Chapter 18
Chapter 18
Of course.
There was more than one specimen room in the west building.
Other Carrion Ghosts occupied the others.
There weren’t merely four ghosts here, nor merely five.
Xie Qingling’s brows knotted. Then she turned and sprinted out of the specimen room.
One ghost, two, however many there were.
Her first task was to draw them away from the specimens.
The moment Xie Qingling moved, the Carrion Ghosts raced after her, cackling and brandishing their claws.
Two lingered in the specimen room, unwilling to abandon the ready-made severed limbs on the floor.
Compared with a living, kicking Spirit Wielder who wasn’t a corpse yet, they preferred food within reach that they could eat immediately.
Hardening her heart, Xie Qingling cut her palm with the bone saw.
Scarlet blood instantly covered her pale palm, and its scent spread through the air.
She wasn’t using a Spirit Wielder’s blood to attack them. Such blood worked against only limited kinds of ghosts and was useless here.
[A Spirit Wielder’s blood – what a tempting, maddening scent. After receiving a god’s blessing, you will attract still more covetous gazes in the supernatural world. They wait to tear you apart and devour you.]
[Every Spirit Wielder walking the supernatural world seeks to protect their flesh and blood. Yet you make yourself bait. Carrion Ghosts feed on corpses, but they will not reject a Spirit Wielder’s flesh – the supreme delicacy, the rarest feast. Once they kill you and your heartbeat stops, they will gorge themselves.]
That was exactly what Xie Qingling wanted.
The scent of a Spirit Wielder’s blood spread swiftly, and every Carrion Ghost in the building caught that irresistible fragrance.
They stopped eating and moved toward its source.
They couldn’t resist it!
Xie Qingling left the west building and ran toward the east, a crowd of blue-black tumors following everywhere she went.
Clacking filled her ears. If they caught her, she had no doubt they would chew her to pieces in an instant, leaving not even bone fragments!
Xie Qingling reached the fourth floor of the east building.
By then, a long train of Carrion Ghosts trailed behind her, its end nowhere in sight.
Her scalp prickled. There was no time to count them.
Their number far exceeded her imagination and made her want to swear.
Fortunately, so many Carrion Ghosts couldn’t move collectively through narrow corridors. They stumbled and squeezed one another. Though small enough to worm through gaps, their numbers made them stick together.
The crowded open-air corridor filled with ghosts, some pushed over the edge to the ground below.
That bought Xie Qingling a moment to breathe.
It didn’t mean she was safe.
The ghosts that fell did not die.
They got up and climbed walls, railings, and staircases back toward her.
Scattered ghosts appeared ahead, blocking her path. Their numbers grew, gradually forming an encirclement.
One climbed over a railing beside her and grabbed for her ankle. She kicked it back down.
No. She had to keep running. She couldn’t stop.
There were far too many.
Xie Qingling abruptly turned from her straight course, slipped into an open classroom, and blocked the door behind her.
With a sudden sprint, she smashed through the window and leaped out without blinking, escaping the encirclement.
After landing and steadying herself, she circled the east building, running from the ground-floor entrance into the lobby.
That maneuver instantly threw the Carrion Ghost formation into chaos.
They screeched angrily and scattered, searching for Xie Qingling separately.
She had temporarily escaped their pursuit, but the situation remained grim.
On the ground floor, ghosts that had fallen earlier were running toward her in groups of two or three.
Xie Qingling immediately sprinted for the stairwell to evade them.
This time, however, they had grown smarter.
Seeing Xie Qingling about to escape again, they cooperated: two ghosts lifted a third with all their strength, then hurled it viciously at her!
Dodge?
No.
At this distance and speed, dodging was impossible!
She could only meet it head-on.
Xie Qingling gripped the bone saw, aimed at the flying ghost, and prepared to strike –
Suddenly, the ghost screamed and blue smoke rose. The ghost closing on her in midair was destroyed.
[Midnight-noon circulation,[^midnight-noon] yin and yang within and without. A divine technique created by ancient sages returns to the world. Silver needles save lives; black needles kill ghosts. A healer dedicated to saving the world takes up the butcher’s blade against ghosts.]
Ye Anran, rushing to the scene, appeared before Xie Qingling.
She held a long needle roll bearing two dense rows of needles.
One row white. One row black.
Carrion Ghosts continued gathering on the ground floor. Ye Anran’s face was cold and solemn as she pinched black needles between her fingertips and shot down each ghost that approached.
[^midnight-noon]: In traditional acupuncture, midnight-noon circulation links the choice of acupoints to the time of day and the flow of qi and blood through the meridians.
“…Why are there so many ghosts?” Ye Anran frowned. “It was only six minutes. Did you kick over a ghost nest?”
“There are more inside,” Xie Qingling said gloomily.
“…” Ye Anran fell silent.
This operation seemed troublesome.
But unexpected situations had happened before. Ye Anran quickly calmed and even reassured the newcomer. “Don’t panic. Hold steady. Once the Director and the others arrive, we can wipe them all out.”
She wasn’t panicking.
Xie Qingling nodded, watched the gathering ghosts, and shouted, “Run! Don’t stop! I’ll draw them away!”
Ye Anran didn’t leave. She followed Xie Qingling, running beside her as they raced up the stairs.
She stayed close because she smelled blood.
Blood was still dripping from Xie Qingling’s palm.
No wonder every ghost chased her.
Such a powerful scent was practically a dinner invitation. Unless the wound was healed, the ghosts would quickly find Xie Qingling wherever she went.
Ye Anran tried to heal her, but Xie Qingling refused.
“No. Then they won’t be able to find me.”
“…Huh?” Ye Anran stared in bafflement.
Did this newcomer know what she was saying?
“I’m going to kite them,” Xie Qingling insisted.
On the second-floor corridor, Carrion Ghosts poured down every staircase and rained down from the third floor, densely packed and overwhelming, filling the passage in an instant.
Xie Qingling kept running everywhere with blood covering her hand.
Ye Anran instantly understood.
No wonder the disturbance was so enormous. Xie Qingling was the one controlling the initiative!
She had lured every ghost here using herself as bait.
“Are you insane?” Ye Anran shouted. “This is reckless! The Director will chew us out!”
Xie Qingling showed no intention of stopping.
She merely asked, “Can you neutralize Carrion Ghost poison?”
“Yes.”
Reassured, Xie Qingling shed many of her reservations and moved much more freely.
Another ghost was hurled directly at her. This time, Xie Qingling neither dodged nor retreated, but met it head-on.
It raised its claws. Xie Qingling blocked briefly, then dispatched it with one slash of the bone saw in her other hand.
Five bloody gashes appeared on her arm, their edges quickly corroding blue-black from the poison.
“Heal me!” Xie Qingling shouted to Ye Anran without looking back, then charged straight at the next ghost.
She had completely cut loose.
“We’re doomed! If the Director gets angry, don’t drag me into it! Explain for me! I’m innocent! I would never be this reckless!” Ye Anran wailed.
Despite her words…
As support, cooperating with a teammate was instinctive to Ye Anran. She immediately purged the poison and healed the claw marks on Xie Qingling’s arm.
She left the wound in Xie Qingling’s palm alone.
The blood continued flowing.
Xie Qingling spoke and acted with such decisiveness and composure that Ye Anran couldn’t help recalling Ling Fang when he issued orders.
Though she disapproved of Xie Qingling’s methods, she chose to respect her wishes and cooperate.
It was strange for a Senior to take orders from a newcomer, but…
Watching the figure ahead fight with ever greater disregard for her life, daring to strike and kill and growing more ferocious with every kill, Ye Anran sometimes forgot she had only just joined.
Blood-soaked Xie Qingling drew most of the aggression. Most ghosts chased her, while the remaining handful – roughly three to five – circled Ye Anran. She handled those stragglers easily.
She maintained a moderate distance from Xie Qingling, close enough to support her at any moment without becoming surrounded herself.
As a doctor, her first priority was control: protect herself first, then support her teammate.
That wasn’t selfish. It was the choice most beneficial to the team.
Ye Anran would not allow herself to be injured.
Xie Qingling cleared the path ahead.
She still lacked experience against ghosts, but four years in anatomy laboratories had honed her courage and instincts. Every slash was fast, ruthless, and precise.
With a doctor periodically purging poison and healing her, Xie Qingling had confidence enough to keep fighting forward.
Years of battle had tempered Ye Anran’s teamwork. She swiftly found their rhythm, and despite this being their first cooperation, they worked well together. With Ye Anran’s support, Xie Qingling fought with breathtaking ferocity, almost suicidally, carving a path through the second-floor corridor before charging toward the third.
They crossed the long corridor from the east building to the west.
Xie Qingling wasn’t running aimlessly. She seemed headed toward a destination.
Confused, Ye Anran shouted at her back, “Where are you going?”
“To find a weapon that belongs to me.”
Xie Qingling drew a deep breath, raised her leg, and kicked open a third-floor specimen room door.
The sign on it read:
Human Skeletal Specimen Room.