“Ding-ding-ding—”
Nine o’clock. Work started exactly on time, not a minute early.
Under No. 59’s puzzled gaze, Yun Qingyue pulled out a small blackboard from behind the sink.
“It’s nine o’clock. We can start work now. The team has just been formed and is still in the exploratory stage. But for you, there’s no need to explore. Just listen to me.”
The System used her disappearance as the reason for the failure of the entire project of the Male Lead not becoming the overlord. Meaning, she was responsible for the entire project. So, naturally, she took charge.
She was prepared. If the new colleague didn’t hinder things and did real work, she would also apply for a salary and apocalypse subsidies for him.
“First, let me analyze our situation for you.” Yun Qingyue started drawing on the blackboard.
Experiment Subject No. 59 sat there. He had no say whatsoever. What could he do? Nothing, because he didn’t know what he wanted to do either.
Kill his enemies? His enemies weren’t here. Sitting here with nothing to do, he might as well listen to her talk.
He looked up and noticed two small red apple images on the blackboard.
Yun Qingyue drew an RV under the little apples.
“This is our location.”
No. 59 looked at the blackboard. His gaze couldn’t help but linger on the two little apples.
What did those two little apples mean? He looked at himself, then at Yun Qingyue.
Regardless of whether her colleague could keep up with her pace, Yun Qingyue started drawing.
“We’re currently in this gravel yard. It’s surrounded mostly by stones. My current idea is to turn this gravel yard into our safe zone.” Yun Qingyue drew two vertical lines and one horizontal, outlining a large framework.
No. 59 didn’t quite understand. Why use two little apples to represent the two of them?
By now, Yun Qingyue had already constructed a small project: how to build the gravel yard into a safe zone. “The advantage of the gravel yard here is that the back side is all stone cliffs, which is a natural protection. The disadvantage is there’s no soil here at all. If we want to grow vegetables later, we’ll need to bring soil in from outside.”
She looked up. Her new colleague’s expression was seriously focused on the two red apples on the blackboard.
This small blackboard was left by the previous RV renter. The previous RV renter was probably a family with children. This small blackboard was used to teach their children to count. The little apples were props.
Yun Qingyue: “…” She was used to it. Her, working hard, and her pretty-face colleague.
“What do you think?” Yun Qingyue pulled the person’s attention back.
“I’ve never grown vegetables, so I’ll leave it to you.” His eyes revealed a kind of ignorance, completely unsocialized.
Right before her was this beautiful, ignorant person who was soon going to awaken his esper power and then become the Zombie King. Eventually, a particularly large crystal core could be extracted from his head.
Yun Qingyue just stared at that head of his. She always felt it was empty inside.
Starting tomorrow, she could continuously send promotion reports to the System.
Could she switch?!
She wanted to be the Zombie King. Since the plan was to deliver the Zombie King’s crystal core to the Male Lead anyway, why not just dig into her head? She felt that if a person who clearly didn’t use his brain could produce such a large crystal core, maybe her head could produce one too.
No. 59 didn’t know what the person before him was thinking, but he could sense her emotions. She was a bit disdainful of him.
This emotion, stifling, crawled over like dark clouds, reaching his body.
He remembered the researchers in the lab. Only when he was very young did they have that emotion. After he grew up, it turned into uniform fear.
But what was different was that this dark cloud quickly dispersed.
Yun Qingyue sighed. The project still had to move forward.
“Since you have no objections, the gravel yard will become our initial safe zone.”
She continued drawing the surrounding situation.
“There’s a national highway on this side. Further up is the county road.”
The car she’d taken had come down from the national highway, probably a few hundred meters, to reach this gravel yard. Going up from the gravel yard was the county road, the body disposal site.
Yun Qingyue was very serious when working, drawing while discussing with her colleague: “The gravel yard we’re in has towering stone cliffs at the back and an open area in front with an angle of about 130 degrees. This is our difficulty.”
As she spoke, she would turn her head to look at No. 59. No. 59 was led along by her words.
“We’ll probably be here for about a year. By that time, some bases should be established. We’re next to the national highway, so we definitely won’t miss this kind of news. When the time comes, we’ll follow the cars on the national highway to the base.”
“The problem right now is that there are zombies here at the gravel yard. We want to make it our private domain. When we build our defenses, how do we ensure the zombie department, which is salivating at the sight of us, doesn’t come to cause trouble?” This department eats people.
“Do you have any ideas?” Yun Qingyue looked at her new colleague.
Experiment Subject No. 59 was genuinely listening to her. Yun Qingyue’s voice was very clear and firm, easily drawing others into her context.
Experiment Subject No. 59’s mind was involuntarily guided to think about constructing a safe zone.
He thought about it until she asked him.
Did he have any ideas? About how to keep zombies from approaching their area? Experiment Subject No. 59 genuinely started thinking.
“Is there some sound or serum that could make zombies feel fear?” No. 59 pondered for a moment and said.
From his experience.
“We’re still in the early stages of the apocalypse. This kind of research doesn’t exist yet. But you’ve proposed a good direction. We can try to research it,” Yun Qingyue looked at her colleague again and thought to herself that there was a reason such a large crystal core could be extracted from his head.
Yun Qingyue immediately wrote a to-do item on the board: [Test if there are any sound waves that can affect zombies, not limited to sound waves and serums, could be other things as well.]
This was really good. If the two of them could really find something to repel zombies, this small team would practically be able to walk sideways in the apocalypse. Of course, the probability was quite low. But proposing this plan showed that her colleague had a brain.
Indeed, it was better to have teammates. Having an extra brain was useful.
As she had this thought, her whole being radiated a sense of acknowledging a fellow, a very positive emotion.
At this moment, Experiment Subject No. 59 could feel the other party’s emotion towards him suddenly change, turning into a warm, sunny feeling. He was encountering someone directing this kind of emotion at him for the first time.
As he probed this emotion, this warm, fuzzy, fluffy sensation seemed to flow into his heart along his perception, surging into his chest. His originally cold chest cavity felt filled by this feeling.
He found it very uncomfortable, very strange, very unpleasant. He quickly withdrew his perception ability, wanting to interrupt this feeling. But the sensation of being brushed by something fluffy hadn’t completely faded from his body. This feeling made him extremely uneasy.
Most of his abilities were currently suppressed, but his perception ability still existed.
This perception ability was one of his special abilities, but because it lacked destructive power, the experimenters barely even researched it.
It was mainly his most useless ability. The researchers hadn’t even bothered to suppress this ability of his.
The ice-cold hatred from the laboratory life resurfaced in his mind, once again occupying his chest like a lump of raw iron, blocking his airway.
He found it much more comfortable.
Yun Qingyue didn’t know any of this. She felt the theoretical part should end here. Next was the practical part.
“Your leg isn’t fully healed yet. You stay here. I’ll go out and take a look.”
Yun Qingyue thought, they were both working. There was no reason for her to do fieldwork while he slacked off.
So she went to open the storage cabinet and took out a small bag of peanuts.
“Shell the peanuts. We’ll stir-fry them for lunch.”
Yun Qingyue glanced outside. It was a sunny day at this hour. Zombies weren’t roaming outside.
She put on her camera, then went to get her bike, and finally left the RV.
No. 59 watched the other party leave the RV, get on the bike, and disappear from view in a puff of smoke.
Yesterday, she had been the one who brought him back on the bike. Now she was going out again.
He turned his head. What she had left for him were peanuts. So this was what peanuts looked like. He had seen them on the lab’s television before.
He sat down and started shelling peanuts, one after another.
His mind slowly emptied, but his hands didn’t stop moving.
He felt a certain lightness.
Soon, more than half the peanuts were shelled. Only then did he realize: why was he doing this? Why was he listening to this person?
He stopped, not planning to continue shelling.
But that wasn’t right either. If he didn’t do this, there was nothing else to do. It was like being back in his room in the lab. On days without experiments, his whole being was also in torment.
So, he continued shelling peanuts, one after another.
On the other side, Yun Qingyue rode the mountain bike. As long as the zombies weren’t particularly exaggerated, she felt she could outrun them.
With this thought in mind, Yun Qingyue started riding outwards. From a distance, she could see some zombies on the hillsides in the distance.
Soon, she heard the sound of dogs barking.
This sound wasn’t something ordinary dogs could make. Zombie dogs again.
This time was different from last night. Last night, there was only one zombie dog. She had pulled out her knife, and it was scared off.
But now, she heard the sound of a pack of dogs.
She knew dogs were creatures that worked together in packs. Being one large target, holding a knife to charge at dogs, she might have a chance to scare them off. But against a pack? No chance.
And right then, those zombie dogs saw her and all fiercely lunged towards her.
Yun Qingyue started pedaling the bike and ran. She didn’t run towards the RV because right now the zombie dogs were too close to her.
She needed to use the bike to first put some distance between her and these zombie dogs. As long as she created distance, she could go back.
The barking behind her was incessant. Unlike zombie humans, these zombie dogs could directly leap and pounce on her.
She could hear the sharp snapping of zombie dog teeth.
In that instant, Yun Qingyue’s entire brain was pushed to its limit. She felt as if she and the bike had become one. Every time a dog lunged, she nimbly swerved away, miraculously dodging these leaping zombie dogs.
Not only that, Yun Qingyue even observed that the zombies they passed were actually avoiding this pack of zombie dogs and didn’t join the chase.
Yun Qingyue caught something from this behavior.
It seemed she had found what zombie humans feared.
No wait! Yun Qingyue turned her head, looking at the zombie dogs charging at her. She was also afraid!