Please don’t be weirder than me!!

“My dearest leader, was I to your liking tonight?”

I wore a fawning smile, suppressing the discomfort in my heart and the exhaustion in my mind.

I took the leader’s hand and gently licked her slender fingertips.

“Cut the act.”

As usual, she saw right through my facade.

She pinched my tongue between her fingers and stared into my weary eyes.

Then, unexpectedly, she kissed my forehead.

“You can rest tomorrow. We have guests coming to the camp.”

With those words, she picked up the headband that had been lying on the sofa and carefully placed it on my head, then fastened the white cloth choker around my neck.

“From now on, wear this when you come to see me. Understand?”

She squeezed my cheek and pushed me out of her embrace.

“Understood.”

I knelt obediently, accepting her command.

I felt it then—the familiar thrill of conquering a target.

I used to study my prey’s desires, cater to them, and then conquer them.

I had an illusion that this leader was just a more dangerous prey.

See? When I shed all my ridiculous dignity and became what she wanted, didn’t she retract her fangs?

“Here, your reward. I was quite pleased today.”

She tossed me a package of bread from the coffee table.

Her mood was indeed good.

She lowered her eyes slightly, as if savoring the recent memory.

“Hmm… as long as you’re happy.”

Tch, you’re happy, but I’m not. You fickle b*tch. You came after me because of the girlfriend you killed yourself, but in the end, you’re just a s*ave to your desires. Weak, weak.

As I took the bread, my fear of the leader began to wane.

My usual malicious nature was taking over.

“Well then, Leader, I’ll see you the day after tomorrow.”

I stood up, still wearing that sweet smile, and slipped on the small leather shoes she had prepared for me.

I left the oppressive mansion.

“Tch, she’s just as rotten as I am. This camp is unlucky to have a leader like her.”

Outside, under the moonlight, I gently patted the dust off my maid outfit.

The lavender scent was now mixed with a hint of bitter almond—a strange, cloying combination.

The two smells mingled, leaving me disoriented.

I hate strange smells.

“Time to pay Su Yanlan a visit… let’s see if I can resolve this problem directly.”

My brief encounter with the leader tonight had restored some of my confidence.

Maybe I could talk my way out of this with the spurned lover.

If I was lucky, I might even get some more food out of it.

She didn’t look like she was short on supplies.

Following the address from memory, I walked toward a part of the camp I had never been to before.

Under the moonlight, a clothing store stood bathed in a soft glow, its windows displaying an array of gorgeous dresses.

This shop must not do well.

That was my first impression.

In the apocalypse, practicality is everything.

Except for a few eccentrics, even the wealthy rarely bought fancy clothes.

Extravagant attire was useless in a world where a fight could break out at any moment.

The four characters “Yanyu Lanshan,” formed by flashing neon lights, felt even more tacky.

I think I understood why Su Yanlan held a grudge against me.

To maintain a shop that was clearly losing money, she couldn’t be that well-off.

No wonder her girlfriend was so easily swayed by me.

“Is Miss Su Yanlan in?”

Shaking off my thoughts, I smiled and gently pushed the glass door.

As expected, it wasn’t locked.

On this entire street, this was the only building with its lights on.

She was waiting for me.

The thought came to me, as if by instinct.

“Miss Qin Yue, please come in.”

After a long pause, a calm voice echoed from within the shop.

I pushed the door open and slowly entered.

The first thing I saw were rows of magnificent dresses hanging neatly on racks.

I walked through the towering aisles, then passed through a worn wooden door into a dimly lit back room.

There, under a single bare bulb, stood Su Yanlan.

In her hands were a small pair of scissors and a black marker.

Her gentle, oval face was devoid of expression, her focus entirely on the material in front of her—a bloody, mangled corpse.

“Gag… cough, cough…”

The gruesome sight made me retch.

My stomach churned, and waves of nausea washed over me.

Finally, I rudely threw up.

But with an empty stomach, all that came out was a puddle of disgusting mucus.

I stared at Su Yanlan, whose face had turned cold.

My own body seemed to grow cold with her.

I shouldn’t have vomited…

The scene was horrific, yes, but my tolerance for gore wasn’t that low.

It was the damn cold’s fault.

“Miss Qin Yue, the maid outfit I made for you, does it fit well?”

After a long moment, Su Yanlan wiped the blood from her hands and offered me a clean white handkerchief, gesturing for me to wipe my mouth.

“It fits perfectly… thank you.”

I hastily wiped my mouth.

I felt like I was seeing something I shouldn’t have.

I turned to leave the dim room.

“It’s fine. I enjoy making beautiful clothes for others. Hmm, you don’t have to be afraid. This is just a skinned C-class mutant, not a human.”

She explained, placing the marker on the table with the corpse and advancing toward me, scissors in hand.

“Haha, I knew it wasn’t human. Miss Su is such a gentle person, she would never do something like this to her own kind.”

I forced a smile, trying not to focus on the scissors in her hand.

If I ran now, what would happen?

Would I die?

Who knew.

“I’m not gentle. I’ve never killed a person, but I’ve always wanted to peel the skin off a human, piece by piece, to see how it differs from a mutant’s.”

She shattered my perception of her.

She walked slowly toward me, seemingly unsurprised by my composure.

“Miss Qin Yue, you’re a scumbag, you know.”

She held the scissors to my neck, carefully avoiding the fabric of the maid outfit.

Was she trying not to stain her handiwork?

“That may be true… but you don’t have to do this, do you?”

My smile was about to break.

I reached out and gently pushed the cold scissors away from my neck, trying to distance myself from the dangerous weapon.

A drop of mutant blood dripped onto my neck.

Sticky and disgusting.

You’re a real psycho, you know that? And to think I thought you were a normal person. I really misjudged you.