twenty four
The others in the operating room looked at each other in bewilderment. Guo Xiaoming, who was the first to react, squatted beside Liang Yuanzhou and called out in panic, "Doctor Liang!"
"Don't worry, you won't die." Tao Sai said calmly.
Before she made her move, she estimated that such a tall man, and she didn't have the skill [Charge] equipped, would at most make him unconscious for a while.
"Aren't you too aggressive? Doctor Liang is the treasure of our department and our hospital." Instrument nurse Feng Bi said with a reproachful look on her face.
"What's the big deal? Hurry, run! The building's about to collapse!" Tao Sai urged. Now was no time to complain about her severity. She directed the assistants and interns in the operating room, "You two men, carry the man and follow me. We're running out of time! Hurry! Move!"
Intern Yin Wen pointed at the monitor, which was constantly making strange noises, his hands shaking. "But the patient..."
Mi Hanqing, the male assistant, checked the data on the instrument, shook his head, and said, "The patient cannot be saved."
Just as the others were still hesitating, the ground shook again, the energy waves transmitting to the upper levels, making the tremors extremely palpable. While they didn't know exactly what was happening, they knew it must be a particularly serious situation, so they wouldn't hesitate to interrupt their high-risk surgery.
Two male doctors each supported the unconscious Liang Yuanzhou, Guo Xiaoming hurried to the compartment to get everyone's mobile phones and valuables, and Tao Saipao led the way.
When he ran to the elevator entrance, An Nan had already stopped an elevator in advance under Tao Sai's command.
The two male doctors were both on the thin side, so supporting a tall, unconscious man was a struggle. The dozens of meters of distance made them sweat profusely. Fortunately, they were about to get to the elevator.
"Who among you has a car?" Tao Sai turned around and asked the few people who were left behind in the corridor.
"I have it," the male assistant said, "but the key..."
"Here they are!" Guo Xiaoming held up a handful of valuables that she had hurriedly grabbed in the operating room cubicle, including two car keys.
"Mine is the black one, and the other one should be Dr. Liang's." The male assistant tightened Liang Yuanzhou's arm.
"Okay, then let's go directly to the underground parking lot. Which floor is it on?" Tao Sai put a hand on the keypad of the elevator car.
"B2 floor." said the male assistant.
Hearing this, Tao Sai quickly pressed the B2 key, turned around and tried to help lift Liang Yuanzhou up.
However, at this moment, all the lights went out instantly, and the closed hospital corridor was suddenly dark. It took a few seconds for them to slowly see objects clearly through the tiny natural light that seeped through the gaps.
An Nan ran out of the elevator and said, "Sister Sai, there's a power outage and the elevator can't be used!"
"Take the stairs!" Tao Sai made a quick decision.
Although the insect swarm has not yet reached the hospital, it must have destroyed the nearby power grid, and it is absolutely impossible for electricity to be restored.
Tao Sai took the car keys from Guo Xiaoming and handed them to An Nan, telling her to go to the basement and drive the car out. An Nan had been a track and field athlete since she was a child, and she was fast enough to run. She also got her driver's license right after graduating from the college entrance examination. Although her driving experience was sporadic and her driving skills were not good, especially when parking, she could not care less. Even if the car was bumped and dented, it didn't matter, as long as the car kept running.
The two nurses also started running down the stairs. Tao Sai stood at the entrance and waved to the assistant and intern who were lagging behind: "Hurry up! Catch up!"
The two men struggled to carry Liang Yuanzhou to the stairs, then realized they were on the 13th floor. Normally, they'd never walked up the stairs when they were relaxed, but now they had to carry someone down such a high floor.
Tao Sai saw that the two young men were struggling, so she gestured for them to lift one arm each, and she walked in front to carry their legs.
With Tao Sai helping out in front, they clearly felt they needed to exert much less effort, and they gathered their strength and moved forward step by step.
However, after just going down three floors, intern Yin Wen stopped and waved his hands repeatedly, "I can't do it anymore. I need to rest for a while. My hands are going to break."
"I'm exhausted too. We just carried the boss out of the operating room without a second's rest. I can't take it anymore," said surgical assistant Mi Hanqing.
Both of them put Liang Yuanzhou on the flat ground at the corner of the stairs and kept shaking his sore arms and wrists.
Tao Sai leaned his head out of the staircase window and looked at the back of the building. The insect swarm was already quite close to the hospital. The buildings in the distance were razed to the ground one by one. The troops on the ground began to retreat to both sides to temporarily avoid the edge of this wave of insect swarm.
"Taotao, there are only 5 minutes left." Zhou Ning's extremely serious voice came from the headset.
Tao Sai looked back at the two of them struggling. Even if they rested enough, they wouldn't be able to make it more than a few floors. Never mind, no more waiting.
"You two follow behind."
Tao Sai said this, then took two steps up the stairs, grabbed Liang Yuanzhou's arms with each hand, and carried him on her back. She then put her hands around his thighs and pushed him up until he was completely off the ground. She stretched out her legs and took the stairs one by one. When her steps became smooth, she even broke into a jog.
The two men stood there in shock, dumbfounded.
But now they couldn't care less, escaping was the most important thing, so they quickly chased after him.
The underground parking lot was almost empty of vehicles. An Nan easily found a silver SUV with the car keys. The car was automatic and not difficult to drive.
The basement was completely dark due to the power outage. She turned on her high beams and, relying on the fluorescent road signs, successfully drove out of the parking lot. The exit from the parking lot led to Jianshe Avenue outside the hospital. She turned the steering wheel and drove back to the hospital.
"Sister Sai, I'll be waiting for you outside on the first floor of the surgical building." An Nan said into the communicator.
"Got it." Tao Sai replied with effort. She carried the person to the fifth floor in one breath, breathing heavily.
While her Strength attribute was impressive and she was equipped with the [Charge] skill, it was more about her instantaneous burst of power, allowing her to carry tons of rock. However, carrying a man weighing 170 or 180 pounds down the stairs required sustained effort and considerable endurance, which was included in her relatively modest Physical Strength attribute.
So she is still struggling now, relying entirely on her own willpower to get by.
"Taotao, one more minute!" Zhou Ning's voice was already very anxious.
She saw on the map on the screen that the insect swarm was very close to the Seventh People's Hospital, closer than a hair, while the yellow arrow representing Tao Sai and An Nan's current location remained within the hospital.
Tao Sai stumbled down, each step was extremely difficult, and his speed slowed down completely.
"Which floor is this?" Tao Sai asked the two male doctors who caught up with him.
"It's the third floor." Yin Wen said. He just took a look at the floor sign at the entrance of the corridor.
As for the third floor, it is not very high, and with the buffer of the flower beds and grass, it is not a big problem.
Tao Sai thought of this and said to the two of them, "Hurry up and run to the flower bed on the first floor and prepare to pick someone up."
The two of them continued to sprint downstairs without stopping, and only realized what she had just said while running.
Pick someone? Pick who? What is she going to do?
A series of questions popped up in their minds, but the current situation did not allow them to hesitate. If they delayed for one more second, the danger would increase exponentially.
Tao Sai first lowered Liang Yuanzhou from her back, then lifted him up by the waist and, using the [Charge] skill, effortlessly lifted him onto the window platform. Although her strength was gradually fading, her instantaneous power was still strong.
After securing Liang Yuanzhou, she climbed up by supporting herself on the edge of the platform with both hands.
"Taotao, thirty seconds! If you can't do it, don't do the mission, retreat quickly!" Zhou Ning's anxious voice in the headset was filled with tears.
Tao Sai let out a deep breath and opened a window. She looked down and saw An Nan reversing his car towards the building. Two doctors ran to the flower bed downstairs and waved at him.
The flower bed is not just under the window. The corners of the flower bed are located at a 45° angle to the side of the window, and there is a large rest area with a cement floor between the two, which is about seven or eight meters wide.
As time drew closer, the ground shook incessantly. Tao Sai was well aware of her current situation; this was definitely not the time to hesitate. She gritted her teeth, straddling Liang Yuanzhou's torso, grasping his waist and, in a position that made it difficult to exert force, flung him toward the flower bed.
A second ago, the two doctors in the flower bed saw Tao Sai's strange behavior through the window and guessed that she might want to push Dr. Liang down. They kept waving their hands to signal her not to do so, because if her head hit the ground, she would be disabled if not killed.
But a second later, they miraculously saw Dr. Liang's body, seemingly unrestrained by gravity, gliding towards their flower bed. Two seconds later, they caught Dr. Liang's body and were then thrown heavily into the flower bed.
Tao Sai stepped on the edge of the windowsill, kicked her legs hard and pushed back. She successfully jumped onto the flower bed and rolled several times before stopping.
Her resistance value reached 7 points, and she did not suffer any serious damage after jumping from the third floor.
But the crisis did not end there. Tao Sai got up from the ground and urged everyone to get up and run forward.
The two men carried Liang Yuanzhou again, and An Nan quickly backed the car to the edge of the flower bed. They were about to work together to send the person in here, but when they looked up, they suddenly found that the 33-story surgical building behind them, which was nearly 100 meters high, was crumbling and showed a tendency to collapse backwards.
Two seconds later, the entire towering structure collapsed backwards, finally being submerged in a swarm of insects. Countless insects swarmed over it, gnawing away at the steel and concrete wreckage like plasticine erasing a pencil drawing, leaving not a trace.
Tao Sai was the last one to climb into the passenger seat. An Nan stepped on the accelerator and the car sped across the open area of the hospital, finally stumbling out of the hospital gate.
"Help us plan the route." Tao Sai said into the headset.
"Okay!" Zhou Ning had been staring at the map screen. He had almost given up hope, but he came back to life after seeing the two white arrows slowly widening the distance between him and the insect swarm.
"For the nearest route, you now need to cross the No. 1 Yangding River Bridge and go to Tongjiang Avenue on the right." Zhou Ning used his hands and eyes to quickly operate the system.
An Nan steered the car skillfully according to the message from the communicator.
Tao Sai leaned back in the passenger seat. She had actually breathed a sigh of relief. If nothing unexpected happened, the speed of the insect swarm on the ground would definitely not be able to catch up with a high-speed car.
She glanced behind her. The four of them were squeezed into the small backseat, with an unconscious Liang Yuanzhou crammed in. From time to time, the four of them glanced back through the car windows or rear glass, frozen in fear at the sight of the insect swarm behind them.
After a while, Yin Wen, who was usually very polite, suddenly burst out with a swear word: "Oh my god, this is so fucking scary!"
"What the hell is this? It's such a big building, and they eat it up in no time, faster than I can eat a cake!" Guo Xiaoming exclaimed.
"Mom, it's a good thing we ran away. If we were still in the operating room, I'm afraid we wouldn't even be able to find any bone residue." Mi Hanqing hugged his arms and trembled.
Instrument nurse Feng Bi was also frightened. They were lucky to have saved their lives. If they had delayed for another ten minutes, the consequences would have been disastrous.
Feng Bi knew Liang Yuanzhou quite well. Doctor Liang, in nice words, regarded the patient's life as his own and had noble medical ethics. As long as the patient had a one in a billion chance of survival, he would never stop rescuing the patient and would never leave the operating table.
To put it less nicely, it is called paranoia or stubbornness.
This patient had been hospitalized for a month in the orthopedics department. Her relatives had fled on the first day they brought her in, and she hadn't seen them since. For a month, the hospital provided her with compassionate care, but her condition worsened, and the pain made it difficult for her to continue. Dr. Liang insisted on performing surgery and diligently secured the approval of the department director and the hospital director, which led to the surgery being performed today.
Under the circumstances at the time, all the vital signs displayed on the monitor had serious problems. Even without considering the power outage a few minutes later, there was a high probability that the patient could not be saved.
And Dr. Liang Yuanzhou is a man who would die with his patients...
Feng Bi leaned forward and said to Tao Sai in the passenger seat, "Thank you, girl. You saved our lives. It was fortunate that you shot Doctor Liang from behind."
Tao Sai nodded slightly without saying anything. She was exhausted to the point of exhaustion. She opened the system panel and went to the [Mall] to buy two bottles of Stamina potion. After finishing both bottles, her spirits finally recovered a little.
"Taotao, something bad has happened!" Just as Tao Sai put away the empty bottle of strength potion, Zhou Ning's anxious voice came from the headphones again.
"What's wrong?" Tao Sai asked.
"We detected a blue-scale swarm of insects emerging from the ground, two hundred meters to the left of Tongjiang Avenue," said Zhou Ning.
She had been carefully observing the advance direction of each insect swarm, and suddenly discovered the insect swarm mark that appeared out of thin air at this location.
"Is it too late to change the route now?" Tao Sai asked, sitting up straight.
"You are already on Tongjiang Avenue. To change the route, you need to turn around and go back." Zhou Ning said while looking at the map.
Tao Sai lowered the passenger window and stuck his head out to look back, because they had previously driven on a road that was almost parallel to the insect swarm's advance line. At this moment, the black line behind them representing death and annihilation was not too far away from them. If the vehicle turned around and went back, it would soon be swallowed up by the insect swarm.
The car was currently driving along the straight Tongjiang Avenue, heading towards the Yangding River No. 1 Bridge. The blue-scale insect swarm would soon gather at the bridgehead, quickly engulfing the car. If the car chose to turn at the bridgehead and crash through the Tongjiang Avenue guardrail, but couldn't cross the bridge, it would also be overtaken by the insect swarm, with the same outcome.
Tao Sai made his choice in almost a second.
"Slow down to 20 miles per hour." She said to An Nan, then she jumped onto the roof of a three-story building on the side of the road.
The buildings along the river in the old city are generally low, which blocks the view, but you can roughly see the riverside of Yangding River.
"Tell me the location of the insect spawning point." Tao Sai said into the headset.
"At your 11 o'clock direction, 923 meters." Zhou Ning said after precise calculation.
"Okay, got it."
Tao Sai took two deep breaths, then stepped back to the edge of the roof, bit off the ring of the grenade she had bought from the [mall] with her teeth, ran forward five meters, and threw the grenade with all her might in the predetermined direction.
This was a full-strength throw with the [Charge] skill. The grenade began to fall after reaching the highest point. Four seconds later, the grenade exploded with a bang, but it did not fall to the ground when the explosion occurred.
The distance is too far, and the grenade cannot reach that speed.
Tao Sai said to An Nan, who was in the passenger seat, "Slow down to 10 mph."
Tao Sai retreated to the edge of the rooftop wall again, sprinted forward, jumped to another four-story building in front, grabbed the protruding part of the wall, and climbed onto the roof with the strength of his arms.
She quickly climbed over twenty or so buildings in a row and finally reached the fifth floor where the view was wider.
She bit off the ring of the explosive grenade with her teeth and threw the grenade in her hand out with all her strength.
This time, the explosive bomb drew a parabola in the air and was accurately thrown into the middle of the insect swarm that had already gathered into a group.
With a bang, thunder exploded and countless insect corpses were blown into the air.
Tao Sai threw the second grenade, then the third. With each grenade, dozens of insects were shattered to pieces by the explosive force of the grenade. It wasn't until the seventh grenade that Tao Sai finally saw the insect swarms that had been spreading in all directions begin to turn, surging densely towards her.
She successfully attracted the Zerg's hatred, and just like in the game, the Zerg swarm would prioritize attacking units that could cause them heavy casualties.
In this way, the insects will be attracted to her, and the car will be able to cross the bridge smoothly.
Now is a good time to kill monsters!
Tao Sai excitedly bought explosive bombs from the [Mall] crazily, took out all of them and piled them on the roof, then kept biting open the pull rings and throwing them at the surging insect swarm.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Explosions were heard everywhere, and Tao Sai's eyes lit up when he saw the body fragments flying everywhere.
These are all her trophies. It feels like she has eaten all the gold coins in a parkour game, or like she is playing Fruit Ninja and swinging her knife wildly, and she can't stop at all.
She fell into a state of absolute madness, but the swarm of insects behind her had already surged up quickly, instantly engulfing the bottom floor of the small building. By the time she reacted, the building had already collapsed backwards.
Tao Sai suddenly lost weight and felt herself close to the insect swarm again. The dense chirping of insects behind her seemed to be sucking her soul away.
At the moment the building collapsed to the ground, she simultaneously pulled the rings of five explosive mines.
The next second, she and the entire building were swallowed up by the surging tide of insects.
"Step on the accelerator!" Tao Sai said in the passenger seat.
After saying that, she collapsed on the cushion and took a deep breath.
Although she successfully returned to the car using her clone, she was so close to death at that moment. She even recalled the despair she felt after being swallowed by the insect swarm last time.
It was too thrilling. If her consciousness hadn't returned before being bitten to death by the insects, she would have really died. She swore that she would never do such a thrilling thing again in her life.
The swarm of insects on the riverside were attracted to the location of the clone, and the road to the river was unobstructed. After An Nan stepped on the accelerator to the bottom, the speed of the car quickly increased to more than 100 yards, leaving the swarm of insects gathering behind him behind.
Tao Sai looked at the bridge that was getting farther and farther behind the car. Unfortunately, she didn't have any heavy weapons at the moment, otherwise she would choose to blow up a few bridges across the river first, so that she could further delay the advance of the insect tide.
However, it can only delay the enemy for a few hours at most. Although the insect swarm will not cross the river, it will drill over from the bottom of the river. The mature insects flying in the sky can also easily cross the river.
After leaving the combat state, system subtitles popped up in front of Tao Sai's eyes.
[Character [Taosai] destroyed [Protozoa·Juvenile Stage x837], obtained 837 gold coins and 837 experience points;
Eliminated [Protozoa·Growth Period x329], gained 658 gold coins and 658 experience points;
Eliminated [Protozoa·Mature Stage x12], gained 48 gold coins, and gained 48 experience points.
This number did not make Tao Sai feel too excited. This time it was not as satisfying as the last time when she blew up the grenade in the wormhole in the crack in the ground. After all, she threw the grenade into a confined space, so the explosive power was naturally much greater than it is now. However, this number was still acceptable.
An Nan drove the car according to Zhou Ning's navigation instructions on the communicator, heading towards Yangding District to meet up with everyone.
Along the way were residents of Nanzhou City who were evacuating urgently. They saw panic-stricken faces through the car windows. Volunteers and police officers were struggling to maintain order among the crowded crowd. It was a mess everywhere. This was a doomsday scene that could only be seen in film and television dramas.
Guo Xiaoming handed his cell phone to everyone. As soon as they opened their phones, they saw countless news push notifications, all of which were reports about the insect plague. The countless pictures and videos were shocking.
It had only been twenty minutes since they escaped from the operating room. Their brains had been slow to react to what had happened, and sometimes they even thought it was a dream. It was not until they saw the scene before them and the notifications on their mobile phones that they dared to believe that this was indeed an unprecedented disaster.
They desperately wanted to call their families to let them know they were safe, but perhaps because the signal tower had been destroyed by the insect swarm, the city had lost power, or for some other reason, the calls were always disconnected.
Nanzhou City was not the first area in the country to be hit by the insect swarm. Yunjin City, a small city in the central and southern regions, had been completely flattened by the insect swarm an hour earlier. In this small city with a population of hundreds of thousands, there were very few survivors.
The central government received reports from the front line and issued instructions and deployments immediately. The situation was extremely critical, and the highest level of national mobilization was initiated. The army, armed police, police, including reserve forces and militia organizations have all been dispatched.
The order was issued to Nanzhou City, and the local government began to urgently evacuate citizens in a direction away from the advancing insect tide.
Their car didn't stay in the congested road for too long. The map of the [Command and Control Center·Primary] also showed the density of pedestrian and vehicle traffic. Zhou Ning helped plan a suitable route.
Half an hour later, the car arrived at the riverside smoothly. Zhou Ning did not choose Jianggang as the meeting point because it was already quite crowded.
The two teams bought a lot of scrap from two different scrap yards in Yangding District, and piled them up in large trucks before transporting them here (because Tao Sai told them that the quality of the items didn't matter, as long as the quality was good enough). All kinds of scrap of different colors and types were piled up here into two small hills.
An Nan parked the car safely by the river. Tao Sai got out and signaled Uncle Zhou on the boat to lower the ladder. Everyone on and off the boat worked together to successfully get Liang Yuanzhou's tall figure onto the fishing boat. The others also took turns climbing up the ladder.
At this moment, subtitles popped up in front of Tao Sai's eyes.
You successfully rescued [Dr. Liang Yuanzhou] and completed Side Mission 1!
[You received [Gold Coins x1000], [Experience x1000], [Universal Materials x200], [Star Upgrade Card x1], [Skill Blind Box], and [Premium Mall Raffle Ticket x1]. ]
Tao Sai breathed a sigh of relief, finally completing the first branch quest without any trouble. She didn't have time to care about her mission reward for the time being, and went straight to the two large piles of waste, using the system to scan them one by one.
The system captured the object and the scan was completed quickly. All kinds of materials were decomposed one by one, and the two large piles of waste on the riverside disappeared out of thin air.
Tao Sai turned around and walked back, grabbing the ladder and climbing onto the boat while clicking on the [Upgrade] module on the system's main page.
[Experience: 0/12800
Gold: 9685/10000
Cloth: 720/960
Metal: 996/1024
Bioplastics: 565/800
Tao Sai did a simple calculation and found that the missing materials plus the previous 500 units of universal materials and the 200 units of universal materials obtained from completing the side quest were enough!
I just need some gold coins and experience points, and I can easily meet the requirements by simply killing monsters.
Exhausted, Tao Sai leaned back on the deck and finally had the time to enter his [Backpack], focusing his attention on the [Skill Blind Box] in the inventory.
She clicked on it.
The system is redirecting.
Tao Sai is very clear about her fortune. She has always been a poor person since she was a child. At this moment, her mentality is quite calm. She has long stopped expecting to suddenly change her fate one day and get something good. She is totally dreaming to open an ordinary [Skill Blind Box] and get B-level or above skills!
She is not saying anything negative. She has a good attitude. She is calm and has no desires. She just accepts whatever she gets. It doesn't matter.
The system jump ends.
【You opened the [Skill Blind Box]. 】
[You have acquired the skill [Borrowed Strength·D-Rank]: When you use this skill, you can instantly steal 85% of the strength from the enemy unit.]
Tao Sai: "Fuck!!!"
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