Chapter 401 - Clever And Witty Shen Mei (Part 1)

Shen Mei had been dining on the lower floor of her villa and after finishing her dinner she headed to the top floor to get some clothes and have a relaxing bubble bath as usual after a long day of hunting zombies. However, when her feet touched the last step of the staircase on her way to the third floor, her steps stopped as she caught the smell of a man floating in the air.

If she were a normal person she would definitely not notice it, but Shen Mei possessed a strange passive skill that permanently enhanced her senses to a great extent. Therefore, since the skill Invisibility did not block the scent of the body, she managed to sense that someone who should not be there was still in the vicinity as the smell was persistent and strong.

Shen Mei was a powerful level 40 soul evolver. Not only had she broken the First Order, but she was considerably close to reaching the peak of this stage. Moreover, she was a rarity among soul evolvers as despite possessing the passive skill Sniper as one of her main skills, she actually liked to fight melee while using different throwing weapons to keep her enemies at bay.

Basically, she could melee fight quite skillfully while being able to take down her enemies from a distance. While she was not a mage due to the fact that she, unfortunately, did not have much talent for Magic and Mana, Shen Mei was actually no less dangerous than a mage in certain aspects.

Shen Mei skillfully extended her left hand to her waist and pulled out two ten-centimeter-long needles from her belt. These needles were barely two millimeters thick and had been forged using bones from the bone marrow of a venomous creature called Hundred-Foot Giant of the First Order. The lingering poison in the needles had the ability to kill a soul evolver below level 10 in a matter of seconds and for those below level 25, it was a dangerous weapon as it could slowly numb the nerves. 

She crept over and opened the door to her room slightly as she prepared to throw one of the two needles. However, she was surprised when she sensed that the other party's Soul Power actually belonged to a First Order existence.

Shen Mei was even more surprised when she realized that the other party still did not seem to have noticed her presence. Even if she was quite agile, a First Order existence would usually have sensed her since each and every one of them were talented people to be able to reach that stage in less than two months.

Unless...

A thought flashed in Shen Mei's mind. She realized that the man who was rummaging through her underwear had most likely been very lucky in his life or had been carefully nurtured by someone extremely powerful; she was leaning more toward the second theory.

Who possessed enough physical or magical power to raise a soul evolver to the First Order and to top it all off, give him powerful skills that would allow him to bypass the defense of the entire base? Another thing to note was that the slim-complexioned man before her even wore leather armor whose value was possibly not lost with her own armor.

Shen Mei was quick to come up with various theories, but when she saw the slim man take a letter out of his bag and leave it inside her underwear drawer, she was quick to understand what was going on and her lips curved slightly upward.

...

After chasing the slim man out, Shen Mei read the contents of the letter and couldn't help but chuckle softly as she shook her head and murmured, "Interesting. Since you are so confident, then let me help you to send your message."

Swoosh!

A silhouette appeared on the balcony with an anxious face, but when she saw Shen Mei standing and even smiling slightly, the woman who had just arrived calmed down.

This woman was Liu Li. She was rescued on the first day of the apocalypse by Shen Mei and had been following her from then on. Liu Li did her best to keep up with her savior and hoped to one day repay the favor. However, she soon realized that it would be difficult to catch up with a talented woman like Shen Mei, so she finally decided to help her in any way she could when the opportunity arose.

Liu Li was actually a First Order existence level 26. It was just that just when Fu Xuefeng had appeared in the villa she was not present or else it would have been a lot harder for him to sneak in secretly.

"Big Sister Mei, what happened to the assassin?"

"Assassin?" Shen Mei repeated at a loss. Soon, however, she understood the other party's thoughts and shook her head while chuckling: "You are wrong, Liu Li. That man who slipped in was not an assassin. Just a messenger."

"A messenger?" The woman named Liu Li looked at her with wide eyes.

"A messenger." Shen Mei remarked and handed the letter to Liu Li as she looked at the moon plastered high in the sky.

Liu Li took the letter and read it silently. When she finally finished, she couldn't help but say aloud, "Is this person out of his mind?"

The letter in her hands basically stated that a large-scale attack would be launched against the Baiquan Camp in the next 48 hours at the most and the other party even took the trouble to politely ask them to prepare everything they had so as not to disappoint him.

.... Wasn't this arrogance a bit too high?! Liu Li really did not understand the enemy leader's thoughts.

However, Shen Mei shook her head and calmly said, "You are wrong again Liu Li. This young man named Bai Zemin is probably confident of his victory based on something.... After all, a crazy mad person or an arrogant idiot couldn't come up with a plan like this."

Liu Li thought deeply, but in the end, all she saw was an ignorant and arrogant young man. Therefore, she shook her head and said in embarrassment, "Liu Li is foolish and doesn't understand. Big Sister Mei, would you mind explaining to me?"

Shen Mei lightly touched the stamping of a red giant sword on the lower right side at the bottom of the letter and slowly said, "If I am not wrong, this Bai Zemin wants to use the Baiquan Camp and its defenses to train his manpower."

Liu Li's pupils trembled and a shiver ran down her spine as she realized what Shen Mei was talking about.

"Even though you are now a level 26 First Order existence, you lack experience in a death combat against intelligent beings like humans. A special forces soldier above level 20 but not promoted has certain chances of killing you in combat due to the difference in experience in this area." Shen Mei calmly explained, "The leader of the other side, Bai Zemin, was just an ordinary student in the past. Therefore, it is not crazy to assume that at least 90% of his troops are composed of people with little or no experience in war against intelligent beings.... In fact, I would venture to assume that so far the entire weight of the enemy faction rested firmly on the shoulders of Bai Zemin himself. However, it is likely that the little man decided it was time to begin actual training and therefore set up a battlefield beforehand for his troops to practice."

Liu Li gasped for air as she said with some trepidation, "This.... If that's really the case, isn't this Bai Zemin a dangerous madman?"

Someone who willingly set up a war field to send his men to could definitely not be someone sane in the head. Even more so considering that the Baiquan Camp had much better weaponry!

"Indeed, he is dangerous." Shen Mei nodded as she looked outside. Her thoughts were different from Liu Li's.

The reason why Shen Mei thought that Bai Zemin was someone dangerous was not particularly due to him being cold-blooded, but because he was a man who clearly did not put forces on the level of Baiquan Camp in his eyes at all.

So, there were only two plausible reasons why someone would do such a thing:

1) Bai Zemin was stupidly arrogant and brainless. His confidence had reached a point of mindlessness after surviving for about sixty days and acquiring some power.

Or, option number 2 and the one that Shen Mei believed was the correct one: Bai Zemin had his eyes set on something far beyond and had planned so far ahead that no one understood his moves, thus labeling him as a lunatic. But for this to be possible, one needed the necessary strength.

Didn't Bai Zemin know that Baiquan Camp had at least a dozen war tanks? Surely he did. So, given that even knowing this he still did what he did, the answer was clear.

"Now I just hope that little messenger also got my message." Shen Mei muttered to herself before walking towards the exit without forgetting the letter.

* * *

In the outer zone of the base, the area furthest away from the central core and the closest to the walls that represented the main defense to prevent minor beasts or zombies from sneaking in.

Fu Xuefeng ran without stopping for a couple of minutes, crossing several kilometers while gasping for air. His body was covered in sweat and his face covered by the bone mask as pale as a sheet but he gritted his teeth and pushed his trembling legs further.

He barely had any Stamina left and at this rate, he would definitely collapse.

It was only after reaching an almost completely uninhabited street that he stepped into a dank and dark alley that he finally let himself fall to the ground without worrying about his image at all. 

Fu Xuefeng gasped for air as the bone mask fell off his face and rolled on the ground. His dirty face rested on the ground and if anyone who knew him saw him in this miserable state similar to that of a dying dog they would undoubtedly be very surprised. After all, when it came to sneaking or infiltrating, Fu Xuefeng was even superior to Cai Jingyi and was only below Evangeline.

The exhaustion and Stamina consumption was such that Fu Xuefeng did not move until five hours later. It was only when it was almost five in the morning that he finally regained enough Stamina to feel comfortable even though he still had yet to fully recover.

"Ugh..." Fu Xuefeng grimaced as his body felt stiff.

The most annoying thing was that while his Stamina had recovered to an acceptable level despite not having rested properly, his legs were actually still somewhat weak from forcing himself to keep going.

Fu Xuefeng stood up and slowly walked a couple of steps until he finally reached the bone mask and bent down to pick it up.

He looked at the place where the needle had scraped earlier and felt a chill as he saw how the mask forged from mutant beast bones capable of withstanding bullets had actually been cut clean off. There was a large straight line of at least five centimeters there! Fu Xuefeng was sure that if he put it on now, part of his face would show through!

But this only served to confuse Fu Xuefeng more.

He turned around and looked off into the distance. Although his eyes could not reach as far as he wished due not only to the distance but also to the obstacles in the way, his gaze seemed to reach that villa where that powerful woman who drove him to such a miserable state lived.

Fu Xuefeng really thought that he could not escape from there alive. He was even prepared to commit suicide if the other party wanted to torture him to get information about Bai Zemin.

Strangely, however, that unknown woman let him go. She didn't even bother to chase him after forcing him to retreat.

* * * * * * *

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