”
Clinging to the window, she shouted outside, “Help! There’s a cra—crazy person here! Somebody, ple—please save this zombie!”
Unfortunately, the zombies only had eyes for the delicious-looking Fu Qi. They completely ignored the hand of the zombie calling for help out the window.
“Insulting the Captain again?” Fu Qi was amused by her. Steering with one hand, he used the other to yank her back inside and said, “Babe, looks like I need to give you a proper introduction to the rules of the team.”
“There are only three people. What kind of—of rules could you possibly have?”
Fu Qi had said that besides him, the Captain, the team had two other members recovering from their injuries at the North City Base.
A team of only three people—what kind of missions could they even accept? It clearly wasn’t a serious operation!
“Who told you that?” Fu Qi said, unconvinced. “Counting you, our team now has eight peo—members.”
Qin Zhen: “…”
“Help!” Without hesitation, she turned back toward the zombies outside the window and called for help again, only to be dragged back by Fu Qi once more.
“Do you hate it that much? What’s wrong with my team?”
“The name! It’s terr—terrible!”
Only now did Qin Zhen realize that team names came in more varieties than just over-the-top and literary. There were also the deranged and shamelessly self-important kinds.
Joining a team like this was so embarrassing!
She couldn’t even bring herself to tell anyone about it!
“If you don’t like it, you’ll just have to accept it. You’re already on the pirate ship,” Fu Qi said. “Now, here’s a rundown of the team rules. First, you may not quit whenever you feel like it. Second, you may not say the team name sounds bad. Third, you must be civilized and polite.”
Fu Qi was a captain who led by example. After finishing, he turned to the zombie lunging at the window and said politely, “Sorry to disturb you. It’s nothing serious—one of our team members is throwing a little tantrum. Everything’s fine now, so we won’t trouble you.”
With that, he violently wrenched the steering wheel. With a bang, the zombie was sent flying.
Qin Zhen: “…”
What a lunatic!
She regretted it terribly. Ever since discovering the existence of zombies, she had known that all humans were crazy. Why, then, had she gone round and round only to get involved with them, sinking deeper and deeper?
But it was too late to turn back, and escape was impossible. All she could do was fight for the rights she still had.
“In that case, I demand that when there are team disagre—disagreements, we vote. The minority must obey the majority.”
“You’re quite the schemer.” Fu Qi saw straight through her little plan. “Should we vote to reelect the Captain while we’re at it?”
“Sure!”
“You win five votes to become Captain, and change the team’s name to the Zombie Squad?”
“N-no need to go that far.” Qin Zhen shook her head. “Just change it to the Qin—Qin Qin Squad.”
“What if I refuse?”
“If you refuse, I’m—I’m quitting!”
Fu Qi threw an arm around Qin Zhen’s neck and pulled her against his chest. Looking down at her, he said, “You’re not trying to seize my position. You just don’t want to join the team, do you? Why not? I’ll get you out of the tomb, take you online, and even rub your feet. What’s so bad about having a Captain as good as me?”
“Safety, safety first!”
Zombies might not die, but they had a strong sense of safety. Seeing Fu Qi drive without watching the road, Qin Zhen wanted to break free of his hold but didn’t dare struggle too hard. In her panic, she stammered incoherently, “Crash—crash and you’ll die!”
Fu Qi glanced at the wide road ahead and stepped on the accelerator, sending a zombie blocking the way flying. Only then did he release her, saying, “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
For all that eight out of ten things he said were asking to be punched, his naming skills were terrible, and he loved teasing people, Fu Qi really was reliable. In all the time Qin Zhen had traveled with him since leaving the tomb, aside from getting shot by two foreigners at the beginning, she had basically never suffered a loss or hardship.
When she had let her secret slip, Fu Qi had found an excuse for her and stopped the others from suspecting her identity.
When she had gotten lost, Fu Qi had searched for her day and night without sleep—and hadn’t even minded that she had brought along a little zombie who wanted to eat him.
She was afraid of Taoist priests, so Fu Qi had accompanied her as she faced and overcame that fear.
She wanted to go online, and Fu Qi had found a way to make that happen too.
Honestly speaking, Fu Qi really was very good to zombies.
The ugly team name, the Captain who was practically begging to be punched, and teammates she had never even met—Qin Zhen could accept all those little problems. There was just one thing she didn’t quite understand.
“Why… find me?”
Fu Qi thought for a moment before answering, “Because you can’t die.”
From his expression, Qin Zhen felt he was brushing her off. But after thinking it over carefully, she decided he was telling the truth.
Fu Qi had never said how many people had originally been on his team, but it was obvious that no squad carrying out dangerous missions would have only three members. The rest had probably all died.
Since Qin Zhen couldn’t die, Fu Qi wouldn’t have to worry about losing another teammate.
Qin Zhen thought she had figured him out. She didn’t mind that Fu Qi had recruited her for that reason, but she still had some concerns…
“…Can’t kill…”
She was embarrassed to say it aloud, so her voice was very soft.
“What?” Fu Qi leaned closer, turning his ear toward her.
Qin Zhen clasped her hands together and repeated in a whisper, “Can’t kill… kill people, or… zombies…”
She didn’t know how missions worked, but she had once been shot through the heart by humans and had also witnessed Xu Feng’s injuries. She knew that if she followed Fu Qi on missions, she would inevitably encounter bad people and danger.
Qin Zhen was a zombie. She remembered nothing of her life as a human, yet the concept of responsibility was still etched into her mind.
Once she became a member of Fu Qi’s combat team, she would have to take responsibility for the missions and her teammates. To protect her own side, she would have to kill the enemy.
But zombies weren’t allowed to kill humans, no matter whether those humans were good or evil.
She didn’t dare kill zombies either. They were like zombies, yet also like humans, and they had never harmed her.
Even though this world apparently had no highly skilled Taoist priests, Qin Zhen still didn’t dare break the law or do anything criminal… At most, she could beat them up.
“You don’t need to kill.” After being reminded, Fu Qi began paying attention to driving safely. Keeping his eyes on the road ahead, he said, “You’re a zombie. Your position is different from that of humans. Neither humans nor zombies need you to kill anyone. You only need to stay by my side and provide occasional support.”
The concept of “support” was too vague for Qin Zhen to fully understand.
Fu Qi gave her an example. “Like when you secretly threw a rock at me on the day we left the tomb.”
Qin Zhen remembered. That was the day she had first encountered humans besides Fu Qi—and the day those two foreigners had shot her through the heart.
At the time, she had helped Fu Qi without harming any humans.
Fu Qi didn’t count.
Hurting Fu Qi was a zombie’s duty, so she felt perfectly justified!
Qin Zhen’s eyes lit up. “Just like that?”
Fu Qi heard the excitement in her voice and sighed, resigning himself to his fate. “Just like that.”
“Okay!”
It was far too easy. Qin Zhen agreed at once, then immediately thought of something and hurriedly added a qualification. “If you make me angry, I’m still going to… to hit you. Hitting you doesn’t count as… as harming a human. You can’t take revenge on me or use your Captain’s… status to suppress me.”
Fu Qi was so exasperated that he almost laughed. “Sweetheart, you’re surprisingly tactful when you insult people.”
“Is that okay?”
“Okay.” Fu Qi sighed helplessly. “You’re even getting all technical with me… When have I ever actually held it against you? I was only teasing you.”
“You’re just… asking to be punched!”
After going around in circles, everything had finally been made clear, and the zombie at last joined the team willingly.
With her heart lighter, Qin Zhen found Fu Qi more pleasing to look at. She took the initiative to ask for the map, but the Captain was not taking things seriously. Instead of hurrying to come up with a plan, he insisted on settling her five identities first.
“They’re Sweetheart, Qin Qin, Zhen Zhen, Zhi Zhi, and Blue Blue.”
Qin Zhen: “…”
She wanted to beat up the Captain again, but she was even more curious about where the last name had come from. Struggling to restrain herself, she asked, “Blue Blue… where did that… come from?”
Fu Qi lifted his chin toward the road ahead. “The sky is blue.”
Qin Zhen could bear it no longer. She raised her hand and smacked him on the shoulder.
Fu Qi was still laughing even after taking the hit. “You don’t like it? Then… we could call you Violent Little Zombie.”
It was fortunate that he was driving and that the zombie didn’t want to cause a traffic accident. Otherwise, he would have been in for a serious beating.
