Chapter 91

Chapter 91

The moment the man opened his mouth and uttered the first syllable, Qin Ying was certain: he was the person who had committed the major crimes in Yunlan City, using humans to cultivate Dream-Embracing Grass.

She had heard his voice when she entered the dream.

They had caught him, but she did not feel relieved. The man’s tone was wrong.

“We finally meet.”

A wistful sigh.

“I’ve missed you so much.”

Tender, lingering affection.

“I’ve always wanted to see you.”

Deep emotion.

In three sentences, the man switched seamlessly between three different tones.

The first sounded like an elder speaking to a junior. The second sounded like a man meeting the one he adored. The third, however, sounded as if it truly was his first time seeing Qin Ying.

Qin Ying looked at him expressionlessly. “Who are you?”

The man’s face was bruised and swollen from the beating he had taken, but the corners of his mouth stretched wider. What he said had nothing to do with Qin Ying’s question. “I was too eager to see you. That was why I made such a low-level, stupid mistake.”

“If only I had endured it a little longer.”

He stared straight at Qin Ying. Seeing this, Old Miao stepped in front of her and snapped, “Didn’t you say you’d talk once you saw Qin Ying?”

Unable to see Qin Ying anymore, only Old Miao in his graphic T-shirt, the man on the operating table immediately let the grin drop from his face.

With a slack, corpse-like expression, he said blankly, “I should have been more careful. I should have endured a little longer.”

He began reflecting on his own mistakes, knocking his head against the operating table.

Once. Twice.

Harder and harder. He saw humans as fertilizer, and he was just as ruthless toward himself.

After three or four strikes, blood appeared.

A fully equipped doctor in the operating room came forward and, with practiced ease, injected him with a sedative.

Old Miao had no patience for someone who looked this unstable. He grabbed the man by the collar. “Talk. Where is the rest of the Dream-Embracing Grass? How many people have you killed?”

Dean Tan grabbed him. “Old Miao, stay away from him.”

Inside the operating room, armed guards in protective suits stepped forward and pulled Old Miao away as he bellowed like an angry bull.

The man lay on his back on the operating table, his eyes visibly losing focus-he was about to fall asleep.

Just as Old Miao started cursing at the top of his lungs, Qin Ying moved.

She took off the red-soled kitten heel from her right foot and walked over on tiptoe.

With smooth footwork, she slipped around Old Miao and the others as they shoved and jostled. While no one was paying attention, she raised her hand high.

The three-centimeter cone-shaped heel struck the man’s forehead with a dull thud.

Everyone in the operating room froze in the posture of holding Old Miao back and turned to look at her in astonishment.

Qin Ying did not look at anyone. She raised the shoe and brought it down again, hard.

When she tried to strike a third time, the heel of the luxury red-soled shoe, not exactly suited to being used as a weapon, spun off and flew away.

The man, who had taken two blows, was dragged out of the dream by the pain. Dazed, he opened his eyes.

He looked at Qin Ying, then at the shoe in her hand, and the corners of his mouth stretched into a grin again.

The next second, Qin Ying grabbed a fistful of the blood-soaked little curls on his head.

“Who are you putting on this act for, your grandma? If you’ve got something to say, spit it out!”

The world saw Qin Ying as gentle and well-behaved, but everyone had overlooked one thing: she had grown up in the Old City District, a place that produced oddballs by the dozen.

If her grandmother had not restrained and educated her from childhood, she would never have looked like such a law-abiding citizen now.

Qin Ying was fast and ruthless. Even after the heel flew off, it did not stop her from continuing. She yanked out several tufts of the man’s hair.

Just as she was about to bend her elbow and strike, Old Miao, off to the side, snapped back to his senses. “Quick, stop her!”

Old Dao had been elbowed into a mild concussion by Qin Ying. He was still dizzy when he walked even now.

At those words, everyone jolted awake and rushed forward to pull Qin Ying away.

Seeing that the two armed guards were being a bit rough, Old Miao dragged Qin Ying behind him. “She’s a young girl. She got dragged into this mess for no reason and nearly lost her life. She got impulsive, that’s all. Just impulsive.”
He looked at Qin Ying again and snapped in feigned anger, “Behave yourself.”

Qin Ying shook out her arm and slipped her heel-less shoe back onto her foot. “Oh.”

She switched between going berserk and calm as if it were the most natural thing in the world, leaving the guard with no good excuse to scold her.

He could only warn her, “If you beat him to death, we’ll all be in serious trouble.”

As soon as he finished, a soft laugh rang out from the operating room.

The man on the operating table, his hair as messy as a bird’s nest and his face covered in blood, laughed so hard he nearly doubled over.

As he laughed, the lips hidden behind his tangled hair moved, forming a sentence in an extremely faint voice.

“We’ll meet again.”

“What?”

His voice was too low, so the guard leaned in to listen.

But the man on the operating table wiped the smile from his face and returned to that half-dead look.

Only this time, he spoke. “The Dream-Embracing Grass is at Encounter Flower Shop.”

After saying that, he gave a drowsy yawn.

Old Miao instantly lit up. “Encounter Flower Shop is inside the ancient city. We need to secure it immediately.”

In truth, there was no need for him to remind anyone. Everyone in the operating room moved at once.

Someone sprinted down the corridor. Soon after, Zong Li and Zhang Lang set out in their tattered trench coats.

Qin Ying and Old Miao were asked to leave the operating room.

Qin Ying’s right heel had been smashed off, so every step she took was uneven. “Who exactly is that man?”

Old Miao looked left and right. Seeing no one nearby, he pivoted on his heel and led Qin Ying into the hospital room Zhang Lang had been staying in earlier.

With a furtive look, he handed Qin Ying a small slip of paper and gestured for her to read it.

What Old Miao had given her was a person’s file.

Yin Xu, twenty-nine years old. Worked in plant research at the Biological Research Department of the Cultural Preservation Bureau.

An expert specializing in plant genetics.

Three years ago, he disappeared while carrying Dream-Embracing Grass seeds and a portion of insect eggs discovered in Cuiping Area 9.

Cuiping. Area 9…

After she finished reading, Old Miao took the slip of paper from her hand, crumpled it up, and stuffed it into his mouth. “I don’t know anything.”

With that, he opened the door and walked out on his own.

Qin Ying stared at the back of his head, silently annoyed.

Still, she understood Old Miao’s difficulties and followed him without a word.

On the way back in Old Miao’s beat-up van, they did not take the original route. Instead, they made a detour.

Outside the flower shop called Encounter Flower Shop, two fire trucks had blocked off the road. Sirens rose and fell one after another, and thick smoke billowed in the distance.

By the time Qin Ying and Old Miao arrived, they only saw ambulances carrying two tightly wrapped bodies out of the smoke-filled flower shop. Judging by their builds, they were probably the owners of the shop.

Qin Ying saw many gray shadows standing behind the flower shop’s glass door, watching outside expressionlessly.

Those gray shadows had faces like living people and wore all kinds of clothing. There were men and women among them.

Quite a few people in protective suits moved about, packing up the plants in the flower shop one by one and taking them away.

Zong Li and Zhang Lang, their bodies smeared with wet mud, moved among the gray shadows.

Qin Ying and Old Miao were both stopped outside the cordon.

Seeing Qin Ying staring over there the whole time, Old Miao thought she was worried and comforted her. “The Action Team does know how to clean up a site. Once the job’s in their hands, there’s no need to worry.”

Qin Ying glanced impatiently at the police tape blocking the road.

“That man killed so many people. Will he be executed?”

Old Miao shook his head by the slightest degree. “Most likely, he’ll only be contained and imprisoned.”

That man still had immense value. Killing him would be a waste.

Qin Ying gave a mocking laugh. “No wonder he acts so arrogantly.”

Hearing the trace of resentment in her words, Old Miao did not dare speak.

After a moment, he said in a low voice, “Then work harder and climb higher.”

“Only when you’ve climbed high enough will you have the right to speak.”