Throughout the ride back to the new human base, 888 kept sending He Yuan narrowed eye glances. Whenever He Yuan looked at him, his eyes narrowed even more and He Yuan had to look away again. He Yuan was confused. What exactly was wrong with the system?
Hours later, they arrived at the base. The massive wall split open with a loud groaning sound and teams of new humans and evolving zombies rushed over once He Yuan stepped down from the truck.
He was a familiar presence in their lives with him constantly sending in instructions to their minds so when they stopped receiving his messages over a month ago, a lot of them were confused.
888 took in everything and he had to admit, he was quite awed. The base was really well planned. The walls of the dilapidated buildings had been rebuilt and newer buildings had been erected. There was also lush greenery placed at strategic points.
If not for the regular zombie or two snarling as they walked about, this place looked just like a normal pre-infection human community -but more eco friendly.
The three new humans travelling with them disbanded with a nod at He Yuan whilst He Yuan led 888 over to his office and Feng Huang rushed away to check on his steadily evolving daughter.
When He Yuan opened the door to his office, he was met with an onslaught of images of chocolate bars in his mind. He had to hold back his laughter when his office chair swerved around and a little girl was seated on top with a stern face.
She extended one of her hands, palm up and then used the second hand to point at her open palm. "Choco. Here."
He Yuan rolled his eyes and took out a bar of chocolate from his pocket, he'd practically sold his soul to be able to get this and although it was one year past its expiry date, it was dark chocolate so it was still manageable.
Cho -that's the name he'd finally given her, as for some reason, she couldn't remember hers. Cho leaped up from the chair and rushed over to He Yuan. She tore open the wrapper and took a huge bite of the chocolate in seconds before nodding. "Good... Good."
888's lips lifted as he stared at Cho, the girl who had made He Yuan realize that the human consciousness of the zombies wasn't completely wiped out. She was also one of the first to begin speaking. Although her words were a little rusty, it was good enough.
Once Cho walked out of this office, He Yuan settled behind his desk and began drafting plans. He planned to use the vaccine as a method to ease the existence of the new humans into the lives of the old humans.
This was going to be a hard task as it would be hard for the old humans to look at the faces of the killers of their loved ones. Even if the said killers couldn't control their actions and looked a lot different now.
Sooner or later, He Yuan was certain that the new humans would be accepted because even though the vaccine could make the old humans immune to the toxin, it couldn't possibly wipe out the already existing zombies and even if the immunity would make the old humans more fearless when facing zombies, he was pretty sure that a lot of them would prefer to have their loved ones who had been turned into zombies back.
There was a little over one hundred and fifty psychic ability new humans in the base that had cultivated to a milky brown core, a step above the light brown core. So his plan was to have these new humans sneak into the teams from bases within and outside the country that would be assigned to deliver the vaccine.
Once they successfully cross over to different parts of the world, they would gather zombies from all over and just like he had done to them, they would impact the method of cultivating the cores and have the zombies evolve into new humans.
He had to make sure that the identity of the new humans were hidden from the teams so they wouldn't be killed off before they could make it to their destinations.
Once He Yuan was done drafting the list of new humans to send to different countries, he looked up to see 888 seated on the opposite office chair, staring at him with narrowed eyes and hands folded over his chest. He pinched his forehead and sighed. "Alright, speak up. What is wrong with you?"
888 shrugged but his eyes narrowed even more.
Now He Yuan was truly exasperated. "Why are you looking at me like I'm a criminal?"
888 eyed him. "You said you were not going to be like other taskers and involve yourself with inhabitants of a task realm. What is going on with Xiao Yu then, hm?"
He Yuan's eyes widened and he burst into laughter. No way. "Is that why you've been pouting at me all day?"
The comment caused 888 to glare at He Yuan dangerously. "Watch your words. I wasn't 'pouting,' I was observing you closely as I tried to decipher your hypocrisy."
He Yuan kept on laughing but suddenly choked when 888's glare turned darker. He cleared his throat. "I don't have anything for Xiao Yu. I just think the kid 's temperament is sometimes too naive for this realm and try to look out for him, that's all."
888 looked away but he wasn't convinced. Not one bit. Actually it was none of his business but it would be really awful if He Yuan had said such high sounding words only to end up like everybody else. He hated liars and pretenders the most.
For the next few weeks, He Yuan constantly had Feng Huang draw his blood and try to duplicate the components of the vaccine using different methods.
Whilst this happened, He Yuan selected the psychic ability users and gave them thorough training. Increasing their combat and communication skills with 888 helping whichever way he could. The task was quite easy as the psychic ability made it super easy for the new humans to absorb information quickly and in two months, they were all speaking normally.
He Yuan and 888 also noticed something else. It seemed that the new humans would never be able to cultivate higher than the milky brown core. He Yuan was an anomaly because even before he turned into a zombie, he had cultivated to a white core so he was different.
Another discovery was that the new humans did not feel emotions like an old human would. They could be imbued with a sense of responsibility and loyalty but their emotions were toned down considerably -almost to the point of nonexistence so they were hardly ever fazed.
The both of them attributed it to the fact that if the new humans had heightened sense of emotions, they probably wouldn't be able to live with the fact that their zombified selves had killed and sometimes eaten human beings.
This was most probably nature's way of ensuring the survival of the new humans so they did not all kill themselves off due to heightened sense of guilt and heartbreak.
In the third month, Feng Huang succeeded in looking for a method to duplicate the vaccine and He Yuan sent out telegrams to bases all over the world to begin coming in for the vaccines -not to the new human base of course, the meeting point was different.
The bases outside the countries retouched their airplanes which had been collecting dust for years. After the advent of the infection, people hardly travelled so there was still some kerosene left to fuel the airplanes for the life saving trip.
He Yuan met up with a new base every three days. This was to give himself time to recuperate because whenever he met up with a squad from a base, he had to use his ability on them in order to mask the presence of one of his psychic ability new humans.
Since his psychic ability was basically unparalleled. It was able to carry the new humans to different countries and all they had to do was supplement He Yuan's original compulsion with their own.
Was it a shitty thing to do? Definitely. Did they have a choice? Not really. They had to do this if they wanted to ensure the survival of the new humans. After all, it wasn't their fault that they were turned into zombies in the first place.
Things were going great and whenever a new human landed in a different country, they had to look for a working telegram and check in with He Yuan. Whenever a new human base was created in a country, He Yuan was also notified.
The new humans were so dedicated to their task that He Yuan began to have the illusion that he was slowly taking over the world. It left him chuckling endlessly sometimes whilst 888 rolled his eyes at him.
Two months after He Yuan began to send out the vaccines, disasters began to occur all over the country. Squads of ability users that were sent to deliver the vaccines were suddenly attacked and killed off.
Soon enough, bases were beginning to be wiped out too.
Sightings of weird misshapen monsters that looked to be a mass of both zombie and human parts mangled together were reported and He Yuan was ready to swear on his life that Du Jian had something to do with the monsters.