888 groaned as he opened his eyes. He had a pounding headache but he ignored the ache as he adjusted his glasses on his face and looked around. He was still in the empty room in the abandoned building but... Where was his host?
"He Yuan?" There was no answer and the building was silent. Eerily silent which was strange because there were zombies wandering about when his host came into the building.
"He Yuan?" 888 called out again and when no one answered, dread began to pool on his stomach. He tried to dematerialize but it didn't work, his soul body was still firm.
888 placed a hand on his chest as he stumbled out of the room. Du Ling's soul thread had been directly attached to him so at least something went right. Now where was He Yuan?
"He Yuan?!" He called out as he walked around the abandoned building, banging open every door he encountered. No sign of his host.
When 888 got out of the building, his dread morphed into confusion. The zombies were all gone but there was no signs of a fight, like somebody had just handpicked them and taken them away without resistance. What was really going on?
"He Yuan?!" He called out for the umpteenth time. He already knew by now that his host was nowhere near the building but he couldn't stop himself from trying.
As a system, 888 was especially sensitive to his host's soul energy but when he tried to activate his energy to search out He Yuan's, nothing happened. It felt as though he had been hollowed out by a vacuum suction. His confusion morphed into disbelief.
The sound of a vehicle moving towards his direction came but 888 remained standing in utter disbelief. He was still trying to process the sheer absurdity of his situation when the vehicle rumbled to a stop and a woman hopped down.
She approached slowly as she observed him at the same time. When she determined he wasn't a newly infected zombie, she relaxed her shoulders. "Are you heading to the base?"
888 was drawn out of his thoughts at her words and then his eyes widened. Impossible. How was she able to see him? He looked down at his body and then the details he'd missed earlier became clear. He was dirty. Something that was technically impossible.
As a system and soul body, it was impossible for him to get dirty. Even if he touched something dirty from a realm, it would never stick to him because he had no physical manifestation in the realm.
He touched his chest again. The reason she could see him must be because of Du Ling's soul thread. He looked back to the woman, she was a familiar face. Liu Bao. So most likely the base she was referring to was the military base.
"...Yes," 888 answered slowly, there was no other option for now. He followed silently as Liu Bao smiled led him to the vehicle. If getting attached to the leaser's soul thread had inadvertently caused his soul body to manifest a physical body in this realm then he had to get to a safe place first.
There were no zombies around now but he couldn't say the same for later.
"Took you long enough," Somebody commented when they got to the vehicle and the others sent her disgruntled looks. They'd spent all day scouting so they were quite tired yet this new teammate of theirs decided to pick up a stray.
"Sorry. Thanks for waiting up," Liu Bao said with a smile. She'd joined a different scavenging team recently so she wasn't all that close to her new teammates.
888 narrowed his eyes at Liu Bao's new teammates but chose to remain silent. He had more pressing issues to worry about.
They arrived at the military base after sunset and immediately they all got down, somebody rushed over and launched himself into Liu Bao's arms, crying hysterically.
888 slowly walked to the side as he observed the crying Xiao Yu, he wanted to gleam whatever information he could about He Yuan's infection.
He also needed to know if the military base had anything to do with his missing host and zombies? After all, this was the base closest to that abandoned building.
"Yu, what happened?!" Liu Bao asked Xiao Yu in alarm. What could possibly make him cry this much?
"S-Squad leader L-Ling he... he... he," Xiao Yu kept trying to articulate himself through his hysterical crying.
"Yu, you need to calm down and tell me what happened," Liu Bao said calmly as she patted the boy's back.
"He-was-infected," Xiao Yu said as quickly as he could before he resumed wailing.
Liu Bao froze. Du Ling was infected? "H-How?"
Xiao Yu began explaining what happened as best as he could but 888 did not stay any longer. It was obvious Xiao Yu regained consciousness when the Nova team arrived at the base so he didn't know much.
He went to get tested and walked up to the admission desk right after. The man behind the desk perused his body with interest but 888 was not in the mood to feel the same enjoyment he usually did when people were awed by his looks.
"Name?" The man said with a suggestive smile.
888 frowned. Unlike most other systems, he did not remember his origin. It felt more like he just began existing all of a sudden as system 888. After slight hesitation, he calmly said, "Ren."
The man raised a brow. "Just Ren?"
"Hm."
The man smiled as he handed him a card. "I hope to see you around, Ren."
888 ignored his words and walked into the base. E45. That was his room number but he dutifully ignored it and made his way over to He Yuan's room instead. There was no way he was going to share a room with four other people as was the usual practice for newcomers in the base.
It hadn't been up to 24 hours since He Yuan got infected so his room would not be reassigned so quickly.
888 groaned as he arrived at the residential building and his thought drifted to his host once more. Not knowing He Yuan's whereabouts made him restless. Very restless. He was someone who prided himself in his self control at all times.
But at this moment, that self control was slipping. He knew his host was alive, obviously. If He Yuan was dead then he would be too but that knowledge did not do anything to ease his worry.
After arriving in He Yuan's room, 888 went straight to his host's bag. He felt really uncomfortable wearing his dirty clothes. For as long as he could remember, he was always clean even without making any effort to be clean.
As a soul, taking baths was unnecessary. He didn't even need to change clothes but he did it anyways because he loved dressing up.
He Yuan and Du Ling were about the same height, 192cm. They were quite tall as compared to 888's smaller frame at 176cm and were well built too so even if he could wear the shirts in He Yuan's bag, the jeans would slip right off his waist.
He took off his glasses, grabbed two large shirts and He Yuan's body wash from the bag before walking out of the room to the shared bathroom on this floor.
After entering a random stall, 888 stripped and turned on the shower, wincing slightly when the cold water hit his skin. He was shivering but he was glad that, at least, the cold water managed to distract him from his panicky thoughts. Albeit for a few seconds.
He had no idea if he'd ever done this before but as the water ran down his naked body from his head, washing away the dirt that had stuck to his silver hair and skin, it felt quite weird to him.
Once he was done bathing, 888 quickly washed his own clothes and used one of the large shirts as a towel before wearing the other one. It stopped at his mid thighs so it was good enough.
He walked out of the bathroom, drying his hair with the first shirt and holding his wet clothes in one hand. He had barely taken three steps when he locked eyes with Du Jian.
The man was walking down the stairs from the last floor -where the original members of the Nova team lived- with Lu Ming right at his side.
888 felt his blood boil. He'd been trying his best to distract himself with random thoughts in order to keep himself from panicking but seeing the two of them and knowing that this entire situation was their fault angered him.
He clenched his fists at his sides but remained expressionless, hiding his dissatisfaction as the two of them fully came into view.
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