To the Start of a New World

Extra 4: Hong Sheng is a Zombie

It was Hong Sheng.

Lu Hao hadn't seen him for six years.

He had never imagined their reunion would be like this.

He was frozen, unable to move, unable to think.

The zombie Hong Sheng growled at him, a weak sound that wasn't the least bit intimidating. He looked so skinny, small, and miserable, with his t-shirt hanging loosely off his far-too-bony shoulders. He looked like an abandoned stray.

Hong Sheng staggered to his feet. He shuffled toward Lu Hao, but perhaps because he was too weak, Hong Sheng collapsed and smacked his face on the floor.

"Hong Sheng!"

instinct took over Lu Hao, and he tore through the bars of the cell. His hands gripped Hong Sheng's arms and hauled him up.

Even if he knew it was stupid of him—even if he knew that this was just a zombie, that all of these zombies were supposed to die... he couldn't stop himself.

Just now, Lu Hao had killed so many of them with his own hands.

Yet, just this one zombie, he cradled preciously in his arms.

He was a hypocrite. A complete, and utter hypocrite.

The zombie Hong Sheng raised his head, with his pale, half-blind eyes searching aimlessly. Lu Hao didn't move, even as Hong Sheng sniffed at his arm. When Hong Sheng opened his mouth and sank his teeth against Lu Hao's flesh, Lu Hao let him.

But the bite didn't break skin. It felt ticklish. Hong Sheng mouthed and nipped at Lu Hao's arm, seeming frustrated at how his bites couldn't sink in at all. His growl turned into a sad, confused whine, and Hong Sheng laid there, frail and exhausted in Lu Hao's grasp.

Hong Sheng was a failed, useless experiment.

He was a zombie so weak that he couldn't even attack a human.

When this thought entered Lu Hao's mind, his eyes lit up.

The change that came over him seemed sudden from the outside. But it was the slow unfurling of a seed that had been long buried in his heart. The same instinct that had led Lu Hao into this cell, now had him gathering Hong Sheng in his arms, with one of his hands gently running through Hong Sheng's hair.

"Hong Sheng, how could this happen to you?" Lu Hao murmured. Of course, Hong Sheng couldn't answer him, but Lu Hao had a general idea of what happened.

The researcher had targeted the civilians of the F City base for his experiments. He must have kidnapped Hong Sheng, penned him in with the other helpless survivors, then dragged him out to experiment on him...

And when Hong Sheng had become this weak, helpless little zombie, the researcher had thrown him here to be forgotten.

No one wanted poor little zombie Hong Sheng. But Lu Hao had found him now.

Hong Sheng was cold and soft in Lu Hao's arms, still giving kittenish bites to Lu Hao's neck and shoulder. Because he'd turned into a zombie through an experiment, Hong Sheng didn't have any wounds on his body, other than the dried blood at the corners of his mouth and under the beds of his nails.

Of all the zombies Lu Hao had seen, Hong Sheng was the cutest, cleanest, and most well-behaved one.

Lu Hao smiled warmly, his eyes gentle and affectionate. He rubbed a thumb over the corners of Hong Sheng's pale lips to help wipe off the dried blood. "Look at you. We'll have to get you cleaned up." The movement of the thumb caught Hong Sheng's attention, and he made a move to chomp on it. The expression in Lu Hao's eyes was unchanging as Hong Sheng swallowed Lu Hao's thumb in his mouth. He bit and sucked on the finger with his round, weak zombie teeth, seemingly very happy to have finally caught some 'prey' in his mouth.