16 years

Yancheng, Department A Military Region.

The building of the research institute was brightly lit, and the inconspicuous small building was tightly surrounded by guards with live ammunition. The elevator inside went up and down, and the numbers on the indicator board kept flashing.

In the corridor, the researcher in the white coat was almost running, and his footsteps shuttled between the floors.

Disinfection alerts and security check signals beeped endlessly, hitting people's heels as if to urge them to die.

Shao Xuefan came down from the fourth floor in a hurry and headed into the corridor on the third floor. Just as he randomly applied a dose of disinfectant to his hands, he was surrounded by a group of researchers.

"It's too late, Mr. Shao—"

"I was manic again 10 minutes ago. The sedative was used, but the effect was not good, and another shot of booster was added, but just now there was a tendency to be active—"

"The blood pressure and heartbeat have been dropping, and the blood quality has also declined—"

"Downstairs reported the news that the blood sample sent half an hour ago was invalid, and asked if we could give a more accurate sample—"

"The medicine of B-92 seems to have had the opposite effect, and the zombified signs of the petri dish have accelerated—"

Shao Xuefan was full of chatter around him, rushing to stuff the information into his ears against the clock, Shao Xuefan put his mind to it, while listening to their reports, he quickly signed the two transfer documents.

In this environment, it seems that he is no longer a hunched and lonely empty nest old man, but transformed out of thin air, becoming the king of this isolated island.

Until now, he has not closed his eyes for a full sixty hours.

This is a terrifying number for an old man in his 70s, but Shao Xuefan does not feel tired at all. He is hale and hearty, and his mind is clearer than the researchers around him.

He seemed to have been given a tube of stimulant by work, and he showed completely unreasonable enthusiasm.

"Start Plan B." Shao Xuefan said: "Give up all rescue methods and give her another shot of zombie virus."

The researchers closest to him were stunned when they heard this, and they all hesitated.

"Teacher, are you sure?" A middle-aged woman beside him asked: "We can no longer control the process of zombie transformation of the other party, and if we use the zombie virus again, will it be counterproductive—"

"Scientific research requires an adventurous spirit." Shao Xuefan said: "Since we have reached the bottleneck, we must find another way - B-92 has a mutual impact with the zombie virus, so try it first. If it doesn't work, you can also collect this virus Mutually exclusive sample data."

The woman still hesitated: "But teacher, this trial and error is a bit risky, if it fails, we may lose the petri dish—"

Shao Xuefan patted her on the shoulder as he walked forward.

"It is true that the risk is the least if we stand still, but what we can gain will not increase." Shao Xuefan said: "Instead of letting more time pass by doing nothing, it is better to obtain the most information in the shortest time."

He had reasons and evidence, and the others were obviously convinced quickly, so they dispersed, rushing back to their respective jobs against the clock.

Shao Xuefan's footsteps stopped outside a glass room. In the room separated by a wall, Irene was tied to the treatment chair, biting a thick special material in her mouth, shaking her head back and forth restlessly.

The numbers on the life monitoring instrument around her kept beating, moving up and down in a shockingly wide range.

Judging from the symptoms, the effect of the sedative would disappear completely soon. Shao Xuefan stood outside the glass for a few seconds, then turned around and walked in another direction.

Within a short distance of 20 meters, people kept rushing up to inquire about Shao Xuefan's situation, and then dispersed after getting his advice.It took Shao Xuefan a full 10 minutes to walk from the experimental area to the scientific research area, just tens of meters away.

He replenished the disinfectant once in front of his office door, then opened the sterile box to check the blood samples marked as "invalid".

In the blood collection tube, the originally bright red blood has settled into a decayed dark red color, with strands of oil floating in the blood, stirring the originally flowing blood into a solid fluid like blood tofu.

This state is actually very close to the blood sample state of a zombie. The "available" blood on Irene's body is getting less and less, which means that she is getting closer and closer to an irreversible zombie state.

It's not that Shao Xuefan didn't think about delaying this process, but it's a pity that first, they didn't have time to study the substances in the silver fish, let alone refine them, and second, when the petri dish was delivered, it was already close to a semi-zombified state - irrational, irritable and easily Angry, do not recognize people, and cannot communicate.

So Shao Xuefan simply didn't think about how "the water flows forever", and only thought about how much he could dig out of her.

He put the blood sample aside casually, and was about to check today's data summary, when he heard an alarm sound outside, and a researcher stumbled in, calling him out of breath.

"Ms. Shao, there is something wrong with the petri dish—" the researcher said, "The extracted zombie virus No. 2 reacted with B-92. Her condition suddenly deteriorated, and she may be dying."

Shao Xuefan got up suddenly.

The "too bad" in the researchers' mouth refers to complete zombification - they have modeled and processed it before, and found that even a special "matrix" like a petri dish will lose its particularity once it is fully zombified and become more like a human body. Ordinary zombies are no different.

Her research is meaningful only in her half-human, half-zombie state. Once the other party is completely zombified, she will completely lose the significance of scientific research and become indistinguishable from samples that can be seen everywhere.

"No matter what method you use, keep her in good condition first." Shao Xuefan said: "Clean up the operating room. I will be there in 3 minutes, ready to perform an autopsy."

This was obviously not a temporary decision, and the researcher who sent the message simply agreed, and while pulling up the intercom to tell the situation, he quickly went to inform the operating room.

Three minutes later, Irene was moved to the operating room on the next floor. Shao Xuefan was fully armed, surrounded by the supervisors and assistants of the three research teams.

"The data should be clearly recorded, and the samples cannot be contaminated with each other." Shao Xuefan said, "Do you remember?"

The people around him nodded and agreed in unison.

Irene on the operating table lost her mind long ago, her beautiful pupils were covered with gray mist, and her pupils were dilated, staring straight at the operating light above her head.

Her originally beautiful long hair was neglected, covered with blood and dust, forming large sticky clumps, and was cut off by the researcher for convenience.

They were so busy that they didn't have time to care about the appearance of an experimental equipment, which was cut in a mess and looked like dry grass.Irene's cheeks were thin, her body was full of wounds caused by struggle, and her hair was pitted, like a homeless man who squatted down from the bridge.

I'm afraid that even if Liu Ruosong was present, he couldn't associate her with that beautiful statue again.

Strange to say, it stands to reason that there should be no pain after the zombification, but the moment Shao Xuefan cut Irene's flesh, she suddenly reacted strangely and struggled.

The operating bed was creaked by her shaking, she twisted her body frantically, and let out a low growl from her mouth.

A large stream of blood flowed out from her wound, and Shao Xuefan couldn't do anything for a while.As a last resort, I could only ask someone to temporarily strengthen her restraint standard, and buckled all the movable joints of her whole body to the steel bed.

Shao Xuefan cut Irene's flesh and opened her abdominal cavity—her internal organs had begun to rot, curled up and squeezed into a ball, Shao Xuefan silently pushed aside her useless black organs, and took out a little bit from the aorta Still bright red blood came.

The sedative didn't work, so they didn't waste anesthesia. Irene was tightly tied to the bed, unable to struggle, so she could only yell.

Her whimpers and growls sounded extremely penetrating, like thumb-sized thin steel claws poking in from the hem of the clothes, and then crawling along the spine to the back of her head.

But Shao Xuefan turned a deaf ear to this. With a steady hand and bright eyes, he quickly "split" her into different individuals - bone samples, blood samples, and organ slice samples.

Irene never stopped struggling from beginning to end, she twisted her joints angrily, but to no avail.

After turning into a zombie, many of her physical reactions became dull. She hadn't blinked for a long time, and her eye sockets were dry and sore from the direct light of the surgical lamp.The few "human" parts of her body struggled to accumulate a puddle of water for her, but it was a pity that before her dry eye sockets were moistened, it was spilled by her struggling movements.

A tear fell down the corner of her eye quickly, and no one saw it except the intern standing at the end of the crowd.

She probably doesn't know what pain is, and this tear is completely instinctive, without any emotional support.

But the intern was still shocked when he saw it, and felt that the tear, coupled with Irene's hideous and terrifying expression, became the most ironic film noir.

He has just graduated not long ago, he is still young, he is full of plans and has not yet passed his 24th birthday, he still has a kind of naive "filter" for the world, and his heart is very soft.

He knew rationally that the "experimental equipment" on the operating bed was an irrational zombie, but he saw the pain, struggle and tears of the other party, and he couldn't get over that hurdle in his heart.

Isn't this just a human being, the intern thought, she wasn't completely dead yet.

He gritted his teeth, couldn't bear it, and couldn't help but want to speak, but just as he moved a little, his mentor grabbed his wrist.

The intern's heart trembled, he turned his head subconsciously, and his eyes met the instructor's.

The four eyes met, and his mentor's gaze was sharp and direct, as if he had seen through all his opinions without explanation.

The intern was stared at by the other party and felt guilty. He timidly retracted his outstretched toes, slowly squeezed the notebook in his hand, lowered his head, and did not speak.

His mentor looked at him silently for a while, making sure that he had settled down, and then let go of his hand, took a palm-sized incubator from Shao Xuefan, and stuffed it into the intern's hand.

"Go, send it to the inspection department downstairs."