From the year 3357, when the First Research Institute of Beifeng District awakened Wen Jiuzhe from Cryo Pod No. 002, their hard days began.
Before they had finished verifying in historical records that the hero who had completed many major missions and was posthumously honored as a martyr was him, they first witnessed Wen Jiuzhe himself—how difficult and… how mad he was.
This man who had slept for three hundred years, the moment he stepped out of the cryo pod, was filled with vigilance and distrust toward everything around him. When he remembered nothing at all, he still resisted their treatment.
After much difficulty, they carried out the first round of revival treatment. When he recalled the past, they thought the situation would improve, but who could have expected it to become even worse.
After the initial silence passed, he began asking many questions.
What year is it now, where is this place, who are you people, and most importantly, where is Xue Ling, who should have been with him, and where is Cryo Pod No. 001.
“Where is Xue Ling.” Later, this was the sentence he said the most.
At that time, everyone in the research institute was still immersed in the excitement of having excavated a carrier of the mutated virus from the early apocalypse, and still wanted to study the abnormal virus in his body. How could they have known that this was the beginning of their miserable ten years.
They told Wen Jiuzhe countless times that his cryo pod had been dug out from some ruins. That place had already been explored several times, and no other cryo pods were found.
But Wen Jiuzhe did not believe it. He did not even accept the second round of revival treatment and directly escaped from the research institute.
There were guards at the door of his ward, and various security measures at the gate of the institute, yet they did not know how he ran out.
If it had not been because his appearance at that time was too frightening and he could not conceal his tracks after going out, and because Beifeng District had abundant surveillance and patrol guards, he might truly have succeeded in escaping.
In order to placate him, they took people to personally look at those ruins again, but he was not soothed by this.
He also went to see all the cryo pods excavated in the same batch. Even those that had been tested as having no possibility of awakening and had already been scrapped and buried, he insisted on seeing.
After confirming that the person he wanted was not there, they thought he should give up.
But he quickly made the people of the research institute understand what stubbornness and persistence meant.
If she was not at the same site in the same batch, then she must be somewhere else.
While receiving revival treatment at the research institute, he simultaneously searched through various thawing records documented over the past three hundred years.
Because many records required high-level clearance, after finishing his revival treatment, he directly joined the Anomaly Squad of Beifeng District.
Many of the thawed people could not adapt to living together with ordinary people, yet they possessed strength beyond normal humans.
In order to “control” these people, each district provided them with different jobs.
At the same time, in gratitude for the contributions and status some had before being frozen, they were given extremely generous living conditions and compensation.
Wen Jiuzhe could have chosen other work and lived very easily, but he did not choose that. Instead, he entered the Anomaly Squad, which had the highest threshold and was the most grueling.
The Anomaly Squad of the Seven Major Districts, composed entirely of the Undying, also known as the Elite Squad, was responsible for completing tasks that ordinary teams could not accomplish and eliminating the most stubborn mutated animals.
Of course, they also possessed very high authority.
Wen Jiuzhe used this identity to obtain high-level clearance and review the thawing status of all registered frozen persons across the entire territory.
He stayed at the First Research Institute for half a year. Over the next three to four years, he searched and filtered through the vast thawing database.
At the same time, taking advantage of the missions of the Anomaly Squad, he traveled across the Seven Major Districts to search for her.
If he had only searched by himself, that would have been one thing. But he did not let off the people of the Beifeng District Research Institute either.
Because when he left District A for other districts, it was to carry out missions and he could not spend most of his time on investigation, so whenever he had the opportunity, he would apply to have people from the research institute go with him.
Just because they were experienced, just because they had damn well been responsible for Wen Jiuzhe’s revival procedures back then, from that point on Wen Jiuzhe haunted them like an unshakable ghost, occupying every one of their holidays.
Although there were subsidies and extra pay, who would be willing to spend ten continuous years doing that kind of searching for a needle in the sea—utterly tedious and hopeless.
Wen Jiuzhe would not listen to any of their suggestions, nor would he accept any of their so-called bad conjectures. Every time he appeared at the research institute, he would randomly grab someone and take them away.
The landing locations were random as well—sometimes temporary storage points for cryo pods in other districts, sometimes research institutes in other districts, sometimes cryogenic ruins or private laboratory ruins found in abandoned zones.
Those abandoned zones were extremely dangerous; infected mutated animals were often lurking nearby, eyeing them.
Although Wen Jiuzhe was very capable and would ensure their safety, aside from members of the Anomaly Squad, what normal person would willingly be forced to work in that kind of dangerous, high-pressure environment!
It was not as if the people at the First Research Institute had never thought of resisting, but Wen Jiuzhe had risen too quickly.
He was an ace in the Anomaly Squad, and coupled with his special past identity, considering who he was, those above were very tolerant of him. As long as he did not cross the line, they let him be.
In the end, the only ones injured were the people of the First Research Institute.
They had become tools used to placate Wen Jiuzhe, frequently subjected to his sudden “raids” and mental torment.
Over these ten years, the name “Xue Ling” was mentioned most often not by Wen Jiuzhe, but by the people of the First Research Institute.
This name had almost become their inner demon.
One of the widely circulated jokes at the First Research Institute was that a certain researcher, while sleeping, had for a long time murmured the name “Xue Ling” in his dreams. His girlfriend discovered it, thought he was in love with someone else, and angrily broke up with him.
“Yes, it’s this unlucky guy. At the time he was grabbed by Wen Jiuzhe to go on a mission. In a laboratory in an abandoned zone, he accompanied Wen Jiuzhe in digging up more than a thousand corpses from cryo pods.”
Xue Ling looked at the person being pointed at. At first glance he seemed very calm; at second glance she realized he was smiling as tears fell.
Xue Ling: …You really don’t need to exaggerate so much.
Sitting on the hospital bed, before she even had time to grieve, Xue Ling was surrounded by a group of middle-aged men in wild elation.
They were like terminally ill patients seeing hope, like ten years of research finally glimpsing dawn. Every single one of them was visibly not quite mentally normal.
At this moment, the most normal person in the ward was actually the only patient—Xue Ling.
Looking at those pairs of shining eyes, Xue Ling did not even dare to speak.
She felt as if, say, her family dog had gone missing and she was grieving, and suddenly a group of people told her the dog was still alive, only it had caused a lot of trouble, bitten them, and torn apart their homes.
Xue Ling clutched the dog’s collar, facing a group of agitated victims. The joy of something lost being regained had been scared away by them.
So after all that talk, where was Wen Jiuzhe?
Wen Jiuzhe was on a mission.
An urgent, confidential, dangerous mission.
But this kind of mission was considered daily routine for the Anomaly Squad.
The squad Wen Jiuzhe belonged to had nine members and was the most elite Anomaly Squad in Beifeng District.
In the fallen land of the abandoned zone, the most dangerous place for ordinary people, their state was still relaxed.
Two people were squatting by the steel-reinforced ruins grilling meat, two were sitting on broken stone benches playing cards, one was sitting nearby doing hand-knitted crafts, and one was using a knife to stab at the mutated ants constantly emerging from the ground to pass the time.
The captain and vice-captain, who were the most diligent and responsible, returned after finishing up and, sweeping a glance around them, were the first to feel a headache coming on.
“Xiao Dong and Xiao Gu, stop roasting that thing, that thing can’t be eaten!” the captain shouted.
The two roasting meat said, “I’ll just taste the flavor, chew it and spit it out.”
“With this century-old spicy sauce I just dug out of the ruins, it’s awesome!”
“Although we’re called ‘Undying,’ that doesn’t mean we won’t die no matter what we eat. You two, don’t go too far,” the vice-captain said.
“Xiao Tang, stop poking at your ants!”
Xiao Tang stood up and picked up a palm-sized, glossy, giant ant and tossed it beside the fire: “For you guys to eat, supplement some protein.”
“Ah, are you trying to die, that’s the mutated insect meat I just finished roasting!”
“No fighting allowed! And no eating either! All of you stop!”
“The mission’s pretty much done, we should head back… wait, where’s Wen Jiuzhe?”
The two playing cards took a moment to say, “Where else would he go? Of course he’s checking around to see if there are any hidden laboratories, looking for cryo pods.”
“He’s really persistent. He’s been looking for so long and still hasn’t given up.”
“…Who’s going to find him and urge him? We should leave,” the captain said.
“I’m not going. Who dares provoke him at a time like this? Maybe he didn’t find anything and is looking for somewhere to vent. If I go over and irritate him and get kicked to death, what then? Last time I saw him stomp a cryo pod until it fell apart. Terrifying. No wonder he’s the man who can kick through a mutated bear’s spine with one foot.”
“When has Brother Wen been that fierce? At most he’d grab you and fling you away. You won’t die.”
“If you’re not scared, then you go.”
“I’m not going! Whether Brother Wen hits people or not is another matter. The way he has no expression and doesn’t speak is truly frightening.”
As the group was talking, a person came around the corner of the ruins ahead.
Tall in build, weapon strapped on his back, empty-handed, he walked through the suddenly quiet teammates without expression and stepped onto the aircraft parked in the open space to the side.
“Looks like he didn’t find anything again,” someone said in a low voice.
Everyone got up one after another. The ones roasting meat reluctantly threw down the still-uncooked chunks, the ones playing cards tossed aside their cards, and all silently boarded the aircraft.
If they kept the “Team Tyrant” waiting too long, he really would just fly the aircraft away by himself.
Every time after finishing a mission, the hardest part to endure was this stretch of the return trip. Even the two youngest and most talkative in the team did not speak.
Finally, the captain flying the aircraft cleared his throat and said, “Wen Jiuzhe, same as before, you’re going straight to the research institute, right?”
From the dark corner of the back row came a cold and heavy, “Mm.”
The youngest, Xiao Dong, said in a small voice, “Brother Wen, then I’ll help you take the weapon back to the team first.”
The person sitting alone in the back did not speak, and kicked the weapon by his feet over.
Xiao Dong hurriedly took it and placed it properly beside himself.
Dong Yang was the youngest thawed person in the team, and also the one who admired Wen Jiuzhe the most, because he had been turned out from a cryo pod in some ruins by Wen Jiuzhe.
If not for Wen Jiuzhe, he did not know what year it would have been before he was discovered.
Over these years, among the cryo pods Wen Jiuzhe had dug up everywhere, quite a few were like Dong Yang—turned out by him and sent to the research institute for treatment.
Only the person he most wanted to find had never been found.
The aircraft of the Anomaly Squad could pass air inspection directly, enter the habitable zone, and after flying above the First Research Institute, began to descend.
At a suitable height, Wen Jiuzhe stood up, pushed open the hatch, and jumped down directly.
The aircraft circled once above the open tarmac of the First Research Institute and quickly flew away.
Wen Jiuzhe carried nothing on him. His clothes were still stained with dust and grime from this mission.
He crossed the tarmac and walked toward the building ahead, not hearing the commotion that occurred every time he came.
As long as those researchers saw him appear, they would hide. There was always a chaotic burst of noise from the building. Today, however, it was quite quiet; he did not hear panicked shouts or running footsteps.
Now possessing extremely sharp senses, Wen Jiuzhe casually lifted his eyes and glanced at the building.
His gaze quickly swept across the corridors of the building, then turned to the elevated connecting corridor suspended between buildings.
There was a dark figure there that held his gaze for two seconds.
That person was wearing the blue patient uniform exclusively for thawed individuals. Even from such a distance, Wen Jiuzhe could see the other’s thin body and corpse-like appearance.
Wen Jiuzhe had seen too many thawed individuals. Those corpses that had been left in cryo pods too long without being thawed and had lost vitality looked just like this.
Her appearance was actually nothing special, but she was leaning against the corridor railing, and seemed to have seen him as well.
She quickly made a movement of standing on tiptoe, as if wanting to look more closely, then very obviously trembled, and subconsciously retreated two steps from the corridor in slight panic.
She crouched down for a few seconds, then furtively showed half her face again to look in his direction.
Wen Jiuzhe watched that figure’s series of movements and could not move his eyes away.
In his heart, there suddenly arose an absurd certainty.
His steps slowed for a moment, then quickened, and finally turned into a run.
