Chapter 61

Something must have happened to make Tang Ping suddenly reckless and act without any regard for consequences. It must have been because Zhou Feng gave him permission.

What happened?

Could it be related to the big disturbance from a certain night before?

Chen Fa stood up. “Either something uncontrollable happened with the patients, pushing him to take risks and go against Zhou Feng to get you; or perhaps the changes in the patients affected Zhou Feng, and he made a decision, silently approving of Tang Ping’s actions today!”

That’s it. Shu Fu was the newest outsider in the team. Although she claimed to be her sister, not everyone would believe such a statement.

Coincidentally, this new outsider also fell ill.

If Tang Ping was really conducting some kind of research on those patients in the small building, who would be a better test subject than Shu Fu?

He specifically came when Chen Fa wasn’t around, likely planning to take people without her noticing—both Shu Fu and Chen Yuezhen.

Then, when Chen Fa returned and found that both were missing, she would need some time to find them. Even if she confronted Tang Ping to get them back, he might force her to choose between her grandmother and Shu Fu.

Normally, when someone strong comes in and manages to take one person, it would be seen as an effort to salvage the situation. The other party would likely think that Chen Fa would temporarily settle the matter to protect her family.

Using one person to threaten another was a despicable tactic.

“If Zhou Feng secretly approved of this, it won’t end so easily,” she said. After all, she was the deputy leader, and some team members had a good relationship with her. If she was angered, it would put the entire team’s safety at risk.

Zhou Feng wasn’t stupid. If things hadn’t reached a certain point, he wouldn’t have given such silent approval.

And if the situation with the patients had really worsened this much, then the entire team, and the whole guesthouse area, would no longer be safe.

Shu Fu also realized this, getting up and carefully checking outside from the window. Then she came back. “No one’s watching.”

“Mm, when I came back earlier, there was nothing unusual outside either,” Chen Fa nodded. She had an unwritten understanding with some of the team members she was close to. If any unexpected events occurred when the other party wasn’t around, they would leave a mark on the windows of the buildings they stayed in as a warning.

She always checked when she came back, and today was no different. There was no issue.

So, if something had happened, it was still in the early stages. Tang Ping had come alone, intending to act in secret.

Shu Fu thought about the whole situation. The syringe that Tang Ping had used earlier was indeed hard to defend against. If she hadn’t had her special ability, even with her combat training, she might have fallen victim to it.

From his earlier perverted behavior, it was clear he hadn’t expected to be outsmarted by a new, young girl. Because of this, he hadn’t made any arrangements or left any backup plans—he never thought he would fail.

Chen Fa lowered her head in thought for a moment and then spoke. “He doesn’t have friends, and he’s very strange. He avoids contact with others. Since today isn’t a day for delivering medicine, no one will notice he’s missing until tomorrow. But starting tomorrow morning, he’ll be delivering medicine everywhere, including to Zhou Feng. Zhou Feng is very concerned about his girlfriend. If Tang Ping doesn’t show up on time, Zhou Feng will definitely send someone to look for him.”

Shu Fu didn’t interrupt, waiting quietly for what Chen Fa would say next.

“I thought that by pretending to give my grandmother medicine and stalling him, I could drag things out a bit longer. I didn’t expect…” Chen Fa looked up at her friend, her eyes filled with calm determination. “We need to pack up and leave before tomorrow morning.”

As someone who could easily feign being lost, Shu Fu felt a bit nervous. “Where are we going?”

“To the northeast. There’s a small valley near the northern flood zone, but it’s a bit farther from the water. There’s a warehouse there, pretty solid. We’ll move there first, plan our next steps, and since it’s near the water, we can leave easily if needed.”

It was clear that Chen Fa had already made preparations. These plans had nothing to do with whether Shu Fu showed up in Hexi town, the only difference being her grandmother’s worsening health and the potential recovery of Chen Yuezhen.

It was Shu Fu’s appearance that allowed Chen Fa to act without worries.

Chen Fa had always been someone with plans and a steady rhythm, whether in her studies or work. She never did anything she wasn’t sure of, and she never allowed herself to be cornered into a situation with no way out.

Such a person was very suitable to be a leader in this post-apocalyptic world, but unfortunately, she hadn’t found the right team or leader this time.

“Okay, I’ll go pack. Are we leaving now?” Shu Fu didn’t ask many questions. She couldn’t leave the waters around Hexi town, but as long as they stayed within the town, they could go anywhere.

As for later, if Chen Fa needed help, Shu Fu could give her an inflatable boat and waterproof travel bags to help her escape with her grandmother.

“Not yet.” Chen Fa could go in and out freely, but bringing Chen Yuezhen and their luggage would definitely draw attention from the other residents. She told Shu Fu, “Get ready, we’ll leave after dark.”

Shu Fu’s eyebrows twitched slightly.

She had been warned several times by Chen Fa not to go out after dark, but now they had to risk traveling across the town to the northeast mountains at night.

Chen Fa thought for a moment, then got up and went to the bathroom. She crouched in front of Tang Ping and began searching him.

A notebook with scribbled writing they couldn’t understand, a set of keys, and a bottle wrapped in white gauze containing a red liquid.

The bottle was small and made of transparent glass, like a medicine bottle, though the label was torn off. Inside, it contained a red, translucent liquid, but they had no idea what it was.

When Chen Fa picked up the bottle, she furrowed her brows slightly. Shu Fu, standing behind her, also frowned as she detected a strong, unpleasant odor.

“No wonder this creep always smells like that, it’s coming from this bottle.” Even with the cap tightly sealed, the smell leaked out. It was hard to imagine what kind of horrific biochemical stench would come out if the cap was opened.

However, the bottle was carefully wrapped in thick, soft gauze and placed in the inner pocket of his clothes. No matter what this thing was, it seemed to be important.

Chen Fa rewrapped it in gauze, and Shu Fu, understanding that she intended to take the bottle, went outside for a moment. She came back and handed Chen Fa a plastic bag. “Better than nothing, to contain the smell.”

She put the gauze-wrapped bottle in the plastic bag and carefully placed it in her jacket’s zipper pocket. Then she said to Shu Fu, “Tonight, you and your grandmother wait for me for a while. After dark, I need to go out.”

Shu Fu looked at the keys in Chen Fa’s hand. “Are you going to Tang Ping’s building?”

“Mm, I’ll be quick, just a short trip.”

“I’ll go with you.” Shu Fu’s personal protective shield could wrap around one more person through her arm without being noticed. In a critical moment like this, she had to make sure Chen Fa was safe.

Chen Fa didn’t hesitate and nodded.

For the next while, the three of them packed their things quietly and quickly.

Shu Fu had only one backpack, which was lighter now than before, as she had consumed most of the food in it. During this time, she took a look at the black notebook in her room.

【Hexi Town Mountain Water Guesthouse Building 4 check-in task completed, obtained Level 4 Raft 10% progress bar, gained additional progress bar bonus of 10%, obtained one spin for the lottery. (Current progress of Level 4 Raft: 45%)】

Although she only got one lottery spin, what mattered more at this stage was the bonus to the progress bar. She was quite satisfied with the extra percentage added to the progress.

As for the lottery, she planned to save it up and spin when she had more chances—hopefully her luck would improve.

This task was quite intriguing, as it was unclear whether she had unintentionally helped Chen Yuezhen or if she had become involved in this matter, playing a role in driving certain events forward.

But after the bug tasks and the world-ending tsunami task, she knew that not all tasks followed the same pattern. No matter what happened next, she was no longer an outsider in this world.

Chen Fa and Chen Yuezhen also packed quickly, taking only the essentials like water, weapons, and rain gear, discarding everything else to reduce the load.

At this point, Shu Fu was glad she hadn’t had time to retrieve the waterproof travel bags she had hidden outside. Otherwise, she would have had to carry an extra bag.

Halfway through, Tang Ping woke up once. Chen Fa took a stun baton and questioned him in the bathroom. She reduced the power, allowing him to feel pain but not lose consciousness.

However, Tang Ping’s mouth was even more tightly shut than expected. He kept laughing, but it was a cruel, twisted laugh, like a sadistic freak enjoying pain or a god who knew everything and despised everything. It wasn’t until Chen Fa threatened to burn down his building that his expression changed.

He scowled, glaring at Chen Fa as if his eyes could tear her flesh from her face. “Fool! You don’t even know what you’re doing!”

Chen Fa, irritated by his arrogant demeanor, turned the power back to maximum and shockingly zapped him without a word.

Tang Ping collapsed again, and Shu Fu checked the ropes around his hands and tied his legs as well. She then gagged his mouth tightly and chained him to the drainpipe, ensuring that he couldn’t escape.

“Let’s go, we’ll grab something to eat first, and eat what we can’t take with us. It’s also to build up strength for tonight.”

That night.

A faint sound came from the most isolated small building of the Mountain Water Guesthouse, barely noticeable against the noise of the rain. Chen Fa skillfully cut the building’s power supply, and together with Shu Fu, they unlocked three locks at the door and entered.

They both wore split raincoats, hoods up, and large black masks, leaving only their eyes exposed.

Even if there were cameras inside, their faces wouldn’t be captured. In such a resource-scarce town, even if someone tried to install cameras, it wouldn’t be easy. Chen Fa had cut the power supply just in case.

Inside, the air was damp and musty, filled with a strong smell of disinfectant, seemingly to mask the faint, unpleasant odor that permeated the whole building.

Shu Fu took two small flashlights from her waist pouch and handed one to Chen Fa.

The interior layout of the guesthouse buildings was similar—small in size, with two floors. After checking the living room, the two went down to the first-floor room. This appeared to be Tang Ping’s room, where the disinfectant smell was less strong. Behind the door, two white trench coats of similar style were hanging.

There were few items inside, and the two of them inspected everything carefully but found nothing unusual. After leaving the room, they heard faint noises coming from upstairs.

After Tang Ping moved in here, although Chen Fa hadn’t visited, she had heard from other team members who brought patients here. The second floor of the small building was used by Tang Ping to house patients. Zhou Feng had also arranged for two beds in each room as per Tang Ping’s request, and reinforced the doors and windows upstairs, almost sealing the windows completely.

When their team previously searched the small clinic in town, they hadn’t found any useful medicines, but some heavy medical equipment that was of no use to others was left behind. Since Tang Ping needed them, they were brought here for his use.

According to the team members, the second floor of the entire small building had been set up to resemble a hospital ward, specifically a fully enclosed one.

The two of them lightened their steps as they ascended the stairs. The hallway was lined with three rooms, and the faint noises they heard came from these rooms. They exchanged a glance, and after each tightening their grip on their weapons, they opened the first door.

The door was soundproof, and when it opened, the noise inside grew louder—deep, muffled growls and the sound of metal clashing.

Chen Fa shone her flashlight, and it landed on a pair of eyes bloodshot with red veins. In the pitch-black darkness, the sight was particularly terrifying. Shu Fu’s flashlight quickly converged with hers, illuminating the person on the bed more clearly.

It was a sick person, wearing what looked like a psychiatric hospital patient uniform, the sleeves long enough to bind and restrain the person.

The individual’s mouth was sealed with cloth strips, their entire body bound, and they were tightly strapped to the bed with metal belts. No matter how much they struggled, they couldn’t escape the restraints.

As Chen Fa had said earlier, the person appeared dazed, their expression unchanged upon seeing them. They seemed unaware of their presence, subconsciously struggling as if their body was convulsing on its own.

But other than that, there was nothing unusual about them.

On the other bed, the same situation was happening. There were only these two patients in the room. They shone their flashlights around, checking the surrounding tables and cabinets for any medical equipment, but found nothing odd.

They quickly checked the second and third rooms. Each room contained two beds, and each bed had a patient bound tightly. Some patients were motionless with closed eyes, seemingly asleep, while others, like the first room’s patient, had their eyes wide open with red veins, their expressions vacant as they struggled mindlessly.

In one of the beds, a patient who had been lying still with eyes closed suddenly opened them wide and jerked up from the bed as the flashlight swept over them, making a startling noise.

Chen Fa frowned. “I wonder if their condition has worsened. I remember the two sick ones we left at the rest station were very quiet all night.”

Shu Fu thought for a moment. The people sent here were all loners without family members in the team, while those with family would have had their loved ones placed in rooms in their own small buildings, likely not as harshly restrained as Tang Ping’s patients. The other noises she’d heard at night probably came from those patients.

After finishing checking the second floor, they didn’t find anything unusual as Chen Fa had suspected. Shu Fu knew that Chen Fa had guessed Tang Ping might be using the patients for experiments. After all, it was an unknown illness, and for a twisted person like Tang Ping who would be excited by seeing patients suffer, this theory seemed plausible.

But now, everything here seemed too normal, which was unexpected.

“Actually, this is a bit strange,” Shu Fu spoke up. “Didn’t you say Tang Ping claimed to be a traditional Chinese medicine doctor, skilled in herbal medicine and acupuncture? But from everything we’ve seen, all the equipment and tools are Western medical ones, there’s no sign of anything related to traditional Chinese medicine.”

Thinking further, if they hadn’t seen any traditional Chinese medicine tools, how had he prepared the herbal soups for the patients?

Chen Fa also noticed an issue. “I had kept track of the patients sent here, and I counted a total of eight people.” She paused, then shone her flashlight at the room. “But there are only six people here.”

They exchanged a glance, then spoke in unison: “The basement?”

**

Chen Fa’s small building also had a basement, but it was very small. The stairs curved down for half a floor and led to a door, like a small cellar. It was so short that it could only store a few things, making it unsuitable for people to stay there. That’s why Chen Fa hadn’t considered it at first.

However, each building here had some small structural differences. If Zhou Feng had known from the beginning what Tang Ping intended to do, maybe the decision to place him in this building wasn’t just because of its remote location.

Sure enough, the basement in this building was completely different from the one in Chen Fa’s building.

After moving the cabinet that concealed the corner of the stairs, they used one of the keys on their keychain to open the back door and discovered there was another level down below—a long hallway in an L-shape, with two rooms on the sides.

There seemed to be an independent backup power supply, and two night lights were installed near the ground of the hallway, likely for guiding and illuminating the area.

The four walls of the basement were made of cement, resembling an unfinished house. There were no surveillance cameras, and even the lights for the night were connected by makeshift wiring, like something hastily set up in a short period of time—crude and rough.

The smell of decay in the air grew more intense as they moved down the corridor. The first room was locked, and the door looked new, standing out starkly against the surrounding environment. There was a small, round glass window on the door, about the size of a fist, but it was pitch dark inside.

The door had a code lock, and the keys they had didn’t work, so they continued onward. The second room was open, and inside, there was a table covered with various surgical tools and chemical lab equipment. Around the room were several glass cabinets, filled with bottles and jars.

Each bottle and jar had a label with serial numbers and many technical terms that they couldn’t fully understand.

The room also had an inner section, with a white cloth curtain hanging in the middle. Chen Fa found the light switch on the wall, and the lights inside the suite flickered on—bright incandescent lights.

Chen Fa walked in front, and as she lifted the curtain, she froze for a moment. She lowered the curtain again, halting Shu Fu’s advance, and whispered, “…It’s an autopsy table.”

Both of them took a deep breath and prepared themselves. They lifted the curtain once more, quickly scanning the room before lowering the curtain to block their view again.

Inside was an autopsy room, and on the table, there was a body that had been partially dissected…

Tang Ping was indeed conducting research on the patients, but it was unclear whether this research took place after the patients had died… or while they were still alive.

Because the conditions were limited, the room was chaotic, almost like a crime scene.

But they both saw clearly—there was only one body. Where was the other person?

They left the autopsy room and continued down the hallway to the end, where there was one final room. This door was locked as well. The keychain still had one unused key left, and Shu Fu tried it. To their surprise, it opened.

Inside, there were no lights. The room was small, like a storage room, with a few glass cabinets.

Inside the cabinets were various human organs, preserved in solution. They were grotesque in shape, and just looking at them made them both feel nauseous. The bottles also had labels, some marked with “medication XX” and others with “injection XX.”

The last cabinet contained no organs, just two white medicine boxes.

Chen Fa opened one and found it filled with bottles of red liquid, similar to the one she had previously found on Tang Ping. It seemed like he had some kind of obsessive-compulsive disorder, or perhaps these liquids were extremely important to him. Despite the varying sizes of the bottles, he had arranged them neatly.

Chen Fa took out three more bottles and placed them with the others she had collected earlier. Although they had already checked for cameras when they entered, since the lights had been turned on, she decided to go back outside and make sure there was no oversight.

Shu Fu said she wanted to double-check the storage room. After Chen Fa left, Shu Fu placed the white medicine box back into the cabinet but, as she did so, she slightly lifted the lid, gathering all the glass bottles filled with red liquid into her space.

She wasn’t sure what these substances were for, but since Tang Ping placed so much importance on them, she decided to take everything. After all, if they turned out to be useless, she could always get rid of them later.

After collecting one medicine box, she did the same with the other, preparing to leave when she suddenly heard sounds from the hallway.

Shu Fu tightened her grip on the stun baton and rushed out. The incandescent light in the middle suite of the hallway had been turned off, and the dim yellow light from the night lights at the end of the corridor illuminated Chen Fa, who was leaning against the opposite wall.

Her expression was somewhat shaken, and her right hand was slightly raised, tightly gripping her baton.

But fortunately, she was alone in the corridor.

“What happened?” Shu Fu quickly ran over to her.

Chen Fa was half-resting against the wall, adjusting her emotions before gesturing toward Shu Fu’s back. “The eyes…”

Behind Shu Fu was the password-locked door they hadn’t been able to open earlier. She remembered that it had a small, round glass window, about the size of a fist.

She slowly turned around, and the flashlight in Chen Fa’s other hand lifted, shining on the small window. It was still pitch dark inside. Just as Shu Fu was about to speak, suddenly, a swollen, bulging eye appeared behind the door.

It was a deformed eye, like a giant’s eye that had been soaked in water until it rotted and swelled. But unlike a giant’s eye, this one clearly still belonged to a living person. The grey-white eyeball was covered in repulsive red veins, and the eyelid hung limply, as if it were made of decaying flesh.

Yet, that eye was staring directly at them.

Shu Fu instinctively took two steps back and grabbed Chen Fa’s arm.

Chen Fa spoke in a deep voice, “Found it. The last patient.”