Chapter 6
Chapter 6: Evolving Together
Lian Yi slept, but her mind stayed razor-clear.
She felt energy drifting through the air—soft and weightless, like purple cotton floating on a draft. It clung to her skin, seeped inside, slid through her veins, and gathered in her dantian.
Something ignited.
A purple light bloomed there, tight and bright.
It felt too familiar.
Before she’d become a tasker, Lian Yi had been a cultivator—rare among the rare, born with a mutated thunder spirit root. She’d died beneath the lightning of ascension. Now, in an apocalypse soaked in strange energy, the power waking inside this body was the same kind that had once defined her.
Lightning ability.
It snapped to life and began drinking lightning particles from the air, rebuilding her body from the inside out. Purple sparks danced across her skin. Even in sleep, she instinctively ran a lightning cultivation method, drawing more power, faster.
An invisible field formed around her—an energy pull that grew and grew. It started in the room, spread across the floor, then the building, then the courtyard, then the whole neighborhood. Lightning specks drifted toward her like iron filings to a magnet.
No human could see it.
The zombies could feel it.
They began to retreat, huffing and shuffling backward, leaving the neighborhood as if something here had grown teeth.
Across the corridor, Yun Rou lay on hard tile, trembling. Water ability specks gathered around her, but they seeped in slowly, sluggishly.
Lian Yi’s lightning pull was too strong. It pushed away everything that wasn’t lightning, scattering other energy and slowing Yun Rou’s evolution to a crawl.
After twelve hours, Lian Yi surfaced once—half-awake in a fever haze. Her throat was sand-dry. She found water and drank deeply, close to a liter, then collapsed again.
This time, she used lightning like a hammer, pounding her body, forcing impurities out.
Twenty-four hours after she’d fallen, Lian Yi opened her eyes.
A faint purple gleam flashed through them.
She stretched, feeling full—too full, like her muscles had been packed tighter. Then the sour stink hit her.
She lifted her arm. A thin layer of gray grime coated her skin—impurities pushed out during evolution.
Lian Yi’s eyes lit. She raised a hand and tested her power.
A bolt of purple lightning snapped out and split the bookcase piled near the door clean in two.
“Still weak,” she muttered. “Only about early Qi Refining.”
She pulled the barricade away from the study door, then checked the main entrance.
Nothing had shifted. No one had tried to break in.
That made sense. It was only the third day of the apocalypse. People were still stunned, still hiding, still trying to understand what kind of nightmare they’d woken into. And with the second evolution, another wave had probably died.
Lian Yi didn’t bother checking on the neighbors yet.
She went to the bathroom, scrubbed until the grime and stink were gone, pinned up her long hair, and changed into a black tracksuit. Then she gathered everything left in Room 601 and stored it in her Pocket Space.
When she was done, she left with only a black hiking backpack, two bottles of water, the instant noodles Wang Qiang had promised, and the blood-stained iron pipe in her hand—the only weapon she trusted.
She opened the corridor door.
Blood stained the floor outside Room 602. The air reeked—sharp, metallic, fresh.
Her senses were sharper now. She tilted her head and listened.
Weak breathing.
Cloth dragging against tile.
Someone inside her apartment was awake.
Lian Yi’s mouth curved slightly.
Opportunity.
She took out her key and unlocked her own door openly, letting the click echo in the hallway. Then she pushed.
Yun Rou, slumped against the door from inside, stumbled forward and nearly fell. She looked up, eyes wide—and saw Lian Yi.
Shock flashed across Yun Rou’s face. “Lian Yi… you—”
“What?” Lian Yi’s voice was flat as stone. “Surprised I’m still alive?”
Yun Rou swallowed.
Lian Yi stepped in, gaze sweeping the empty room, and let her expression harden. “How did you get in here? Where’s my stuff? What did you do?”
Yun Rou’s eyes darted around, confused and wary. “Lian Yi, listen to me. Ma Tao dragged me away. I wanted to go back for you, but he wouldn’t let me. He brought me here. He opened the door. When I came in, the place was already empty.”
“Where is Ma Tao?” Lian Yi snapped. “I’m going to settle accounts with him. He left his fiancée to die and saved someone he had nothing to do with.”
Yun Rou’s shoulders trembled. She dropped her gaze and wrapped her arms around herself like she was cold. “He… turned into one of those monsters. Someone killed him.”
Lian Yi gave a short, ugly laugh. “Protecting you, was he? Serves him right. If he’d stayed with me, he might’ve lived.”
Yun Rou’s voice went thin. “Lian Yi… I’m sorry.”
“Save it.” Lian Yi’s eyes were ice. “Get out. Now.”
Yun Rou jerked her head up. Tears welled instantly and spilled down her cheeks like someone had turned on a tap. “No—Lian Yi, please! If I go out there, those monsters will eat me!”
Lian Yi took one step forward and slapped her hard.
The crack rang.
Yun Rou hit the floor, stunned, her cheek swelling before her eyes.
Before Yun Rou could even gasp, Lian Yi seized a fistful of her chestnut curls and dragged her across the tile to the living room window. She shoved it open, cold air rushing in, and hauled Yun Rou up as if she weighed nothing.
Yun Rou shrieked. “No! Don’t!”
Fear turned sharp in her eyes.
And then she struck.
She snapped her hand forward and fired a water ball at Lian Yi’s face—small, only the size of an egg.
Lian Yi didn’t flinch. She raised the iron pipe.
The water hit metal with a vicious hiss.
Corrosive.
Lian Yi jumped back on instinct. Droplets splattered her clothes, and the fabric immediately pitted, eaten through in tiny holes.
Her grip loosened for a fraction of a second.
That was all Yun Rou needed.
A smug gleam flashed beneath her tears. She tore free, lunged for the door, flung it open, and bolted into the corridor.