Doomsday: I'm the Zombie King, So What If I Do Whatever I Want?

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Chen Yu leaned against the rusted lab table, watching with amusement as Li Xiaomeng squirmed against her restraints. The once-untouchable campus belle now resembled a trussed-up game hen, her designer jeans stained with sweat and fear.

"Chen Yu," she hissed, attempting to balance threat and plea in her voice, "you still have your mind. Doesn't it shame you as a rational man to keep us tied up like this?"

Lin Xiaoxia, bound beside her, paled further. i***t, she thought. The girl who'd once navigated social hierarchies with surgeon-like precision had somehow failed to grasp that the rules had changed. The man before them was no longer bound by human morality—he was something colder, sharper, and infinitely more dangerous.

Chen Yu's lips curled. "I heard you had many admirers."

Xiaomeng's eyes lit up with reflexive pride. She straightened as much as her bonds allowed, the movement accentuating curves that had once made frat boys trip over their own feet. "Of course," she preened, mistaking his interest for submission. "Though even in the apocalypse, my standards remain high. You'd need to—"

"Let me guess," Chen Yu interrupted, ticking points off on fingers that ended in unnaturally sharp nails. "Takeout deliveries. Gifts. Weekend trips to Sanya. All while you rotated them like expired yogurt."

Xiaomeng blinked, then beamed. He'd done his research! Perhaps becoming a zombie hadn't erased his simp programming after all. "Exactly! But given the circumstances..." She fluttered her lashes. "Just protect me and cook meals, and we'll call it even."

A beat of silence.

Then Chen Yu laughed—a sound like dry bones rattling in a tin can. "How generous. Tell me, Xiaomeng..." He leaned in until his breath (minty, somehow) fogged her designer sunglasses. "Did those boys ever ask what you brought to the table?"

Before she could answer, he hoisted her up like a sack of rice. "Let's test your real value."

Xiaoxia watched in mute horror as he dragged Xiaomeng toward a reinforced door. Behind it, something snarle