Chapter 48: Ze, You Are a Ruthless Man

Chu Zhu paused for a moment, then cast a peculiar glance at Guan Fei. "Why do they look like wild savages... and what about the clothes you're wearing?"

"By the way, weren't there vines at the entrance just now? The really ferocious ones... How did you bypass their attacks to get in here?"

"Vines? Oh, you mean aberrant plants?" Zhou澤 muttered with some uncertainty. "They... they wouldn't attack these monsters, would they? After all, they're of the same kind as these two monsters... Huh? Savages?"

"Wait, monsters?!" Chu Zhu also realized something was amiss.

The two stared at each other in bewilderment.

"What monsters are you referring to..." Chu Zhu cleared his thoughts, staring incredulously at Guan Fei and his companion.

"Yeah... They don't speak human language, they wield powers that surpass normal human comprehension and are too terrifying to look directly at, and they periodically go insane! They slaughter madly... and some even mutate, twisting into true monsters." Zhou Ze shuddered, then gave Chu Zhu a strange look and let out a bitter laugh.

"These two are actually considered the mild ones... You're really lucky to have run into a few monsters that are relatively well-controlled..."

Chu Zhu: "..."

Wielding weird powers? Too terrifying to look at? Mad slaughter? Mutation? Distortion?!

Wait...

"They're Transcendents!" A monstrous storm raged within Chu Zhu's heart. The Transcendents of this world lack human intelligence and even go insane... turning into so-called true monsters?

How is that possible? Clearly, the previous timeline didn't have this problem...

"Unless!" Chu Zhu turned his head to gaze at Guan Fei's distorted muscles, his mind racing as he recalled everything Li Kang had told him.

Contamination... nuclear radiation causing muscle distortion... ensuring normal humans remain ignorant of the extraordinary, and wiping their memories of it if they found out...

"Although I still don't know the exact chain of connections here, I reckon it's all because of contamination... The previous timeline clearly had methods to counter contamination! This timeline might not have them? Which is why the Transcendents of this timeline... are viewed as monsters by normal people? Well, their own nature plays a part too..."

Taking a deep breath, Chu Zhu forcibly chased away the chaotic thoughts in his mind, stood up, and said, "Alright! Take me back to... well, wherever you all gather..."

Zhou Ze was stunned for a moment, gave Chu Zhu a deep look, and nodded.

...

Walking out of the base.

Guan Fei let out a strange roar toward the vines and beat his chest repeatedly. At that moment, the vines twisted like snakes, even rearing their upper bodies straight up in mid-air like cobras, swaying incessantly as if they were greeting someone or dancing.

However, some of the vines also displayed hostility toward Chu Zhu, only to be roared back into submission by Guan Fei the moment they drew close.

I see. Chu Zhu nodded expressionlessly, realizing these vines were just watchdog- —

So could everything he had experienced earlier be summarized as having been bitten by a dog?

In the ruins.

The group pressed forward along the way.

Before long, they arrived at a remote area. After all, Chu Zhu knew the way; even though the landmarks were completely different from the previous timeline, he could roughly deduce that this should be the shanty town where the Guild Headquarters used to be...

And then...

"Open fire, open fire!" Zhou Ze suddenly rolled to the side, then shouted with a ferocious expression, "He is not Mr. Zhu! Kill all these monsters..."

Chu Zhu's pupils constricted. With lightning-fast reflexes, he instinctively pulled Guan Fei in front of him to shield himself.

The next instant.

Accompanied by a deafening roar and the terrifying high-temperature steam spewing from a cat-hole in the distance—

A projectile pierced right through Guan Fei's body.

Guan Fei's face was frozen in shock, starting in disbelief, shifting to sadness, and finally transforming into hysterical rage and murderous intent.

He roared like a wild beast. Instead of attacking Zhou Ze, he charged straight toward the cat-hole in the distance.

"...Seriously, bro?" Chu Zhu was genuinely baffled. Under normal circumstances, shouldn't you kill the backstabbing Zhou Ze first?

What kind of thought process makes you charge directly into the heaviest firepower?

And then...

Chu Zhu watched in a daze as projectile after projectile fired continuously, piercing through Guan Fei, pushing him step by step toward his end...

Three meters away from the cat-hole, Guan Fei could finally take no more and crashed heavily to the ground, his face still etched with lingering resentment and fury.

As for Bi Xuan, the one with the innocent gaze...

Oh, he had already let out a piercing shriek and fled in panic.

Chu Zhu was a beat too slow. Therefore...

The next moment, amidst the roaring spray of steam, projectiles came hurtling directly toward his direction.

Chu- —Ze, well played! You really did a number on me!

You are one ruthless bastard...

...

Death, no matter how many times one experiences it, is something Chu Zhu could never truly get used to.

Chu Zhu snapped his eyes open and took a slight gasp.

"...Are you alright?" Zhou Ze's voice, tinged with a hint of worry, rang out.

"?" Chu Zhu's brow twitched. Forcibly suppressing the urge to punch Zhou Ze right in the face, he swept his gaze around the surroundings.

Ah, not far away, Guan Fei was still beating his chest vigorously, communicating with the watchdog vines.

It had reset to this point in time!

Without hesitation, Chu Zhu expressionlessly reached out and grabbed Zhou Ze by the throat.

"...Roar?!" Bi Xuan froze in place. He looked at Chu Zhu, then at Zhou Ze, and then back at Guan Fei in the distance who was still beating his chest. He tilted his head, clearly having his brain short-circuited by this incomprehensible scene.

"...You!" Zhou Ze struggled with all his might, yet he couldn't shake his grip by even a fraction. Realization, despair, and hatred gradually surfaced on his face.

After a long while, until Zhou Ze's struggling grew feeble and he looked genuinely on the verge of suffocating, Chu Zhu casually tossed him onto the ground and said coldly, "Talk... What on earth is going on here? Why did you want to kill us?"

Chu Zhu was actually quite curious. He knew Zhou Ze very well: bold yet meticulous, valuing bonds deeply, but possessing extremely strict principles!

He was not a Zhu Yuanzhang-style leader—

He wouldn't do something like: *Now that I've ascended, I feel the predecessor poses a threat to my power... so I must kill him!*

If he were that kind of person, Chu Zhu surely would have reset because of it in the previous timeline—and then he could have just killed him and replaced him with someone else!

In reality, however, after becoming the Chief Steward of the Guild in the previous timeline, Zhou Ze had done an exceptional job and shown immense respect to Chu Zhu.

Therefore, even though he had died because of Zhou Ze just moments ago... while Chu Zhu wasn't pleased, he hadn't been furious enough to greet him with a fatal ambush upon their second meeting.

"Well, of course, I can't rule out the possibility... that the Zhou Ze of this timeline has a completely different personality from the one in the previous timeline!" A nonsensical thought popped into Chu Zhu's mind. After all, Guan Fei and Bi Xuan had both turned into wild savages, so what else was impossible?