Chapter 203
Chapter 203
At Yin Minmin’s shout, Qin Ying swung her phone’s flashlight in that direction.
The beam revealed three figures lying amid the rubble.
The most conspicuous was Wu Qian, also known as Fatty Wu, whom they had only seen yesterday.
His massive body lay sprawled on the ground, half buried beneath broken stone.
Two pairs of feet protruded beside him. They likely belonged to Zong Li and the other member of their group.
Wu Qian’s chest was still rising faintly, but there was no telling whether the other two were alive.
Zhao Jixian instinctively stepped forward, only for Qin Ying to stop him with an outstretched arm.
“Don’t go over there.”
Zhao Jixian looked puzzled. “Why not?”
Weren’t those three from the same department as them?
Qin Ying swept her gaze over the shattered chunks of Black Stone strewn across the floor. “Everyone, be careful. Don’t touch this stuff.”
Contact with it could muddle the minds of the living and deny the dead any rest. Even a corpse could come walking back like Zhang Yuqin.
Qin Ying glanced at Zhang Lang.
His body was badly deformed. His Black Trench Coat had vanished at some point, and even his shoes were in tatters.
Then she looked at Yin Minmin…
Forget it. Qin Ying said, “I’ll go save them. Zhang Lang, Minmin, keep watch on both sides.”
As they spoke, Zhang Yuqin’s corpse, its neck crooked at an unnatural angle, continued circling the concrete room at an unhurried pace. The room was about half the size of a basketball court.
But Zhang Yuqin wasn’t the only thing Qin Ying wanted them watching for.
Zhang Lang might be timid and spineless, but he wasn’t stupid, while Yin Minmin was quite sharp. They nodded one after the other, then took up positions on Qin Ying’s left and right to guard her.
At the same time, they subtly kept their guard up against Zhao Jixian and Feng Meiyu.
Qin Ying was covered from head to toe in soot from burning Fatty, leaving her filthy beyond recognition.
Before moving forward, she first checked the soles of her hiking boots.
Only after confirming they were undamaged did she carefully step onto the black rubble covering the floor.
Perhaps it was only her imagination, but she kept feeling waves of cold seep through her soles from the uneven stones beneath her boots.
When Qin Ying reached Wu Qian and the others, Yin Minmin called from behind her, “Sister Ying, Director Wu and the others have flashlights over there.”
“They’re all Wolf-Eye outdoor flashlights. They’re sturdy, so the blast probably didn’t break them. They should still work.”
Qin Ying nodded and used the toe of her boot to nudge aside the rubble covering Wu Qian.
The moment she shone her phone over him, she sucked in a sharp breath.
The White Fatty she had seen at the funeral home only yesterday now had half his back reduced to a bloody mess, the mangled flesh caked in stone dust.
He lay facedown, shielding someone beneath him. He must have taken much of the blast on his back.
Judging by the exposed corner of a trench coat, the person under him was probably that unlucky fellow, Zong Li.
Another person lay nearby, most of their body buried under rubble. Qin Ying couldn’t tell whether they were alive or dead.
She spotted the butt end of a flashlight sticking out from beneath the debris. Balancing on one foot, she cleared the stones away with the toe of her other boot.
Only then did she pick up the arm-length flashlight.
Its casing appeared mostly intact. Qin Ying blew off the dust and tried the switch.
A brilliant beam sprang to life.
It was like a miniature sun in the darkness, and everyone in the room breathed a sigh of relief.
“Minmin, catch!” Qin Ying tossed the flashlight to Yin Minmin.
The girl reacted quickly. After catching it, she immediately aimed the beam past Qin Ying to light the area ahead.
Qin Ying cleared the black Yellow Springs Eye Stone from Wu Qian’s back. Only then did she reach out with her right hand, sheathed in Di Shang, and grab him.
Wu Qian was both heavy and broad. Even after exerting every ounce of strength she had, Qin Ying only barely managed to seize the collar of his hiking jacket and drag him aside.
But the moment Zong Li was revealed underneath, her hand trembled.
The Black Trench Coat on Zong Li had been blasted to shreds. It had lost its ability to conceal his Beastification, and the entire upper half of his body had already undergone Beastification.
His face after the Monstrous Beast Transformation was fully exposed. Zhang Lang could still be said to have half a face that looked human. Zong Li was another matter.
From his face alone, Zong Li looked every inch a legendary spirit creature.
The whiskers and fluffy fur covering half his face had been scorched black, making him look exactly like a fluffy-faced hamster with a human body!
Qin Ying turned to Zhang Lang in astonishment. “What the hell did Zong Li fuse with?”
There weren’t any hamster-like Monstrous Beasts in the Classic of Mountains and Seas.
No wonder the guy refused to take off that Black Trench Coat.
Before Zhang Lang could answer, Zong Li, no longer pinned beneath Fatty Wu, twitched his whiskers and drew a ragged breath.
He suddenly started coughing. His still-human legs kicked against the ground twice before he struggled to open his eyes. “Qin… Qin Ying?”
His watery hamster eyes were far too expressive.
The way he looked at Qin Ying, he seemed on the verge of tears.
Qin Ying lowered her voice. “Don’t talk yet. Do any of you have medicine for your injuries?”
Following Beastification, Zong Li’s unusually watery hamster eyes darted toward Wu Qian. Then he closed them weakly.
Qin Ying understood that the medicine was with Wu Qian. Taking a deep breath, she grabbed Wu Qian with one hand and dragged him backward.
This was no time to worry about aggravating his injuries. She roughly hauled Wu Qian a dozen paces away.
Zhang Lang hurried over to take him from her.
“Fatty Wu has medicine on him. Search him.”
With that, Qin Ying went back to drag Zong Li away.
When they got a clear look at Zong Li, even Yin Minmin sucked in a sharp breath.
Zhao Jixian asked in awe, “Is this the legendary Yellow Immortal?”
Qin Ying was panting too hard to retort.
Well, they were both yellow. Yellow Immortal it was.
Yin Minmin, however, quietly corrected him and said it was a hamster.
Of Wu Qian’s group, the person buried in the rubble had suffered the worst from the explosion.
He was a bloody mess, and only the style of his shoes revealed that he was a man.
Panting heavily, Qin Ying spent a long time digging him out.
He, too, had undergone Monstrous Beast Transformation. His body was covered in crocodile-like scales.
Apparently, he had taken the brunt of the blast. Only that tough armor had kept him from becoming a corpse.
After hamster-faced Zong Li and now this crocodile man, Qin Ying was getting used to such sights.
She bent down, grabbed the hornlike spike growing from the top of his head with her right hand, and started dragging him out.
Just as she was about to reach the others, her grip abruptly went slack with a soft pop.
Qin Ying stared at the small, blood-dripping horn in her hand as the crocodile man performed a flawless kip-up right before her eyes.
The pain had jolted him straight out of unconsciousness, and he shot a full two meters into the air.
Startled, the Thunderbird perched on Qin Ying’s shoulder crackled with arcs of electricity.
Everyone else jumped as well.
Only Zhao Jixian was still shouting, “It’s a Willow Immortal!”
The so-called Willow Immortal raced wildly around the area while swearing in the crispest standard Mandarin.
It took him a long time to calm down. Clutching his wound, he looked down at Qin Ying. “Who are you?”
Qin Ying silently handed the small horn back to him.
…
In the concrete passage, the three people sprawled on the floor had swallowed the medicine found on Wu Qian.
The Willow Immortal might have seemed bursting with energy a moment ago, but once that burst passed, he wilted like a willow branch and curled up in a corner.
Every bandage in Qin Ying’s first-aid kit had been used on him.
Holding the medicine box, she decided that if their conditions didn’t improve, she would feed them Immortal Grass and Yao Grass.
Just then, Yin Minmin came running into the passage. “Sister Ying, Meiyu says she might have found something.”
Meiyu… Feng Meiyu?
Qin Ying paused in surprise, then followed Yin Minmin into the concrete room.
Zhang Yuqin’s Living Corpse was still stubbornly wandering in circles, while Zhang Lang, Feng Meiyu, and the others had gathered in front of the wall on the left.