Chapter 580: Gold quality!

"Dr. Xie, how are you and Dr. Fu doing?"

Zhang Su looked at Xie Yanshan while greeting him into the room

"Fu Weijun is performing a craniotomy on a zombie; I came over to see if there's anything here that needs a hand."

Xie Yan walked into the room and felt much more at ease seeing that Qiu Hui had calmed down.

Zhang Su closed the door, set the plastic bag containing the medicine aside, took a look at Qiu Hui, who seemed to be in good condition, and then turned his gaze toward Xie Yan and Duan Wuhu.

"Dr. Xie, have you ever encountered a situation like Qiu Hui's before, where someone can oscillate back and forth between a normal state and a zombified state?"

Upon hearing Zhang Su's question, Xie Yan took off his glasses and shook his head: "Within our current knowledge, zombification is an irreversible transformation at the cellular level. I truly cannot answer why a situation like Ms. Qiu's would occur, but I suspect it has to do with the zombification-blocking serum."

The zombification-blocking serum is a very immature technology, so the appearance of all sorts of strange phenomena is possible.

"Alright, then let's not study how she became like this for now. Let's discuss Qiu Hui's situation. Neither of you is an outsider, so I'll speak plainly. Qiu Hui, don't take offense, but I feel... since she is jumping back and forth between being a zombie and a normal person, it is very likely that she possesses both states simultaneously. What do you think?"

Zhang Su looked at the two of them, his eyes carrying a certain amount of anticipation, as if he hoped to hear an affirmative answer.

"Hmm... Weijun said something similar." Duan Wuhu stood to the side, rubbing his chin, and frowned: "He said little Qiu is walking on the critical threshold of zombification; one moment she is human, the next she is a zombie. This state is very unstable and very dangerous."

"No!" Zhang Su shook his head: "That's not what I'm talking about. Let me be blunt: I want to conduct an experiment!"

"An experiment? That's simple enough; this is a laboratory, after all."

Duan Wuhu spread his hands. The entire Cuilengxuan had become an experimental site, with room after room being utilized step by step.

"Brother Zhang, wh, what experiment?"

Qiu Hui sensed something unusual in Zhang Su's solemn tone. She felt that this experiment might be very dangerous, and that this danger was directed at her.

"I won't beat around the bush. Qiu Hui, I sense zombie traits in you, so I am very curious to know whether zombies will treat you as one of their own. Of course, even if zombies do treat you as one of them, you will still be a member of our Tianmayu!"

Seeing Qiu Hui's complexion turn ashen, Zhang Su hurriedly offered a word of comfort.

"Th, then what do you need me to do?"

Qiu Hui did not waste time on sorrow. Tempered by several months in the apocalypse, she was much stronger than before.

"Old Duan, are there any living zombies left in the camp?"

Zhang Su turned his head to look at Duan Wuhu.

"Living zombies?" Duan Wuhu made a strange expression: "Do Zero-Zero-Three and the fire-breathing zombie count?"

"Count my foot..."

Zhang Su was speechless. These two zombies were not to be used for experiments; whether it was a slap from Zero-Zero-Three or a mouthful of phlegm from the fire-breathing zombie, neither was something a human could withstand.

"Then there aren't any. Those monsters in the scenic area temple have all been killed. Should I go out and look for some?"

Duan Wuhu pointed toward the direction of the mountain base.

Zhang Su shook his head and tilted his head toward the gate: "Take me to see Liu Tianji's side, then I'll go find them. You two should get back to your work."

After saying this, he turned to look at Qiu Hui and said: "Don't worry too much; this medicine is enough for you to take for a long time. If anything happens, just call Old Duan." After giving his instructions, the three of them left Qiu Hui's room. They passed the door to the room where Fu Weijun was without stopping, talking as they walked toward the room where Liu Tianji and the others were. They did not know that at this moment, Fu Weijun was facing a difficult choice.

Several lamps illuminated the room brightly. A small, thin zombie corpse lay on the bed, its skull already opened. Fu Weijun sat in his wheelchair with his back to the door, staring blankly at the object in the tray before him, his fists clenched tightly, similar to the state Qiu Hui was in when she had a headache earlier.

"There's a problem, this thing definitely has a problem. What to do, how..."

Hearing the *tap-tap-tap* of footsteps outside the door, beads of sweat dripped from Fu Weijun's forehead. There was a rare nervousness in his eyes. Subconsciously, he hid the tray under the experimental bed. Only after the footsteps faded did he let out a long breath and take the tray back out.

He used tweezers to carefully poke at the item in the tray. It was something that looked like a zombie thalamus, but its color was not dull gray—it was a faint, pale gold!

Normally, if a zombie had been dead for too long, the thalamus would lose its activity and would not possess the efficacy to heal injuries, so when performing the craniotomy, Fu Weijun hadn't even thought about paying attention to the thalamus.

But it was precisely at that moment that he had inadvertently seen that faint glimmer of gold, and his heart felt as if it had been struck by a heavy wooden mallet!

Intuition told him that this pale gold thalamus had an extraordinary function. It just so happened that Duan Wuhu had run over earlier to get sedatives, so he had logically sent Xie Yan away.

The pale gold thalamus on the tray could not be called gilded or radiant; overall, it was smaller than a typical zombie thalamus, only the size of a quail egg. It had no scent and looked much better than an ordinary thalamus. If one didn't say what it was, it would look perfectly natural as a small piece of special alloy.

If the first zombie thalamus one saw looked like this, then presumably anyone researching this field would immediately attach importance to it, and the secret of the thalamus would not be known to only a very small number of people.

Just like Fu Weijun now, he was urgently wanting to know what efficacy this dark gold thalamus had.

"Cut a little, just cutting a small piece shouldn't be discovered, but..."

Fu Weijun tilted his head to listen to the movement outside the room, while raising his hand to gesture over the pale gold thalamus, looking exactly like a jade gambler who didn't know how to cut into a raw stone, struggling immensely.

After hesitating and struggling for half a minute, Fu Weijun finally let out a long sigh, gritting his teeth and glaring at the pale gold thalamus in front of him, his eyes clearly showing anger, though it was unclear where this temper came from.

"Why have you started to be afraid? This is absolutely not permitted by the spirit of exploration. Have you forgotten the oath you took back then?"

Fu Weijun questioned himself in his heart.

He wasn't worried about being questioned by Zhang Su for taking a piece of a special thalamus—using a little for research was normal. What he feared was whether he would suffer unpredictable consequences from eating this piece of special thalamus! Death, for example.

During the time he had lived in Tianmayu, Fu Weijun had become less crazy, at least regarding himself. In common terms, he had learned to value his life...

"Right!"

Fu Weijun's eyes suddenly brightened, and a bold plan emerged in his mind.

He picked up a simply sterilized scalpel and with three quick *swish-swish-swish* motions, cut the thalamus into four pieces of roughly equal size. He had intended to cut even smaller pieces, but feared they wouldn't be effective, so he gave up on that.

He deftly took out a self-sealing bag, packed the thalamus, and tucked it into his pocket. After a brief cleanup, he began to busy himself with a normal expression! About ten minutes later, the door was opened, a gust of cold air poured into the room, and Xie Yan and Duan Wuhu walked in one after another.

"Mr. Zhang is truly a responsible leader, even handling things like catching zombies himself... Whoa! Weijun, what is this?"

As soon as he entered the room, Xie Yan saw a square crystal sitting in the tray next to the corpse. It was pitch black, with sides less than three centimeters long, perfectly regular, with straight edges and corners. One couldn't tell what material it was, but one could feel the black substance slowly flowing inside the crystal, looking strange from the inside out.

"This is its energy source, hidden in the brain. It didn't take much effort to find!"

Fu Weijun said calmly, his gaze fixed tightly on the black crystal. The little square was like a black hole, drawing his gaze toward it.

Inside the laboratory, the fact that mutated zombies possessed special energy sources was not a secret, but they didn't have the ability to sense them precisely like Chen Hanzhou. They generally started with the brain, and it just so happened that the liquefied gas zombie's energy source was in the brain, so it was found quickly.

(End of chapter)