Seeing his wife, now a zombie, holding their daughter, Gao Lin suddenly burst into tears. His lips trembled as he slowly moved towards his wife and daughter, while Li Chenzhou stood at the door, silently watching them.

It felt like an eternity. Finally, under the gaze of Li Chenzhou and the others, Gao Lin reached his wife and daughter.

Strangely, the female zombie king did not show the excitement and hunger of a normal zombie towards Gao Lin, who was covered in fresh blood. Instead, she stared intently at him.

"Xuefen! I'm sorry! I was wrong! I shouldn't have abandoned you!"

Looking at the female zombie king's scarlet eyes, stained with bloody tear streaks, Gao Lin sobbed uncontrollably, opening his arms to hug the zombie queen and his daughter. The zombie queen did not react, continuing to look at Gao Lin, then at her daughter.

After a dozen seconds, the zombie queen finally moved. She pushed Gao Lin away, looked at the dozen or so wounds on his body from the boning knife, and suddenly let out a low roar.

"Roar!"

She handed Xiaoya to Gao Lin, and after Gao Lin took her, she used her hands to gesture around her head a few times, making an opening gesture.

Then, she pointed at Gao Lin, made a gesture of taking something out of her own head, then extended her hand towards Gao Lin's mouth. Finally, she adjusted Gao Lin's arms holding Xiaoya and gently patted them.

Gao Lin didn't understand what the zombie queen meant, and just stared blankly at her. Li Chenzhou, however, was stunned because he knew about the existence of the crystal nucleus, so... he also interpreted the female zombie queen's meaning.

The female zombie queen was clearly telling Gao Lin to take out the crystal nucleus from her head, eat it, and then protect Xiaoya!

And what the female zombie queen did next both shocked and validated Li Chenzhou's guess.

She took a step back, looking back and forth between Xiaoya and Gao Lin. After a full minute, she slowly raised her hands above her head. Then, she brought her hands together back-to-back above her head, making a heart shape, and then forcefully thrust them down, her two rows of sharp fingernails instantly piercing through her own skull.

"Roar!"

The zombie queen's face became contorted, and two streams of black blood poured from her protruding eyes. In this shrill roar, the zombie queen used all her strength to tear her own head in half.

Amidst the splashing of thick black blood, the zombie queen's body slowly tilted and fell to the ground. And just as her severed head hit the ground, a crystal stained with black blood rolled out, wobbling slightly on the ground.

Everyone's eyes were on the crystal. Under the sunlight, the crystal emitted a bloody light, like a dazzling ruby, pure, elegant, and unattainable...

"Mama!"

Seeing her mother fall, Xiaoya cried in Gao Lin's arms, while Gao Lin lowered his head and stared blankly at his wife's corpse, his body trembling violently, on the verge of collapse.

At this moment, Li Chenzhou, who had struggled for ten years in the apocalypse, witnessed countless tragedies, and seen too many separations, also became misty-eyed, and Duan Xue knelt by the wall, crying like a waterfall.

"This is... a mutated crystal nucleus!"

Li Chenzhou stepped forward, bent down, picked up the crystal nucleus, and held it in front of Gao Lin:

"It can only be nurtured in the body of a strengthened zombie. Absorbing it can make you stronger. Your wife's gesture just now was to let you swallow this crystal nucleus and then protect your child!"

"Can... anyone absorb it?"

Gao Lin looked at Li Chenzhou and asked.

"Just put it in your mouth! After becoming a strengthened one, your injuries... should be able to recover!"

Li Chenzhou nodded gently.

Gao Lin looked at the crystal nucleus in Li Chenzhou's hand, then lowered his head to look at his wife's naked, broken corpse, and tears welled up again.

He suddenly reached out and took the crystal nucleus from Li Chenzhou's hand, washed it with the blood gushing from his chest, and then stuffed it into his daughter's mouth.

Seeing Gao Lin's actions, everyone, including Li Chenzhou, was stunned.

"I'm sorry! In the beginning, I didn't trust you, but the fact that you were willing to give this crystal nucleus back to me proves that you are trustworthy!"

Gao Lin looked at Li Chenzhou and said:

"I can tell that everyone else listens to you, so I beg you, please take care of my daughter! After she becomes a strengthened one, she won't be a burden to you!"

After speaking, Gao Lin ignored whether Li Chenzhou agreed or not, turned his head, stroked his daughter's face and hair, and said with a smile:

"Xiaoya! Mama is lost. Daddy is going to find her and bring her back. You have to be strong and follow this big brother. They will protect you! When Daddy finds Mama, I'll come back to pick you up! You have to listen to your older brother and sisters! Understand?"

Xiaoya's face was covered in the blood smeared by Gao Lin's blood-stained hands. She tightly grabbed Gao Lin, staring at him with her round, tearful eyes, seeming to want to say something, but the power of the crystal nucleus quickly caused her to fall into a coma!

"I have nothing I can give you. All I have is a father's request. Please help me take her and try... to let her live a little longer!"

Watching Xiaoya "fall asleep," Gao Lin held Xiaoya up to Li Chenzhou, staring at him as he spoke.

"Why... don't you absorb that crystal nucleus yourself? That way you can protect her yourself! Isn't that better than entrusting her to us? You are her father, after all."

Li Chenzhou took Xiaoya, looked at Duan Xue, and Duan Xue immediately ran over and took Xiaoya into her arms, while Li Chenzhou looked at Gao Lin with some confusion and asked.

"I'm already finished!"

Gao Lin shook his head with a bitter smile:

"My heart has been stabbed several times, it's probably rotten. The only reason I've been able to hold on until now is because of them. That crystal nucleus... might not save me anyway. Instead of taking a gamble, I might as well leave all hope of survival to Xiaoya!"

Saying that, Gao Lin lowered his head and looked at his wife's corpse:

"Besides... I abandoned her once, but she didn't hate me. Even after turning into this... she still remembered me. I can't abandon her a second time. I want to go and be with her. She's timid, it's dark over there, she'll be scared!"

Gao Lin slowly bent down, lay on the zombie queen's body, trying to put the separated head together, hugged her in his arms, and tilted his head, saying:

"Do me one last favor. After I die and turn into a zombie, kill me. I want to... become the same as Xuefen, so she can accept and forgive me! Thank you!"

Saying that, Gao Lin looked tenderly at his wife in his arms, his eyes quickly dimming...

"Roar!"

The next moment, Gao Lin's eyes quickly became bloodshot, instantly turning scarlet, but he didn't try to get up, still holding the zombie queen's corpse tightly, while looking up at Li Chenzhou, letting out a strange roar...