A Guide to Maintaining the Base's Blade

Base B3 was the only surviving base in the north during the twenty-second year of the apocalypse. It possessed the richest resources and strongest military force in all of Asia, as well as Asia's only artificially modified war machine: Zhou Xi.

Those who had met him had mixed opinions of him, but all agreed he was the coldest ice on the snowy plains. He never smiled, never felt pain, and never knew fear. His only rules for survival were to fight and to protect the base's interests. He was the base's faith and guardian deity.

Fang Shutong died horribly at the hands of the zombies. When he woke again, seven years had passed. The former heir whom the base chairman had placed the highest hopes in had become a zombie. Fang Shutong sighed and followed a scavenging team back into Base B3.

There, he met Zhou Xi again: the child he had raised for eight years.

Zhou Xi's eyes remained impassive as he glanced over Fang Shutong as if he were nothing. Blood ran down his wrist, but his expression did not change.

Fang Shutong watched him spend a second weighing the available resources, then calmly place the others somewhere safe before going alone to face a second-level mutated creature. His temples throbbed.

The sweet, soft, obedient treasure he'd cherished and raised for eight years: who had turned him into this?

.

Zhou Xi knew he had no past and no future.

The chairman told him he had been born bearing original sin, and that Base B3 had given him a new life. But Zhou Xi couldn't see the point of being reborn this way.

It was as if he had been programmed. He mindlessly went through the things he could do with ease every day: patrol, evacuate, fight, fight, evacuate, patrol...

Even when his life was in danger, he would simply die like anyone else. If he died, then he died.

Until one day, the man who looked utterly useless disobeyed his orders and jumped into a deadly trap with him.

That man said, "Why don't you ever cry out when you're hurt? You're still just a kid."

That man said, "You're so pretty. Why don't you take better care of yourself?"

That man said, "Zhou Xi, don't be afraid."

He wanted to answer, "I'm not afraid." But his lips moved, and no sound came out.

Because now, he really was a little afraid.

A little afraid of pain, a little afraid of dying, and a little... afraid of losing him...

Theme: The continuity of human civilization