Chapter 350 - Research base

Chapter 350: Chapter 350 - Research base

The research base was only a few hours away, and surprisingly, the journey there gave them almost no trouble.

Yunfeng had expected at least one problem along the way, especially after everything that had happened recently, but the roads outside the city were relatively clear. There were abandoned vehicles here and there, some crashed against barriers and others simply left in the middle of the road with their doors hanging open. Occasionally, they spotted zombies wandering near the roadside, but none were close enough to bother with. Yunfeng simply drove past them, keeping a steady speed while watching the road ahead.

The quiet made him more cautious rather than less.

Zei, on the other hand, apparently decided that a few hours without someone trying to kill them was an excellent opportunity to sleep. He had been slumped against the passenger window for almost an hour, his head occasionally knocking against the glass whenever the vehicle hit a rough patch.

Yunfeng glanced at him. "Why did you even come?"

Without opening his eyes, Zei muttered, "Moral support."

"You’ve been asleep."

"I’ve been supporting you quietly."

A snort came from the back seat. Jai was sitting beside Shao, who had spent most of the drive checking the weapons and watching their surroundings. Unlike Zei, Shao hadn’t relaxed much at all. Whenever they passed an abandoned building or a cluster of vehicles, his attention immediately shifted toward it until they were safely past.

Yunfeng couldn’t blame him. After encountering the little girl in the pink dress, none of them were willing to assume that a place was safe just because they couldn’t see a horde nearby.

At least his own ability was gradually returning. The tingling beneath his skin had become stronger during the drive, and every now and then, when he tightened his fingers around the steering wheel, a tiny blue spark jumped between them. His hair was also becoming noticeably whiter. Most of the roots had already returned to their original color, leaving the ends strangely dark.

It looked ridiculous, but Yunfeng didn’t care. He would happily walk around with half-black, half-white hair if it meant his power was coming back.

A little over three hours after leaving the base, the highway narrowed and eventually turned onto a smaller road surrounded by trees. Faded military signs appeared along the roadside, warning unauthorized personnel to turn around. Qiu Yue’s directions had been surprisingly accurate, and soon a high concrete wall became visible through the trees.

"There," Yunfeng said.

Zei finally opened his eyes and sat upright. Jai leaned forward between the seats while Shao looked through the side window as the vehicle approached the facility.

Yunfeng slowed down.

The closer they got, the stranger the place looked.

He had expected damage. Maybe a broken gate, abandoned military vehicles, blood, bodies or some obvious sign that the facility had fallen during the beginning of the apocalypse. Instead, the concrete walls were intact and the large metal gate remained firmly closed. There were no bodies around the entrance and no wrecked vehicles piled against the barricades. Even the guard station beside the gate still had all of its windows.

Yunfeng stopped the vehicle several meters away.

Nobody spoke for a moment.

A red security light above the gate blinked steadily.

Zei stared at it. "Is that supposed to still be working?"

Jai leaned forward farther. "They still have electricity."

Before Yunfeng could answer, the security camera mounted above the entrance slowly moved.

All four of them watched as the camera turned directly toward their vehicle and stopped.

That was enough to wake Zei completely.

"Well, shit."

Yunfeng turned off the engine but remained in his seat for another few seconds, staring at the camera. It could have been an automated security system, but he didn’t believe that. Not when the place looked this well preserved after everything that had happened outside.

Someone could still be inside.

That possibility was both good and bad. If survivors had managed to maintain the facility, then there was a good chance the equipment Qiu Yue needed was still functional. Unfortunately, living people also meant they couldn’t simply walk in and take whatever they wanted.

"Let’s check it out," Yunfeng said as he opened the door.

They got out with their weapons on them but kept them lowered. The area around the facility was almost unnaturally quiet. Yunfeng couldn’t see a single zombie near the walls, which only made him more certain that someone had been maintaining the perimeter.

Jai noticed the same thing. "There should be infected around here."

"Maybe whoever’s inside cleared them."

"If there is someone inside."

Yunfeng glanced up at the camera still following their movements. "There is."

They approached the gate cautiously. The main vehicle entrance was locked, and so was the smaller personnel gate beside it. Yunfeng checked the guard station first, but it was empty. The door had been secured from the inside, and the equipment visible through the window appeared untouched.

Zei peered through the bars of the gate. "Should we knock?"

Jai looked at him. "On what?"

"I don’t know. I was trying to be polite before we break in."

Since nobody appeared to be coming out to greet them, they didn’t have much choice. Jai placed his hand against the ground and carefully shifted the earth beneath the inner edge of the gate until part of the locking mechanism moved out of alignment. Shao took over from there, gripping the metal and forcing it until the smaller gate opened enough for them to enter.

The metallic groan echoed through the compound.

All four waited for some reaction, but nothing came.

Once they were inside, Yunfeng became even more certain that the facility hadn’t simply been abandoned. The grass was overgrown and weeds had started pushing through cracks in the pavement, but the buildings themselves were intact. Several military vehicles sat neatly parked beneath a covered area, and almost every window was reinforced. More importantly, every entrance they passed had been deliberately locked.

Another security camera turned as they crossed the courtyard.

Then another.

Zei glanced up. "They’re following us."

Yunfeng had already noticed. "Don’t touch your gun."

"I wasn’t going to."

"I’m saying it before you decide to."

They reached what appeared to be the main research building. The entrance consisted of reinforced glass doors with an electronic access panel beside them, and a small green light still glowed above the keypad.

Jai stared at it with open disbelief. "How the hell have they kept this place running?"

"Backup generators, maybe solar power. A facility like this probably has its own emergency system." Yunfeng looked through the glass but couldn’t see anyone inside. "Whatever they’re using, someone has been taking care of it."

Shao stepped toward the panel, but before his hand could reach it, a speaker above the entrance suddenly crackled.

"Get out."

All four stopped.

The voice was distorted through the speaker, but it was unmistakably human.

Yunfeng immediately lifted one hand toward the others, silently warning them not to react. Zei’s fingers had already moved toward his gun, but he slowly lowered his hand.

The speaker crackled again. "Leave the compound. Now."

Yunfeng looked toward the nearest security camera and deliberately kept his hands where they could be seen. "We don’t want trouble. We thought this place was abandoned."

"You broke through our gate."

There was fear beneath the anger now that Yunfeng listened carefully.

"We needed to get inside," Yunfeng replied. "We’re looking for medical research equipment. We aren’t here for your food or supplies, and we’re not here to hurt anyone."

"You’re carrying weapons."

"There are zombies everywhere. We’d be idiots to travel without weapons."

That earned several seconds of silence. Yunfeng could almost imagine the people inside arguing over what to do with them.

When the speaker came back on, another voice spoke. It sounded younger and far more nervous. "It doesn’t matter why you’re here. Leave. If you try to enter the building, we’ll kill you."

Jai shifted slightly beside Yunfeng, but Yunfeng gave him a warning glance. Whoever was inside clearly didn’t want a fight. If they did, they would have opened fire the moment the four of them forced their way through the gate.

"We’re not coming any closer," Yunfeng said calmly. "But we came all this way because we need equipment from this facility. If there are people inside, then let’s talk instead of threatening each other."

The response came quickly this time. "You don’t understand what we have here."

"What do you have?"

"Samples."

Yunfeng frowned.

The person on the other end hesitated before continuing. "Viruses. Bacteria. Disease samples from before the outbreak, and some collected afterward. This was a research facility. There are containment units inside with things you don’t want released."

The four men exchanged uneasy looks.

The voice grew shakier as it continued. "If you force your way inside, we’ll release one. We don’t care what happens afterward. There are samples in here that could kill every person in this compound, and possibly spread beyond it. So take your people and leave us alone."

For a moment, Yunfeng genuinely didn’t know how to respond.

Beside him, Zei quietly muttered, "These people are insane."

Yunfeng wasn’t sure that was fair. Terrified, certainly. Desperate enough to threaten suicide and take everyone around them along with them, definitely. But if they had been hiding in this facility since the beginning of the apocalypse, they had probably spent months watching the outside world collapse through cameras and whatever communication systems still worked. Four armed strangers forcing open their gate must have looked like exactly the kind of threat they had been preparing for.

More importantly, Yunfeng had no intention of finding out whether their threat was real.

He slowly removed his gun and placed it on the ground, then raised both hands toward the camera. "We’re not going farther. Look at me. I’m unarmed."

Jai frowned at him but remained quiet.

"My name is Yunfeng. We have a survivor base a few hours from here. We didn’t know anyone was alive inside this place. If we had known, we would’ve tried talking first instead of forcing the gate."

"That doesn’t explain why you need our equipment."

Yunfeng took a breath.

"One of our doctors has been researching the zombie infection. Yesterday we encountered an unusual infected child with a mutation we haven’t seen before. Our doctor studied tissue from her body and isolated something from it."

The speaker remained silent.

Yunfeng continued, keeping his voice steady. "He tested it on infected tissue several times. The infection stopped spreading."

This time the silence felt different.

A faint burst of static came from the speaker, followed by hurried voices somewhere on the other end. Yunfeng couldn’t understand most of what they were saying, but the reaction was immediate.

Finally, the first voice returned. "What exactly do you mean by stopped?"

"The infected cells stopped progressing. Our doctor has already produced a serum from what he isolated."

Nobody interrupted him now.

Yunfeng lowered his hands slightly but kept them visible to the camera. "It isn’t perfect. If someone with powers uses it, there’s a good chance they’ll permanently lose their ability, and we don’t know how effective it will be once the infection has progressed too far. But if it’s administered soon after a bite, our doctor believes it can stop the infection before the person turns."

The voices behind the speaker became louder.

Jai glanced at Yunfeng, and Yunfeng could see from his expression that he had noticed it too. There wasn’t just one person inside. There were several.

"We can’t produce enough of it," Yunfeng continued. "That’s why we’re here. Our doctor doesn’t have the equipment he needs. He told us this facility might have it."

The speaker clicked off completely.

Yunfeng waited.

A minute passed, then another. Nobody said anything from inside, but the cameras remained pointed toward them.

Zei shifted his weight. "Do you think they believed you?"

"They’re still talking."

"How do you know?"

"Because if they didn’t believe me, they’d have told us to fuck off again."

Jai almost smiled at that.

Several more seconds passed before the speaker finally came back on.

"Do you have the serum with you?"

"No," Yunfeng answered. "Our doctor kept the samples at our base. We weren’t going to carry the only thing he has through zombie territory."

There was another pause.

Then the voice asked, "Your doctor made this from an infected specimen?"

"Yes."

"And he can make more?"

"If we bring him the equipment."

The speaker went silent again.

This time, Yunfeng didn’t hear arguing. Whatever discussion was happening inside had moved away from the microphone.

Then the security panel beside the entrance beeped.

The green light turned blue.

Several heavy locks released one after another from inside the reinforced doors, and everyone instinctively became alert.

The door opened only a few centimeters.

"Only one person comes inside," the speaker announced. "Unarmed. The other three stay where the cameras can see them."

Jai immediately looked at Yunfeng. "Don’t even think about it."

Yunfeng glanced at him. "I’m already thinking about it."

"These people just threatened to release a deadly virus."

"And now they’re opening the door."

"That doesn’t make them normal."

Yunfeng couldn’t exactly disagree, but they hadn’t come all this way to stand in the courtyard. He bent down, picked up the gun he’d placed on the ground and handed it to Jai instead of putting it back on his waist. His knife followed.

Jai accepted both with obvious reluctance.

"If anything happens in there—"

"You’ll probably tear the building apart. I know."

"I wasn’t going to say that."

"You were thinking it."

Jai’s annoyed expression told him he was right.

Yunfeng gave Shao and Zei a quick look before walking toward the entrance. He didn’t particularly like entering alone either, especially when his powers hadn’t completely recovered, but whoever was inside had every reason to be suspicious of them. Somebody had to make the first move.

He slipped through the narrow opening.

The reinforced door closed behind him almost immediately, and Yunfeng heard the locks engage again. Through the thick glass, he could see Jai standing outside with his gun in one hand and Yunfeng’s weapon in the other, looking like he was already reconsidering every decision that had led them here.

Yunfeng gave him a small wave before turning around.

The inside of the building was dim but surprisingly clean. Emergency lights ran along the floor, and the air smelled strongly of disinfectant. Several sealed doors lined the corridor, each marked with warning symbols and numbers Yunfeng didn’t understand.

Then movement came from the far end.

A figure in a white protective suit stepped into view, followed by another and then several more. Yunfeng counted six people in total. None looked particularly threatening. Two held metal poles, another had a knife, and one person appeared to be holding the handle of a mop as though it were a spear.

Yunfeng stared at the mop for a second.

These were the people who had just threatened to wipe them all out with deadly viruses?

The person at the front reached up and slowly removed the hood of her protective suit. She was a middle-aged woman with closely cropped hair, hollow cheeks and deep exhaustion around her eyes. She looked as though she hadn’t eaten properly in weeks.

But when she looked at Yunfeng, the fear he had heard over the speaker was mixed with something else now.

Something far more desperate.

Hope.

The woman stepped forward, keeping several meters between them.

"You said your doctor stopped the infection in human tissue."

Yunfeng nodded.

Her grip tightened around the hood in her hand.

"Then I want you to tell me exactly what he found."

Yunfeng studied her for a moment before answering.

"I can tell you what I know. But if you really are researchers, talking to me isn’t going to be enough."

The woman’s brow furrowed.

Yunfeng glanced toward the sealed doors surrounding them.

"You have the equipment. We have the infected specimen and the serum."

He looked back at her.

"So maybe instead of threatening to kill each other, we should figure out how to work together."