Chapter 44

Chapter 44

Miao Lixin loved eating grilled sausages. He even ate them on the sly behind Dao Hongwei’s back while the man was stuck in the hospital. For Laodao, who had been elbowed into a concussion by Qin Ying, Old Miao had only bought a single box of plain white rice.

But now, his grilled sausage hit the ground with a wet thud.

It was promptly flattened by a medical police officer rushing in to support the scene after hearing the commotion, sending oil spraying half a meter away.

Old Miao didn’t have time to mourn his sausage. He took the opportunity to slip behind the security guards wielding riot forks and squeezed into the crowd.

At a glance, he saw Qin Ying and the other two beating Zhang Tao on the ground.

Qin Ying was hitting him the hardest. Old Miao had only met her once before and didn’t recognize her at first.

However, Old Miao recognized Wen Hao and Yin Minmin immediately. He subconsciously rubbed his eyes.

“Stop right now!”

Several medical police officers carrying riot forks swarmed forward.

They first restrained Qin Ying, then pulled Wen Hao and Yin Minmin away.

By then, a circle of onlookers had already formed.

The crowd looked at Zhang Tao lying on the ground, his face twisted all the way toward his back, and let out a collective, sharp gasp.

A man who had been in a car accident-his head covered in blood as he waited in the ER-stopped waiting in line just to watch the excitement. Seeing the scene, he winced and hissed, “Holy hell, did they snap his neck?”

Thanks to that man’s big mouth, the two medical police officers twisting Qin Ying’s arms applied even more force, nearly pinning her face-first into the floor.

Yin Minmin and Wen Hao were also brought under control. Just as they were about to explain themselves, Old Miao stepped forward quickly.

“What’s going on?”

Seeing an old man approach, the medical police were about to tell him to back off when Zhang Tao suddenly jerked on the ground.

Like a fish that had been hooked and pulled onto the shore, he gave a dying but powerful flop.

Despite lying flat with no apparent leverage, that single jerk actually caused him to flip over.

Now his chest was facing up, but his face was facing down.

A deathly silence suddenly fell over the area.

It wasn’t just the flip; Zhang Tao’s neck, which had been twisted toward his back, began to slowly rotate back with a sickeningly fleshy sound.

As his face returned to the front, he let out a long, slow exhale.

The man who had been calmly commentating and was about to take out his phone to record a video felt his hand slip. His phone nearly hit the floor.

Then, clutching the blood-soaked gauze on his head, he let out a howl: “It’s a zombie! He’s turning!”

As the saying goes, it’s not the trouble itself that’s scary, but the person stirring it up.

That one shout successfully turned the entire emergency room into a madhouse.

The medical police didn’t know what was happening either; they simply raised their riot shields and surrounded Zhang Tao in a tight circle.

***

Qin Ying sat in the hospital’s police room with a look of pure misfortune, a pair of cold silver handcuffs locked around her wrists.

Yin Minmin and Wen Hao were wearing the same “jewelry,” sitting on a stainless steel bench with expressions that suggested the sky had fallen.

The officer watching them looked stern, but then another officer pushed the door open. “It’s fine. That guy is a mental patient.”

“A mental patient who’s damn good at yoga.”

The silver handcuffs on Qin Ying and the others were unlocked, and they were released.

Laodao, still wearing his hospital gown, was standing outside the door.

Seeing Qin Ying, Laodao gave her a thumbs-up. “As expected of someone whose fate meets the Hua Gai star.”

Her speed at attracting trouble was truly unparalleled.

Qin Ying forced a smile before immediately turning to the topic she cared about most: “How are Zhang Tao’s test results?”

Qin Ying never lied to herself with excuses like ‘I must have seen it wrong.’ She had definitely seen something in Zhang Tao’s throat, which was why she had brought him to the hospital.

Before being taken away, Qin Ying had told Old Miao to immediately take Zhang Tao for a scan to check for foreign objects.

Clearly, Old Miao had followed through.

Led by Laodao, Qin Ying’s group arrived at a patient room at the end of the long corridor on the ninth floor.

Inside the room, besides Old Miao, there was a doctor with hair that was entirely white.
Zhang Tao lay on the hospital bed, his limbs secured by four sets of handcuffs, snoring like thunder.

Seeing Qin Ying and the others arrive, Old Miao stood up, his eyes brimming with joy. He strode forward, intent on shaking Qin Ying’s hand. “It’s all thanks to you.”

Qin Ying had a feeling that wasn’t exactly a compliment.

Just then, Zhang Tao’s test results were delivered.

When the two CT scans were clipped onto the light box, even someone with zero medical knowledge could tell something was wrong. Inside Zhang Tao’s body, vine-like growths were densely packed beneath the skin, entwining with his blood vessels and nerves.

It was hard to imagine what it would look like if one were to peel back his skin.

Yin Minmin shrank back fearfully behind Old Miao. “Is he… possessed?”

Coming from a family with deep roots in traditional occultism, her first instinct was to think of ghosts or malevolent spirits.

Old Miao didn’t answer. Dropping his usual unreliable demeanor, he knit his brows tightly. He pulled a small red rubber-covered notebook from his pocket, flipped through a few pages, and finally said, “It doesn’t look like it. It looks more like a parasite.”

The doctor examining the scans had been a man of science his entire life. Facing this just before retirement made him question everything he knew.

Old Miao suppressed his excitement and took out a digital camcorder. “Let’s see what was recorded.”

He then took a moment to introduce the doctor to Qin Ying. “This is Dean Tan of the municipal hospital.”

Old Miao and his team were still using a camcorder that ran on tapes, and the image quality on the display screen was poor.

Dean Tan couldn’t help but complain, “You could have just used a phone. The faces are all blurry.”

Old Miao whispered, “You don’t understand.”

Before he could finish, Zhang Tao appeared on the screen. The grainy, washed-out quality of the old-fashioned film made Zhang Tao’s face look deathly pale and his eyes tinged with green.

Dean Tan looked visibly shaken.

The recording began with Zhang Tao’s account in the meeting room.

Having experienced it firsthand, Qin Ying didn’t join the huddle around the screen. Instead, she turned to look at Zhang Tao. He seemed to have finally shed the days of terror and worry, sleeping as soundly as a pig.

With his hands cuffed, he was no longer clawing at himself or shouting gibberish.

Why?

Just thinking about the question made Qin Ying’s head ache. Her intuition told her that the moment she inhaled that puff of grey mist, the problem was no longer with Zhang Tao.

At that moment, Yin Minmin called out with a sob in her voice, “Sister Ying, come look at this.”

“Zhang Tao… back in the emergency room, was he coming for you?”

Qin Ying pulled herself out of her thoughts to look at the camcorder. Yin Minmin had been panicking while filming this part, so the footage was shaky.

After snapping two restraint straps by sheer force, Zhang Tao had hit the floor and started crawling in a specific direction. That direction happened to be where Qin Ying and the emergency doctor were standing.

At the time, Qin Ying-who had been shielded by the doctor-thought Zhang Tao was trying to attack the physician. But seeing it now from a side angle, Zhang Tao’s head was tilted back, his face fixed on Qin Ying the entire time; the doctor had simply been in the way.

Qin Ying let out a long breath. She felt a sense of helplessness, but also the grounding sensation of having a suspicion confirmed.

She remained relatively calm, but when the footage showed Zhang Tao twisting his head to blow a puff of grey air into Qin Ying’s face, Old Miao, Laodao, and Dean Tan all let out sharp, startled cries.

Dean Tan’s hand shook as he picked up the phone, ordering staff to re-disinfect the emergency room-which had already been cleaned once-and demanding that everyone present be contacted for a full physical examination.

“Quick, go get your blood drawn for a checkup!” Old Miao grabbed Qin Ying’s left arm.

The cigarette butt in Laodao’s mouth was nearly burning his lips as he tugged her right arm. “Hurry up and get a CT scan!”

“If anything happens to you, how am I supposed to answer to Qin Zhiguo!” Laodao wailed, his voice grating and harsh.