Zombies that can drive, can understand human speech, can communicate—if this were anywhere else, no one would believe it.
But the ones here were Wen Yi’s research team.
The soldiers responsible for protecting Dr. Wen all knew that there were still zombies in this world who retained human thought and reason, and there was one in their team right now.
Precisely because of this, Xue Ling was not shot dead by a sniper immediately; instead, a group of soldiers merely surrounded her car.
Wen Yi came over with an overcoat draped around her shoulders, passed through the crowd of gun-holding soldiers, and walked toward the car that had been forced to stop.
The soldier who had gone to report the situation held his gun and followed closely behind her.
“The zombie that can drive is in this car?” Wen Yi said. “Get the person out first so I can take a look.”
Another soldier guarding the car said, “Dr. Wen, we just asked the person inside to get out of the car, but the other party refused to cooperate.”
“Should we forcefully break the car door and get the person out?”
The metallic ring of his firm words had not yet faded when the tightly shut car window opened, popping out a bluish-pale face belonging to a zombie.
On this face of a young woman, whose former delicacy could still be discerned, a pair of dark red eyes looked toward the protected Wen Yi.
The speaking soldier thought the person inside had been forced out by his threat, but instead saw her gaze fixed tightly on Wen Yi, as if she had confirmed something, suddenly becoming agitated.
She turned back in a panic to search inside the car, found a writing board, and began to write on it.
Very quickly, the writing board was extended out of the car window, on it two crooked characters, “Wen Yi,” and a question mark.
“You know me?” Wen Yi walked two steps forward in some surprise.
Xue Ling finally remembered to pull open the car door, but before the door could be opened, a bluish hand rested on the car window.
It was clearly a man’s hand—there was another zombie inside the car.
Ignoring the tense soldiers around her, Wen Yi walked to the car window and looked inside. At such a close distance, she clearly saw Wen Jiuzhe in the car.
Her eyebrows moved slightly in surprise, her expression still indifferent: “Wen Jiuzhe?”
Her gaze then shifted to Xue Ling, and she finally remembered who she was: “You are Wen Jiuzhe’s former girlfriend from Yu City.”
She remembered that Wen Jiuzhe had liked that girlfriend very much; when she first learned of it, she had been quite surprised and had even gone to take a look herself.
Xue Ling nodded. Looking at Wen Yi, she felt a sense of surviving at the brink of despair.
Wen Yi took the stick from the soldier beside her and lifted the hand Wen Jiuzhe had placed on the edge of the car window to observe it.
“Wen Jiuzhe has been infected with the zombie virus? It looks like he’s been infected for some time now… does he still have consciousness?”
“Yes!” Xue Ling immediately wrote.
Wen Jiuzhe had just made a sound earlier!
She pushed open the car door and, on the writing board, messily wrote: “Save him! Help!”
Vaccine, Taisui… anything would do, hurry and save Wen Jiuzhe!
Wen Yi cautiously tapped Wen Jiuzhe with the stick in her hand: “Wen Jiuzhe, do you still have consciousness? Speak.”
Wen Jiuzhe slowly raised his head, a pair of dark red eyes looking toward her.
They looked at each other for a moment, then he tugged at the corner of his mouth.
“Wen… Yi.”
Wen Yi withdrew the stick. “Two people, take him back into the camp.”
“And you come too.” She added to Xue Ling.
A short while later, inside a temporary tent, Wen Yi looked at the two people opposite her and said, “I did indeed have Taisui in my hands before, but that piece of Taisui has already been eaten.”
She did not care about the disappointed expressions of the two, turned around, took out a refrigerated box, and opened it. “However, I still have two kinds of medicine here.”
“The one on the left was developed by my teacher leading the team, with my participation—the latest result of the zombie virus vaccine.”
“Injected after being infected with the zombie virus, the sooner the injection, the better the effect… in your current state, there might still be a one-tenth chance of recovery, but it’s more likely that you’ll turn into an ordinary zombie.”
“The one on the right was extracted by me from Wen Xuan’s corpse.”
“There is only this one dose. It hasn’t been tested. I don’t know what will happen after injection, but according to my speculation, there’s a high probability you’ll become a zombie that retains rationality.”
“The two drugs have a rejection reaction and cannot be used together. You can only choose one of them. Choose.”
Wen Jiuzhe’s condition was already extremely bad. He had been supported and seated in this spot inside the tent, and when Wen Yi spoke, he showed no reaction at all, not knowing whether he was unable to understand her words.
Xue Ling, sitting beside him, still had one hand handcuffed together with his, and couldn’t help but tighten her grip on his hand.
She stared at the two syringes in front of her, feeling that either path was a dead end filled with uncertainty.
She tried her best to calm herself down and think about which one would be better to choose.
But Wen Jiuzhe did not leave this difficult choice to her. He struggled to reach out, picked up the medicine on the right, and directly injected it into himself.
Watching the liquid in the syringe disappear, Xue Ling closed her eyes and leaned against Wen Jiuzhe’s shoulder.
Seeing this, Wen Yi put away the syringe on the left, stood up, and said, “Then you stay here. We’ll talk about what comes next after seeing the results a few hours later.”
If it succeeded, then there would be room for cooperation between them. If it failed… it wouldn’t be without gains.
“Wen… Yi.” Wen Jiuzhe suddenly called out to her.
Wen Yi stopped at the entrance, turned back, and waited for him to continue with an indifferent expression.
Wen Jiuzhe said, “Please… don’t hurt… her.”
Wen Yi finally felt surprised. She revealed a faint smile devoid of emotion, glanced at Xue Ling, and said, “You’re begging me? My surname is Wen. You spent several years in the Wen family, nearly beaten to death, and you never begged once. Today you actually know how to beg.”
She did not agree, nor did she leave any other words, and walked out of the tent.
Xue Ling heard her say to the soldiers outside the tent, “Keep an eye on the special zombie inside. Inform me if anything happens. If it completely zombifies and goes berserk, restrain it first.”
“Yes, Dr. Wen!”
Only Xue Ling and Wen Jiuzhe were left inside the tent.
Xue Ling collapsed weakly onto the table in front of her. She was truly too exhausted today; excessively intense emotions had drained her.
One of Wen Jiuzhe’s hands rested on the back of her head.
They sat quietly like this, waiting for the final judgment.
What the ending would be, Xue Ling did not know, but she no longer thought about “what ifs” or the future, only waited.
༚༅༚˳ . . ˳༚༅༚
Daylight broke. At the top of the tent there was a transparent window, letting sunlight pour down, falling squarely onto the tabletop.
There were quite a few people in this camp. From time to time, people passed by outside the tent, speaking in low voices; various footsteps came and went, but no one opened the tent door to look in on them.
Wen Yi did not come either. As the sunlight shooting down from above began to slant, they seemed to be forgotten here.
Xue Ling moved her hand and tugged at the silent Wen Jiuzhe.
Once that syringe had been injected, he was destined to become a zombie; the only difference was whether he could retain his rationality.
So much time had passed. His appearance had already completely zombified, yet he had been sitting there without any reaction.
Xue Ling felt uneasy again.
Had he actually retained his rationality or not?
“Ao.” She let out a sound and raised her hand, waving it in front of Wen Jiuzhe.
His dark red eyes, the same color as hers, swayed along with her hand, flickering twice in the sunlight.
Suddenly, he revealed a ferocious expression, reached out toward her, and let out a zombie roar, as if he had suddenly gone berserk.
He already had a fierce aura to begin with; in this state he looked even more terrifying. Xue Ling was stunned by his sudden reaction, so startled she almost started crying again.
He had no rationality left! That syringe hadn’t worked!
Just as Xue Ling felt a surge of heartache, she suddenly realized something was wrong. Her furrowed expression relaxed, and the sorrow in her eyes turned into doubt.
Don’t zombies only have this kind of reaction when they encounter humans? If Wen Jiuzhe had really become a mindless zombie, how could he show an “attacking” posture toward her, who was also a zombie?
Wen Jiuzhe was still baring his fangs and claws to scare her, but he did not touch her.
Xue Ling: “……”
You really deserve to die, Wen Dog.
She roared back, raising her hand with a ferocious expression and pounding him. The roaring sound in Wen Jiuzhe’s mouth stopped; he raised his arm, half-blocking, half-not blocking, half-dodging, half-not dodging.
At this point, what could Xue Ling not understand? He clearly still had his rationality, he had just deliberately scared her earlier.
For a moment, Xue Ling’s pounding on him grew even louder.
If it hadn’t been for the people guarding outside hearing the zombie roars and rushing in to check on the situation, Xue Ling could have beaten him for a while longer.
When Wen Yi heard the news and walked in, Xue Ling had just been thinking it over and getting angry again, turning around to pound hard on Wen Jiuzhe twice.
Wen Yi’s steps paused. Then she walked in as if nothing had happened and sat down opposite the two of them, with a table between them.
“Congratulations,” she said as she sat down. “Although you’ve become a zombie, compared to those who are completely dead, being able to retain rationality and thought is also a kind of luck.”
A specially made tablet was pushed over. The screen was large and came with a stylus; even with a zombie’s stiff hands, sentences could be input quickly.
“Now let’s talk,” Wen Yi said. “You should know that medicine wasn’t given to you casually. You need to pay a certain price for it.”
Wen Jiuzhe was very clear about this. Wen Yi was not the kind of good person who delighted in helping others. She was someone who did not care much even about her own younger sister, cold and rational.
For her to give him that kind of precious injection, she would definitely demand a return from him.
If Wen Jiuzhe failed, he believed that both he and Xue Ling would become Wen Yi’s experimental materials.
Of course, that might already be the case now.
Instead of following her words to ask about the price, Wen Jiuzhe used the tablet in front of him to raise a question: “You said the drug I injected was extracted from Wen Xuan’s corpse.”
What came from the tablet was a clear, standard female broadcast voice.
Xue Ling had just found the scene a little funny when she was immediately drawn in by the content of that sentence. At this moment, she also recalled information she had previously overlooked.
When Wen Yi introduced the vaccine, she did seem to mention it in passing, but at the time Xue Ling’s mind had been in a mess, and she had not paid attention.
“Yes. I went to Anxi City once before and returned to the Wen family in Qiuzhuang.”
Wen Yi had gone back for Taisui. Her research had fallen into a bottleneck. Coincidentally, after her teacher received her message, he sent people to pick her up and take her to the northern base, so she had them send her to Qiuzhuang along the way.
“When I got to Qiuzhuang, I found that Wen Xuan had eaten Taisui and become a rational zombie. Unfortunately, his zombie identity was exposed, and he was beaten to death.” When Wen Yi spoke of her cousin’s death, her tone was flat.
“Fortunately, the corpse hadn’t rotted yet. I brought it back, processed it, and extracted the dose of medicine you used.”
Wen Jiuzhe, as if he cared greatly about the Wen family, input another sentence: “How are the other members of the Wen family?”
Wen Yi said, “There was an accident. Wen Xiang died, the second uncle also died. The Wen family is pretty much dead.”
Xue Ling recalled the trip Wen Jiuzhe had made to the Wen family last year and unconsciously turned her head to look at him.
After turning into a zombie, the expression on his face revealed even less.
But based on her understanding of him, Xue Ling had a kind of firm intuition.
The Wen family’s accident might very well be related to Wen Jiuzhe.
Wen Jiuzhe showed not the slightest hint of guilt, but Xue Ling began to feel guilty on his behalf. She hid both hands under the table and lowered her head to look at the tabletop.
After asking only these two questions, Wen Jiuzhe returned to Wen Yi’s original topic.
