Putting away his wind blade Zhong Qiu took out the formula and injected it into himself, his eyes followed the two's backs gradually moving farther and his lips curved up in delight.

Whatever they are, won't it be a done matter if he just captured them?

The next day, Wei Xu came running to Ye Zhizhou as soon as the sun rose, extremely energetic. However, Zhong Qiu had climbed up Ye Zhizhou's bed in the middle of the night, and now Ye Zhizhou who just woke up was kicking Zhong Qiu down the bed with all his might.

The situation was a bit awkward.

Zhong Qiu greeted him with a wind blade, "Didn't your kindergarten teacher teach you to knock on doors?"

Wei Xu dodged to the side, he swept a glance at Ye Zhizhou's loose collar and moved his line of sight in discomfort. His face hardened and he said, "From when we're small till now, I've never knocked to enter Xiao Chen's room, and he's never asked me to."

Zhong Qiu got up from bed, his anger reached to the extreme, his eyes started to turn yellower, "From today, he asks you to."

Getting up from the bed Ye Zhizhou was even angrier than Zhong Qiu, he pushed a pill into Zhong Qiu's mouth as he came down the bed. He was gritting his teeth when he turned to Wei Xu, "Oh, you came. Just in time. There's something the matter with Fang Yunqi. Go help Yan Zheng and the others, take him to the research institute."

Wei Xu frowned, "What's the matter?"

"Nothing, just treating his head, and he needs to get an exam done. Zhong Qiu has all the equipment in the institute so the result will be out fast." Ye Zhizhou looked him up and down once and asked, "Xu Yi's spring's water, did you drink it?"

Wei Xu nodded his head, a bit puzzled, "What's this about?"

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"It's nothing." He strode up to him, taking advantage of his moment of unguardedness to feed him a complete replenishment pill, and smiled at him, "Okay, now you can go accompany Fang Yunqi."

Zhong Qiu very disgruntledly pulled down his hand, gripped it, while levelling an icy look at Wei Xu. "Not allowed to touch him."

Ye Zhizhou rolled his eyes. Wei Xu wanted to say something but the words choked back down by the sudden warm sensation inside his body. He covered his stomach, took deep breaths of the cool air, asking with difficulty, "Xiao Chen, what did you make me eat?"

"Something good that'll save your life." Ye Zhizhou patted his shoulder. He waved to Liang Ping outside of the door, "Put him on your back, let's go!"

The group stealthily went out of the third gate straight to the research institute as the sky brightened.

The new machine they carried back was already operating in lab one. Zhong Qiu called out to his assistants so they can take Wei Xu and Fang Yunqi's blood, then they were brought back to the examination room on a wheelchair. Ye Zhizhou let Yan Zheng and Liang Ping go with them while he himself went to Zhong Qiu's side, watching the blood sample in his hands, "You said you can tell what's wrong with them by the smell of their blood, is that true?"

"I can." Zhong Qiu nodded. He put the samples into the machine and started the analysis process. Ye Zhizhou while jotting down the data. "It's especially smelly. It's very similar to the smell I caught yesterday. I wanted to catch that person from yesterday to study him properly but I didn't expect him to disappear. I can only take his comrade back with me."

"The smell you smelled yesterday?" Zhong Qiu's words startled Ye Zhizhou. "What did you do yesterday?"

Zhong Qiu looked a bit puzzled at him. "Haven't I told you?"

Ye Zhizhou shot him a disdainful look.

"Oh right, when I arrived you were already sleeping. Your sleeping posture is extremely cute, I can only watch you for half a night." Zhong Qiu jotted down the results before closing his notebook and bending sideways to hug him. "Xiao Chen you're so cute, I really want to take off your clothes."

Ye Zhizhou returned his declaration with a fist.

They bantered for a while before Zhong Qiu finally got serious. He briefly spoke about how he smelled the stink yesterday, that he went to catch the person but he disappeared, and how he quickly caught his companion instead. Afterwards, he concluded, "Failing to catch him is not because I was weaker, that person was strange."

With these words Ye Zhizhou already determined the man he's talking about was none other than Xu Yi, he fell into deep thoughts, his head bent down slightly. Zhong Qiu could smell the stink coming from the protagonist so he surely noticed something amiss with that spring water. In the original story, Zhong Qiu got interested in the protagonist after a traitor from their squad gave him some of the spring water, and that traitor... He flipped through the system's provided data and his brow creased. That traitor was actually Wang Gang. According to Wang Gang's defensive attitude of Xu Yi yesterday, the betrayal in the original story was simply too suspicious. Not only that, the protagonist unexpectedly forgave this traitor very quickly after he was saved. Before, when he read the plot, he cursed the protagonist's 'incomparable kindness' character setting in his heart, but now that he read it again, it was extremely suspicious.

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He couldn't stop himself from looking up to Zhong Qiu's gentle handsome face, gingerly touching the other's eyes. The protagonist's space required special zombie corpses to upgrade a level. The Zhong Qiu right now was an unusual half-human half-zombie, he could be considered as the most unique being in this world. If Wang Gang's 'betrayal' was just a plan to obtain Zhong Qiu's body... His arms quickly tightened around Zhong Qiu. He felt somewhat scared inside.

Why did this world's protagonist setting deviate so much? Although it was the apocalypse, how can a human have such a cruel character to this extent?

Because he was thinking of some unpleasant things, his expression was ugly when he met the captive Qiu Xiangyu.

"So it was you." Qiu Xiangyu's hands and legs were restrained on the bed, he looked at him with cold eyes, "I didn't expect you to attack Xu Yi, villain!"

Ye Zhizhou sized up this male lead number one who had always been protecting Xu Yi by his side silently, looking at his gentle and reserved facial features to his too-white skin, and sneered, "Villain? You're the so-called top student, but how is it that your brain's not that good? Wei Xu's simple-minded but even he noticed something's off with Xu Yi. How can you, a genius with higher IQ than normal people, not see through it? Did you go stupid from the zombie virus he fed you?"

"I can't allow you to slander Xiao Yi!"

"Idiocy is an illness. Today I will treat you," Ye Zhizhou waved his hand and Tongtian passed him two complete replenishment pills. He walked up to him and pinched his mouth open, forcing the pills into his mouth. Then he wiped his hand on the man's clothes, smiling, "Seeing is believing. Let's go, I'll take you to watch a good show."

Almost the second he swallowed the pill, Qiu Xiangyu struggled in pain, his skin became red, blood vessels bulged out, beneath the pale white skin the fast flow of his blood can be seen. Ye Zhizhou rang the bell and called a nurse. His face kept calm as he looked at Qiu Xiangyu's veins bulging out more as he struggled. His heart felt heavy, the reaction was so big. Qiu Xiangyu's body might have been almost fully transformed by the spring's water, if they were just a bit later, whether the man's human appearance could be preserved or not is questionable.

Before Ye Zhizhou took him into a quarantine room made of glass, he fed Qiu Xiangyu a calming pill. As his tense face eased his head was turned towards the quarantine room, Ye Zhizhou said coldly, "You see Wang Gang inside? He was like you, he has some bad things inside his body. The researchers just injected him with a semi-finished zombie vaccine which should suppress the virus in his body for now. You look at how he is now! If he didn't still have a bit of reason left in him he could hardly be considered a person anymore!"

Zhong Qiu's people took Wang Gang from Wei Xu's house after he went inside the research institute. His mind was too stimulated at the time and the researchers had to fight him before he could be examined in greater detail, the result was not too great. For fear that the zombie virus would continue to corrode his body, Zhong Qiu used the half-finished cure for the first time on him. Yet, the virus was too powerful in his body, the cure could only suppress a bit of it and also weakened his immunity, as a result, Wang Gang's showed the signs of zombification, his condition worsened instead of improved.

Currently, Zhong Qiu's entire team was frantically busy trying to solve Wang Gangs zombie appearance, not only that, they also had a super uncooperative Qiu Xiangyu being noisy on the side. His condition was not much better than Wang Gang. It was simply vexing!

Wang Gang in the quarantine now had a pale face with eyes sticking out of his face, veins on his skin could be made out faintly, his appearance looked frightening. The loudspeaker in the room clearly transmitted his hoarse distorted snarls, each sound would shake your thoughts and make you shudder from fright.

"What did you guys do to him?!" Qiu Xiangyu felt much better after eating the calming pill, he was furious and started to struggle fiercely on his wheelchair, "Let me go! You monsters! I don't trust your shitty cure! You must be using abilities to do human experiments, who knows if that zombie virus was originally made by you science maniacs! "

"Who's really doing experiments here!? Open your eyes wide and look clearly, think with your brain!" Ye Zhizhou flared up in anger. He roared, "Look at Wang Gang! The semi-finished zombie cure we gave him was supposed to suppress zombie virus, but you look at him now! Irritable, unstable, with some signs of zombification, what does this say? It means the amount of virus in him is not what the cure is capable of suppressing as of now! And didn't you think about how the virus got in his body when he's never been bitten before? Check your own body, can you feel it now? Inside your body, something is working slowly to kill your humanity!"

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Qiu Xiangyu was stunned.

Ye Zhizhou pushed him to one of the examination rooms on another corridor, carrying him to Wei Xu and Fang Yunqi's front. "Look at them too. Don't they look a bit ill? Because they're the same as you, they drank that spring's water and had accumulated some variants of the zombie virus!"

Being used as an example exhibit, Wei Xu's face stiffened, but he nodded to Qiu Xiangyu as a greeting. Compared to Wei Xu's indifference, Fang Yunqi was much more enthusiastic, he actively started talking, "Vice leader, you finally came! Don't worry, it'll be okay soon. The medicine Xiao Chen gave is very effective. Mr Zhong also said shortly the vaccine will be made, the virus in our bodies will all be cleared."

Qiu Xiangyu looked at Wei Xu, then Fang Yunqi, finally he calmed down and fell into deep thoughts.

"Qiu Xiangyu, have you never wondered?" Ye Zhizhou followed timely with sentence, "The spring's water.... Doesn't it smell a lot like the foul zombies?"

His hands suddenly tightened around the wheelchair's armrest, his back was taut, and his head bowed, he didn't speak anymore.

"Think about it." Ye Zhizhou released his grip on his armrest. He gave Wei Xu and Fang Yunqi a look then continued, "There are many suspicious things, disregard the halo on Xu Yi, and you'll find a lot of interesting things about him."

[Probability of Qiu Xiangyu falling in love with the protagonist dropped to 90%, may the host persist in his efforts.]

Such intense talk only dropped his probability by 10%, Qiu Xiangyu deserved to be called the person most devoted to Xu Yi. The great undertaking of pulling out flags seems to be a waste of time, he switched off the screen and turned to go out. First leave this hard-headed Qiu Xiangyu to Wei Xu and Fang Yunqi, there's nothing he can do for the time being.

Xu Yi found a corner in the base to hide, he was panicked and excited. The reason for his panic was because the man with that great scent had unexpectedly taken the initiative to attack him and he was also particularly strong, even Qiu Xiangyu had no strength to resist. Fortunately he escaped into the space in time, if not, he couldn't think of what the result might have been. His excitement was because of that man's extremely human-like appearance! Someone who smelled good to him would definitely be a zombie, but this zombie is entirely human in appearance, his body was obviously special, if he can get these special nutrients.....

It was as if the space could feel his excitement, the crystal core in his brain started to send heat waves. He raised a hand and pressed on his forehead, on a face so delicate it looked inhuman, a twisted smile formed. He'll bide his time, he needed to plan carefully. Right now both Wang Gang and Qiu Xiangyu aren't by his side, he needed to think carefully on how to obtain that special zombie.

Zhong Qiu who got a big lead in developing the vaccine in this short time was busy doing a three-men job, and Ye Zhizhou was careful not to disturb him. He left Liang Ping who had studied medicine with him and went back to the base with Yan Zheng.

Ye Zhizhou told Liu Tao the general outline of what happened from yesterday night to this morning. After that, he went to the Wei house and notified them of Wei Xu's whereabouts to calm his family, then he detoured to check the place that Xu Yi's squad stayed at. He saw that they were operating normally and it seems like no one discovered that Wang Gang and Qiu Xiangyu had gone missing. He couldn't hold back his frown, but he turned to return to the base.

He considered taking back all of Xu Yi's squad to the lab so they can be examined at first, but Zhong Qiu said that he had a special arrangement and he wanted him to stay put for a while. Xu Yi's squad was too peaceful from the situation he'd seen just now. As if they didn't mind at all that Wang Gang and Qiu Xiangyu didn't return all night, had Xu Yi returned and calmed them down? Then where is that man now?

He wanted to walk up and ask, but he was afraid he will alert Xu Yi. The protagonist doesn't know about Zhong Qiu's status as researcher right now, he had no idea the wrongness of his spring has been revealed and that Wei Xu and his group has sided with Zhong Qiu. They know all about him but he's still in the dark about them, this is a very advantageous situation, if he rashly went to ask, some information might get leaked. That would spell out 'loss outweighs the gains'.

He tangled over it, hesitated a bit, but sighed and went back to the base in the end. Forget it. Believe in Zhong Qiu, his lover's problem-solving capability leaves no room for doubt. Once the vaccine is developed, whatever it is, it will not be a problem anymore.

Yan Zheng accompanied him on his trip, he looked pensive, "Liu Chen, Xu Yi's spring is very strange, have you thought of how to destroy it completely? As long as that space is around we won't be able to catch him no matter how long, furthermore, from your analysis that space will continue to upgrade, as long as that thing exists, the apocalypse will never end."

Ye Zhizhou only recalled this very important matter now, with his space the protagonist can hide from people and can upgrade, the inside also has a big mass of zombie virus, it was basically an 'apocalypse' with feet! In the original story, after the protagonist died, the zombies began to rapidly evolve, could that be because after his death his ability disappeared and all of the virus inside it spread out when the space collapsed?!

This line of thought was simply terrifying.

That damned space can't be allowed to be upgraded any further, furthermore, it needs to be destroyed!

"Yan Zheng." He halted, his whole face turned grave, "You're asking the right thing. We must think of a way to destroy Xu Yi's space while also keeping him alive! I suspect at his death his space will crumble and release all the zombie virus in it."

"While keeping him alive?" Yan Zheng's brows knitted, killing intent flashing through his eyes, "This harmful person, how can he stay alive? If it's because the virus inside him might spread, put him in a sealed room and kill him while contained."

[Probability of Yan Zheng falling in love with the protagonist has fallen to 0%. Congratulations to the host for removing the second flag, may the host persist in his efforts.]

Taking a glimpse at the screen, Ye Zhizhou's eyes squinted. He clapped his shoulders with a face full of delight, "Yan Zheng, good job!"

He liked his character, once he decides to hate someone he could even kill them!

Translator: Padam | Editor: Divetus