Just as Richards was racing against time to conduct his experiment, a jarring alarm blared.
Disturbed but not angered, Richards placed the two half-filled test tubes back on the rack, reached out and silenced the alarm, then slowly stood up from his seat. He absently stretched his decaying joints before turning towards a nearby table.
On this table sat a single, small white refrigerator. Compared to the bizarre and exotic instruments surrounding it, the refrigerator seemed utterly out of place. Yet, to Richards, this refrigerator was more important than all the other equipment combined.
Richards opened the refrigerator door and carefully retrieved two cold blood bags from within.
Gazing at the blood bags in his hands, Richards licked his chapped lips, his eyes alight with a frantic hunger. He yearned to tear open the packaging and drink greedily, but he ultimately restrained himself, knowing he couldn't.
Enduring immense inner torment, Richards carried the two blood bags out of the laboratory and walked towards the room next door.
From behind the door, the faint sound of clanging metal could be heard.
When Richards pushed the door open, the room was empty of people. Only chains, bound together, swayed half a meter off the ground, producing the metallic clatter.
Richards was long accustomed to this. He took out the two blood bags, waving them at the empty room.
The swaying chains paused for a moment, then began to shake more violently as a female zombie appeared.
This female zombie was none other than Richards' wife, Susan.
Everything Richards was doing, researching the quantum virus, was for the day he could turn his zombified wife back into a human.
However, before that, Richards had to ensure Susan's safety as a zombie. He didn't want his zombie wife to run out and embrace the other zombies outside to devour each other. To prevent this, Richards had bound her with chains and fed her frozen blood plasma daily to slow her decomposition.
Of course, the reason for feeding her blood plasma instead of meat was that, in the current situation, finding live subjects for dissection was impossible. Furthermore, Richards had experiments to conduct and no time for such matters.
Even the blood plasma he possessed was drawn from the zombies outside, then painstakingly purified and modified into synthetic blood plasma. The process was complex and the yield extremely low. Even with automated machinery replacing manual labor, two bags a day was its maximum output.
Watching Susan, who was increasingly agitated as she saw the blood plasma, struggle to snatch the bags from Richards' grasp, her chains digging into her flesh without any sign of stopping.
Richards skillfully grabbed an iron basin, tore open a packaging bag, poured the blood plasma into it, and then placed it before Susan.
Upon seeing the delicious-looking blood plasma, Susan lowered her head without pretense and began to feast ravenously.
Looking at Susan, whose face was already disfigured, Richards felt no disgust. Instead, his eyes were filled with love and tenderness. Recalling their past beautiful moments, Richards longed to cry out loud, but having become a zombie himself, he had lost the ability to cry.
Seeing Susan's hair slip into the iron basin, Richards reached out to tuck it back, but Susan, mistaking his gesture for an attempt to snatch her food, bit him without hesitation.
Looking at the clear bite marks on his hand, Richards felt no anger or resentment. He casually picked up a stool nearby and quietly watched Susan wolf down her meal.
"Do you want to turn your wife back into a human, even if it means selling your soul to a demon?"
As Richards gazed at his wife with sorrow, a deep voice sounded by his ear.
Hearing the voice, Richards sprang up as if his tail had been stepped on, his gaze turning alertly in the direction of the sound.
"There's no need to be so vigilant. If I truly wanted to kill you, your meager abilities would offer no resistance."
As he spoke, Bai Qi emerged from the darkness, repeating his earlier words.
Richards was about to speak, but the next moment, the figure vanished before him, and the voice echoed again from behind.
"Tsk, tsk, what a beautiful lady. It's a pity she's become a zombie."
Richards spun around abruptly, seeing Bai Qi inexplicably standing beside Susan, gently caressing her slightly decaying face. Susan, in contrast, with her blood-stained mouth, kept opening and closing it, desperate to devour the man beside her. Yet, her head and body seemed to conspire against her; no matter how hard Susan struggled, she couldn't move.
"What exactly do you want!?"
Richards was truly enraged. He drew a modified pistol from his waist, its dark muzzle pointed directly at Bai Qi's head.
Bai Qi was unfazed by Richards' threat, but he reluctantly answered the question. "What do I want? Of course, I want to make a deal with you."
"A deal?" Richards raised an eyebrow and asked, "What kind of deal?"
"It's simple. I want you and your wife to work for me. In return, I will turn both of you back into humans and provide you with a safe and comfortable working environment."
"What?" Richards exclaimed, disbelief coloring his voice. "You can turn Susan back into a human? Is that... is that true?"
"Of course."
Bai Qi nodded, also revealing his identity as an outsider demon.
"To hell with it. I don't care if you're a demon or an angel. This world is already absurd enough. As long as you can turn Susan back into a human, what does it matter if I sell you myself and my soul?"
Even with his usual excellent self-control, everything that had happened recently was too sudden. The quantum virus had taken everything from him. Susan was his last hope. If not for the belief in turning Susan human again, Richards might have chosen to commit suicide the moment he regained his sentience.
Having obtained the desired answer, Bai Qi was quite pleased and immediately cast a spell.
Before Richards' astonished eyes, Susan's injuries healed at a visible rate, and her zombie characteristics faded. She eventually fell into a coma in her human form.
"She... what's wrong with her! You promised you'd heal her!"
Seeing Susan transformed back into a human, Richards immediately rushed to her side. But no matter how he called out to her, Susan showed no signs of waking.
Bai Qi calmly said, "I have indeed turned her from a zombie back into a human. As for whether she will wake up, that depends on your future performance."