Chapter 429: Trouble in the Base
“Will you be fair?” Tang Bai asked solemnly.
“I will. I’ll find the real culprit,” Lu Weiyi said, turning to look at those groaning in pain from zombie contamination. “They followed me out here because they trusted me. I’ll repay their suffering with the blood of the one who schemed against them.”
Tang Bai hesitated for only a few seconds, then held back his enraged team. “I believe you.”
“Commander…” someone grumbled in protest.
“Save the injured first,” Lu Weiyi said. “Bring everyone affected by zombie energy to the main hall.”
Li Zhuang quickly organized the unaffected team members to help move the injured. Lu Weiyi personally cut open each person’s skin, instructing them on how to expel the zombie energy through the wounds.
The S-rank users mostly just felt uncomfortable. A-rank users were clearly turning pale, and B-ranks deteriorated rapidly, with many already showing zombie symptoms—their internal powers spiraling out of control.
Judging by the symptoms, the zombie material used must have come from an A-rank zombie.
Zombie energy from a higher rank was overwhelmingly aggressive. Survival was almost impossible. Even with Lu Weiyi’s help, only five out of 126 B-rank users survived.
When the rest turned into zombies, Lu Weiyi personally ended their lives.
The 121 bodies were laid out neatly in the hall, sobbing and cries echoing in the air. Combined with the distant sound of artillery, the scene silently declared the brutality of this chaotic era.
“Commander, aren’t you going to avenge them?” a young girl looked up at Lu Weiyi, as if silently demanding an answer.
“I will.” Lu Weiyi took a deep breath, suppressing his emotions, and began asking for a full account of the incident.
“I’m not sure—everyone was eating, and then it just happened,” Li Zhuang replied. He had reacted the fastest—having fought his way out of zombie hordes himself, he immediately knew what was going on. What he didn’t expect was that it would come from the food.
As soon as he realized, he had all people who’d come into contact with the food detained.
“But not everyone who ate was affected—so it’s probably not the main food supply,” Li Zhuang added. There were regular people on the team, and Lu Weiyi had always been extra cautious about food. The cooking had been assigned to trustworthy military personnel from the beginning.
“It has to be the Pingjin people. Why else would they show up right at this moment? They arrive, and this happens. Who would believe they’re innocent?” one young man said angrily.
“Yeah, they’re clearly up to something,” another chimed in.
“We never should’ve helped them.”
“Kill them all—avenge our fallen brothers.”
“Kill them!”
“Avenge my brother!”
With the atmosphere so charged, it didn’t take long for the bereaved to start shouting angrily. Some even tried to rush at the detained members of the Pingjin base, looking ready to go down with them in a desperate attack.
“I didn’t see any of them come near the food,” a cold female voice suddenly cut through, offering a completely different opinion.
“Bai Mei, can you keep an eye on everyone all by yourself?” the man who spoke first snapped.
“Or is it because someone over there caught your eye?” the woman next to him sneered sarcastically.
“That’s Zhu Yue, captain of the Vermilion Mole team,” Ye Jia quietly explained to Lu Weiyi.
Lu Weiyi frowned. What kind of team name is that?
“It’s a whole soap opera,” Ye Jia continued. “He and Bai Mei from the White Rose team were once a couple. After the apocalypse, he awakened his powers and reunited with his first love—dumped Bai Mei and got back together with her. That girl who just spoke? That’s Xue Qi. Then Bai Mei awakened too, with strong fire-type powers.”
White Rose and Vermilion Mole—a total clash in every sense.
At the end, Ye Jia lowered his voice, saying, “Honestly, I didn’t see them go near the food either. Everyone who had problems was in the team managed by Zhongliang’s Chen Xing. They were all sitting together on the north side. I suspect it happened after the food was served, because I ate from that pot too.”
Li Zhuang overheard and nodded in agreement, pointing at several restrained individuals. “They were the ones delivering food from the logistics team.”
“It wasn’t me, Commander. I’ve been out with the team the whole time. I didn’t do anything!” a woman immediately spoke up, her voice soft and tearful. As she cried, her fragile demeanor stirred pity.
“I don’t have time to interrogate you all,” Lu Weiyi cut off the bickering crowd around Bai Mei with a wave of his hand.
“So let’s get to the point.”
“This is a special situation. Those who suffer innocently will be compensated by the base.”
As his words fell, strands of Lu Weiyi’s mental power reached out to the dozen or so restrained individuals. The invisible threads wove together into a net, tightly covering their heads, and then silently slipped in through their seven orifices.
The group visibly shivered as if sensing something invading their minds. Their eyes darted around anxiously—then their expressions turned dull and blank.
“Comman—” Xue Qi started to speak again, but Lu Weiyi’s cold gaze silenced her.
“Don’t let me hear another word from you.”
Xue Qi shrank back, hiding behind Zhu Yue.
Lu Weiyi continued weaving his spiritual threads—creating a shared mental dream. Once he was sure there wouldn’t be any immediate issues, he nodded at Li Zhuang, who promptly ordered the group to be taken into separate rooms.
Ten minutes later, Li Zhuang returned with a few team members—but they were clearly two short.
“Let’s cooperate with the investigation,” he announced, and with that, several guards rushed forward and restrained everyone near Zhu Yue.
“What are you doing? I’ve been helping the base fight zombies—what right do you have to arrest me?” Zhu Yue struggled. Nearby, the sound of metal clattered—he had metal-type powers—but Lin Mo, also metal-type and quicker, subdued him before any harm was done.
“Let me go!”
“Is Commander Lu protecting the Pingjin base now?”
As the voices of protest grew, Li Zhuang brought out the two still-dazed individuals from earlier.
Unlike the others, they still looked completely blank.
“Repeat what you just confessed,” Li Zhuang ordered.
Under the influence of spiritual control, the man and woman clearly described how they had secretly ground up zombie teeth and mixed them into the food, down to the exact number of bowls.
They ended with: “The zombie teeth were given to us by Captain Zhu Yue of the Vermilion Mole team.”
“They’re lying! I don’t even know them!” Zhu Yue shouted, struggling violently.
Lu Weiyi didn’t want to hear any more nonsense. He controlled another batch with mental power and handed the rest of the interrogation over to Li Zhuang. While that was ongoing, he had Xu Yi go and provide basic treatment to the Pingjin base members.
“Commander…” Ye Jia looked around the hall—every team involved had now been detained. He was about to speak when Yu Mengchu, who had been standing silently behind him, smacked him hard on the shoulder.
The interrogation ended quickly. Not long after, Li Zhuang came out with Zhu Yue, whose face was smeared with blood, clearly from his nose and mouth. His expression was grim.
“Something’s happened.”
“Hahaha! Even if you rush back now, it’s too late. Your base has probably already been taken over!” Zhu Yue was fully awake now. He didn’t even try to struggle—he simply smirked.
“You might as well let us go. Maybe I’ll even help plead your case.”
“Blame your little plaything for falling into the trap—just a regular woman trying to sleep her way up and still hoping to be respected. All it took was a few cutting words, and she went right into our snare. Hahaha…”
“By now, the Peace Squad has probably taken full control of everything.”
Ye Jia and Chen Xing were both stunned by the sudden news. They looked at each other, speechless.
“What the hell are you talking about? Du Ping just advanced—how would he possibly collude with you?” Ye Jia, still young and hot-tempered, couldn’t hold back.
“Hah! He’s got so many people under him—you think he doesn’t want to level up too? Waiting around for purified crystal cores from the base? That’ll take forever. And do you know how many cores it takes to go from S to SS rank?”
“If you had a direct source for purified cores—wouldn’t you take it?” Zhu Yue sneered, blood dripping from his mouth, his teeth red and wicked.
“You were fools—moving all the base’s weapons out here. With no gear left behind, do you really think those few ability users can hold the place? Against who?” He grinned like a madman. “A wall of ice—do you think you’re the only ones with water-type ability users?”
Seeing Lu Weiyi’s expression darken, Zhu Yue looked smug. “Commander Lu, I’d advise you not to lay a hand on me. Think of your little mistress and your son—do you think their ordinary bodies can survive if the zombies…”
Halfway through his sentence, Lu Weiyi—rarely one to act with violence—kicked out. With SS-level ability enhancement, Zhu Yue was sent flying, slamming into the wall, his mouth bleeding profusely like water pouring out.
Even that wasn’t enough to vent Lu Weiyi’s rage. He reached out, fingers clenching sharply. Zhu Yue’s blank expression twisted into one of agony. He dropped from the wall, clutching his head and screaming in pain.
Lu Weiyi’s gaze swept over the rest of the Vermilion Mole team. They immediately backed away in fear.
“We have nothing to do with him.”
“We don’t know anything.”
“Commander, we were fighting zombies with you—we really knew nothing.”
Lu Weiyi clenched his fists tightly, clearly wanting to strike again, but was stopped by Li Zhuang reaching out.
“Let’s focus on getting back first. Things have developed beyond our expectations.”
Suppressing the fury and unease within him, Lu Weiyi barked,
“Everyone, gather and board the vehicles. We return to the base in fifteen minutes.”
“Wait,” Li Zhuang suddenly interrupted. He turned to the Pingjin base group and said,
“You’d better figure out a way to rush back now. Your base also has factions involved in this. They colluded with outside forces.”
He then listed off several names from the interrogation.
“Were we lured into this on purpose?” Tang Bai immediately caught on.
“Exactly. They had you lure zombies over to slow our return, and then planned to pin the blame on you—kill with a borrowed knife. Three birds with one stone.”
Li Zhuang didn’t elaborate further.
Tang Bai understood instantly that multiple factions were likely involved, and who knew how many others were in on it. He no longer cared about earlier arguments and quickly began organizing an evacuation.
