Lu Yuzhu didn’t waste a single bullet on Xie Qingcheng. She kept firing at He Yu, the man who was preventing her from blowing up the archives.
Bang-bang-bang!
Suddenly, there was a dull thud.
Xie Qingcheng’s eyes went wide as he whipped around, his pupils contracting. “He Yu!”
In the end, the young man was still wounded. Because he refused to leave, because he still hadn’t abandoned Xie Qingcheng and fled, he had been hit.
Clutching his shoulder, He Yu leaned heavily against the wall. He was wearing all black, so the blood pouring from his wound wasn’t very obvious at first. As the fresh, red blood seeped into the black material of his clothes, it didn’t look so bright under the dim lights.
But when he placed a hand over the gunshot wound, pressing his cold, pale fingers to it, his hand came away dyed by gush after gush of blood. Crimson oozed over his pallid skin, creating an immediately ghastly sight.
It was as though Xie Qingcheng’s vision itself had been dyed scarlet.
Seeing that she had struck him, Lu Yuzhu panted heavily from where she was still pressed against the ground by Xie Qingcheng. Looking at the blood pouring from He Yu’s injury, she suddenly tossed her head back and began to laugh. That ear-piercing laugh was mournful and terrifying. Tears began to flow down her cheeks and into her disheveled hair.
“Ha ha ha ha… Ha ha ha ha ha…”
Her grip loosened, and the gun fell to the ground.
Xie Qingcheng jumped to his feet and immediately ran toward He Yu. He Yu tried to pick up his phone again with his injured arm; he wanted to finish keying in his last command. He made two attempts, but his hands were shaking too hard, so the phone, its screen already covered in blood, slipped from his grip and clattered to the ground.
“He Yu, you…”
“…I’m fine. We have to go, Xie Qingcheng.”
He Yu’s eyes were fierce and cold as he stared at Lu Yuzhu’s face. His complexion was deathly pale, sweat dripping from his forehead. His words, however, were addressed to Xie Qingcheng.
“You won’t be able to get anything out of her. She’s in too deep.” He paused. “I know you’ll regret missing your chance with this witness, but if we don’t leave now, it’ll be too late.”
As if to confirm his words, the other technician quickly broke through his firewall and regained control of the detonator now that He Yu could no longer keep up with the coding battle.
He Yu furrowed his brow. He wasn’t all that afraid of injury, and to him, blood was an exceedingly unremarkable thing. What worried him was that his injured hand could no longer grip anything.
They’d lost control of the situation.
“Let’s go.”
276… 275… 274…
The countdown flew by, speeding up once again. Supporting He Yu, Xie Qingcheng turned to look at the woman collapsed amid a web of detonation wires through his bloodshot peach-blossom eyes.
Lu Yuzhu was like a moth caught in a spider’s web. She occasionally trembled with laughter, but tears streamed down her face. She raised her arm and covered her eyes. The top half of her face was tearful, yet the bottom half was still twisted in maniacal laughter.
Xie Qingcheng squeezed his eyes shut. The moment he turned around, he felt as if he was moving in slow motion, as if he was looking away from the ice-cold bodies of his parents from nineteen years ago.
But there was still one last bullet in Lu Yuzhu’s handgun!
As she sobbed and laughed and lost her mind, she heard them as they made to leave. She instinctively picked up the gun she had just discarded and pointed it at them…
“Get down!” shouted He Yu.
Xie Qingcheng’s full attention was on He Yu’s injuries, and his back was fully turned to Lu Yuzhu. So He Yu was the one who noticed Lu Yuzhu’s movement this time around.
Bang!
Who knew what He Yu was thinking. Perhaps he wasn’t thinking at all, and it was just the instinct of an evil dragon protecting his hoard. He immediately shoved Xie Qingcheng down—and that caused the final bullet to strike his already-injured arm, just slightly above the first gunshot wound.
He Yu’s body spasmed in pain and went limp in Xie Qingcheng’s arms, blood splattering all over as Xie Qingcheng looked on.
Xie Qingcheng’s scalp prickled. He was a doctor, but at that moment, he was completely incapable of handling this outpour of blood…
“Why did you…!”
He Yu didn’t make a sound. His dark eyes were fearful as he gazed at his wound, as if he was also thinking, Why did I do this?
Indeed…
Why…?
The timer was still frantically ticking away, so Xie Qingcheng couldn’t afford to waste any more time. Propping He Yu upright, he grabbed the injured boy and sprinted down the corridor…
He Yu’s hot blood trickled from his shoulder. As Xie Qingcheng kept running, he stopped thinking about what had happened in the past and how he had forfeited this last living witness.
Holding He Yu tightly as he ran toward the exit, he said to him, “Everything’s going to be fine. I’m getting you out of here.”
“…Don’t worry… I’m not afraid of these things, Xie Qingcheng.” He Yu’s voice floated up quietly. They made it through the hallway into the main hall, their unsteady footfalls echoing behind them.
He Yu was still very calm.
“I’m not afraid of death or blood, and I don’t care about pain either—remember?”
Xie Qingcheng didn’t know what to say.
“It was probably because I don’t fear death enough that I did that just now.” The color began to drain from He Yu’s lips. “It’s fine.”
But Xie Qingcheng cared; he ached. He wrapped his arms tighter around He Yu. Because He Yu had lost so much blood so quickly, his face was already alarmingly pale.
He was such a young kid—only nineteen years old. A normal kid would still be asking their parents for allowance money, cheerfully playing games, nonchalantly reading books, feeling youthful strength course through them without worries, looking forward to a future of boundless prospects.
But what about He Yu?
He knew very well that there was only darkness before his eyes; ahead of him, there were only the three long-deceased psychological Ebola patients leering at him, telling him that his entire life would be a long night without a dawn, a dead end with no way out.