The Apocalypse Solution Provider

Chapter 64: Hidden Killing Intent Before Dawn!

A delicate, pale hand uncurled from the desiccated throat of a corpse.

The hollowed-out body slumped to the concrete with a heavy thud.

Jiang Yu glanced down at the dark, viscous gore painting her collar.

With a sneer of pure disgust, she viciously ripped the ruined fabric away, baring a tantalizing expanse of milky-white cleavage.

“Tsk, tsk… are you ever going to drop that little clean-freak act?” a mocking voice drawled from the shadows. “You certainly didn’t mind getting filthy when you were rolling around in a pool of blood with those men.”

Jiang Yu whipped her head around, her eyes narrowing at the little girl casually leaning against the ruined storefront. “Finished feeding already, Ding Ling? What do you want?”

“Obviously,” Ding Ling dismissed, pushing off the wall and strolling toward Jiang Yu with a sickly sweet smile stretching her childish face.

“I’m here to talk business.”

“About what?”

“We’ve been hunting normal meat these past few days. It’s getting terribly boring. I keep thinking about that man we saw tearing up the street—the one that nurse called an alien—and that girl who can see the future. I can’t get them out of my head. So, I figured we could pay them a visit together.”

“Just you and me?” Jiang Yu let out a silvery, coquettish laugh. “What about Liang Cui and Gao Tianfang? We’re supposed to be a team, after all.”

“A team? Hah… we just bumped into each other by accident. Since when did we become a family? If you found a premium cut of meat, are you telling me you wouldn’t snatch it for yourself?” Ding Ling took a step closer.

Despite her pint-sized, childish frame, the suffocating predatory pressure rolling off her was monstrous.

It was amplified by the grotesque, forearm-length insect writhing wetly across her skin.

“If we’re such a tight-knit team, why did you sneak off to scout the Talent Residential Community on your own? Don’t bother lying. I smell it on you.” Ding Ling paused, letting the bloated insect slither over her knuckles.

“You’ve been tracking me?” Jiang Yu’s stunning features instantly twisted into a feral, sinister snarl.

“If I didn’t, you would’ve swallowed the best cuts without sharing.” Ding Ling didn’t yield an inch. “But what I don’t get is why you came scurrying back with an empty stomach after scoping the place out.”

“Let me guess: the prey is too thorny for you to swallow alone, right? But with me, the odds change. You’re telling me the two of us can’t dissect one man?”

Seeing no point in hiding it anymore, Jiang Yu sneered coldly. “If it were just that one man, do you honestly think I would’ve walked away?”

“He’s not normal. He’s already herded together a massive flock—over two hundred pieces of livestock. More importantly, he has at least two hounds with Abilities guarding them.”

“Over two hundred?” Ding Ling tilted her head, eyes gleaming. “Are there any… of our kind hidden inside? A herd that big usually attracts a few parasites.”

Jiang Yu slowly shook her head. “I didn’t spot any, nor did I catch their scent. But I didn’t dare get too close, and I couldn’t watch for long.”

“Perfect!” Ding Ling clapped her tiny hands together in sheer delight. “Then they’re about to get some!”

“Look, you can’t crack this bone by yourself. So let’s partner up. We infiltrate the camp together and carve up the fat! No need to breathe a word to Old Gao. If he tags along, he’ll hog the marrow and leave us the scraps. And bringing that raging slut Liang Cui is completely out of the question… I know you’ve been itching to gut her anyway.”

“Gao Tianfang is hunting miles from here; he won’t drag his ass back for at least a day or two. And that bitch Liang Cui is off doing who knows what.”

“It’s just the two of us. With your celebrity face and your Ability, backed by my muscle… rotting this camp from the inside out will be a cakewalk. The feast could evolve us entirely.”

Jiang Yu lowered her gaze, her manicured fingers tapping her chin. Finally, she locked eyes with the girl. “The man is mine. The prophet girl is mine. You can gorge yourself on the rest.”

“Bullshit! Why?!” Ding Ling’s brows snapped together, her childish facade dropping.

“Because I have the cover identity. A creepy little freak like you could never slip through the front door alone.”

Murderous tension crackled between them until Ding Ling finally yielded with a bitter scoff. “Fine. The big, famous actress gets her way. But if you choke on your bite, don’t cry when I rip it out of your throat.”

“Save the threats. Time is meat. Let’s move.”

“Hold on.” Ding Ling halted her, her eyes raking over Jiang Yu’s relatively pristine skin. “You’re way too clean. Smear some dirt on yourself so you look the part. If they sniff you out, I’m abandoning you. Don’t drag me down with your sloppy acting.”

Back at the Talent Residential Community’s activity center, the main hall was a hive of frenetic, organized chaos.

Two days had blurred past. The chaotic mob had been aggressively restructured into heavily regulated task forces.

The base operational unit was a five-man fireteam, moving only in designated batches. Every single person was required to submit a daily debrief, effectively forcing the survivors to constantly surveil and police each other.

It was a draconian, paranoid system designed to completely smother any Disguised Infected trying to blend into the herd.

So far, the brutal efficiency held. Progress was accelerating at a terrifying pace.

A heavily armed detachment had already been deployed to sweep the perimeter for functional transport.

In just twenty-four hours, they had hotwired and secured over twenty high-end SUVs, along with several heavy-duty freight trucks, parking them in a tight defensive ring outside the gates.

Gallons of gasoline had been ruthlessly siphoned from the surrounding wrecks to build a strategic fuel reserve.

Inside, the logistics teams worked until their fingers bled, cannibalizing Supplies, reinforcing gear, and furiously stitching together makeshift tactical clothing.

Su Jin hadn’t wasted a single second. Running on fumes and caffeine, he had personally kicked in the doors of several local police precincts, gutting their armories and hauling back a massive stockpile of firearms.

He wasn’t insane enough to hand loaded guns to a crowd of traumatized civilians just yet, but he had already engineered a foolproof safety measure.

The weapons would remain locked down until the convoy rolled out. Crude iron brackets were being welded to the vehicle windows, locking the gun barrels into fixed firing arcs. The survivors could only pull the trigger and spray outward.

It guaranteed suppressive firepower without the risk of a panicked rookie shooting their own driver in the back of the head.

As a bonus, amidst the blood and brass of the precinct raids, Su Jin had carved a Fleshy Orb out of an infected mutant.

For now, the pulsating, grotesque clump of flesh was sealed tightly inside his dimensional briefcase.

His first pragmatic impulse was to feed it to Old Sun or Old Wei to boost their combat stats, but the two veterans shot the idea down immediately.

Their logic was unassailable: their aging bodies might violently reject the mutation, and even if they survived, the physical yield would be drastically lower than implanting it in fresh, young muscle.

As for Zhang Wan and Sister Liu… they were civilian deadweight in a firefight. Wasting a premium biological upgrade on non-combatants was terrible ROI.

Investing the orb in a frontline killer would yield infinitely better dividends.

After a quick, clinical boardroom-style debate with the two old men, the asset was placed on hold.

They would observe the new recruits. The moment a young, physically prime, and fiercely loyal dog proved their worth, they would be rewarded with the mutation.

Fu Qingdai’s assignment, on the other hand, was mechanically simple but psychologically exhausting.

She had exactly one job: dispensing the daily rations to the desperate masses.

Dressed in pristine, spotless clothes and smelling faintly of clean soap, she waded through the sea of refugees. Every soft, practiced smile, every gentle word of encouragement acted like a direct injection of dopamine into the crowd’s shattered psyches.

In just forty-eight hours, she had successfully brainwashed the entire camp. To them, she was no longer a mortal girl; she was a living, breathing saint.

At that moment, Su Jin sat slumped beside the main stage, the rhythmic, metallic shhhk-shhhk of a whetstone grinding against a machete echoing from his hands.

Despite the agonizing ache in his joints and the heavy bags under his eyes, looking out at the fiercely mobilized camp fed a dark, burning satisfaction in his chest.

Barely a week ago, he had been scraping by with eight miserable stragglers. Now, he was commanding a mechanized battalion of over two hundred bodies.

His commands were executed flawlessly. The discipline was holding. The camp was a well-oiled, hyper-lethal machine.

The stench of unwashed bodies and fear still hung heavy in the air, the living conditions fundamentally atrocious.

Yet, the primal, cutthroat energy of humanity violently refusing to die pulsed through the room like a physical heartbeat.

Protect the client through the initial apocalyptic outbreak. Mission terminates once the client achieves independent survival capabilities.

If he could just bulldoze this convoy into the military bunker and fortify their position, the system might finally flag his hellish contract as complete!

If establishing a secure, armed military foothold didn’t count as “independent survival,” what did the damn system expect him to do? Slaughter his way to the end of the apocalypse single-handedly?

Grinding his teeth against the exhaustion, Su Jin slammed the machete against the whetstone with renewed, manic vigor.

Suddenly, the heavy doors of the center swung open, and a three-man patrol squad marched inside.

They marched straight up to Su Jin, their boots clicking together as they snapped a rigid salute.

“Director, sir! Perimeter patrol intercepted two female stragglers trying to breach the compound. One adult, one child. Awaiting your orders on how to process them!”