Chapter 29

New Body 2

This is the current situation of many bases.

In the apocalypse, most bases are incapable of establishing new camps; utilizing existing buildings as camps is a common choice among many bases, with several opting for well-maintained residential complexes.

This base is established on the foundation of a residential complex.

Originally called Sunshine Residential Complex, it kept the same name after transforming into a base, now called Sunshine Base. The residents include original homeowners and people who fled from outside. People come and go but overall the mobility rate is low, making it a relatively stable residential complex in the apocalypse.

This stability has attracted more people, so now the Sunshine Base is considered overcrowded.

Following the woman who led him into the base, Pedro squinted.

Although he still had scars on his face and body, after treatment, his left eyelid had healed enough to close, and his right eyelid had reduced in swelling and could be opened.

After sitting in the isolation room without food or water for four days, he finally ate the food brought to him. After that, he finished every meal they sent him, feeling his body regain strength. On the last day, he carried the corpse of “Juan” out of the isolation room.

The sun was shining brightly overhead; because the weather was good today, almost every household was drying clothes. There were so many clothes that the balconies couldn’t accommodate them all, so people hung clothes on long bamboo poles, extending them out of their balconies—men’s clothes, women’s clothes… and various scents of laundry detergent filled the air.

And on the ground were vegetable gardens.

The areas that should have been planted with grass were turned into vegetable gardens, filled with beans, cucumbers, tomatoes… Pedro didn’t recognize them, but that didn’t stop him from identifying them as food.

Besides that, there were people everywhere.

People hanging clothes upstairs, planting in the vegetable gardens, and others with weapons coming in and out among the vegetables and laundry. Occasionally, a few children could be seen running around…

So many people.

Dressed in vibrant colors, engaged in various activities—living people.

Even the room he was taken to must have been full of people.

Looking at the two neat rows of single beds in the room, Pedro thought.

“Alright, kid, you’ll be living here from now on. Just find an empty bed to rest. We provide two meals a day here; if you want more, you’ll have to earn it yourself through labor,” the woman who brought him in said with a smile as she handed him the backpack she had been carrying on her shoulder. “Inside are toiletries and a set of clothes. The clothes aren’t new, but they’ve been washed and dried.”

After saying that, she curiously glanced at the large bundle on Pedro’s back. After a moment of silence, she waved her hand and left.

After she left, Pedro casually found a bed and placed the corpse of “Juan” down before sitting beside it.

Carrying Juan like that had made it too easy for the head to fall off, so he wrapped Juan completely in plastic sheeting and carried him on his back. This way, Juan wouldn’t fall apart anymore.

Comfortably lying on the pillow next to “Juan,” Pedro looked out at the sunlight streaming through the window. “So this is what the outside world is like.”

“There are so many people…”

Yes—standing in front of the boy’s bed, also looking out the window, Juan thought.

After so many days, Pedro finally spoke his first sentence. Was this… good? he wondered.

Then—

“I will fulfill your last wish and take you to see this world properly.” With a slight smile, Pedro continued.

Juan: …

Hey… my last wish isn’t to see this world! Don’t mess with my last wish! Wait—I’m not dead yet! Where does this “last wish” come from? Also, if you leave the corpse like this for too long, it will rot! Don’t run around with it—

Not wanting to look out the window anymore, Juan turned to Pedro.

Even if I really had a last wish, it would be to read the spell book—staring at the smiling boy, Juan silently communicated with him word by word.

He had a vague feeling that the boy might indeed embark on the path of “carrying his corpse to see the world.” Juan thought he really needed to find a corpse quickly: first, bury the corpse of 485345; then correct my “last wish.”

So, after staring at Pedro, who seemed to have closed his eyes and fallen asleep for a while, Juan decided to go outside for a walk.

To pick up corpses.

However, having witnessed a few battles between humans and zombies on the way here, he knew that the corpses here couldn’t be picked up casually. If a corpse had already turned into a zombie, picking it up would result in being attacked and wouldn’t allow entry into the city.

Thinking this way, the treatment of zombies seems similar to his own dragon form…

With this in mind, Juan floated out of the room.

Not long after he left, the young boy suddenly opened his eyes and summoned the magic book, staring blankly at it as a tear slowly rolled down his cheek.

In the sunlight, the boy quietly gazed at the book in his hands.

Outside the city, Juan aimlessly wandered to the base.

After wandering around the base without seeing a usable body, Juan simply decided to go back. Just as he was about to turn left towards Ped, he suddenly noticed a sign on his right—

“Ten.”

He rummaged through his memories of this sign and finally remembered that it seemed to be the symbol of a hospital…

When he was in Eden, he had seen a hospital-themed drama on TV.

What is a hospital? It’s the place where the most people die!

A light bulb went off in his head, and Juan immediately floated towards the right—

Finding the right place made all the difference. As soon as he entered the hospital… or rather, the clinic, he saw someone rushing in carrying another person while calling for a doctor.

“Doctor! Where are you? Quickly, take a look at her; she was just injured by a beast’s claws and is bleeding a lot…”

At his call, the doctor, who had been treating someone else, immediately ran out to take over the patient. The doctor quickly grabbed the patient’s identity card to confirm her blood type while swiftly cutting open her clothing.

Then, upon seeing the flat chest beneath her clothing along with other obvious features, the doctor froze.

“The identity card shows the patient is a girl, 21 years old, but this is clearly a boy! He can’t be more than fifteen!”

“Ah? How can this be? For all these years, Xiaoya has been on our team, and she always wore braids, looking just like a girl…” The man who had brought in the injured person was also taken aback, clearly unaware of this.

“There’s definitely something wrong here, but we can’t discuss that now; we need to save the person first!” The doctor said, calling for assistants, and together they wheeled the injured person into the operating room.

After a tense surgery, the patient was brought out again.

He was still unconscious, but the wound on his abdomen had been stitched up. Not only was the exterior repaired, but the damaged organs inside had also been patched up well—Juan had observed the whole process from beside the operating table.

The nurses had excellent stitching skills, he thought.

All the wounds on the boy’s body were sewn up by the assistants, while the doctor used his supernatural powers to heal.

Unfortunately—

He wouldn’t survive; the lifelessness on the boy’s face was evident.

Yet, the doctor was unaware—

“Whether he survives will depend on tonight.” After taking off his mask, the doctor frowned and continued, “Where are the child’s family? Have they come? Additionally, we need to inform the patrol team; I suspect this child went out into the wilderness for a mission on someone else’s behalf. According to the base’s minor protection laws, this is clearly illegal…”

Standing beside the boy’s hospital bed and listening to the commotion outside, Juan pieced together the tragic life of this unfortunate child.

The boy’s parents were both supernatural beings who had settled in this base using their abilities. They bought a house and had the boy there—this was the standard configuration of a happy family, even before the apocalypse. Everything was fine until one day when they took on a major mission together. Their powers were indispensable, so they could only go on the mission together. Before leaving, they had to temporarily hand the boy over to his uncle, who was the brother of the boy’s father. The uncle was an ordinary person who had been living in this base depending on his brother. They usually had frequent interactions and got along well, so the couple felt assured leaving the child with them.

Little did they know, they would never return.

At first, the uncle’s family treated the boy well, but as time passed, everything changed.

Not only did they take over his parents’ house, but they also began to treat their nephew poorly, offloading various chores onto him. When their daughter came of age and was set to start undertaking missions for the base, they sent their nephew out on missions instead.

They left the boy with hair that was nearly as long as their daughter’s and sent this still-childlike boy away.

“…Three years ago, that child was only twelve years old, and you let him go out on missions? He’s not even a supernatural being; it’s a miracle he’s survived until now!” The doctor scolded sternly in the hallway.

Meanwhile, the boy’s uncle and his family could only respond in hushed voices. As ordinary people, they weren’t afraid of a fellow ordinary boy, but they feared the supernatural doctor.

“This can’t go on like this; he’s still a minor. He’s being observed here now, and even if he recovers, this family can’t be his guardians anymore. The boy is nearing adulthood and can take care of himself; the house originally belonged to him, he can…”

The doctor continued speaking, but when it came to the house, the uncle’s family stopped pretending to be meek.

“Doctor, according to your logic, he’s almost an adult. What’s wrong with him going on a public mission? Besides, the house is my brother’s, and it wasn’t stated to be this child’s…”

“I will escalate this issue further.” The doctor cast a disdainful glance at the portly older man in front of him, unwilling to continue the argument.

But at that moment, it was the other party who wouldn’t relent…

The voices outside continued, while inside, the boy’s time had come.

Sitting by the boy’s window, Juan first recited a blessing in the dragon language, then stood up.

“It’s an honor to accompany you through the last moments of your life.”

“Now, please allow me to use your body to live another period in this world.”

With that, he stepped into the boy’s body.

Upon reopening his eyes, he found himself back in a body.

Juan tied the boy’s long black hair into a single braid, and as he placed the braid’s end on his right shoulder, he felt a familiar sense of satisfaction at the long length he hadn’t seen in a while.

The familiar hair color and length gave him a feeling of once again having his own body. Unfortunately, there was no mirror in the hospital room; if he had seen the pair of dark eyes on his face in the mirror, he might have felt even more excited.

Ignoring the argument about “himself” in the corridor, Juan simply tidied himself up, opened the window, and then leaped out.

His toes lightly landed on the ground as he rushed towards the magic book, also in the direction of Ped!