Chapter 43

Chapter 43

The afternoon sunlight filtered through the leaves of the large locust tree in the courtyard.

Wen Hao stepped out of the meeting room first, nearly treading on Zhang Tao, who was lying on the ground.

Upon closer inspection, he gasped sharply.

Zhang Tao was leaning against the wall, his body sliding down toward the floor. His hands were crossed in a death grip around his own throat, his face turning a bruised shade of purple.

He must have been squatting by the door initially but accidentally fell asleep, quickly slipping into this state.

Even in this condition, a raspy whisper could be heard coming from his throat: “A life for a life.”

Despite it being broad daylight, Qin Ying and the other two were startled. They quickly regained their senses and rushed forward to pry Zhang Tao’s hands away.

They nearly had to break his fingers before he finally let go.

However, releasing his grip didn’t seem to help much. Saliva dripped from the corner of his mouth, and his eyes fluttered open just a crack. His dark, sunken eyes rolled, settling on Qin Ying.

“A life for a life.”

This time, his hands weren’t choking him. A foul-smelling breath escaped his mouth, giving Qin Ying a clear view into his throat, which looked like a black hole.

Qin Ying was about to turn her head to avoid the stench of bad breath, but her vision was far too sharp now. She clearly saw something retracting deep into Zhang Tao’s throat.

It looked… like a vibrant green vine.

This bizarre sight made Qin Ying instinctively lean back, trying to put some distance between them. As her grip loosened, Zhang Tao immediately moved his hands back to his throat, choking himself again. Yin Minmin couldn’t pull them away no matter how hard she tried.

Qin Ying froze for a moment. Once her initial fear subsided, a surge of curiosity rose within her. What exactly was that thing hidden in his throat?

She suddenly stood up, strode back into the meeting room, and grabbed a bottle of cola from the table. Returning to the doorway, she raised her hand and splashed it directly onto Zhang Tao’s face.

Zhang Tao’s movements halted, and the hands clutching his neck slowly relaxed. As the cold cola dripped down his face, he looked around, his eyes filled with overflowing despair.

In this place, which he considered his last hope, he had inadvertently fallen asleep and slipped into the nightmare again.

Seeing this, Qin Ying thought he might still be half-asleep. She crouched down, searched his body for a moment, and then gave the soft flesh of his ribs a sharp, hard pinch.

Zhang Tao hissed as he sucked in a breath of cold air from the pain.

Ignoring his reaction, Qin Ying turned to Wen Hao and Yin Minmin. “Do you know which hospital Laodao is in?”

Yin Minmin nodded blankly.

“Take Zhang Tao. We’re going to the hospital to find them.” Qin Ying was certain she had seen something in Zhang Tao’s mouth; she needed to get him to a hospital for an X-ray first.

“Who has a car?”

At her question, Wen Hao silently raised his hand.

“Good, let’s go!” Qin Ying pulled Zhang Tao up from the ground. “Your only task right now is to stay awake!”

“We’re going to the hospital.”

She looked so reliable that the spark of hope in Zhang Tao’s heart was rekindled, and he nodded repeatedly.

When Wen Hao went to get his keys, Qin Ying followed him inside and grabbed several bars of chocolate and three bottles of coffee from his stash of snacks and drinks.

While awake, Zhang Tao’s movements and mind seemed normal. The four of them piled into the car.

Wen Hao drove while Yin Minmin sat in the passenger seat, filming with a digital camcorder. In the back seat, under Qin Ying’s urging, Zhang Tao downed the three bottles of coffee in one go and began stuffing chocolate into his mouth.

The roads in the ancient town were very narrow, with half the street occupied by illegal snack stalls. Children frequently darted back and forth, so Wen Hao couldn’t drive very fast.

As they reached the end of the street, a bus happened to be parked by the side to let tourists off. A few middle-aged women were standing under the ceremonial archway, posing for photos with their scarves draped over their shoulders. Wen Hao was forced to slow down even further.

Right then, Yin Minmin cried out with a hint of a sob in her voice, “Sister Ying, is something wrong with him?”

Zhang Tao, who had just finished three large bottles of coffee, was struggling to keep his eyelids open while chewing on chocolate.

Qin Ying instinctively raised her hand and delivered a stinging slap to Zhang Tao’s face. She had a “broken palm” line, making her strikes particularly painful. Zhang Tao grunted and snapped awake, muttering dizzily, “That’s not right… why am I so sleepy?”

“Didn’t I… just drink… coffee…”

Qin Ying raised her hand again and smacked him on the forehead, asking urgently, “Are you allergic to caffeine?”
But Qin Ying didn’t see any rashes or anything similar on Zhang Tao’s exposed skin.

Zhang Tao muttered vaguely, “I’m not allergic to anything…”

It wasn’t like he had never had coffee before. Why would he have an allergic reaction today?

The thought only got halfway through his mind before he started nodding off again. It felt as if something heavy was hanging from his eyelids, forcing him to sleep.

Watching through the rearview mirror, Wen Hao grew anxious. He rolled down the window and shouted at the people blocking the road, “Excuse me! Please move!”

He was far too polite. The group of middle-aged women busy posing for photos didn’t pay him any mind at all.

Seeing this, Qin Ying first slapped Zhang Tao across the face to wake him up, then leaned her head out the window and screamed, “There’s a critically ill patient in the car! If he dies, it’s on all of you!”

This proved highly effective. The aunties, silk scarves draped over their shoulders, scattered instantly.

The car lurched forward again. As they passed, the women craned their necks to look, only to see Qin Ying in the backseat coolly slapping Zhang Tao across the mouth.

The hospital wasn’t far-about a ten-minute drive.

Wen Hao called ahead while on the road, so staff were waiting at the emergency entrance.

As soon as the car door opened, the medical staff were taken aback by Zhang Tao’s swollen face. Thinking his enlarged head was due to edema from a head injury, one asked, “Traumatic brain injury?”

Qin Ying, massaging her aching palm, didn’t answer. In the next instant, Zhang Tao slammed back against the seat and let out a long, ragged breath.

Then, his arms shot up like a reanimated corpse, and he began to violently strangle himself.

This sudden turn of events-especially the guttural cry he squeezed through his teeth-sent a chill down the spines of the medical staff.

The scene fell silent for a heartbeat. Fortunately, the staff were professionals with high medical ethics; they ignored the unscientific nature of the situation and swarmed forward to help.

Qin Ying and Wen Hao tried to assist but couldn’t even squeeze into the fray. Soon, Zhang Tao was strapped to a gurney with medical restraints.

Unable to reach his own throat, Zhang Tao’s mouth stretched wider and wider. He flopped and thrashed on the gurney like a live fish out of water.

Seeing his manic state, a doctor turned to grab a sedative. Qin Ying noticed and hurriedly shouted, “Doctor, wait!”

“He… he’s allergic to sedatives right now.”

“He’s allergic to sedatives *right now*?” The doctor hadn’t expected her to say something so bizarre in the middle of such chaos.

Just as he was about to ask what exactly the allergy was, he heard a loud crash behind him.

He instinctively turned around, and his legs nearly gave out.

The gurney had actually collapsed under Zhang Tao’s thrashing. With the restraints still dangling from his wrists, Zhang Tao was crawling toward him with his mouth wide open.

He looked like he could have walked onto a zombie movie set without a lick of makeup.

The emergency doctor was experienced, after all. After a momentary panic, he snatched a stainless steel sterilization tray from nearby. “What are you doing? Calm down!”

But Zhang Tao didn’t care. He lunged forward on all fours like a wild beast.

Before the doctor could swing the tray in self-defense, he was yanked aside.

Qin Ying moved with agility, seizing Zhang Tao’s arm and pinning his right elbow behind his back.

Strangely, Zhang Tao, who had been lunging for the doctor just a second ago, suddenly went still.

Having been a corporate drone for several years, Qin Ying’s physical stamina had declined significantly, and her grappling skills were rusty from lack of practice. Seeing him settle down, she prepared to take a breath.

Unexpectedly, in broad daylight and in front of everyone, Zhang Tao performed a gruesome feat-he twisted his face all the way around toward his back.

Qin Ying found herself staring directly into his swollen face and twisted neck.

Zhang Tao’s mouth opened in a silent howl. A vine shot out from deep within his throat, and from the base of his tongue, it sprayed a puff of extremely faint gray mist directly at Qin Ying.

Qin Ying ducked instinctively, but she was still hit full-force by the mist, which carried a distinct scent of herbal medicine.

For a moment, the world seemed to double in her vision, but she cleared her head quickly and threw a right hook straight into Zhang Tao’s face.

The transformation had happened too fast. Only now did Wen Hao rush forward to help Qin Ying pin Zhang Tao down.

Yin Minmin put down her DV camera with trembling hands and screamed, delivering two sharp kicks to Zhang Tao’s face with her pink pig slippers.

Perhaps her scream was simply too piercing, for an old man who had followed the crowd to watch the commotion dropped the two grilled sausages he was holding in fright.

He stood on his tiptoes to peer through the crowd and shouted, “Minmin? Is that you? Yin Minmin?”