Old friend, we meet again

Wang Susu froze for a moment, then exploded like a cat whose tail had been stepped on.

"Huan Tian, shut your damn mouth! Mr. Jiang and I are in love—what gives you the right to run your mouth here?"

"If you dare say another word, I swear I'll cut your damn tongue out!"

Before she finished, she grabbed the fruit knife on the table and charged at him, only to be pulled back by Jiang Qing.

He dragged her onto his lap, a lecherous grin spreading across his face.

"Did he lie? Aren't you a born slut?"

A flash of shame and anger flickered across Wang Susu's face, but in the next instant, she shamelessly giggled and leaned into his arms, all coquettish charm.

"Mr. Jiang, whatever you say is right. Even if you insult me, I love hearing it. But that loser? Who the hell does he think he is? He insults your woman—clearly just taking jabs at you. I'm standing up for you here~"

As she spoke, she shot Huan Tian a cold, poisonous glare.

"Hahaha, well said," Jiang Qing laughed smugly. "Even if you're a slut, you're my slut. No one else gets to speak out of turn."

With that, he reached under the desk and pressed the emergency security button. His eyes turned vicious as he locked his gaze on Huan Tian.

"Huan Tian, don't bother showing up tomorrow. And if I hear even one word about today, I'll break your damn legs. I'll make sure you can't even survive in this city."

He said it with the arrogance of a man kicking away a stray dog. With his connections and influence, erasing someone like Huan Tian from society would be child's play.

Wang Susu gazed at Jiang Qing with a sultry sparkle in her eyes, pouting as she threw herself into his arms.

"What about me, sir? Do you still want your little slut?"

"Filthy bitch," Jiang Qing growled as he pulled her close. "Still trying to tease me? You've got a death wish."

The two clung to each other shamelessly in front of Huan Tian, as if ready to continue their little game right then and there.

But Huan Tian ignored the pair of rutting dogs. Calm and unbothered, he walked straight toward Jiang Qing's executive desk.

Jiang Qing, who had been mid-kiss just seconds ago, suddenly frowned and shoved Wang Susu aside.

"Hey! What the hell do you think you're doing? Get your filthy hands off my desk!"

But Huan Tian didn't even look at them. His hands moved swiftly under the desk, searching with practiced ease until he found a hidden compartment.

Click.

A mechanical sound rang out clearly.

The next moment, his right hand emerged holding a gleaming Desert Eagle. An ammo-loaded magazine followed right after.

"Ah!!!"

Wang Susu shrieked in horror the moment she saw the gun, her face turning deathly pale, as if all the blood had drained from her body.

Jiang Qing stood frozen, his mind going blank with a deafening buzz.

He was a weapons enthusiast, and that Desert Eagle—along with its ammo—was one of his prized collectibles. He used to secretly fiddle with it in his CEO's office when no one was around.

But how the hell did Huan Tian even find it?

This wasn't the time to dwell on that.

Like a startled bird, Jiang Qing shoved Wang Susu aside and charged at Huan Tian.

"Huan Tian, what the hell are you doing?!"

Huan Tian didn't even spare him a glance. Without turning his head, he suddenly swung the Desert Eagle backward—hard.

Thud!

The metal grip slammed into Jiang Qing's brow with a sickening crack. He let out a scream and collapsed to the ground, blood gushing from the split at his temple.

He didn't even have time to cover the wound. Instead, he scrambled to his knees in front of Huan Tian and slapped himself across the face twice, hard.

"Huan Tian, please! Don't do anything crazy! I'm not a man—I'm a beast, a bastard! Just calm down!"

"If you let me go, I'll give you whatever you want. Name your price!"

"One million? Two? Five million? I'll give you whatever you ask!"

But Huan Tian didn't respond. He simply inspected the Desert Eagle inch by inch, carefully wiping it clean.

"Old friend... we meet again."

In his previous life, Huan Tian had been locked in this very office. By sheer chance, he had found this Desert Eagle and the spare magazine, allowing him to fight his way through a horde of zombies and escape this deathtrap.

This was his first weapon from his past life.

The first companion who had walked with him through the darkest and loneliest days of the apocalypse.

His first true comrade-in-arms.

[Ding! Main quest completed. The host has successfully bound to the first comrade. Bound item will now be set as indestructible and cannot be lost. It can be stored in the system inventory.]

["Desert Eagle: Nightmare Ammo" synthesis module unlocked. Nightmare Crystals can now be used to quickly synthesize compatible ammunition.]

—Nightmare Ammo!

Even the ever-calm Huan Tian couldn't help but take a sharp breath at those words.

No one understood better than he what that meant.

Slide in the magazine. Rack the slide. Aim.

Each movement was smooth, practiced, flawless.

The cold, familiar weight of the gun's grip instantly pulled him back to his former battlefield, to the blood and death that defined his past.

A thick, icy killing intent began to radiate from his body.

The room's temperature dropped by over ten degrees in an instant.

That pitch-black muzzle was like the breath of death itself.

Jiang Qing and Wang Susu shivered violently under the pressure. Their faces turned ghostly pale. Even their cold sweat had been frozen still by fear.

Jiang Qing was on the verge of collapse. He kept raising the price, desperate—but in Huan Tian's frozen eyes, there was no trace of mercy.

Only endless darkness and silence.

A hopeless void.

Just then, heavy footsteps thundered from outside the office.

More than a dozen security guards burst through the door, electric batons in hand.

"Get him! Beat him to death!"

Jiang Hao, hiding in the back, pointed and screamed.

"The gun's fake! Don't be scared! Kill him, and five million each!"

Jiang Qing jolted upright from the floor, eyes bloodshot and vicious. The fear from earlier had vanished without a trace.

The guards who had rushed in were no ordinary rent-a-cops. They were Jiang Qing and Jiang Hao's most loyal thugs—frequent participants in all kinds of dirty business.

They'd hesitated at first when they saw the Desert Eagle.

But the moment they heard "It's fake," all fear evaporated.

Now, to them, the lean, solitary Huan Tian looked like five million dollars just standing there.

"Hey kid, be smart- put down that toy gun."

"Doesn't matter if you do. You're dead either way."

"Take him down! Five million each—let's go!!"

Electric batons crackling with bright blue arcs came swinging down at Huan Tian from all directions.

With this many people, even a bear would've been pinned down in an instant.

Yet Huan Tian didn't even bother to look back.

His right leg snapped out like a thunderbolt, leaving behind only a flickering afterimage.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

In the next second, deep, thunderous impacts echoed across the room.

Huan Tian unleashed a series of lightning-fast kicks—

The six security guards at the front were sent flying backward like rag dolls, slamming into the door and collapsing in the hallway, completely unconscious.

Their batons flew from their hands, spinning through the air.

Huan Tian snatched one mid-air and lashed out in a sweeping motion.

The electric current surged in his grip like a streak of light, arcing in every direction as he moved.

Crackle! Snap!

In an instant, over a dozen guards dropped to the floor one after another, their eyes rolling back as their bodies convulsed under the force of the high-voltage shocks.

Not a single one even touched the hem of Huan Tian's clothing.

"This is insane! Uncle, I-I'm out of here!"

Jiang Hao, along with the building's sharply dressed head of security, was frozen in place.

But fear quickly overwhelmed them—they turned and bolted toward the emergency exit.

Bang!

They slammed through the fire door into the stairwell.

The thick door began to slowly shut behind them—

Just two inches from closing—

"AHHH!!"

A blood-curdling scream rang out from inside—

Then silence.

The door sealed shut with a soft click.

All sound vanished.

As if nothing had happened at all.

The chaos in the office hadn't even lasted ten seconds.

The cheers still hanging on Jiang Qing and Wang Susu's lips were now locked in their throats, too afraid to ever come out.

In the suffocating stillness, Huan Tian's icy gaze slowly shifted back toward them.

"No—wait! Don't kill me!" Jiang Qing broke down completely, panic distorting his voice.

"If you want to kill someone, kill her! She's the one who seduced me! On the day of your interview, she barged into my office and threw herself at me! She came onto me—it was all her!"

He screamed, grabbing Wang Susu and hurling her toward Huan Tian like a piece of trash, desperate to cling to a last shred of survival.

Wang Susu stumbled and fell to her knees in front of Huan Tian.

Her once proud and elegant eyes were now filled only with dread and begging.

"No, darling, don't believe him… He's lying! It was all Zhou Wen—your department head! He set me up!"

"That day during your interview, he gave me a glass of water. There was something in it—I passed out. When I woke up, I was with Jiang Qing. He took pictures and threatened me… said if I didn't serve him, he'd leak everything and ruin me! I didn't have a choice!"

"You still love me, don't you?"

"You always said you wanted me, that you wanted to marry me…"

"I'll marry you right now! We can go register this second! We can go home and I'll do whatever you want—please, don't kill me, I don't want to die, I don't want to die…"

Huan Tian shook his head with a cold sneer—he didn't believe a single word Wang Susu said.

He kicked away Wang Susu, who was crawling toward him, and his icy eyes locked onto Jiang Qing, the barrel of his gun like a black hole aimed straight at him.

Bang!

This wasn't like in the movies, where a bullet hitting the leg just leaves a hole.

The large-caliber round fired from the Desert Eagle, at such close range, tore through flesh instantly with devastating penetration and spinning kinetic energy.

The roaring bullet pierced Jiang Qing's thigh, blowing open a bloody, ragged hole.

"Ah!"

Jiang Qing clutched his wounded thigh and slammed his temple hard against the ground, but the searing pain only surged through him like a tidal wave.

Wang Susu knelt right beside the muzzle, blood splattering all over her hair and face.

She trembled like a terrified dog, fingers shaking uncontrollably.

In this apocalypse, bleeding or being wounded was practically a death sentence.

"Now, both of you can truly experience the horrors of the end of the world."

No sooner had he spoken than strange sounds came from behind the door—ragged, staggering footsteps mixed with suppressed breathing and low growls.

A figure appeared in the corridor outside the office.

Wearing an orange work uniform and safety helmet, with a broken safety rope dangling from his waist, his wet sleeves emblazoned with bright red characters that read "Emergency Repair."

"Help us! He's going to kill—"

Jiang Qing screamed desperately, but his cry was cut short by the nightmare unfolding before his eyes.

The construction worker, drawn by the sound, turned around, revealing half a face torn to bloody shreds, a huge chunk of flesh ripped off his shoulder, blood pouring down half his body.

His lifeless gray eyes held only insatiable hunger.

"Roar!"

The zombified worker suddenly scented his prey and lunged madly toward the office.

Behind him came several guttural snarls and a chaotic stampede of footsteps racing toward them.

He pounced on a security guard who had been kicked unconscious by Huan Tian into the corridor, sinking his teeth fiercely into the guard's shoulder, tearing away flesh and fabric.

"Ahhh! It hurts! What the hell is this thing?!"

The guard woke with a scream of agony, his soul nearly leaving him as he saw the blood-soaked monster clinging to him.

"Get off! Get off me!"

He kicked wildly at the zombie, but his foot hit nothing but air.

The creature's bloody jaws snapped toward his arm again.

The guard tried to cover its mouth, but its fingers were immediately bitten—three fingers were ripped off in the brutal snap.

At the same time, three more zombified workers appeared behind the guard, knocking him to the ground, while two others charged at other guards in the corridor.

"Help me! Someone save me…"

The guard's agonized cries were pitiful, his trembling, helpless hand reaching feebly toward the office.

Blood poured from the severed fingers.

The zombie workers lunged again at the guards who had been awakened by the screams.

"Zombies! They're zombies!"

Jiang Qing watched in horror, eyes wide with terror.

But shot in the leg and lying helpless on the ground, he could only wildly kick at Wang Susu.

"You bitch! Go close the door! Now!"

But Wang Susu was trembling uncontrollably, her legs shaking so badly she couldn't move.

Just then, a figure streaked into the corridor like lightning...