Chapter Text
Ye Xiu woke up with a silent start.
Han Wenqing was already awake. He was crouched over the side of the mattress, staring intently at a holographic screen projected from his watch.
Ye Xiu sat up slowly, pressing a hand against his sore waist. The situation was better than he expected — it seemed he would be able to walk today.
"...what"s that?"
Han Wenqing looked up. "I am attempting to establish contact with my world," he said.
"Is it working?"
"Not at the current moment."
"Oh," said Ye Xiu, sitting up.
"Before we do anything, I would like an explanation," said Han Wenqing, "about this world."
Men were all like this, Ye Xiu thought to himself, none too kindly. Sweet nothings in bed and then all business afterwards.
"What do you want to know?" Ye Xiu asked.
"What were those monsters that we encountered yesterday?"
Ye Xiu had the sudden revelation that Han Wenqing, in a futuristic world, would have never even heard of the concept of zombies. To him, they were nothing but humanoid monsters that smelled of decay. He couldn"t have known that they... were humans beforehand.
"There was a disease in this world," Ye Xiu began. "It caused—" (would Han Wenqing, from a world that only knew diseases from history books, know what rabies was?)— "people to lose their minds, and their bodies would decay afterwards. I don"t know the specifics, but the bite is infectious through blood."
Han Wenqing furrowed his brows. "Where did this disease originate from?"
"I don"t know," Ye Xiu. "Some people think it was created in a lab, and others think it was transmitted from animals. There"s been no conclusive proof, though." He shrugged. "It"s not like they can test the virus at the current moment."
"Mmm."
There was a moment of silence.
"One more thing," said Han Wenqing, cutting to the chase, and that was the thing that Ye Xiu loved about him, the straightforwardness. None of the mind games that so many of the other capture targets loved to dance around. "Is this your original world?"
Ye Xiu paused at the unexpected question. "No," he said. "I was... forced here through circumstances."
True to his word, Han Wenqing didn"t ask anything else, but Ye Xiu could see the gears turning in his gaze as he seemed to realize something.
"I"ll be washing up, then," Ye Xiu said, not wanting to stay any longer.
"Mmm."
Again, only a non-committal hum. Ye Xiu turned back, catching a glimpse of Han Wenqing, and saw only a heavyset frown visible in the corner of his mouth.
Wisely, he said nothing. Although a cigarette certainly would help.
Somewhere in the original world, Yu Wenzhou tore the faulty dimensional talisman in two.
"Shishu," he whispered, his tone bordering on sinister. "Don"t think it"ll be so easy to run away."
Behind him, the asleep Wei Chen was finally stirring awake. Yu Wenzhou swirled around, following the noise, and their gazes met.
"Wo cao," Wei Chen said, staring at the charred spot on the floor. He then proceeded to look up at this clearly insane cosplayer that had barged into their apartment. Then back at the ground. "Do you know how much they"re going to charge us for the security deposit?"
In the later morning, they regrouped with Bai Yanfei, Zheng Chengfeng, and a dour looking Yu Tian for breakfast.
"There"s been multiple anomalies detected in the area," Bai Yanfei was saying, and Ye Xiu listened attentively. "The radar isn"t sure how to interpret it, but it"s possible that at the root of the problems are mutators."
With the onset of the zombie apocalypse came mutators, those who possessed the power to command elements or other similar fantastical abilities. They were rare and far between, but immensely deadly in their capabilities. Zhang Xinjie, the man who now commanded the power of City B, was one such man, and had the ability to manipulate the wind. However, the price of possessing these abilities was the degradation of one"s soul — which Ye Xiu had only barely been able to prevent at the end of Zhang Xinjie"s story by sacrificing himself.
Not that Zhang Xinjie was any more sane now.
Though it was unlikely that Zhang Xinjie was behind the new anomalies, a new and more pressing thought suddenly appeared in Ye Xiu"s mind. If Han Wenqing had been able to travel here, and if Yu Wenzhou had opened a portal through the other worlds... who else could be here?
His worry must have shown on his face, because Bai Yanfei asked him then if he had any thoughts about the matter. Suddenly, with all of the attention directed at him, Ye Xiu felt a little self-conscious. He scratched his stubble and tried to keep his face level.
"I"m just thinking," he said, and paused. Everyone continued to stare at him. "...about why all of the anomalies are happening."
Yu Tian snorted. "Don"t we all want to know," he said, half-under his breath.
Ye Xiu felt like Yu Tian had an unreasonable dislike of him when he hadn"t done anything to deserve it—yet. He returned this sentiment with a lighthearted smile. "I"m sure," he said, and watched with some amusement as the man continued to seethe.
"We should discuss duties," Bai Yanfei said, clearing his throat and obviously changing the subject. "I"m sure you"ve done similar things in City F, but here, we do occasional patrols."
Ye Xiu nodded. He remembered doing something similar the last time he had visited this world, and he knew the protocol fairly well.
"Now, as newcomers," Bai Yanfei continued, skirting around something he obviously wanted to say, "well, we welcome everyone—"
"But everyone still needs to pull their weight," Ye Xiu cut to the chase.
Bai Yanfei nodded, relieved. "Of course, of course. I"m glad you understand."
It was clear that he was framing this as a test for the two newcomers to prove their worth to the base, and Ye Xiu didn"t think it was an unreasonable request. With Han Wenqing at his side, he wasn"t worried about anything happening to the two of them, and it was also a good opportunity for them to look around this world and possibly find clues on how to leave.
"Now, we"ll split into groups," Bai Yanfei said, pointing to a crude paper map of the area. "Ye Xiu and Han Wenqing, you two will look into this anomalies here." He gestured to the northwestern area of the map, the closest anomaly to the base. "If you see anything out of place, return back and let us know right away."
He continued to assign other areas to Yu Tian and Zheng Chenfeng separately, who both led separate squadrons of men underneath them respectively. Meanwhile, Bai Yanfei"s duty as the leader was to remain at camp and protect the women and children. Ye Xiu suspected that he stayed behind in part because he was secretly a lower-grade mutator who wished to limit the usage of his powers, which would explain why he was so confident in his ability to do so single-handedly.
The territory that City A claimed as their own wasn"t particularly large, especially compared to City B"s, but Zhang Xinjie was a once in a generation mutator and couldn"t be mentioned in the same breath as the others. Still, the fact that these anomalies had all happened in this area were worth paying attention to. Either there were high-level zombies in the area and they would probably have to leave the area, or he would really run into a familiar face and they would really have to leave the area.
Han Wenqing could really be said as the most sane of his capture targets; even Zhang Xinjie, who was known for his logical personality, had eventually begun to develop cracks and rather concerning behavior as the madness took over his brain. And that was before they even started on Yu Wenzhou, someone he"d practically raised as his obedient and dutiful martial nephew, and the source of this whole mess right now...
When they finished with the meeting, Han Wenqing, who had remained silent the whole time, pulled him aside.
"What was that meeting about," he asked. "What are the anomalies they were mentioning?"
Ye Xiu almost replied in mission debrief protocol out of reflex, but stopped himself before he started calling anyone sir. Instead, he answered more generally, "Sometimes the zombies—the monsters can evolve into more advanced forms. As a result, people started developing abilities to counter them." A pause. "Both can be threats."
In Han Wenqing"s futuristic galactic world, there was as similar concept of power-scaling where as the aliens became more powerful, so did the mechas. Not all mechas fell under the jurisdiction of Federation, either; some were antagonistic forces from rogue human settlements or competing factions.
Han Wenqing thought about it for a while, and, satisfied with whatever conclusions he"d come up with, nodded.
In the morning, the zombie activity was considerably less than there had been in the evening. There were only a few on the streets, all of which were dispatched quickly with by Han Wenqing, who seemed surprisingly fine with the idea that these had once been people. As they rode near the spot on the map where Bai Yanfei had marked, however, it was clear why the radar had picked something up: there was no activity at all, eerily so. In fact, the streets looked strangely empty; there weren"t even any corpses rotting in the sun, as if someone had just swept through the area and cleaned it.
"Watch out," Ye Xiu murmured. He gripped onto the laser gun that Han Wenqing had offered him, carefully keeping it aimed at his line of sight. Behind him, Han Wenqing was covering his back, a mimicry of how they had worked together in their mecha suits.
"Mmm."
But nothing appeared.
Ye Xiu debated between investigating the area further or returning back to report to Bai Yanfei. The second option was growing more appealing by the second, but he was still somewhat concerned about what had caused this kind of situation—especially if it was related to Yu Wenzhou. In that case, running away solved nothing.
"Let"s look around," Ye Xiu finally decided, and Han Wenqing gave his silent assent. They began walking towards the center of the area, keeping their eyes peeled for anything out of the ordinary, when in the distance he heard the vague but unmistakable sound of something chewing.
Han Wenqing looked at him.
Ye Xiu nodded.
They carefully made their way in its direction. For a moment, Ye Xiu felt only relief that it was likely an evolved zombie they were dealing with—at the very least, that was something simple to dispatch.
They turned the corner when it lunged at them. Han Wenqing reacted first, firing three shots with his plasma ray, before Ye Xiu shot it down with a hit directly in the back of its head with the laser gun. It fell to the ground, still snarling. Its eyes were glowing blue.
"That"s the sign that it"s evolved," Ye Xiu said, matter-of-factly. "It"s more powerful than a normal zombie."
"Your aim needs work," was all Han Wenqing said.
Ye Xiu ignored the comment—he hadn"t touched a gun in years, and it was natural for his skills to atrophy. Instead, he aimed his gun at the center of the zombie"s head and finished it off. It slumped down, unmoving.
He reached for his gloves, then the knife he"d attached to his belt pocket.
Han Wenqing only watched as Ye Xiu cut the back of the zombie"s head open and retrieved the soul crystal that had developed on its spinal cord. It was relatively easy, given how decomposed most of the body was. He wiped the fleshy gunk onto the ground and held the crystal to the light.
"These are used as currency here," Ye Xiu explained. The higher-level the zombie was, the more powerful its soul crystal became. This one wasn"t particularly big, but it was a modest size and could probably fetch a decent amount. If an ordinary person consumed enough of them, there was a chance they"d develop mutator powers.
Of course, most people who tried that method ended up dying. Ye Xiu had seen it enough to know that it was only a balm for the truly desperate.
"Oh." Han Wenqing examined it somewhat curiously. "I"ll send it in for processing."
He pressed a few buttons on his watch, and the soul crystal was immediately enveloped in a hologram before disappearing into his space. At first, Ye Xiu didn"t think much of it, but then a moment later Han Wenqing"s entire body glitched out of existence—
And returned, as if nothing had happened.
"Don"t—" Ye Xiu was saying, suddenly remembering that these items were from a completely different world than Han Wenqing"s, but he could only watch as Han Wenqing glitched out again—
—and again—
This time, he remained gone.
"Fuck."
Ye Xiu stared at the empty space, disbelieving at how quickly he"d disappeared. He stayed in place, hoping that at any moment Han Wenqing would return, but when nearly an hour had passed it was clear that he wasn"t coming back.
Once again, he was all alone.
Without Han Wenqing"s motorcycle he instead elected, somewhat numbly, to walk the way back to the base. It was only an hour"s walk, and because they"d already cleared the path on their way from the base he didn"t have any run-ins on the path back. When he returned, it was mid-afternoon.
"Where"s your friend?" Yu Tian asked him, sizing him up, but it was clear from Ye Xiu"s expression what had happened. At the very least, he had the decency then to leave the subject alone.
"I"m sorry about what happened," Bai Yanfei told him solemnly.
None of them looked particularly sad about Han Wenqing"s disappearance, but it was natural; they"d only just met him, and these were men who"d dealt with too many losses to count. When they"d all regrouped Ye Xiu reported the evolved zombie they"d run into, twisting the story somewhat to fit the narrative he was going with, then silently listened to Yu Tian talk about how he and his men hadn"t noticed anything strange when they"d investigated.
When it was Zheng Chenfeng"s turn to speak, he cleared his throat. "We encountered a mutator," he said. "He said that he"d be interested in partnering with us. He"s been traveling by himself for a while, but he"s tired of running."
"Oh?" Bai Yanfei leaned forward, mixed emotions forming on his face. On one end, a mutator promised an additional line of defense for the base. On the other, it threatened his own position as the most powerful person in City A.
"I brought him back to base," Zheng Chenfeng said. "He"s being watched by my men right now, but he"s been fully cooperative since we met."
They discussed a little further about the man"s possible intentions, but eventually Bai Yanfei seemed persuaded to meet the supposed mutator. Ye Xiu hadn"t paid much attention to the conversation at this point, but he looked up briefly when Zhen Chenfeng returned to the basement, followed by a man in dark clothing.
In that second, they locked eyes. Ye Xiu froze.
"It"s a pleasure to meet you," the man said. He smiled, his uneven eyes furrowing into different sizes.