Chapter 93

The moment Jiang He shouted his warning, Jiang Liu felt a faint breeze behind her, blowing in her direction. Without even turning her head, she relied on her excellent reflexes to twist and dodge.

A pair of withered hands appeared where she had been standing. The emaciated, skin-and-bones hands were surprisingly strong. It was unclear where the brute force came from that allowed the patient to sit up in bed. Without even bothering to put on shoes, the person quickly got out of bed.

“W-w-what are you doing?” Tang Rui was so scared he could barely speak, holding the notebook with the patient records in front of his chest as he yelled, his young face pale with fright.

The patient, however, seemed not to hear him. After getting out of bed, they ignored the group and rushed towards the door in a bizarre posture. The effects of the sedative probably hadn’t worn off completely, as their steps were even a bit shaky.

“He wants to get out!” Zhao Ziming finally saw what was happening and pointed at the person, shouting. But Jiang Liu had already acted. Stepping onto the empty bed frame, she leaped up and grabbed the person’s wrist.

The patient seemed to have been pushed to their limit, muttering something unintelligible with bloodshot eyes fixed on Jiang Liu. They actually lowered their head and lunged forward to bite.

Jiang Liu clicked her tongue and quickly let go to dodge their mouth. At the same time, she extended her right leg and tripped the person.

Just as Zhao Ziming and the others were about to breathe a sigh of relief, seeing the person fall due to loss of balance, they saw the person on the ground twist their neck. In a posture impossible for a normal person, they turned their head a full one hundred and eighty degrees and once again bit at Jiang Liu’s foot.

“Is this a fucking Zombie?” Zhao Ziming watched, dumbfounded.

Jiang Liu hadn’t expected this thing to be so troublesome. While forcefully kicking the person away, she looked around, grabbed a wrinkled bedsheet, balled it up, and stuffed it into the person’s mouth.

“Mmph! Mmph! Mmph!”

With their mouth gagged, the originally faint muttering instantly grew louder, like a magic spell, waking up the other patients.

Zhao Ziming felt that in the blink of an eye, the people on the several beds in front of him had all climbed up. As if receiving some command, they frantically tried to run towards the door.

“Will we get infected if we’re bitten?” Tang Rui took two more steps back, hesitant to approach.

Jiang Liu had just dealt with one when three to five more rushed at her crazily. They stumbled about, completely out of their minds. Some even ran into bed frames without a sound, simply getting back up and continuing to rush for the door.

“Forget about whether they’re Zombies or not, just help!” she yelled at the three who were standing there stunned. Without another word, she tore off another bedsheet, twisted it a couple of times, and used it as a rope to tie up the person on the ground.

Seeing more and more people waking up, she felt a throbbing headache. Even she was having a hard time being active in a place with such a strong smell.

Jiang Liu took a deep breath and simply ran to guard the door, blocking their advance with a kick here and a punch there.

The mission they received was that not a single patient could be lost, so nothing could go wrong now.

Zhao Ziming understood the importance of this and quickly called for the others to help tie people up with bedsheets.

During the fight, Jiang Liu noticed the strange condition of this group.

To say they were frenzied was not quite right. They weren’t completely without sense; their minds were just filled with the thought of getting out. If anyone blocked them, they would attack with all their might, which made them seem insane.

But the door wasn’t the only way out. Some people started frantically climbing the walls, as if they wanted to use their hands as hammers to break a hole to crawl through.

For a time, the room was filled with wailing patients all around the walls. Some even repeatedly banged their heads against the wall until they rolled their eyes and passed out again.

Zhao Ziming and the other two scrambled among them, jumping up and down. If anyone else had seen it, they would have sighed at the perfect depiction of utter chaos.

The only fortunate thing was that these people weren’t very dangerous. Most were elderly, with their teeth all gone. Even if bitten, it was no big deal; at most, it would leave a tooth mark, not even breaking the skin.

But even so, by the time they had dealt with all the patients, the sky outside was already pitch black.

Zhao Ziming was sweating profusely from exhaustion. He only breathed a sigh of relief after confirming all the patients were tied to their beds.

“This is clearly mad cow disease. There’s no cure,” he said, sitting on the ground and panting. The pungent smell in the room made him nauseous again, and he covered his nose and rushed outside. He only felt alive again the moment he came into contact with fresh air.

Jiang He and Tang Rui were not to be outdone, following him out one after the other. The three of them looked at each other at the doorway, their eyes filled with the relief of having survived.

Jiang Liu, however, didn’t leave in a hurry. Enduring the discomfort, she checked the number of beds. There were exactly ninety-three, no more, no less.

Even without looking at the numbers in front of the beds, it was easy to see that this was the earliest batch of patients.

Is it because they’ve been sick the longest that they’ve developed a resistance to the sedative?

Apart from this group being firmly tied to their beds, the remaining patients had also mostly woken up. However, they were just staring blankly at the ceiling and muttering softly, showing no signs of frenzy for the time being.

Jiang Liu tried to get closer to listen to what they were saying. After a series of indistinct syllables, there was a following “Mmm, mmm, mmm—”

It was remarkably similar in tone to the first patient who had woken up. Jiang Liu tried to distinguish the words for a long time and finally made out a very soft phrase.

“I pray.”

Each of them was silently repeating this prayer. Although their voices were like the whisper of a mosquito, their unwavering tone still rang like an alarm bell in Jiang Liu’s ears.

It really was because of the church.

She remembered the side quest mentioned a nun in the church.

Jiang Liu lowered her gaze and pushed open the door, striding out.

Unconsciously, the ground had turned a silvery white. A heavy snow had started falling at some point. Snowflakes in the air swirled rapidly before landing on the ground. The cold wind carried fresh air, instantly relieving the stuffiness and stench she had endured all afternoon.

There were no more pedestrians on the street, only a hunched figure carrying an old-fashioned oil lamp, approaching the clinic step by step. As if sensing Jiang Liu’s gaze, their pace quickened, and in a few steps, they were close.

It was the same girl from noon. She carried a huge basket on her shoulder, which pressed her body down even lower, making her bend at a ninety-degree angle. Seeing Jiang Liu and the others outside, she spoke coldly, “Where are the patients?”

“They’re all here.” Jiang Liu met her scrutinizing gaze calmly and lifted a corner of the door curtain to let her see the situation inside.

The girl first put down the basket on her back and quickly went inside, as if checking on them one by one. Seeing that everyone was tied to their beds and not mistreated, she breathed a sigh of relief. When she came out again, her expression was clearly much softer than at noon.

“I didn’t expect you to last this long,” she said, staring at Jiang Liu. It sounded like a compliment, but her tone was very awkward.

“My name is Qiya. This is your dinner. It’s too late now. You can find a bed to rest. If you want to ask more about the patients, we can talk tomorrow morning.”

She spoke quickly, but without the defensiveness of the afternoon. She handed a few pieces of black bread to Jiang Liu and her group, then added, “If you don’t want to stay here, you can find any house to live in. No one should refuse you.”

With that, she hastily shouldered her basket again and went inside, as if to distribute dinner to the patients.

Watching Qiya’s busy figure, Zhao Ziming couldn’t help but show admiration. “She can really tolerate it.”

Jiang Liu shrugged, weighing the piece of black bread that was hard enough to be a stone in her hand, and took a couple of bites.

“You’ll really eat anything,” Zhao Ziming frowned, quickly snatching it from her hand and taking out two chocolate bars from his small bag to distribute among them.

“When you’re hungry, filling your stomach is the most important thing,” Jiang Liu said meaningfully, but she didn’t refuse his kindness. “Thanks. While we’re still warm, we need to go to the church.”

***

Yang Caisi had just finished washing up. Her semi-dry short hair fell beside her ears as she sat boredly at the door of her room, watching the snow.

She didn’t know whether to thank Qiao Ke’s little tricks or not. This instance had almost nothing to do with her. It was the first time she had been so idle since entering an instance.

The snow was falling harder and harder, quickly covering the footprints she had made earlier. Yang Caisi couldn’t help but look down at her ring and sigh softly.

Jiang Liu was right outside, but she couldn’t go out.

Qiao Ke’s interference with the instance wouldn’t be too great. The exclusive communication channel she had established for Jiang Liu wouldn’t be blocked. If she wanted to, she could contact that person anytime, anywhere. But for once, Yang Caisi hesitated.

First, she had disappeared without a word, then she had left her sister to face the choice alone. Now that they were reunited, what should she say?

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, but for Yang Caisi, it was more like the timidity of a long-awaited homecoming.

She unconsciously turned the ring, her mind involuntarily composing countless opening lines.

Should I first be happy that Jiang Liu wasn’t deceived by Qiao Ke’s nonsense this time?

Or should I explain the reason for my departure?

Numerous thoughts filled Yang Caisi’s mind. She felt her head grow heavy, her heart having long since flown outside the church, imagining what Jiang Liu was doing at that moment.

Maybe she should first ask if she was hungry. That person loved good food and would definitely not be used to the food here. The cold wind, heavy snow, and an empty stomach—the thought of it was heartbreaking.

“What are you doing sitting there like a fool?”

Immersed in her chaotic thoughts, Yang Caisi suddenly heard a cheerful voice and was startled. She scrambled to her feet from the steps, pursed her lips, and whispered, bringing the ring close to her mouth, “…Sister?”

There was no sound from the other side. A touch of disappointment flashed across her brow.

So it was just her hearing things again.

She laughed self-deprecatingly, lowered the ring, and looked up at the sky, still undecided on how to begin.

She could endure countless failed cycles, but when someone actually broke this loop, she found herself unaccustomed to the new beginning.

Yang Caisi closed her eyes, sinking back into silence.

But someone wasn’t going to let her be—

That familiar voice sounded from diagonally in front of her, its tone lilting with a smile. “Why are you standing there like a fool again?”

The voice was clear and bright. This time, she definitely hadn’t misheard.

Yang Caisi opened her eyes in disbelief and saw Jiang Liu sitting on the wall in a thin shirt, smiling at her amidst the swirling snow. She leaped down from the wall with a grand gesture and rushed towards her with open arms.

The warm body instantly melted the snowflakes on her clothes, causing Yang Caisi to unconsciously tighten her arms, holding the person tightly in her embrace.

Jiang Liu patted her back, a multitude of emotions instantly turning into a soft sigh, mixed into her words—

“What a coincidence, Sister Yang. We meet again!”