Apocalypse Survival Guide for a Beta [GB] - Chapter 55

“Xi Ya, are you sure your mom wouldn’t be running around in the rain?” Tang Mary asked. They had searched several places but aside from a few zombies, there was no trace of Lin Bai. Even after her subordinates from Red Sand arrived and conducted a discreet search, they found nothing.

If it weren’t for the risk of alerting the Federation, Tang Mary would have already ordered a full-scale search.

“She wouldn’t! She would definitely find a place to stay dry and light a fire,” Xi Ya insisted. She remembered that back before Lin Bai was her ‘mom,’ she would sunbathe on hot days and seek shelter to warm up when it rained. Lin Bai hated the cold.

Bai Chuan had an idea about why Lin Bai would make a fire. “Are you sure about that?” he asked.

“Yes, I’m sure,” Xi Ya nodded firmly. Whenever it got cold, her mom always lit a fire.

Hearing Xi Ya’s certainty, Bai Chuan said, “Then I think I know how to find her.”

He slowly raised his palm and a faint wind began to stir around him. After about three seconds, the wind suddenly spread outward, sweeping across a ten-mile radius. Soon, he sensed a spot where the air temperature was ever so slightly warmer.

Bai Chuan withdrew his ability and said, “Southeast. Let’s go.”

With a clear direction, the three of them rushed over without delay. But when they arrived, all they found was a pile of burnt ashes.

“This was definitely my mom’s fire!” Xi Ya was inexplicably certain that Lin Bai had been the one who built it. But if that was true, then why wasn’t she there now?

Bai Chuan touched the wall, which still retained a bit of warmth. “She should be nearby. Let’s look around.”

They searched near the garage for a long time but found no traces. Tang Mary said gloomily, “How could Lin Bai run off in the rain without leaving a single trace?”

Leaning against the wall, Bai Chuan activated his ability again, using the wind to sense his surroundings.

However, the surrounding temperatures were almost identical. Bai Chuan couldn’t help but suspect. Had she been taken away? But with Lin Bai’s skills, how could someone take her without leaving a single trace?

Xi Ya was also anxiously searching for clues. However, she couldn’t find anything nearby, so she held the small dagger her mother had given her, hoping to sense something.

When she saw the tip of the dagger trembling slightly, Xi Ya’s round eyes widened in surprise. “It’s moving!”

Tang Mary and Bai Chuan immediately stepped forward to check. The dagger was shaking ever so faintly, pointing in a direction.

Without hesitation, the three of them followed the dagger’s guidance. There were many training grounds near Eastern District One, making the terrain muddy. By the time they arrived at their destination, their pant legs were soaked in mud and water.

But what they didn’t expect to see was another person.

“Elena? Why are you here?” Bai Chuan and Tang Mary were both surprised.

Elena frowned when she saw them. She hadn’t expected Bai Chuan and the others to arrive first instead of Lou Tiannan’s group.

“Mom! Where’s my mom?” Xi Ya spun around in a panic when she didn’t see Lin Bai. “Auntie Elena, have you seen my mom?”

Elena’s gaze landed on Xi Ya, her expression showing a trace of complexity.

“Elena, what kind of expression is that? Did you see Lin Bai? Where is she?” Bai Chuan asked.

“She… is dead.”

As Elena’s words fell, Bai Chuan, Tang Mary, and Xi Ya’s pupils shrank, their mouths unconsciously falling open.

Xi Ya’s eyes instantly reddened. She cried out in a choked voice, “Impossible! Where’s my mom?! Where’s my mom?! You’re lying!”

Tang Mary was equally shocked. Lin Bai was actually dead? There were still things she needed to confirm with her, so how could she just die?

Bai Chuan nearly short-circuited from Elena’s words. But a shred of reason remained. He recalled Lin Bai’s identity and the fact that Elena had used the word ‘dead’ instead of something else. That meant Elena still didn’t know Lin Bai’s true nature.

“She passed away a few hours ago,” Elena said. “I was talking to her at the time but suddenly, before she could finish a sentence, she stopped breathing, like she had some kind of illness. I tried to resuscitate her for an hour but I couldn’t save her.”

“No, no, no,” Bai Chuan tugged at his green hair, trying desperately to stay calm. He asked Elena, “Where is Lin Bai now?”

Elena sighed. “I buried her.”

She was also very surprised at the time. Just a second ago, Lin Bai was talking to her normally but the next moment, her body turned cold, and she was no longer breathing. Her carotid artery and heartbeat had completely stopped.

She tried performing emergency resuscitation on Lin Bai but after an hour of efforts, Lin Bai’s body only grew colder, showing no response at all. From every medical perspective, she was completely dead.

She waited for a long time, worried that federal soldiers might come searching nearby. Remembering that Lin Bai’s partner was at the 621 Biopharmaceuticals Research Institute, she carried Lin Bai to a place where she could see the institute. There, she dug a pit and buried Lin Bai.

Just as she finished covering the grave with soil, Bai Chuan and the others arrived.

“!!!”

“Buried?!” Bai Chuan was horrified. His voice nearly cracked as he asked, “Where did you bury her?!” His boss hadn’t even been found yet. Lin Bai couldn’t just die like this!

Elena pointed to a small mound of earth not far from her.

Xi Ya was the first to rush over, using both hands to dig frantically while sobbing, “No! This isn’t possible! Mom wouldn’t die!!”

Bai Chuan scrambled forward, tumbling as he went, and also began digging.

Tang Mary, moved by an impulse, joined in to help. She even used her ability to create a few shovels and handed them to Bai Chuan and Xi Ya.

Elena was confused. “What are you doing?” She had seen family members go mad with grief upon learning of a loved one’s death and their reaction was similar. But those family members would usually just weep by the grave; they wouldn’t disturb the dead. After all, the dead should rest in peace.

While digging, Bai Chuan muttered, “You’re no Adjudicator. You’re the Grim Reaper! How deep did you bury her?!”

“I was worried zombies might catch the scent and dig her up, so I buried her about six meters down…” Elena had used an ice blade to carve out a pit deep in the ground. She had removed a whole chunk of soil, placed Lin Bai inside, and then covered it back up seamlessly, maintaining her usual meticulous style.

“…” Bai Chuan’s heart clenched. “Even the Grim Reaper isn’t this considerate…”

After digging about two or three meters, Bai Chuan pulled Xi Ya, who was nearly buried in the soil, out and shook the dirt off her. “Xi Ya, step aside for now. I’ll dig.”

Luckily, Tang Mary had a metal-based ability, allowing her to use a large shovel to dig much deeper. When they were about half a meter away, fearing they might harm Lin Bai’s body, the two of them jumped into the pit and began carefully shoveling the soil by hand.

By the time Lou Tiannan and the others found Elena, they were met with that scene.

“What are you digging for?” Zhou Yu curiously leaned over to look at Bai Chuan and Tang Mary at the bottom of the pit.

Covered in mud, Xi Ya saw Lou Tiannan and immediately clung to his leg, sobbing uncontrollably. “Uncle Captain, Auntie Elena buried my mom—wahhh!”

“What?!” The group was shocked.

Lou Tiannan’s expression changed drastically. “Your mom is in the soil?!”

“Mm… Auntie Elena buried her… She said Mom…” Xi Ya didn’t want to say that terrible word.

Without hesitation, Lou Tiannan prepared to jump into the pit and help dig Lin Bai out. Just as he reached the edge, he heard Bai Chuan exclaim in relief, “We found her! We found her!”

A corner of an ice block was exposed beneath the soil. Bai Chuan and Tang Mary quickly brushed away the remaining dirt, revealing Lin Bai lying ‘peacefully’ inside an ice coffin.

Bai Chuan lifted the lid and carefully carried Lin Bai out of the ice coffin.

Zhou Yu quickly lowered a rope to pull them up.

As soon as they got to the top, Wen Xiaxia rushed forward to check on Lin Bai but Bai Chuan pushed her aside. “No, you can’t. I’ll check her!”

While speaking, he examined Lin Bai’s bodily functions. However, with so many eyes watching, Bai Chuan didn’t want to expose Lin Bai’s true identity. After confirming that she had no ‘fatal injuries,’ he immediately picked her up and said to Xi Ya, “Let’s go.”

Lou Tiannan reached out to stop Bai Chuan. “Where are you taking her?”

“Of course, to Red Sand to save her. Xi Ya, move!” Bai Chuan hurried to leave but after half a step, he couldn’t move any further, because Lou Tiannan held his shoulder firmly in place.

“Don’t waste my time!” Bai Chuan said angrily.

Xi Ya looked up, glancing at Bai Chuan on one side and Lou Tiannan on the other. Her mind was working quickly. She remembered that the last two times her mother was unconscious, Uncle Captain had to be nearby. Mom really liked the high temperature of Uncle Captain’s body. Maybe that was the only way to save her.

She immediately shook her head. “No! No! Mom can’t go!”

Bai Chuan assumed Xi Ya was too young to understand and anxiously said, “Xi Ya, your mom has to come with me.”

“No, no! Mom has to stay!” Xi Ya shook her head like a rattle.

Lou Tiannan observed her closely, noticing something unusual. He asked, “Xi Ya, do you know how to save your mom?”

Elena, who had been watching Lin Bai, still completely unresponsive, showed a rare trace of doubt in her eyes. Could she really be saved?

While everyone there was desperately trying to find a way to save Lin Bai, Lin Bai herself had already arrived somewhere else.

Darkness surrounded her, familiar and deep. The sounds of various machines beeped in her ears.

Beep—beep—beep—

She didn’t need to open her eyes to know where she was. Her energy was too low and combined with the stimulation from the machines, her body’s self-protection mechanism had activated, forcing her consciousness back to that place; the place that had trapped her for a year.

She quietly listened to the hum of the machines, then slowly extended her consciousness outward, searching for the android bodies she had created but had been discarded as useless.

If she could find a more suitable consciousness vessel, she planned to abandon Lin Bai’s body. However, if she lost all vital signs in front of Elena, there was a high chance Elena would notice something unusual.

She didn’t want to involve Elena in her affairs.

When the time came, she only needed to switch to a new body, locate ‘Lin Bai,’ and retrieve what was hidden inside her body.

After searching around, she found almost no suitable vessels. She thought about the doll in Xi Ya’s hands but quickly dismissed the idea. The doll was too small, making it inconvenient to do many things.

“Lin Bai!” A familiar voice suddenly echoed in her mind.

Something jolted her consciousness. The beeping of the machines around her suddenly became rapid. She instinctively sensed danger approaching fast. She was running out of time and had to leave immediately.

Before the next wave of machine stimulation hit, she extended her consciousness toward Lin Bai’s location.

At worst, she would just bluff her way through again. After all, those people were easy to fool.

With that thought, her consciousness returned to Lin Bai’s body.

The moment she withdrew her awareness, the observation room door swung open. Someone rushed in, panting, and asked, “Did the subject show any unusual activity?!”