Looking at Fang Chang on the lab table, a blush spread across Li Zirong’s face. She carefully stroked his body, afraid of waking him. As she sensed the unique zombie virus within him, an undisguised, fanatical smile appeared.
“You said it yourself—you wanted me to make you stronger by any means necessary. With a test subject as good as you, I won’t let you down. I’ll turn you into the most powerful virus monster!”
The mechanical squids rolled over right on cue, their claws clutching all sorts of things that looked alarming even at a glance: vials of three-colored solutions, small petri dishes containing twisted arms, and strange mechanical prosthetics.
“Don’t modify him yet. Get some high-quality meat-based culture medium and rapidly mature the zombie virus. First, let’s see what kind of changes his body can withstand.”
As Li Zirong spoke, the mechanical squid carrying the supplies immediately rolled away. Another squid rolled over, pulling a bundle of IV tubes. At the far end of the tubes was a huge cylindrical glass container filled with an unidentified red liquid.
The tubes were inserted one by one into Fang Chang’s body, and he began absorbing the red liquid with incredible efficiency. Li Zirong still thought it was too slow. After a few adjustments at the control console, Fang Chang and the container filled with red liquid moved on their own toward the wall. A section of the metal wall opened, revealing a small room inside.
Once the two had been sent into the room, the wall closed again. Li Zirong said to the mechanical squid, “Adjust the force field and control the time distortion. Speed up the flow of time.”
The squid obediently carried out her orders.
Time warped dramatically: one hour outside was a full day inside. Fang Chang’s system calculated time according to the flow of time outside, so he gained more time.
One hour, two hours…
Li Zirong watched the energy readings steadily drop, wincing as she did. She kept increasing the flow of culture medium. Fang Chang’s body, which had finally slimmed down, swelled up again. The virus sped up its modifications and division, causing his growth to shift from outward to upward.
A full four hours passed outside—four days inside—before Fang Chang absorbed all the culture medium.
Li Zirong was completely focused on Fang Chang. The moment she heard the alert, she dropped what she was doing and hurried over.
The door in the wall opened, and Fang Chang and the container were sent out. He had absorbed every last drop of the culture medium, and his body had undergone a tremendous transformation.
His body was twice as large as before, standing a full three meters tall. Fiery red, armor-like patterns traced across his skin, arranged like cell walls with hollow spaces between them that revealed his black flesh. But his flesh wasn’t solid and firm. It was a viscous liquid, like lava that hadn’t yet cooled.
Li Zirong stared at his transformation, mouth falling open in surprise. She searched through her memories and murmured, “I feel like I’ve seen this kind of change somewhere before. This isn’t an evolved zombie. Just by appearance, he looks a little like a zombie Mother Nest, but he’s the wrong size, and his biological characteristics are male… Then again, I’ve never dissected a zombie Mother Nest. I only have some data and happened to see one once, so I can’t be sure what it’s like inside. But if he really has evolved into a zombie Mother Nest, what about the Corpse-Bloom, its reproductive organ?”
She began scanning Fang Chang’s entire body, searching for what she wanted. She even scanned his lower body—which had grown considerably due to the accelerated growth—several times.
She remained as composed as any researcher and made no comment about it.
“There’s no Corpse-Bloom, but his form is just like a scaled-down zombie Mother Nest. Is this a male zombie nest? Huh, what’s this…?”
Li Zirong finally spotted signs of a Corpse-Bloom. It was on Fang Chang’s head, still only a bud, blending in with his hair, which had grown longer after being accelerated. It was hard to see with the naked eye.
After confirming Fang Chang’s transformation, Li Zirong was even more astonished. “Based on this world’s research and what I know about the different kinds of zombies, a zombie Mother Nest should be a collective lifeform. Its birth requires the fusion of many viruses. This isn’t something a single evolved zombie can achieve, because any one zombie has a limit to how much virus it can carry. But this situation…”
Li Zirong flew around Fang Chang’s body, but couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing. So she called over a mechanical squid and ordered it to dissect him.
But when the mechanical squid approached with a scalpel, fine tentacles suddenly sprang from the hollow spaces in Fang Chang’s skin. They whipped in every direction with tremendous force, keeping the squid at bay.
“A zombie Mother Nest’s self-defense mechanism?”
Li Zirong frowned slightly, then snapped her fingers. Sharp needles suddenly shot out from beneath the lab table. They were loaded with a high-strength anesthetic—one drop could knock out a bull.
But the needles were blocked. The patterns on Fang Chang’s skin surged with energy, forming a shield around him that the needles couldn’t penetrate.
Li Zirong had plenty of ways to deal with this. She simply extended a probe from her mech and touched it to the shield, draining the small amount of energy that sustained it.
At last, the needles pierced his body, and Fang Chang’s tentacles were knocked out too.
With the advantage she needed, Li Zirong successfully dissected Fang Chang. What she found inside him was beyond anything she’d imagined: the virus and his body cells were perfectly compatible, living together and benefiting one another. The virus was evolving, and his own cells were evolving right alongside it.
It was a twofold evolution.
“The virus isn’t just driving his overall evolution—it’s causing parts of him to evolve as well. This is a tremendous leap for the human body. As expected, the zombie virus can actually be used to strengthen the body. If we can overcome the craving for flesh and its tendency to attack brain consciousness, it’ll be the perfect evolutionary virus.”
Li Zirong was ecstatic. The concentration of virus in Fang Chang’s body had reached a terrifying level. If an ordinary person from this world touched him, they’d probably become a zombie.
A quantitative change leads to a qualitative one. In the high-concentration viral environment inside Fang Chang, the virus had begun to evolve on its own, becoming a higher-order form of the zombie virus.
“Based on my theory, the zombie virus has a collective consciousness and a sense of hierarchy. High-level evolved zombies can command ordinary zombies. But evolved zombies are still just accumulations of virus; they haven’t caused the virus itself to evolve. And because they rely on flesh to survive, the possibility of the virus evolving on its own is greatly diminished. If Fang Chang becomes the mother organism, we should be able to cultivate the ideal, perfect virus. It won’t rely on flesh to survive. It’ll be a collective consciousness in its own right, and because it’s a higher-order form, it should be able to command every zombie!”
Li Zirong’s expression turned feverish. “Then zombies will become a whole new species!”
She looked at Fang Chang as if he were a priceless treasure. “I can hardly hold back. No—I promised, and I have to keep that promise. First, I’ll find a way to strengthen him. That’ll give me a chance to see how compatible the zombie virus is with other lifeforms, and to find out what special evolutionary traits a humanoid zombie Mother Nest might have.”
