Xue Ling’s last memory before losing consciousness was Wen Jiuzhe’s hand reaching toward her.
At the time, she was tidying up in the room. There wasn’t really anything to tidy up; she was just finding something to do.
The moment that feeling of losing control over her body appeared, she knew she was malfunctioning again.
Like a statue, she pitched straight forward.
During this period, the number of times she suddenly malfunctioned had increased. Wen Jiuzhe had trained a conditioned reflex out of it, as if he had grown eyes on the back of his head, always ready to catch her at any moment.
Xue Ling watched as his hand shot down in front of her eyes.
If she could talk, she would at least tease him, saying his speed surpassed ninety-nine percent of zombies nationwide.
But then, her vision went dark.
Wen Jiuzhe’s hand was the last image left on her retina.
When she regained consciousness, Xue Ling had the feeling of having taken an overly long afternoon nap—so long that her head was splitting, she had no idea what day it was, and her entire body was weak, making it hard to get up.
She stared blankly at the ceiling with her eyes open. The setting sun shone in through the glass window, casting a dim yellow glow over the room, with reflected patches of light scattered across the ceiling.
A face intruded into Xue Ling’s line of sight.
It was Wen Jiuzhe, but he had suddenly become far too thin—truly a knife-carved jawline that looked sharp enough to prick the hand, with cheekbones that had become much more pronounced.
Xue Ling stared in shock at his now “ugly” face, a bit unable to understand what was going on. Her first reaction was to reach out and touch it.
She failed to control her body and strength very well. Her fingers thrust clumsily onto Wen Jiuzhe’s face, her pointed fingernails stabbing straight in, poking a small hole beneath his eye.
Xue Ling: “……”
No, why has my hand become so hard? Why have my nails grown this long, and why are the tips so sharp?!
Have I super-evolved as a zombie?!
“Ao!” She looked at her own hand, then at Wen Jiuzhe’s face, letting out a frightened cry.
Zombies that had reached a certain level no longer bled. After being poked just now, it only left a needle-prick-like red mark, which at first glance even looked like an extra mole.
Xue Ling noticed that Wen Jiuzhe was only looking at her, not communicating with her, and was strangely observing the surroundings. They were in an unfamiliar place.
Where was this again? Weren’t they in the Gobi, at Laboratory 8027?
Because Wen Jiuzhe was right beside her, even though his appearance had changed a bit, Xue Ling didn’t feel afraid due to the unfamiliar location—her head was just full of questions.
Seeing that Wen Jiuzhe was still staring at her without reacting, Xue Ling clenched her fist, hiding her sharp fingers, and punched his shoulder with it.
What are you doing? What happened?
Wen Jiuzhe seemed to be punched awake by her. He picked up the tablet placed beside him and typed: “Who am I? Do you still recognize me?”
“Wen Jiuzhe. I’m not an idiot.”
She showed the tablet to Wen Jiuzhe. There was no need for further words.
Wen Jiuzhe read it word by word, as if he had suddenly become illiterate. After looking at it for a long time, he reached out and pulled her into his arms.
His strength was enormous, and Xue Ling couldn’t break free.
Why was he so excited?
Could it be that she had lost consciousness for ten days or half a month?
That Wen Jiuzhe had taken her elsewhere to look for treatment methods, worrying about her the whole time, and had ended up this haggard?
Xue Ling was almost squeezed into a foldable screen by the hug when someone knocked on the door and poked a head in, saying, “Brother Wen, Team Leader Tan and the others are done over there, the mission’s completed. Are we heading back immediately again this time?”
This was a soldier whose skin had been tanned dark by the sun. When his gaze met Xue Ling’s, he froze for a moment, then said, “Ah, Xue Ling’s pretty quiet this time. She didn’t even try to attack when she saw someone. Is the new drug kind of working?”
Xue Ling: “?”
Wen Jiuzhe skillfully tucked her under his arm, walked over and kicked the door shut with his foot, conveniently locking the speaker outside.
Then he started poking and tapping at the tablet again.
Xue Ling pried his arm open and leaned over to take a look. What he had written was: “You finally woke up. You’ve been stupid for over a year.”
Xue Ling was greatly shocked. No way—how could time have passed so fast? She felt like it was just the length of an afternoon nap.
“Liar! Don’t even think about tricking me!” Xue Ling snatched his tablet and typed.
Then, on the tablet’s built-in display, she saw that it was now the year 3037.
When they went to the Gobi, it was 3036.
He wouldn’t go so far as to deliberately change the time just to fool her, right?
Being suspected of lying, Wen Jiuzhe didn’t explain further. He just stared at her, staring until Xue Ling felt uneasy.
She got up, laboriously walked to the glass window, pushed open the frosted glass, and looked outside.
In the distance was actually a vast expanse of blue ocean.
The seaside was so far from the Gobi—so even if Wen Jiuzhe were lying to her, at least two months must have passed.
Xue Ling noticed that Wen Jiuzhe was wearing something like a mechanical wristwatch on his hand, with the time displayed on it.
October 3037.
She also noticed a syringe with its packaging torn open placed on the table. Printed on the packaging was the production date, also October 3037.
Xue Ling finally believed it—she had lost consciousness for over a year.
Holding the familiar tablet, she nervously typed: “So long… was I in a coma, or like the other zombies…”
Wen Jiuzhe typed: “You chased people around biting them every day, like a Pomeranian.”
Xue Ling: “……”
How did he manage to use a single sentence to dispel my anxiety and leave me with nothing but anger?
Wen Jiuzhe: “Just like this expression right now. Very fierce.”
Xue Ling touched her own face and finally turned her attention to herself.
Why were the red and green blood vessel networks on her arms interwoven like a circuit board?
And also—this string hanging on her chest!
Two merit medals, and more than a dozen medals and badges of different styles!
No wonder walking just now felt difficult—those dozen-plus plaques were heavy, all strung together, hanging on her body and clinking as they moved.
“You earned these?” Xue Ling found it even harder to believe.
Wen Jiuzhe sat in front of her, legs spread, enclosing her between them. His gaze didn’t move at all; he only tilted his head slightly in response.
Otherwise?
Xue Ling: “…You’ve been doing so many missions behind my back?”
Wen Jiuzhe leaned closer to her and continued typing on her tablet: “It really was carrying you along to do them together.”
The two “carry”s did not mean the same thing.
Xue Ling processed it for a moment.
Under his gaze, Xue Ling raised her hand, wanting to scratch her head.
Wen Jiuzhe stopped her.
“Your nails are very sharp now. Don’t poke your head—be careful not to scrape your scalp off.”
Hearing that, Xue Ling couldn’t help but look again at the small red dot beneath his eye—the one she had poked when she woke up.
She hadn’t noticed it when she wasn’t paying attention. As Xue Ling examined Wen Jiuzhe, she saw many scratches on the bluish-white skin exposed on his body. Could they all have been made by her? She looked at her fingertips and reached over to compare.
Wen Jiuzhe pulled her hand down again: “A lot of them were from doing missions.”
Xue Ling’s gaze shifted to his other hand, the one not wearing the watch. On that wrist was a silver handcuff. The other end of the cuff was empty, swaying with his movements.
That… couldn’t be something he usually used to cuff her, right?
It was used to cuff her! Xue Ling saw marks on her own wrist.
She sat in front of Wen Jiuzhe, hands resting on his thighs, feeling a bit awkward, not knowing what to say.
She hadn’t yet digested so much information, and besides, Wen Jiuzhe was far too quiet.
Aside from a few explanations, he just stared at her in silence. The idle, trouble-seeking chatter was much less than before.
Xue Ling paused for a while, preparing to say something.
Wen Jiuzhe typed first: “Racking your brains trying to figure out how to comfort me? Spare your brain. Don’t think about it.”
“Today, I’m already very happy.”
More than a year ago, Wen Yi said that Xue Ling had turned into a complete zombie. He refused to believe it and took her back to the Northern Main Base.
Director Rong Lanjia of the Jia Institute and Wen Yi’s junior sister, Xu Zhihua, helped extract the Taisui serum from Zeng Yitong’s body.
But whether it was because there was too little Taisui residue left in Zeng Yitong’s body, or for some other reason, Xue Ling did not recover.
Her condition became sometimes good, sometimes bad. When it was bad, she was a zombie who had completely lost her rationality and only wanted to chase humans.
When it was good, she would sit quietly, even take the tablet Wen Jiuzhe handed her.
This once made Wen Jiuzhe wildly overjoyed, thinking she had regained her rationality—but she would not input any words on the tablet, nor could she communicate with him.
As Xue Ling’s condition continued to show no improvement, Wen Jiuzhe secretly heard some people calling for her to be dealt with, or demanding that she be moved out of the research base.
Although General Hao gave assurances, saying that those who said such things were only a minority, it still made Wen Jiuzhe uneasy.
He kept Xue Ling by his side at all times. No matter what mission he was doing, especially when there were other people around, he never let her leave him.
Many missions became even more troublesome with an irrational zombie in tow. People from the base tried to persuade him several times, promising that Xue Ling would be protected at the base and that no one would harm her.
Wen Jiuzhe still refused. He had only one sentence: if he could not keep Xue Ling with him at all times, he would no longer do any missions.
Those medals hanging on Xue Ling—honors that Wen Jiuzhe had once disdained—he carefully hung all of them on her.
He only hoped that if one day they were accidentally separated, anyone who wanted to harm Xue Ling would, upon seeing so many medals on her, refrain from hurting her.
Over the past year or so, it wasn’t only the Northern Main Base; people from other bases had also learned of Wen Jiuzhe’s existence and hoped to receive support from the Northern Main Base.
Wen Jiuzhe refused no one. As long as it was a mission he could do, he would go. Those who knew him couldn’t help but feel awe toward him, because his efficiency in completing missions was too high—he was practically omnipotent.
Only Wen Yi knew that he was about to go mad.
A few months ago, after Wen Yi returned to the Northern Main Base from the Gobi laboratory, Wen Jiuzhe asked her, “Is there still a chance for Xue Ling to regain her rationality?”
“The possibility is very small,” Wen Yi said.
“What if we extract Taisui serum from me again?”
“You would really die. Earlier than Xue Ling.”
“…I miss her too much.” Wen Jiuzhe held Xue Ling’s hand and said, “I want her to talk to me. Even just one sentence.”
Wen Yi studied Wen Jiuzhe’s physical condition and conducted some experiments.
In the end, she performed a partial extraction on Wen Jiuzhe and combined it with the latest RE virus research to produce a kind of drug.
“Ten doses. Inject one every week. If you’re lucky, she might recover some rationality. If all ten doses are used and there’s still no change, that means she’s already completely brain-dead and can no longer be awakened.”
“But this is a highly stimulating drug with severe side effects. You have to know that even if she really regains rationality, it won’t last long.”
“And afterward, the Taisui in her body will be exhausted. Perhaps that really will be complete death.”
The first dose was injected.
Xue Ling showed no change.
The second dose was injected.
Xue Ling spiritedly howled madly at a passing researcher, scaring him so badly he fled in panic.
The third dose was injected.
Xue Ling went berserk and left many scratches on his body.
The fourth dose was injected.
Xue Ling tore out the seats in the vehicle and smashed the glass with a single punch.
The fifth dose was injected…
…
The eighth dose… she reached out toward him, accidentally poked a small hole in his face, and scared herself into letting out an “ao.”
“Who am I?”
“Wen Jiuzhe,” she answered.
She always returned suddenly, stepping right on the brink of his despair.
