Apocalypse: I'm the Landlady of the Refuge

"What?"

Faced with such unfamiliar words, Ji Wanwan felt as if she must have heard wrong.

The expression on Xu Siming’s face had become so uncontrollable that he must have seen something particularly shocking. What secret was this refuge hiding?

Regaining his composure, Xu Siming’s fingertips twitched, retracting his overflowing energy.

He looked at Ji Wanwan with a serious expression, "I sense several underground chambers and a corpse pit beneath us, about 15 meters deep from the ground under our feet."

"A corpse pit?" Ji Wanwan’s eyebrows knit together slightly, "Is it the kind of corpse pit I’m thinking of?"

The tacit understanding forged from long-term living and fighting together allowed Xu Siming to instantly understand Ji Wanwan’s thoughts.

He nodded slightly, "Just as you imagined, it’s a zombie pit."

Ji Wanwan’s expression subtly changed, "And those underground chambers? Can you sense anything inside them?"

Xu Siming’s expression turned even uglier, "Each one has people inside, or to be more precise, I’m not sure if they can still be called humans."

This was a strange thing to say, and Ji Wanwan did not quite understand, "What do you mean?"

Xu Siming, "The feeling these people give me is neither that of ordinary humans, Awakeners, nor zombies. I can’t even discern exactly what they are. If I must give an answer, then I can only say that I’ve had a similar sensation from Xia Li."

"Xia Li?!" Ji Wanwan’s pupils shook deeply, her first reaction being the human experiments conducted by the Baize Union.

She bit her lower lip, "Is it easy to go down?"

Xu Siming nodded, "There’s only one underground chamber with ordinary people inside. The others are unoccupied. However, for safety, I suggest we teleport directly into the corridor leading to the underground chambers, so as not to alert those who might not be human."

Considering everything so thoroughly, Ji Wanwan naturally had no objections.

Following Xu Siming’s guidance, the two teleported into the corridor of the underground structure.

According to Xu Siming’s description, this underground structure had hollowed out the interior of the mountain, situated in the mountain’s central belly, in the shape of a gear.

The center of the gear was the corpse pit, and the teeth of the gear were the separate chambers around the perimeter, with the sections connecting each chamber and the pit constituting the corridors.

Just after touching down, Ji Wanwan was almost nauseated by the deafening roars and the intense stench of death that assailed her.

She suppressed the discomfort in her heart and quickly surveyed the surroundings.

The entire underground structure was primarily built with rock as the walls, supported only by thick steel bars. To prevent soil and rocks from falling, the walls had been roughly plastered, revealing the hasty construction.

But what was truly horrifying was the corpse pit at the center of the building; a cursory glance revealed at least a thousand zombies.

What truly made Ji Wanwan shiver, though, wasn’t the cold, but the body suspended above the pile of zombies.

It was the corpse of an ordinary person, not yet completely stiffened, its fresh flesh driving the zombies in the pit into a frenzy.

Ji Wanwan carefully noticed that there were many pedal devices at the bottom of the pit. As the zombies madly lunged towards the corpse, these pedals made subtle "tap tap" sounds, and connected to these pedals were several small energy storage devices.

Ji Wanwan’s pupils contracted.

What genius!

Someone had actually thought of using zombies to generate electricity for the entire underground structure.

The mere thought of this ordinary human being suspended here made Ji Wanwan’s brow twitch.

Indeed, no matter the past life or this one, humans were the most terrifying beings of all.

Suddenly, a shadow fell before her eyes, Ji Wanwan’s eyelashes trembled, and she gathered her thoughts.

At her side, Xu Siming, who had noticed her staring at the body for a long time, watched her with concern, his eyes filled with a hesitant restlessness.

She tugged at the corner of her mouth, "It’s okay, let’s go."

She truly was fine, having lived twice as a human, she had seen too much ugliness, and what was before her eyes was merely the tip of the iceberg.

The two walked to the nearest private room.

A simple sliding door blocked the entrance to the room. After confirming there were no ordinary people or Awakeners inside, Ji Wanwan enclosed the area with a Space Barrier, sealing off any sounds from within.

After exchanging a confirming glance with Xu Siming, Ji Wanwan raised her hand to slide the door open, and they slipped in together.

Upon seeing the environment and "people" inside, Ji Wanwan felt as if struck by lightning, completely stupefied.

Rather than calling it a room, it was more accurate to say it was a cage. In the large iron cage forged of steel, one "person" who was indistinguishable between human and corpse was curled up, with a basin of rotting raw meat placed by their feet.

Outside the iron cage was a simple set of table and chair, accompanied by a record book and some basic surgical tools, with syringes being the most numerous.

They were indeed conducting human experiments!

If Ji Wanwan wasn’t misremembering, the "person" locked in the cage was one of the two who had been taken away earlier that night.

Based on his clothes and physique, he was the adolescent child.

The very thought that this group of people could lay hands on a child made the corners of Ji Wanwan’s eyes redden with nameless rage filling her chest.

A bunch of beasts not even worthy to be called pigs or dogs!

Originally, she had only intended to watch and see, but what she had seen tonight was like a fishbone stuck in her throat. If she didn’t uncover the truth about this place and rescue these innocent people who had been kept in the dark, she might never get over the hurdle of her own conscience in this lifetime.

The sudden intrusion startled the child in the cage, who slowly lifted his head, his eyes once bright and pure, now full of confusion and pain.

His cheeks were an abnormal shade of greenish gray, the veins had started to darken, and his pupils showed a faint red, all signs of Corpse Transformation.

Unlike those zombies infected, the child’s transformation into a corpse seemed to be slowed down, still retaining his sanity at the moment, and looked at Ji Wanwan and Xu Siming with a pitiful gaze, "Big brother, big sister, are you sent by the Lord to take me out?"

He sniffed, "It hurts so much, why hasn’t the almighty Allah come to save me? Big brother, big sister, can you tell Allah for me? I really don’t want to eat raw meat..."

At this moment, the naive child still believed that the Lord would come to rescue him.

A wave of desolation swept through Ji Wanwan’s heart.

The already transformed child, she wanted to save him but was powerless, and she couldn’t bear to watch anymore, and left the room with Xu Siming.

The two cautiously made their way along the corridor; almost every room contained a partly transformed ordinary person.

The extent of their transformation varied – some had nearly lost all reason, some retained a degree of sanity yet couldn’t control their craving for fresh flesh, while others could suppress their desires but their eyes were lifelessly vacant.

After walking some distance further, Ji Wanwan heard someone speaking—

"Eat it! Eat it for me! Such good stuff, don’t you want to taste it? Stop holding back, eat it for me, now!"