Chapter 236 Corpse Puppet

Su Ze was extremely fast, crossing several steps along the stairs, reaching the seventh and Eighth Floors of the building in the blink of an eye.

Lu Jiaming's efficiency was indeed high; his subordinates had already gathered all the players from these two floors into the spacious office area.

The crowd was packed together, a constant hum of discussion filling the air, and the atmosphere was thick with irritability and unease.

Seeing Su Ze appear, Lu Jiaming immediately ran over eagerly.

“Boss, everyone is gathered, and no one dared to cause trouble!” Lu Jiaming reported in a lowered voice.

Su Ze nodded, opened the system panel, and sent a message to Ye Qingqing, who was on standby at the Dormitory building.

[Private Chat · Su Ze: Speak in the regional channel to soothe these people and get them to cooperate with the transfer to Jinghai University.]

Ye Qingqing replied extremely quickly, almost instantly.

Immediately following that, Ye Qingqing's message popped up in the building's regional channel.

Her voice was gentle and highly soothing as she logically analyzed the benefits of joining Jinghai University and their current situation.

She was very clear about her current situation and was desperately trying to show her value in front of Su Ze.

The players in the building looked at each other. They were not familiar with Su Ze,

but many in the crowd had personally witnessed Su Ze's terrifying combat power through the windows during his battle with Liao Long.

With a few people taking the lead to agree, and Ye Qingqing, a core figure of the original building faction, personally stepping forward to endorse him, the remaining players gave up any thoughts of resistance and cooperated obediently.

Su Ze walked in front, leading this massive group of people as they transferred toward Jinghai University.

Along the way, he remained vigilant, guarding against the mysterious woman suddenly jumping out to cause sabotage.

But until everyone safely stepped into the range of Jinghai University, the surroundings remained quiet, and nothing unusual happened.

Wang Meng and several Leaders had long been waiting at the intersection and immediately stepped forward to arrange personnel for reception and registration.

Ye Qingqing also ran out from the Dormitory building, weaving through the crowd to continue her psychological counseling work, helping the new players integrate as quickly as possible.

Everything was progressing smoothly.

As Su Ze stood aside monitoring the progress, his private channel suddenly flashed.

It was a message from Gai Qian.

[Private Chat · Gai Qian: Mr. Su Ze, I can't find that woman, but I found several unconscious players in an office on the 13th floor of the building.]

Unconscious players?

Su Ze's brow immediately furrowed. He quickly deduced the opponent's intention in his mind.

Making players unconscious? Could it be that the opponent wanted to use this method so these few people could neither actively agree to join nor be forced to submit? As long as there were players in the building area who hadn't surrendered, the conditions for him to annex the entire building faction couldn't be met.

This was indeed a way to exploit a bug in the system rules.

But... this was too simple.

If they just wanted to use a few unconscious people to stall progress, it wasn't exactly an inescapable situation.

At worst, he could just go upstairs and kill all those unconscious players.

After all, as long as the condition of "all players submitting" was met, killing unconscious personnel who couldn't submit was the simplest and most brutal solution.

But would that mysterious woman, who was extremely fast and hidden very deeply, go through all the trouble of infiltrating the building just for a trick that could be so easily broken?

Su Ze didn't believe it.

There must be another issue involved.

Before he could figure it out, Gai Qian's second private message popped up immediately after.

[Private Chat · Gai Qian: Mr. Su Ze, I found her... wait! She found me too and turned into a zombie!! And she looks very wrong...]

Turned into a zombie?

Su Ze's heart skipped a beat. His first reaction was for Gai Qian's safety.

Gai Qian was his designated tenant, and the [Ghost Body] Bond on her hadn't had a chance to be activated yet.

If she was killed by that zombie, the Bond would be reset to zero, and his efforts this time would be for nothing!

He replied immediately.

[Private Chat · Su Ze: How strong is that zombie?]

[Private Chat · Gai Qian: A bit stronger than me, but I can barely hold it off for a while! Please come quickly!]

A bit stronger than Gai Qian.

Su Ze felt more at ease. Gai Qian's current combat power had recovered to around 100; if it was a bit stronger than her, then it was at a level of over a hundred but less than two hundred. Such combat power posed absolutely no fatal threat to him.

He didn't choose to activate the [Burst] Bond, but instead exerted force with both legs. His entire being turned into an afterimage as he charged out of the Jinghai University gate, heading straight for the World Financial Center.

Pushing his speed to the limit, the wind whistled in his ears.

Su Ze rushed into the First Floor of the building, didn't even look at the elevator, and dived straight into the fire escape.

In an instant, he had already reached the 13th floor.

The moment he pushed open the 13th-floor fire door, the sound of a fierce fight came from the end of the corridor.

Su Ze quickly approached.

In the corridor, Gai Qian was dodging the attacks of a female zombie in a disheveled state.

That female zombie was exactly the freckled woman from the photo earlier.

But now, she had completely lost all characteristics of a living person. Her skin was a dull, ashen blue, and sharp black nails had grown from her fingers. Every swing carried a piercing sound of breaking air, carving deep grooves into the corridor walls.

Gai Qian clearly had rich combat experience. She didn't fight head-on but used her advantage as a soul body that could float to constantly dodge.

Seeing Su Ze appear, Gai Qian's spirits lifted.

“Mr. Su Ze!”

Su Ze didn't waste words; with a flick of his wrist, a sharp long spear appeared out of thin air in his hand.

The female zombie sensed the movement behind her, spun around abruptly, and lunged at Su Ze with a roar.

In that very instant, Gai Qian moved.

She suddenly solidified her body and tightly gripped the female zombie's shoulders from behind.

This brief one-second pause was enough for Su Ze.

The long spear, carrying a sharp wind, precisely bypassed Gai Qian and stabbed hard into the female zombie's shoulder.

“Puchi!”

The sound of the blade piercing through flesh and bone rang out.

Su Ze's arms suddenly exerted force, thrusting the long spear upward with a sharp jerk.

The female zombie was lifted into the air by this immense force, and finally, with a dull "thud," she was pinned firmly to the corridor's load-bearing wall by the long spear.

The wall surface was shattered into a large patch of cracks.

Pinned to the wall, the female zombie's limbs flailed wildly, her sharp nails scraping against the spear shaft with an ear-piercing screech.

She opened her bloody mouth, letting out Bursts of irrational roars at Su Ze, as black blood constantly dripped from the corners of her lips.

Su Ze walked forward, gripped the spear shaft, and looked coldly at this frenzied monster.

He had deliberately avoided vital spots because he wanted to keep her alive to see if he could interrogate her for some intelligence.

When this woman infiltrated the building before, she knew to stick to the base of the walls, knew to avoid crowds, and even knew how to use speed to lose pursuers; she clearly possessed high intelligence.

But now...

Su Ze stared into the female zombie's cloudy eyes, which were filled with tyranny.

The state this thing was showing now was completely that of an ordinary, low-level zombie that only knew how to kill by instinct.

No reason, no possibility of communication.

What on earth was going on?

A high-IQ research person, after infiltrating the building, turned into an irrational beast?

The contrast before and after was too great; it simply didn't make sense.

Su Ze watched the female zombie's increasingly frantic struggles, as she even began trying to tear her own shoulder to break free from the long spear. He knew there was no point in keeping her anymore.

His wrist gave a sudden jerk.

The long spear churned inside the female zombie's body, then suddenly flicked upward.

“Crack!”

The spear tip directly crushed the female zombie's cervical vertebrae, then followed through to sever her head.

The roaring stopped abruptly. The headless corpse slumped limply down the wall to the floor.

Su Ze pulled out the long spear and immediately took out the mirror of surveillance to check on Li Fen at Jinghai University, who still appeared perfectly normal...

His brow knitted tightly into a knot.

...

Meanwhile, at Jinghai University,

In the laboratory that Chen Xueming and his men had repurposed.

“Li Fen” was standing in front of an experimental table, holding several glass test tubes filled with unknown liquids, focused on mixing them.

She mixed the liquids from two test tubes together; the liquid changed color rapidly, emitting tiny bubbles.

The next moment, her movements paused for a second.

Everyone around her was busy, and no one noticed anything unusual about her.

Shi Yetang lowered her head slightly, looking at the bubbling test tube in her hand, a faint curve appearing at the corner of her lips.

She gently swirled the test tube and murmured in a low voice that only she could hear.

“Lost a corpse puppet...”

“But it was worth it...”