Sixteen Years

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This mall had a total of five floors, with the topmost floor housing a semi-open cinema and game center. The overall layout of the building followed a modern and typical circular shopping mall design, with a high ceiling in the middle and shops surrounding it..

Because it was located in a bustling area, this mall was quite spacious in terms of square footage. Fu Yan communicated with the officers outside and estimated that there were still over two hundred people inside, but they were scattered too widely to be found all at once.

Fu Yan walked into the lobby from the staircase, counted the bullets he had, and then carefully reloaded his gun, circling around cautiously.

It was evident that the central area of the first floor had been the venue for the previous event. The stage set up by the Youth Palace was still in place, but the backdrop of blue sky and white clouds was now stained with blood. Nearby, on the steps, were horrifying pieces of brown flesh. As Fu Yan looked around, he couldn’t see a single person in this vast mall.

Shop glass doors were open, but there was silence everywhere. The stark white lights cast their glow on the tiles. Fu Yan walked over a littered area of plastic debris, and the faint crunching sound echoed in the vast lobby, giving him an eerie feeling as if he had stepped back into his past life.

He heard some distorted commands through his earpiece. Besides him, there should be several special police teams searching as well, and occasionally, there were responses indicating that they had found someone.

“If you trust me, you’d better start looking for injured people throughout the city now,” Fu Yan held his earpiece, paused, and added, “It would be best to find eyewitnesses as well… and then isolate these people.”

“That might be difficult,” came the response from the other end of the earpiece. “There are too many people, and there are no search measures in place.”

“It’s best to find them,” Fu Yan said, “find as many as you can.”

There was a moment of hesitation on the other end of the earpiece, and no further words were spoken. It was unclear if it was a refusal or if they were contemplating.

Fu Yan couldn’t do much more at this point; he had already done his best with his reminders.

He searched the first floor but didn’t find the so-called “patient shot dead.” He furrowed his brow, turned, and headed to the second floor.

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In his previous life, apart from Shao Xuefan, the “Patient Zero” who disappeared into the sea of people had always been a missing key point. Due to the lack of basic data, many subsequent studies could only be conducted on the existing zombies. Fu Yan didn’t understand much about academic research; he had only heard a few scattered phrases during meetings. It seemed that most of the viruses extracted from those zombies were products of mutations, with limited usefulness. If they could find the source, it would make things much easier.

However, when they remembered this, the world had already turned chaotic, and people were struggling to escape. Not to mention searching for some “Patient Zero” in the vast sea of people.

This time, coming back again, Fu Yan didn’t have the opportunity to save Shao Xuefan, but this opportunity was right in front of him. He couldn’t ignore it.

Fu Yan asked about the location of the shooting, then continued without delay, heading straight for the fourth floor.

“Fu Yan,” came a voice through his earpiece from Liu Ruosong. “I asked the medical staff just now, and they said this disease is highly contagious. Please be careful.”

Fu Yan was momentarily taken aback when he heard his voice, but then he realized that someone from the outside had given him access. He nodded in response.

“I’ve evacuated the crowd around here,” Liu Ruosong continued, “According to the medical staff on the ambulance, the incubation period of this rabies is extremely short. In the shortest case, one patient exhibited surface symptoms of biting while being transported to the hospital, and it only took about ten minutes.”

“So short?” Fu Yan was somewhat surprised.

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In his previous life, he had spent most of his time on outdoor rescue missions. Most of what he saw were fully developed zombies. Even if there were occasionally some bitten victims, they were either left to the medical personnel accompanying the team or were left to fend for themselves.

He knew that the zombie virus was irreversible, but he hadn’t paid much attention to the time it took for the virus to mutate.

“But there are exceptions,” Liu Ruosong continued, “The shortest transmission time was seen in a 28-year-old young man. According to information from the hospital, it seems that young men and women have already shown some surface symptoms. However, several elderly individuals temporarily seem fine. So, medical personnel now suspect that younger, healthier adults may be more susceptible to infection—be careful.”

“Understood,” Fu Yan said. “Stay away from the ambulance area; a team just left to bring the injured over there.”

“Don’t worry,,” Liu Ruosong smiled and said, stepping aside to clear the way, positioning himself behind the police car’s caution tape. He added, “I won’t cause any trouble—”

Liu Ruosong hadn’t finished his sentence when something suddenly flashed in his peripheral vision. He instinctively fell silent, turned his head, and saw several doctors surrounding a stretcher. They were lifting the stretcher onto the ambulance.

Liu Ruosong, who had spent most of his time outdoors, had developed a wild animal-like intuition. He instinctively felt that something was wrong and took two steps forward unconsciously. Only then did he notice that the restraints on the patient bound to the stretcher had been untied at some point!

The person on the stretcher was a young man in a suit, tall and burly, with blood smeared all over his neck and shoulders. His shirt was soaked with blood.

He looked extremely distressed, with his limbs twisting and convulsing. His face alternated between pale and blue, and he emitted a gut-wrenching, muffled roar. He struggled desperately, tossing and turning on the narrow stretcher, and for a moment, three or four doctors couldn’t hold him down.

Whether it was from excessive blood loss or something else, the exposed skin on the man’s body had turned a grayish-white color, similar to dead ash. Dark purple veins protruded from the back of his hand, and his eyes were vacant and hollow, making him look like a zombie just dug up from a grave.

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The flimsy restraint on his right wrist had been torn apart entirely. As if he had lost his sanity, the man suddenly propped himself up, attempting to bite the doctor’s wrist that was holding his own.

The doctor was caught off guard, and before he could react, he felt a sudden force from behind. The white coat emitted a helpless ripping sound, splitting into two pieces right along the seams at the back.

The young doctor was pushed back by this force, taking three or four steps backward. The man’s wrist flashed before the doctor’s eyes, and he heard a nauseating sound of teeth clashing together.

“He’s trying to bite!” Liu Ruosong quickly gathered the torn half of the white coat into a ball, not caring if it would suffocate the man, and pressed it tightly against the man’s face. Urgently, he said, “Hold him down!”

Several young, strong doctors nearby quickly reacted, pressing the man down firmly, and after binding him several times, they finally managed to secure him onto the stretcher. Then they loaded him onto the ambulance.

“Thank you,” the young doctor looked at Liu Ruosong, still with a lingering fear in his heart. “Thanks to you.”

Liu Ruosong’s reaction had been purely instinctive, and now that he had come down from the adrenaline rush, he felt a bit scared himself. He waved his hand weakly and stepped back to lean against the car door.

“Be careful yourselves,” Liu Ruosong hesitated for a moment, then said, “There are many unknown viruses in this world. Rabies is just one of them—just like how the Ebola virus can turn people into vampires, who knows if there’s a virus that can turn people into doomsday zombies.”

The young doctor had clearly seen the man’s frenzied appearance just now, so he smiled bitterly, nodded, and said he would be careful before turning and following the ambulance.

The man had become ill too suddenly, and his symptoms were terrifying. Liu Ruosong’s palms were ice-cold, and he couldn’t help but carefully check himself. Fortunately, he hadn’t been scratched, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

That was reckless, Liu Ruosong thought. He would need to be more cautious next time.

He was lost in thought when he heard Fu Yan call his name through the earpiece.

“Ruosong,” Fu Yan said.

Liu Ruosong was momentarily surprised, realizing that he hadn’t turned off his earpiece, and Fu Yan had likely heard everything that happened during the chaos.

“You did well, and your reaction was quick,” Fu Yan said. “But next time you encounter something like this, prioritize your own safety first.”

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Liu Ruosong leaned against the police car door, feeling a little relieved. He acknowledged with a quiet “yes” that he had heard Fu Yan’s words.

Fu Yan didn’t say much more, but he also didn’t switch back to the public channel. Liu Ruosong listened to Fu Yan’s breathing on the other end of the earpiece, and for some reason, he began to feel a bit more at ease.

Fu Yan heard the other side of the earpiece quiet down, so he came out from his hiding spot in the corner. He adjusted his earpiece and, from about ten meters away, saw the “patient” lying on the ground.

The patient had been shot in the forehead, limbs sprawled out in the middle of the road, and brain matter and dark brown blood were scattered all over. It was truly not a pleasant sight.

Having seen too many zombie corpses in his previous life, Fu Yan had an instinctive aversion. He frowned, tucked away his gun, and took out the two blood collection tubes from his pocket.

Fu Yan kneeled next to the corpse, gave it a slight nudge, examined it from top to bottom, and then chose a slightly intact piece of skin. He inserted the needle into the person’s blood vessel.

He had done a lot of sample collection work in his previous life and was familiar with the procedure. Unfortunately, he didn’t have much experience in preserving samples, so he could only hope that they would last longer.

Fu Yan obtained what he wanted, and his main objective for coming here was mostly accomplished. He taped the blood collection tubes securely inside his clothing pocket. As he was about to retrace his steps, he suddenly heard a loud and chaotic shout coming from his earpiece.

His heart tightened, and he scanned the area but couldn’t see anyone nearby. He then asked sharply, ‘Coordinates.’

Coming from an Air Force background, he wasn’t part of the Special Forces system, and the person on the other end hesitated for a moment, then they quickly responded, ‘First floor, B2 staircase entrance…’

The design of the escalators going downstairs in this building wasn’t in a straight line; it was arranged in a Z-shaped crossing pattern, with adjacent floors on the same side. Fu Yan looked left and right and saw that the downstairs elevator was on the other side of the corridor. It would be too strenuous to run over there, so he gritted his teeth, propped himself up on the railing with one hand, and flipped down from it!

Then, Fu Yan used the wall to cushion his fall and landed on a railing on the lower floor, using it to buffer his fall before flipping directly into a gap on the first floor.