When Feng Chen pushed open the window and prepared to flip outside, he found that the water level had actually fallen to the fourth floor. The lifeboat floating on the water was hanging in the air by the rope.
The flood receded so rapidly… He did not know if this was a sign of the extreme cold coming.
Anyway, this was still a good thing. He went down to the fifth floor to untie the lifeboat and rowed in the direction of the sea.
Although Feng Chen was wearing a down jacket and a raincoat over that, his hands and feet were still ice cold after a while. His wristwatch indicated the temperature was 0 degrees similar to yesterday. It seemed to be hovering around a constant value.
More buildings had emerged from beneath the water in Haiyun City. Much of the brick and mortar had been washed away, leaving only the angular steel skeletons.
As he rowed through those icy wreckages of steel, passing several steel columns that stood obliquely out of the water, Feng Chen found a crucifix hanging above.
Perhaps this was once the roof of the church, perhaps the cross washed over from elsewhere, but Feng Chen still set down the oars, pressed both hands together, and knelt facing the cross.
He had never been religious, but the instant he fell to his knees he was full of piety. He begged in a voice choked with emotion for God to help Yan Bubu get through this safely.
“As long as he can be safe, I’m willing to do anything…”
There was no response from the gods. The only thing that could respond to him was the whistling wind.
After a long time, he slowly got up and continued rowing towards the sea.
Feng Chen had never fished before. When he reached the sea, he remembered that he didn’t even have the tools to fish. He stood on the bow of the boat and looked out in a daze for a while. Then he simply released his mental power to explore the sea.
Casting his mental power out like a giant net, he ensconced schools of unaware fish before slowly tightening the invisible strands.
Only then did the fish notice that something was wrong and begin to struggle desperately, but he had already dragged them onto the boat.
Feng Chen quickly filled half the boat with fish like this. Then he tossed the ones too small back into the sea and returned to the Institute with his haul.
It was very warm in the Institute. He took off his down jacket and walked to the sofa. After warming his cold hands by rubbing them together, he finally lifted Yan Bubu’s trouser leg and compared the length of the blue-purple cobwebs with his finger.
Fortunately, it was half a knuckle shorter than last night.
Feng Chen smiled faintly and lightly flicked Yan Bubu’s forehead. “Not bad. I can tell you’ve worked hard. Your reward is fish today.”
There was a huge, empty freezer in the kitchen. Feng Chen tossed all the fish in there. After thinking about it, he went to the fifth floor and retrieved a laptop. He started to browse through the documents stored within.
Moments later, he closed the laptop expressionlessly and brought the fish out one by one to the kitchen to clean.
It was no easy task to clean up this sizable pile of fish. The black lion also came to help. Lion and human busied themselves for the entire afternoon before returning all the fish to the freezer.
Feng Chen made fish for him and Yan Bubu that night.
It was still by boiling water and seasoning with a bit of salt. After the fish was cooked, he chose a few of the tenderest pieces and carefully picked out the bones before returning them to the pot to continue cooking. He ate the rest himself.
He slowly simmered those pieces of fish over low heat until they basically melted into the broth. Then he poured the soup into a bowl, blew it cool and fed it to Yan Bubu.
After dinner, he strolled upstairs and downstairs with Yan Bubu in his arms.
“The seventh floor is the laboratory. Nothing to really see here. You wouldn’t understand these instruments anyway. Let’s go to the eighth floor next.”
“The eighth floor is also a laboratory. By the way, there’s a little robot here. It can talk to people after it’s turned on and even help get documents… I’ll turn it on to show you when you wake up. If you don’t, then forget about it.”
“The ninth floor is an office. It’s full of documents. The Eastern Union Army withdrew too quickly back then. The documents are all over the floor along with many books. When you wake up…I won’t force you to practise writing. Only if you want to.”
The tenth floor was the floor where they came last time to change their identities.
“Remember? Fan Renjing, you turned into an annoying pixie here.” Feng Chen poked Yan Bubu’s cheek and muttered quietly, “It suits you. You really are annoying.”
This floor was full of instruments. There was nothing to really explore. Just as Feng Chen was about to return downstairs, he glanced over at the instrument in the left corner and slowly walked over.
The last time he used the software on this instrument, he left a message for his father. Although he knew the response he was waiting for would never come, he still pressed the power button.
The screen lit up. Feng Chen held Yan Bubu with his left arm as his right navigated to the folder with the simulation software only used by him and his father. He gently tapped on it.
The moment the screen jumped, his heart still thudded uncontrollably, brimming with faint expectation.
[Father, this is Feng Chen. I’m still in Haiyun City. If you see this message, please come get me as soon as possible.]
It remained unread.
Feng Chen quietly looked at that message. Only after a moment did he reached over and turn off the instrument.
After visiting all the upper floors, Feng Chen carried Yan Bubu to the fifth floor.
“Let’s get acquainted with where you’ll be living from now on. Look! This is where you’ll live if you become a zombie. There’s no little robots or cartoons here. All you’ll be able to do is stare at the hole above and howl.”
Feng Chen parted his closed eyelids with a finger and let Yan Bubu look around for a while before letting go.
“You don’t want to stay here, do you? Keep trying then. You mustn’t turn into a zombie.”
Feng Chen supported the back of Yan Bubu’s head with a hand and made him nod.
“Okay, I know you’ll work hard. You’ve always been a good boy. You’ll definitely work hard.”
Feng Chen carried Yan Bubu back upstairs step by step.
The only sounds throughout the entire building came from the Binunu cartoons. The childish dialogue echoed in the building, forever unable to fill this space. Instead it only felt even more empty and desolate.
Feng Chen slowly sat down on the stairs after a few steps. The black lion quietly came downstairs and gently licked Yan Bubu’s cheek before quietly laying down next to him.
During the night, Feng Chen adjusted the alarm clock as usual to wake him every hour. He went to inspect the injury on Yan Bubu’s legs and recorded his observations.
“October 6th, 1:00 am. No changes in the wound. The toxin has climbed to a centimetre below the knee.”
“October 6th, 3:00 am. The toxin has dropped by one centimetre… He wet the bed. The sheets were changed.”
“October 6th, 5:00am. The toxin rose another centimetre.”
……
During the day, Feng Chen got up early as usual to make fish soup and fed a bowl to Yan Bubu
He went to the limestone engine room on the fifth floor yesterday and found that there were only two or three pieces left. They could still hold on for a few months. He recalled the bag of limestone left behind in the underground settlement when he and Lin Fen left. He thought about retrieving it.
He settled Yan Bubu and put on some Binunu cartoons. Leaving the black lion to guard him, he put on his down jacket and hauled a pressure-resistant wetsuit downstairs.
Footsteps reached the fifth floor before stopping and running back up.
He carried Yan Bubu from the sofa to the washroom. Pulling down his pants, he lifted Yan Bubu’s leg and squatted down in front of the toilet to let him urinate.
“You have to pee since you drank fish soup, or else you’ll wet yourself again.”
A minute went by. Yan Bubu didn’t pee.
Three minutes went by. Feng Chen’s legs were numb from crouching. Yan Bubu was still motionlessly limp in his arms with no intention of peeing.
Feng Chen recalled something.
When Yan Bubu was still a baby, he saw A-Mei making him pee before. What was it again…
“Shh… Shh…” He mimicked the shushing A-Mei would do when she made Yan Bubu pee.
A tinkling sound came from the toilet after only a few shushes.
After Yan Bubu was done, Feng Chen carried him back to the sofa, tidied his clothes, and covered him with a blanket.
“Aren’t you a bad boy? Yes you are.” Feng Chen tapped his nose. “You can hear me when I tell you to pee, but not when I tell you to eat? Intentionally being contrary?”
Though he said that, Feng Chen’s expression lightened up the most it ever had these past few days. There was a twinkle in his eyes.
The black lion circled the sofa excitedly, pawing at the floor from time to time before leaning over to Yan Bubu and enthusiastically licking his cheek.
It took Feng Chen some time to suppress his excitement. He quickly descended to the fifth floor, climbed out of the window, and rowed to the underground settlement.
At the entrance to the settlement, he changed into the pressure-resistant wetsuit and swam to the elevator to start his descent.
Although the floodwaters on the surface were receding, the water in the settlement was as deep as ever.
This time, neither Lin Fen nor the black lion were with him. A crippling sense of being alone in the world hit Feng Chen as he descended into the dark waters.
He held on to the metal bars as he realized this was how the rest of his life would be like if Yan Bubu never got better.
As the elevator reached the bottom, he covered himself with a protective layer of mental power and swam towards the limestone generator room.
The light on his forehead illuminated the water in front. Those small mining carts and mounds of metal were mostly buried under the sediments that had settled to the bottom by now. Only a few scant traces of the metal beneath were visible.
The sight reminded Feng Chen of his time living here with Yan Bubu. He felt a little dazed.
Was it really a few months ago? Or had centuries passed…
He swam to the limestone generator. Because the door hadn’t been closed last time, he easily slipped into the room and found the limestones.
He shook open the inflatable bag and unscrewed the valve. He watched as the bag slowly expanded.
Everything was silent as it should be. But his keen senses as a sentinel made a sense of dread come over him. Something was approaching from behind.
He pulled out the dagger that never left his person and stabbed it behind him without even looking. He looked back when the dagger penetrated something and saw a zombie.
His headlight illuminated the zombie’s pallid face, fully black eyes and angrily bared incisors.
The dagger was stuck in its chest. The zombie’s chest and abdomen were compressed flat by the water pressure to the point that its ribs had pierced through its flesh, but it continued to swim towards Feng Chen without pause.
Feng Chen did not expect to encounter zombies at this depth at all, and such a hideous specimen at that. He was actually scared stiff for half a second.
He only snapped out of it when the lunging zombie was a hair away and kicked it back. Then he sank his dagger into its solar plexus.
The zombie was dead for good, but Feng Chen didn’t dare to stay any longer. He quickly packaged that barrel of limestone and dragged the large bag out, swimming towards the lift.
He feared that other zombies would emerge from the dark waters, so he divided a part of his mental power to constantly scan 10m around him.
Fortunately, he didn’t encounter anything on his way to the lift.
Feng Chen began pondering about that zombie’s origins as the lift ascended. In the end, he concluded it had swam out from the emergency passage leading to the Haiyun Tower.
Although he and Yan Bubu killed all the zombies near them back then, many more survived. Lin Fen used the gates to seal them beneath the Haiyun Tower, but they’ve managed to survive somehow and even swim out of the emergency passage.
However, zombies weren’t that smart and the emergency passage was 5km in length. This one should have made it to the settlement by sheer luck. Aside from this exception, the rest should still be below the Haiyun Tower.
Nonetheless, for safety’s sake, Feng Chen pressed the switch on the wall to close the gates as he swam of the settlement. This way new zombies that made it into the settlement wouldn’t be able to swim out into Haiyun City.
That would be troublesome.
He took the barrel back to the Institute and made two more trips to the supply points. Not only did he bring back half a boat full of vacuum packaged soybeans and rice, he replenished their stocks of things like toilet paper and soap. In addition, he brought back shoes and clothes of various ages.
After all, he didn’t know how long he would be staying with Yan Bubu in Haiyun City. It was best to bring back several years worth of clothes for the two of them at once. Although the supply points weren’t far and additional clothes could be retrieved later on, it was better to store some in the Institute just to be safe. z
After preparing all the supplies needed to cope with the extreme cold, Feng Chen hurried back to the Institute and made fish for lunch for the two of them.
After eating, he went fishing in the sea again without rest.
The freezer in the Institute was huge. The fish he caught last time only filled half the space. He could fill the rest.
After catching enough fish as well, Feng Chen organized their supplies.
Yan Bubu lay on the sofa as he sorted everything in the main hall. The cartoons playing on the projector served as background noise as the black lion helped take the organized items to the storage room or kitchen.
When Feng Chen went to clean the fish in the kitchen, he dragged a sofa over to the doorway and had Yan Bubu lie on it. He kept stealing glances as he cleaned the fish.
After a busy day, Feng Chen and the black lion finally finished everything. The sight of the full pantry and freezer finally brought Feng Chen some peace of mind.
“Smell me. Do I stink? I feel like that fishy smell is lingering.” Feng Chen asked as he approached Yan Bubu, “I stink, right? Smell me. Don’t let me be the only one grossed out.”
Feng Chen first took a shower in the bathroom of their room before drawing a new bath and carrying Yan Bubu over.
“You haven’t bathed for a few days too. You don’t want to become a stinky fish too, right? We have to at least clean you up before you become a zombie, right?”
Feng Chen nagged as he stripped Yan Bub and set him in the hot water.
“Even if you become a zombie, you still have to take a bath every week. I’ll bind you with rope and stuff a stinky sock in your mouth before I scrub you down with a large brush on the floor…”
After Feng Chen washed Yan Bubu’s upper body, he fished one leg out of the water. He froze. His voice gradually trailed off.
The dark blood vessels on his leg were clearly just at Yan Bubu’s knee before he went into the water. In such a short time, the spider webs had climbed an entire centimetre. They stood out terrifyingly against the child’s fair and tender skin.
Feng Chen stared dazedly at the area for a while before he gently averted his gaze like it stung.
After a while, he finished bathing Yan Bubu and rushed him out of the bathtub wrapped in a towel.
He set Yan Bubu back on the sofa and picked up a set of children’s pajamas.
“I picked this out for you at the supply point. It’s very soft. I’m sure you’ll like it. There are so many tiny bears on it I lost count. Probably a few hundred? They’re so tiny and each one has a tie…”
Feng Chen threaded Yan Bubu’s arms through the pajama sleeves and started buttoning. As his eyes scanned the child’s chest, he paused for a few seconds before slowly pressing on a certain area.
The child’s skin still radiated the warmth of the water he had just been in, but his chest barely rose by now. Feng Chen could barely feel his heartbeat.
He leaned down and pressed his ear to Yan Bubu’s chest. He listened carefully to the slight, slow beats as he looked out the window. The sky reflected in his eyes was just as grey.
It was dark by now. The night was deep.
Feng Chen didn’t sleep. He wrapped an arm around Yan Bubu on the sofa and stared blankly out the window as cartoons played in the background.
The black lion lying beside the sofa nudged Yan Bubu with a paw from time to time, as if reminding him he couldn’t keep sleeping like this. Then it went and got his cloth bag, setting it on his lap.
Feng Chen slowly turned to look at the cloth bag after a beat. He reached in and took out that empty cipher box. Entering the passcode, he opened it to reveal Yan Bubu’s ‘treasures’ inside.
One chameleon scale, two small steel beads, three small red flowers, and a folded sheet of paper at the very bottom.
Feng Chen unfolded the paper, which contained a drawing by Yan Bubu. Two people that looked like jars sat side by side, looking up at a messily drawn sky.
“…Actually, the birthday present I want most right now is this, Big Brother. I want to be able to sit with you on the ship and stargaze.”
Feng Chen jolted. He lifted his wrist to check the time.
It was October 6th, 11:35 pm.
October 6th… October 7th was less than half an hour away.
Yan Bubu’s birthday was almost here.
