Zhuang Fan was certain that the white coat before him was no doctor. He was more like a seasoned interrogator, trying to see through his lies.
“You’re certain your name is Zhang Dafan?”
“Mm.”
“Age.”
“Twenty-five. I just said that.”
“Date of cryonic freezing.”
“I really forgot.”
The conversation fell into another deadlock, leaving only the rustle of files being flipped through, revealing a trace of impatience from the doctor.
“I’ve checked repeatedly. In the original shelter’s database, there is no valid information on any ‘Zhang Dafan.’ Your cryopod is like an unregistered household, its identity tag completely blank. That is very wrong.”
Zhuang Fan looked troubled. “I find it strange too.”
The doctor’s interrogation came at an extremely fast pace. He compared the form several times in quick succession, then suddenly asked, “Do you still remember your citizen ID?”
“Citizen ID?”
Zhuang Fan blurted it out, and instantly realized he had said the wrong thing.
This time, the doctor stared at him for more than ten seconds before slowly speaking. “You are a Common-Era person, born before the year 2100.”
“…”
“Only in your era was there no concept of citizens. So, what year were you born?”
“…”
Zhuang Fan chose silence, but the doctor reminded him that he had to answer, or else they would implant a mind-reading device into his cerebral cortex.
“My patience is limited. You’d better think this through.”
In the end, Zhuang Fan compromised. “2002. The year I was born.”
“And the date you were frozen?”
“2027.”
“A very ancient year. Why did you undergo cryonic freezing?”
“Compound cancer. Late stage. There was no other way.”
The doctor glanced at Zhuang Fan’s electronic report and shook his head. “Your body is very healthy. No tumor cells were detected.”
“They weren’t detected?”
This time, it was Zhuang Fan’s turn to be confused. He had thought that after waking from the cryopod, his cancer had simply been cured along the way.
The doctor sighed softly. “For such a large-scale shelter to be unable to properly preserve information on Common-Era people from several centuries ago—what a caotai banzi, a makeshift outfit.”
Those four ancient words that belonged specifically to Chinese, “caotai banzi,” sounded rather jarring coming from the mouth of a blond Western doctor.
When he had first been thawed, Zhuang Fan had been completely unable to understand what dialect the doctor was speaking. Only after wearing a simultaneous translator did he learn that the language now in use was “World Language.”
Zhuang Fan suddenly caught on to something and glared at him. “You just said several centuries ago… What do you mean, several centuries? Say that again!”
“Zhang Dafan, watch your words.”
As soon as the doctor’s words fell, the two guards outside the door turned at the same time, aiming their cold gun barrels at Zhuang Fan, instantly forcing him to calm down.
He slowed his tone. “Respected doctor, may I ask what year it is now? This is very important to me.”
“2710.”
The doctor seemed quite satisfied with his attitude in admitting fault. “It has been almost seven hundred years since the year you were frozen. You are also the Common-Era person with the longest freezing period I have encountered so far.”
Seven hundred years…
It was a number that filled one with utter despair. Zhuang Fan felt as if struck by lightning, completely stunned.
Who could have imagined that in the instant his eyes closed, the span of time would be so enormous? Had the world outside changed beyond recognition? Had everything and everyone become different?
So much time had passed. Mom, Dad, and his little sister… they might…
Might be gone, leaving only me.
Loneliness and fear descended on him in an instant. He fell into a daze as if he had lost his soul, no longer able to make out what the doctor was saying. Only a buzzing remained by his ears.
“A Common-Era person, and from an extremely rare ancient year at that… Zhang Dafan, I am growing more and more expectant of your performance.”
“What else am I supposed to perform?”
It had been more than eight hours since Zhuang Fan was thawed, and he finally could not hold himself back. “Also, when are you going to let me leave? This is illegal imprisonment.”
“No rush. Everything will wait until the test results come out.”
A shadow touched the doctor’s smile. “Besides… staying here is much safer than the world outside. I’m not lying to you.”
Having already realized he had fallen into a den of thieves, Zhuang Fan cursed inwardly and began planning how to escape.
This old bastard did not seem to have any self-defense weapons. He looked to be in his fifties or sixties, weak enough to be blown over by the wind. If Zhuang Fan took him hostage, could he break out?
“Take him to the testing area first.”
Before Zhuang Fan could make up his mind, two mechanical guards raised their guns and ordered him to stand, then quickly escorted him out of the room.
His grand hostage-taking plan died then and there.
The enclosed corridor was dimly lit. Overhead, pipes and cables sprawled in a tangled mess. There were no windows and no sunlight. He guessed he might be in some underground building.
Soon, as a gear-shaped gate rotated open, Zhuang Fan was brought into the testing area.
The air inside was turbid and dim. In the center stood a large iron cage, packed with several dozen people.
Calling them “people” was no longer quite objective. They were more like a group of living corpses in tattered clothes, both men and women, tall and short.
But the skin and pupils all over their bodies were grayish white. Their limbs were rotting and stank; stark white bones still hung with scraps of flesh. From their mouths came the roars of the most primitive desire.
Was this really not a movie shoot?
After standing rooted in place for quite a while, Zhuang Fan calmed the shock in his heart, and a strong sense of unease rose within him.
He noticed that beside him stood another test subject like himself, a trembling, balding middle-aged man whose face had gone pale. He was already too frightened to speak.
A white coat walked over, took out a device similar to a detector, and carefully scanned the middle-aged man. Very quickly, he reached a conclusion:
“Experimental Subject No. 233. The concentration of eerie mist within the body has reached an average of 1 milligram per cubic meter.”
“Then… did I pass?” The middle-aged man did not want to stay here another second.
The white coat gently shook his head. “Sorry. The concentration exceeds the standard. You do not meet our screening requirements.”
Before his voice had even fallen, a mechanical guard stepped forward and opened the iron cage door. Like grabbing a rooster, he threw the middle-aged man inside whole, then slammed the door shut.
“I’m begging you, I still have money in my account, really, my password is… Ah—!”
The wail stopped abruptly.
His throat had been forcibly pierced by a sharp claw.
The horde of corpses went completely berserk. Their roars were filled with excitement as they scrambled over one another to bite and tear at the prey before them, putting on the most realistic bloody feast right in front of Zhuang Fan.
Around the iron cage were large amounts of dried dark brownish-red stains, mixed with fresh blood and shattered organs. The air was filled with the stench of blood and gray mist.
Hell on earth was nothing more than this.
Zhuang Fan’s face also turned pale. Movies were movies, but reality really did not need to be this realistic. At this moment, he only felt a physiological nausea and could not help wanting to retreat.
But an icy mechanical palm blocked his path.
“Experimental Subject No. 234. It’s your turn.”
My turn to die?
Zhuang Fan’s legs seemed nailed in place, refusing to move an inch, resisting the ending fate had bestowed upon him.
When the mechanical guard at his side reached for his shoulder, Zhuang Fan suddenly exerted strength and snatched fiercely at that long gun, only to discover… it did not budge at all.
So the gun handle was integrated with the guard’s mechanical fingers.
“Hey, you test subjects all love trying to seize guns. Wait… fuck, you actually broke the gun handle.”
Zhuang Fan was also stunned. Am I really that strong?
The guard flew into a rage. With one forceful kick, Zhuang Fan’s entire body flew out like a rag, slammed hard into the wall, and fell to the ground.
He curled up in pain, unable to even speak.
The white coat wore a benevolent expression. “Don’t do anything stupid, or you’ll die even faster. I’ll be waiting outside for your good news.”
The gear-shaped gate slowly closed, and the laboratory returned to dimness.
After the pain had eased, Zhuang Fan staggered to his feet and wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth.
His eyes stared at the door, as if a cluster of flames were burning in his pupils.
After a long while, he withdrew his gaze and sighed softly. “Those iron lumps really hurt when they kick. I’ll have to watch out for that in the future.”
By now, the feeding frenzy inside the large cage had ended. The walking corpses had not even spared a single bone, gnawing everything clean.
The walking corpses, still not full, soon fixed their sights on Zhuang Fan’s fresh living body. Their eyes bulged with murderous light as they let out threatening roars.
Their arms of flesh and bone looked fragile, but when they smashed against the iron cage, they produced crisp, muffled impacts. The bars had even begun to deform slightly.
Zhuang Fan was filled with suspicion and alarm. Can this iron cage hold? They shouldn’t be able to break out, right?
Wait, something’s strange… He stood by the cage and observed carefully for quite a while, finally discovering the eerie aspect of the walking corpses.
Probably stimulated by the smell of blood, these frenzied walking corpses were continuously seeping pale gray mist from their bodies.
The mist was odorless, and for now it was not corrosive either.
Zhuang Fan thought again of the “eerie mist concentration” the white coat had mentioned, guessing that this should be the thing. The middle-aged man had been fed to the walking corpses because the concentration of eerie mist in his body exceeded the limit.
If being infected by eerie mist turned one into a walking corpse, then the entire experiment was meant to find test subjects who were immune to eerie mist… and then manufacture a vaccine?
The line of thought seemed sound. Remembering the middle-aged man’s miserable end, Zhuang Fan quickly confirmed that what he needed to do most right now was avoid being contaminated by the eerie mist as much as possible and remain “clean.”
Seeing the eerie mist in the testing area gradually spread, Zhuang Fan hurriedly held his breath and retreated to a corner. He pushed over a side table with force, trying to block the erosion of the eerie mist.
The table did successfully block part of the eerie mist, but then an even stranger scene occurred:
On the shadowed side of the tabletop, eerie mist was actually slowly forming. Although the speed of formation was extremely slow and the concentration faint, he was absolutely certain that this eerie mist had appeared out of thin air and had nothing to do with the walking corpses.
The tabletop was likewise unable to block the eerie mist released by the walking corpses. It seeped in little by little and merged with the newly formed mist.
When something is strange to this extent, there has to be something uncanny about it. This time, it was truly uncanny to the extreme.
By now, Zhuang Fan had nowhere left to avoid it. Very quickly, he was surrounded by the pale mist. He originally wanted to keep holding his breath, but in less than three minutes his face turned red from the strain, and he squatted on the ground, gasping for air.
“Hah…”
Although the eerie mist was odorless and noncorrosive, it was psychologically repulsive. He could only hope that he had inhaled as little of it as possible, and his expression grew increasingly grave.
“Forget it. Whatever happens, happens.”
Having fallen into a state of letting the broken jar smash, Zhuang Fan simply stood up and searched everywhere through the eerie mist, seeing whether there were any weapons for self-defense, or perhaps some hidden escape passage.
If he truly had to wait for death, he was still unwilling to accept it.
In reality, he found nothing at all. Moreover, cameras in all four corners were watching his every move.
Realizing he was doing useless work, Zhuang Fan stopped struggling. He sat cross-legged on the ground to rest and conserve his strength.
Half an hour later, a “click” came from the gear-shaped gate, and its motor drove it to rotate open.
A group of people walked in. The two at the front were none other than the white coat and the blond doctor who had interrogated him.
Zhuang Fan stood silently beside the cage, his face calm, as if waiting for a death sentence. In secret, however, he had already estimated the distance between himself and the cage door.
“Zhang Dafan, I hope you have a good result.”
As soon as the blond doctor finished speaking, he gestured to the white coat. “Go test him.”
The white coat nodded, took out the device, and skillfully collected several marked points from Zhuang Fan’s body, then lowered his head and examined the data closely.
A faint sweat beaded in Zhuang Fan’s right palm.
The moment he sensed something was wrong, he would immediately take the white coat hostage—or open the cage door and release all the walking corpses, dragging everyone down together.
The white coat stared at the instrument in a daze for quite a while before slowly raising his head, a trace of disbelief in his voice.
“Experimental Subject No. 234. The average concentration of eerie mist within the body is…”
“0 milligrams per cubic meter.”