"Apart from the fact that my energy is consumed up, there's another thing I need to confirm," said Lin Qiao.
"What?" Lin Hao asked.
Lin Qiao gave him a glance and said, "The binding between me and him." She had told Lin Hao about why she suddenly disappeared two months ago.
Lin Hao paused briefly with surprised and said, "Hasn't he left yet?"
Lin Qiao shook her head and said, "He's in the nursery."
"Oh," Lin Hao nodded.
The nursery was only tens of meters away from Lin Hao's clinic, so Lin Qiao couldn't tell if the binding between Wu Chengyue and herself had disappeared or not. She needed to go over two-hundred meters away from him to tell.
"What are you gonna feed the baby with? Fresh milk powder is hard to get now. Maybe you should find my nephew a wet nurse." Lin Hao knew that Lin Qiao's body didn't produce milk, so it was impossible for her to feed the little thing herself.
The milk powders from before the apocalypse were out-of-date long ago. Most of the goats and cows had mutated. Who would feed their children the milk from mutated animals? Each base had been keeping some healthy goats or cows, but only in small numbers. Each base was only able to produce a small amount of milk powder, so fresh milk powder was very precious.
Lin Qiao stood up, then turned and walked toward the door. Meanwhile, she said, "We don't need a wet nurse. I can get milk for Viney."
A few goats that were born in her space had whelped baby goats, and they had plenty of milk. The second generation of mutated goats still carried a slight amount of zombie virus, but the lake water in her space could remove that.
Besides, Viney was her child. He looked like a human being, but maybe his digestive system wasn't the same as that of human beings. His mouth and nails, and even his blood carried a small amount of zombie virus. Perhaps, he was immune to the zombie virus.
Therefore, Lin Qiao wasn't worried about Viney's food source.
"Are you still calling him Viney? Have you thought about how much he doesn't like that name? He is mature. He might refuse to talk to you if you keep calling him that." Hearing Lin Qiao mention Viney's name, Lin Hao recalled how the baby complained in a tender, soft voice, back at the door of the livery room.
He was able to talk; he pronounced clearly and his words were perfectly coherent. What a baby monster! His tiny body seemed to contain a mature soul.
Would all zombie babies be like that?
Somehow, Lin Hao thought of the other zombies. He didn't yet know if the other zombies could have babies like Lin Qiao did or not.
While speaking, he picked up the baby's record and followed Lin Qiao out.
"He can change his name himself. I really am surprised to know that he's a boy! Also, I think he'll know better about what he can eat than we do," Lin Qiao was still wearing the hospital gown and a thin jacket that she always wore,
The two of them headed toward the nursery.
"No wonder you were never worried about the baby's growth environment. That kid is so mature already. I don't think he'll wonder why his parents aren't together," Lin Hao abruptly recalled what they had discussed earlier.
Lin Qiao stayed silent.
He was wrong. That little thing cared a lot about that. Based on how he entrapped his parents earlier, he clearly wanted Lin Qiao and Wu Chengyue to be together. Lin Qiao had no idea why the kid was so smart that he knew everything he should or shouldn't know already.
In the nursery, Lin Qiao saw Wu Chengyue, Wu Yueling, and Qiu Lili standing beside the crib and staring straight at the baby. Lu Tianyi and Xiao Licheng were also leaning their heads forward to look at him.
The smile on Wu Chengyue's face grew faint as Lin Qiao showed up together with Lin Hao. He looked at Lin Hao and said, "I want to know about the baby's condition."
That was a special nursery, and Viney was the only baby in there.
Lin Hao told him about what he knew, "He is in a special condition right now. Based on his physical features, he is a human being indeed. However, his body temperature is relatively low, and his heart rate is lower than healthy human babies by fifty percent. His gum and fingernails both carry the zombie virus, and so does his blood. I'm not sure if he'll grow into a pure zombie or a healthy human being. Maybe the virus will disappear slowly and he'll turn into a normal human being. But, I can't tell for sure now. Apart from that, he is fine. Oh, also, he can talk once he was born, too."
At that moment, Viney was in a deep sleep in the baby crib. Everyone on the scene could feel that his breath was shallow and weak. His pair of tender and chubby hands weren't covered. Someone might have taken those hands out earlier. At the moment, Wu Yueling was holding one of the baby's hand with a finger.
Wu Chengyue frowned slightly and asked, "Will he be able to live like a normal child, or will he be like a zombie?"
While writing something down on the baby's record, Lin Hao shook his head and responded, "I am not sure about that. But, I personally think that he'll be like a normal human baby. After all, his physical features are mostly the same as human beings."
Hearing that, Wu Chengyue sighed with relief.
At that point, Lin Hao started asking people to leave. "Alright, the baby needs some quiet. Your vibes will stimulate him and wake him up. Just leave! Go and do whatever you need to do."
The people on the scene were soon cast out of the nursery by him. But, before leaving, Lu Tianyi asked one question.
"Eh… Have you prepared milk powder? Does Chief have milk?"
"Yes, yes! You don't need to worry about that. Your Chief will handle it," Lin Hao waved a hand and responded to him while closely observing Viney without even raising his head.
Lin Qiao was cast out too, feeling abandoned. Lin Hao was so worried about her when she was pregnant, but as the baby had come out, he started to ignore her now.
She walked out and saw Wu Chengyue standing aside, holding Wu Yueling. Wu Yueling could barely keep her eyes open. The little girl blinked slowly, and her eyelids kept falling.
Lin Qiao silently gave the man and his daughter a glance, then turned to Qiu Lili and said to her, "You stay here and keep an eye on Viney tonight. I'm going back to my office. I'll come back here tomorrow."
She still had some work to do. Earlier on, her stomach suddenly ached while she was working, so she came here and had the baby. She glanced outside and found that the day was breaking. She planned to head back and finish work for today, and also conveniently get tomorrow's work done.
"Okay." Qiu Lili had no critical work to do anyway, and just wandered in the base most of the time. Lin Qiao asked her to watch the baby because no one else could be more suitable for the job than her.