From that group of researchers, Xue Ling learned that Wen Jiuzhe should currently be carrying out a secret mission, so she was not in a hurry to look for him.
She was still digesting this new world. After completing one round of revival treatment, she could speak and move about, but her body was still skinny like a dried corpse. It was said that the next revival treatment would begin restoring her appearance.
Taking advantage of the overly excited crowd leaving the ward, she also got up and walked outside, wanting to take a look at the environment beyond.
She walked around this quiet building, and in the end stood on an elevated corridor bridge, letting the wind blow against her.
Three hundred years—everyone she had known was gone, and everything familiar had vanished as well.
But the world had not grown worse; humanity was still stubbornly alive.
They had defeated the zombie virus, though they were still battling infected mutant animals.
Humans now had new habitable zones. Within those zones, cities had been rebuilt, communication had been restored, and technology had advanced beyond the past, especially in medicine, where achievements were outstanding.
The zombie virus had once nearly destroyed human society, yet now it had led to humanity’s average lifespan reaching one hundred years—nearly thirty years longer than during the peaceful era more than three hundred years ago.
Once Xue Ling could begin thinking, her mind became somewhat chaotic. She was receiving too much information; one moment she thought of Wen Jiuzhe, the next moment she thought of other people she had known.
Past and present interwove, the old world and the new world tugging at each other in her mind. She was like a trash bag swept up by a typhoon, drifting and fluttering in the sky.
It felt as though she had thought about many things, yet also as though she had thought about nothing at all.
The distant sky was very blue, the white clouds very white… A flying craft passed across the sky.
It looked somewhat like the helicopters from before, but the noise was not as loud. Could it be that this was now used for daily travel? Xue Ling wondered.
She saw the flying craft hover nearby, and someone jumped down from it.
That person walked toward the building where she stood. As he drew closer and closer, the way he walked and his appearance both made Xue Ling feel familiar.
When she saw that face clearly, Xue Ling’s first reaction was to quickly hide.
Just like when she had turned into a zombie and reunited with Wen Jiuzhe, at the moment she saw him, her instinctive reaction had also been to hide.
During those few seconds of squatting down, she then felt something was off.
What was she hiding for? So she slowly stood up again and quietly looked over there.
Logically speaking, she should not have been nervous or afraid. At a time like this, she should have shouted Wen Jiuzhe’s name and rushed into a long-awaited, heart-stirring embrace.
Just like lovers reuniting in those classic idol dramas.
Yet she truly felt an inexplicable panic.
While she was performing her in-place squat-stand, squat-stand exercise, she discovered that Wen Jiuzhe downstairs had disappeared.
A jolt of panic rose in her heart. She released the corridor railing and walked toward her own ward.
She had taken only a few steps when a whooshing gust of wind came from behind. Xue Ling’s head tipped forward—her back of the head had been seized by a hand.
That hand was very broad, firmly gripping the back of her head. It roughly felt it a couple of times, as if confirming something, then he directly grabbed Xue Ling’s head and turned it around.
Xue Ling involuntarily turned with his movement, and heard him say, “Xue Ling.”
At that moment, what Xue Ling thought was: Damn it, what did you use to recognize me—was it the feel of touching the back of my head just now?
Did you recognize me by the shape of my skull?!
Her mind was screaming, but her mouth dryly said, “Ah, Wen… Jiuzhe.”
Different from the zombie Wen Jiuzhe she had last seen, he now looked closer to his original human appearance.
Except that his eyes were still red, his skin was no longer bluish; it had turned into a kind of cold white that humans would have, with no strange blood vessel colors showing through.
His hair was pitch-black, and his lips were red as well.
Under his eye, there was a “red mole.” That had once been a small hole she had accidentally poked with her finger. It had actually remained on his skin until now, truly becoming a tiny tear mole.
Wen Jiuzhe’s palm was still covering the back of her head as he bent down to gaze at her.
He looked at the empty hospital gown hanging loosely on her body, and at her eyes, which seemed as though she were encountering the world for the first time, filled with panic.
“Where did you run off to,” he said. “I’ve been looking for you for a long time.”
“Why is it so hard to find you every time?”
“I…” Xue Ling had just opened her mouth when she saw him press down toward her face.
Xue Ling: “?”
Xue Ling: “!”
You come up and try to kiss me right away—are your eyes okay? In this state, you can still bring yourself to do it? Your taste is way too heavy.
Xue Ling was so frightened she slid downward, grabbing the railing beside her to avoid this heavy-flavored kiss.
She refused to kiss a dried corpse, even if that dried corpse was herself.
“Don’t get excited! Wen Jiuzhe, calm down!” she suddenly shouted sharply. In her agitation, she wedged her head into the railing.
Xue Ling: “…”
Wen Jiuzhe: “…”
Because of her behavior, Wen Jiuzhe did indeed calm down a little.
He was rendered speechless, bent down and forcefully pried apart the railing, then pulled the silent Xue Ling out and held her in his arms as he walked outward.
Xue Ling had thought he was going to send her back to the ward. When she realized he was preparing to go outside, she shifted uneasily. “Where are you going?”
“To take you back.”
Xue Ling: “Calm down! Calm down!”
Wen Jiuzhe: “How am I not calm?”
Xue Ling: “Look at me like this. I still have to do revival treatment here. I can’t be discharged yet.”
Wen Jiuzhe stopped abruptly, finally remembering this issue.
He pressed Xue Ling tightly against himself and rubbed his forehead.
“You have a heartbeat again,” Xue Ling said, leaning against him.
The temperature coming from Wen Jiuzhe was a little lower than that of a normal person, but a bit warmer than a zombie should be. Inside his chest, the thudding heartbeat hammered against her eardrums, making Xue Ling feel astonished.
Revived thawers would regain a heartbeat, but under normal circumstances it beat very, very slowly, almost impossible to detect.
A heartbeat this fast was an abnormal condition.
If it kept pounding this intensely for more than half an hour, the newly grown heart could directly explode.
But Xue Ling, who had just awakened, did not know this. She was still happy because she had just heard the sound of his heartbeat.
Wen Jiuzhe supported her in his arms, the two facing each other. “You will recover soon as well.”
Xue Ling looked at his face and said hesitantly, “Can you smile a little? I’m a bit scared of your expression.”
She had never seen such a cold expression on Wen Jiuzhe’s face before. In the past, he was either smiling or casually indifferent.
Wen Jiuzhe did not know what expression he was wearing. He had not looked in a mirror for a long time.
“Idiot,” he said. “You’re not afraid of me. You’re afraid of this unfamiliar world.”
You feel that everything has changed, that even I am different from before, so you’re afraid.
“Don’t be afraid, I’m still here,” Wen Jiuzhe said.
The trash bag flying in the air gently drifted down to the ground.
Xue Ling suddenly heard her own heartbeat thud once. It was as though she had only just come back to her senses. She reached out and wrapped her arms around Wen Jiuzhe’s neck.
“Don’t be afraid,” she murmured in repetition. “I’m still here too.”
As soon as she finished speaking, her forehead was fiercely kissed.
Xue Ling’s heart thudded again. “……”
Do you have to kiss me this once? You’d get a smoother, more satisfying feel kissing the railing beside us.
Wen Jiuzhe took a deep breath and slowly smiled at her.
Xue Ling: “……Your smile looks so strange.”
Wen Jiuzhe: “Not as strange as you.”
“?” Xue Ling realized she had been attacked. Her hand moved on its own and pinched his arm.
Wen Jiuzhe: “Right, use more force.”
Xue Ling immediately let go, unwilling to let him feel good.
“Where are the group of researchers in this building? Why haven’t I seen a single one?” Wen Jiuzhe carried Xue Ling as he searched through the building.
In the end, he saw them in the cafeteria on the third floor.
This group of people had already drunk themselves into a daze. The dozen or so who were only concerned with celebrating the end of their hard days—none of them had remembered to send Wen Jiuzhe a message first.
“Did they accidentally forget, or deliberately accidentally forget,” Wen Jiuzhe said, looking at the familiar people going crazy by the dining tables in the cafeteria.
Xue Ling: “They might be celebrating our reunion.”
Wen Jiuzhe let out a cold laugh and keenly asked, “Did they speak ill of me to you?”
“Don’t believe this group of people. Back when I was sent here to be thawed, they still wanted to study me, wanted to apply to make me an experimental subject. Unfortunately, they found out my identity and only then regretfully gave up their original plan, but for a long time afterward they still wanted me to cooperate in doing experiments.”
“I spent several years putting them in their place.”
Wen Jiuzhe was truly not polite to them; he directly woke up the two closest people.
With a face like the King of Hell demanding lives, he scared them sober.
“Wake everyone up. I want to see the revival treatment plan you made for Xue Ling,” he said.
Giving them time to clear their heads, Wen Jiuzhe and Xue Ling returned to her ward.
After stepping inside and taking two glances, he said, “Move to the room I used to stay in.”
Xue Ling had no objections; whichever ward she stayed in was the same.
Wen Jiuzhe was more familiar with this place. Perhaps his ward was more comfortable.
“Has your ward been kept until now?” Xue Ling did not have much to pack, only a book a researcher had provided to her.
“I come here to stay sometimes, so I have a room here.”
Wen Jiuzhe noticed the book in Xue Ling’s hand.
“Did you see the part about Wen Yi in that book?”
“Mm, they said there’s an article about Sister Yi’s life, so I flipped through it.”
“Did they also tell you that the current Beifeng District is a large district rebuilt after the original Beizheng Base disbanded, and that the current First Research Institute was formerly the research institute where Academician Wen Yi once served as director?”
Wen Jiuzhe took the book from her hand. “Don’t develop affection for them just because of a bit of rhetorical skill.”
“Of the seven major districts, three have ties to the former Beizheng Base. Wen Yi being director of the research institute is ancient history from hundreds of years ago. These people are not her disciples. They say this only to build a connection with you.”
Xue Ling looked at his expression, yet in her heart she thought: Did you once feel a sense of closeness because of such words, and later become disappointed, which is why you’re warning me like this?
Wen Jiuzhe’s former ward was at the far end of this floor. He walked ahead and pushed the door open in one motion.
Xue Ling only took one glance before she was stunned by the state of the room.
“You… you used to live in this kind of unfinished room?”
A researcher who had woken up first happened to arrive. Hearing this, he could not help explaining, “He tore it down like this himself!”
They had never seen anyone with such strong vigilance and such lack of trust in people. A fully furnished ward had been forcibly stripped down into an unfinished shell for him to live in.
Wen Jiuzhe: “Who knows which corner of their wards might have surveillance. Better to strip it clean.”
“That’s for monitoring patients’ conditions in real time, for treatment needs. Every ward has it! And it’s one thing if you dismantled the regular surveillance, but you even removed our data-monitoring devices!” the researcher said indignantly.
“You think I don’t know that revival treatment doesn’t require that much data?” Wen Jiuzhe directly exposed the unspoken rule, revealing his troublesome and forceful side. “Xue Ling’s revival treatment plan. Give it to me.”
He now looked every bit an experienced doctor. After flipping through the plan, he immediately said, “Seven days later is too late. Do it tomorrow.”
The researcher who brought the plan argued on reasonable grounds: “This is to adjust her condition. In these seven days, she can slowly adapt…”
Wen Jiuzhe interrupted: “Don’t try to fool me. I’m familiar with this process too. One day is enough. I know you just want to extend the time to collect more of her physical data. Since you can’t find loopholes on my side, you want to target her instead?”
The researcher said awkwardly, “…It’s only a little data. Your situation is too special.”
“Do as I say. If you do one unnecessary thing, I’ll blow up your building,” Wen Jiuzhe said calmly.
As a member of the Anomaly Squad, he truly could do it, and he truly was not afraid of the punishment after acting on impulse.
