He Yuan spent most of his time in partial confinement for the next three weeks as he waited for the test results.
Du Jian and Lu Ming tried numerous times to see him but he had the guards at the door turn them away each time. When the two tried to pull rank, He Yuan wasted no time in compelling them to leave.
Du Jian might have developed a psychic ability but he was no match for He Yuan who had spent two years honing his skills and using his abilities on hundreds of zombies at a time -with each strain of his ability, he was brought to a new height.
A lot of base leaders had also sneakily met up with him, trying to get him to become a permanent member of their bases but He Yuan firmly refused. After all, he had his own flourishing base.
The only people he allowed into his residence were Xiao Yu and 888. 888 started following along whenever Xiao Yu came over. People who saw this thought that Xiao Yu had introduced the both of them so it wasn't suspicious whenever they hung out alone now.
Another person He Yuan ran into occasionally was Liu Bao. The woman was very glad that He Yuan turned out okay but she never walked up to him. Apparently, she decided to 'watch him from afar.'
When the test results finally came out, a meeting was called for all the people with ranks in the entire military base. The public weren't informed yet because they still had to do a final confirmation.
When He Yuan stepped into the base with Feng Huang by his side, the eyes of the military base leader shone like a beacon and he leaned closer to Du Jian next to him.
"Dr. Du, Lu Ming had informed me that the both of you are brothers- twins even. Mr. Du was also once a member of this base. With the recent discoveries, it would be great if we had him on our side.
-It would take our base straight to the number one spot in the entire world." He whispered and patted Du Jian's shoulders. "Siblings should always stick together. I'm sure you know what I mean."
Du Jian side eyed the base leader and grit his teeth silently. That brother of his was truly good at ruining things wasn't he? Nothing seemed to put him down.
-Abandoning him with a horde of zombies didn't, getting together with the supposed love of his life didn't faze him either and now, after getting him infected, the unkillable roach managed to return as the living vaccine. What were the fucking odds?!
Du Jian was still glaring at He Yuan when the scavengers and fighters in the base trickled into the meeting hall one by one. His heart trembled when 888 walked in but when the man subconsciously gravitated to where He Yuan was standing, his heart clenched in hate.
Du Ling was so incompetent so why did he always end up with things that he, Du Jian, wanted? With the almost verified theory that Du Ling was the key to the vaccine, his title as the hope of humanity was basically nonexistent.
Once the final test was carried out and things were completely confirmed, he would truly become irrelevant and might end up as just another random member of the military base whilst Du Ling would become the centre of attention.
He was already aware that a couple of the base leaders were trying to pull Du Ling over to their side with promises of untold wealth and glory. Even the military base leader was no different. What exactly did Du Ling do to deserve all that? It was just a random stroke of luck -a mistake!
The leader of the military based cleared his throat to get the attention of everyone. "Good day ladies and gentlemen..." And then he went on to explain about the recent discovery of a vaccine.
The news caused the eyes of the fighters and scavengers, who weren't aware of this- to widened in shock and hope.
Once Feng Huang was called to take the stage and give further explanations, the fighters and scavengers were all looking at He Yuan with fervent gazes. There was still hope to end the madness that the GHGD project had started and this hope had been made an almost reality with the appearance of He Yuan!
Du Jian only got angrier and Lu Ming bit his lips and stared at He Yuan with a complicated gaze.
At the end of the explanation, they all came to the main event of the day, the final testing. Volunteers were needed to be injected with both the vaccine and the toxins afterwards.
Everyone exchanged looks of hesitation at this point. If something went wrong, they would become part of the infected and end up killed.
"I have taken the vaccine myself. I assure you, it is absolutely safe," Feng Huang said but they all still hesitated. Human beings were naturally mistrustful creatures. They scoffed in their minds. Just because it worked on Feng Huang doesn't mean it would work on everybody else.
Lu Ming folded his arms in front of his chest and smirked. "I'm sure Ren would be willing to make this sacrifice on behalf of the base."
Both Du Jian and He Yuan turned to glare at him. Du Jian because 888 was his current interest and He Yuan because he was afraid of complications.
It wasn't that he didn't trust in the vaccine, the problem however was that 888 wasn't an inhabitant of this realm. Once Du Ling's soul thread was extracted, he would go back to being a pure soul body so He Yuan had no idea how the vaccine and toxin would affect the system then.
After all, it was against the rules for 888, a system, to have direct interaction with a task realm.
888 gave Lu Ming a bored glance. What was the clown being such a busybody for? "I'm pretty sure they asked for volunteers. Keyword 'volunteer.' A word which means a person who does something 'by choice,' you dimwit."
Lu Ming turned red from embarrassment and some people had to turn their heads away to hide their laughter.
Xiao Yu -who was also standing beside He Yuan- cleared his throat and raised a hand. "I volunteer." This made two other people to brace themselves and also volunteer.
He Yuan offered Xiao Yu a small smile and the boy became braver and stepped up. Everyone watched intensely as the Xiao Yan and one of the volunteers were injected with a vial of orange liquid. After three hours of holding their breaths, they were still alive.
They moved on to the next phase. A freshly cut zombie claw was brought in and the both of them were scratched with it -the toxin flowed straight into their bloodstream right from the source and everyone held their breath once more.
Nothing happened. The reaction of a human to the toxin was instantaneous with the symptoms being black fingernails and protruding canines. None of those happened and everyone began to shiver from excitement.
They decided to observe the volunteers for some more days before everything was set in stone. Feng Huang only rolled his eyes at them. After all, he was already injected with the vaccine so he knew it was legit.
The remaining volunteer was brought before He Yuan and when He Yuan's claws suddenly extended, a lot of the people present flinched. With how normal He Yuan looked, they had forgotten he was a 'zombie' too.
He Yuan swiftly injected one of his claws into the guy's skin. This was to verify the theory that zombies with light brown cores and above were incapable of spreading the toxin.
Nothing happened. There was no reaction and they all decided to run a couple of tests and observe the guy for some days too.
Two weeks later, the volunteers were still alive and functioning normal with no signs of infection whatsoever and, with the first two, an immunity to the toxin.
Each base leader returned to their base with a sample and the news was broken to the inhabitants of the military base.
There was an uproar and every member of the base stared at He Yuan with equal parts fear and awe. Du Jian's special lab was revoked as there was no need to keep pooling resources into the man's research when the key had been found.
This drove Du Jian mad but whenever he tried to speak to the base leader, the man ignored him, he was too busy trying to get He Yuan to swear loyalty to the base.
He Yuan was moved to the best residence and people from base Beta who recognized him as squad leader Ling all tried to get in touch with him. The people from the military base who also recognized him as a former member of the Nova team also got in touch with him.
One month after the base leaders all returned to their various bases, Du Jian suddenly disappeared.