Wen Jiuzhe hooked an arm around her neck. “Then come with me. I’m not at ease.”
Xue Ling: “There’s an inspection at the gate—how am I supposed to get in!”
Wen Jiuzhe: “We won’t go through the main gate. We’ll figure out a way to climb the wall. If you want to get in, there’s always a way.”
Xue Ling: “No no no, let go of me! I was joking!”
After she swore she wouldn’t get mad and run off, Wen Jiuzhe finally let her go, slung a backpack over his shoulder, and went into Yicheng Base by himself.
After Wen Jiuzhe left, Xue Ling tore open a sheet mask and stuck it on her face, then got out of the car and did a set of Baduanjin1Baduanjin (八段锦): A traditional Chinese qigong exercise consisting of eight movements, practiced for health, flexibility, and circulation..
She always felt that she’d been moving around less lately—her body had gotten much stiffer, her joints less flexible. Better to exercise a bit.
—Even though it probably wouldn’t be of much use.
But psychological effects were still effects.
Once he was out of Xue Ling’s sight, Wen Jiuzhe’s expression became much flatter. At the base gate, he asked the staff whether there was a place inside the base to look for missing people, and also inquired about some other miscellaneous information.
There were indeed people in Yicheng Base who had come from Andong City, but Andong City was so large that finding someone who knew Wen Yi was far too difficult.
He didn’t find out any news about Wen Yi here.
Wen Jiuzhe didn’t give up so easily. If Yicheng Base didn’t have anything, there were still other bases nearby.
Stubborn Wen Jiuzhe ran around the surrounding area for a full month before finally hearing a piece of news that might be related to Wen Yi.
“I know the person you’re talking about. A few months ago, she left with a convoy. I don’t know where they went.”
At this point, the lead was cut off again.
At least Wen Yi had still been alive a few months earlier, but where she had gone was unknown.
By now it was already late autumn. The weather was getting colder and colder, and in the mornings a layer of frost covered the car’s hood.
Wen Jiuzhe was probably worn out from looking for people during this period. He lay in the car and couldn’t be bothered to get up.
Xue Ling, who wasn’t afraid of the cold, finished her wide-eyed resting early and went for a walk along the river. Even though she didn’t need to breathe, she still made an effort to breathe in some fresh air.
When she went back to the car, the dew on the hood had already melted, and the sun had been up for a while. Wen Jiuzhe was still lying in the car asleep, only having changed to a side-lying position.
Huh? Still sleeping? Didn’t have to work today—sleeping this long?
Xue Ling waited a bit more. Seeing that he still hadn’t moved, she climbed onto the car and pushed him.
Wen Jiuzhe’s body was very hot. Normally, he was warm too, but this heat—wasn’t it a bit off?
Not quite certain about her own zombie-version sense of hot and cold, Xue Ling lifted Wen Jiuzhe’s clothes and touched several places on his body.
Wen Jiuzhe turned over, opened his eyes, put an arm over his forehead, and said in a slightly hoarse voice, “How long have you been wandering around outside? You’re frozen into an ice pop.”
Xue Ling looked at him and asked uncertainly, “You couldn’t be… sick, right?!”
Wen Jiuzhe actually getting sick?! He was a man who used to wear just a trench coat in the dead of winter and never catch a cold!
How good was Wen Jiuzhe’s physical condition? So good that Xue Ling used to often suspect he wasn’t human.
The bruises and wounds on his body—without applying any medicine, they’d disappear in just a couple of days.
Once, he had been hit by an electric scooter. The aunt riding the scooter even injured her leg in the fall, yet he himself was completely fine.
If it weren’t for the fact that he looked strong, the aunt would have demanded compensation from him on the spot.
In the dead of winter, he could wash his hair with cold water. Xue Ling would be shivering in front of the heater, warming her hands, and see him go to the fridge, take out a bottle of ice water, and drink more than half of it in one go.
With such a resilient body, let alone getting sick—Xue Ling had never even seen him feel unwell. It was simply inhuman.
So he could actually get sick?!
Even the ex-girlfriend was shocked back to life.
Xue Ling pushed away the arm Wen Jiuzhe had resting on his forehead and pressed her head against him, carefully feeling for a long while.
Wen Jiuzhe lifted a leg and pinned her down, not letting her get up. “Stop overthinking it. It’s just a fever.”
Coming back to her senses from the shock that Wen Jiuzhe, aside from having mental illness, could also have a fever, Xue Ling felt a bit numb.
What now? The medicine they had found earlier had all been exchanged away. What remained were only some psychiatric drugs—those wouldn’t treat a fever properly.
She’d said it already—when it’s this cold, he couldn’t keep going out wearing just a single thin layer. Wen Jiuzhe insisted on not listening, just showing off, refusing to even put on a thicker coat.
He was already in his twenties. Could he really compare himself to when he was nineteen?
She admitted that the big padded jacket she’d found for him was indeed a bit ugly, but there was no one around to see him now. What was wrong with wearing ugly clothes for once? Hadn’t she worn ugly dresses he picked out before? Let her take this chance for a bit of revenge—what was wrong with that?
Then Xue Ling thought again—could it be that he hadn’t found Wen Yi lately, the psychological pressure was too great, and he’d exhausted himself into getting sick?
After some not-very-rigorous analysis, Xue Ling felt there was a strong possibility.
He’d even said earlier that he was afraid she’d be disappointed and didn’t want to put pressure on her. In reality, he himself was the most disappointed and under the most pressure, to the point of getting sick over it.
A moment later, Xue Ling thought of an even more frightening possibility.
Could it be that she had accidentally pricked him and infected him with the zombie virus?
Some people had very small wounds, and their zombification progressed very slowly. In the early stages, they would start running a fever.
Xue Ling abruptly sat up and flipped off Wen Jiuzhe’s leg that was pressing on her.
Wen Jiuzhe slammed into the car door with a bang, his head knocking hard enough to clear his mind a bit.
He was just about to ask whether she was turning into a zombie heroine, with that much strength, when Xue Ling lunged over, pulled open his clothes, and carefully inspected him from top to bottom, inside and out.
“What are you looking for on me?”
Xue Ling didn’t find any wounds and asked, “I didn’t accidentally stab you, did I?”
“……” Wen Jiuzhe said, “What are you thinking? You usually only hit me with your fists. You never use claws. How could you possibly have stabbed me.”
“I’m just running a fever. I’ll be fine after sleeping it off. It’s nothing.”
No matter what it was, he always said, “It’s nothing.”
Xue Ling pulled his hand down from her hair and tucked it into the blanket, then went to the trunk and dragged out the big padded jacket, piling it all onto Wen Jiuzhe.
There was nothing else to do. Seeing as he was rarely sick, today she’d make him some light food to eat.
After becoming a zombie, Xue Ling had never cooked again. Now she took out rice and a pot. When she was about to wash the rice, she looked at her pitch-black fingernails and fell into thought.
A question arose—if at this moment, she soaked her fingernails in the rice to wash it, would the cooked rice end up containing the zombie virus?
Would that count as poisoning?
After pouring away the water she’d fetched, Xue Ling held the pot, caught in a dilemma.
Her hands suddenly felt lighter—the pot was taken from her.
Wen Jiuzhe pinched his own neck, flushed red from fever, and said in a hoarse voice, “I’ll do it.”
Even with a fever, his movements washing the rice and cooking were still neat and efficient. He set up the stove, then carried over a chair and sat down beside it.
Xue Ling went back to the car and brought over that big padded jacket again to drape over him, then sat down beside him to wait for the rice together.
On the stove, bubbles went glug-glug as it boiled.
Xue Ling looked at Wen Jiuzhe’s lowered face, once, then again.
Wen Jiuzhe had never been sick, but Xue Ling used to get sick.
Another benefit of being a zombie had emerged—zombies don’t get sick!
In the year-plus they’d been together, Xue Ling had gotten sick once. That time, Wen Jiuzhe shattered her previous understanding of him.
She was surprised to discover that he was actually very good at taking care of sick people.
Footnotes
1
Baduanjin (八段锦): A traditional Chinese qigong exercise consisting of eight movements, practiced for health, flexibility, and circulation.
