Thirty minutes later.
A man with a buzz cut, dressed in uniform, walked over through the crowd under the guidance of the patrol member who had left earlier. Behind him followed not only a team of people wearing uniforms of the same colour, though slightly different in style, but also three people in white lab coats and masks.
After someone recognised that the uniforms they were wearing were the kind only official base teams could wear, the arrogance of the agitated people nearby finally subsided a little. At the very least, they no longer surrounded the patrol team so tightly that not even water could pass through, refusing to let them leave like before.
A path opened up in the crowd for the team to pass through.
“What’s going on? The person who came over said someone in the base is turning into a zombie?” the man asked as he walked over. As he said this, he subconsciously looked around at the surrounding situation before finally placing his gaze on the patrol squad captain standing beside him.
When the patrol squad captain saw this man, it was as if he had seen a saviour sent from heaven. If the higher-ups still had not sent anyone over, he felt as though he would soon have been sliced to pieces by the gazes of the surrounding civilians.
“It’s like this, sir. Our patrol squad was patrolling around the market just now. We noticed something abnormal here and came over to check. This person on the ground suddenly went mad while buying things at the market and nearly caused casualties. Fortunately, an ability user stepped in and subdued him, stopping the situation from worsening in time. However, someone said this person had been infected with the zombie virus. We don’t know whether that’s true or not. This matter isn’t something our patrol team can handle, so we could only send someone to report it to you.”
While the man was asking the patrol squad captain about the situation, the people in white lab coats did not waste even a moment. They took several tools of unknown purpose out of a box and gathered around the bound man on the ground, checking something.
As for the other people in uniform, they came forward to control the order at the scene, preventing people from getting close to the man on the ground and disturbing the work of the research institute staff.
The man noticed the way the rope had been tied around the person on the ground. From the look of it, it had been done by someone with training. He asked, “Where is the ability user who subdued this man?”
“This… I really didn’t pay much attention. Sir, I’ll help you look now. Maybe they haven’t left yet.” Hearing his words, the patrol squad captain looked around the crowd again and again. In the end, his gaze locked onto Lin Yang and Ruan Ning, who were standing on the edge of the crowd carrying things.
“Sir, I found them. It’s those two at ten o’clock. After the person on the ground went mad, he rushed toward the two of them. The man on the right is an ability user. He was the one who subdued him.”
The patrol squad captain had originally wanted to complain that this man was also the one who had stopped them from taking the person on the ground away, and that he had said a few words that stirred up public anger, causing their patrol team to be detained here by a group of survivors. But when he thought of the way Lin Yang had kicked the man earlier, as well as the ability he had used, the patrol squad captain immediately did not dare say anything unnecessary.
After all, this person was an ability user. He had only said a few words. Sir might not necessarily stand up for ordinary people like them.
Even if Sir did stand up for their patrol team now, if this ability user wanted to make trouble for him in the future, wouldn’t he only be able to helplessly submit? So the patrol squad captain thought about it and decided there was no need to offend an ability user over something like this.
The man only glanced at the two of them once. Finding nothing unusual, he did not ask any more questions and continued learning about the other details.
Only after the man understood the cause and course of the matter did he turn toward the noisy crowd and shout loudly, “Everyone, please quiet down! Arguing here won’t solve anything. Whether this person is actually turning into a zombie still needs to be checked by our professionals. You’ve all seen the three researchers I brought with me, right? They all specialise in researching zombies. They will definitely be able to determine whether this person has been infected with the zombie virus.”
A case of someone suspected to be infected with the zombie virus sneaking into the base—regardless of whether the final result was true or false—would completely ruin Yancheng Base’s reputation in H Province, and even across all of Huaxia, if it was not handled well. Who would come to an unsafe place?
All the man could do was temporarily calm the people around him, stop them from causing even more panic, and try to minimise the impact of this incident.
Not long after, among the three people in white lab coats the man had brought, the oldest one, whose temples had turned white, stood up. He removed his mask and said, “After a preliminary examination, the person in front of us is indeed currently mutating toward becoming a zombie. As for exactly how the zombie virus appeared in his body, we will need to take his corpse and blood samples back to the research institute for testing before we can know.”
When the man heard what the researcher said, a trace of surprise could not help appearing on his face.
The people he had brought were all among the more capable members of the research institute. Especially the old man before him—he was an important figure in the institute. If not for the urgency of the situation and the lack of other available staff there, the research institute would never have let him come out.
The man had not asked them to tell him the result privately because he was afraid it would cause even greater misunderstanding. Who could have thought that the result would be the worst possible one? It was already too late to stop it now. Everyone had heard what the old man in the white coat had said.
The people around began whispering among themselves.
“So it really is a zombie?! I thought someone was deliberately causing panic from the side.”
“That person on the ground came to my stall to buy something just now. Fortunately, he hadn’t turned into a zombie then. Otherwise, I would have been finished too,” one person said, patting his chest in lingering fear.
“I really don’t know what the people at the base are doing! How did they only discover this now?”
“Shouldn’t what we’re worried about now be the safety of the base? Everyone is checked for zombie virus infection before entering the base, so how exactly did this person on the ground sneak in?”
“Could the base have already been occupied by zombies without us knowing? Are we all going to die here next?”
“I finally managed to come to Yancheng Base from a neighbouring province with my friends. I don’t want to die here.”
“…”
Earlier, some people present had indeed become suspicious after hearing Lin Yang’s words. But not everyone had fully believed it. After all, the man lying on the ground had not yet completely turned into a zombie. His skin colour was only somewhat abnormal, so they had still reserved judgement and barely managed to remain calm.
But now that even the researchers from the research institute had said so, there was no doubt that the person on the ground really was becoming a zombie.
Once this news came out, the surroundings completely exploded. Anger and panic spread through the crowd, and the market became chaotic.
“Everyone, please don’t panic! The matter is definitely not like what everyone is imagining. Our base will definitely send people to handle it properly. Please give us some time. We will investigate the truth of the entire matter as soon as possible.”
Sure enough, these base people all used the same script from top to bottom. Couldn’t they come up with something a little more original? After listening, Lin Yang shook his head repeatedly. Standing to the side, he loudly shouted toward the crowd, making trouble without minding how big it got, “When you say ‘as soon as possible,’ exactly how long is that? What if your investigation into the truth takes one month, two months, or even half a year? Are we supposed to wait that long too?”
Ruan Ning glanced at Lin Yang, who had mixed into the crowd and changed his voice to act as an extra. Usually, he looked somewhat casual and unserious, but she had not expected him to be so reliable at a critical moment. This move really deserved a thumbs up!
As for the man trapped in the middle of the crowd, unable to advance or retreat, he fell silent for a moment, not knowing what to say.
He did not dare make an absolute promise in front of everyone, afraid that if they failed to find anything later, the responsibility would fall on him. But saying nothing now would also be very troublesome. He could only answer conservatively, “One week. Give us roughly one week.”
“No, that’s too long. If something really has gone wrong inside the base, after waiting a week, our bodies might already be cold.” This time, before Lin Yang could speak again, someone nearby had already refuted him.
Seeing that the crowd was dissatisfied, the man exchanged opinions with the old researcher beside him. Finally, he relented and said, “Three days. At most three days. We will definitely give everyone a satisfactory answer.”
Only after hearing him say this did the surrounding people become slightly more satisfied and stop saying anything more. However, anyone with eyes could tell that everyone was dissatisfied with how the base was handling this matter. Many people’s faces carried a trace of worry.
The man on the ground was taken away by the people from the research institute. After they left, the crowd gathered together slowly dispersed as well.
However, after such a major incident, most people were no longer in the mood to continue browsing the market. One after another, they left. The originally bustling crowd in the market shrank by half in less than ten minutes. Even some vendors ran off without making any money.
Naturally, Lin Yang and Ruan Ning did not continue staying there either. Carrying the things they had bought, they headed back toward the villa.
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