Chapter 56 Circle (Part 4) Again.
Everything happened too fast. The drawer where "Feng Feng's" corpse was placed instantly turned into a snake pit. Countless black vines, like venomous snakes, burst out from its body, twisting and writhing as they reached out their demonic claws toward Feng Feng, who was closest to it.
Those rotten, root-like plants cunningly wrapped around Feng Feng's neck, tightening their grip in circles. She had no means of self-defense at hand, so she could only reach out and pull at the vines that wouldn't budge.
Just a second of looking from right to left was enough to make Xia Zhu's vision go dark. Before her brain could process what she saw, the small sword in her hand was already outstretched.
Faster.
Her body's command made her wrist go numb. The moment she cut the vine, Xia Zhu heard a chilling snapping sound. She turned to look for Feng Feng's eyes, but those ever-moist and bright eyes were like a candle that was about to burn out, the flame going out as the wick extinguished.
Feng Feng leaned back, his mouth slightly open, as if he wanted to tell her something.
But she will never hear it again.
She didn't even have time to grab her hand.
The refrigerator drawer behind her made a muffled sound. Xia Zhu turned around blankly and saw two open drawers where thin ice was forming at a visible speed. Ji Wuchou had just been standing behind her, but now he stared blankly at the sharp ice blade that had pierced his chest.
Blood freezes instantly upon contact with ice.
"Why?"
Xia Zhu heard an unfamiliar sound coming from her throat, comically like a clown performing on stage.
Everything happened almost instantly. She glanced at Feng Mian and Ying Ya lying on the ground, their bodies exaggeratedly submerged in blood, like a special effect prop from a TV drama. She also saw Ying Huo, who had always stood far away, now unusually quiet, leaning against the door, his gray eyes tightly closed, sparing not a single contemptuous glance in her direction.
For a few seconds, Xia Zhu almost couldn't feel her own breath. Her mind went blank, as if her head was just a drum for a performance, which was struck hard at the crucial moment, creating a contrasting, light-hearted dream.
She subconsciously looked at her right hand. Still gripping the short sword stiffly, her reaction speed was only enough to barely cut the vines that had already ripped apart Feng Feng's neck.
Her knuckles trembled uncontrollably, and an unconcealable disgust rose in Xia Zhu's eyes; she began to hate her own body.
It must be a dream.
It must be.
She composed herself, her face returning to its usual blank expression.
All she had to do now was wake up. The nightmare was just a real nightmare, so real that the pungent smell of blood in the air almost made her vomit. She was no longer capable of thinking, not even of sadness. Only a strange anger was stuck in her chest. She stared blankly at her toes, the ground reflecting a bright halo of light.
Suddenly, the circle of light beneath her feet flashed, swallowing all the light. More than darkness, the world seemed to have fallen into nothingness. Xia Zhu blinked; the twitching of her eye muscles proved she still existed in a physical body. Something seemed to be slowly changing within the nothingness.
A turning point.
She viewed every change as an opportunity.
That's right, Xia Zhu's life principle has always been that as long as there is still breath, nothing is over.
She slowly crouched down, quietly waiting for the darkness to fade away.
Two seconds, three seconds, five seconds... ten seconds...
Those ten seconds felt like an eternity.
The incandescent light overhead came on again.
Before she could smell anything, Xia Zhu first caught a strong whiff of disinfectant. Combined with the sight before her, she was certain that a turning point had truly arrived.
The morgue has been restored to its original state, just as it was when they first arrived.
There was no blood, no corpses of companions, only a cold, silvery-gray aura emanating from it. Drawers, densely packed and perfectly fitted into a metal frame, resembled an extremely industrialized honeycomb.
Xia Zhu tried her best to remain calm and re-observed her surroundings.
The neat and repetitive visual effect might cause you to miss some details if you're not careful, much like the puzzle games that were common on the last page of magazines during the era of print media.
Among these identical drawers, a piece of green fabric, squeezed and deformed, was wedged in an almost invisible gap. Xia Zhu stared at the tiny green spot, her clenched hand loosening its grip.
"bite--"
A clear sound came from the end of the corridor outside the door.
Xia Zhu thought about it carefully; it must have been the elevator operating, or the notification sound indicating that it had reached the designated floor. Without hesitation, she walked straight out of the morgue, through the dark corridor, and finally stopped in front of the elevator on this floor.
The surroundings were still pitch black, with only the screen above the elevator buttons emitting a faint white light, barely enough to illuminate the adjacent up button.
The screen quietly displayed the number "3," which was the floor where Xia Zhu first woke up.
She extended a finger and placed it on the cold keypad, and the numbers began to flip and change: "3, 2, 1, -1".
"bite--"
The elevator doors slowly opened, the flimsy sheet metal swaying slightly. She saw a cold face appear in the elevator mirror.
Xia Zhu's hand moved from bottom to top, finally stopping on the "3".
The door slowly closed again, and the light from the morgue on the other side of the corridor gradually disappeared through the crack in the door. Since she woke up on the third floor, she might as well go and explore the place where she started. The elevator swayed slightly, and Xia Zhu's heartbeat quickened slightly.
Just as she had guessed, the third-floor corridor remained exactly as it had been when she first woke up. The grotesque corpse with the needle piercing its brow was gone, and the damaged structures from the battle were all intact. In those ten seconds of darkness returning to light, everything seemed to have been reset.
The doors on both sides were tightly closed, and the overhead light shone too directly on people. The corridor was quiet. After Xia Zhu came out of the elevator, she walked to the other corner as if possessed.
The medical cart was still leaning against the wall, with mercurochrome, a stethoscope, and a thermometer on it, but there were no maple leaves or symbols drawn with the medicine on the wall.
Her eyes lingered on the pile of objects, and she thoughtfully reached out to pick up one of them to examine it.
Suddenly, a soft sound of a door lock turning came from the corridor. Xia Zhu was startled and hid her entire body behind the wall. As a hospital room door was pushed open, she cautiously peeked out with her eyes.
Her pupils dilated instantly, and the edge of the contact lens, which had been firmly attached to her eyeball, suddenly curled up slightly, causing the lens to slide down. Xia Zhu had to blink hard to readjust the lens's position.
Two people walked out of the ward, one after the other.
That was her and Ying Huo.
Xia Zhu stared in disbelief as she and Ying Huo stood in the corridor, shaking their heads blankly, seemingly unable to decide which direction to go.
The next second, a dark figure burst out of the door behind them, and due to inertia, it broke through the door and crashed straight into the opposite wall.
Neither human nor dog.
Seeing this, Xia Zhu and Ying Huo turned around and ran towards the elevator on the other side in perfect unison.
They couldn't be allowed to leave in the elevator; Feng Feng was still fighting the three monsters on the first floor.
This message inexplicably appeared in Xia Zhu's mind. She subconsciously turned her head and saw a folding chair standing next to the medical cart at her feet. It had a stainless steel frame and a black cloth back, as if it was carried by a patient's family member so that they would have a spare seat to rest when they were taking care of the patient.
Without hesitation, she picked up a folding chair and smashed it at the Frankenstein monster that was desperately chasing after "herself" and Yinghuo.
With a thud, the chair struck the monster's back, fell to the ground, and slid to Xia Zhu's feet, causing Xia Zhu to stop in her tracks.
Realizing she was about to turn around, she immediately hid behind the wall.
Her heart pounded in her chest, and she looked down at her hand, which had never been injured. The moment she picked up the folding chair and threw it away, Xia Zhu understood everything.
The person who guided her from the shadows was always Xia Zhu herself.
There was no time left, and that inexplicable sense of urgency surged up again, as if she were standing on the edge of a cliff, with loose rocks falling down behind her.
She unscrewed the cap of the red medicine bottle on the cart, dipped her finger in the medicine, and quickly drew a hastily sketched maple leaf and the number "1L" on the wall. Her fingertip paused for a second against the wall, then she dipped her finger in the medicine again, added a "-1L" under the maple leaf, and drew a large X on top of it.
For some unknown reason, she subconsciously believed that "Xia Zhu" and Xia Zhu could not meet, just like the kings and generals in chess cannot be on the same line.
Otherwise, perhaps the ending wouldn't have been changed, and the plot wouldn't have progressed along the predetermined path.
She tightened the bottle cap. The fighting in the corridor had subsided, and footsteps were rapidly approaching. Xia Zhu turned around, casually opened the nearest door, and slipped inside.
The surging sunlight spread like a flowing river.
Xia Zhu felt dizzy and weak, as if she had sneaked out of the dormitory last night and run dozens of laps around the track. Her joints and muscles started to ache with the slightest movement. Xia Zhu inexplicably thought of fish balls that had become chewy from being repeatedly beaten.
She struggled to open her eyes, but the bright sunlight was too much for her to handle. She could only close her eyelids again, letting the light pass through the blood vessels in her eyelids and create a crimson scene in her vision.
She silently counted to twenty in her mind, then opened her eyes again.
The pure white ceiling, the old tungsten filament chandelier, the pungent smell of disinfectant, and the breeze carrying the scent of sunshine lifted the white curtains high, vying to enter the edge of her vision, like a small white bird darting in through the crack in the clean glass window.
Xia Zhu spent a long time trying to recall where she was, but it seemed as if her brain was missing some parts, getting blocked no matter where she went. She simply gave up on mental activity and forced herself to sit up, pushing her exhausted body to its limits.
She was lying on a single bed, behind which was an integrated panel flashing various indicator lights, connected to monitors and infusion pumps with a cold metallic luster, and stainless steel poles standing silently to one side like guardians.
On the bedside drawer sat a bouquet of nearly wilted flowers, clearly long since taken from the soil. Pink gauze wrapped around the bouquet, and finally tied with a delicate pink ribbon in a bow. A pink greeting card stood among the withered, curled petals. The giver seemed to believe that all girls would have a fondness for pink.
Xia Zhu hesitated for a moment, then raised her aching arm and pulled out the greeting card.
Get well soon.
—All teachers and students of Class 35, Grade 12.
She suddenly found it a little funny, and in a fit of pique, threw the greeting card back into the bouquet.
Get well soon? What a joke! Why, how could she, wake up in what looks like an ordinary hospital room again?
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