Volume Six: The Years I Wasn’t Human
Arrival
In the Southwest Qian’an Experimental Zone, a place full of zombies, there was actually a living thing?!
Everyone thought Doctor An Min was talking about zombies, but on second thought, how could zombies be considered living things?
But the words that Doctor An Min suddenly blurted out were too incredible. After all, Doctor An Min did not seem like a person who liked to joke, so was there a basis for what he said?
Everyone watched as Doctor An Min’s hands flew rapidly across the keyboard. The clattering sound of the keyboard was like ten thousand horses galloping1, and just when the four of them thought the keyboard was about to be broken by Doctor An Min, he suddenly stopped.
“220S122M9045Z1783JNG*.” He spoke.
Chu Han and Sang Er looked at each other, then looked at Doctor An Min.
Chu Han asked, “Doctor An Min, what are you saying?”
An Min looked at Chu Han. “Recognize it?”
Chu Han pressed his lips together. “…This is the password for the main door lock of the control room in the Qian’an Experimental Zone’s central building.”
A trace of surprise flashed in An Min’s eyes. “You’re saying this is the password you used to open the control room door the last time you went to the experimental zone?”
Chu Han nodded. “Yes.”
“So, only the thirty of you would know this password?” An Min pushed up his glasses and asked.
“It should be fifteen people,” Chu Han sighed. “By the time we reached the experimental zone, there were only fifteen of us left.”
“Then does that mean only the two of you know this password now?” An Min asked. “Besides the twenty-eight who are already dead, correct?”
Sang Er’s brow furrowed. “What exactly are you trying to ask?”
An Min ignored Sang Er’s question, looked at Chu Han and nodded, the corner of his mouth hooking up. “…Interesting.”
Seeing that An Min was ignoring her, Sang Er couldn’t be bothered to ask again.
Zhong Wenshu saw An Min smile and asked, “Doctor An Min, what did you mean just now when you said there was a living thing in the experimental zone?”
An Min closed his laptop and looked at the four of them. “That string of code just now was transmitted from within the experimental zone. Someone touched the control room’s password lock.”
The four of them were shocked.
Mu Xuan said in astonishment, “Someone touched the experimental zone control room’s password lock?”
Zhong Wenshu instantly understood the meaning behind An Min’s words. He looked at Chu Han. “Could there be a surviving teammate from the last wave in the Qian’an Experimental Zone?”
Chu Han’s expression stiffened, and he said in a deep voice, “…That’s impossible.”
All his teammates had died before his very eyes. It was impossible for any to have survived.
Sang Er shot Chu Han a glare and looked at An Min. “Then what could it be?”
An Min pondered. “If it’s not a human, then it’s a zombie.”
“A zombie?” Sang Er raised an eyebrow. “Can a zombie enter a password?”
Based on the zombie tiers they had encountered so far, they were divided from first-tier to fifth-tier. Above that were the Zombie King2 and the never-before-seen Zombie Emperor3. Generally, when a zombie reached the third tier, it would develop its own spirit and consciousness. The higher the tier, the higher the spirit and consciousness.
Currently, the highest-tier one they had seen was the Zombie King from three months ago. It could communicate normally with humans, think independently for short periods, and control a certain number of zombies to form groups to attack humans, and so on.
The Zombie King’s intelligence was equivalent to that of an ordinary adult who had finished university. However, the password just now combined various advanced elements, and the experimental zone control room’s password lock changed constantly; the password was not fixed. With the Zombie King’s intelligence, it would be fundamentally impossible to crack such a high-level and complex, ever-changing password.
Moreover, the password just now was the one entered by the last dare-to-die team4, which is to say…
The eyes of the four were filled with shock.
Sang Er cried out, “Are you saying the one who entered the password could be a teammate who died in the experimental zone?”
A dead teammate, what would that be?
A zombie.
A zombie that could enter a password on its own, what would that be?
A high-tier zombie with its own consciousness and very high intelligence.
An Min looked out the window. The black clouds were piled up, and not a sliver of light could be seen.
He said faintly, “Perhaps we’ll be able to see an old friend.”
The plane did not dare to land at the Qian’an Experimental Zone’s airfield and could only land on an open field in the suburbs of Qian’an. The landing of the plane would be accompanied by a huge roar that could attract a large number of zombies, so the five of them did not waste any time, directly rappelling5 down from the plane hovering at a low altitude.
Zombies were still attracted, but the number was small, something the five of them could handle. Seeing the five land safely, the plane immediately took off and left Qian’an, heading to the nearby Chengning City A-Class Base to await their distress signal, at which point it would come to pick them up and return them to the Jingdu S-Class Base.
The five found an abandoned car on the national highway6. An Min tinkered with it for a bit, Chu Han gave the car a charge, and the car was able to start normally.
Chu Han drove while the others remained on high alert.
For the past few days, Qian’an had been shrouded in dark clouds, with not a trace of light to be seen. The roads during the day were basically no different from the roads at night. An Min used his computer for navigation, and Chu Han was basically driving blind, relying entirely on his senses and the navigation.
“There are quite few zombies along this road, huh?”
Mu Xuan had thought Qian’an would have many zombies. After all, the last dare-to-die team was almost completely wiped out. Besides Sang Er and Chu Han, the rest had either died on the way to Qian’an or died in Qian’an’s experimental zone.
He had already prepared himself for a life-or-death struggle, but the safety of the journey so far made his heart pound with unease.
Chu Han also found it strange; this road was indeed too calm. The last time they came to Qian’an, they basically encountered a terrifying situation like a zombie siege7. But now, coming to Qian’an again, it felt like Qian’an was an empty city.
“Sang Er, were there this few zombies last time you came to Qian’an?” Mu Xuan asked.
Sang Er’s brow was tightly furrowed. “Last time, Qian’an was crawling with zombies, densely packed.”
This time, Qian’an was so quiet it felt like the calm before a storm.
Zhong Wenshu looked at An Min and saw him staring at his computer. “Doctor An Min, are you still monitoring the signal from the experimental zone?”
An Min nodded. “Yes.”
“Have you made any new discoveries?”
An Min lifted his eyes, looked at the iron gate of the experimental zone that had appeared before them, and said faintly, “From the time the H-agent appeared in the world to the outbreak of its side effects, there should now be a Zombie Emperor in the experimental zone.”
Everyone was horrified.
【The zombies in the experimental zone should have all been killed by you, right?】
To recover her body, Wen Nuan had been hunting zombies every day. Aside from the low-tier zombies, all the other high-tier zombies had been killed by Wen Nuan, their crystal cores absorbed.
Sometimes when the zombies in the experimental zone were all killed, she would deliberately lure zombies from Qian’an city over to be slaughtered.
“More or less,” Wen Nuan curled up on the sofa, playing with crystal cores of various colors in her hand. “But I can’t confirm if there are zombies in the underground central building.”
Wen Nuan always felt that there should be zombies in there, she just didn’t know what tier, but it would definitely be a troublesome fellow.
【Can you beat it?】the system asked, a little worried.
The corner of Wen Nuan’s mouth hooked up. “I can wear it to death.”
She had an immortal body. Even if she were crushed to bits by a zombie, as long as her consciousness remained and there was a piece of her flesh, she could be reborn. But zombies were different. A zombie’s fatal point was its head. No matter how powerful you were, as long as you hit the head, you would surely die.
But recently, Wen Nuan discovered a small problem with her immortal body, which was that she was a bit fragile. Her arms and legs would break from time to time. Although it wasn’t a big deal for her, it could easily scare others.
The system thought she might have osteoporosis and needed to supplement with calcium.
Wen Nuan: “….”
Thus, Wen Nuan began to sunbathe at a fixed time every day, trying to supplement some calcium.
Today, the weather was overcast and cloudy.
Wen Nuan couldn’t sunbathe and could only sit at her doorway like an empty-nest elder waiting for her lover to come and be the hero who saves the damsel in distress.
【With your current identity, how do you plan to explain it to the female lead?】
A person who had already died coming back to life, no matter how you explained it, it would seem quite terrifying, right?
“I’ll just tell her the truth. It’s not like I’m a zombie that eats people, what’s so scary about that.” Wen Nuan felt it wasn’t a big deal. “Besides, this mission world is an apocalypse. It’s not surprising for all sorts of strange things to appear.”
Seeing her casual attitude, the system no longer worried.
The car stopped at the entrance of the experimental zone. The five of them got out and walked into the experimental zone. Chu Han and the others protected An Min in the center, forming a circle around him, vigilant of their surroundings.
There were some low-tier zombies in the experimental zone, which were easy to deal with. Chu Han didn’t even use much strength, casually releasing a few small electric currents to easily take care of them.
“This third-tier zombie died recently.” An Min pointed to a zombie on the ground with its head crushed. He squatted down and looked at the zombie’s brain. Besides a bloody mess of pulp, there was nothing.
“Its crystal core is gone.” An Min took a tissue from his pocket and wiped his fingers.
Mu Xuan asked doubtfully, “Doctor An Min, could it have been done by the Zombie Emperor you mentioned?”
“A third-tier zombie’s crystal core is of no substantial use to it,” An Min threw the tissue away and looked at the central building in the distance, which had already become a ruin.
“I told you, there is a living thing here.”
Mu Xuan’s expression went blank for a few seconds, and he stammered, “I-Isn’t it the Zombie Emperor?”
An Min seemed puzzled by Mu Xuan’s words and said faintly, “Is a Zombie Emperor a living thing?”
The four of them: “…..”
Is a Zombie Emperor a living thing?
No.
All zombies are not living things.
Sang Er looked at An Min. “Then what is the living thing you’re talking about?”
An Min walked forward. “Maybe it’s an animal, maybe it’s a human, maybe…”
He turned back, his lips curving slightly, and said, “…it’s not human, but it’s also not a zombie.”
Not human and not a zombie?
A thought simultaneously popped into the minds of the four: Is this experimental zone haunted?!
Arriving at the ruins of the central building, the five of them saw the large hole that Wen Nuan had created. Standing at the edge of the hole and looking down, they could see a structure identical to the original central building inside.
“I’ll go down and take a look first. You guys protect the Doctor.”
Mu Xuan nodded. “Okay, Chu-ge, be careful.”
Chu Han nodded and jumped straight down. It was pitch black below, and he could barely make out the blurry outline of a building.
He felt along the wall, maintaining vigilance and alertness as he walked forward. After about seven or eight minutes, Chu Han felt a door. There was a password lock on it, and next to the door was a round button.
He tentatively pressed it, and a blinding light illuminated every corner of the building.
Chu Han clearly saw that the door in front of him was the control room door whose password they had needed to crack back then.
He looked at the faint fingerprints on the keypad, becoming more and more certain of what An Min had said.
There is a living thing in this experimental zone.
Wen Nuan stood on the second-floor balcony and saw the light emerge from the ruins of the central road.
“They’re here.”
The author has something to say:
Wen Nuan: Hehe, my wife is here.
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