Free Web NovelJiang Li returned after contacting Lin Kele, and as soon as she found Lu Yibei, she noticed something was off about her.
She was leaning against the wall by the stairwell, staring intently at the descending steps, lost in thought, her slightly vacant eyes holding a sense of wistful loss, as if she had lost something important.
"What's wrong with you? Is something on your mind?" she asked softly, walking over to Lu Yibei.
Lu Yibei snapped back to reality and shook her head expressionlessly, "No, nothing. Can we leave now? Before we go, should we grab some lunch?"
Rescuing Old Dad would likely involve infiltrating Eclipse Society's Number 3 stronghold, and Jiang Hao absolutely could not be involved.
Although the black sun totem on her had been suppressed, it hadn't been completely eliminated, and it remained a hidden danger. If she were to get close to Li Gate, what should have been a rescue mission for one person {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} might turn into one for two.
Jiang Hao furrowed her brow slightly, crossed her arms over her chest, scrutinized Lu Yibei for a moment, then tilted her head and asked, "Are you sure? You seem to have a lot on your mind."
She instinctively wanted to use her Spirit Mark Power to discern the truth of Lu Yibei's words, but after a moment of hesitation, she suppressed the urge.
"Don't worry!" Lu Yibei patted her chest and said, "If something were really up, I'd definitely tell you!"
"Alright, don't overthink it. Let's go eat something first, then head to the military hospital?"
"When we came earlier, I saw a small noodle shop at the entrance."
"Small noodle shop." Jiang Li and Lu Yibei said the same words almost simultaneously.
"Have we really become so telepathic?" Lu Yibei was stunned.
Jiang Li gave Lu Yibei a sidelong glance, "I noticed it when we came. You stared at that small noodle shop quite a few times."
Upon hearing this, as if fearing Jiang Li might discern something from her gaze, Lu Yibei turned her face away.
How could she not look a few more times?
Last night, she was chased three miles by the dog from the "small noodle shop" and still hadn't eaten noodles—
Min Terrace Residential Area, next to Mountain City Military Hospital.
This residential area had been around for some years, evident from the tall, lush eucalyptus trees within the complex. It was originally the family quarters for the military hospital.
As time passed, the original residents of the complex had long since moved out, and most of the houses had become rental properties, with the occupants shifting from doctors to patients.
Becoming a "patient building" seemed to be the ultimate fate of most residential areas near hospitals.
The sky was gloomy, with thin mist drifting, and dim light spilling from above, filtered through the dense branches of the eucalyptus trees, appearing gray and bleak, as if night was about to fall.
From time to time, the cries of unknown birds echoed from the tree canopy overhead. They seemed to sense something, and sounded somewhat anxious.
The green belts on both sides of the road had been neglected for a long time, with shrubs growing wildly and strangely, and occasionally, white litter could be seen hidden beneath the bushes.
If given a choice, no one would likely want to live in this old, dilapidated, and somewhat messy residential area. However, the reality was that every household in this area was occupied, sometimes by two or three families sharing one unit.
They were sick and had no choice.
Walking along the road deeper into the complex, they arrived at Unit 7, the deepest building. From the dark stairwell, through a long corridor, a notice board could be seen, adorned with a heart and the words "Anti-Cancer Home."
Time: 1:48 PM.
Zhou Tong arrived here as usual and pressed the doorbell of Anti-Cancer Home.
To be honest, from the moment he first heard about this place until he attended his first patient support group meeting here, he felt that such a place was very unreliable.
What could a group of cancer-stricken, dying people do together? Pour out their grievances?
Could sitting hand in hand, comforting and encouraging each other, make their bodies better?
And the initiator of the support group, he wasn't even sick, so why was he so proactive?
He claimed to help connect everyone with better medical and pharmaceutical resources and also worked as an organ donation coordinator, but who knew if he was a liar? Perhaps he was even secretly trafficking human organs!
However, after Zhou Tong participated in an activity at Anti-Cancer Home, his attitude changed drastically, and he hardly ever missed an event.
It must be said that Mr. Wu was indeed very capable.
He was not only skilled at providing psychological counseling to patients, helping them regain the will to fight their illness, but he also knew many famous doctors both domestically and internationally, as well as executives from pharmaceutical companies. Many patients whose conditions couldn't be treated in Mountain City were helped by him to find new treatment plans.
Thus, after attending several activities, Zhou Tong, like other patients, began to treat this place as a "home." Every member of the "big family" would try their best to help each other, making one feel as if with everyone's support, their illness would eventually get better.
Ding-dong—Ding-dong—!
Zhou Tong pressed the doorbell a second time, waited for a moment, and then the door of Anti-Cancer Home slowly opened. A man who appeared to be in his early thirties, dressed in a white shirt and black trousers, simply and neatly, appeared behind the door.
He was over 1.9 meters tall, with a muscular build, black curly hair, thick eyebrows, a high nose bridge, and light gray-blue eyes, like a gloomy sky. His features were refined yet masculine, and his skin was even fairer and more delicate than most women's.
The first time Zhou Tong met Mr. Wu, he thought he was a foreigner, but later learned he was biracial, with an English father.
And such an appearance was also one of the reasons Zhou Tong suspected Mr. Wu had ulterior motives for organizing the patient support group.
With such looks, he could easily make a living from his appearance. Even as a man, Zhou Tong couldn't help but feel some different emotions. Becoming an actor, model, or internet celebrity would definitely be easy for him.
Moreover, Mr. Wu was also very talented; whether it was painting or piano, he had professional-level skills, and he even carved. It was said that after a patient passed away, he carved their epitaph.
For such a person, doing anything would be much more comfortable than organizing patient exchange meetings and serving as an organ donation coordinator, which were thankless tasks.
The door opened, and standing at the entrance, looking at the empty yet cozy living room behind the door, which was completely unlike the usual scene before an activity was about to begin, Zhou Tong looked puzzled, "Mr. Wu, am I too early?"
The man in front of him gave him a wry smile and explained, "No, not at all. It's just that I suddenly have important guests visiting, and I couldn't refuse to see them, so I had to cancel the activity temporarily."
"Oh, I see." Zhou Tong nodded.
Anti-Cancer Home was originally a non-profit organization, completely without financial gain. Mr. Wu occasionally had to cancel activities due to his personal affairs, which Zhou Tong could understand.
"Then, will tomorrow still be at the usual time?"
"Tomorrow, tomorrow is also uncertain." Mr. Wu smiled wryly again, "I can't guarantee regular activities for the next few days. When I can organize activities again, I will notify everyone immediately."
"Later, I'll have to trouble you to apologize to everyone on my behalf when you go back." Zhou Tong frowned, looking at Mr. Wu, and pursed his lips, asking, "Mr. Wu, have you encountered some trouble? If there's anything we can help with, please don't bear it alone."
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He could tell that Mr. Wu had something on his mind.
The patients didn't understand, treating him as a liar and speaking ill of him was mild. The hospital also felt his support group was a nuisance. The support group couldn't provide him with any income, and sometimes he even had to pay out of his own pocket to help purchase medicines. Enduring all of this for a long time, it would be strange if he didn't have something on his mind!
"Although it's indeed a bit troublesome..." Mr. Wu shook his head mid-sentence, "You are already struggling enough; how could I add to your troubles?" fɾeeweɓnѳveɭ.com
"Alright, hurry back to the hospital. Your physical condition isn't good either; you need more rest."
Zhou Tong opened his mouth, seemingly about to say something more, but Mr. Wu had already closed the door.
He stared blankly at the closed door for a long time, then sighed deeply.
He had known Mr. Wu for almost a year, and in his impression, Mr. Wu had always been very polite and gentle to everyone, and would never do something like directly closing the door on someone.
"The trouble he's encountered must be giving him a terrible headache, right? What can be done? What if..."
What if Mr. Wu also couldn't hold on? Where would these patients, who were even disliked by their own relatives, go for help?
Unaccountably, he remembered the days he spent waiting to die alone in the hospital ward before joining the support group. He could clearly feel loneliness and pain gnawing away at his life bit by bit.
After closing the door on Zhou Tong, Tan Qiuming returned to the sofa in the living room, rubbed his slightly throbbing temples, and then his gaze uncontrollably drifted towards the cigarette pack on the table.
As if hallucinating, he heard the low whispers of a "demon" in his ear.
"Have a cigarette? It'll make you feel better. Just one—it won't have any effect."
Listening to the whispers in his ear, he sat upright, picked up the cigarette pack from the table, pulled out a cigarette, put it in his mouth, lit it, and took a deep drag.
Although he clearly knew the source of the whispers in his ear, and knew that this ghostly thing, which the Spanish brought back to Europe from the Mayans and which gradually spread throughout the world, had quietly become the object of that guy's Power at some point.
But he still couldn't resist having one, even if he would unknowingly be eroded by that guy's Power.
Because "that day" was approaching, his time was running out. If he didn't indulge now, he might never have the chance again.
Exhaling smoke, accompanied by the nicotine stimulating his nerves, he relaxed slightly. He extinguished the cigarette, slumped back on the sofa, and watched the lingering smoke drift beneath the ceiling, changing into various shapes, just like the scenes he dreamed of every night in his more than thirty years of life.
The silence lasted less than a minute before his body suddenly convulsed violently. A faint, glowing hallucination appeared before his eyes—a chaotic, bizarre hallucination that severely disturbed his thoughts, followed by a low whisper echoing in his mind.
"Concealed eyes of the sky, quietly gazing down."
"Chocolate-colored shrouds draped over the city and harbor."
"Terrified screams, blackened churches, palace walls weeping blood, plague driving wedding carriages towards the graveyard."
The whispering voice, like a fatal curse, caused a tearing pain in his brain, and everything before his eyes began to feel strange.
It seemed as if something was trying to invade his mind.
Immediately after, strange shadows began to appear before his eyes, and he felt as if he was on a street permeated with thick fog, rather than in his rented room.
His thoughts gradually slipped from his control, as if he was drifting away from the real world.
He struggled desperately, twisting his body on the sofa as if having an epileptic fit, leaving patchy sweat stains, trying to break free from the "soul shackles" that were causing him to lose himself.
A moment later, his struggle finally had some effect.
In the brief moment of regaining clarity, he suddenly sat up and slammed his hands onto the table in front of him.
"Crack—!"
With a muffled sound, the glass tabletop shattered into pieces, and sharp fragments cut Tan Qiuming's skin. Crimson blood splattered onto the floor.
The continuous pain in his hands pulled him out of that strange state, and he slumped onto the sofa with a sense of relief.
Good.
This wasn't the first time he had encountered this situation; he knew what would happen if he let that ghostly thing take over his mind.
The first time he experienced this was when he had just started elementary school. Shortly after hearing the whispers, he fell unconscious and didn't wake up until over a month later.
He didn't know what happened during that month, only that when he returned to school, his former friends distanced themselves from him. When he tried to approach them, they would scream in terror. Soon after, he moved with his mother to Qixinggang Lower Lane.
The second time this happened was one night when his mother, due to a neighbor's report, started not coming home often. As before, he listened to the whispers in his ear and fainted. This time, when he woke up, over three months had passed.
He didn't know how he had managed to keep Lived three months while unconscious and unable to eat or drink, only that after waking up, he inexplicably learned and developed a love for painting.
The third time was shortly after his admission letter was burned. He fainted for three years and woke up having learned knowledge in various fields such as history, science, art, languages, and folklore, and also inexplicably became passionate about caring for and helping cancer patients.
Although he missed out on precious university years, at the time, he didn't think that suddenly fainting and waking up with knowledge that others would spend years, even decades, to master effortlessly was a bad thing.
Moreover, he also felt that those cancer patients were very pitiful, and he was very willing to provide help within his capabilities.
This mindset continued until a late night about half a year ago.
That night, while asleep, he suddenly felt a violent burning pain in his chest, as if someone had pierced his chest with a red-hot iron sword.
Stimulated by the intense burning pain, he woke up with a start from his sleep, astonished to find himself back in his home in Qixinggang Lower Lane, which he hadn't visited for over a decade. In his hand, he held a rusty knife, and several blood-soaked corpses lay on the ground before him.
He stared blankly at the corpses on the ground, and it took him a long time to realize that he had killed someone!
From that day on, he vaguely realized that the knowledge he had initially thought of as "unearned" came with a price, and that price was exceptionally high.
From that day on, he began to try his best to avoid falling unconscious again, through various methods. Sometimes he succeeded, sometimes he failed, and each time he failed, he would wake up in the old house in Qixinggang Lower Lane, seeing several deceased lives, his spirit tormented and on the verge of collapse.
"But, after today, all of this should end, right?" Tan Qiuming murmured to himself.
As his voice fell, the door of Anti-Cancer Home was suddenly knocked upon.
"Knock, knock, knock—knock, knock, knock—!"
"Hello, we are community staff, looking for Mr. Wu!"
