202: Chapter 202 The White Moonlight of the Old World is Worthless in the New World

Captain Han Xue's voice was cold.

She didn't look at the corpses on the ground; she raised her muzzle and pointed it at the massive reaction tank.

"What are you standing there for! Didn't you hear me? The backup purification program!"

Scarface Liu jumped in surprise and hurriedly led his men rushing toward the control console on the other side.

"Start it! Hurry! Pour all those barrels of old sodium hypochlorite solution in for me!"

He shouted, but his hands were shaking.

A subordinate named A-Qiang looked like he was about to cry.

"Brother Liu, that's industrial grade! The concentration is high enough to burn through iron pipes. Wouldn't that destroy the equipment?"

Captain Han Xue stepped forward, the muzzle of her gun pressing directly against A-Qiang's head.

"Is the equipment more important, or are the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in the city more important?"

"I..." A-Qiang's legs went weak, and he almost collapsed to his knees.

"I don't care what method you use. In fifteen minutes, I want to see the water quality monitoring report. There cannot be a single insect egg left!"

She wasn't a water treatment expert.

But she had been a police officer, and she knew how to make this bunch of old slickers work to their absolute limit.

Sure enough, Scarface Liu and the others didn't dare to slack off anymore and began operating in a flurry of panic.

The crisis was temporarily averted.

Scarface Liu wiped off his cold sweat and carefully sidled up to Captain Han Xue, his face full of ingratiating smiles.

"This... police officer, you look familiar to me."

"Are you... aren't you the one who used to come here all the time..."

"Engineer Zhang's fiancée?"

One sentence.

The underground space went quiet for half a beat.

Qin Yumo was leaning nearby, and her gaze immediately swept over.

That look didn't hide its gossipy intent at all.

Captain Han Xue's body stiffened for a moment.

A flash of pain crossed her eyes, but she quickly suppressed it.

She was silent for two seconds, then squeezed out a single word through gritted teeth.

"Yes."

Realizing he had spoken out of turn, Scarface Liu quickly slapped himself in the face.

"Don't misunderstand! Engineer Zhang was the only good person in our water plant!"

He spoke more and more urgently, as if afraid Captain Han Xue would shoot him on the spot.

"Back then, he was the only one who said these bastards were cutting corners and that something bad would happen sooner or later!"

"And what happened?"

He spat on the ground.

"After the report was submitted, he was transferred away immediately."

"I heard he went to some cushy office at the headquarters in the capital—a promotion in name, but a demotion in reality! After the city was sealed, there was no more news of him..."

Captain Han Xue didn't speak.

The technicians didn't dare to chime in either.

All the old-timers at the water plant knew about this.

The good man was transferred away.

The scum stayed behind to guard the water.

When the apocalypse came, the scum became the local warlords.

Lin Yuan seemed not to have heard this interlude.

He walked up to Scarface Liu.

"From today on, Nanjiang Water Plant is under the jurisdiction of Cloud Top Palace."

"You and your men will continue to guard this place."

Scarface Liu was stunned, then ecstatic, and just about to pledge his loyalty.

Lin Yuan's next words made him swallow all the words he had prepared.

"I will send people later to assist you. The zombies will not attack here again."

The entire underground space was deathly silent.

Even the roar of the machines seemed to stop for a moment.

Scarface Liu's mouth hung open.

He couldn't close it for a long time.

"Zombies... won't attack here again?"

"Are you serious?"

Lin Yuan nodded.

Thud!

Scarface Liu was the first to kneel, facing Lin Yuan's direction.

"Mr. Lin!"

"You are my own father!"

"If I had known that following you meant zombies wouldn't bite, I would have joined long ago!"

"Why the hell would I waste my time guarding this crappy water plant as some local warlord?"

The others reacted and scrambled to kneel on the ground.

Nanjiang Water Plant, the first node, was incorporated just like that.

...

On the way back, inside the black george patton, the atmosphere was depressingly heavy.

Captain Han Xue was driving, and the ruined buildings on the roadside receded one by one.

But Scarface Liu's ingratiating face kept flashing before her eyes.

And that sentence—

Engineer Zhang's fiancée.

In the rearview mirror.

Lin Yuan was leaning in the back seat, his expression calm.

He must have heard it.

Was he disgusted with her?

That was it. Which of the women in Tiangong No. 1 wasn't as clean as a blank sheet of paper, only to be stained by his own hands?

Su Xiaonuan, Qin Yumo, Su Muxue... even that pregnant Jiang Xiaowan.

Their pasts were all Lin Yuan.

And what about her? She had an ex-fiancé who had disappeared.

The resume and relationships she had been so proud of in the old world had become stains in the new world.

Her heart was sinking.

No.

She had finally seized this opportunity to get in this car; she couldn't be kicked out again.

Captain Han Xue took a deep breath, as if she had made an incredibly difficult decision.

She looked at Lin Yuan's well-defined face in the rearview mirror, her voice raspy.

"Mr. Lin."

"Regarding what Scarface Liu said just now..."

She paused.

Every word felt like it was being scraped out of her throat.

"I was only engaged to Engineer Zhang."

"I am very traditional."

"I haven't..."

She bit her lower lip, her face turning pale.

"I am still..."

She didn't finish her sentence.

In the passenger seat, Qin Yumo, who had been resting with her eyes closed, suddenly let out a laugh.

"Pfft—"

The sound wasn't loud, but it was particularly jarring in the quiet car.

Captain Han Xue's words came to an abrupt halt, and her face turned bright red instantly.

Qin Yumo opened her eyes and turned her head to look at her.

That look was like staring at an antique that had just walked out of a primitive society.

"It's the apocalypse, who still cares about that?"

She stretched, her explosive curves fully exposed under her tight combat uniform, her tone tinged with disdain and showing off.

"Wang Ya's child is already so big."

"Isn't she still the Master's person?"

"Now, in Tiangong No. 1, her status is second only to Housekeeper Su."

Qin Yumo paused, her red hair like a ball of fire in the dim car.

"Of course, I'm third."

These words pierced precisely into Captain Han Xue's heart.

So... that's how it is?

Wang Ya has an S-rank Superpower and Lin Motong.

Su Xiaonuan is in charge of the entire Tiangong logistics.

Qin Yumo is the top combat force.

Then what about her? What did she have?

"Of course," Qin Yumo continued, "if you're kinky enough, the Master likes that too."

She leaned over to Captain Han Xue, a mischievous smile on her face.

"Look at that COS robot Liu Qing, or Teacher Xia's tutoring—the Master really loves those."

Just as Captain Han Xue was so ashamed and furious that she could barely hold the steering wheel, the man in the back seat, who had remained silent all along, finally spoke.

"Shut up, all of you."

Qin Yumo immediately stopped talking, sat up straight, and didn't dare to say another word.

Captain Han Xue was so ashamed she wished she could find a crack in the ground to crawl into; she felt like a naked clown.

"Zhou Niannian is asleep; don't wake her."

Lin Yuan said, gently adjusting his posture so that the little girl's head beside him could rest more comfortably on his lap.

He spoke, not because of what Qin Yumo had said.

It was simply because they had disturbed a child's sleep.

Captain Han Xue fell silent.

She felt a string in her heart that had been pulled tight snap with a "pop."

She looked at the urban ruins rapidly receding outside the car window.

She suddenly understood.

Lin Yuan didn't care if she was a blank sheet of paper.

He only cared about whether she could become a useful stroke of color on his canvas.

A crazy thought sprouted in Captain Han Xue's heart and quickly took root.

Her knuckles turned white from the force of gripping the steering wheel.