(Heurn Province- Fagong City)
(Inner Region- Garren District)
"Leader Sun's family?" the scarred woman asked skeptically as her eyes looked at the women sitting in the backseat of the car.
"Do you have any proof of your identities?"
Qin Lan glanced at the mirror and saw Sun Li dig into her pocket and pull out a small brown wallet.
She opened the wallet and took out a picture that had been printed on a faded white piece of paper.
Sun Li stretched out her hand and gave the photograph to the female guard who looked at it carefully.
The female guard raised up her palm and beckoned for her companions to walk over. Qin Lan let out a heavy sigh when she saw how long the process was taking.
Well perhaps this was to be expected.
At least it was a good sign that the security inside this particular base was pretty strong.
Not all bases in the original Qin Lan's memories had such a rigorous checking process since the more people a base possessed correlated to more strength.
"One moment," the female guard bluntly spoke as she walked a small distance away to meet with her companions.
They began to talk in hushed whispers while occasionally throwing glances in the direction of the two cars.
Qin Lan hummed softly as she tapped the side of the steering wheel.
She could not see Eve but could instinctively tell that the powerful zombie was somewhere nearby.
One false move by the guards and this place would turn into a bloodbath. Qin Lan cracked her knuckles and tried to ignore the hot feeling in her chest.
Her ability was impatient.
It whispered to her to break the minds of the security guards and then they would be able to leave this place.
Qin Lan furrowed her brows and silently counted to ten over and over in her mind before the feeling went away.
She was grateful that she possessed such a powerful ability in the end times but could understand why the original Qin Lan sometimes referred to it as a curse.
The ability to enter and manipulate the minds of those around her was an addicting pleasure that was hard to forget.
"May I offer you ladies some words of advice?" Qin Lan suddenly spoke up and got the attention of the mother and daughter in the back seat of the car.
"The only person that you can trust in the apocalypse is yourself. If you develop an ability, then I would recommend concealing it and practising in private."
"Keep it as a hidden card… even from your son."
"My son promised to protect us… we aren't in any danger but thank you for your concern," Sun Li replied with a trace of irritation in her voice.
Qin Lan shrugged her shoulders and didn't say anything else. Clearly, she had struck a nerve with Sun Li because of her honest advice.
Sun Li's motherly love and trust in her son prevented her from even considering the worst-case scenario.
Power corrupts and being the head of a base meant that you were in charge of the lives of hundreds or even thousands of people.
Would Sun Li's son be able to maintain his good heart when human nature inevitably revealed its ugly fangs?
At least the daughter seemed to be listening to her words since a thoughtful expression flashed across the young girl's face.
Qin Lan closed her eyes and extended a single black tendril from her mind. She controlled the mental thread and made it enter Sun Li's daughter's mind.
Instead of breaking her will or turning her into a puppet, Qin Lan planted a small seed of knowledge that would only bloom under a specific circumstance.
This seed contained the knowledge of how to upgrade an ability.
Currently there were probably only a handful of people who had consumed the crystals from a zombie.
Should the young girl develop an ability then she would mysteriously get the idea to wash a zombie crystal and consume it.
Why did Qin Lan decide to help her out for no reason?
Maybe it was because she feeling a bit soft-hearted and didn't want the innocent girl to suffer.
Qin Lan opened her eyes and saw the female guard walking over with a small frown on her lips.
She opened her mouth and spoke in a rather impolite tone,
"Your identities still have not been confirmed yet, but you do seem to be leader Sun's missing family."
"Please allow us to escort you inside the base and once we confirm that you have not been infected then we will take you to the boss."
A relieved smile flashed across Sun Li's face as she eagerly got out of the car and helped her daughter to stand on her injured leg.
The three other women in the second car saw what was going on and also left their vehicle and headed towards the guard.
"Thank you for rescuing us," Sun Li politely spoke as she turned around and bowed towards Qin Lan.
Even though she was still bit upset at the suggestion that her son could not be trusted Sun Li concealed her feelings and thanked Qin Lan sincerely.
"No worries… just do remember my advice and I hope that you both remain safe," Qin Lan gently replied as she waved at the young girl leaning against her mom.
"Are you not coming as well?" the female guard roughly asked.
"No… we just came to drop them off. We're going to head towards Xyrean Province, there are less people there so it should be safe," Qin Lan casually lied as she leaned back.
The female guard shot her a suspicious look, but Qin Lan smiled confidently and there was no trace of hesitation in her voice.
She finally walked away with the five women who exchanged tentative looks of excitement and hopefulness.
Qin Lan started up the car and drove away from the base. She honked her horn twice and the car that Gong Li was driving soon followed her path.
She headed in the direction of Xyrean Province for around two hours before stopping the car and opening the door.
"Eve is anyone following us?" Qin Lan softly whispered in a low tone. Her voice was no more than a mere whisper and yet she knew that Eve could hear her.
A beautiful figure stepped out of the shadows with her pitch-black eyes staring directly at Qin Lan's face with love and affection.
"Only for around the first hour and then they got bored and turned back," Eve replied casually as her black claws gleamed under the sunlight.
"Should I go back and kill them?"
"No, it's okay… let's travel along the outskirts of the city and then we can head towards the military base," Qin Lan suggested as she stretched out her arms lazily.
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