IABI -Chapter 119 Humanity’s Counterattack (20)

A tremendous shockwave erupted from the point where the two streams of energy collided—so powerful that the rippling vibrations were visible to the naked eye.

Chi Xin instinctively lunged forward, throwing herself over Yu Shizhao and pinning him to the ground, using her own body to shield him from most of the impact.

Even so, when the tremors reached them, Chi Xin felt Yu Shizhao let out a muffled groan, and a splash of warm blood spilled over her.

Lowering her head, she saw that Yu Shizhao had already fallen unconscious.

The intensity of the shock far exceeded Chi Xin’s expectations.

The severe pain wracking her body was secondary; she struggled to keep her mind clear. Just as she was about to force herself up and take Yu Shizhao away, darkness suddenly swallowed her vision.

The utter blackness lasted only two or three seconds. Before Chi Xin could react, a blinding white light descended from above, flooding her entire field of view.

When she opened her eyes again, the whole world had changed.

White—her first impression was endless white.

The entire space had become an empty, snow-white expanse, without boundaries, without decoration—nothing but boundless whiteness, making the few people collapsed on the ground look starkly out of place.

From somewhere unknown came the sound of ocean waves.

Chi Xin first checked Yu Shizhao’s breathing. Thankfully, though faint, it was steady.

She stood up in a daze and was about to walk toward Jing Xiubai when Huo Lai’s voice stopped her in her tracks.

“Relax. Aside from that guy, everyone else is still alive.”

That guy?

Following Huo Lai’s line of sight, Chi Xin looked toward a spot slightly farther away, where Ding Hongkai lay sprawled on the ground, blood flowing from his mouth and nose, his eyes wide open.

Chi Xin: “……”

She looked away. “What kind of place is this?”

“You can’t guess where this is?” Huo Lai took a deep breath. If he weren’t stuck here, he would have liked nothing more than to light up a cigarette.

Chi Xin glanced around again. A thought surfaced in her mind, and she asked incredulously, “This place… it can’t be Yu Xiang’s or Lou Chen’s sea of consciousness, can it?”

“It’s Yu Xiang’s,” Huo Lai confirmed her guess. “I emphasized more than once that forcibly inserting yourself into a mental battle could have… extremely terrifying consequences. Well, here we are—we’re all trapped inside.”

Chi Xin didn’t panic. As she studied their surroundings, Jing Xiubai also woke up.

He took a few seconds to assess the situation, accepting it even faster than Chi Xin. “So our current state—is this a mental form or a physical one?”

“Mental form,” Huo Lai replied. “But being purely mental is actually more dangerous—especially since we’ve invaded someone else’s sea of consciousness. The danger level is doubled.”

Ding Hongkai was just unlucky. Out of everyone here, only he and Yu Shizhao were ordinary people. Yu Shizhao had Chi Xin protecting him and, aside from some injuries, was mostly fine. Ding Hongkai, however, had been completely exposed to the psychic impact and had died on the spot.

At this point, all anyone could do was sigh at fate.

No one lingered on Ding Hongkai’s corpse. After Yu Shizhao also woke up, the group began moving forward.

“We either find Yu Xiang and Lou Chen, or we find a way out,” Chi Xin said with a cheerful smile, her tone so relaxed it was as if she were leading a tour group. “We can’t stay stuck in here forever, right? Though Yu Xiang’s consciousness world is really clean. I thought we’d see some… ahem, weird stuff.”

As soon as she finished speaking, she was met with a strange look from Brother Yu.

“Whatever else you might say, Yu Xiang may have been mischievous since childhood, but he wouldn’t touch any messy nonsense,” Yu Shizhao said. “My father and I were always strict with him.”

“Brother Yu, you misunderstood,” Chi Xin said, her expression complicated.

Of course she wasn’t suspecting Yu Xiang’s mind of being full of junk. After spending so much time together, she could tell that Yu Xiang was perfectly normal.

“I just think Yu Xiang has a particularly vivid inner theater,” Chi Xin said tactfully.

“You’re overthinking it,” Huo Lai cut in with professional authority. “Everyone’s sea of consciousness looks like this. Important things—like memories—are stored in special locations. That’s what we’re looking for.”

“Since you call this a sea of consciousness, there must be a reason,” Chi Xin said. “I can hear the sound of waves, but I haven’t seen the sea itself.”

“The true sea of consciousness is a person’s core,” Huo Lai replied. “It’s not that easy to find.”

“Then if we could enter Raphael’s sea of consciousness, wouldn’t that mean an instant victory without fighting?” Chi Xin’s thoughts began to wander.

Huo Lai’s face turned pale.

Jing Xiubai shot Chi Xin a meaningful look. Remembering Huo Lai’s fear of Raphael, Chi Xin immediately shut up.

Huo Lai was their main hope here—they couldn’t afford to scare him off.

As they walked through the space, the sound of waves followed them constantly, like surround sound enveloping them from all directions. Even Chi Xin couldn’t tell where it was coming from.

Inside someone else’s sea of consciousness, Huo Lai didn’t dare probe too deeply. The group wandered around like headless flies for quite a while.

Suddenly, Chi Xin raised her hand to stop everyone. “Wait.”

Almost simultaneously, Huo Lai issued a warning. “Watch out ahead!”

Right before them, the blank ground began to ripple violently. Then, without warning, a towering wave surged up and crashed straight toward them!

“Grab onto me!” Jing Xiubai roared at the critical moment.

With lightning-fast reflexes, Chi Xin seized Yu Shizhao with one hand and tightly grabbed Jing Xiubai’s arm with the other.

Huo Lai grabbed onto Jing Xiubai from the opposite side.

The massive wave slammed down, sending water spraying across the pristine white ground. For a moment, everything fell silent.

A few seconds later, a huge slab of floating ice carrying the group abruptly rose to the surface.

“Pff!”

Chi · can’t swim · battle god spat out the water in her mouth. She felt like half her life had drained away. Though she still instinctively held onto Yu Shizhao, her other hand—whether out of trust or something else—had completely loosened.

It was Jing Xiubai who clasped her hand in return and pulled her up.

“What exactly are you two doing?” Huo Lai complained.

Chi Xin opened her eyes. Through the water droplets clinging to her lashes, she barely made out that the space had changed again. They were now sitting atop the floating ice, and as far as the eye could see, everything around them was calm water.

“Brother Yu, are you okay?” she heard Jing Xiubai ask from behind.

But Chi Xin had no mind to listen to the reply.

She stared intently at the water’s surface. Sensing something off, the others followed her gaze.

Beneath the calm water, two side profiles flashed past briefly before sinking back down.

The atmosphere suddenly turned eerie.

Jing Xiubai’s eyes sharpened. He looked up at Chi Xin and saw her slowly shift her gaze toward… beneath the ice they were standing on.

He slowly lowered his head.

Two faces pressed against the ice from below, pale as ghosts in the water, floating up until they were plastered tightly against the underside of the ice.

If the people present hadn’t been through countless storms, that sight alone would have been enough to scare someone straight into the water.

Chi Xin was the first to react. She poked Jing Xiubai, signaling him to move the ice, then reached down and grabbed the two people in the water, hauling them up and tossing them onto the ice.

The moment they broke the surface, the two waterlogged figures sucked in huge gulps of air and immediately began coughing violently.

“Cough, cough, cough!”

“Cough, cough, cough!”

The entire space fell silent, filled only with the sound of their coughing.

The others stared at them wordlessly.

When the coughing finally subsided, Yu Xiang looked up at the group, confusion and delight rising in his eyes. “You… how did you get here?!”

Lou Chen didn’t even look at anyone else. He grabbed Yu Xiang by the collar and roared, “You shameless bastard! You dragged me into your sea of consciousness! You—you’re despicable!”

“Oh? That’s a new one,” Yu Xiang shot back, squinting at him. “I’m in my own sea of consciousness. If you hadn’t come in, how would I have drowned you? You really are a thief cracking jokes—pretty funny for a crook.”

When it came to verbal sparring, Lou Chen was no match for an old hand like Yu Xiang. He sputtered for a long time, his face turning red, only able to glare furiously while muttering, “You, you… you…”

Watching the scene, Chi Xin fell silent.

No wonder—even after Ding Hongkai had removed the vertical helmet, Lou Chen still couldn’t use Yu Xiang’s body to cause trouble.

From a certain perspective, Yu Xiang was no pushover either.

Seeing that he was safe and sound made the whole trip worthwhile.

“That’s enough,” Yu Shizhao said grimly. “We’ll talk after we get out. Yu Xiang, this is your territory—do you have a way to send us out?”

At the sound of his voice, Lou Chen froze, as if only now realizing the situation. His gaze slowly swept over the others.

When his eyes landed on Chi Xin, he immediately lowered his head, not daring to meet her eyes.

Yu Xiang brushed aside Lou Chen’s now-limp hand and turned to his brother with a cheeky grin. “Bro, do I look like the kind of guy who knows how to pull off something like that?”

Yu Shizhao fell silent for a moment, then looked at Huo Lai instead.

“Uh… no need to look at me,” Huo Lai said. “The reason we’re trapped here ultimately comes down to Lou Chen’s mental energy being too strong. Unless he withdraws on his own, none of us can do anything.”

At once, all eyes turned to Lou Chen.

The once-dominant zombie king stared down at his own fingers. Under the weight of those gazes, he pursed his lips and looked away.

“Lou Chen,” Chi Xin warned, calling his name. “This is your only chance to redeem yourself. Think it through.”

Lou Chen stiffened. “I didn’t… I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Oh.”

Hearing Chi Xin’s almost indifferent response, panic surged in Lou Chen’s heart. He hurriedly turned to look at her—but the moment he did, he was met with a clenched fist.

Bang!

A direct hit to the bridge of his nose.

Chi Xin’s strength was far beyond what an ordinary person could withstand. The blow sent Lou Chen flying. Just before he fell into the water, Chi Xin grabbed him and yanked him back.

Bang!

Another punch.

Lou Chen opened his eyes, stars spinning in his vision. In his haze, he saw yet another fist coming at him and was so frightened that he hurriedly covered his head.

This time, Chi Xin grabbed him by the collar and lifted him straight up.

Lou Chen froze, lowering his hands, and found Chi Xin’s face magnified before him.

Their noses were almost touching. Chi Xin’s enlarged face was still flawless, while Lou Chen, staring back blankly, had two streams of blood flowing from his nostrils.

“Get this straight—I’m not negotiating with you,” Chi Xin said in a low voice brimming with menace, the kind that suggested she’d beat someone to a pulp at the slightest disagreement. “Immediately. Right now. Let us out.”

Lou Chen stared at her blankly for a long while. Then, all of a sudden, his nose twitched, and two streams of tears poured down.

That twitch only made his nose hurt even more.

“It hurts… it really hurts.” He sobbed indistinctly, sniffling. “Why… why are you being so fierce? I never said I wouldn’t let you out…”

Chi Xin raised an eyebrow in surprise, loosened her grip on his collar, and stepped back a little. “Really?”

“I know I always make you angry, but have I ever lied to you?” Lou Chen lowered his head, rubbing his eyes hard with one hand, his voice breaking as he cried. “And yet you— you hit me so hard, and you even doubted me.”

Seeing him cry so miserably, Chi Xin found herself at a loss for words. An odd feeling welled up inside her, as if she’d just bullied a kindergarten kid.

While she was silent, Lou Chen secretly lifted one eye to peek at her. Though he wasn’t particularly clever, when it came to Chi Xin, he always put in two hundred percent effort. At a glance, he could tell her heart had softened.

“Letting you out is fine,” Lou Chen said. “As long as you keep me company and talk for a bit.”

“You—!” Yu Xiang flew into a rage.

Jing Xiubai grabbed him at once and shook his head.

Chi Xin hesitated for a second, then made her choice. “What do you want to talk about?”

Lou Chen stopped crying. He curved his lips into a smile, looking rather pleased, his narrowed eyes concealing the emotion deep within them.

“Hmm, yeah. What should we talk about?” Lou Chen repeated, then suddenly perked up. “For example, why don’t you tell me first—why you refuse to go with me.”

Chi Xin tugged weakly at the corner of her mouth. “I already explained that when you first came to find me.”

“But I didn’t really understand,” Lou Chen said. “Chi Xin, I truly don’t want you to take risks. When I’m inside someone else’s body, the chances of Raphael finding me are much lower. With your strength, plus my ability to command zombies, we could live very well. Human society, the fate of the world—what do those have to do with you?”

His voice grew louder and louder, urgency filling his brows.

Yu Xiang was about to snap back at him again, but this time his elder brother yanked him back hard.

Chi Xin looked steadily at Lou Chen. “Yes. You’re right.”

Everyone was startled. Lou Chen froze as well.

“Do you think I never considered just looking out for myself?” Chi Xin smiled faintly. “With my strength, even without you, I could still survive in the apocalypse. I wouldn’t need to worry about so much, nor shoulder this many responsibilities. Lou Chen, everything you tried to persuade me with—I’ve thought it through countless times.”

Lou Chen stared at her blankly. “Then… why did you still reject me?”

“If I truly wanted to do that, I wouldn’t have waited for you to come find me,” Chi Xin said calmly. “If I wanted to leave, who could stop me?”

A simple sentence, brimming with absolute confidence.

An indisputable fact no one could refute.

“Yes, you could absolutely do that. But why didn’t you?” Lou Chen showed a trace of anger. “Do you know how desperately I long for that freedom? I’d rather steal someone else’s body just to take you away, yet you give it up so easily… Do you think that by using someone else’s body, I wouldn’t be in danger?”

“Because I don’t want to leave,” Chi Xin replied succinctly. “I can choose to walk away on my own—no human or zombie could harm me in the slightest. But I don’t want to live like a stray dog, chased and bitten from behind by this damned world, fleeing in misery, never settling down, never having a home.”

Her voice carried unwavering resolve and force.

“And there’s still a Raphael after us. He’s difficult—we all know that. But just because he’s difficult, does that mean we give up dealing with him? He’s not someone who’ll spare you just because you show weakness. You’ve compromised again and again—what has that brought you? Do you really think compromise and escape are useful? Lou Chen, if they were, you wouldn’t be in this state now.”

Lou Chen’s face turned pale, a bleak look flashing through his eyes.

“Precisely because he’s逼迫 you, because this world is persecuting you,” Chi Xin enunciated every word, “we have reason to resist, the will to fight back. I won’t lose. I won’t bow my head to him. Never.”

After Chi Xin finished speaking, the scene fell into a long silence.

The expression vanished from Lou Chen’s face. He stood there quietly, looking at Chi Xin, an unusual light flickering in his gaze.

“This is you,” he said. “I was wrong, Chi Xin. I thought I understood you. I thought you hated trouble and didn’t want to take risks. Watching you fight desperately again and again for those people, I assumed you didn’t want to keep living like that anymore. So I thought I could rightfully take you away, occupy the only place by your side… I was wrong.”

He gave a bitter smile. A glimmer of tears flashed at the corners of his striking eyes.

It wasn’t the earlier grievance of being blamed. Lou Chen seemed to have figured something out, his whole being radiating a peculiar brilliance.

Chi Xin’s expression softened as well. She looked at Lou Chen, and the gentle, affectionate gaze he knew so well gradually surfaced in her eyes. “Anyone can take a wrong path. As long as you can turn back, it’s never too late.”

“Never too late…” Lou Chen murmured, smiling as he nodded. “Maybe.”

“At least you’ve got a bit of conscience,” Yu Xiang finally broke free from Jing Xiubai and his brother’s double restraint. “Seeing as you’ve come to your senses—and considering we just fought side by side—I’ll be magnanimous and not hold it against you for stealing my body and stirring up trouble.”

Chi Xin paused. “Fought side by side?”

“Yeah. Though I didn’t expect someone to die so easily,” Yu Xiang scratched his head awkwardly.

Lou Chen snorted. “That was a strike powered by my strength. How could an ordinary mortal possibly withstand it?”

“Wait.” Chi Xin suddenly caught on. “Ding Hongkai’s death was…?”

“I really didn’t mean it,” Yu Xiang said. “We were fighting each other like mad, and then I turned around and saw that brat cursing you. I went to deal with him without thinking—didn’t expect Lou Chen to make the same move as me.”

“As if he had any right to curse you,” Lou Chen lifted his chin arrogantly, nosebleed still not wiped clean. “You made me this angry, and I still never had the heart to scold you even once.”

Chi Xin looked at him, her gaze complicated.

Perhaps Lou Chen didn’t have much of a concept of good and evil. Everything he did, everything he wanted to do, was simply for the sake of the one he cared about.

And in his mouth, that one person was her.

Just as the atmosphere fell into silence, the entire space suddenly shook violently. Ripples spread across the previously calm surface like waves on water.

“What’s going on?” Chi Xin asked.

Boom!

Like a ship striking a reef, the entire space trembled again.

“Chi Xin! What’s wrong with your body?” Yu Xiang shouted in horror.

Chi Xin instinctively lowered her head, only to find her body trembling as well—like a bug being automatically erased by a program, becoming faint and translucent.

She looked at the others. Sure enough, all of them were trembling to varying degrees.

“This is bad!” Huo Lai’s face changed. “We’ve been in here too long. The ability I left outside has failed—someone’s probably discovered us!”

“Being discovered at a time like this… what happens?” Yu Xiang froze.

“Our spirits are separated from our bodies. With no breathing or heartbeat, what do you think happens?” Jing Xiubai exhaled lightly. “We have to leave immediately. We can’t delay any longer.”

Everyone looked at Chi Xin. Chi Xin looked at Lou Chen.

“I’ll ask you one last question, Chi Xin.” Amid the increasingly violent tremors, the emotion in Lou Chen’s eyes could no longer be contained. He stared straight at her. “If from the very beginning, I hadn’t appeared as the Zombie King, not as the virus progenitor—if I were just an ordinary survivor, maybe even a weakling with no abilities at all…”

He seemed unaware of how shocking his words were to the others. Fixing his gaze on Chi Xin, he said in a low voice, “Would you… have treated me as a companion?”

“Would you… have fallen in love with me?”

So he knew everything.

He knew why his fate was so tragic, what his life represented.

He knew that Chi Xin’s kindness toward him might not have been entirely pure.

But he didn’t care about any of that. He only wanted to know whether she would treat him as a companion, whether there was even a chance she might like him.

Chi Xin was silent.

“Say it.” Lou Chen looked anxious, as if this question were of utmost importance to him. He stepped forward and grabbed Chi Xin’s sleeve. “Tell me quickly. Please.”

“I can’t imagine things that never happened,” Chi Xin looked at him steadily and answered sincerely. “All I can say is that if you were just an ordinary survivor, I might have saved you—but I wouldn’t have formed a deep impression of you.”

“Is… that so?” Lou Chen let go of her hand.

“That’s a very real answer—and very much like you,” he said with a smile. Without waiting for anyone else to urge him, he took one last deep look at Chi Xin.

Chi Xin felt there was a hint of farewell in that gaze.

“Wait—!”

Before she could finish shouting, the entire space began to collapse rapidly. Under the direct impact on her spirit, her vision went black, the world spinning violently.

When her vision cleared again, she saw Xiao Li’s anxious face shaking before her.

“Chi Xin!” Seeing her wake up, he was overcome with joy. “That’s great. I thought you—”

Chi Xin closed her eyes briefly and jumped out of his arms. “Where are the others?”

“Behind us. We’re taking you all for treatment,” Xiao Li said. “Just now, all of your breathing and heartbeats stopped.”

Chi Xin took a sharp breath and turned to run back.

“Chi Xin!” Xiao Li called out in surprise from behind.

Hearing him follow, Chi Xin had no time to explain. She ran straight back to where they had entered Yu Xiang’s sea of consciousness—and found the person she was looking for.

Amid the chaos, Lou Chen lay quietly on the ground, his body rising and falling faintly.

Chi Xin’s pupils shrank.

Lou Chen’s body… just like before, was slowly turning transparent. She could already see the scenery behind him through his body.

“Lou Chen!” Chi Xin lunged forward and knelt, lifting his head onto her lap.

Behind her, the others who had woken up hurried back as well. When they saw the scene before them, they all fell into silence.

“Lou Chen…” Chi Xin held his hand, feeling his body temperature slipping away bit by bit. “Wake up.”

“Chi Xin…” Lou Chen murmured her name through cracked lips, eyes closed. “Chi Xin…”

“I’m here.”

“This time, you don’t have to worry about me stealing someone else’s body again,” Lou Chen smiled faintly. A purity of joy she had never seen before appeared on his face, as if a stone weighing on him had finally been set down. “I can… finally say goodbye to you with a clear conscience.”

“What nonsense are you talking?” Chi Xin said in disbelief. “Don’t say things like that. You’re the strongest psychic in the world—how could you die so easily?”

She turned to Huo Lai. “What exactly is going on? How did he end up like this?”

Huo Lai opened his mouth, struggling to speak. “Forcing your way into someone else’s sea of consciousness requires a price. I thought Lou Chen had a trump card of his own. I didn’t expect…”

“Yes. Everything has a price,” Lou Chen opened his dull eyes. His increasingly transparent hand clutched Chi Xin’s tightly. “You told me that before. I never believed it. But now I do. This applies to me—and to Raphael too. He’ll definitely pay a price.”

His beautiful yet empty eyes looked at Chi Xin. A tear slid down diagonally as he smiled, simple and happy.

“Now it’s my turn to pay the price.”

Chi Xin stared at him blankly, her vision blurring.

“Don’t cry,” Lou Chen said. “Even though I regret not being able to take you with me… when I made this decision, I was already giving myself one last chance.”

“I’ve had enough of this world,” he continued. “Enough of being half-human, half-ghost. It’s just a pity I won’t get to see you stand at the very top.” Lou Chen struggled to lift himself, leaning close to Chi Xin’s ear and whispering, “After you kill Raphael, go to his lab. My body is there. He preserved it by special means—the vaccine and the serum are there too.”

Chi Xin bit her lower lip.

“Possess me,” she suddenly said. “My body is strong. It can handle you without any problem. Stay in my sea of consciousness. Watch me kill Raphael, make him pay, and take back your body.”

Lou Chen smiled and shook his head.

“Hold on!” Chi Xin roared. “We’re already at this point. Raphael is coming any moment. Don’t you want to see him die? Don’t you want to take revenge with your own hands? Don’t you want to live in a peaceful world, to know what a chat group is?”

“A chat group… I really wanted to try that,” Lou Chen said, momentarily dazed. Then he slumped, seeing Yu Xiang behind her.

“You—don’t think I really couldn’t beat you,” Lou Chen said weakly. “I just didn’t want to hurt you. If I hurt you, Chi Xin would be sad… would hate me. I didn’t want that.”

Yu Xiang fell silent.

“That’s enough,” Lou Chen said tiredly, closing his eyes. “I’m very tired, Chi Xin. Say goodbye to me.”

“Remember this—there was someone named Lou Chen, who liked you.”

Like the Little Mermaid turning into foam in the prince’s arms,

Lou Chen’s body vanished just like that, in Chi Xin’s embrace.