Chapter 171

Chapter 171

"So that's how it was... Brother Jing detonated his core crystal... What about the others?"

Jiang Nian murmured to himself, his eyes suddenly burned with unshed tears.

Drawing from his memories of his past life and piecing together some information, he could confirm that Chen Yue was telling the truth—though hiding the truth of how he had been killed.

Chen Yue thought for a moment before answering:

"In the past life, Cheng Jing stayed in the S Base from the very beginning... without his current companions... Maybe he wanted to avenge you alone and didn’t want to drag others into it."

In the past life, after awakening his superpower before the apocalypse, Cheng Jing had gone straight to Beishi to find Liang Yunhao, seeking official assistance.

Thus, when the apocalypse began, Cheng Jing remained in Beishi, joining the S Base from the start, with only Liang Yunhao and Yang Kai as his companions.

Though those two had connections, they and Cheng Jing’s family were later detained and controlled by the S Base after helping Cheng Jing uncover the news that Jiang Nian was imprisoned in Z Base.

Of course, this also involved power struggles among the base’s higher-ups.

With his family and friends imprisoned and his ex-boyfriend killed—all orchestrated by the S Base—Cheng Jing snapped completely:

After retrieving Jiang Nian, who had already turned into a zombie, and settling him in Qingyun City, he somehow found a Zombie King to aid him.

With the Zombie King’s help, they captured and locked them in a basement in Qingyun City, torturing them inhumanely before dismembering them piece by piece to feed to the zombies.

When they begged for death, Cheng Jing and the Zombie King took Jiang Nian to the S Base, where they blew themselves up along with Xia Weiwei’s father and the other researchers involved in human experiments—along with the test subjects begging for death—by detonating the base’s core area.

The authorities dispatched troops from Nan City Base to suppress the chaos, pursuing the Zombie King back to Qingyun City...

The memory cut off there, and Chen Yue shivered uncontrollably. These were things he absolutely could not reveal.

"..."

Jiang Nian fell silent, recalling what Zhao Lei and the others had said earlier. It seemed that in the past life, they'd all died during the toxic rain.

Brother Jing, stuck inside the S Base from the start, had been kept in the dark without any forewarning...

Seeing him bow his head in sorrow, Chen Yue took the chance:

"Jiang Nian, I know you and Dad had a fight before the apocalypse, and after it began, we lost contact and couldn’t take care of you. You have every right to be angry, but..."

"But what?"

Jiang Nian looked up, his eyes red, his face twisted in fury as he gritted his teeth:

"Are you saying you still cared about me, that family shouldn’t hold grudges? Because you treated me well in the past life, I should heal you now, and we should all live happily together?"

"I..."

Chen Yue clutched his chest, gasping for air:

"Everything I said is true. We can use the information I know from the past life to avoid getting trapped by the S Base’s schemes. Weiwei changed after the apocalypse—we won’t follow her to the S Base. For the sake of us being half-brothers, please help me, Jiang Nian."

Before the apocalypse, he and Xia Weiwei had been nothing more than a regular college couple. But after the apocalypse, with the interference of the S Base and Professor Xia, everything had changed.

Xia Weiwei’s kindness toward them had been genuine—but so had her exploitation.

He had always thought his girlfriend, coming from a good background, was gentle, soft-spoken, and naive. Yet she turned out to be ruthlessly calculating, would trade anything to achieve her goals—without a shred of mercy.

"What you said is true, but did you really say everything?"

Jiang Nian stared at him intently, barraging him with questions after seeing his momentary hesitation:

"Quit weaponizing family ties against me! Did you really treat me well in the past life? Didn’t you curse me for selling the house without consulting Chen Shanmin?"

"Didn’t you lock me in the basement, turning me into an experiment subject and your personal blood bank to prolong your life? Didn’t you force-feed me nutrient solution laced with anesthetics after extracting my Superpower Core, to ensure I died in agony?"

"..."

Chen Yue’s sluggish mind stalled before finally catching up, his face draining of color:

"You… how did you…"

Jiang Nian ignored him and continued coldly:

"You took my core, discarded me like trash, and then Chen Lin pumped that anesthetic-spiked nutrient sludge into me, leaving me in Z Base to wait for the zombie horde—making me watch as I was eaten alive!"

"..."

The sudden confrontation of memories made Chen Yue’s corpse-like expression even uglier, his breath coming in short gasps:

"You… also got your memories back?"

Jiang Nian didn’t answer directly, only giving him an ice in his gaze:

"When you got your memories back and realized this life deviated so much from the last, you should’ve questioned why I didn't stay with you."

"..."

"Cough, cough, cough—"

Choked with rage, Chen Yue lurched forward and hocked up a glob of dark blood.

Suddenly, things that had been unclear before became crystal clear:

This was the real reason for Jiang Nian’s hostility. The changes from the very beginning weren’t because of him—but because Jiang Nian had learned about the past life earlier and cut them off completely, plotting his payback!

Jiang Nian was the one who triggered the butterfly effect!

He wasn’t the one favored by fate—Jiang Nian was!

"..."

Chen Yue, boiling over with impotent rage, suddenly snapped into hysterical laughter after a moment:

*"Hahahaha…"*

"So that’s it, no wonder you’ve been acting sketchy… *hahahaha*…"

"You never intended to help us from the start…"

"Cough, cough—"

"..."

"If our positions were reversed, would you help me?"

In stark contrast to Chen Yue’s furious outburst, Jiang Nian remained deadly calm as he shot back. In the past life, he had endured nothing but pain and hopelessness—fighting, pleading, yielding—only to be met with lies, guilt-tripping, and milked dry until there was nothing left.

Even death was denied to him, all because he sought death to avoid treating Chen Yue. After they revived him, he suffered even worse torment. He wanted to die, but they dragged him back from death's door over and over.

"......"

Chen Yue didn't answer. Instead, he raised his hand to touch the collar around his neck, his expression feral, his breathing ragged, blood steadily leaking from the corner of his mouth.

Seeing him so enraged, spitting blood with his features twisted, Jiang Nian felt a dark gratification. He stood up, took two steps forward, and looked down at him from above:

"I want to know every single truth about what happened from the moment you left Z Base until your deaths."

Every last detail those fucking dogs had concealed—he would uncover it all.

Chen Yue bared his teeth in defiance:

"Since you won’t spare us anyway, why should I tell you?!"

If there was no hope of rescue, he’d take the fucking secrets Jiang Nian wanted to know to his grave!

"Why should you?"

Jiang Nian smiled, and with a flick of his wrist, he produced a steel pipe from his spatial storage—one he’d obtained during an earlier outing, great for bashing zombie skulls, just the right length.

He stepped forward and drove the steel pipe straight into the infected wound on Chen Yue’s right shoulder, giving it a brutal twist and shove until it pierced through the rotting flesh:

"Because I can keep you fully conscious as you decompose alive from repeated infections! And if that’s not enough, the mad doctor’s deranged serum will make you talk."

He had just retrieved several vials of the mad doctor’s specially brewed potions from the next room. Of course, he hadn’t taken them all—he’d left plenty for Tang Ji.