The Apocalypse Solution Provider

Chapter 60: The Director’s Gradual Descent into Brutality

In a blur of motion, Su Jin struck, systematically snapping the man’s limbs before shoving a glass lightbulb deep into his mouth.

He fetched a coil of rope, hogtied the writhing figure with brutal efficiency, and casually dumped him in the center of the living room.

Sun Ya and Wei De exchanged a heavy look from the sidelines, their expressions a conflicted cocktail of morbid relief and creeping dread.

The relief stemmed from their screening protocol working flawlessly; bagging a live Disguised Infected meant they could finally run some advanced diagnostics.

The dread, however, came from the fact that this creature looked entirely, terrifyingly human—a single oversight during the mass screening could trigger an absolute bloodbath.

Staring down at the bound man on the floor, Su Jin gave his orders. “Old Fu, take the others and continue the screening process. If you spot a Disguised Infected, put a bullet in its brain immediately. If they have roommates, execute them too. Anyone sharing breathing room with one of these things is a write-off.”

“Cheng Du, stay put. You’re on bodyguard duty for Sun Ya and Wei De while we personally conduct a little performance review with our new friend here.”

“You got it!”

With the delegations handled, Su Jin dragged four chairs over, arranging them in a neat, corporate semicircle facing the prisoner.

Tears welled in the man’s eyes, a stream of muffled, pathetic whimpers leaking from around the lightbulb.

Crunch. A sickeningly hollow thud.

Su Jin had casually brought his heel down on the man’s cheek, instantly shattering the lightbulb inside his mouth.

“GHKK—! AGHH!!”

Jagged glass shredded his gums and tongue, sending the man thrashing wildly across the floor as a fountain of arterial crimson sprayed from his lips.

“I ask, you answer. Get one wrong, and you’re terminated.” Su Jin’s voice was devoid of inflection, a manager dictating an email.

Both elderly academics, along with Cheng Du, violently flinched.

“Why… ghhk… what did I do wrong…” the man blubbered, coughing up bloody shards of glass with every syllable.

BANG!

The gunshot was deafening in the confined space. A high-caliber round pulverized the man’s ankle, blowing his right foot clean off in a spray of bone shrapnel and dragging a thick smear of gore across the floorboards.

Luckily, the amputation was just below the rope’s agonizingly tight knot, acting as a makeshift tourniquet and keeping the arterial spurts manageable.

“I hadn’t started the Q&A yet. Hold your questions until the end,” Su Jin chided, his icy gaze pinning the man to the floor.

Cheng Du and the two elderly men loudly swallowed their spit in terrified unison.

Su Jin raised a single, pristine finger. “First inquiry: Why eat people? Actually, assuming you haven’t indulged yet, let’s pivot. Why the sudden urge to commit homicide?”

“I haven’t eaten anyone! I never even thought about killing!” the man bawled, snot and blood mixing on his chin.

“Stubborn employee, huh?” Su Jin turned to his henchman, jabbing a thumb at the weeping prisoner. “Cheng Du, yank his pants off and chop his junk into eight even pieces.”

Cheng Du froze, deer-in-headlights panic flashing across his face.

Seeing no hint of a punchline in Su Jin’s dead-eyed stare, Cheng Du bit his lip, stepped forward, and awkwardly yanked the man’s trousers past his knees.

Simultaneously, a tactical combat knife clattered onto the floorboards, tossed by Su Jin.

“Start chopping.”

Hands trembling violently, Cheng Du picked up the blade, squinted at the pitifully small appendage dangling before him, and gave it two hesitant pokes.

He looked back at Su Jin with an agonized, apologetic smile. “Director… looking at the total square footage here, dividing this into eight pieces is a logistical nightmare. Best I can do is two cuts for three chunks. Can we just skip this?”

“Then slice it vertically, then horizontally! If the math is too hard, just mince it into sausage meat!”

“What the hell is wrong with you people?!” the man shrieked, struggling with the frantic strength of a dying animal.

Sun Ya leaned closer, his academic curiosity momentarily overriding his nausea, and whispered to Wei De, “Pupil dilation is heavily delayed. His fear response is genuine, not manufactured. But the fact that it took this level of trauma to trigger it suggests a severely numbed amygdala…”

A profoundly sinister smile tugged at the corner of Su Jin’s mouth. “Well, that’s a relief. I was starting to worry they were like standard Zombies—completely immune to a hostile work environment.”

“Only realizing you should be scared now?” Su Jin stood, towering over the mangled prisoner. “Does a normal human eat rats alive? We already ran the audit; we know what you are. Drop the act, answer the questions, and I’ll give you a generous severance package: a quick death.”

“Let’s try this again. Why the urge to kill, and why the craving for raw flesh?”

The moment the words hung in the air, the man’s pathetic thrashing abruptly ceased. His eyes hardened into a pair of predatory, venomous slits. “Do you need a justification to eat when you’re starving?”

“Do you still classify yourself as a human being?” Wei De interjected, stepping slightly out from behind Su Jin.

“Human?” The man rolled his eyes, his face twisting into a mask of pure, feral arrogance. “You think I’m still part of your obsolete demographic?”

“Then when did this paradigm shift occur, and what was the catalyst?” Wei De pressed, treating the monster like a fascinating lab rat.

“Like I’d tell you! I’m already dead in your hands, so just cut me to—!!!” In a sudden, desperate bid to deny them intel, the man clamped his jaws down, trying to sever his own tongue in a spray of red.

He had barely bitten through halfway, the severed muscle flopping uselessly in his cheek, when Su Jin calmly raised his sidearm and pulled the trigger.

The bullet obliterated the man’s groin. A grotesque slurry of pale fluid and pulverized tissue exploded outward, splattering directly onto Cheng Du’s face.

“Pfft! BLEGH! Director, a little heads-up next time! It’s in my mouth!” Cheng Du staggered back, frantically wiping the viscous, egg-white gore from his cheeks in a state of absolute horror.

“My apologies. Workplace hazard,” Su Jin deadpanned, lowering the smoking barrel and turning to the two pale academics. “Looks like his verbal communication skills are compromised. Is there any further R&D value here?”

Sun Ya and Wei De exchanged a hushed, horrified whisper before shaking their heads in grim unison.

“Aggressive disposition, strong survival instinct, suppressed fear response, hyper-elevated bloodlust, yet with a psychological corruption that defies conventional neurology. Functionally, they’re just highly intelligent Zombies. I don’t think there’s anything left to learn… urgk… I need to go.” Wei De clapped a hand over his mouth and scrambled for the exit.

Sun Ya hastily followed suit, but not before awkwardly patting Su Jin’s blood-flecked shoulder. “Xiao Li… I know you hold a deep-seated grudge against these things, but please, remember to prioritize your mental health.”

Su Jin turned, gracing Sun Ya with a perfectly serene, utterly sociopathic smile. “Cheng Du, escort our esteemed consultants out. I’m going to conduct a little more independent research.”

The three men filed out, pausing in the hallway just outside the heavy, bolted security door. Despite themselves, they pressed their ears against the cold steel.

“Stupid dog, you thought biting your tongue would let you log off early? No rush. The meeting just got extended. I’ll personally walk you through the termination process.”

“HRRRGH!!!! AHHHH!!!”

Hearing the bowel-loosening, tortured shrieks echoing from the other side of the steel, a collective wave of bone-deep chill washed over the three men, their scalps tingling with primal terror.

Exchanging a deeply unsettled look, Wei De swallowed audibly. “I never pegged Xiao Li as a sadist. You don’t think… he might catch the killing bug and decide to downsize us one day, do you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. The streets are overflowing with Zombies; he has plenty of targets,” Sun Ya hissed, though his eyes darted nervously. “…Still, we really should schedule an intervention for his psychological well-being.”

“Are you kidding? I think the Director is great! Having a boss like this is a massive boost to workplace security,” Cheng Du mused, stroking his gore-flecked chin with genuine admiration.

The two academics stared at him. Disgusted, Sun Ya spat on the linoleum floor.

“Bullshit! You’re just as clinically insane as he is! I saw you stealing Xiao Li’s socks this morning! Are you that desperate for laundry?”

“Hey, you saw that? That was a misunderstanding! I was returning his socks, strictly professional! Don’t make it weird!”

….

That night.

The eight surviving core members of the base reconvened for a status meeting. Zhang Wan flipped open a small ledger, reading off her notes.

“…Total headcount processed today: 176. Excluding the sleeper agent the Director rooted out, we flagged two additional Disguised Infected. Both have been successfully terminated. The remaining 173 uninfected civilians have been temporarily relocated to the Community Activity Center. We expect to finalize the screening for the remaining stragglers by tomorrow afternoon. As for our post-screening roadmap…”

Su Jin smoothly cut in. “As for our next quarter goals, the priority is restructuring. We group the survivors into strict squads and establish mutual surveillance. Once that’s locked down, we fast-track the assembly of a vehicle convoy. And Qingdai… your new role starts now. You’re our newly appointed mascot. You’ll be spearheading the motivational and morale campaigns.”