Chapter 17
Chapter 17
After speaking, Xie Qingling switched off her earpiece early, cutting off whatever Ling Fang might have said to stop her.
She sprinted toward the specimen room.
The bodies used in the specimen rooms and anatomy classes had all been donated by members of the public.
After death, they donated all or part of their bodies. In the years that followed, their organs were preserved in formalin, taken out, then put back.
Class after class of students cut into them and stitched them closed again.
Until they could no longer be used, until there was nowhere left to cut.
Their bodies were scarred and their skin mottled, yet students learned from their remains and carried the hope of life to the living, repaying society with medical advances made through every incision.
Death was not the end of their life’s value.
Xie Qingling would never forget her first anatomy class during her sophomore year.
The professor had said gravely, “Before you enter the anatomy laboratory today, I will teach you the first rule – the rule you must obey all your lives. No matter when, where, or who you become, keep it engraved in your hearts.”
“Always remember the contribution these people made to humanity.”
“They are your silent teachers – the body donors who deserve your deepest respect and gratitude as you pursue medicine.”
A silent teacher’s body was the weightiest textbook of all.
From that class onward, Xie Qingling and her classmates observed a moment of silence and paid tribute before every anatomy session.
Yet now, these hateful ghosts had treated the silent teachers’ bodies as food, gnawing them into mangled flesh.
They devoured not only the silent teachers’ bodies, but their human will and dignity. These people had lain here with immense courage and devotion – not to become ghost food!
Rage surged to Xie Qingling’s head, reddening her eyes.
Kill these Carrion Ghosts!
With a click, Xie Qingling drew her handgun and released the safety.
The gun held five rounds. If her accuracy was high enough, she should be able to eliminate all four Carrion Ghosts quickly.
As long as she was careful enough…
Xie Qingling squeezed the trigger, aiming at one Carrion Ghost.
With a bang, the bullet struck the wall behind it. The special round corroded the wall, sending up curls of blue smoke.
Missed.
Again.
Another bang. Xie Qingling fired a second shot.
Another miss.
Xie Qingling grew anxious, but steadied herself and fired twice more.
Both missed!
Fuck!
Xie Qingling’s face darkened.
Movies and TV really were lies. No one became a sharpshooter effortlessly.
Accuracy wasn’t enough. She had to account for recoil and the target’s movement, which demanded both feel and anticipation.
Four rounds had failed to kill a single Carrion Ghost and had exposed Xie Qingling to danger instead.
The noise drew all four ghosts’ attention. Together, they turned their heads toward her – if the faceless lumps on their necks counted as heads.
The Carrion Ghosts dropped the severed limbs in their hands. With two strange cackles, they charged Xie Qingling with astonishing speed.
They fed on rotting corpses, but the strangely fragrant human before them interested them too.
Besides, if they killed her, wouldn’t they have a corpse?
The freshly dead body of a Spirit Wielder – how deliciously fresh it would taste…
Having already eaten, the Carrion Ghosts were unlike the newly awakened Rakshasa that couldn’t even lift its blade.
Their limbs were short. As they ran, tiny legs briefly showed beneath them, making each look like a wobbling tumor racing forward.
They charged in straight lines, moving so fast that they reached Xie Qingling in the blink of an eye.
Whoosh! A Carrion Ghost swung its claws. Its hands resembled animal paws, with entirely black nails, and the force of the strike split the air.
Xie Qingling instinctively wanted to dodge. Taking that blow head-on couldn’t end well.
The instant the thought arose, her body reacted before her mind – both feet planted against the wall behind her. To a Spirit Wielder, the vertical surface was level ground. Using its counterforce, Xie Qingling executed a beautiful backflip.
When her feet touched the floor again and she steadied herself, she stood behind the Carrion Ghosts.
Their attack missed.
[As Houtu’s Chosen, you fortunately evade this strike. But take utmost care. Carrion Ghosts usually travel in packs and are fiercely vindictive toward a common enemy. Feeding on carrion year-round, they accumulate untold toxins. Their rotten, stinking skin and black nails conceal deadly poison.]
Their blue-black, rotting skin looked poisonous enough. Xie Qingling had guessed as much already.
The ghosts turned. Their blood-flecked mouths snapped wildly, teeth clacking with a grating sound. Though their mouths were empty, they stared at Xie Qingling and kept chewing, as though imagining her between their teeth and rehearsing how they would eat her. They were furious.
The enraged Carrion Ghosts charged together, intent on tearing Xie Qingling apart.
Before they reached her, Xie Qingling swung up a chair leaning against the wall and hurled it viciously.
She held nothing back, using all her strength.
A full-force throw from a Spirit Wielder would have crushed an ordinary person into pulp.
The chair struck one Carrion Ghost dead-on and exploded into pieces with a boom, but the ghost’s body merely flattened before swiftly returning to normal.
It cackled as though mocking Xie Qingling’s overconfidence. Its teeth closed with another piercing crunch that inspired irrational irritation.
After that brief obstruction, they continued charging.
Right. Weapons of the mortal realm didn’t work on such creatures. She needed objects filled with Spirit.
Then what about this…?
Xie Qingling drew a deep breath, channeled the Spirit inside her into another chair, and hurled it at the ghosts.
Boom! The lead Carrion Ghost was smashed into meat paste. After one strange cry, it dissolved into blue smoke and disappeared.
Success!
Having finally found direction in the fog, Xie Qingling exhaled softly.
She understood now.
Once she knew the method, these four Carrion Ghosts weren’t as difficult as they looked.
They were fast, attacked in packs, and carried biological weapons on their bodies, making them seem invincible. But their weakness was equally obvious –
Their bodies were actually fragile and couldn’t withstand heavy damage.
One strike had just eliminated a Carrion Ghost.
The remaining three were no problem.
Their only attack was swinging their poisoned claws.
Her odds were excellent.
The fierce battle allowed little time to think. The Carrion Ghosts attacked again, but Xie Qingling anticipated them and repeated her previous maneuver, dodging the strike.
She landed behind them again and felt toward the spot she remembered. Amid the specimen room’s chaos, her hands soon found a bow-shaped bone saw.
Its cool, familiar feel reassured her slightly.
Compared with a handgun, the medical dissection tools she had used for four years suited her much better.
Again, she controlled Spirit and infused it into the bone saw’s blade.
Now Xie Qingling had her own weapon against the Carrion Ghosts.
She watched the remaining three intently and slowly shifted her position, almost pacing, to avoid being forced onto the defensive.
After two failed attacks and the loss of a companion, the ghosts clacked their teeth again. This time, instead of attacking immediately, they stopped and huddled as though conferring.
Then the three Carrion Ghosts clung together and rolled toward Xie Qingling like a ball.
Their bodies fused into a larger mass that filled the limited space, leaving nowhere to dodge.
If it crushed her, either its weight or the poison covering their bodies would be more than enough to hurt her badly.
Xie Qingling’s gaze sharpened. Already prepared, she lifted the last chair as a makeshift shield, holding the Carrion Ghosts away from her body.
At the same time, she raised the bone saw high in her other hand and swung.
Infused with Spirit, the bone saw could now kill ghosts.
Its blade bit savagely into their bodies, raising blue smoke wherever it passed.
The Carrion Ghosts shrieked in defiance, but ultimately died beneath Xie Qingling’s blade.
Sound and smoke vanished together in a blink.
All four Carrion Ghosts feasting in the specimen room had been eliminated.
Only devastation remained.
Before she could rejoice, Xie Qingling stood amid scattered severed limbs and surveyed the appalling room, so grieved she wanted to weep aloud.
But first she had to tell Ling Fang the ghosts were gone.
Xie Qingling tapped her earpiece.
Before her fingertip touched it, an immense sense of danger rose behind her, her temples throbbing uneasily.
Something had locked onto her!
Without thinking, obeying instinct, she ducked and rolled sideways along the floor.
At the same time, a stinking gust blew through the window.
The next instant, a Carrion Ghost leaped through, claws spread wide.
It cackled at Xie Qingling and landed exactly where she had been standing –
It had jumped in to ambush her!
Realizing what happened, Xie Qingling still paled and broke into a cold sweat despite evading it.
She gripped the bone saw, shifting position while searching for the best moment to finish it.
Then something even more terrifying happened.
A second Carrion Ghost jumped through the window, then a third, fourth, fifth…