An hour later, the boat stopped in front of a four-story building. The reason why it was four stories was because the lower portion of the building was submerged underwater. Only four stories were above the surface.
This was the Eastern Union Army’s secret research institute. Feng Chen came here several times with Feng Zaiping before the earthquake. It was also where he brought Yan Bubu to modify their identities after the earthquake.
Yu Yuan said the Haiyun Tower could maintain a constant temperature, but he was worried that there were zombies still wandering around there. He couldn’t feel at ease going there.
The extreme cold front was coming. It was necessary to find a place to keep warm, so he thought of this Institute.
He is familiar with the Institute. It has military facilities that were quite complete, and water and electricity aplenty. It was a very good place to live with Yan Bubu.
The floodwaters receded very fast. Many buildings became exposed, some of which had algae hanging from their roofs. He identified the buildings that were almost completely unrecognizable and then used his watch’s topographic map to finally locate the Institute.
Yan Bubu was lying in the boat wrapped in a blanket and raincoat. Feng Chen uncovered a corner of the blanket and said to the unconscious child, “Wait for me here. I’ll come get you as soon as I open the window.”
This Institute was ordinary in appearance on the outside, but its defenses were extremely potent. Don’t even think about smashing a window to gain entry. The front door was the only way inside.
Feng Chen released the black lion to guard Yan Bubu before taking off his remaining clothes and plunging into the ice cold water.
Although the floodwaters were receding, the underwater portion was still six stories deep. Feng Chen’s vision dimmed as he dived to the bottom. He regained his bearings and swam through the open door and up the stairwell, coming to a stop in front of the metal door on the 5th floor.
He entered the password and the metal door opened. The space inside surprisingly wasn’t filled with water. Feng Chen was swept inside by rushing water and immediately closed the door.
The metal door closed instantly, the lights all coming on at once. He was in that empty room again, with only a small door on the opposite wall.
[Foreign intruder detected. Please show proof of access immediately.]
The water that had made it into the room was quickly drained. Feng Chen walked over to the small door and readily brought out the screen in the wall before rapidly typing in the password he had figured out last time.
As the last character was entered, the small door silently opened. The interior of the secret institute appeared in full view, including the large tree growing in the center.
Although a flood had happened, the interior was quite dry. The instruments, the papers and pens casually thrown on the floor…everything was exactly the same as the last time he was here, without the slightest trace of water damage..
The large tree in the center was flourishing as ever, bearing countless egg-sized dark black fruits.
Although the Institute was well sealed, the large tree penetrated several floors without water seeping in, proving that its roots were not in the open ground floor lobby, but in another similarly sealed chamber.
The Institute not being damaged by water was perhaps the best news he’s heard all day. When those deep black fruits began to rustle and shake, Feng Chen released his mental power, using countless fine needles to stab them.
The insects inside the fruits died before they could even emerge from the shells. The skin of the fruits shriveled up like popped balloons, becoming small, crumpled kernels hanging on the branches.
Hiss…
Those vines attached to the wall corners and ceiling crept towards him like poisonous snakes. Feng Chen didn’t even look at them. He simply condensed his mental power into a beam that pierced violently into the body of the tree all the way down to its roots before exploding loudly.
The vines twisted and writhed on the floor, turning into segments of black ash. Leaves withered, branches and trunks cracking and oozing green liquid.
It went on like this for about a minute or so before the entire tree began to shrink dramatically. The trunk followed suit and became thinner and shorter. It soon disappeared from this floor, leaving only a large hole through the ceiling and floor.
Feng Chen walked to the big hole and discovered it went straight down to the 2nd floor. Laying there was a yellowed, dead evergreen tree.
He still had to pick up Yan Bubu, so he did not delay. He went to the window to look down and saw the 5th floor surrounded by water. He took the elevator up to the 6th floor.
The 6th floor was the living accommodations of the researchers. The stairway led into a spacious lounge surrounded by a circle of sofas. In the very center was that large hole made by the top of the evergreen tree.
There were scattered dead leaves and the kind of fruit that dried up into walnut kernels around the hole.
Feng Chen ran to the sealed window and opened it, leaping into the boat.
He picked up Yan Bubu and flipped back inside. The black lion was responsible for cleaning up. It fixed the boat to the wall before picking up the clothes and cloth bag Feng Chen left behind and joining him inside. It tightly closed the window.
The Institute was powered by limestones so the lights were bright and the temperature comfortable due to the automatic A/C system.
Feng Chen placed Yan Bubu on the couch. Without bothering to dress himself, he first tugged off the half-wet blanket wrapped around the child and then felt the clothes underneath.
Luckily, they remained dry.
Yan Bubu lay there quietly. Feng Chen went to listen to his heartbeat. After confirming it was steady, he then went to check the bite wound on his leg.
The wound was about the same as before, but the dark blue capillaries had crept a centimetre or two upward, now near the bottom of his knee.
Feng Chen sat on the sofa and stared intently at those spiderwebs for a while before getting up and walking towards the side of the lounge.
There were several lounge suites on this floor. He went to the nearest one and took a clean blanket from the cabinet to wrap around Yan Bubu. Only then did he redress himself.
He got a broom and swept all those dead leaves and fruits together before dumping them directly out the window into the flood outside.
Those fruits and withered leaves were carried by the receding floodwaters to the sea.
After a basic cleaning of the room, he went back to the sofa and ruffled Yan Bubu’s hair. “It’s going to cool down soon, so I have to go to the supply depot to get some essentials. Just wait for me here, but don’t be idle. You have to work hard and not let that unsightly cobweb go any further, okay?”
Feng Chen took out the notebook Yu Yuan gave him and memorized the pass-code to open the supply depot. Like he was going to work as usual, he naturally said, “I’m leaving.”
The black lion lay on the carpet in front of Yan Bubu and gently wagged its tail.
As Feng Chen opened the sealed window, cold air instantly rushed in with the rain. But he just held the windowpane and didn’t flip out, seemingly waiting for the voice he would hear every time he left.
Come back soon, Big Brother…
Big Brother, can you take me along…?
He stood quietly for a few moments before flipping out the window and dropping into the boat.
There wasn’t a single other person to be seen in the entirety of Haiyun City. The world was quieter than it had even been. Feng Chen rowed alone. He came to the location of the supply depot and got in the water.
The water height has dropped a lot, but he didn’t wear a pressure-resistant diving suit. An enormous water pressure still assailed him as he dove to the bottom, squeezing his chest and abdomen painfully. His lungs also burned due to the lack of oxygen.
Luckily, the pass-code worked on the first try. He finally entered the supply depot’s warehouse. Only after waiting for the gate to close and the water to be pumped out did he hold the wall and gasp heavily.
No matter what ended up happening to Yan Bubu, he was probably staying in Haiyun City for a long time. He needed to take more supplies this time. The Institute was well-equipped anyway and could store things for a long time.
He found the small military warehouse that Yu Yuan spoke of and picked out a pressure-resistant diving suit, a universal toolbox, and some inflatable bags to load the living essentials into.
An hour later, Feng Chen followed five large, bulging inflatable bags to the surface. He tied them to the back of the boat and rowed back to the Institute.
When he arrived, he first went back inside to see how Yan Bubu was doing. After seeing that everything was normal, he returned to the boat and moved things inside with the black lion.
After that, the various items were stacked in the living room.
Feng Chen didn’t care to clean up the mountain of goods right now. He first found some enriched rice flour and powdered milk, and then went to the break room to boil a full pot of hot water. After sanitizing a set of dishes with it, he mixed the rice flour and powdered milk into a paste.
He sat down next to Yan Bubu on the sofa and held him with one arm. He used his other hand to pick up a spoonful of the paste and blew it to the right temperature before feeding it into the child’s mouth.
Yan Bubu’s eyes were closed. He softly leaned on the teen’s shoulder. When the paste was fed into his mouth, it dribbled out of the corners.
The black lion came over with a roll of paper towels in its mouth. Feng Chen wiped the paste off his face and fed him another small spoonful.
“The warehouse has everything but tasty food. I had to look around for a long time to find these two boxes of powdered milk. It’s very fragrant and sweet. Try some.”
Yan Bubu still didn’t swallow. The half spoonful of paste stayed in his mouth.
“Don’t you like sweets? Why aren’t you eating? Do you want meat instead? If so, I’ll go to the sea to get some fish later, all right?”
Feng Chen gently shook Yan Bubu, whose head lolled gently in response. That half spoonful of paste dribbled out from the corners of his mouth again.
Feng Chen set aside the bowl and wiped Yan Bubu clean. He returned to the break room to make another bowl, this time only with powdered milk.
Yan Bubu still didn’t swallow, but this mixture wasn’t as thick as the other one and could be directly fed down his throat.
After feeding a bowl of powdered milk to Yan Bubu, Feng Chen smiled faintly.
“If you don’t like rice flour, just tell me. Why are you so disobedient? You didn’t swallow it on purpose to piss me off, right? I bet you were happy with the one with only powdered milk.”
He set Yan Bubu back on the couch and covered him with a blanket. Then he worked on putting away the small mountain of goods with the black lion.
This floor was the living accommodations of the researchers. Aside from this living room, all the other rooms were one room suites equipped with a kitchen and bathroom.
He chose the nearest suite to live in with Yan Bubu. The neighbouring one was used as a storage room. Aside from food which went into the kitchen, all other things were stored here.
The black lion was like a diligent nanny who kept working and, from time to time, went to see Yan Bubu. It used its paws to adjust his blanket.
After finally putting away all the supplies, Feng Chen cooked something for himself.
He boiled half a pot of water, unwrapped a bag of vacuumed sealed soybeans and cooked them up. Then he put some salt on top and called it lunch.
He kept busy in the afternoon as well. After all, that evergreen tree tunneled all the way from the 2nd floor up to the 10th. Someone had to patch those holes.
He first removed the wooden boards blocking the stairway and nailed the elevator doors shut. They would use the stairs exclusively from now on. Then, he went upstairs two floors to find some more wooden boards. He dragged them down and fiddled with his toolbox to make two large discs that resembled the lids of a water tank.
He nailed one large disc to the floor of the 5th floor to patch the hole there, and used the other one on their 6th floor.
But the one on the 6th floor wasn’t nailed down, but fitted with hinges, making a large round cover that could be opened or closed.
The 5th floor hall was filled with instruments, and there was an invisible divider between them and the door. After lowering that transparent yet incomparably strong divider, the hall was sealed off, leaving only a passage outside to go up or down the stairs.
When he was done, he carried Yan Bubu to the round hole and opened the cover. He pointed to the 5th floor hall below and said to him, “If you turn into a zombie, I’ll lock you down here and forbid you to come up. You’ll can go crazy all you want down there, and I’ll watch you from up here.”
He pinched Yan Bubu’s cheeks. “Want to be shut up there by me? By the way, you can watch TV on this floor. We have all sorts of cartoons here. You name it. Then, I’ll stay here to watch Binunu cartoons while you can only listen in from below. No, wait. I don’t want to hear you wailing and shrieking when I’m watching cartoons, so I’ll close the lid so that you can’t even listen in.”
After Feng Chen said all that, he looked intently at Yan Bubu’s face, as if he wanted to see even a trace of emotion there.
But Yan Bubu just quietly leaned against him, his eyes tightly closed. If not for his off complexion, he would look like a normal sleeping child.
After a long time, Feng Chen looked away in disappointment and murmured, “Don’t become a zombie, okay? I don’t want you to only hear the cartoons, I want you to sit in front of the TV and watch and laugh along. I’ll be right next to you then. I won’t make you write any more words, or force you to go to bed. You can watch TV as long as you want. You can have only meat at every meal. It’s okay if you don’t touch the soybeans. Yan Bubu, don’t become a zombie, okay…?”
In the evening, the two leaned against the bed in the suite and watched TV.
As Feng Chen said, the Institute stored a large amount of material regarding many subjects, including every movie and TV show ever created, cartoons as well.
Feng Chen padded pillows behind their backs. Cartoons played on the TV on the opposite wall.
“Binunu, what are you doing?”
“I’m growing radishes in the vegetable garden.”
“Didn’t you just plant radishes yesterday?”
“En… En… Well Sasaka pulled them all out.”
……
The lights were off in the room. The ever-changing lights from the TV shone on their faces.
Feng Chen touched Yan Bubu’s shoulder. “Sasaka really is annoying. No wonder you don’t like him.”
Yan Bubu leaned back on the pillows with his eyes closed. Feng Chen stared at the TV and kept talking to him.
“So Binunu and Sasaka are both potato people?”
“Binunu isn’t watching the vegetable garden, so Sasaka is going to go and pull all the radishes out later. Again.”
“Binunu’s having some fish soup. Right, do you want fish soup? I’ll go catch some fish tomorrow and make fish soup for you.”
Feng Chen stared at Yan Bubu for a moment, cupping his face and jiggling it. “Silence means you agree. I’ll make you fish soup tomorrow then. Eat it or else.”
After watching two episodes, Feng Chen turned off the TV and prepared for bed. Just before he slept, he looked at Yan Bubu’s leg again. Although the wound didn’t change for the better or worse, the blue-black skin has spread to the knee.
He lifted up the pants of Yan Bubu’s other leg and found that the uninjured leg was also crawling with blue and black spiderwebs.
Feng Chen gently rubbed his fingers on his leg. He could feel the slight bulge of capillaries.
“I told you to work hard, so why is this leg starting to show too? You haven’t worked hard enough. You have to persevere. You said you’ll serve me when you grow up. How will you serve me like this? You have to keep your word. You have to grow up well, do you hear me?”
Feng Chen rambled quietly in a hoarse voice. He put down Yan Bubu’s pants and covered him snugly with the blanket.
“Go to sleep, but don’t let your guard down even when you’re sleeping. I’ll remind you every hour that you can’t let the toxins continue climbing. Up to here at most, okay?” He tapped Yan Bubu’s knee under the blanket. “It can only go up to here at most…”
The next morning, after Feng Chen fed Yan Bubu powdered milk, he put him on the sofa in the living room and projected Binunu cartoons on the opposite wall.
In the cheerful background sounds, he organized everything and left the black lion to watch over him. He put on the down jacket he found from the supply depot and prepared to go out to fish.
Yan Bubu couldn’t just drink powdered milk, not to mention that he only found one box at the supply depot. What would happen once he finished it? He usually loved fish, so maybe he would also like fish soup.
The extreme cold front was coming. If the sea froze over, it would be hard to get fish. He had to catch more now and store it to prepare for the extreme cold.
