Chapter 113
Chapter 113
Inside the special ward, everything Qin Ying could see was made of soundproof white material.
There was only one bed in the room: a sand-fluidized bed specially designed for burn patients.
The lights were bright, bright enough for Qin Ying to lift her head and clearly see her naked body.
And to clearly see the snake scales covering every inch of her skin.
The pale black scales were each only the size of a pinky nail, densely and evenly spread across Qin Ying’s entire body.
Qin Ying’s fingers twitched in a spasm.
Rationally, she knew the nurse beside her had just said this was a reaction to the medication. Once she shed a layer of skin, she would be fine.
Emotionally, however, waking up to find her entire body covered in snake scales was not something she could accept right away.
Her expression barely changed, but the heart monitor beside her began beeping an alarm.
“Don’t be afraid. This is only a normal reaction to the medication.”
The middle-aged nurse was very gentle. She held Qin Ying’s wrist.
“I’m a staff member from Headquarters Medical Center. You can trust me.”
“According to the plan, you were supposed to wake up only after you’d finished shedding completely. In theory, you wouldn’t have seen yourself like this.”
“But for some reason, you woke up eight hours early.”
The middle-aged nurse asked Qin Ying patiently, “If you’re truly scared, we can put you under anesthesia again.”
Her voice was soft and unhurried, as if it carried some hypnotic power.
On top of that, Qin Ying herself was fairly good at accepting things, so she soon calmed down.
She shook her head and said, “No need. Thank you.”
Right now, she urgently needed to get in touch with the Cultural Preservation Bureau. To get in touch with anomalies.
Watching herself shed her skin… How was that not gaining experience?
She relaxed.
A sand-fluidized bed for burn patients worked by using airflow at a constant pressure to blow sand grains upward, creating buoyancy.
Lying on it felt like floating in midair.
The burns on Qin Ying’s back did not hurt too intensely.
Instead, there was a tingling, itchy numbness, like tiny insects crawling over her back.
Uncomfortable, she shifted slightly and negotiated with the nurse. “Excuse me, could you undo the restraints and let me sit up for a while?”
Not only her hands, but her feet were also bound with straps. Being in this state made her feel deeply unsafe.
The middle-aged nurse caring for her refused. Her tone was firm yet gentle, but what she said was terrifying if one thought about it too closely.
“The possibility of losing control and undergoing abnormal mutation after using No. 3 Agent is extremely low, but it isn’t zero.”
“We can’t loosen them until you’ve completely finished shedding.”
With things said to that point, Qin Ying had no choice but to obey the doctor’s orders.
She shifted uneasily, trying her best to ignore the discomfort in her body.
Then, pretending she knew nothing, she asked with a hint of urgency, “Where are my colleagues?”
For someone who had just escaped danger, her order of reactions was perfectly reasonable.
The nurse did not become suspicious. She comforted her, “They’re fine. They’re also receiving treatment. You’re actually the one who was injured the worst.”
Hearing this, Qin Ying let out a breath of relief, then asked, “What happened? Who saved me?”
Her eyes were full of confusion. The nurse could not help frowning. “You don’t remember either?”
Qin Ying’s entire body was covered in snake scales. If she went outside, she could scare people into tears for three whole streets, but it also did a very good job of concealing the expression on her face.
She said blankly, “I don’t know. That person took me to the laboratory and was going to inject me with some kind of agent, but then a fire suddenly broke out.”
“There seemed to be something else too, but I didn’t see it clearly.”
Qin Ying knew there was a heart monitor attached to her, so she did not overact.
Otherwise, a panicked expression and a steady heartbeat would not match.
Qin Ying had handled the cleanup meticulously. Huodou’s flames had blasted through that entire artificial island.
Confident that no one would catch her slip, she spun her lie without so much as blinking.
The nurse watching over her furrowed her brow in thought for a while before finally shaking her head. “The fire scene is still being cleared. Perhaps we’ll find something later.”
With that, she added, “Today is the Ghost Festival, the Zhongyuan Festival. What would you like to eat for lunch later?”
Only then did Qin Ying realize she had actually slept all the way to the day of the Zhongyuan Festival.
Of course she was worried about Han Lie and Fuzhu, who were still trapped in the underground cavern.
But right now, all she could do was force a smile and say, “No need.”
As it turned out, she really didn’t have time to eat anyway.
The crawling, itchy sensation on her back soon spread across her entire body and grew worse.
It felt as if countless tiny insects were gnawing at her. Even the seams between her bones itched so badly she wanted to lose her mind.
It took every ounce of willpower she had not to twist around like a maggot.
The nurse thoughtfully asked again if she wanted anesthesia. Qin Ying still refused.
The next two hours felt like years.
There wasn’t a single inch of her body that didn’t itch.
First, her skin lost moisture and pulled tight. Then it grew drier and drier.
Qin Ying felt as if she had been wrapped in a layer of airtight plastic film. At that moment, the torment reached its peak.
Only when that taut sensation finally faded did the skin on her body begin to turn pale.
The newly grown snake scales curled up at the edges.
It made her look like a fish with all its scales standing on end.
Even Qin Ying was so disgusted she closed her eyes.
At last, she endured the full two hours, and the tingling itch all over her body receded.
Wearing gloves, the nurse stepped forward and, starting from the corner of Qin Ying’s eye, skillfully began peeling away the dried old skin.
Her movements were very gentle. Before long, she lifted an entire intact sheet of facial skin from Qin Ying’s face.
Qin Ying, who had been holding her breath, exhaled at the same time as the nurse.
The middle-aged nurse held it up with tweezers to show her.
It looked like the thin pancake used to wrap roast duck, left out for two days.
The skin peeled from Qin Ying’s face was pale, the snake scales half-translucent, and it still retained the shape of her features.
“This face skin of yours is the most complete one I’ve ever peeled!” the middle-aged nurse said, a faint note of pride in her voice.
Qin Ying licked her own moist lips and declined to engage with that rather hardcore topic.
What followed was a long session of skin peeling.
Disgusting, but oddly satisfying.
For a while, even Qin Ying got absorbed in it.
By the time the last bit came off her left foot, Qin Ying felt refreshed from head to toe. Her skin was as smooth as a peeled egg.
Beside her, in the stainless-steel trays, her shed skin had already been stacked into four full plates.
Only then did she regain her freedom.
The straps binding her wrists and ankles were undone, and she climbed naked off the levitating bed.
Her skin had become three shades fairer and more tender, putting on a live demonstration of what true ultra-cool white skin looked like. Every scar and fine line had vanished.
Her whole body was dazzlingly snow-white, making the red mole at the corner of her eye look even more vividly crimson.
The nurse held up a hand mirror and showed her back to her. “Look. Not a single scar left.”
Qin Ying brushed her fingers over her shoulder blades and the side of her neck, then touched the top of her head.
A large section of her hair had been burned off, and it had been cut to only shoulder length.
A wide patch of scalp at the back of her head had been scorched too. Her fingertips rubbed over quite a few newly grown bristles of hair.
She mocked herself, “I thought I was going to go completely bald.”
The nurse smiled and draped a towel over her shoulders. “Don’t worry. It’ll grow out in two nights.”
Qin Ying thought to herself that the Cultural Preservation Bureau did have some real resources. If this kind of drug were sold on the market, it would definitely be bid up to an astronomical price.
The nurse told her to take a shower, while she sealed Qin Ying’s shed old skin into a medical waste bag to be incinerated and destroyed later.
After Qin Ying changed and came out, the nurse led her away to have several tubes of blood drawn.
Finally, she brought her to the door of an office.
The nurse said, “There’s a meeting going on inside. You should attend too.”
The door was open a crack, and a voice came from within.
“Miao Lixin, Dao Hongwei, Headquarters has ordered the two of you to step down from your posts. The Third Cultural Heritage Preservation Institute will have a new director taking over from now on.”