Since Lu Ming did not succeed in getting back with Du Ling, the man hardened his resolve and chose to set him up instead.

After all, if something happened to Du Ling, the so-called hope of humanity would be lost and everyone would have to depend on Du Jian once more. The samples that had been collected were not near enough to actually vaccinate everyone.

With the state of the world, a lot of lab equipment had been destroyed or were unable to be operated hence certain chemicals were no longer available. Mass producing the vaccine was hereby impossible for now.historical

Although Du Jian was missing, Lu Ming was sure that if Du Ling was out of the way, Du Jian would willingly reveal himself and be automatically returned to his former status as the hope of humanity.

It was even better that Du Ling and Du Jian were twins. That way, it would be relatively easy to lead people to believe that the so called vaccine was actually a mutated gene that was exclusive to the Du family bloodline so it was possible that a vaccine could be produced from Du Jian's blood too.

What was it? Total bullshit, but Lu Ming was certain that him and Du Jian would be able to pull it off. After all, Du Jian had a personal lab and all they needed to do was stall until Du Jian figured out a vaccine himself.

The most important thing was that they would have the awe and worship of all of humanity. Everyone would look upon them with fervent gazes full of hope, just like before.

Lu Ming had gone over his situation numerous times and decided that remaining with Du Jian was the best option. Although Du Jian had his eyes on Ren, if Lu Ming chose to turn a blind eye then their relationship would not necessarily suffer.

Du Ling, on the other hand, seemed to have become immune to his ways and was no longer so easy to manipulate.

And so,

Lu Ming went over to the base leader's office and proposed a plan.

The middle aged army general gave Lu Ming a contemplative look after hearing his suggestion. "It's not necessarily a bad idea but how exactly will we deal with the other base leaders?"

The plan had been to lead people to believe that He Yuan was actually still capable of spreading the toxin. It might be possible to extract the vaccine from his blood but it did not necessarily mean that his claws and canines were free from the toxin.

This way, He Yuan would be seen as a potential hazard and they would have a valid reason to lock him up. The military base leader was tempted because this meant that the vaccine in He Yuan's blood would exclusively belong to the military base.

After all, he would be their prisoner.

Lu Ming smiled. "It's simple really, we just have to lead them to believe that Du Ling is dead. This could be done by setting up an elaborate show of us gunning down the zombie-that-suddenly-lost-its-mind-and-attacked-the-inhabitants-of-our-base.

-The other base leaders would be unable to utter a word because there is no way they would expect us to fold our arms and watch a feral zombie tear down our base."

The base leader frowned in thought. It was a thorough plan. Whilst the others would think Du Ling was dead, the cognitive zombie would actually be hidden away by him, the base leader.

He would look for a way to contact Du Jian and once the man returns, they would drain every last drop of Du Ling's blood and after a year or two, they would make it seem like Du Jian had finally developed a vaccine.

The discovery would be used to cement his base as the top base. The other bases would have to come to him for the vaccine and he would release it to them on the condition that they merged their base into his.

Even bases from other countries would have no choice. The base leader slowly smiled. He would turn them into some sort of vassal states thereby making him the ruler of the entire world -a feat that had never been achieved in history before.

Lu Ming watched as the base leader fell for his trap and he scoffed in his mind. Him and Du Jian were well aware of the base leader's delusional dream to rule the world. The man's plans for the vaccine were clearly written on his face.

The idiot conveniently forgot that once the other bases got their hands on the vaccine, they could basically rebel and turn against him. Even if every base in the country decide to submit to him -which was highly improbable- it was impossible for the bases in other countries to do the same too.

They weren't so dumb. One way or the other, they would be able to get their hands on the vaccine. People who were able to become leaders of bases full of thousands of people naturally had their ways.

Another laughable thing was that the base leader's dream of probably extracting the vaccine in Du Ling's blood was just that -a dream. He, Lu Ming, did not plan to leave Du Ling alive once he was captured.

Like he had planned before, the job of creating a vaccine must belong to Du Jian. He was not going to take the chance and have Du Ling escape somewhere along the line.

'Or...' Lu Ming suddenly thought with a slowly forming smile. Rather than that, it would be even better if he captured Du Ling from the base leader and extract the vaccine himself. That way he would not need Du Jian -or anyone else- in order to stay on top.

Many might forget but he was studying to become a bioscientist -and he was at the top of his class- before the toxin spread and the world went to shit. He was like fish in water in a lab.

All he needed to do was go to a completely different base, far away from the military base or the surrounding bases, and actually 'create' a vaccine there.

He would be the true hope of humanity then. Not Du Ling and definitely not Du Jian either. He would make sure Du Jian regretted ever looking at another man twice and as for making Du Ling regret? There was no need -the man would be long dead by then.

The base leader cleared his throat. "Since that has been cleared. How are we going to convince the people in the base that Du Ling's existence is actually a threat just after we told them that the vaccine is contained in his blood?"

Lu Ming smirked. "Hasn't that already been done for us?"

Two days after the plan was made, the third volunteer -the one that He Yuan had dug his claw in during the final phase of the experiment when the other base leaders were present- suddenly turned into a zombie.

The first phase of the plan was in action.