Baby, darling

Before Li Zhou could truly lose his temper, Zhong Xuezhi hurried forward and stepped between them.

He put on his fake smile again and told Li Zhou, "This is the research volunteer we went to considerable trouble to recruit. We're just taking him to the institute.

"It's getting late, too. You should get back to work, Major Li. We're in a hurry ourselves."

As he spoke, he draped an arm over Mu Yi's shoulders, turned, and led him away.

The Mutation Research Institute was the greatest point of shared interest between the Mutant Alliance and the City Defense Force. As long as the institute was involved, Li Zhou wouldn't do anything to Mu Yi, no matter how furious he was.

Their departure therefore went smoothly, without anyone stopping them.

After walking with Zhong Xuezhi for a little while, Mu Yi suddenly clenched his fist and punched him hard in the chest. "Why the hell were you being nice to that asshole?"

The exasperation in his voice made Zhong Xuezhi pull him a little closer. Grinning, he replied, "Can't be helped."

"A lot of the time, confronting someone openly won't hurt them much. It'll just give them something to use against you."

"Besides, the Alliance and the City Defense Force both answer to the Crystal Arbitration Council and serve Crystal City. If we start fighting in public, we're bound to unsettle the citizens."

Better to find an opportunity behind the scenes, dig a pit, and bury the bastard in it.

Captain Zhong explained the respectable part while keeping the underhanded part to himself, leaving Mu Yi baffled. He simply thought people with so many considerations were a pain.

He shook his shoulders twice and said disdainfully, "Get off. Stop hanging all over me."

Zhong Xuezhi didn't let go. Tapping Mu Yi's shoulder with his index finger, he teased, "Hey, aren't I your darling? What's wrong with letting your darling lean on you for a bit?"

Hearing "darling" twice right beside his ear made every hair on Mu Yi's body stand on end, goose bumps springing up all over him.

Fuck. Those two words really packed that much of a punch.

In fact, he wasn't the only one. The four trailing behind them shuddered in unison, too.

What the hell? The captain murmuring sweet nothings was even scarier than him jabbing them in the tops of their heads and showering them with abuse.

Captain Zhong remained entirely oblivious. Seeing Mu Yi's thoroughly revolted expression, he suddenly understood how much fun Mu Yi had had teasing him with those words earlier.

He grinned and called beside Mu Yi's ear again, "Baby, darling?"

Mu Yi's temple tightened, and he immediately drove his elbow hard into Zhong Xuezhi's left ribs twice. "Fuck off!"

"Urgh...!"

Zhong Xuezhi felt as though those two blows had given him internal injuries. He bent over, clutching his left ribs and sucking in breath after breath.

Just then, Feng Zhengqing, who was walking at the front, suddenly turned around and said, his patience exhausted, "Could you two keep the flirting under control in broad daylight?"

Had they given any thought to how he felt as a single man?

Still bent over as he waited for the pain to ease, Zhong Xuezhi raised a hand and made an "OK" gesture.

He didn't dare tease Mu Yi again, either. It never ended well for him.

Five or six minutes later, Mu Yi arrived with them at the city's subway station. The Mutation Research Institute wasn't nearby, so they had to take the subway to reach it.

He climbed into the carriage curiously, only to discover that its interior was much like the subways in his original world.

Seats lined both sides facing each other, with ample standing room in the middle and rows of silver ring-shaped handholds hanging overhead.

However, there was an emergency call button beside every passenger seat, and quite a few constantly rotating cameras and scanning devices hung from the ceiling.

On top of that, within just a few minutes of boarding, he had already caught a patrolling train attendant discreetly sizing him up several times.

Mu Yi disliked being scrutinized. He turned and shot the attendant a challenging look. The man immediately tensed, his hand unconsciously moving toward the small of his back.

A handgun was holstered there.

Zhong Xuezhi stepped in front of Mu Yi and said resignedly, "Once we're done at the institute, we'll get you a temporary Identity Bracelet as soon as possible."

"You're unregistered right now, and an unfamiliar face. People are liable to see you as suspicious wherever you go."

Mu Yi scoffed. "Paranoid."

Zhong Xuezhi didn't quite agree. He explained, "He's doing his job. If a Variant actually sneaks into the city and causes a widespread outbreak, the entire Safe Base could fall."

Mu Yi asked, "Have Variants gotten in before?"

"Of course they have..." Zhong Xuezhi rubbed his neck, seemingly weighing his words.

A moment later, he said softly, "Not often, but a lot of people die every time they get in."

"Those who've already turned completely into Variants are easier to handle. There's not much to hesitate over. The trouble is with the Infected who are still in the mutation's latent stage, but whose source of infection has been confirmed impossible to remove completely..."

Zhong Xuezhi stopped there, but Mu Yi understood and finished for him. "They still have their human consciousness, but they have to be executed as Variants?"

"Yes." Zhong Xuezhi lowered his voice further, almost to a whisper. "Regardless of age or sex. Even babies born only a few days earlier..."

"Once their infection is confirmed to have reached an irreversible stage, decisive measures have to be taken to prevent it from spreading again."

It was a fairly grim subject, but hearing it didn't stir much in Mu Yi.

He shrugged and replied casually, "Nothing you can do about that."

Zhong Xuezhi looked down at him for a while, then suddenly said, "It's good that you're like this."

Mu Yi looked up and met his gaze. "?"

Zhong Xuezhi smiled, reached out, and patted Mu Yi on the head before saying, "We're almost there."

Mu Yi frowned and knocked his hand away. Then the speakers in the carriage sounded.

"Passengers, we have arrived at Mutation Research Institute Station. Please take your personal belongings and prepare to disembark in an orderly manner."

As soon as the doors opened, Feng Zhengqing took a green card out of his pocket and called, "Come on. Today I'll let you experience the express route to the institute!"

The group followed Feng Zhengqing off the subway, then breezed through one checkpoint after another with his green card until they reached the entrance to the Mutation Research Institute.

One glance told Mu Yi that the institute was far larger than he had imagined, and exceptionally grand, rivaling a luxurious palace.

It seemed the institute enjoyed very high social standing in Crystal City.

Thinking this, Mu Yi followed them through the institute's entrance.

The research building Feng Zhengqing belonged to was farther inside. After entering, they spent another five or six minutes riding a transport vehicle before finally arriving.

The moment Mu Yi stepped down, he heard a bang!

A corpse in a white lab coat now lay on the ground a short distance ahead of them.

Then glaring crimson spread from beneath the spotless white coat, like a poppy abruptly blooming in the snow, a shockingly gruesome sight.

Mu Yi: "..."

After a stretch of silence, Feng Zhengqing sighed. "Another jumper."

From his tone, researchers jumping off buildings seemed to be a common occurrence.

Mu Yi turned and looked around. The other researchers nearby showed little shock or fear, either. Some even looked numb.

Others wore expressions of sorrow for someone whose fate might soon be their own, as though they were looking at themselves on some future day.

Mu Yi couldn't help wondering: did people still despair enough to end it all even when they worked in a luxurious palace?