Chapter 91
Chapter 91
“…Qingshui…?”
“…Qingshui!!”
Someone was calling her.
She could feel herself moving, dragged along by some force.
Then the movement stopped. She was lowered onto the ground, her back propped against something cold and rough.
The next instant, frigid air was forced into her lungs!
“Urgh-blegh-!!”
Her stomach was already empty. All she brought up was bitter bile and icy river water.
Every spasm of vomiting pulled at her muscles, bringing tearing agony, but it also forcibly pried open her shuttered consciousness.
Blurred fragments of light and sound forced their way into her world.
She struggled desperately to open her eyes, but her eyelids felt as though they were pinned beneath a thousand-ton boulder. Her body refused to obey her, and only the remnants of her nerves continued transmitting pain.
Yet through the sliver of blurry vision she managed to force open, she saw two scenes overlapping.
One moment, she was in a glaringly bright laboratory, surrounded by people in combat uniforms. Their faces were filled with deep concern and an almost pleading hope. Their lips moved, but their voices sounded as though they were coming through a thin membrane.
The next, she was in a shadowy bamboo forest, Lin Hao’s face filling most of her vision. His eyes were bloodshot, his gaze holding the despair of a dying beast. His lips were moving too.
Voices from both sides flooded into her muddled mind at once, tangling, colliding, and overlapping.
“We’re almost there… Xiao Qingshui, hold on a little longer…”
“Qingshui… don’t leave me alone… I can’t…”
“Keep your eyes on this point of light… Yes, focus…”
“The Madmen are coming… I’ll carry you… Let’s go…”
“Sister Qingshui… we’re right here. Don’t be afraid. Professor Chen is here too…”
“Live… Please, you have to live…”
What were they saying?
Countless words and emotions crashed and thundered wildly inside her skull!
She couldn’t understand! She couldn’t understand, couldn’t understand, couldn’t understand-!!!
She wanted to scream, to roar, to make them all stop! She wanted to tell Lin Hao to run, to leave without her, but her lips might as well have been welded shut. All that escaped her throat was a faint, rasping wheeze.
Then the singing returned, faint and indistinct, drifting on the wind from somewhere downstream!
Despair clamped around Lin Hao’s heart.
“Qingshui!”
He let out a low, hoarse roar. No longer trying to wake her, he used every last ounce of strength to haul her off the ground and onto his back.
Clenching his jaw so hard his teeth nearly cracked, he carried her forward, staggering into a desperate run in the direction opposite the singing.
“Qingshui… don’t die… please…” he murmured brokenly to the unresponsive figure against his shoulder as he ran, each word punctuated by a ragged breath.
How had this happened…? She had been fine just moments ago. How could she suddenly…
The icy night wind lashed his tear-streaked face, stinging fiercely.
Why?
His entire life seemed haunted by the curse of “almost.”
He had almost saved enough money to save his mother.
He had almost managed to catch his teammate.
He had almost found his little sister.
And now, was his only companion going to grow cold and silent on his back too?
Mom… if your spirit is watching over me… please bless me.
No, bless both of us. Let us survive… Please?
A surge of defiance, fury, and desperate supplication welled up from some unknown corner of his exhausted body, steadying his weak, trembling legs and driving him into longer strides.
He was no longer merely stumbling forward. He began to run with everything he had!
The wind howled in his ears, drowning out the distant singing.
He had no idea how long he ran. His lungs burned, and his legs were on the verge of cramping. Through his extreme exhaustion and haze, the scenery around him twisted into something surreal.
The dark bamboo forest gradually gave way to denser, more tangled woodland.
Dead silence descended once more. The only sounds were his own footsteps and ragged breathing, and his awareness began to blur.
“Haohao… come here… Mommy made your favorite red-braised pork…”
“Little cousin! Come here, come here! Take a look. This is your niece. Isn’t she adorable?”
“Uncle Haohao! An’an wants that balloon!”
“Pingping wants one too! Pingping wants to play with Uncle too!”
The voices of people he had once known, cherished, and long since lost flooded into his brain, which was already on the verge of shutting down.
Lin Hao’s eyes lost focus. His steps became unsteady, and the world spun and doubled before him.
Thud!
He finally lost his footing. A hard object jutting from the ground caught his foot, sending him and Qingshui crashing heavily to the ground!
The world reeled. The smell of dirt filled his nose and mouth.
At the same time, that eerie song began again.
“Happy… birth… day… to… you…”
Lin Hao’s blood ran cold.
How?! He had already run so far! He had clearly shaken them off! How had they caught up? How could they possibly have caught up? How, how, how, how?!
“Ah… Aaaaaah…”
His entire body shook violently with terror, helpless, ragged cries tearing from his throat.
Lin Hao scrambled to get up, trying to hoist Qingshui onto his back and flee again. But his legs had gone limp as noodles, and his arms were trembling uncontrollably. No matter how many times he tried, he couldn’t lift her.
It’s over… We’re really going to die here…
He looked down at Qingshui in his arms. Her eyes remained tightly shut, and her face was terrifyingly pale beneath the moonlight. Her breathing was so faint it was almost imperceptible.
Without warning, tears welled up in his eyes again.
No. No! Get up! Get up!
Lin Hao shook his head. Through the spinning world around him, he suddenly caught sight of what had tripped him.
It wasn’t an ordinary rock or tree root. It was a wooden board with one edge slightly pried up!
A board?!
Without even thinking, Lin Hao half crawled, half rolled toward it. He dug his fingers into the gap and, using every last bit of strength in his body, wrenched it upward!
Creak!
The board lifted, revealing a pitch-black opening beneath it. A cold, clammy draft rushed out.
The opening wasn’t large, but the cellar had been dug with surprising precision.
Lin Hao turned around, wrapped his arms around Qingshui’s limp body, and dragged her to the edge. Inch by agonizing inch, he pushed her into the cramped darkness.
Just as her upper body disappeared completely into the cellar and Lin Hao was about to let go and replace the board–
An ice-cold hand suddenly shot up from below and seized the front of his shirt with astonishing force!
Lin Hao jolted and looked down.
In the faint sliver of light, somehow, Qingshui had opened her eyes!
Her pupils were stretched wide, filled with pain, confusion, and an almost animalistic struggle.
Captain… don’t… Captain.
Don’t leave me here alone.
Her lips trembled violently, but she couldn’t form a single complete word. Only the hand clutching his shirt conveyed the desperate resolve of a mind on the verge of collapse.
A faint smile touched Lin Hao’s lips. He bent down and covered her cold, trembling hand with his own. Then he lowered his head and pressed a cold, trembling kiss to the crown of her head.
He said,
“Qingshui…”
“You have to find Pingping.”
You have to survive.
The moment the words left his mouth, he forcefully pried her fingers from his shirt. Then, as quickly as he could, he grabbed the heavy board and slammed it firmly back over the opening!
Thud.
The last sliver of light vanished, along with Lin Hao’s tear-streaked face.
Qingshui’s world plunged into darkness and deathly silence.
No-!!!
Her mouth opened wide, but no sound came out.
Then the darkness before her began to distort once more.
The blinding white light of the laboratory flooded her vision again.
Her teammates in combat uniforms surrounded her. They looked even more anxious than before. There was fear in their eyes now.
“Xiao Qingshui… there really is no such person as [ ]! There never was! You’re sick! Look at the data! Your brain is inventing people!!”
“Sister Qingshui! Don’t be like this… We’re scared.”
[ ]?
Who was that?
And who was that other person?
Why did they make her feel so unbearably sad?
She wanted to cry, but no sound would come. There was only boundless chaos, swelling inside her skull until it felt ready to split apart!
Just as her consciousness teetered on the verge of collapse, the scene changed.
The bright, spotless laboratory became a dark stairwell. Her teammates’ worried faces twisted in an instant, transforming into zombies with blue-black, festering skin!
“Hrrrgh-”
Razor-sharp teeth sank viciously into her flesh!
They were gnawing on her. Feasting on her.
“Aaaaaaah-!!!”
It hurt. It hurt so much. So much, so much-!!!
Agony, suffocation, confusion… Everything merged into a devastating torrent that swept away the last barrier keeping her conscious mind intact.
The roaring in her head reached its peak.
She lay in the darkness, unable to see, hear, or feel anything.
Darkness.
Suffocating darkness swallowed everything.
She had no idea how much time passed. Perhaps an instant. Perhaps an eternity.
Driven by the instinct to survive, Qingshui began struggling blindly. She fought against the zombies devouring her and pushed at the cold wooden boards above her head.
She kept pushing, over and over… mechanically, stubbornly.
At last–
“Creak…”
A faint sliver of light seeped through a gap at the edge of the boards, accompanied by a breath of fresh air.
The light pierced her tightly shut eyelids.
Summoning the final scrap of strength left in her body, she dragged herself out through the cramped cellar entrance.
She collapsed onto her hands and knees, gasping violently. Every breath tasted of blood.
Before her lay the shadowy outlines of a mountain forest-trees, rocks, sky…
But everything seemed to be behind a pane of glass: blurred, distorted, and utterly silent.
The world had become a silent film.
The shrill ringing in her ears continued, growing even fiercer, almost tearing her entire being to pieces.
She staggered to her feet and began walking numbly onward.
One step, then another. She pushed through bushes and trod over dead branches. Thorns tore through her pant legs and scratched her arms, leaving thin trails of blood, but she felt nothing.
How long had she been walking? She didn’t know.
At last, her legs could no longer bear her weight. Her knees buckled, and she crashed heavily to the ground.
A strong metallic sweetness surged up from deep in her throat.
“Blargh-!”
A mouthful of dark red blood gushed from her lips.
And at that moment, dawn broke.
Light swept away the gloom of the mountain forest in an instant. At the very moment heaven and earth were transformed–
“Crack.”
The sound rang out with perfect clarity.
And then…
The roaring stopped.
Qingshui knelt there blankly in the morning light, surrounded by a pool of blood, and raised her head.
The world was still before her-trees, rocks, dawn light, bloodstains… Yet something was different.
It felt as though something… had cracked open.
“Hee hee hee…”
A malicious giggle slithered out from the depths of that fracture in her mind.
“See…?”
“It’s all your fault…”
“You got everyone killed…”
“Lin Hao… You killed him too…”
“You don’t deserve to live…”
“Hee hee… Hee hee hee…”
The voice grew clearer and clearer, brimming with pure malice. It echoed through the emptiness of her mind, filling that suffocating silence.
She knelt in the steadily brightening dawn before the blood she had vomited, her pupils unfocused and her face utterly expressionless.
At the center of her entire world, an invisible fissure yawned wide like a hideous wound.