Chapter 93

Chapter 93

Moon Bay Maternal and Child Health Hospital.

The final Ghost Infant dissolved into green smoke and vanished.

As Xie Qingling directed the corpses that had come to help her back toward the morgue, she tapped her earpiece and contacted Ling Fang. “Director, I’ve finished here. Do you need support?”

A charging ghost knocked Ling Fang to the ground, pinned him down, and straddled his body.

At this distance, he could no longer attack with his hand crossbow. Ling Fang abandoned it, pulled out an arrow, and drove it into the creature’s throat with his bare hand.

The strike finally bought him a moment to breathe. Ling Fang scrambled to his feet and answered at once, “No, I don’t. Go back to the office. Old Yu needs support!”

The office?

The person who stayed behind at the office should have been the safest of them all.

The qilin at the entrance guarded it, keeping invading ghosts and monsters at bay.

Unless the enemy Old Yu had encountered was not a ghost, but a human.

A terrible premonition seized Xie Qingling. Her brow twitched, and she answered immediately, “Understood.”

Even as she spoke those two short words, Xie Qingling was already running toward her motorcycle. She sped away and raced from Moon Bay Maternal and Child Health Hospital back to the office in around ten minutes.

The office’s ebony door remained half-open. The breeze could not stir its tremendous weight, but it carried the thick stench of blood from behind it.

Xie Qingling had not even brought the motorcycle to a full stop, much less removed her helmet, when the stench reached her. Her expression changed. She immediately abandoned the bike, stepped onto its seat, and vaulted straight over the office wall.

So much… There was so much blood.

Water had thinned the blood, and blood had mingled with water. Pale pink liquid pooled in every depression across the black stone slabs. When her foot came down, what splashed over her shoe was no longer crystal-clear rainwater, but pink droplets of diluted blood.

In the courtyard, Yu Wei had curled himself into a tight ball like a sleeping cat. His abdomen was completely hidden, his back arched into a semicircle.

A man with half his head missing stood beside him.

One eye. A full-sleeve tattoo. Tang Tian.

Tang Tian was savagely kicking the curled figure on the ground. Once. Twice. Three times…

But Yu Wei remained curled in place as if fixed there, like a fierce beast shielding its softest belly and most fatal weakness.

“Let go! Let go, damn you! I said let go! Do you hear me? Let go!” Tang Tian continued screaming.

Something exploded inside Xie Qingling’s head. The entire world distorted before her eyes. The lines of every object twisted and warped, while Tang Tian’s figure alone remained clear. In her mind, the ragged, blood-covered man’s body had already been marked with its vulnerable areas, the places where her blade could enter, the fatal weaknesses, and those that would not kill him quickly enough.

With a single leap, Xie Qingling landed beside him.

Bloodsworn fell with a hiss and severed the one-eyed man’s arm in a single stroke.

Tang Tian staggered backward in pain. The loss of another arm sent him into a panic, and he raised the stump to his mouth and began sucking his own blood again.

This time, however, he could not regrow the arm. Sucking at the wound only just managed to stop the bleeding and stabilize the injury.

His prolonged battle with Yu Wei had consumed too much of Tang Tian’s strength. He was already exhausted.

If that pack of freaks all returned, only one fate awaited him: death. Tang Tian stared at Xie Qingling as countless thoughts flashed through his mind.

Xie Qingling likewise stared at Tang Tian with a grim expression, analyzing and inferring the nature of his power.

Could he heal himself by drinking blood?

She forced herself not to turn around or look at Yu Wei lying in a pool of blood. She feared that one more glance would make her panic, throw off her rhythm, and give Tang Tian the chance to escape.

“You can’t kill me.” Tang Tian studied Xie Qingling and felt as though he had seized upon something, a weakness that might break her composure. “Let me leave. Don’t waste your time. If you keep fighting me, Old Yu will die before he can even finish saying his last – ”

Before the words left his mouth, the woman – the Department’s newest member – vanished before his eyes.

She disappeared without a trace.

Tang Tian panicked and instinctively glanced behind him. There was no one there either. The space was completely empty.

Before he could breathe a sigh of relief, cold pain pierced the back of his neck. Something icy slipped directly through a gap between his cervical vertebrae. One upward cut severed his neck, and his head came off.

Xie Qingling reappeared behind him.

Tang Tian’s head fell to the ground, rolled several times, and stopped.

Xie Qingling did not stop attacking.

Her blade moved at precise, cunning angles. With a flick of her wrist, she removed Tang Tian’s other arm – not by hacking through it, but by locating the junction between two bones and slicing through the connective fascia. Just as her blade tip had pierced the gap between his vertebrae, the fascia and cartilage joining his bones were soft. A single slice would neither chip her blade nor meet any meaningful resistance. She easily removed Tang Tian’s arm at the elbow.

Like carving meat, she dismantled every joint in Tang Tian’s limbs.

Segments of his arm fell one by one like sliced lotus root. Xie Qingling kicked them away, sending them two arm-lengths from his severed head.

Then came his knees.
She drove the blade into the back of his knee, then severed the tendons at his ankle. Unable to stand on what remained of his body, Tang Tian toppled to the ground with a thud.

Even then, she was not finished.

Still not satisfied, Xie Qingling took her blade and cleanly, decisively dismembered the rest of Tang Tian’s torso. She cut it into the smallest pieces possible, then kicked each piece away.

In the blink of an eye, the arrogant, seemingly invincible assailant had been torn apart. His head lay apart from his torso, his torso from his hands, and his legs from his feet.

Tang Tian’s head stared blankly at the gradually clearing sky. The sun seemed painfully bright.

His severed limbs, his bones and flesh, lay piled two arm-lengths away. A distance any adult could cross in one large step now seemed impossibly far.

Perhaps the excessive blood loss had left him unable to think, even robbing him of any sense of time or distance.

Time seemed to pass with extraordinary slowness.

After what felt like an eternity, the horrible patter of bone and flesh raining onto the ground finally stopped.

He heard footsteps.

That woman – the woman whose face remained perfectly calm even as she attacked with brutality worthy of someone from the Eleventh Realm – walked past his severed head.

His remaining eye rolled with difficulty. Before he could make out her shoe, she kicked his head without mercy, sending it crashing into the wall.

Tang Tian tried to scream, but no sound came out.

“Now, no matter what method you use, you can’t regenerate, can you?” Xie Qingling’s face was blank as she returned Bloodsworn to its sheath. “It doesn’t matter whether I can kill you immediately. I only need to leave you incapable of moving or resisting. Sooner or later, you’ll be worn down and die.”

Xie Qingling dragged her heavy feet toward Yu Wei.

She sank to her knees beside him and gently patted his shoulder. “Brother Yu. Brother Yu…”

Yu Wei opened his eyes, but blood cast a red veil over his vision. After struggling to recognize her for a moment, he panted, “It’s… Little Xie.”

“You came at the right time. The right time…” Every word cost Yu Wei tremendous effort. “Are the ghosts dealt with? Do me a favor. Kill Tang Tian.”

“I killed him.”

“Good. That’s good… The former Director can finally… rest in peace.”

“Hold on a little longer, Brother Yu. Senior Anran will be back soon.” Xie Qingling was at a complete loss. Countless pieces of first-aid knowledge flashed through her mind, but none of them could help. None of them. Her vision blurred. She hurriedly wiped her eyes, or she would not be able to see Yu Wei clearly.

“That’s good…” Yu Wei suddenly vomited a mouthful of blood mixed with shreds of flesh. Bloody foam covered his face, and his muffled voice disappeared in his throat.

“Brother Yu!” Xie Qingling screamed. She was not an especially emotional person, but now she could not stop herself from crying.

“I’ll tell Ye Anran to hurry back. Right, the medicine. That bottle of pink medicine.”

As she spoke, Xie Qingling contacted Ye Anran and searched for medicine at the same time, moving in utter panic.

“Come back! Senior Anran, hurry back! Brother Yu is hurt. Come back quickly!”

“I’m on my way. I’m almost there!”

“And an ambulance. Tell the Logistics Department to prepare an ambulance…” Xie Qingling was nearly shrieking.

Hearing her voice, Yu Wei smiled. His teeth were stained bright red, making the smile ugly, but his eyes shone with extraordinary clarity.

“Little… Little Xie, there’s no need. Let me… Let me rest for a while.”

“My only regret is that I… I grew old. I couldn’t kill Tang Tian. I couldn’t avenge the former Director with my own hands.”

“But I… But I protected Niuniu. At last, I protected Niuniu once.”

As he smiled, Yu Wei finally released the tight curl of his body. The small pink urn appeared beneath him.

Xie Qingling stared, stunned.

Yu Wei’s whole body relaxed as if a tremendous weight had finally lifted from his heart. Holding his shoulders, Xie Qingling felt the tension gradually leave his muscles.

“The medicine – I already drank it. That bottle is extremely precious. It can produce one final burst of clarity before death, letting someone whose flame is nearly spent erupt with strength and burn once more. But it can’t save a life.”

“I always… always kept it hidden on me. Even an old man nearing the end of his years needs… needs one more chance to play the hero.” Yu Wei smiled. “This is good. This time, I protected Niuniu.”

“Brother Yu, stop talking. Save your strength and wait until Senior Anran gets back. Please, stop talking!”

“Anran can’t save… can’t save me. Don’t rush… her.” Yu Wei’s breathing grew heavier. He paused for several breaths, then spent his last strength to speak slowly. “Use the white… white medicine on me. It’s a… a dissolving agent. Inject it into my veins. Let it dissolve the Spirit inside me and carry it away.”

Yu Wei’s breaths grew louder. He forced his eyes wide and stared ahead, but his expression still resembled a smile. “It will… become a secret medicine, become an offering, and return… return to a Spirit Wielder.”

Xie Qingling shuddered violently.

“This is… the fate of us Spirit Wielders. Little… Xie, don’t be sad. This isn’t… the end for me.”

All tension left Yu Wei’s muscles, and his body went limp.

As if he had fallen asleep.