Chapter 34: The Bomb

“Shk—”

The Cloud Piercer’s blade flashed through the air like flowing water, sinking into flesh, driving deep—at least two inches in.

Sang Ling’s right hand turned, and the blade churned half a circle inside the wound.

“AAAAH—!”

Golden Scorpion roared in agony, seizing the blade with her bare hand and straining to wrench the Cloud Piercer out of her own abdomen.

Sang Ling withdrew the blade with the motion and reset her opening stance.

Before the next round of battle could begin, the broadcast suddenly crackled to life with the Old Dean’s voice.

“Will all medical staff from every department please proceed immediately to the Consumables Warehouse on the first floor to assist with firefighting.”

“Will all medical staff from every department please proceed immediately to the Consumables Warehouse on the first floor to assist with firefighting.”

Sang Ling frowned. She had no idea what was happening now, or whether it was connected to the attack on Li Zhi.

But she refused to act rashly. She decided to keep her attention fixed on Golden Scorpion—defeat her first, then force out the name of whoever was pulling the strings.

Yet a moment later, it was Golden Scorpion—the one who had launched the attack—whose ears twitched.

The Zerg could communicate across distance through a high-frequency sound no human ear could catch. Clearly, another Zerg was contacting Golden Scorpion right now.

Sang Ling had no way of knowing what was said to her. But the battle-hungry Zerg across from her gathered up every trace of her fighting spirit the very next second, smiled at Sang Ling—several flecks of splattered blood still on her face—and said:

“The Commander has spoken. Until we meet again.”

She fled so fast that Sang Ling, without her exoskeleton, couldn’t even keep her in sight.

But Sang Ling hadn’t truly meant to chase. She stood in place, thought for two seconds, picked up the backpack that had fallen to the floor—and abruptly turned and ran for the ninth-floor Intensive Care Unit, past the stairwell.

If she wasn’t mistaken, someone was trying to lure the tiger from the mountain—a diversion!

By the time she reached the Intensive Care Unit, the Head Nurse was already organizing hands, sending them downstairs in order to fight the fire.

Seeing her, the Head Nurse said, “Little Sang, you’re here! Quick, quick—come down with us and help fight the fire.”

Sang Ling stood where she was and shook her head. “I’m not going.”

“Head Nurse, please organize the staff and evacuate the other patients in our ICU first.”

The Head Nurse was utterly bewildered. “Little Sang?”

Sang Ling said, “I can’t explain the truth to you right now. But please believe me—this is for the safety of the patients.”

“Even so, I can’t just evacuate every patient on your word alone—not at a moment this tense.”

“Head Nurse…”

Doctor Cheng suddenly appeared on the ninth floor. Today was supposed to be her day off, but the more she’d thought about it at home, the more something had felt wrong—her work badge had gone missing far too suspiciously—so she had come back to the hospital.

“Do as she says.”

Doctor Cheng said this to the Head Nurse. Her seniority was long, and she had always carried herself as the steady, reliable sort; her word carried real weight.

Seeing this, the Head Nurse could only ask no further and began organizing the nurses to move the patients from the other wards elsewhere.

Thankfully, modern medical equipment and hospital beds all came with wheels, and transport by elevator was highly efficient.

The last patient was Li Zhi. The Head Nurse had just reached her door when a shadow fell across her—Sang Ling stood blocking the entrance to Li Zhi’s room.

“She doesn’t need to be moved.”

The real reason Sang Ling had asked the Head Nurse to move the other patients was fear that if anyone came for Li Zhi, the fight would spiral beyond control and injure bystanders.

And as for Li Zhi herself—no matter where she was moved, she would be hunted all the same. Better to stay right here and let the enemy come to her.

“Everyone go now. Notify everyone: until I send word, no one comes up to the ninth floor. Notify security—lock down the ninth floor.”

The Head Nurse and Doctor Cheng left with doubt, even gravity, written across their faces, looking back every few steps.

Sang Ling watched their departing figures and said nothing more. She only silently tightened her grip on the Cloud Piercer.

The blade was in her right hand—but her left hand suddenly pressed against her own abdomen.

Her shirt was deep black, her coat deep black; the blood seeping from the sharp, deep wound didn’t even show.

Gritting her teeth against the pain, Sang Ling shuffled to the nurses’ station, dug out several packs of gauze, and rigged herself a temporary bandage.

The blood soon seeped through again, staining the white gauze and medical cotton red, and Sang Ling could only keep replacing the dressings.

She held a fresh piece of gauze above the wound, hesitated a moment—then finally clenched her jaw, shut her eyes, and pressed down hard.

Blood and pain surged out together, tinged with a faint green.

Sang Ling pressed again and again like this, until the welling blood ran pure red, with no trace of the green that marked Golden Scorpion’s venom.

By now her face was deathly pale, her forehead slick with cold sweat, her shirt soaked through with the sweat of pain.

She wound the gauze around her wound, layer by layer, and bound it tight.

A draft swept down the corridor; the sweat on her body evaporated rapidly, stealing away warmth and leaving cold behind.

The black-haired Alpha took up the Cloud Piercer once more and sat down at the door of Li Zhi’s room, waiting in silence.

Everyone else had been cleared out, and the corridor felt extraordinarily empty.

Beyond the glass at the corridor’s end, a sky that had been clear and bright only minutes before was abruptly veiled by pale gray clouds.

A storm was coming.

Su Qingyue tipped her head back, watching the pale gray clouds gathering in the sky.

The wind was growing stronger. From stirring up fallen leaves to lifting the hem of her skirt had taken only a few seconds.

It’s going to rain.

The tourists murmured it to one another; parents hurried their children indoors first.

The young couples were still defiant, snapping their last few photos in front of every scenic spot.

Su Qingyue pressed redial and called Sang Ling again.

The familiar voice answered: “The Light Brain you are calling is powered off.”

A sweet mechanical voice said: “Please leave a message after the tone.”

Su Qingyue sighed. “It’s about to rain. Why aren’t you here yet?”

“Remember to bring me an umbrella.”

She hung up and looked down at the ground.

The first raindrop fell right in front of her, staining the pale gray pavement deep black.

The rain came so fast that the couples still lingering cried out in alarm all at once.

Couples with umbrellas opened one between them; couples without huddled beneath a single jacket held overhead, running through the rain.

For all their fear of getting soaked, they were actually quite happy—laughter ringing out everywhere. To Su Qingyue’s ears, it grated.

Of course they were happy. They were with the people they loved; even the rain was sweet.

But when the rain fell on Su Qingyue’s head, it only blurred the world before her eyes.

“It’s raining,” the crowd gossiped.

“But the fire started from inside the warehouse—the roof’s still intact. This rain can’t get in. It won’t help us put it out at all.”

“Exactly, exactly. Let’s just focus on fighting the fire. Hurry.”

People ran back and forth with washbasins and buckets, trying to smother the great flames in the warehouse the oldest way there was.

“Here, miss, take this basin. Go help! Don’t just stand there gawking—did the fire scare you stiff?”

A kind-faced old woman pressed a translucent washbasin into Lin Jinxu’s hands.

For some time now, Lin Jinxu had simply been standing in place, expressionless, her eyes seemingly without focus—no wonder the old woman took her for someone frightened out of her wits.

The words pulled Lin Jinxu out of some distant state.

Her black eyes refocused, as if waking from a dream. She took the basin, walked to the edge of the crowd—

—and set it down on a platform, turned, and walked away, against the current of every bustling figure behind her.

In an empty corner she stopped and looked out at the busy hospital from afar, where everyone scurried like ants, hauling what little water their meager strength allowed.

Behind her, Orchid Mantis and Golden Scorpion appeared without a sound.

Golden Scorpion had carried out Lin Jinxu’s order to withdraw, but puzzlement still sat on her face.

“So what exactly is our Plan B? Weren’t we supposed to go kill that wounded Alpha?”

“Lin Jinxu.” Golden Scorpion recognized her too. “Do you have any idea how important this mission is to you? Your old Senior Sisters and Junior Sisters poison your Teacher’s ears against you every single day.”

“If you fail this mission too, the trouble will be enormous.”

Lin Jinxu’s face was blank indifference. She didn’t turn around.

“Orchid Mantis. Explain it to her.”

Orchid Mantis’s face scrunched up. “Simply put: we planted liquid bombs on the ninth floor.”

Over the past week, Lin Jinxu had had Orchid Mantis buy all manner of coffees and snacks, delivered to the medical staff of the ninth-floor ICU in the name of discharged patients.

Capital Star First Hospital’s security was no pushover; bringing in large quantities of unidentified liquid would certainly get them searched.

But coffee smuggled in as coffee was another matter—especially once the guards and the medical staff had grown used to receiving such coffee gifts. It slipped past inspection entirely.

Yet today, all those sweet coffees had become deadly explosives.

Lin Jinxu had set the fire not to kill, but to lure every medical worker away from the ninth floor—away from the blast.

Golden Scorpion said, “What detonation mechanism did you use? Security scans everything, don’t they? If you used an electronic trigger, wouldn’t it be found in a second?”

“So we didn’t use one.”

Lin Jinxu’s expression was faint and cool. “Every coffee has two liquids inside, separated by a barrier layer.”

“Separately, the two liquids are perfectly harmless. Combined, they become an extremely unstable liquid explosive.”

“The upper liquid is corrosive. It eats through the barrier slowly, and once the barrier is gone, the two liquids mix—and detonate.”

“A liquid bomb made this way—no one can detect it.”

Golden Scorpion said, “So you can’t control when it goes off.”

Lin Jinxu said, “The corrosion takes roughly four to five hours. By my count, it’s nearly time.”

Lin Jinxu raised her head and looked up at the hospital’s ninth floor. From this second on, every minute, every second, flame might burst from those windows—Capital Star’s very own fireworks show.

Li Zhi, who held the secret she was never meant to hold, would die in that explosion.

Then the mission would be complete. She would obtain the Suppressant she so desperately needed now, and return to the center of The Organization’s power.

It would be a great turning point in her life.

“You humans look down on Omegas—what a tremendous loss.”

Golden Scorpion marveled, “You truly are a genius of murder.”

Lin Jinxu’s brow shifted faintly, and she sneered at herself inwardly. She used to be a genius of the biological sciences. A genius who might have changed the history of how humanity treats disease.

And now she was a genius of murder.

The vast irony of it curved her eyes—and at this moment, of all moments, a smile bloomed on her face.

Lin Jinxu, you have to smile. Murder is what you do now. This is praise.

But the smile she had wrung out with all her strength read entirely differently to Golden Scorpion.

A person who could slaughter her own kind without a shred of guilt—even to Golden Scorpion, a Zerg born for slaughter, that was a chilling kind of cold.

Still, she was pleased to see it, and so she joked:

“Looks like nothing about human life or death can move you anymore. Congratulations—you’re one step closer to succeeding your Teacher.”

Lin Jinxu said, “Thank you.”

Golden Scorpion said, “And here’s more good news: today’s explosion won’t just eliminate that Li Zhi. It’ll take out another thorn in our side.”

“She’s far too difficult to deal with. The sooner she’s dead, the better—otherwise she’ll be a huge problem for us later.”

She grumbled on to herself, never seeing the sudden, drastic change in Orchid Mantis’s face.

And the next second, Lin Jinxu turned around abruptly, her expression dark enough to chill the air.

“Who did you say is up there?”

“Sang Ling. She finished fighting me just now and went straight back to stand guard outside Li Zhi’s room.”

“Frankly, I’d say we’ve killed two birds with one stone—without lifting a finger.” Golden Scorpion lavished praise on Lin Jinxu; she had already marked her as a serious contender for The Organization’s next leader. “You’re sure to lead us to—”

Her voice cut off mid-word.

Because Lin Jinxu was looking at her now the way one looks at a dead woman.

Sang Ling sat outside Li Zhi’s room.

She kept her eyes closed, feigning rest. Blood loss had brought a faint dizziness.

But the hand gripping the Cloud Piercer had never once loosened. The instant anyone stepped into this corridor, they would become her prey.

Yet she waited a long while, and no one came.

When she opened her eyes, the hidden fleck of green in them had grown more distinct after the blood loss and the battle—like the eyes of a lone wolf at night.

It made no sense.

If anyone meant to murder Li Zhi, now was the perfect moment.

There should not have been no one.

Sang Ling’s Wristwatch Light Brain had been destroyed by Golden Scorpion.

Only now, as the hormones of battle faded and reason returned, did she suddenly notice what was wrong with all of this.

She rushed to the nurses’ station, where a shared Light Brain sat for the staff’s use. She entered the startup password and, from memory, recalled Jiang Yunzhao’s number, and sent two messages.

“Gather everyone you trust. Lock down the hospital.”

“Don’t let a single suspicious person slip through.”

Only after the messages went out did she settle slightly.

Her gaze swept over the twenty-some cups of coffee on the station’s counter that no one had touched—then snapped back to Li Zhi’s room.

“Beep—”

Lin Jinxu paced in place, Light Brain in hand. Her anxiety was almost a physical thing; panic and unease radiated off her entire body.

Just now, she had confirmed it through her telescope: the hospital’s ninth floor was sealed behind security. No one was being allowed up.

She couldn’t break through that line, and so she couldn’t tell Sang Ling to run. All she could do was pray Sang Ling answered the phone.

“Pick up… pick up, please!”

She clutched the Light Brain in a nervous grip and bit down on the fingertip of her other hand, biting until it bled.

“Pick up… pick up, please…”

The sweet mechanical voice treated everyone equally: “The Light Brain you are calling is powered off. Please try again later.”

Lin Jinxu felt the world go black before her eyes, like some dizzying black-and-white film.

And of all moments, the harbingers of her Heat Period chose now to come surging back—her blood warming, a faint flush rising to her face. Combined with her frantic expression, it made for a strange, breathtaking beauty that set every nerve on edge.

Lin Jinxu moved fast, digging the Heat Delay Drug out of her pocket, hands shaking as she poured. Green capsules spilled until they covered her entire palm—and two or three more dropped, bouncing across the floor, gathering dust.

She had no attention to spare for the dropped pills, none for the dosage. She simply shoved the entire palmful of capsules into her mouth in one go.

With no water, she forced herself to swallow them dry; the excess capsules jammed in her throat, bringing a suffocating ache.

She had to take them. She could not afford a single thread of irrationality. She had to be calm and thinking now. She had to use her brain to find some way to tell Sang Ling to run.

Sang Ling was in the same room as the explosives! The bomb could go off at any moment!

Watching her movements, Golden Scorpion actually took half a step back.

This Omega… she’s gone mad.

As the Zerg’s Ace Assassin, Golden Scorpion had seen countless Alphas hailed as battle-crazed lunatics.

But in this moment she was utterly certain: no one among them was madder than this Omega.

The green capsules took effect quickly. Lin Jinxu’s head snapped up mid-shudder, her eyes unsettling as a coyote starved three days.

“That’s right—the station! The ICU nurses’ station has a shared Light Brain!”

Night after night, in her hotel room across from the hospital, she had watched Sang Ling studying at that station—and along the way, engraved every item on that desk into memory.

There was a shared Light Brain there!

“The number… 3… 7…”

Trembling, she keyed the number in one digit at a time—but before her finger could touch the green call button, someone seized her wrist.

She looked up. It was Orchid Mantis.

Golden Scorpion stood silently behind Orchid Mantis, lending her support.

Golden Scorpion said, “What do you think you’re doing? You’re going to tell her about the bomb? Have you lost your mind?”

“Do you still want this mission to succeed? Do you still want to return to The Organization?”

“Didn’t you say you’d give your life for your cause?”

Lin Jinxu strained against Orchid Mantis’s grip—but even Orchid Mantis, low in strength even among the Zerg, held her now like an iron vise.

The Omega shook her head desperately. “She’s different… she’s different… she’s not like ordinary Alphas…”

She cast Orchid Mantis a look like a plea for help.

But this Zerg—the one who used to call Sang Ling hers, who used to tease the two of them like a couple—wore an expression of complete gravity now.

“She is nothing special.”

“Lin Jinxu.” Orchid Mantis let the Zerg’s coldness show through completely. “Finish this mission, and you can have any Alpha you want. We’ll catch one for you.”

“Finish this mission, and you are one step closer to your lifelong ideal.”

“She is nothing special. She’s just an ordinary Alpha. Don’t let her stand in your way.”

“Think it through carefully. Between you and her, there is really nothing at all. She isn’t worth abandoning this mission.”

“Think it through, and you can decide for yourself.”

Orchid Mantis released her hand.

Lin Jinxu stared at the glowing green button.

Her hand began to shake, violently.