CHAPTER 716: AN EXPERIMENT GONE WRONG

"Yeah, it’s over... Anyway, if there’s nothing else to report on, I’m going to head back to the administrative office to work on some document."

"Um, Commander, should we also begin to alleviate the supply back to a more even distribution? Or should we continue to focus on the Western flank?"

The question caught Xiaoyun a little off guard as he didn’t have a good answer right off the top of his head.

It was a decision that he needed to manage carefully—especially considering the risk of those giant mutants coming back one day.

At the same time, focusing on the southern flank was going to give more tangible value that would help his settlement as a whole.

"Go back to an even distribution. But make sure to ready the air force at a moment’s notice if Yezi’s army asks for help."

"Okay..."

---

Just as Xiaoyun was about to head back to the adminstrative office to resume working on his cabinet reform, he was stopped right at the gates.

A car had blocked his way with a woman driver who looked a little shocked at seeing him. But what really confused him was the two men exiting their car.

They both were wearing soldier uniforms, blocking his car from leaving as they waved their hands at him.

"Wait, wait, Commander, I need to talk to you for a second. It’s a very important matter."

One of the men yelled out loud as the guards from the entrance started approaching them with their rifles raised.

"What kind of important matter?"

"It’s a matter of national security." The other man answered, his face seemingly a little surprised to see how young Xiaoyun looked.

"Really... Then let’s go somewhere else to talk."

Xiaoyun quickly signalled the guards to go back to their posts, then reversed his car to allow the other car to continue heading inside.

"Thank you so much!"

Both men yelled as the other car drove by them, with the driver’s face looking a little genuinely frightened by what they had done.

"Who is that woman?" Xiaoyun curiously asked.

"Just a logistic officer who happened to give us a ride... Commander, where do you want to talk?" The soldier asked.

"We can go inside one of the meeting rooms."

A few minutes of walking later...

As the two of them followed Xiaoyun all the way to a private room, he closed the door behind him before signalling to them to take a seat.

"You two better have something important to report to me, Lieutenant Colonel Lan Xianlin."

The name drop caught Xianlin a little off guard, but he quickly recovered as he saluted right at him.

"Commander! This is the most valuable thing I have recovered from my trip in Zhaoqing that could bring concern to our national security!"

"Where is it then?"

As Xiaoyun looked back at the two of them, he was a little confused. They were both sitting there with nothing in their hands.

"Wen Zhang?"

"Ahem, Mister Commander, do you mind closing your eyes for a few seconds?"

The sudden request from the man with no rank confused Xiaoyun a little, but he didn’t question it as he closed his eyes.

After waiting for a whole minute, the man finally told him to open his eyes.

"What the... hell?"

A woman was standing behind the two of them, wearing a jacket that was originally on the man with no rank earlier.

He could swear there were only three people in the room. There were no sounds of the door being opened or anything.

"Commander, this is the... woman that I found. She’s from one of those secret society labs that the army had taught about."

As soon as he mentioned the word secret society, Xiaoyun’s eyes immediately widened a little with concern all over his face.

"Where did you find this woman?" Xiaoyun questioned.

"Mr. Wen Zhang can explain it best to you. He’s the person who rescued her from those labs."

Hearing the accomplishment about the man wearing a soldier uniform with no rank, Xiaoyun was a little surprised.

In his head, he couldn’t imagine someone who looked so flimsy rescuing someone from a place that, in his experience, was heavily guarded to the teeth.

"Xianlin is exaggerating it.. Mister Commander, I actually have a request if I’m allowed to make one."

"What is it?"

"Can you... cure my wife?"

"Cure?’

As Xiaoyun looked back at the woman behind the two men, he started to notice flaws that he hadn’t seen earlier.

The woman had been standing still the whole time, with no emotion. There wasn’t even movement, let alone breathing sounds.

More importantly, the woman managed to be inside the room when she wasn’t there earlier.

"I’m going to need you to explain the full story. I don’t want to hear any make-up bullshit and half-baked story."

"Thank you, sir."

Thirty minutes later...

"So you’re telling me, this woman over here is a zombie——I mean a mutant?" Xiaoyun questioned as he looked back at the woman behind them again.

"Yes. She’s a mutant. But she doesn’t bite or hurt anyone. She only listens to me, and that’s it."

Connecting back to all the background story that Wen Zhang had told earlier, he could only come up with a single conclusion.

"I don’t think your wife is exactly a mutant... Or a zombie for that matter."

"Huh?"

Both Xianlin and Wen Zhang were fully confused by Xiaoyun’s statement, as it goes against all their common knowledge.

"All zombies want to infect humans. And even mutants are bloodthirsty for human flesh, regardless of whether they actually can infect humans or not."

"So what could she be?" Xianlin curiously asked.

"She sounds more like a... failed human experiment."

"A failed human experiment?"

The two of them both froze for a second, then quickly realized what Xiaoyun was trying to suggest.

"How so?" Wen Zhang curiously asked next.

"I had personally seen some of the failed human experiments. They looked very similar to your wife, having some traits from zombies and mutants.

But they are still mostly human, at least that’s what my top scientist had once told me. It’s just a little weird to see them out like this, though."

Xiaoyun paused for a second, then continued.

"When they are done with the experiment, they are usually disposed of. You either just got extremely lucky, or maybe it’s intentional."

"Is it possible to fix... her?"

Wen Zhang’s voice started to get weaker and weaker as he heard the word ’disposed’, which almost made all of his hope disappear.

"I don’t know. But I can ask my scientist to try... It’s going to be a long process and might not even work at the end, though."

As Xiaoyun’s answer made Wen Zhang fall into silence, he turned over to Xianlin, who had been silent during the whole storytelling.

"Xianlin, don’t you have a wedding to attend to?"

Wedding? Oh. Um, Commander, y-you wouldn’t mind if I made up an excuse to bring this information to you, right?"

His face began to look more and more nervous as he didn’t expect Xiaoyun to know about the lie he had made up for Yezi.

"Of course I... don’t mind it. I’m happy you brought this issue to my attention. My choice in promoting you is the best decision I have ever made."

Hearing the praise from Xiaoyun, Xianlin awkwardly scratched his head as he didn’t know what to say back.

"Ahem, anyway, Wen Zhang, have you made up your mind? Do you want to bring your wife to treatment? Or do you just want to continue living with her?"

"You let me go free?" Wen Zhang questioned, looking a little surprised by Xiaoyun’s second-choice offer.

"Why not? You said she doesn’t hurt humans and she only listens to you... She probably has some special ability I don’t know of, but I couldn’t care less about it."

Seeing the casualness on his face, Wen Zhang looked back at her emotionless wife one last time before turning over to Xiaoyun.

"I want you to help me fix my wife."

"Very well then... Unfortunately, you’ll need to wait until Monday, though." Xiaoyun answered.

"Why?"

"The top scientist just happened to be heading to Zhaoqing to collect samples from the giant’s corpse. You guys came in at the wrong time."

Wen Zhang thought about it for a second before suddenly getting up from his seat and bowing down in gratitude.

"Thank you so much! I’ll patiently wait until Monday."

"No need to thank me. I’m not the doctor. You should be thanking the scientist if they’re willing to take up your wife’s case."

Even though Xiaoyun pushed all the credits away from him, Wen Zhang’s face was still full of gratitude towards him.

"Xianlin, you can introduce and settle Wen Zhang into the town, right? I don’t need someone else to manage it?"

"No problem, sir. I’m more than happy to help."

"Great. Then looks like everything is sorted... You guys should probably put some more clothes on her, though."

As Xiaoyun looked away to the side, both of them were a little confused until they noticed the jacket was starting to slip too far down.

"Sorry!"