Xie Peijin smiled: "You provoked me first, don't regret it later. Chapter 29: You Provoked Me First"
Miss Lin Ran was very well taken care of by Secretary Wang.
As soon as her eyes flickered, he knew what she wanted to eat, and the snack would be handed to her the next second.
She suspected that Secretary Wang must have many children at home, or had been taking care of younger siblings since he was young, to be so thoughtful.
So, she asked: "Secretary Wang, how many children do you have?"
Secretary Wang unscrewed a strawberry-flavored yogurt while replying, "I'm not married."
"Then, you must have siblings."
Secretary Wang took out a new paper towel, wiped the yogurt bottle clean, and then handed it to the young lady, "I am an only child."
Lin Ran: "Oh~ I see, you must have a girlfriend."
Otherwise, where would the experience come from.
Secretary Wang: "I'm sorry, young lady, I haven't been in a relationship for seven years."
His boss was a workaholic, someone who never took a day off. He even had meetings on New Year's Eve. As his secretary, how could he have time for a relationship?
He had dedicated rooms at the Zhou Family and the Xie Family properties, which showed how busy he was. What girl would be willing to date him?
Of course, he wasn't complaining. Following Chief Zhou allowed him to learn a lot, and most importantly, Chief Zhou was generous, and his treatment was excellent.
Lin Ran stopped dwelling on it. After all, someone who could be the male lead's secretary should not be a simple person.
Unexpectedly, Secretary Wang said softly, "Every time you come to the company, or travel with Chief Zhou, I'm the one who takes care of you."
Lin Ran's mouth twitched. Secretary Wang meant that his experience in taking care of people came from her.
"Then thank you. I won't let you work for nothing." Lin Ran was straightforward.
Although she was not the original Lin Ran, and Secretary Wang was not taking care of her, he was taking care of her now. Besides, since she was using someone else's body, it was reasonable to incur a favor.
Secretary Wang didn't dare to accept the young lady's favor. Chief Zhou's compensation was already more than enough. Especially since Chief Zhou found that after he started taking care of the young lady, she lost her temper less. Therefore, whenever the young lady was present, he would serve her. Because of this, Chief Zhou specifically gave him a raise.
Hey?
The hand that was shelling sunflower seeds paused. Why hadn't he noticed before?
Chief Zhou always said he was annoyed by the young lady, but everything he did was for her benefit. For example, giving him a raise because he took good care of the young lady.
Thinking deeper, it seemed that after the young lady specifically requested him to serve her whenever she was around, he gradually became Chief Zhou's trusted secretary. Thinking of this, Secretary Wang's hand shelling sunflower seeds moved faster. He was so stupid!
He only realized today: his benefactor was not Chief Zhou, but the young lady.
Actually, he had another little secret. He not only received double salary from Chief Zhou, but Madam Zhou and the Second Young Master also knew he served the young lady and gave him extra pay privately. Therefore, he was getting four times the salary.
He handed a bowl full of sunflower seed kernels to the young lady and found a disposable cup to continue shelling seeds.
Gu Xiangwan couldn't stand it and reminded him, "Secretary Wang, you must be tired. Miss Lin Ran has many demands. You should rest for a while too. We still have a lot to do with Chief Zhou when we return to Jingshi."
As far as she knew, the Zhou Family still had many industries that needed to be integrated in the apocalypse. As secretaries, they had to accompany Chief Zhou through everything.
Secretary Wang said with righteous indignation, "I'm not tired, I have plenty of energy."
He liked taking care of the young lady. He didn't feel tired at all. He even wondered why he wasn't a woman?
If he were a woman, he could sleep on the floor in the young lady's room and continue to take care of her at night.
Gu Xiangwan: ... Had Wang Chenfei been driven mad by Lin Ran? Why was he suddenly so enthusiastic?
She sneered, Lin Ran was really asking for it.
Wang Chenfei was Chief Zhou's most valued secretary. She was unwilling to admit it, but the reality was that Wang Chenfei had been with Chief Zhou longer and was more trusted by him. If Lin Ran continued to be ungrateful and angered Wang Chenfei, and he complained to Chief Zhou or made things difficult for Lin Ran, she would have to suffer.
Before, no matter how she hinted or tried to sow discord, Wang Chenfei remained neutral and did not participate in the conflict between her and Lin Ran. But now, Lin Ran was bullying Wang Chenfei more and more. She didn't believe Wang Chenfei wouldn't retaliate.
She thought that soon, Wang Chenfei would be on her side.
Therefore, she closed her eyes and rested with peace of mind. She needed to conserve her energy. Upon returning to Jingshi, she still had to go with Chief Zhou to collect supplies from the Zhou Family's enterprises.
Her space ability had a capacity of 1000 cubic meters, which could hold a lot of supplies. Chief Zhou simply couldn't do without her.
She had inquired with the pilot; currently, the space ability users in Jingshi had a maximum capacity of only 400 cubic meters. Originally, there were a few with larger spaces, but they were taken by the higher-ups to Tibet to establish a central base.
This way, she would be the space ability user with the largest capacity in the entire Jingshi Base. The position next to Chief Zhou was hers!
Lin Ran caught a glimpse of Gu Xiangwan's smiling lips.
She wondered what good things she was thinking about again. She didn't think Zhou Wanye was truly unaware that Gu Xiangwan was behind the incident with the zombies in the port's restroom.
After Gu Xiangwan returned to Jingshi and was used by the male lead, she probably wouldn't have a good outcome. After all, no boss would keep a female secretary who secretly harmed others by their side. Didn't he fear that this female secretary would eventually harm him too?
But what did these have to do with her?
The only thing she cared about now was which flavor of ice cream was good.
Having suddenly gained a healthy body, she couldn't resist.
She wanted to try all flavors of ice cream.
But the air conditioning on the plane was strong, and she was afraid of getting a stomachache.
So, she opened each flavor, took a few bites, put it back into her space, marked it individually, and planned to eat it again later.
It was all her own saliva anyway; she didn't mind.
As she was engrossed in eating, her peripheral vision suddenly caught a barely discernible black dot on the horizon outside the cabin window.
At first, she thought it was a visual illusion or a smudge on the glass.
But the black dot rapidly enlarged in her vision, like ink dropped into clear water, spreading at an astonishing speed.
"Secretary Wang, look over there, what is that?" She put down the snacks in her hand, her fingertip gently pressing against the cabin window.
Secretary Wang adjusted his glasses, squinted at the approaching dark mass, and replied uncertainly, "It looks like a thundercloud. Is it going to rain?"
"It doesn't look like it," she shook her head and looked around, "Look next to you, the sky is still very blue."
The black mass spread rapidly, and soon its outline became clear—it was a large flock of crows flying with their wings spread!
But this was clearly thousands of meters in the sky!
Where did these crows come from?
"How can crows fly at this altitude?" someone exclaimed in disbelief.
What was even more shocking was that these crows were abnormally large, almost the size of eagles. Their blood-red eyes reflected a strange light in the sunlight.
Zhou Wanye, who had been silent, suddenly spoke, "It's a flock of zombie crows."
Before he finished speaking, a vanguard had already collided with the transport plane.
"Boom! Boom!"
The heavy impacts sounded one after another, like hailstones hitting the fuselage.
A particularly large crow slammed into the cockpit's windshield.
Its sharp beak scraped against the special glass, making a piercing sound. Its blood-red eyes fixed on the people inside the cabin, filled with primal madness.
Everyone instinctively retreated, and suppressive gasps filled the air.
"If this continues, what if a crow gets sucked into the engine... the consequences would be unthinkable."
Someone tremblingly voiced everyone's shared fear.
There were ability users in the cabin, but they were all helpless—thousands of meters in the sky, who would dare to open the cabin door or windows to release their abilities outside?
Even the slightest mistake could lead to the plane crashing and everyone dying. Chapter 30: Amazing Xie Peijin!!!
Lin Ran's gaze involuntarily shifted to Zhou Wanye.
With danger lurking outside, he was the male lead; he should have a way to resolve the crisis, right?
It wasn't just her; everyone in the cabin was focused on Zhou Wanye.
Those gazes were mixed with fear and hope, as if he were the only piece of driftwood in this despair.
Under everyone's intense gaze, Zhou Wanye calmly said in a deep voice, "I'll try to use my abilities remotely."
Before he finished speaking, a blue-purple lightning bolt suddenly flashed across the sky.
Like a sword drawn from its sheath, it accurately struck a zombie crow flying towards them.
The crow instantly turned black and fell straight down.
"That's great!"
"We're saved!"
There was a brief cheer from the crowd.
At least Zhou Wanye's lightning ability could be used remotely, which was undoubtedly a glimmer of hope.
However, Lin Ran keenly sensed something was wrong.
The power of that lightning strike was less than a third of Zhou Wanye's true strength that she had seen before.
He must have deliberately suppressed his power, fearing that he would damage the transport plane.
At this moment, the transport plane was completely surrounded by the dark mass of crows, their dense wings obscuring the sky.
Zhou Wanye dared not use his full power—the plane was made of metal, and with one wrong move, the lightning could conduct through the fuselage.
In that case, even if the zombie crow flock wasn't annihilated, the people inside the cabin would be roasted by their own abilities.
What was even more suffocating was the astonishing number of zombie crows.
They piled up on the portholes, their bodies completely covering all the windows.
What was visible moments ago was now just a wriggling black mass.
Only the piercing sound of crow beaks scraping against the metal constantly reminded them of their desperate situation.
Zhou Wanye no longer dared to use his abilities.
Gu Xiangwan once again abandoned her boyfriend and stood beside Zhou Wanye, "Chief Zhou, what do we do now?"
Everyone was afraid, but Lin Ran was not that scared.
The male and female leads were on the plane, and Xie Peijin, the powerful figure of the apocalypse, was also there. They would surely be fine.
She even had the mood to comfort the frightened Madam Zhou, "Aunt Lan, don't be scared. Big Brother is on the plane; he'll be fine."
Thinking that Zhou Wanye had no other options, she added, "Uncle is also on the plane; he'll definitely be fine."
As if to confirm her thoughts, a sudden change occurred!
The porthole, which had been completely obscured by the dark mass of crows, suddenly let in a dazzling ray of sunlight without any warning.
The entire cabin seemed to break free from the dark cocoon in an instant, returning to the embrace of light.
People instinctively squinted their eyes, adjusting to the sudden change.
Immediately after, they witnessed an even more shocking scene:
The zombie crows that had been frantically crashing and tearing at the fuselage were, as if simultaneously, forcefully pushed away by an invisible barrier.
They all retreated in unison to about two meters away from the plane, hovering in the air.
They stopped there in a dense mass, forming a bizarre, moving wall.
However, an even more shocking sight followed.
The flock of crows hovering in the air seemed to be controlled by some irresistible force.
Suddenly, without warning, they began to launch deadly attacks on their own kind!
Claws tore through feathers, beaks pecked through eyeballs, and thick blood splattered like a downpour, hitting the portholes like rain, dyeing the onlookers' vision red.
This cruel infighting did not end.
The crows that survived the first round of fighting, with virtually no respite, once again pounced with red eyes towards their recently victorious "companions"!
Starting a new round, even more brutal, of mutual slaughter.
"Someone is controlling these zombie crows to kill each other!"
Zhou Wanye, who had experienced life-and-death battles with mental-type zombies, immediately grasped the key and said in a deep voice.
Almost the moment he finished speaking, all eyes in the cabin turned in unison towards the dark privacy curtain at the rear of the cabin.
On the entire transport plane, the only person capable of doing this could only be that person—Xie Peijin, who had personally admitted to having a control-type ability.
In just about ten minutes, the brutal self-slaughter outside the window was nearing its end.
The dark mass of crows had now dwindled to only a dozen or so.
Their wings were tattered, their eyes still glowed red, and they screeched and circled among the corpses.
But before they could catch their breath, a barely perceptible fluctuation swept through the air—as if invisible blades had silently swept past, and these dozen or so surviving crows were decapitated simultaneously.
Without even a chance to cry out, they turned into broken feathers and detached bodies, falling down.
This was not over yet.
From the falling crow corpses, faint lights emerged—they were the zombie crows' cores!
Hundreds of thin metal sheets precisely sliced open their heads, extracting these energy cores.
What was even more astonishing was—
All the cores were lifted by an invisible force, suspended around the flying transport plane like stars around the moon, maintaining the exact same speed as the plane, like a flowing ring of energy.
Immediately after, a clear stream of liquid appeared out of nowhere, snaking its way over the fuselage and portholes, washing away all the bloodstains and brain matter left by the fierce battle, leaving them spotlessly clean.
In the blink of an eye, all the windows became clear and transparent again, as if nothing had ever happened.
Lin Ran looked at the orderly cores outside the window and the spotless glass.
She could almost imagine the appearance of the person behind the curtain as they performed such a precise ability—
Xie Peijin must still have that calm, unruffled expression, as if everything he had just done was merely brushing dust off his clothes.
She couldn't help but praise him inwardly: He's f*cking amazing! Truly a powerful figure of the apocalypse!
The novel only mentioned that everyone safely returned to the Jingshi Base, without detailing the dangers in between.
She figured it was because there was no highlight moment for the male and female leads here, and they didn't want Xie Peijin, a supporting character, to steal their thunder.
The original author was truly biased towards the male and female leads.
With everything settled, silence returned to the cabin, with only the steady hum of the engine.
Zhou Wanye took a deep breath and steadily walked towards the dark privacy curtain.
He stopped, bowed slightly, and said with even more respect, "Uncle, just now... thank you for your intervention."
The other side of the curtain remained silent for a moment, then Xie Peijin's indifferent voice came through.
His tone was unreadable: "Wanye, I am somewhat disappointed in you."
This sentence was not heavy, but Zhou Wanye's spine stiffened.
His face instantly burned, and a heat mixed with shame and unwillingness surged into his heart.
He felt utterly ashamed.
Xie Peijin's voice sounded again, with a hint of imperceptible depth: "I hope you grow up quickly. The Xie Family will ultimately be handed over to you."
Zhou Wanye's Adam's apple bobbed. All his defenses and reasons were swallowed back, finally turning into a low promise: "Yes, I will work hard."
He returned to his seat with heavy steps.
Meanwhile, Lin Ran's heart was already in turmoil.
She had finally glimpsed an iceberg tip of Xie Peijin's so-called "control-type ability"!
This was not ordinary control.
This was almost mastery of law!
Not only could he mentally control mutated creatures, making the fierce crow flock slaughter each other.
Did this mean that higher-level mutated zombies, or even... ability users, were also within his control?
Even more terrifyingly, he could precisely control tangible objects!
The invisible wind turned into sharp blades in his hands;
Ordinary metal sheets obeyed his will, precisely extracting cores;
He could even manipulate water flows to wash away filth.
If so, wouldn't sand, rocks, metal, and indeed all tangible matter, become his weapons?
Oh my god.
Lin Ran felt her heart pounding in her chest.
She had copied many abilities, but she had never desired one so much as at this moment.
How was this "control-type" a single ability?
It was clearly an all-encompassing key, a foundation of "all elements" that surpassed numerous abilities!
It was even more desirable than her own replication ability.
She clenched her fist tightly, an irrepressible impulse surging in her blood: copy this ability! No matter the cost! Chapter 31: Who Said He Was Deep and Unapproachable?
Lin Ran took a deep breath, trying to suppress the agitation in her heart.
She closed her eyes, pretending to take a nap.
In reality, she had gathered all her mental power at her brow.
She carefully separated a wisp of mental energy, as thin as a spider's thread, and silently extended it like an antenna towards the privacy curtain—
She dared not be too aggressive, only daring to extend it slowly towards Xie Peijin's direction in the most minute and cautious way.
She took a full ten minutes to cover this short distance of five meters.
The absolute power Xie Peijin had displayed made her steps cautious at every turn.
Finally, the wisp of mental energy gently touched a warm and powerful energy source—that was Xie Peijin's ability core.
Unexpectedly, the entire process was incredibly smooth.
The core emitted a multicolored golden glow.
As if enveloped by a dreamlike filter, it flowed with a tranquil and majestic energy.
Her own core also had color, but compared to this, it appeared dim and lusterless.
Even more surprising to her was that Xie Peijin's core had no barriers around it; it was completely unguarded.
"Who said he was deep and unapproachable?" Lin Ran couldn't help but mutter in her heart, "He's clearly a kind and generous senior!"
However, even though the other party was unguarded, Xie Peijin's ability level had reached the peak of level three, while her replication ability was only level two.
The huge level gap made her replication ability unable to bear such immense power.
She withdrew her mental energy with some disappointment.
But she quickly cheered up again—since his ability core was so easy to approach, as long as she worked hard to upgrade and reach the peak of level three, wouldn't she be able to replicate it successfully?
"I'm a genius!" she thought to herself gleefully, relaxed her mind, and actually fell into a deep sleep.