Chapter 13

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We survived the crisis\n

Xie Qingcheng was the last to follow the firefighter down the rope ladder.\n

When he went down, the fire had already begun to rapidly spread and the smoke was so thick that people couldn’t see anything in front of them. After they finally landed on the ground, the rescuers rushed over to check his injuries.\n

Xie Qingcheng saw Xie Xue in the crowd. Several doctors were surrounding her. He went over in a rush. “How is she?”\n

“You are……”\n

“I am her brother.”\n

“Oh, oh, don’t worry, she’s alright. Her vital signs are very stable, and she will wake up after the effects of the drug wears off.”\n

Xie Qingcheng was relieved.\n

The paramedic looked up and down at the tall, shirtless man. He was really very sexy. Although it was not the time, if the paramedic could stare a bit longer at such a handsome man, then perhaps she could work even more swiftly.\n

But Xie Qingcheng didn’t realize how seductive he was with his slim shoulders and thin waist clasped with a silver buckle belt. He was a cold person, and he usually didn’t care about his appearance or cared much about the light that others viewed him in. \n

Even though the paramedic kept watching him, he could only pay attention to Xie Xue, and how the Cheng Kang Hospital was still deep in the flames.\n

Xie Qingcheng raised his head and looked at the blazing rooftop for a long while, his emotions torn. As far as he can see, he can see those patients who have not been rescued screaming in panic on the window sill, slapping their hands against the iron bars of the locked window.\n

“Help!!”\n

“Help us! Fire! The fire is coming!!”\n

“I don’t want to die yet……Help me! Help me, you……help me!!!”\n

Those railings that were originally set up to prevent patients from jumping out of the window to escape have now become the largest difficulty for an emergency rescue. The way that could have been used to rescue them from the window quickly by a rope ladder was cut off. The only way was for people to risk their lives and rush into the room to rescue those who were left there. \n

The cries of sadness was as if the cries came from ghosts, the entire Cheng Kang Mental Hospital was really like what Jiang Lanpei cursed—it became a living purgatory on earth.\n

In the ward nearest to the linen room, there was an old man who was crying all the time, but he was calling his parents. The old man suffered from dementia and often had crazy episodes, so his children disliked him and sent him to the hospital.\n

Maybe he knew deep in his heart that they would be happy if he died.\n

The only people who loved him were his parents, who had passed away.  Before he was about to die, he wept and howled like a child, and kept calling for his father, mother……\n

The firefighter used force to break the window, but it was too late. The old man’s room was too close to the fire. He was swallowed by the fire under the eyes of everyone, one hand was still holding a stiff posture, a hand stuck from the iron cage……\n

No one knows at the last moment whether he was an old man who was abandoned because of illness or just a child who missed his parents.\n

The firefighter’s lips trembled, and he turned around and shouted at the crowd: “Where’s the key? Did anyone bring the key when you escaped?”\n

“N-No…… Who would remember to do that……”\n

“They’re hanging in the director’s office on the third floor!”\n

There was another deafening explosion, and the window panes exploded as debris and wood shards flew through the air. \n

A paramedic who was rescued stood up and said, “Comrade, don’t go in anymore!!! It’s too dangerous!!!”\n

“Yeah…… It’s too late…… We can’t possibly save them……”　　\n

Some people even said softly, “Those people are all seriously ill……The higher the floor, the more sick they are. It’s pointless to save them……”\n

The entire scene was a mess.\n

Xie Qingcheng suddenly saw that amidst the chaos, a lone shadow stood. He raised his head to stare up at the burning building for a while, and headed towards the direction of the bushes where the North Gate was. \n

Xie Qingcheng was taken aback—\n

He Yu?!!\n

“Sorry, I need to borrow a mask.”\n

Xie Qingcheng said, judging the fire’s condition before he grabbed two protective masks, and ran in the direction of He Yu.\n

“Hey! Comrade!” The paramedic regained her senses abruptly. Hell, even a handsome guy shouldn’t be so reckless! She shouted, “What are you doing! Don’t enter the fire anymore!!!”\n

But Xie Qingcheng ignored her, staring at He Yu’s back like a predator before chasing after him.\n

He never expected that this man would return to the fire scene again—what was he going to do?\n

He Yu did not go to the north gate where the firefighters had gathered. Instead, he grabbed a rope ladder that had not yet been taken down, and went straight to the rooftop from where he had escaped. Xie Qingcheng followed him. It was too late for the others to follow. The fire lapped at the rope and the lower half of the soft rope was instantly burnt to ashes.\n

He Yu flipped over the roof railing. He glanced at the bottom of the water tower. There was only a scorched and curled body burning. It was Jiang Lanpei’s corpse.\n

He slammed the door open, looked at the fire, and ran to the director’s office.\n

Xie Qingcheng thought he was a lunatic. After all, wasn’t he a lunatic? He grabbed He Yu’s arm when He Yu opened the fire-proof iron door, and scolded him harshly, “What are you doing! Do you want to die? Follow me and go down the north gate!! The fire there has not gotten too big, there is still time.”\n

He Yu stared at his face as if he did not know him. “What are you doing here?”\n

Xie Qingcheng didn’t have time to explain himself, his eyes grew sharp. “You have to fucking come back with me!”\n

“No. This time is different. This time I want to save people.”\n

“You—”\n

“They are my people, only I can save them, and only I can free them in time. You heard what the people are saying below. The old man was burned alive in front of them and there are more people waiting. But they said forget it.”\n

He Yu’s eyes had a terrible light in them.\n

He gently said, “——Mental illness is not worth saving. If you suffer from such a thing, you will be given up on —you deserve to die.”\n

He stared at Xie Qingcheng’s eyes, and a cold sneer twisted the sharp corner of his mouth. “Do you think so too? Doctor Xie?”\n

“That’s because it’s really too late….. Be rational! You can’t open doors one by one.” Xie Qingcheng’s voice was already hoarse, “There is no time.”\n

He Yu didn’t speak any more. With great strength, he broke away from Xie Qingcheng’s hand and ran towards the office.\n

Fortunately, the office area was separated from the large fire by a large washroom. At that time, the construction crew had cut corners with the tiles and even the wooden frame was fitted badly, but now this area has become the place where the flame spreads the slowest.\n

He Yu found the large jingling collection of keys in the room, and went to a part of the ward on the third floor where the fire had not yet reached.\n

“Help……”\n

“Help us!!”\n

“I don’t want to die yet……I don’t want to die yet!!!”\n

“Ue ue ue…… Is it the devil’s fire that is burning? It’s the devil’s fire!!!”\n

The lights in the aisle have long been extinguished, and there was crying on both sides of the aisle, but in more rooms, there was no crying……\n

Connecting the door number to the number on the key, He Yu took the nearest string and started to open the door.\n

When Xie Qingcheng reached him, he had already opened the first door, and a woman with disheveled hair ran out inside yelling— ah AHHH. Xie Qingcheng’s heart was cold at first sight—this was an absolute mess. \n

Let alone these patients, even ordinary people would lose their minds under such circumstances.\n

The woman screamed, and instead she started to run in the direction of the fire. Xie Qingcheng was about to stop, but then he saw He Yu stretch out his hand and dragged her back——\n

“Don’t go in that direction!”\n

“She won’t listen to you—”\n

“Fire! There is fire!”\n

Amidst the raging chaos, Xie Qingcheng suddenly saw a flash of cold light. \n

It was He Yu who held a blade that he brought out of the office just now before he sliced it across his palm. \n

Blood immediately poured out from the cut. Xie Qingcheng didn’t know why he was doing this, but a distant memory of a particular information seems to slowly surface in his head. He had yet to process that information, but his hairs already instinctually stood on end.\n

In the next second, he saw with wide eyes, He Yu taking one of the keyrings from the board and stained it with his blood. He spoke gently, but in a voice without any room for argument to the mad woman. “Take these keys and go unlock the doors. For each door you unlock, give some keys to the person inside and tell them to go do the same. Be quick. The faster you are, the more patients we can save. Go quickly.”\n

An eerie thing happened. The woman who was hysterical before instantly looked like she was hit with some sort of tranquilizer. The moment she smelt He Yu’s blood, her expression became completely calm.\n

It was as if He Yu’s blood, through the sense of smell, sparked a certain reflex in her brain—causing her to be manipulated by his emotional state.\n

The woman took the keys, and immediately headed towards the other iron doors.\n

The whole command process was very short, but seeing it made Xie Qingcheng freeze all over. Even his fingertips were cold.\n

Case 4 Patient, He Yu—the ability he gained after adulthood is……\n

Within the data files, what was always labelled with questionable existence: the ‘blood hypnosis’!!\n

Mental ebola had very little clinical data. One can only use the previous three cases, along with some statistical models, to predict outcomes of the illness. What they could confirm was that—of those that suffer from the condition, other than the special characteristics every patient had, each person also came with their own ability.\n

To put it simply, the disease would mutate inside the body. Everyone’s genetics were different, so the way the disease mutated would also differ. This type of mutation would develop with the patient as they got older, and will be fully expressed at adulthood and stabilize thereafter.\n

For Case 1’s patient: the ability she developed was an enhanced sense of smell.\n

The disease changed her olfactory nerves, making her nose extra sensitive. Normally speaking, a dog’s olfactory nerves occupy four times more area than that of a human’s. After Case 1’s disease mutated, her sense of smell increased to more than eight times of a normal human’s. Any miniscule amount of scent in the air is an attack on her olfactory senses, causing her to suffer constant mental torture. \n

Case 2 and Case 3 both displayed their special abilities before their death.\n

As for Case 4 He Yu, before Xie Qingcheng left his position, he had yet to exhibit any signs of mutation.\n

Xie Qingcheng originally thought, perhaps the mutation in mental ebola wasn’t absolute, and that perhaps He Yu was an exception.\n

He didn’t expect that, it was the most terrifying type of mutation the statistical models calculated—\n

Blood parasite.\n

This so-called blood parasite, refers to the ability to sedate the mentally unsound demographic with He Yu’s blood, under certain circumstances. It’s kind of like how serotonin can instantly soothe a patient’s emotional state. Or like using drugs; by stimulating the brain’s reward center, the patient develops a false sense of ‘as long as I obey him, I will receive more’. This is how the patients are being controlled by He Yu’s words—the effect like ‘falling under a spell’.\n

At the time, what the lab inferred was only a speculation. When the statistical models created this ‘blood parasite’ mutation, some researchers outright could not believe it.\n

But now—\n

The doors were unlocked by the patients one by one .\n

Their speed was shocking. Each person rescued from one room became a helper to open more rooms. The keys were distributed very quickly. Those mentally unsound patients, under the spell of the blood parasite, essentially became well-trained soldiers.\n

He Yu walked coldly amongst them, controlling the patients like a spiritual leader. He walked to the end of the hallway, where the only exit they could escape from faced the north. The sounds of firefighters already echoed in the corridor, almost reaching the third floor.\n

But at the same time, the flames at the end of the corridor had already rolled near, rushing towards them like a roaring fire dragon, engulfing them with billowing smoke, like a suffocating poison gas and devastating heat, burying them in this narrow corridor.\n

There’s no water here, no way to wet a cloth to cover the nose and mouth. They can only hurry.\n

He Yu stood at the fire exit, turned his face slightly, and gave a command to all the patients, “Stay as low as possible. Come towards me, then go down to the firefighters. Hurry.”\n

The patients moved as if they were robots that had received a command, as they advanced in sync with shocking speed and order towards the safety tunnel. Even zombies being controlled in sci-fi movies would look no better……\n

When the last patient had escaped, the fire was already very close. The smoke was becoming more dense as well, almost to the point you’d have to crawl on the floor to breathe. He Yu saw Xie Qingcheng walking towards him, face looking terrible. He didn’t say a word, just moved aside for Xie Qingcheng to come through.\n

BANG! The fire safety doors closed with behind them, temporarily shielding them from the advancing fire dragon.\n

Cold almond eyes stared at the shocked peach blossom eyes in the dark.\n

“Xie Qingcheng. Don’t tell anyone.”\n

Xie Qingcheng’s face was extremely pale, but he still wordlessly handed over one of his gas masks to He Yu.\n

“Take it. Let’s go.”\n

The flametongue slammed against the fire safety door. He Yu and Xie Qingcheng followed the other rescued patients down together……\n

“GE!!! GE!!!”\n

When Xie Qingcheng and He Yu finally escaped with the help of the firefighters, what welcomed them were screams from an almost broken voice. As soon as Xie Qingcheng took off his mask, he saw the already awakened Xie Xue running towards him with tears running down her face. She ran so fast even one of the shoes the firefighters gave her fell off.\n

“GE AHHHHH…… DA-GE!! DA-GE!! Did you want to scare me to death? DID YOU WANT TO SCARE ME TO DEATH!! I thought even you didn’t want me anymore!! Even you will leave me behind!!! Ge waaaahhhhhhh……”\n

She threw herself into Xie Qingcheng’s arms and hugged him so tightly, almost snapping his waist. The sound of explosions and screams continued around them. Some of the people really couldn’t be saved…… she was so afraid, as if all the blood were sucked out of her body, leaving only a thin layer of skin. Only when she’s holding tightly onto her brother’s tall figure, crying uncontrollably and breathing in his scent, did her heartbeat restart, blood color returning to her body.\n

The tears continued in streams, smearing her face in a mess. She cried without regard to how she looked as she continued muttering, “You can’t leave me like mom and dad!! You can’t leave me like mom and dad, da-ge!! I’m so scared…… I was really so scared…… Hold me, hold me!!”\n

“It’s okay, it’s okay.”\n

Xie Qingcheng would rarely accept this kind of strong emotion. He was a very family-orientated man, but the love he showed for his family was often discreet, or even expressed in the form of admonishment.\n

But at this moment he couldn’t hold back. He held his shivering sister, bent down and kissed her messy bird’s nest hair, the edges of his eyes were also a bit red.\n

“It’s okay, Xie Xue.”\n

Xie Xue cried in Xie Qingcheng’s arms for a long time, then she noticed He Yu.\n

Her mood that was just starting to be calm immediately crashed again, she then cried and jumped into He Yu’s arms—No, more accurately speaking, she pulled He Yu over, and hugged him together with her big brother, so that He Yu was forcibly squeezed together with Xie Qingcheng.\n

An awkward expression can be seen on He Yu’s elegant and handsome face. He’s never been this close with another man before, especially when that man was Xie Qingcheng, and felt rather uncomfortable—looking at Xie Qingcheng’s expression, he knew that the other felt the same.\n

But for the sake of Xie Xue, neither person disturbed the peace, as they let her keep the three in an embrace, finding a space in the chaos that belongs to them.\n

.\n

“Help! Save me!! Sir, over here! I’m over here!!”\n

In front of Cheng Kang Hospital’s elevator, an old man with white hair was screaming hysterically. He belonged to Cheng Kang’s highest level of directors. A few days ago he played polo with Liang Jicheng and fell and broke his leg, so he can only move around in a wheelchair. Normally he wouldn’t be here, but today he had to come in to take care of a bit of work.\n

The man struggled on the wheelchair, his crotch completely wet as pee ran down his pants. He experienced for the first time how terrifying being disabled was. The blazing fire approached his direction. Although he knew he shouldn’t use an elevator, not to mention that the elevator was already broken, he still couldn’t help but smash the button.\n

“Quick! Quick… someone, save me… I have money… who’s coming to save me… I have a lot of money!”\n

Due to his anxiety, his facial muscles convulsed violently.\n

Suddenly—\n

As if heaven had heard his prayers, a firefighter-looking person wearing a gas mask came up from the smoky safety tunnel. He saw the man sitting in the wheelchair.\n

It was as if the man saw God. “Comrade!! Save me!! Quick, save me!!!”\n

His nose twitched with excitement, the pale flesh full of tiny beads of sweat, pupils contracted in elation. He called out to the shadow of the person that approached with firefighting equipment.\n

He then froze and pulled back sharply!\n

The person who wore a firefighter uniform revealed a cold smile underneath his goggles. Then he opened the equipment in his hands…… that was not a fire extinguisher! That’s… \n

Gasoline!!!\n

“You, you’re—!”\n

“The mess here at Cheng Kang can’t be contained anymore, so they sent me to ‘clean up’.” A dull voice came from beneath the mask, “You can save your money for the next life.”\n

“NO!!!”\n

BOOM!!\n

The gasoline and lighter were thrown together onto the man’s extremely fearful and horribly twisted face. In the end his face resembled the distorted figure in Munch’s ‘The Scream’, fully engulfed in flames……\n

.\n

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The author has something to say:\n

Not gonna lie, when I was writing this I was also thirsty for Xie-ge’s body…*pant pant*… there still ended up being a tiny bit of sci-fi… but you can basically ignore it, it’s just a plot device lalalala~\n

Mini Theatre:\n

When will you emit the light of justice?\n

Xie Qingcheng: When I need it.\n

He Yu: When it’s something related to the mentally ill.\n

Xie Xue: When it’s related to food.\n

Humble author: When I write about Xie-ge getting fucked (?)\n

I ask He Yu everyday, when will you wake up? You’re not going to fuck your wife? If not fucking then at least kiss him, mom is begging you!! Help me, you stupid straight man!!!

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