Chapter 94
Chapter 94
The early autumn wind cut across her face like a blade through flesh.
Ye Anran had pushed her motorcycle to its highest speed, yet she wished she could sprout wings and go faster, faster still.
Old Yu was waiting for her.
She had to make it in time.
At last, Ye Anran raced back to the office like the wind. The first thing she saw was Xie Qingling’s motorcycle lying on its side. Her hand froze as she braked, and all color left her face.
When she looked up, she saw cloudy bloodwater mingling with the pooled rain as it slowly ran down the steps.
One drop. Two. Three… They gradually joined into a stream, then flowed along the cracks between the paving stones and into the drain.
“Old Yu!” Ye Anran threw aside her helmet and ran straight into the office.
The stench of blood was overwhelming.
The courtyard was devastated.
Severed limbs lay everywhere.
Ye Anran stared in a daze, her legs threatening to give way. She did not dare waste a single second. Her unfocused eyes swept rapidly around the courtyard before locking onto two figures in its center, one lying down and the other kneeling.
The figure on the ground was covered in blood. The one kneeling beside him was smeared with mud and rainwater.
Xie Qingling held Yu Wei’s body in her arms, the pink urn cradled in her hands. Her distant gaze seemed vacant, yet also thoughtful.
Her face was clean, as if she had cried – or perhaps had not cried at all.
Ye Anran’s vision was too blurred to read her expression, and she no longer cared to try.
Xie Qingling disappeared from Ye Anran’s awareness. She stared blankly at Yu Wei and ran toward him.
“Old Yu!”
“How could this happen? I came too late… I…”
Ye Anran burst into loud, inconsolable sobs, her words dissolving into incoherent sounds.
“Old Yu, Old Yu, open your eyes and look at me. I’ll treat you. I’ll heal you.” Ye Anran cast Rejuvenation on Yu Wei over and over.
She pulled out her needle case, seized a fistful of silver needles, and covered almost every point on Yu Wei’s body that could take a needle.
When she ran out of silver needles, she used black ones.
She kept inserting needles, pouring the power of her divine blessing into him without pause, desperate to reproduce the miracle of life once more.
But this time, neither the Midnight-Noon Circulation Needles nor the Yin-Yang Inner-Outer Needles responded.
“Waaah… Old Yu!” Ye Anran collapsed over him and wept in grief and self-reproach, her shoulders heaving.
At last, Xie Qingling moved.
She removed the needles Ye Anran had inserted into Yu Wei one by one and returned them to Ye Anran’s case.
“Senior Anran, let’s administer the medicine to Brother Yu,” Xie Qingling said.
The medicine. Of course. They needed to recover the secret medicine.
Ye Anran’s sobs broke off. Still hiccuping, she took the vial of white solution from the silver case.
It took several tries before Ye Anran managed to align the syringe with the stopper and draw up the solution.
But when she lifted Yu Wei’s hand to inject the solution into his vein, she unexpectedly saw his broken-off index finger. Her hand jerked, and the needle missed.
Ye Anran drew a deep breath and tried again, but no matter what she did, she could not complete the injection.
Her frustration made her sob again.
“I’ll do it.”
Xie Qingling took the syringe, lifted Yu Wei’s arm with one hand, and slowly injected the white solution into his vein.
Her hand did not tremble. The needle went in on the first try.
Ye Anran looked at her face. Xie Qingling’s eyes were lowered, her expression calm and composed, revealing no emotion at all.
Ye Anran parted her lips slightly, but for a moment, she did not know what to say.
She thought she was a terrible senior employee.
She wanted to be like Xie Qingling, able to respond calmly and steadily no matter what happened, as if nothing could ever crush her.
But…
It hurt so much.
Her heart felt as though a hand were squeezing it.
Did Xie Qingling not hurt too? Ye Anran wondered.
Once the injection was complete, the white solution slowly moved through Yu Wei’s motionless blood vessels. Specks of silver light shone within it, ignoring the barrier of skin and flesh to reach Xie Qingling’s eyes through his body.
As the solution advanced inch by inch, silver-white lines traced themselves throughout Yu Wei’s body. His blood vessels became channels and the solution became flowing water, sweeping up the Spirit he had tempered over the years and carrying it forward as if washing out a network of trenches.
When the silver-white liquid stopped moving, the Spirit had finished dissolving.
Xie Qingling waited patiently.
By then, Ye Anran had recovered some of her composure.
She sniffed through her reddened nose, wiped the tears from her face, and tried to give Xie Qingling clear instructions. “Use another clean syringe and draw out the secret medicine.”
Xie Qingling did as she said.
The syringe needle must have been specially made. When it drew the Spirit from Yu Wei’s body, the needle acted as a natural filter. The white secret medicine, glittering with silver motes, rushed into the syringe while the rest of his blood remained perfectly still.
Before long, Xie Qingling had drawn out a syringe filled to the brim with secret medicine.
Only a small vial of solution had been injected into Yu Wei, yet the secret medicine they extracted amounted to five or six times as much.
That additional volume was the dissolved Spirit.
Xie Qingling raised the syringe and studied it for a moment. “This should make at least five portions of secret medicine, perhaps even six vials. Brother Yu truly was an outstanding warrior.”
Ye Anran nodded as well. “Normally, we can extract only three portions of secret medicine. That’s the average. Getting five or six means Old Yu… Old Yu tempered a great deal of Spirit while he was alive.”
Ye Anran’s nose and eyes reddened again. She could barely continue.
Xie Qingling returned the secret medicine to the silver case to await further handling.
Then she tapped her earpiece. “Director, notify the Logistics Department that they can enter. The battle is over.”
“Do you need support over there?”
“All right. Then let’s wrap up. We’ll wait for all of you at the office.”
Ye Anran could not make out Ling Fang’s reply.
In a daze, Ye Anran watched Xie Qingling methodically handle one task after another. First, Xie contacted Ling Fang. Then she collected Hariti’s deity shrine and carefully washed away all the blood covering it.
Ye Anran herself sat helplessly beside Yu Wei’s body like a child, lost and confused.
If not for the wreckage throughout the courtyard, Yu Wei’s body stretched across the ground, and the dismembered remains scattered everywhere, it would have seemed as though nothing had happened.
Ye Anran stared at Xie Qingling’s back and murmured, “Xie Qingling, aren’t you sad at all?”
Her voice was already hoarse from crying.
Xie Qingling’s busy figure paused. Without turning around, she said, “I am.”
“But killing Tang Tian alone isn’t enough.”
“If you ask what I want to do most right now…” Xie Qingling stopped what she was doing for a moment. “It would be this – kill every member of the Eleventh Realm and avenge Brother Yu!”
With that, she returned to work alone.
She found a broom and swept the bloody water into one place so that no passerby would accidentally glance inside and cause unnecessary trouble.
Ye Anran opened her mouth to speak, but every word died on her lips. Then she stood and joined Xie Qingling in cleaning the courtyard, picking up the combat knife and great saber Yu Wei had dropped.
Something seemed to occur to Ye Anran. She abruptly turned her back and began crying again.
Silence spread around them.
After an unknown amount of time, a rapid clatter of footsteps sounded outside the office entrance.
Xie Qingling thought Ling Fang and the others had returned. When she looked up, however, she saw Logistics Department personnel entering behind Yang Liuqing.
The Logistics Department temporarily sealed off the street outside the office. Then the group filed into the courtyard in orderly formation.
They carried Yu Wei’s body away on a stretcher first, then used several plastic bags to collect the pieces of Tang Tian’s corpse and seal them one by one.
Everyone worked in silence, slowly but with practiced order.
Looking at the bloodwater covering the ground, Yang Liuqing unconsciously pulled out a pack of cigarettes, shook one loose, placed it between her lips, and lit it.
She drew in and exhaled, wreathing herself in smoke.
“Another body to prepare for burial…” Gray smoke obscured Yang Liuqing’s expression.
Xie Qingling looked at her and asked, “Director Yang, what will you do with Brother Yu’s body? Burn it… to ashes?”
Shen Huaizhou had said that corpses undergoing zombification were normally doused in gasoline and burned clean.
Before his death, Yu Wei had been infected with corpse toxin, and black hair had sprouted from his body. Would they have to burn him completely as well? If they did, would even his ashes be lost?
Yang Liuqing flicked ash from her cigarette. “It won’t come to that. When a warrior dies in the line of duty, we do everything we can to let their heroic spirit rest unless we have no other choice.”
“We’ll place Old Yu’s body somewhere secure first to prevent zombification, then invite specialists to perform rites for him and cleanse the corpse toxin. After that… we’ll notify his family to claim the body and arrange the funeral.”
After a pause, Yang Liuqing made a sound caught between laughter and tears. She tilted her head toward the sky and smiled bitterly. “Oh. I nearly forgot. Old Yu has no family left.”
“His parents are gone, and his daughter died too. He still has a wife… No, an ex-wife. I don’t know whether she’ll be willing to claim him. If we can’t find anyone, we’ll be the ones to see Old Yu through the final leg of his journey.”
By the time she finished speaking, Yang Liuqing’s cigarette was gone. She shook out another and lit it, not forgetting to offer one to Xie Qingling. “Want one?”
“Oh, I forgot again. You don’t smoke.” Yang Liuqing started to put the pack away.
To her surprise, Xie Qingling reached out and took one. “I’ll try it.”
Imitating Yang Liuqing, Xie Qingling clumsily pinched the cigarette between her fingers and inhaled hard. The smoke immediately sent her into a violent coughing fit.
The single drag choked tears from her eyes. Her throat felt cold, burning, and horribly painful.
Tears streaming down her face, Xie Qingling hurled the cigarette to the ground. Its tiny ember touched the bloodwater and quickly went out without leaving so much as a spark.
“I’m done.” Xie Qingling continued coughing. “I’ll never smoke again in my life.”
Yang Liuqing laughed loudly and put the pack away.
Ye Anran watched the two in silence. It seemed to her that one madwoman had found another.
Three days passed after the Logistics Department carried away Yu Wei’s body.
The Department had asked headquarters to send a Daoist priest capable of cleansing corpse toxin to set up an altar and perform a rite. By their reckoning, the priest was just about to reach Future City.
Unexpectedly, before the Daoist priest arrived, a woman dressed in mourning clothes appeared at the office entrance.