16 years

Heavy footsteps could be heard in the corridor from time to time, Fang Sining leaned against the corner, staring nervously at the door blocked by the sofa, his heart tightened up and down.

He didn't dare to go out, and he didn't dare to determine what those walking around outside were.

When Fu Yan contacted him earlier, the situation in Pengcheng hadn't spread yet. At first, he was skeptical about Fu Yan's words, until he saw the takeaway boy suddenly go crazy and bite the receptionist at the front desk in the lobby on the first floor. , he was vaguely aware of the seriousness of this matter.

Fang Sining couldn't fight, and he didn't dare to run, so he could only hide in the house according to Fu Yan's words.

Within a few hours, there were occasional sounds of biting and swearing and fleeing outside. The upstairs room did not know who lived there. An unknown liquid dripped on the floor of Fang Sining's suite.

The water dripped for a day and a night, overflowed from the bathroom door, and formed a small puddle on the ground.

Fang Sining gritted his teeth and forced himself not to think about what that thing was, and kept his eyes open all day and night without daring to sleep, wishing he could memorize the biological link formula ten thousand times in his head.

He had to pin his hopes on the "Wu Diao" whom he had never met before, hoping that the other party would really bring him to see Shao Qiu as he said.

At least... at least tell him about the murder of the teacher, Fang Sining thought.

When Fang Sining was negotiating with Fu Yan, he spoke bluntly and neatly, as if he was familiar with Shao Qiu, but now that he was alone, he felt a little uncertain.

Calculating with his fingers, he and Shao Qiu hadn't seen each other for six or seven years, and the last meeting at that time still broke up unhappy, so that Fang Sining couldn't imagine the other party's current attitude.

Forget it, Fang Sining thought, let's take one step at a time.

He was thinking aimlessly, and then suddenly remembered something, slowly stood up from the ground, bowed his waist and carefully moved towards the bedroom.

The time he agreed with Fu Yan was getting closer and closer, and he had to make plans to escape.

Fang Sining sat in the corner for a day and a night, stood up suddenly, his muscles and bones were weak, he staggered two steps, leaned on the wall and entered the bedroom, took out a backpack from the suitcase, and put the notebook under the pillow The computer is plugged in.

Then he hesitated for a moment, and packed up the research documents he brought with him for this meeting.

He probably guessed why "Wu Diao" had to go around half the country to pick him up - they originally wanted to count on Shao Xuefan, but unfortunately his teacher's life was short, so they could only pin their hopes on him, hoping to see if they could learn from him. Get a little help from Shao Xuefan.

Fang Sining packed his luggage, then hesitated for a moment, reached out and touched his neck.

He wore a leather rope around his neck, and a stainless steel U disk was tied to the lower end of the leather rope, which was the spare key that Shao Xuefan had given him before.

With the situation outside like this, Fang Sining couldn't figure out the situation, so he didn't tell Fu Yan the truth.

The first of which is that Shao Xuefan had explained it when he handed him the secret key back then.

"If you want to use this thing one day, give it to Shao Qiu." At that time, Shao Xuefan called him into the office, held the USB flash drive and said seriously: "There are two combination locks in it, and he knows what the combination is." .”

"Really, teacher." Fang Sining seemed a little hesitant: "But Xiaoqiu..."

Fang Sining obviously knew the inside story of the discord between the Shao family father and son, he said it very tactfully, but it was enough for Shao Xuefan to understand.

Not to mention entrusting important matters, Fang Sining can be sure that there is absolutely no such "tacit understanding" between father and son.

"As long as you tell him that, he will know." Shao Xuefan said: "Actually, no matter what he thinks of me, I am his father after all."

"Okay." Fang Sining sighed, and accepted the things hesitantly: "What's in it, can the teacher tell me?"

At that time Shao Xuefan was silent for a long time, he was sitting by the window, the late autumn sunlight fell on his hunched body, making him look like a mayfly in the twilight.

"I have done a lot of research in my life, some of which are good and some are bad." Shao Xuefan did not answer his question, but said: "I know that the academic circles have different attitudes towards me."

"But I have never regretted it." Shao Xuefan said: "Everything I do is for more people."

"Teacher, academic research is supposed to be dialectical." Fang Sining comforted, "Where your academic attainments are, you don't need to think too much about other people's opinions."

"You're right." Shao Xuefan raised his eyes and looked at Fang Sining. He didn't know what he thought of, his eyes drifted away for a moment and then gathered together, and he told him in a deep tone: "Sining, remember one thing—science is always Innocent, we can only move forward."

"...If you take the wrong path, you must correct the wrong path at all costs." Fang Sining repeated to himself.

Shao Xuefan was his teacher, who taught him every now and then, and he absorbed a lot of Shao Xuefan's thinking mode.

They have had this kind of conversation many times, Fang Sining thinks about it now, and always feels that this spare key contains a certain ending that Shao Xuefan has already seen through.

Fang Sining was taken aback by his guess, and couldn't help shivering, shaking his head, shaking this idea out of his head.

He glanced at the watch on his wrist, there were still 10 to [-] minutes before the appointed time, the footsteps outside had stopped a lot since just now, and he didn't know what was going on outside.

Fang Sining carried the bag on his back, and carefully walked out of the bedroom. He walked to the door, did not dare to move the sofa, but just straddled it, and carefully glanced out through the peephole.

In the next second, a face suddenly rushed over from the cat's eyes. The eyes of the other party were cloudy, black eyes, black blood in the mouth and nose, and the wound on the face was rotten, and the rotten flesh was hanging on the face.

The face suddenly magnified in front of his eyes, Fang Sining screamed, and subconsciously leaned back, but his hands and feet were uncoordinated, and he fell off the sofa and almost fell to the floor.

The zombies outside seemed to be knocking on the door, the door of the room was knocked with a shocking muffled sound, Fang Sining's heart was pounding, and his hands and feet softened immediately.

He didn't dare to look outside anymore, so he could only hold his bag back and lean on the sofa to calm down and breathe.

Not long after, there seemed to be another sound of footsteps outside, which sounded regular and powerful, but it was different from those zombies who swayed in three steps.

Just 2 minutes later, the lifeless banging at his door suddenly stopped. Fang Sining hesitated, wanting to see if the other party had left, but was afraid of being greeted by another zombie.

He was swinging left and right when he heard someone knock on the door from outside.

Like a conditioned reflex, Fang Sining's heart trembled when he heard the knock on the door. Before he could hide, he heard a man's voice from outside.

"Fang Sining?"

Fang Sining recognized his voice. They had a total of three phone conversations in one day and one night. Although the other party didn't speak much each time, his voice and tone were very recognizable.

Fang Sining glanced at his watch subconsciously, and found that it was exactly 5 minutes before his appointment with Fu Yan.

He didn't dare to open the door immediately, but first carefully moved the sofa away, and then glanced out through the peephole.

The man outside the door is about 1.9 meters tall, with neat short hair. He looks very handsome, but his face has no expression and looks a little cold.

He was wrapped in a dark jacket, holding a folding knife in his right hand, the blade was still stained with blood.

The zombie that pounced on Fang Sining's door before had fallen to his feet like a power outage, motionless.

Fang Sining looked him up and down several times, to make sure that the other party would not suddenly turn into that kind of monster that would bite people, then he opened the door and walked out with his head probed.

Fu Yan looked him around and made sure that his beard and tail were not damaged, so he turned his head and walked towards the corridor.

Fang Sining hugged his backpack, looked around, and found that there were quite a few zombies on his floor, there were four or five of them, but now they were all thrown to the street, one by one face down on the ground, the back of the neck was covered with Make a big cut.

"You... all killed these?" Fang Sining asked hesitantly.

Fu Yan hummed, but didn't say much.

The strain on his left hand is not healed. Although he regained consciousness, he still feels numb from time to time.There were too many people in this building who didn't escape, so Fu Yan had no choice but to choose the most tortuous road. In order to avoid the concentration of zombies, he even climbed two floors of the outer wall.

But Fu Yan can fly around the wall with only one arm left, but Fang Sining, who spends years in the laboratory all year round, can't.

Rao Fu Yan had already hung the rope when he came, and Fang Sining had a lot of trouble when he went down, and even scratched the palm of his hand when he fell.

Fu Yan didn't care much about him, just threw him a bottle of water to wash the wound.

"Where are Shao Xuefan's documents?" Fu Yan asked.

"In his other laboratory, the southwest side." Fang Sining said: "The climate there is suitable for growing moss, so the teacher also has a research base there."

Fu Yan hummed, dragged Fang Sining around a small road, and after pondering for a while, picked up another car from the street.

It took more effort to pick up this car than the previous few times. I don’t know what happened. The doors and windows of the car were closed, and there was a zombie on the driver’s seat. Glass.

It's a pity that that thing has no rationality and IQ at all, it is very clumsy, and it is tightly tied to the seat by the seat belt and cannot move.It looked much more miserable than other "companions". There were seven or eight bloody holes on its body, and its intestines and blood flowed all over the place. The internal organs were all rotten in front of its body.

Fu Yan opened the car door, gave him a quick break, then dragged the zombie out and threw it on the ground, before pouring a bottle of water on the driver's seat.

"What the hell is this thing..." Fang Sining dared to run out from his hiding place. He looked at the corpse on the ground with lingering fear, and said in disbelief, "It's so rotten that it can still move?"

"Don't talk bad, even if their legs and feet are broken, they can still crawl and move." Fu Yan said: "Only by smashing their brains can they lose their vitality—get in the car."

Fang Sining got into the car with his backpack in his arms, his brows were tightly frowned and his face was serious, until Fu Yan started the car, he still looked back at the corpse from time to time.

Fu Yan glanced at him from the rearview mirror, but said nothing.

But Fang Sining was young, he hesitated for a while, and then he couldn't help himself.

"Have you done any tests?" Fang Sining said.

"No." Fu Yan said, "Too little time...why, do you have an idea?"

"I don't know." Fang Sining said, "I just suddenly remembered that there is a plant virus that has the effect of paralyzing the nervous system."