淫欲的代价

"...Some of them went after him but he still managed to escape," Lu Ming was saying as he walked down the stairs behind Du Jian.

Du Jian only hummed. He was quite disappointed that Du Ling had escaped but he wasn\'t worried. That brother of his was on his way to becoming a full fledged zombie and would still end up dead sooner or later.

"There\'s nothing to worry about. His consciousness would be wiped out in three days." Du Jian said to Lu Ming. "He-" He suddenly stopped speaking when he reached the third to the last step and locked eyes with what was probably the most beautiful pair of eyes he\'d ever seen.

The narrow hallway had low lighting but that did nothing to diminish the glimmer in those cerulean blue orbs. Du Jian took a proper look and realized the owner of the amazing eyes was a man.

A breathtaking man dressed in nothing but a large gray shirt that hung on his slender frame enticingly. He looked to have just stepped out of the general bathroom as his long white hair was damp and his lashes were wet.

As Du Jian\'s eyes trailed to the man\'s long exposed legs, he gulped. The sheer beauty of the specimen before him had blood rushing straight to his groin, making him hot with overwhelming need. He had no idea when his legs carried him over.

888\'s eyes narrowed slightly when Du Jian slowly walked up to him, leaving a confused Lu Ming to trail behind him.

"You\'re new here?" Du Jian asked. Even if there was over a thousand people in this base, there was no way he would have forgotten seeing such a beauty before.

"Hm." 888 hummed. One of the reason he remained standing in the hallway was because he didn\'t want them to see him walk into He Yuan\'s room. If he did, they would surely be on guard against him and that was something he didn\'t need at the moment.

Lu Ming looked between the both of them and when he spotted the pure infatuation in Du Jian\'s eyes, he clenched his fists. He was Du Jian\'s boyfriend! How could Du Jian so wantonly show interest in other people right in his presence?!

He couldn\'t snap at Du Jian and earn his dissatisfaction so he turned to the stranger and pinned him with a hateful glare. "If you\'re new, why are you here?"

This floor and the one above belonged to the members of the Nova team. This stranger had no business being here, talk less of taking a shower on this floor. What was his purpose?

888 shrugged. "The bathroom is clean."

Lu Ming grit his teeth. The bathrooms on a lot of the other buildings were in the worst state possible. This was due to the fact that over thirty people had to share one bathroom per floor... But, "That is no excuse. There are rules set down in this base that must be followed at all times. Even if you were in dire need of a clean bathroom, what happened to the ones on the floors below this one?"

"Not clean enough." 888 deadpanned and Lu Ming turned red with rage.

"You! Ho-"

"Lu Ming." Du Jian said through clenched teeth, directly cutting him off without moving his gaze away from 888 for even a second.

Lu Ming looked at Du Jian with pure hurt in his eyes before remaining silent.

"Have you gotten a room?" Du Jian asked.

888 narrowed his eyes at Du Jian and tried not to let his disgust show at the man\'s intense gaze. If he hadn\'t gotten a room, would he be inside the base? For someone who was rumoured to be smart, how could he forget that everyone was assigned a room once they registered? Tsk!. "Hm."

"One of the general buildings I presume?" Du Jian asked as his eyes roamed 888\'s body once more. "It must be quite uncomfortable over there. How do you like this building?"

Lu Ming\'s eyes widened and he opened his mouth before 888 could speak. "There are no spare rooms in this building!"

Du Jian turned to glare at Lu Ming. One of his pet peeves was being interrupted and Lu Ming was fearlessly pushing his buttons. He said slowly, "If I remember correctly, one of the Nova team members got infected today, let him have the room."

Lu Ming stared at Du Jian as if the man suddenly grew red horns. "This floor and the one above are reserved for members of the Nova team. He can\'t have it!"

Du Jian directed a wave of his energy at Lu Ming. "Leave. Now!" He was very fixated on things that caught his interest so the fact that Lu Ming kept defying him -right in front of someone that clearly caught his interest- made him quite furious.

Lu Ming groaned when he felt the pressure in his mind but he refused to budge. This angered Du Jian further and he increased the pressure. Lu Ming finally caved with tears in his eyes.

He held his head to ease the headache as he walked away. He was beyond dumbfounded. Du Jian was always gentle with him, what was up with him today? He looked back to the stranger and his heart squeezed in fury.

With Lu Ming gone, Du Jian brought his focus back to the bored 888 and smiled gently. "Pay no mind to his words." And then he pointed to He Yuan\'s door. "You can have that room."

It was quite convenient for 888 so he walked into the room and then,

BANG!

The system banged the door right in Du Jian\'s face. He was not in the mood to deal with the creep.

Du Jian\'s eyes widened at the man\'s complete disregard of him. Ever since the advent of the infection he\'d been treated as an actual God by everyone so seeing someone act so rudely to him ruffled his feathers.

He detested the disrespect but when he thought back to the man\'s enchanting figure, he swallowed down his dissatisfaction and smiled instead. It would more fun breaking down that hotheadedness.

So Du Jian returned to the research facility in a happy mood. He was already settled behind his desk when he realized he hadn\'t asked for the enchanting man\'s name. He had to hold himself back from returning to the residential building. After all, the man was going nowhere.

888 buried himself under the covers immediately he was alone. Du Jian\'s intense gaze had made him very uncomfortable but he fought with all he had to hold himself back from clawing the vermin\'s eyes out.

"He Yuan," He whispered as he tried to use his energy to detect He Yuan\'s but he still came up with nothing.

888 closed his eyes tightly and forced himself to sleep so he wouldn\'t have to give in to the fear that was slowly creeping into his heart.

For the next few weeks, 888 went out with Liu Bao\'s scouting team everyday. The woman had created her own team on the second day in the base with him and Xiao Yu as the only members. They took scavenging jobs everyday as a front to go in search of He Yuan.

What exactly they wanted with a man that was most probably zombified at this point, no one knew but that didn\'t stop them from searching.

888 used every opportunity to avoid both Du Ling and Lu Ming. Even when the latter tried to use the authority of the base to force him into joining the Nova team. It got so bad that he moved out of He Yuan\'s room and slept in the lighthouse next to the base gates instead.

It wasn\'t particularly quiet but he preferred it there. One, neither Du Jian nor Lu Ming would be breathing down his neck like hungry dragons and two, the noise worked well in distracting him from his increasingly constant panicky thoughts at He Yuan\'s disappearance.

Weeks soon turned into months but there was no sign of He Yuan. Liu Bao stopped going on the scouting missions. She knew Du Ling was too far gone, the search was pointless. Even if they found him, what could they possibly do? He was a zombie whose first instinct would be to attack them.

888 persisted because he had to find his host and Xiao Yu continued too, but no one knew why.

With each day that went by without seeing his host, 888 went deeper and deeper into despair. He was worried, terrified even, that He Yuan might actually encounter something that could lead to his death. He had no idea whether or not the infection had affected He Yuan\'s own consciousness.

At this point, he wasn\'t even thinking about how He Yuan\'s death might lead to a butterfly effect that would claim his life too. He just wanted to find his host.

888 had never been this terrified in all of his time in existence.

A couple more months passed but still, his host was not found.