48 3.7

Feng Mian woke up breathing in water.

The water had already haphazardly blocked her oesophagus and she felt the stinginess from astringent polluted water suffocating her. In her supine position, the water had reached the tips of her nose and there was barely any room for oxygen.

Sensing perilous threat, her body's first defence mechanism had been to generate lightning. Specks of blue electricity crackled through her veins, forming flickering sparks that recoiled around her appendages.

System 555 warned her in advance. "Don't do that Feng Mian! Water insulates electric!"

The sparks were immediately retracted and there was nothing to lift the shell of the pod with but through brute force.

In her panic, the roof of her sleeping pod was consecutively pounded bent.

The pod had been manufactured from titanium and was hard to break, even with inhumane strength. Feng Mian was taking in water faster than the latch could be forced open.

555's interface had already popped out alarmingly.

[CAUTION! CAUTION! HEART RATE HAS GONE ABOVE CUSTOMARY RANGE!]

[SYSTEM 555 PLEASE TAKE NOTICE]

The interface beeped like a PC issuing virus popup warnings spamming across the screen.

[WOULD YOU LIKE TO INITIATE EMERGENCY HOST PROTECTION PROTOCOL?]

[ 1. YES, PLEASE 2. NO, THANK YOU]

The water had reached all the way up and Feng Mian was fully submerged in water.

System 555: "Srew your daddy for asking! You think laozi is ordering milk tea? Number 1! Number 1!"

System 555 smacked the YES button with the velocity of a falling meteor. "Feng Mian, hang in there! F***! Why is the signal so slow?!"

Feng Mian grunted.

The system prompt went out in time.

[Providing 10 seconds of underwater breathing aid. Stabilising breathing pattern of host...]

It was as if she's grown a pair of gills and suddenly breathing was not so difficult anymore. 555 promptly reminded her that they only have ten seconds before the effect wears out.

Feng Mian wasted no time and strenuously kicked at the latch as hard her muscles under the constraint of buoyancy could muster. The latch concaved in itself with every hit. After the nth kick or so it broke off from its hinges with a screech and flew like a scrap of broken metal.

Feng Mian sat upright and heaved water. Before regaining her bearings, the view of the room outside her pod made her blanch in depredation.

It wasn't her sleeping pod that was flooding.

They're swamping the entire cabin.

Water overflowed from the four corners of the rooms; with massive amounts spewing in from drainage pipes placed on the tiles of the walls she once thought was only made of smooth, hollow concrete.

Dark waters had reached all the way to her chest, and it was only getting higher. The gushing of falling waters seemed perpetual.

System 555: "Damn! What are these crazy lab rats planning on doing?!"

Feng Mian had to skid in order to get to the one-way mirror. The water that glided beneath her felt icky and strangely coarse to the touch.

She rapped harshly at the mirror. But the only indication that there was a living human in the vicinity had been her own reflection

Feng Mian's chest was uncomfortably heavy, and she coughed harshly.

"Hello?! Anyone there?!"

"Ye Junli?!"

"Are you there?!"

Her voice was hoarse and her throat inflamed. After crying out with no sign of response from the other side, the aggrieved experiment knocked exasperatedly at the mirror with her forehead.

"Anyone?!"

"Help!"

The water went above her head and Feng Mian had to swim upwards in order to catch breath. Soon, even the meagre space for oxygen will be submerged.

"F*** JUNLI! WHERE ARE YOU?!"

The more agitated she was, the more electrons her blood generated and the backlash of her ability's hydrophobic nature was instantaneous. The electricity pricked her skin like the bites of a thousand fire ants.

Feng Mian groaned in pain.

'Rap! Rap!'

Somebody had responded!

Feng Mian took a large gulp of air and swam downwards once more. An instruction of words was relayed from the mirror, but the other side remained reclused to the eyes. It read:

'You will find two diamond keys, one is an actual diamond, and the other a counterfeit. Only one will open the door; the real diamond key. Use the wrong key to unlock and we'll unleash the piranhas.'

555 lost its' temper.

"Balless pairs of motherf***ers! Key! F***, where's the f***ing key! Laozi doesn't see any key lying around!"

They soon found out where the key was.

Feng Mian heard, keenly, the sound of splashing from behind her.

System 555 shouted gravely. "Shit! Feng Mian, behind you! Watch out!"

Behind her was a zombie whose flesh had rotted half of its face. The other half was like a steamrolled scallion pancake; one that's been run over by a car over and over again.

F***! F***! F***! F***!

Zombies are practically undead humans who do not require oxygen to live. Underwater, this particular one could even snarl and intimidate her, unafraid to choke to death.

Air bubbles floated upwards from his snarling and dissipated somewhere in the torrent of salty waters.

The worst part was; this zombie could even swim.

His movements were messy and uncoordinated but he manoeuvred forward with a toad-like efficiency; completely adapted to water.

Feng Mian: "F*** this grandma! Was he an Olympic swimmer before he became a zombie?!"

Through the darkness of the water, something gleamed.

System 555: "The key! It's hanging on the ugly toad's neck!"

Oh… shit.

Was she supposed to grab it from the monster's neck ah?

Did they want her to wrestle him for it?

Haha.

If she still had her abilities, she could electrocute him into a grilled toad from five miles away, but now if she let any forms of static out they would both be in trouble.

Feng Mian asked an important question.

"Baobei, am I immune to the zombie virus?"

System 555 answered punitively, "... No."

"Then how much for an immunity serum?"

"500 000 points."

She's screwed.

System 555: "Don't let him bite you Feng Mian. The virus is transmitted via saliva."

The zombie could swim, but it couldn't swim faster than Feng Mian. But Feng Mian's concern was the key on his neck and the running clock.

In order to grab it, she'll need to get close.

Feng Mian maintained a safe distance, backtracking in the opposite direction every time the zombie approached.

Between her and the male zombie, who is stronger?

With no other way out, there's only one way to find out.

She swam up, her nose nearly touching the ceiling, to take in one last breath before diving back in.

She perched herself beside the wall using the crevice of the mirror's notch as an anchor.

She calculated the angle between her and the ugly zombie.

Feng Mian: "555, I need a propeller."

System 555: "I got you, host. Automatic shoe propeller bought from the inventory. 20 000 points deducted. 110 200 points left."

She immediately felt the weight on her shoe shift.

Feng Mian braced herself, and with one powerful push against the wall, she plunged towards the zombified Olympic swimmer.

The zombie was caught completely off guard by the human torpedo rushing into his arms.

In a flash, Feng Mian had him pinned against the wall by his neck.