Chapter 19

Chapter 19

Xie Qingling shut the specimen room door.

It would only delay the Carrion Ghosts briefly, not keep them out completely, but a little time was exactly what she needed.

The human skeletal specimen room displayed row after row of bones, some pristine white and others damaged.

Some were artificial models. Others were real human bones.

Xie Qingling swept her gaze across them, crouched, and pressed one hand to the floor.

Heroic spirits who died and sleep here, yet have not dispersed.

If your spirits remain in heaven,

Lend me your power.

Drive out every evil ghost that has invaded this place.

Return, return – souls, come home.

Soul Recall.

The human bones in the room began moving with a series of clicks.

Skulls displayed inside cabinets and atop stands slowly turned toward her.

Their empty eye sockets seemed to hold an unfamiliar gaze.

–

Xie Qingling had entered the specimen room some time ago, but still hadn’t emerged.

Ye Anran stood guard outside. She didn’t know what Xie Qingling was doing, but her instinct for teamwork made her want to buy Xie Qingling more time.

The Carrion Ghosts gathering at the entrance were about to break through while Xie Qingling remained completely silent. Gritting her teeth, Ye Anran made an extremely risky decision –

She cut her palm with a silver needle.

The scent of blood spread instantly.

Even that faint scent held an enchanting magic for the Carrion Ghosts, something they couldn’t resist.

Fragrant – an aroma that seized the soul and sank into the bones, arousing insatiable hunger.

Every Carrion Ghost turned toward Ye Anran. The next instant, they all lunged at her.

Ye Anran clenched her teeth and hurried toward the fourth floor to evade the crazed ghosts.

But they were simply too frantic.

As they chased her, they clacked their teeth, imitating the sound and motion of tearing prey apart in their mouths.

Looking back at the enormous black mass trailing behind her, Ye Anran’s scalp prickled and the pressure on her surged.

Her fleeing steps faltered slightly.

Only now did Ye Anran gain an entirely new appreciation for the newcomer’s mental fortitude.

Xie Qingling had looked so unconcerned that Ye Anran thought handling these ghosts was easy. She had never imagined it would be this intense.

Seriously…

Why was she imitating a newcomer and doing something so suicidal?

Was insanity contagious?

Ye Anran smiled bitterly and kept running for her life.

Carrion Ghosts surrounded her from behind, beside, and ahead.

Handling them alone was exceedingly difficult.

On ordinary assignments, Ye Anran was always the best-protected person. As the doctor, she absolutely had to be the last team member to fall, and Ling Fang rarely made her face ghosts alone.

Suddenly besieged by so many, Ye Anran began to panic.

She could heal herself, but she had only two hands. When she healed, she couldn’t attack; without attacking, gaps appeared in her defense. She couldn’t attend to everything.

Several wounds were carved into her body. Though each healed quickly, they badly disrupted her rhythm.

Pinching a black needle, she prepared to kill a Carrion Ghost charging head-on. But the next instant, her body lurched as a ghost that had circled behind seized her ankle.

This was bad!

Ye Anran’s face paled.

This Carrion Ghost had some intelligence. It knew to attack her footing first.

If she fell and so many ghosts swarmed over her, pinning her beneath layer after layer, the consequences would be unimaginable.

Ye Anran acted decisively. The hand she had extended changed direction, turning to eliminate the Carrion Ghost gripping her leg first.
But just as she reached out, before her hand could touch anything, someone else did it for her.

A hand with prominent knuckles seized the Carrion Ghost’s leg – and prominent they certainly were. There was no flesh on it at all. Its wrist bones, metacarpals, and finger bones lay completely exposed.

Ye Anran looked back. A tall male skeleton had appeared behind her as though it were alive, bending down to grab the Carrion Ghost at her back.

Then the skeleton heaved, yanking the Carrion Ghost backward and hurling it violently over the railing.

Ye Anran stared blankly for a moment before she understood what had happened.

The skeleton had caught hold of the railing and leaped straight up from the third floor. After throwing one Carrion Ghost aside, it did not stop. It quickly grabbed the other one beside Ye Anran and flung it away like a sack.

It was only a skeleton, yet somehow it inspired an immense sense of security.

The Carrion Ghost in front of Ye Anran was soon dealt with as well. At some point, another skeleton had charged out, this one with a hunched back. It moved much more slowly than the first and carried a leg bone in one hand as though it were a cane.

Now, the hunched skeleton was using that leg bone to smash the Carrion Ghost’s body to pieces.

It looked exceptionally angry as it raised the leg bone high, as if wielding a massive hammer, and brought it down on the Carrion Ghost again and again. Its every movement carried even more fury than the younger skeleton’s.

Ye Anran was kept safely protected between them.

And just like that, the sudden appearance of two skeletons brought the crisis to an end.

Then came a third skeleton, a fourth…

Tall and short, whole and incomplete, these skeletons gleamed with an eerie, deathly light. There were men and women among them, and even children, yet every one of them now surrounded Ye Anran like a protector, filling her with an overwhelming sense of safety.

Was this… Xie Qingling’s doing?

Were these skeletons her weapons?

Standing in their midst, Ye Anran watched the Carrion Ghosts drool over her, yet not one dared come close. She stood there blankly, abruptly finding herself with nothing left to do.

At that moment, Xie Qingling climbed up from the third-floor corridor, launched herself over the railing, and landed right beside her.

Ye Anran looked at her, utterly at a loss for words.

This rookie was insane right down to her choice of weapons.

“You can start healing now,” Xie Qingling said. “We have help. We can wipe them all out right here!”

Ye Anran snapped back to her senses. She looked at the wound on Xie Qingling’s hand, then at the one on her own. With a single Rejuvenation, both vanished without a trace.

The skeletons Xie Qingling had summoned were extraordinarily capable fighters. The “Spirit” within them was strong, as was the power that remained in their bones.

The human body naturally possessed a richer, more powerful “Spirit” than other living creatures, and the skeletons displayed in this specimen room had undoubtedly belonged to exceptional people even among ordinary humans.

Their obsessions, their desires, and their wills all strengthened their abilities.

What was more, beneath their feet stood the medical school they had devoted their utmost efforts to protecting both in life and after death.

Xie Qingling did not control them. She merely let them follow their instincts and fight. That alone was enough for them to trounce the fragile Carrion Ghosts.

These skeletons’ determination to protect the medical school burned more fiercely than anyone else’s.

With the danger gone, Ye Anran breathed a sigh of relief, then said in displeasure, “You were far too reckless! When the Director gets here, I’ll explain everything to him. Don’t expect me to take the blame for you!”

Xie Qingling was not angry when she heard that. She merely nodded. Of course she would not let Ye Anran take the blame for her.

But then her gaze shifted to the hunched skeleton holding the leg bone. She suddenly raised a hand and pointed at it. “That is the founder of our school’s forensic medicine department.”

“He spent his entire life fighting for the profession of forensic medicine. Even before he died, he was still in contact with a forensic identification center, trying to arrange an autopsy for an unclaimed victim in a murder case.”

“My teacher said that back then, the medical school didn’t have nearly as many silent teachers as it does now. In truth, there’s still a shortage today, but the situation was even worse then. To improve the quality of teaching, many faculty members chose to donate their bodies to the laboratory after death. The old dean weathered every hardship and spent his life working for the medical school, and even death did not stop him. He donated his remains and had his own students dissect his body and turn it into a specimen.”
“That one.” Xie Qingling pointed at the tall skeleton that had climbed up from the corridor. “He was an upperclassman at our school. He was only thirty when he died.”

“I heard he was exceptionally good at his major. Before he even graduated, countless institutions were fighting to recruit him, but he chose to stay and teach at the school. Unfortunately, he never got the chance to show what he could do. Not long after he joined the faculty, he was diagnosed with cancer. When he died, an unsent research paper was still open on his computer.”

“And that one…”

Xie Qingling paused and said no more.

She looked at Ye Anran. “I don’t know what you did before joining the Department, but you’re a ‘doctor’ now. You should be able to understand how I feel, at least to some extent, shouldn’t you?”

“You can tell the Director everything that happened here. I have no objections, and I won’t blame you. I’m still extremely grateful that you came to help. But the Carrion Ghosts want to eat them, and I won’t allow that.”

Her gaze was unshakably resolute.

Ye Anran opened her mouth, intending to say something, but in the end, no words came out.

After thinking it over, she finally pulled out one of her black needles and snapped furiously, “Fuck it. If the Director wants to yell, let him yell! Worst case, he docks my pay and makes me write a self-criticism!”

As soon as she finished speaking, the needle shot from her fingertips. A Carrion Ghost immediately shrieked and was eliminated.

Ye Anran attacked while cursing up a storm. “You’re nothing but a bunch of newly awakened Bugles! How dare you act up in front of Daddy? Just watch me beat you to death!”

“Well? Convinced now? Once we wipe every last one of you out, maybe the Director won’t yell when he gets here. Maybe he’ll reward us for our contributions instead!”

Xie Qingling froze for a moment, then quickly joined in the cleanup.

Individual Carrion Ghosts were easy to eliminate. One slash was usually enough to finish one off.

Groups of Carrion Ghosts were somewhat harder to deal with, but with the skeletons’ help, they were soon suppressed as well.

In a brief span of time, the tide inside the teaching building turned. The humans, who had been under so much pressure they could barely breathe, gained the upper hand.

The longer Ye Anran fought, the more delighted she became. Suddenly, it seemed possible that they could resolve the entire incident before the Director arrived.

As long as they cleaned up every Carrion Ghost, the Director would never know what had happened. Then he definitely wouldn’t investigate, right?

At that thought, Ye Anran immediately settled down. No longer anxious, she even found time to remind Xie Qingling, “Hurry it up. The Director and the others are probably almost here. If we finish before they arrive, you might even receive a commendation.”

Xie Qingling sped up her attacks as well.

Before long, only a dozen or so Carrion Ghosts remained inside the teaching building.

Victory was in sight.

But just then, one Carrion Ghost suddenly stopped.

Soon, all the remaining Carrion Ghosts stopped as well. Instead of continuing their frenzied assault, they gathered around one of their own.

Realizing the situation was hopeless, they no longer chirped among themselves as though discussing something. Instead, they silently formed a circle around the one in the middle.

The next instant, the Carrion Ghost in the center grabbed one of its companions, opened its enormous mouth, and swallowed the other Carrion Ghost whole.

In the blink of an eye, the Carrion Ghost that had devoured its companion doubled in size!

It swallowed a second ghost. Its body continued to swell, and even more arms sprouted from it.

Then came a third…

Xie Qingling’s expression changed. She immediately shouted, “Oh no! Stop it!”