After returning to the European Branch and taking a single day to recover, Li Yun immediately submitted a report to his superiors.
He requested either a total quarantine or the outright destruction of the place he had named the Origin Site.
It did no good.
Instead, he was removed from the mission, which was reassigned to Beta Team of the Special Operations Group.
Beyond that, commendations and reprimands were handed out where due.
Although the mission had failed, Li Yun’s team had brought back a wealth of intelligence, a map of the town, and the location of the underground crypt.
The higher-ups still commended them, and a sizable bonus and a medal were delivered together to Li Yun’s private quarters.
The other surviving operators received their own commendations.
Over the next few days, Li Yun visited them one by one, trying to comfort them and help them settle down.
No matter how you looked at it, the horrors of that night had left a deep mark on all of them.
A few whose nerves could not take it might choose to retire, but Li Yun would not blame them.
That was only human.
In a foul mood, he went out for a cup of coffee.
Sitting around all day in the quarters assigned to him by the European Branch was not going to help.
He had barely sat down when a red-haired woman in sunglasses, an enormous sunhat, and a well-tailored dress took the seat opposite him.
Li Yun glanced at her, then lowered his eyes back to his magazine.
Damn this era.
Smartphones did not even exist yet.
Otherwise he could at least have killed time scrolling on his phone.
“If a beauty like me sat down in front of any other young man, he’d already be falling over himself to buy me coffee.
You’re the only one who acts like I’m not even here.” Blair propped her head on one hand and studied Li Yun with an amused smile.
“You may not be internationally wanted, but you’re hardly clean.
The fact I haven’t shot you already just means these last few days have beaten some of the fight out of me.
Why aren’t you at home trembling under a blanket?
What are you doing here in front of me?”
For all his sharp words, Li Yun still put down his magazine and ordered another cup of coffee from a nearby waiter.
His barbed remarks did not anger Blair in the slightest.
She kept smiling.
Li Yun discreetly swept his gaze around the café and, sure enough, found plenty of young men looking straight at her.
“I heard quite a few people from your unit have already applied to retire.
I’m doing much better than they are.
At the very least, if you asked me to go back there again, I wouldn’t refuse.”
There was a definite edge of mockery in Blair’s words.
She had never been the gentle, virtuous type; by her standards, that was already restrained.
Li Yun lifted his cup and took a small sip.
The aroma of coffee eased a little of the heaviness in his chest.
He did not blame his teammates.
He blamed himself for being too careless.
If he had remembered more, the death toll would never have reached double digits.
That was what he thought, but what came out of his mouth was, “Looks like our ranks aren’t as clean as they should be.
We’ve got leaks everywhere.
You got this information faster than I did.
Maybe I should find a chance to suggest that General Victor clean house.”
“Oh, hardly.
Information brokers get into every crack they can find.
It’s not really that I was faster than you—you simply didn’t want to pay attention.” One look at Li Yun’s troubled face told Blair what was going through his mind.
People like him were rare in their line of work.
Or perhaps he was simply still young?
Hearing Blair’s words, Li Yun’s brow tightened further.
What he truly cared about was the fact that Beta Team’s operation had succeeded.
A full week had passed since Alpha Team’s mission.
Four days earlier, Beta Team had used the intelligence Alpha brought back and exploited the advantage of daylight to punch through the underground crypt with minimal losses.
They returned with a sample of the original infected organism and received lavish praise from the higher-ups.
Tonight’s banquet was being held in their honor.
So he had failed to stop the Zombie Scenario from becoming reality after all.
He knew things probably would have unfolded the same way whether he existed or not.
What was coming would come.
All it really meant was that he now had one more thing to worry about.
His eyes drifted to the television in the café.
A company whose logo was a red-and-white umbrella was advertising one of its new pharmaceuticals.
Umbrella Corporation—the infamous villain of Resident Evil.
Li Yun had barely played the Resident Evil games himself, but he had watched enough playthroughs on Bilibili to know the basics.
He knew the famous T-Virus and G-Virus, and even the C-Virus that would appear years later.
Ever since arriving in this world, he had often joked to himself that a world like this deserved an immediate restart.
Counter-Strike Online fused with Resident Evil?
The only setting he could think of that was worse was Warhammer 40,000.
While Li Yun stared into space, Blair was reviewing the information she had dug up over the last few days.
Li Yun: one of the youngest and most promising new talents in the CT faction.
Twenty-two years old.
His parents had died years ago during a counterterrorism operation, after which he was adopted by Andrey, an elite CT noncommissioned officer.
At eighteen, he joined the PLA Special Forces.
At nineteen, he became the youngest field-team leader in the unit’s history.
After that, he repeatedly took the lead in CT counterterrorism operations.
For someone his age, his record was already absurdly impressive.
If Li Yun knew what she was thinking, though, he would probably only laugh.
This body he had received after transmigrating was nothing like the ordinary one from his previous life.
Stronger, tougher, fiercer—more Waaaagh!
Add in the training Andrey had arranged for him, and his natural gifts and acquired skills had both developed about as perfectly as possible.
He still probably could not beat those bioweapon superhumans, of course.
“The wind is rising before the storm…” Li Yun had unknowingly finished his coffee and murmured a line of poetry.
“What?” Blair did not understand him.
They had been speaking Chinese, but her command of the language only covered simple conversation; anything more literary went straight over her head.
“Nothing.
I just feel like one hell of a storm is coming.
This is a dangerous world.
Take care of yourself.” Li Yun left the last part unsaid: Be careful, or if you turn into a zombie, I might have to put a bullet through your head myself.
The cryptic warning left Blair baffled.
Since when had this world ever been safe?
CT and T fought each other tooth and nail, and even major figures at the United Nations could not avoid terrorist attacks.
Could things really get worse than that?
Li Yun paid the bill, checked his watch, and got up to leave.
Blair started to follow, but he immediately raised a hand, telling her this was as far as she went.
“You followed me all the way from my quarters to this café.
A few words are enough.
What happened back there is over, and I don’t hate you nearly as much anymore.
If the opportunity comes up, maybe we’ll meet again.”
Blair froze and said nothing more.
She had thought her tail had been flawless and that Li Yun had never noticed her.
So he had known the entire time and simply chosen not to expose her.
And with that, Li Yun left.
His next stop was the venue for that evening’s banquet.
If nothing unexpected happened, he suspected he would see quite a few major players there tonight.