“Pant… pant…”
Inside the elevator shaft of the Rosen Company building, within one of the passageways.
Ahead, Li Yalin suddenly turned her head and asked with some concern, “Are you still holding up?”
The Zombie Puppet, struggling to crawl in the back, gasped for air a couple more times before nodding. “I’m fine, just had a moment of trouble with the control…”
Trouble? That was an understatement!
At the most critical moment, he had nearly been forced to sever the psychic link entirely!
Ling Mo was indeed feeling a bit worn out after such an extended series of battles.
Thankfully, while he had been locked in combat with Butterfly, the Zombie Puppet’s sole task had essentially been to crawl, which had saved him a significant amount of mental energy.
A few minutes earlier, as soon as they had heard that sound coming from inside this passage, they had rushed in without hesitation.
However, once inside, they quickly discovered that the terrain was far more complex than they had imagined. Soon enough, they found themselves immersed in a maze-like climbing expedition. If it weren’t for Xia Na’s scent marking the path along the way, they might have already been driven insane by the endless darkness and the monotonous crawling…
“Xia Na must have gotten this deep because she’s been chasing after something,” Li Yalin remarked from up ahead.
Even though it was pitch black here with not a single speck of light, it didn’t pose any problem for the night vision of zombies.
Whenever Ling Mo lifted his head, he could clearly see Li Yalin’s swaying hips just ahead of him.
Perhaps because of her Femme Fatale nature, Li Yalin’s climbing posture was inexplicably elegant-almost to an enticing degree.
It was precisely because such a scene was playing out directly in front of him that Ling Mo found their climb somewhat more tolerable…
“Ling Mo, don’t you think so?” Li Yalin asked again.
“Ahem… Yeah, it seems that way,” Ling Mo replied, before suddenly letting out a quiet “Hmm?”
He freed one of his hands, first feeling along the concrete wall beside him, then mumbling in a puzzled tone, “This is strange…”
“What is it?” Li Yalin immediately stopped and asked cautiously.
At this moment, Ling Mo’s hand was already reaching overhead. “The walls of this passage are incredibly smooth, all the way around. But judging by the shape, it’s not something that could’ve been made with professional tools. For instance, here-” He suddenly paused at one spot. He didn’t even need to look to know there were two distinct claw marks left in the wall. “This was dug out by them directly.” ṛΆ₦оᛒƐs
After feeling the walls, Ling Mo couldn’t help but say with some regret, “The markings aren’t complete enough to compare them to a Zombie’s fingers and figure out the differences. Otherwise, we might be able to determine whether the creature hiding here is actually a Zombie.”
“Still, whether it is or not, we can definitely say it’s a creature roughly the size of a human,” Ling Mo added.
“But why?” Li Yalin asked curiously.
“Do rats dig holes big enough for a cat to fit through? These passageways are clearly made for them, because the Zombies outside didn’t even try to follow us in,” Ling Mo explained patiently.
“Roughly human-sized, then…” Li Yalin mused.
“Yeah, and they use these passageways frequently, which is why they’ve been worn so smooth,” Ling Mo continued, then added, “This makes it impossible for humans to enter. It’s not just slippery-some of the angles they’ve carved out are really strange…”
The entire passage was actually carved out following the structure of the original pipe system, which meant that as they climbed, they constantly encountered sharp ninety-degree angles. For any human who dared to enter, it would essentially mean forfeiting all of their own advantages and placing themselves in the most dangerous position imaginable.
If what Butterfly and the others were looking for was really hidden here, it wouldn’t be hard to understand why they kept failing and why, in the end, they were relying on Ling Mo and his group to handle it.
And as this thought crossed Ling Mo’s mind, his breathing unconsciously quickened…
Out of everything they’d encountered along the way, this was what he found the hardest to stay calm about!
Something existed here-something capable of completely curing the aftereffects of Butterfly’s episodes of “mindlessness.” And if it could eliminate such aftereffects, then perhaps it could also be useful for Ye Lian and the others!
Looking back now, even Fang Ying’s ability to retain portions of her emotions might be related to this mysterious thing! And even if there wasn’t a direct connection, what about an indirect one?
Especially after his clash with Butterfly, Ling Mo’s anticipation for this grew even stronger!
Whether it was Tang Hao or Butterfly, their transformations exhibited extremely obvious Zombie-like tendencies. Especially in terms of their twisted personalities, they were almost indistinguishable from regular Zombies.
The infinite magnification of a single characteristic in their personalities… For Zombies, this was almost an unavoidable flaw, the biggest one of all. Of course, that’s from a human perspective. From a Zombie’s perspective, however, this nearly singular-minded way of thinking and acting is what allows them to exert their maximum combat potential.
This defect, so similar to that of Zombies, was precisely what made Ling Mo suddenly so deeply intrigued by the thing Tang Hao and Butterfly were pursuing!
If not for his iron self-control, he might have lost his composure and acted impulsively the moment Tang Hao proposed his terms. But because the stakes were so high, Ling Mo had forced himself to hold back. Searching people’s memories could only yield fragments, and when the subject was a non-mental ability superhuman like Tang Hao, the results could be even more unreliable. If he were unlucky, he might only retrieve irrelevant, insignificant memories.
The same could be said for Butterfly…
“Tang Hao is, after all, nominally the Boss. And judging from the intelligence he has access to, Butterfly seems to trust him quite a bit. The two of them have definitely shared a significant amount of information…”
As Ling Mo thought about this, he adjusted his breathing. “Stay calm. If Tang Hao sees through me, it’s all over…”
Meanwhile, as Tang Hao engaged in conversation with Ling Mo’s main body, he probably couldn’t have imagined that the reason Ling Mo appeared so composed was because he had funneled all his excitement into his Zombie Puppet!
And so, with Tang Hao anxiously lowering his head and recounting details, all he saw in front of him was Ling Mo’s calm exterior, his expression betraying only the faintest hint of madness beneath the surface.
“Keep talking, spill it all. Whatever you’re planning, I’m going to seize it first,” Ling Mo thought to himself as he climbed a bit further along the concrete passage.
Suddenly, he heard Li Yalin let out a startled “Oh!”
“What happened?!”
Ling Mo snapped out of his thoughts and immediately asked.
“I think I just saw something…” Li Yalin replied, her voice tinged with excitement as she hastened her pace, crawling ahead.
“Huh, it looks like… it’s Xia Na’s clothing!”