Princesa Mercenaria

Capítulo 13

"I already fought him this afternoon."

“Damn it!” he said, bowing his head in shame. “He shot me in the arm and then locked me in the morgue.”

"It seems this situation has completely exceeded our expectations."

Then, Ye Xiao told Tong Jianguo everything that had happened that afternoon, including finding the driver at the police station, the driver being shot and killed by the men in black, and the subsequent gunfight with the men in black—but omitted the part where Xiao Zhi asked him to let the men in black go.

Xiaozhi secretly looked into his eyes, and the two exchanged glances for two seconds. It seemed that Ye Xiao was still protecting her. Otherwise, if Tong Jianguo found out, he would definitely be furious and would start thinking about torture to extract a confession again.

"Who exactly is he?"

Tong Jianguo pondered for a moment. In fact, he had played this kind of role before. The man in black was just a replica of his younger self.

"Tell me about yourself," Ye Xiao said, still wary of him, pressing, "What happened to you this time?"

"Well, it seems I really am getting old."

Then, Tong Jianguo gave a brief and concise account, starting with Qian Mozheng being trampled to death by an elephant by the river in the morning, followed by Sun Zichu suffering from food poisoning at the base camp, going to the hospital to find the antiserum but losing his life to the Frenchman Henri, encountering the men in black who kidnapped Elena, and finally being injured and imprisoned in the morgue.

"Sun Zichu is dying?" Ye Xiao finally became anxious, after all, that talkative guy was his only friend in the tour group. "Where is the fish poison antivenom?"

"Don't worry, I value it more than my own life—" He pulled out a bottle labeled "Constantine Serum (Anti-Blackwater Fish Toxin)" from his pocket. "That bastard Sun Zichu, why didn't you die sooner? You made me suffer here!"

Ye Xiao carefully took the bottle, looking at the label with a sense of gratitude. Perhaps he shouldn't have doubted Tong Jianguo in the first place; he wasn't as bad as he thought. Actually, thinking about it carefully, wasn't Tong Jianguo doing everything for the sake of the entire tour group? But he could only whisper, "Thank you."

"What's the use of saying all this now?" Tong Jianguo glanced at Xiaozhi again. "This morning, I almost killed you all. You must hate me very much. Now I have no strength to resist, so do whatever you want with me."

Ye Xiao was silent for half a minute, then suddenly turned to Xiao Zhi and said, "Check his arm injury. I think he needs a clean bandage."

"ah--"

"Hurry up!"

Seeing Xiaozhi's hesitant expression, Ye Xiao used a commanding tone. She had no choice but to obey and approach Tong Jianguo, nervously untying the strip of cloth wrapped around his left arm—although the bandage was fairly well done, it was torn from his pants and was inherently unclean, easily causing a secondary bacterial infection.

Seeing the gunshot wound for the first time, the muscle tissue looked like a blooming flower, with the bullet hidden inside. Xiaozhi felt nauseous. Tong Jianguo said calmly, "Don't be afraid, little girl. This kind of wound is nothing to me."

It's nothing.

Xiaozhi steeled herself and brought over iodine to clean and treat the wound again. Gunpowder fragments still remained on the skin, and fresh blood flowed out from time to time. She found clean bandages and gauze, gritted her teeth, and bandaged it up. After finishing, she whispered, "The bullet in your arm needs surgery to remove it."

"Thank you." Tong Jianguo kept his eyes fixed on hers, still filled with suspicion and wariness. "I understand. I'm a veteran; I can handle this myself."

While Xiaozhi was treating his wounds, the wolfhound "Tian Shen" kept a close eye on him, sniffing his feet incessantly, a menacing sight that sent chills down one's spine.

“Gods! Don’t do this.”

She took several steps back and called the "god" to her side, preventing it from getting too close to Tong Jianguo.

"Oh dear, I don't have the strength to walk yet. You should hurry up and take the serum back. I wonder if Sun Zichu is dead yet."

Ye Xiao held the serum bottle in his hand. "Okay, what about you?"

"Don't worry about me for now, let me rest here for a while, I'll come back to find you myself." After saying that, Tong Jianguo gave a bitter smile, "I'm getting old."

Ye Xiao frowned and thought for a moment before saying, "Okay, I thank you on behalf of Sun Zichu. Please be careful here by yourself."

"Young people, be careful on the road, especially watch out for that man in black."

As he was about to leave with the serum, Xiaozhi suddenly reminded him, "Wait a minute, are you just going to leave with the serum like this?"

"What's wrong? "

"We also need syringes! Otherwise, how can we inject the serum into the human body?"

Fortunately, Xiaozhi is the doctor's daughter. She ran to the room across the corridor and found several clean syringes and other medical supplies. "Now we can go."

As Ye Xiao was about to say goodbye to Tong Jianguo, he suddenly remembered something and turned to ask Xiaozhi, "Where's my pistol?"

"Oh, I almost forgot!"

She had just taken the pistol out of the drawer when Ye Xiao snatched it away. At the same time, she glanced at Tong Jianguo and found that he was already lying down with his eyes closed, resting.

After checking the magazine one more time, Ye Xiao found there were still eighteen bullets left. He carefully tucked the gun into his waistband and strode out of the emergency room, with Xiao Zhi and the wolfhound "Tian Shen" following closely behind him.

Although he still had bandages on his head and body, he felt no discomfort, only that his strength hadn't fully recovered. He found a set of blue clothes on the ground floor, probably a hospital nursing uniform, so at least he wouldn't have to go out shirtless.

Donning his hospital uniform, Ye Xiao stepped out of the gloomy building. The world outside was shrouded in darkness. The rain was gradually intensifying, splashing water everywhere outside the hospital gates. The noisy sound of rain drowned out the tranquility of the sleeping city…

The Trial, Chapter Six of the Fourth Season of "The Secret"

The rainy night also enveloped the base camp.

"This rain is terrible!"

In the sleeping villa, on the second floor, in the master bedroom, Elena stood blankly at the window. The bamboo grove in the courtyard shook violently, the leaves rustling as if the entire dark sky was about to collapse. Her hair was disheveled by the wind and rain; she quickly closed the window and retreated back into the room.

"He's dying."

Lin Junru had stopped crying, and her tone had become unusually calm. She sat blankly on the edge of the bed, staring at her dying grandson, Sun Zichu. He showed no reaction whatsoever; no matter how she called or pushed him, his body was completely numb, and he had entered a deep coma. She had just lifted his eyelids to look; his pupils were gradually dilating. Perhaps the venom had already reached his heart, and death was kissing his lips.

"Don't...don't think like that..."

Dingding didn't know how to comfort them; in fact, she herself was also uneasy. She also thought of Ye Xiao and Xiaozhi, who had fled in the morning and had been missing ever since. Had they met with misfortune, or had they escaped the deserted city?

Just as the three women in the room were feeling uneasy, the television, which had been black, suddenly lit up.

The flickering light from the screen stimulated their eyes, and they all gathered around the television and sat down, just like many years ago when televisions first appeared.

A person appeared in the frame—it was clearly filmed in a studio, with the camera focused on the person's upper body against a large, light-colored background.

Good evening, everyone.

His voice came from the TV speakers; it was standard Mandarin Chinese. Lin Junru, Elena, and Dingding all felt a tremor in their hearts.

The camera focused on the face of a Chinese man, around fifty years old, wearing a sharp, expensive suit, with neatly combed black hair, a thin face, regular features, and bright, piercing eyes. He looked very much like a certain veteran Hong Kong star.

"Tonight, it's raining heavily." The person on the television smiled, looking like a university professor giving a lecture. "People of the Sleeping City, the most exciting moment is about to arrive. Do you sense it?"

"Ah, he's talking to us!"

Elena shrank back in panic, recalling the secret room where she was imprisoned and the crazed Henry on the television.

"You must be feeling very distressed, wondering why you're trapped here? Why have so many people died?" The person on television paused for a few seconds, shrugged, and said, "I'm sorry, but I don't actually know the reason either, because the answer lies within yourselves. My friends, no one has played a trick on you; fate is fair to everyone. As long as you are calm enough and smart enough, you will discover your own destiny."

Lin Junru quickly turned up the volume, her hand holding the remote control trembling slightly.

"Stop blaming fate and others, and stop harboring unrealistic fantasies. Everything was already destined. You are doomed, and no one can survive!" His expression suddenly became extremely serious. "You are not as innocent as you imagine. Some of you are Pride! Some are Gluttony! Some are Greed! Some are Sloth! Some are Wrath! Some are Envy! Some are Lust!"

When the person on TV said those seven English words, Elena translated them into Chinese one by one, in the following order:

Pride, gluttony, greed, sloth, anger, envy, lust!

"The Seven Deadly Sins?"

Dingding immediately realized that the people on TV were reading out the seven deadly sins in English.

"Yes, the seven deadly sins! You must have understood, but your sins are far more than seven. Seventy, seven hundred, seven thousand would not be an exaggeration! You all think yourself noble, that you possess great wealth, that you can control your destiny, but deep down you are all base, selfish and self-serving. You never think of others, you only think of yourselves, greedy, vain, and indulging in a life of luxury!"

His last few words were almost a whisper, and he leaned closer to the camera, his eyes appearing larger and brighter. The women in front of the television involuntarily stepped back, worried that he might suddenly crawl out of the television like Sadako.

"Let me ask you all a question, and I guarantee none of you can answer it—do you know why you live? Don't tell me it's for society, for others, for ideals; that's all nonsense, talk for children. When you utter these lies, do you even believe them yourselves? What ideals do you have left? You're just living for the sake of living, every day and night you're nothing but walking corpses. Oh, and you're all excellent actors, performing for others and for yourselves every day, which is why you feel so exhausted, even filled with despair for the future—you only have yourself to blame!"

On the second floor of the sleeping villa, a strange man's voice flickered on the television screen, echoing throughout the entire house and terrifying Lin Junru, Elena, and Dingding inside.

The signal continued to travel through the rainy night...

Right now.

Nanming Hospital.

Two people and a dog stood in front of the cold, damp hospital gate, looking at the world in the torrential rain, the entire sleeping city submerged in water.

“No, even an umbrella won’t help in this heavy rain.” Xiaozhi stroked the wolfhound “Tian Shen”’s ears, then turned to Ye Xiao and said, “Besides, your wound can’t get wet.”

He was wearing a blue nursing uniform, his brow furrowed for several minutes, at a loss in the face of the heavy rain. "What should I do?"

"I've got it, come with me!"

She suddenly had an idea and led Ye Xiao to the back entrance of the building, where an ambulance happened to be parked.

"You want me to drive the ambulance back?"

"Yes, I remember leaving my car keys in the administration office."

Xiaozhi was particularly excited about the car that had been parked for a whole year. She ran quickly to the office and soon found a car key.

Ye Xiao took the keys and rushed into the rain, quickly opened the car door, got in, and started the car smoothly. Xiao Zhi also sat down next to him. Looking back, she saw a stretcher in the car, along with a lot of first aid equipment and medicines. "God" was obediently lying in the back.

Surprisingly, there was still half a tank of gasoline left. Ye Xiao drove the ambulance out of the hospital and into the deserted streets filled with heavy rain.

This was his first time driving an ambulance. Although his leg was still a little sore, he could handle the accelerator and brake. The wipers swept incessantly across the windshield, and water sprayed wildly in front of his eyes. He gripped the steering wheel intently, turning on the high beams to see the road in the dark. Thankfully, there were no other vehicles around, otherwise it would have been extremely dangerous.

Do you still know the way back?

Ye Xiao only remembered the general direction, and it was easy to get lost on such a rainy night.

"Of course, I could walk from the hospital where my mother works to my home with my eyes closed."

So, under Xiaozhi's direction, the ambulance quickly found its way back to the base camp and sped away through the dark rain.

The car hadn't gone far when a shop window on the street suddenly lit up. Ye Xiao instinctively stepped on the brakes, his eyes catching sight of a television screen.

Screech of brakes echoed through the street, and the splashing rain made Xiaozhi scream as her forehead nearly hit the windshield.

"sorry!"

The wheels slid several meters before coming to a stop. Ye Xiao looked back at the shop window on the street and sure enough, a television screen was lit up.

Through the hazy rain, I could see the image on the TV, and there seemed to be a human figure—how could there be a signal?

Ye Xiao felt his heart pounding wildly. He immediately reversed the car and stopped in front of the store. Xiao Zhi and "God" jumped out of the car and rushed inside in the pouring rain.

This was a home appliance store. A small LCD TV was displayed in the window, showing a picture. They walked to a large wall in the store, and like many home appliance stores, the wall was covered with a dozen or so LCD TVs, arranged neatly like a checkerboard. All of these TV screens were playing the same image; all of these TV speakers were emitting the same sound—

Do you have love?

A man, sitting upright on the television screen, looked to be no more than forty or fifty years old, and was probably a handsome man in his youth. He spoke eloquently and with great poise, as if he were a guest on a lecture series.

"No. Love is dead. Only a last fig leaf remains. Or rather, a shroud. Not even the shadow of a corpse can be seen. My dear friends, your love is false, false! All you have is desire. Only possession. Only exploitation... Even without physical possession, it is the possession of lust, the possession of the spirit, which is more terrifying than physical pain!"

Although these words were chilling, the man on the television maintained his composure, as if he were telling a story to children.

"Now, you sit in the dock, all the evidence is in your hearts, everything is crystal clear. Is there anything left to argue about? But I am not an unreasonable person. I even hired a defense lawyer for you. Unfortunately, this lawyer has been killed by you and is now lying in a cold morgue."

The dozen or so televisions in the store were all filled with this person's speech, as if they had become countless clones. And the entire opposite wall was covered with his face, the largest screen being a home theater, where his face was magnified many times over, making him look like a monster, which sent chills down Ye Xiao's spine.

The wolfhound "Tian Shen" had been sitting on the ground for a long time, vigilantly watching the people on the television. Suddenly, it began barking wildly at the largest screen, its fierce howl drowning out the television's sound. Even worse, the wolfhound mistook the people on the screen for enemies and tried to attack the television. At this moment, Xiao Zhi shouted at it, "'Tian Shen'! Lie down!"