After panicking for a second, Fang Chang decided to just see how things played out. Besides, being a girl wasn’t so bad. In the past couple of days, she’d gotten more perks than she had in the entire decade-plus before that.

Though half those perks came from taking advantage of herself.

So...

She gave Li Zirong a thumbs-up. “My wife is right!”

Li Zirong was stunned. She even blurted out, “Holy shit! You accepted your new identity that fast?”

Fang Chang said earnestly, “Life’s one long rape. If you can’t fight it, you might as well enjoy it!”

Li Zirong gave her a skeptical look. “So you don’t need to be a man anymore either?”

Fang Chang immediately shook her head. “No way! I still need that. I can’t let my marriage become a joke.”

Li Zirong said, “Heh...”

Fang Chang quietly turned to the girl. “By the way, honey, what’s your name? I can’t keep calling you Zombie King forever, can I?”

The girl blinked adorably. For some reason, she paused, a hint of sadness crossing her little face. But it was soon swept away by boundless joy. “Lu Nongxi! My name’s Lu Nongxi!”

Fang Chang thought about her own name, then compared it with Li Zirong’s and Lu Nongxi’s. Suddenly, her future looked bleak.

Her name didn’t fit the style at all!

Before Fang Chang’s melancholy had even passed, Li Zirong came along to stir things up again, looking unusually serious. “Fang Chang, it’s fine to enjoy yourself, but don’t forget who you are!”

“Who I am?”

Fang Chang remembered her mission, and her little face went pale.

[Mission Time: 00:15:42:26]

Only fifteen hours left!

Lu Nongxi watched the two of them curiously, her big eyes blinking. Then, as if she’d suddenly figured something out, she clamped an arm around Fang Chang’s neck. “Tell me! Are you two hiding something from me?”

Fang Chang’s face turned deathly pale. No matter how hard she struggled, she couldn’t pry Lu Nongxi’s arm loose even a little. In the end, she gave up. “N-no...”

Li Zirong was delighted to see Fang Chang getting teased. She didn’t bother explaining and just sat on the bed, giggling.

Only when Fang Chang was clearly at her limit did Li Zirong finally explain, nice and slow. “It’s simple, really. Fang Chang isn’t from this world.”

“Huh?”

Lu Nongxi froze, loosening her arm just a little.

Fang Chang greedily gulped in the fresh air and rolled her eyes. “Are girls naturally this suspicious?”

Li Zirong shook her head. “I’m not, anyway.”

“The TV in my memories taught me that! It taught me lots of things!” Lu Nongxi’s voice began to droop. She rested her head on Fang Chang’s shoulder and blew into her ear. “Hey, are you really from another world?”

Fang Chang couldn’t think of a way to fool her, so she simply admitted it. “Yes. I’m not only from another world—I’ll have to leave before long, too.”

“Leave?” Lu Nongxi’s face went pale with shock. “Why do you have to leave? Where are you going?”

“I’ll explain.” Li Zirong was afraid Fang Chang might reveal something she shouldn’t and trigger the system to erase her. If that happened, all her hard work would be wasted.

“Fang Chang and I are both from other worlds. Because our worlds repel one another, we can’t stay here for too long. Fang Chang has already been here quite a while. At most, she’ll be forced out by this world in another day.”

Lu Nongxi panicked. She clung tightly to Fang Chang and wouldn’t let go. “Then what am I supposed to do?”

Li Zirong replied, “You can only stay here.”

Fang Chang felt a little miserable. They’d only just met, and at first she’d been pretty scared of Lu Nongxi. But this so-called queen was actually as innocent as they came. With a little guidance, she’d make an incredibly obedient wife.

No girl had ever clung to Fang Chang like this before.

And she was so pretty, too.

She tentatively asked Li Zirong, “I can’t take her with me either?”

Li Zirong shook her head firmly. “If we could bring people from other worlds back with us, who knows how chaotic the Present World would become? So ‘it’ completely ruled out that function!”

They didn’t have any real feelings for each other anyway, and Lu Nongxi’s love was unrequited. So they should just part ways!

Fang Chang tried to reassure herself.

As a player, she was sure to visit many more worlds and go through many more goodbyes. She might as well practice on Lu Nongxi, a stranger she barely knew!

Still, deep down, she felt just a tiny bit sad.

Fang Chang had made up her mind, but Lu Nongxi had just met the first person she’d ever fallen for since becoming conscious. She couldn’t accept it.

“I don’t care! You’re not leaving!”

Li Zirong said softly from the side, “Even you, the Zombie Queen, can’t defy the rules of this world.”

“Then what am I supposed to do?” Lu Nongxi was at a loss. She let go of Fang Chang, went over to Li Zirong, and hugged her without a thought for her mechanical body. Li Zirong’s shield overloaded instantly. It cracked, sparks flying everywhere.

Lu Nongxi hurriedly tried to smother the sparks on Li Zirong. “Aaaah! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to!”

As alarm after alarm blared through the consciousness-monitoring system linked to her mechanical armor, Li Zirong burst into tears. “You don’t have to help! I can repair myself, really! Don’t press there—that’s my shield generator! Aaah! It’s completely wrecked!”

When Lu Nongxi finally stopped and obediently sat beside Fang Chang with her head bowed, Li Zirong’s precious body had been twisted into a heap of scrap. Only a few parts were still usable.

“Good thing I’ve got plenty of backups.” Li Zirong opened a spatial portal half a meter across. A stream of silver fluid poured out, but it didn’t splash everywhere. It clung to her body and, in the blink of an eye, transformed the scrap metal into an even flashier mech.

When she finished repairing herself, she closed the portal. There was a hint of resentment in her eyes, though her tone remained proper. “All right. I know what you want. You can’t go with Fang Chang, but I can leave you something to remember her by, so you won’t be lonely.”

“Something to remember her by?” Lu Nongxi timidly raised her head, with not a trace of a queen’s bearing. “What is it?”

Lu Nongxi’s intense possessiveness toward Fang Chang was really because she was so lonely. As the only Zombie Queen in the world, she’d escaped the mindlessness of ordinary zombies. But there was no one in the whole world she could talk to. The surviving humans saw her as an enemy, while the zombies knew only how to revere her. Fang Chang was the only one who’d ever made her fall in love.

Getting rid of her possessiveness was simple: just make a replacement for Fang Chang.

Li Zirong stood up, went over to Fang Chang, and patted her on the shoulder. Then she gave her a thumbs-up. “Leave her with your seed!”