7.3

Qiao Chen followed Long Ao and the others to the East One Base. Every base lacked people with healing abilities. Because of this, Qiao Chen devoted himself to healing the wounded as soon as he arrived

The rarer something was, the more precious it became. This was the same for people. Qiao Chen worked himself to the bone, but was also treated very well in this lifetime.

——

Qiao Chen was busy for the entire day. He prepared his things to return home. As soon as he exited the medical department's building, he saw Long Ao smoking while sat on the steps a few feet away from the entrance.

When Qiao Chen first arrived on the base, Long Ao would visit him often. From time to time, he would bring a small, rare treat to share with him too. They would chat and talk until he gradually allowed himself to bare his soul to Qiao Chen. Qiao Chen felt that this kind of communication where they slowly had some really deep heart to heart conversations was good. It also helped them with venting out their negative emotions.

"Going back?" Qiao Chen asked as he walked in front of Long Ao. Qiao Chen felt his heart twinge in pain when he saw Long Ao's exhausted looking but resolute face. He didn't need to use the system to dig up information about Long Ao. All he needed to do was make small talk with the wounded soldiers, and they'd bring it up on their own. He knew how powerful a lightening ability was. However, the stronger a person was meant that they'd carry a greater sense of responsibility and a heavier burden than others.

"Yeah." Long Ao grunted. Long Ao stood up, threw his cigarette butt on the floor, and stamped it out. He didn't know why, but his anxiety would wane and virtually disappear whenever he saw the man in front of him.

Long Ao walked Qiao Chen back to the dormitory. Neither of them spoke along the way. Qiao Chen knew that some of the soldiers must have died when they were attacked by the zombies in today's mission. Long Ao tended to silently mourn like this every time a soldier died. He didn't need any superfluous words. It was enough for Qiao Chen to quietly accompany him.

Qiao Chen opened the door to his room. Then he walked to the bed and sat down. Long Ao leaned against the wall. This room was the smallest room Qiao Chen had lived in in his past few lifetimes. However, it was very hard to have a room to yourself on the base. Even though the base was small, it was completely furnished. It had everything that he needed.

"Do you need to sleep? I can stay with you." Qiao Chen said and patted the bed.

Long Ao walked to Qiao Chen and sat down. He looked at Qiao Chen and said, "I'll just sit for a bit. I won't sleep. I scared that you'll do something immoral to me."

Qiao Chen saw that Long Ao could still joke around and immediately knew that he was in a much better mood. He stared at Long Ao for a while before he asked, "Do you have any more smokes?"

Long Ao immediately moved over to the side and said defensively, "Nope."

Qiao Chen wordlessly frisked Long Ao.

"I'm serious. There's no more. I found a pack, but it was forcibly distributed to everyone. They were like a pack of rabid wolves." Long Ao let Qiao Chen pat him down. Then he halfheartedly reached out to stop Qiao Chen's hands. If he really wanted to block Qiao Chen then he wouldn't have been able to catch the thread from his sleeves.

Qiao Chen took out a half full pack of cigarettes from his pants. Then he took one out and hid the rest under his pillow.

"Don't take all of them. At least leave me two. I barely managed to hide half a pack from them." Long Ao complained as he reached for his cigarette. Qiao Chen pushed Long Ao's hand away and lied on the pillow.

"You don't look like the type to smoke. Why haven't I seen you smoke before?" Long Ao asked. Qiao Chen was sprawled across the bed as he languidly smoked. Long Ao felt like Qiao Chen had a depraved and intoxicating sense of beauty.

"Do all smokers have to look a certain way?" Qiao Chen asked. He never smoked in this lifetime, but the smell never bothered him. If it never bothered him, then why couldn't he just pretend? All he had to do was hold it in his mouth. He didn't need to inhale it into his lungs.

Long Ao leaned over and looked down at Qiao Chen with his hands on both sides. Qiao Chen exhaled a puff of smoke into his face. This made Long Ao feel itchy. He didn't know whether it was just the man in front of him or the cigarette in his hand.

Long Ao motioned for him to take another puff. Qiao Chen took another puff of the cigarette and held it in his mouth. Then he pulled Long Ao further down and exhaled it in between Long Ao's lips. He let the tip of his tongue slide across the other's lips while he was at it too.

Long Ao felt like he had been struck by lightning and felt a burst of numbness hit his heart. He normally had excellent self control, but seemed to have forgotten this. This was the man that made his heart finally beat again the moment he saw him. If this person provoked him in such a way and he decided not to do anything, then he would have felt extremely stupid for it.

Long Ao kissed Qiao Chen vigorously. He grazed their lips together and entangled their tongues with one another. The more the kissed, the more desperate and intense it became. It was as if they were lost in the desert and were taking in life saving water from each other's mouths.

The cigarette had long burnt out. Qiao Chen's lips were sucked and bitten until he felt swollen and hot. His soul downloading program had kick up while they were kissing too. It didn't matter what lifetime they were in, he couldn't just tease his man and get away scot-free.

Long Ao worked Qiao Chen's clothes off long ago. His wandering hands made sure of that as Long Ao continued to lay kisses further and further down. He finally stopped between Qiao Chen's legs.

"Ah! Ahn~ Gently, go easier on me." Qiao Chen's fingers tightly gripped the sheets. How could that delicate area withstand such heavy □□? Qiao Chen could only beg for mercy, "That hurts, lighten up a bit."

Qiao Chen lied in Long Ao's arms and watched him after they had finished. He had smoked several cigarettes in quick succession and made the room look like the smoky world of the immortals. Qiao Chen's pressed his chin against Long Ao's chest and said, "You're so addicted to smoking. How do you live without cigarettes?"

"I don't really want to smoke that much if half the time, but whenever I do I just endure it. " Long Ao put out the cigarette and said, "Oh, but I found a new way to solve my addiction, so I'll just finish off the rest of these first."

"Oh? What's the new way?" Qiao Chen regretted asking it the moment the words left his mouth. His man must have been waiting for him to ask that question and walking right into his trap.

It was exactly as Qiao Chen had predicted. Long Ao immediately flipped Qiao Chen over and gave him a deep kiss. He decided to use actions to show Qiao Chen his new way instead of words.

.......

The world had turned into chaos. People weren't able to see and hope for the future, but the sun still rose, so the people who were still alive tried their best to live in this hopeless world while looking for things they could be hopeful for.

Injured people were sent to the medical department on base everyday. This meant that Qiao Chen was very busy every single day. However, every time he had his break, he would stand in front of the window in the medical department's lobby and look off somewhere.

The place he wanted to look at was too far away for the eye to see. It was even blocked by other buildings. However, he still knew which direction the research building was in. It was the most important part of the base. It was also the place what was protected the most. This was because the research department was their chance at hope- their chance to change this apocalyptic world that they were in.

Qiao Chen was waiting for an opportunity. He was waiting for the chance to enter the building and participate in the research. However, he couldn't wait around while doing nothing. If he did, then people all over the world would become zombies. So even though this opportunity wouldn't come by itself, Qiao Chen was also creating opportunities while he waited.

The other people with healing abilities noticed that Qiao Chen would also do something extra or strange that healers didn't have to do. For example, Qiao Chen would record a soldier's vitals as well as collect a blood sample before he treated some of the wounded soldiers. They didn't know whether this was just some weird, special hobby he had or if he was actually studying something.

Unfortunately, those who had healing abilities didn't know a thing about medicine, and the doctors who did know something about medicine didn't have the ability to deal with zombie wounds. That's why there wasn't much of a use for them to study these things. Furthermore, Qiao Chen didn't talk to them very much either. He never really talked about himself or his past, so they all thought that Qiao Chen was just fulfilling his own little hobby. This meant they all thought that Qiao Chen was even weirder than they first thought he was.

Other healers wanted to exclude Qiao Chen and cause him some trouble. Unfortunately for them, Qiao Chen usually walked hom with Long Ao. They walked pretty close together too. So they head the idea to do it, but not the balls. Everyone knew that Long Ao wasn't someone you wanted to provoke. If Qiao Chen complained about them to him, then they would have only caused trouble for themselves.

Qiao Chen worked the night shift last night. He didn't have to go to the medical department this morning. He had half of the day shift later in the afternoon. As soon as he arrived on the floor he normally worked, he heard a loud noise from the largest clinic on the floor.

Qiao Chen walked to the treatment room's entrance but didn't rush in. He stood outside as he watched the chaotic scene for a bit. He listened carefully to the people who were quarreling inside.

In addition to the many soldiers standing inside the room, there were also many people in lab coats. Qiao Chen had seen them before. Some were doctors on other floors and some were healers on his floor. The ones he didn't recognize should be the scientists from the research department.

Qiao Chen saw several soldiers tied to the hospital bed and struggling in pain through the gaps in the crowd. There was a middle aged man stood amongst the crowd. He wore a white lab coat as he scolded and cursed at the doctors and healers for being so incompetent. He also argued with another man in a lab coat. The soldiers were currently in this state because of somebody's problem. Qiao Chen wasn't there from the beginning, so he wasn't too sure.

He listened in some more to understand more about the situation. Qiao Chen thought to himself, "The opportunity I was waiting for is finally here."

For the duration of his work as a healer, Qiao Chen recorded the changes in certain soldiers. He collected the blood from their wounds and secretly tested the samples in a laboratory.

The laboratory wasn't as fully furnished with all the equipment as he had hoped, but it wasn't too big of a deal. He had his system help him run the tests with the simple equipment and found an antibody that resisted the mutation in the blood samples he collected. Then he learned through the system the antibody wasn't produced by the injured person themselves. It was a vaccine that was injected into them.

The antibodies were able to control the mutation to a certain extent. However, there were some pretty bad side effects and the antibodies themselves didn't have that much of an effect.

Qiao Chen didn't know what side effects would appear before, but from the researchers' arguments he knew now that the soldiers were currently exhibiting said side effects from the vaccine.

The soldiers who were injected with the antibodies had bone spurs grow on their spinal cord. If the bone spurs weren't removed as soon as possible, then they would continue to grow longer and longer. The soldiers would either die because of the pain or because of the bone spurs skewering them to death.

The researchers didn't have a way to solve the problem, so they sent over the soldiers who had developed bone spurs to the medical department. They wanted the doctors and healers to help them solve their dilemma, but the doctors and the healers said that they also couldn't solve the problem.

Qiao Chen had a general understanding of the situation now, so he walked into the room. Long Ao was also in there, so Qiao Chen walked to his side and stopped there.

Long Ao noticed Qiao Chen when he appeared at the door. He saw him stand there for a bit before walking over to him. He stretched out his hand to stop Qiao Chen behind him.

Every single one of the soldiers strapped onto the beds were all under Long Ao's command. Dr. Xu repeatedly assured him that his soldiers would not be in danger when he injected them with the antibody vaccine. Now that they were in this situation, the antibody research team had yet to give him a reasonable explanation. They were arguing left and right as they shirked the responsibility. He was waiting for them to finish quarreling.

Qiao Chen looked at Long Ao's broad back as he blocked him off from potential danger. That broad and strong back made people feel very secure. His heart warmed up because he knew that Long Ao didn't want him to be implicated in any of this trouble. However, this was still Qiao Chen's long awaited opportunity.

"I have a way to cure them." Qiao Chen said in a loud voice.

The noisy voiced stopped because of Qiao Chen's words. Everyone turned their heads to look for the source of the voice. They wanted to see who would dare make this claim at such a time.

Of course Long Ao knew that Qiao Chen was the one who uttered that statement, but he still didn't move out of the way. Qiao Chen pulled on his clothes from behind and said, "I can really cure them."

The others heard the voice come from behind Long Ao so they all looked at him. Long Ao had to move aside to show Qiao Chen to the others. Then he looked at Qiao Chen was some worry.

The problem they were dealing with today was both deeply serious and very difficult to deal with. The research department had thought up of many ways with no avail. If they had anything, then they wouldn't have resorted to sending the soldiers over to the medical department. They wanted someone else to take charge of the soldiers' treatment, so that they could just blame the other party for when it failed.

The middle aged man who had just been yelling and screaming the loudest walked over to Qiao Chen with bid strides and asked, "You were the one that said you could save them?"

"That's right." Qiao Chen nodded.

"This young man, you can't just claim such serious things so casually. This is a matter of life and death here." Xu Jianping looked Qiao Chen up and down and asked, "What can you do? You an actual doctor or a healer?"

"I can do both. I'm a doctor, and I have a healing ability."

There were very few people who had healing abilities. There were even fewer people who were actually doctors and had healing abilities. It wasn't just the other people in the room who were surprised. Long Ao was surprised too. They both had such a deep understanding of each other, but he still didn't even know that Qiao Chen was a doctor.

"Since you have the gall to say that you can save them then you should also bear the brunt of the consequences once you fail to." Xu Jianpin said haughtily. He saw that Qiao Chen surprisingly wanted to take over this problem. Of course he wouldn't be able to have Qiao Chen take full responsibility, but that was fine since he himself didn't need to take full responsibility either.

Xu Jianping thought that it was normal for problems or mishaps to occur during the experimental stage. Moreover, he doesn't really care to speed up his research while developing the antibodies. Therefore, to save his own team from being tested on, he decided to use the soldiers as his lab rats. In this day and age, people died all the time. It wouldn't matter how many soldiers died as long as he got results anyways, right? However, Long Ao forced him to cure these soldiers or he'd hold him accountable for their deaths.

However, even though these were Xu Jianping's truest thoughts, he didn't dare to voice them out in front of Long Ao. Long Ao wasn't only the army commander's nephew, but he was also the research department head's grandson. All the soldiers on base listened to him, and he could walk sideways with anyone questioning him. That was why even though he was Long Ao's elder, he didn't dare to offend him so easily.

"I can be responsible for what I said." Qiao Chen said calmly.

"Dragon Team. You heard it yourselves. He said it himself too. We didn't force him to say it, so if anything happens then he will take full responsibility." Xu Jiangping looked at Long Ao and said.

Long Ao looked into Qiao Chen's eyes. Qiao Chen returned his stare with a calm and confident look. Long Ao acquiesced and turned back to Xu Jianping to say, "If he can cure these soldiers, then I can drop the matter. However, if he can't cure them, then I still won't let a single person who took part in it off easily."

Xu Jianping's face stiffened. Long Ao's meaning was very clear. If Qiao Chen cured the soldiers, then everyone would be fine. If they couldn't be cured, then no one should even think about living a better life afterwards.

Qiao Chen told Long Ao, "Can you send some people to my room and bring back my backpack from the closet? There are some things I need to use from it."

Long Ao turned around and looked at the soldier behind him. That soldier immediately ran off to bring Qiao Chen's bag.