Chapter 49

Chapter 49

Qin Ying retched.

It was strange; she could clearly feel that something new had been added to her body. Yet, as that unknown thing rolled and tumbled inside her, she didn’t feel any discomfort or pain.

On the contrary… it triggered a sensation of pleasure and joy, almost like a reward mechanism.

Previously, when Qin Ying had used ice and cold water to lower her body temperature, she hadn’t provided it with a suitable environment to grow, so it had punished her with agony. Now, amidst the black smoke and flames of the burning trash, it had found the perfect temperature and was rewarding her.

It was like training a dog, blowing a silent whistle.

As comfort flooded her entire body, Qin Ying slowly stood up straight. Through the shifting flames, she locked eyes with the other adults standing in the bushes.

Wave after wave of goodwill radiated from the other side. Qin Ying, usually so cold and detached, couldn’t help but feel a sense of kinship toward those non-humans.

The hormonal shifts in her body told her that she should accept and protect the parasite within her. The feeling was almost impossible to resist.

The fire grew larger, sending up plumes of thick black smoke.

The anomalies surrounding the perimeter finally began to retreat. The middle-aged “man” in the thin windbreaker, who had previously reached out toward Qin Ying, suddenly recoiled. He backed away from the light of the fire into the darkness and then, under everyone’s watchful eyes, abruptly burst apart.

His humanoid form shredded like strips of paper. The color of the windbreaker was rapidly replaced by the unique bark-like skin of vines, which collapsed into a tangled mass and burrowed into the mud.

Following his lead, the other variants standing outside the fire also shed their chameleon-like mimics and tunneled into the earth.

“They’re gone?”

Old Miao, who had been digging through the trash, was impossibly filthy. A bead of sweat rolled down from his temple, carving a path through the soot that covered half his face.

Surprisingly, Qin Ying, the person at the center of it all, was the most composed. She said coldly, “They’re gone.”

Yin Minmin, who had been supporting her, noticed the subtle shift in her mood and asked worriedly, “Sister Ying, what’s wrong?”

Seeing Qin Ying clutching her abdomen, she added, “Is your stomach hurting?”

Qin Ying blinked and raised a hand to cover her nose and mouth. “It’s nothing. I’ve just become a mother through asexual reproduction.”

“Huh?”

Now was not the time for explanations. Qin Ying turned to look at Old Miao and Laodao. “It’s too hot here. I… I have to leave immediately.”

Her speech was slightly halting; she was using every ounce of her energy to resist her body’s instincts.

Old Miao wasn’t stupid. Seeing her state, he knew something was wrong. He said to Yin Minmin, “Help her get out of here, fast.”

With that, he took Laodao and Wen Hao and began to extinguish the fire.

Qin Ying didn’t waste a second, gripping Yin Minmin’s arm to leave. However, they hadn’t even taken two steps before several loud shouts rang out: “Halt! What do you think you’re doing?”

“Don’t move! Stay where you are!”

Several figures lunged out from nowhere, sprinting toward them.

Yin Minmin had never dealt with such a situation and was still dazed when Qin Ying helplessly closed her eyes and slowly raised her hands. “Minmin, don’t be afraid. Put your hands up.”

As she spoke, two or three burly men reached them. They looked ready to use kicks and takedowns, but seeing Qin Ying and Yin Minmin standing there cooperatively with their hands raised, they didn’t get too rough.

Old Miao and the other two, who were putting out the fire near the shack, fared a bit worse; they were all pinned face-down to the ground.

The various fires near the shack were quickly stomped out by several pairs of heavy boots.

Qin Ying and the others were forced to squat in a row by the curb, as red and blue lights flashed rhythmically.

Yin Minmin huddled against Qin Ying, shivering like a frightened chick.

“Stay still!”

A grim-faced middle-aged man stroded forward. Before he could get his official speech out, the people squatting with their hands behind their heads looked up, revealing faces blackened by smoke.

The middle-aged man, whom the others called Captain Qin, scanned the group and realized that three of the five faces were familiar.

His momentum vanished, and the joy of catching suspects evaporated instantly. He stood there and closed his eyes in despair as three voices called out from the line.

“Qin Zhiguo.”

“Old Qin.”

“Uncle.”

Qin Zhiguo grit his teeth and snapped his eyes open. “What the hell are you all doing here?!”

***

Yunlan City Hospital

Criminal Investigation Captain Qin Zhiguo stood in the hallway, roaring at the top of his lungs.

“Dao Hongwei! It’s my niece’s very first day on the job!”

Qin Zhiguo pointed a finger, spittle flying everywhere. “Her first day, and something already happened!”
Old Miao was both a senior and an elder, so Qin Zhiguo couldn’t very well lose his temper with him. Instead, he bared his teeth at Laodao.

“I let Qin Ying go to the Cultural Preservation Institute for the sake of her eyes. Now, her eyes haven’t even been dealt with, and she…”

Frustrated, Qin Zhiguo hunkered down against the wall and ran a hand through his hair.

Old Miao and Laodao both looked like they wanted to tuck their heads between their legs. Facing Qin Zhiguo’s questioning, neither dared to speak a word.

Just then, Dean Tan, who had been forced to work overtime, walked over from a distance holding two CT scans.

“The situation is not optimistic.”

The CT showed that Qin Ying’s chest cavity was covered by a mass of shadows.

The growth rate of the thing inside her was much, much faster than what was inside Zhang Tao.

As soon as Dean Tan spoke, the faces of everyone gathered around Qin Ying’s hospital bed turned pale.

Qin Zhiguo, in particular, had already stayed up for two consecutive nights for the case; he stumbled, nearly unable to keep his footing.

Seeing this, it was Laodao who reached out to steady him.

A deathly silence filled the ward.

“What’s with the faces? It’s not like I’m dying right this second.”

It was Qin Ying who broke the silence.

Her clothes had been too filthy to look at, so she had changed into a hospital gown.

A cooling patch was stuck to her forehead, and ice packs were tucked under her armpits and behind her knees. Her face was pale from the cold.

Yet, she was the most emotionally stable person there, possessing a detached air of ‘if I live, I live; if I don’t, I don’t.’

Her gaze swept across everyone’s faces, landing first on Wen Hao. “Wen Hao, did you capture what those things looked like?”

Back at the junkyard, Qin Ying had noticed Wen Hao taking several photos with his phone.

Those people mimicked by the vines should all be victims.

If the phone could capture their appearances, they might be able to confirm the scope of the culprit’s activities and their criteria for selecting prey through the victims’ identities.

Wen Hao, hearing his name, looked miserable. He pulled out his phone and sighed helplessly. “I took the photos properly, but…”

He showed them the photos on his phone.

In the pictures, one could see the bushes and the trash on the ground, but the dozen or so ‘people’ who had been standing in front of the bushes were nowhere to be seen.

“The phone can’t capture what those things look like.”

Wen Hao’s phone was passed around until it finally reached Qin Ying.

Qin Ying wasn’t too disappointed. She looked at Qin Zhiguo again. “Uncle, why did you go to the Sewage Treatment Plant?”

Qin Zhiguo let out a long sigh and revealed a bit of the case details. “We recovered many body parts and clothing fragments from the water at the Wetland Park.”

“After an investigation, we found a small portion of a slip inside a clothing fragment.”

“Through forensic restoration, we determined it was an output slip for sludge resource treatment.”

“We had just arrived at the Sewage Treatment Plant when the security guard at the gate said some strangers had shown up.”

Qin Zhiguo and his men had chased after them, only to end up apprehending Old Miao and the others.

Thinking of this, Qin Zhiguo felt a massive headache coming on. He instinctively reached into his pocket for a cigarette, but stopped himself, remembering he was in a hospital ward.

Sitting on the bed, Qin Ying said, “Uncle, among those ghostly things, I saw a middle-aged man.”

“Slightly chubby, with sanpaku eyes and a scar from a mole removal at the corner of his right eye. He was wearing a yellow autumn windbreaker.”

Qin Ying tried hard to recall. “The word ‘Jeep’ was printed on the left chest of the windbreaker.”

“Is this person among the missing?”

Actually, Qin Ying’s last question was unnecessary. The moment she mentioned the yellow windbreaker, Qin Zhiguo’s eyes lit up.

“Yes!”

As he spoke, he searched his phone for a moment and pulled up a photo for Qin Ying to see. “Is it him?”

With just one look, Qin Ying was certain that the man in the photo was one of the Ghost-Shadow Vine’s human mimics.

After Yin Minmin and Wen Hao also confirmed it, Qin Zhiguo slapped his hands together. “That’s it! It’s this man, Li Heshun!”

“He’s a cook at a restaurant. The place where he works is right near… the Sewage Treatment Plant.”

Laodao, who had been listening in, had his eyes snap wide. “The Sewage Treatment Plant again!”

Before they could say anything more, Yin Minmin suddenly cried out, “Sister Ying!”

The group turned to look, only to see Qin Ying with her eyes tightly shut, having fallen asleep against the pillow at some unknown point.

Qin Zhiguo and the others immediately fell into a panic.

In the chaos, none of them noticed Qin Ying’s lips twitching as she whispered in a voice as faint as a mosquito’s buzz, “Han Lie.”